Day -12

I will become the embodiment of the ultimate answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything in just THREE DAYS!

To celebrate my 42nd turn around our sun for this lifetime, ISS is getting onboard with Expedition 42.

Coincidence? 

Angry crushes Sad, Sad cuts Joy, Joy covers Angry

Today, in the women's quarters of Casa de Bessey, is a solo game of Emo Rock Scissors Paper that I now dub Angry Sad Joy. I'm not sure who is playing. My personal angel from the right shoulder, versus my personal devil from the left is what I suspect.

They have been at it now for almost 12 hours. The extreme fatigue in my body when I awoke tells me they kept at it all night. I'm really getting tired of the game. Every time I think one of them is poised to finally win, the other one says, "Best out of 100,000?" And they keep at it. I would think the angel would know better.

I admit that after all of the "how to" articles I read about letting go of anger and practicing compassion I find it weird that breathing and telling yourself "good stuff" over and over and over...I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm Happy, I'm grateful, I'm grateful, I'm Grateful, I'm Safe, I'm safe, I'm safe...DOES NOT WORK.

I also tried to deliver some buddha-style compassionate forgiveness and blessings on the person "hooking" me, and that made me want to vomit. Seriously. I haven't had breakfast. I was feeling too sick at the idea of trying to think good thoughts for a "crappy person." That's in quotes, and has a link because the universe delivered me some fresh strategies by a LinkedIn INfluencer that my Inbox informs me you should be following. 

What the hell. It could have been revelatory. It could have given the angel an edge.
It was not. It did not.

The advice the article gives for dealing with crappy people is to ignore them. Pretend they don't exist. It doesn't seem like BAD advice; It just doesn't apply to my situation. You have to trust me that the crappy people in my life are not ignore-able for the long-term. They will come back around until I'm dead, or they are. That's my definition of "family."

In particular, the person I had dealings with yesterday does a great job of evoking My Critic from My Writing Team, which I blogged about awhile back. She might be the devil in my Angry Sad Joy game, and the poor angel really has no hope of winning.

My Critic (sorry if you read the prior post) is my defense lawyer. She is motivated by two things: joy of winning and fear of losing. When she is on, whether she is writing contracts or merely shuffling CYA paperwork, she has to be fed. And today, I found out that she doesn't only eat compliments and kindnesses, she really, REALLY likes insults.

Go ahead. Insult me. My Critic will build a case to take you down. She has access to all of my memories and she will find what she needs faster that Google search. She is a list compiler. Every bad decision, every crappy thing you've ever done is right at her fingertips, documented, with video, audio, and reliable witnesses. I know, because she makes me watch them.

There's a problem: She has no place to take her case too. If she was the angel, I guess she could make a case to God that person A, B, or C should be wiped from the face of the planet, Bambi meets Godzilla style...but she's the devil.

Who does the devil go to?
Whoever she thinks is desperate enough to sell a soul.
All she can do is make me feel bad...try to make me DO bad things to elevate awareness of the bad things someone else does, until she has an actual court to put her case in front of.
Case in front of society: BOOM!
Case in front of a custody judge: BOOM!

It isn't enough to accept the betrayal, hurt and abuse WE have undergone at the hands of Crappy Person as a part of the past, not the present. Not enough for her to finish her job once she has criticized and judged the behaviors and actions of Crappy Person, and be satisfied. She really wants to call down Godzilla.

The angel just wants the Crappy Person to change (So Easy!) into a Happy Person so we can stay out of it.

So I went for a bike ride with the dog.

I am estimating the anger levels and trauma flashbacks now reduced by 20%. I still feel 80% bad and want nothing more than to go back to bed with a fantasy novel...which evokes My Critic all over again. She thinks she's there to help me live my life, which means get-shit-done, not sleep-all-day.

The reality is that the situation I am in is Sad. There's nothing I can do to fix it, but the Angry crushes the Sad. The Angry makes it impossible to just have a good cry, be Sad and move on. The Angry is the emotional blocker, the energetic powerhouse, My Critic, My Devil.

Writing helps a little. Writing is a Joy...but I deeply fear that like the original game idea, Joy only covers Anger. It is momentary - It isn't a final win. The Anger is still there.

Version Control

Here are the two versions of the same story. The first one is as I wrote it, by hand, looking at the image:

The second is what I tried to reconstruct from memory. Now I can think about where the *ideal* story falls - maybe someplace in between these two....

Which do YOU like better?

Original Story, Gypsy Bride For The Book Of Possibilities:

He knew nothing was impossible when he found the four-leaf clover outside the fortuneteller’s wagon. True, his jaw ached from the hard left-hook he had taken across the mouth from the young Gypsy man standing over him, shouting...But among the crushed turf where he had landed stood the talisman of natural luck; Strong and unscathed from his fall.

The yelling of her angry brother, and the footfalls of every gypsy in the camp were silenced as he picked the clover carefully, stood up in the circle of violence, and brandished the little plant: “May I marry her now?”

As Remembered, For The Book Of Possibilities:

 He knew nothing was impossible when he saw the four-leaf clover in front of the gypsy fortune teller’s caravan. His jaw hurt where the left-hook had landed. Despite the grass crushed by his fall, the little plant stood tall and unscathed.

Her brother stood above, taunting and cursing him furiously. The ground he lay on pounded with the footsteps of every gypsy in the camp running toward the shouting. Silence fell when he plucked the clover, stood up in the circle of violence, brandished the small green talisman and cried, “May I marry her now!?”

Differences:

SHORT Stories

I am writing a long-ish short story this month for Camp NaNoWriMo and I've decided to write MANY other shorter short stories...even one about Short People (Thanks, Nikki!). I'm working on short stories because I find the available scale of possible writing quite difficult. Small ideas requiring a whole novel to work out; huge ideas completely encapsulated in as few words as possible. 

Yesterday, I wrote a story on-demand, based on a visual, postcard prompt. I finished an entire, coherent, dramatic, action packed, rich story...in maybe 100 words? 

WHAT. A. BLAST. I WANNA SHARE IT!
But I hand-wrote it...in someone else's notebook. 

I was asked to participate in this exercise by a friend.  She wanted some interactive materials for an upcoming festival 'seeded' with examples of writings based on images, with or without prompts. I was happy to help with such 'kleenex' writing...just blow it out there, never expecting to need it again.

But today I am haunted by it. 
I want to read it again. 
I want to read it out loud to my husband. 
I want to text it to friends. 
I want to share it on my blog and be like, "Holy Shit! Look at THIS! I did THIS! I'm a fucking writer!" I would go so far as to say I think Neil Gaiman might like my miniscule story. Uh Huh. BOO-YAH!

And I'm also terrified.
What if it is only good in my mind?
What if I only THINK it is good because of the drug like adrenaline rush of fun ideas penned to the page.
What if the only reason I think it is so awesome is because I can't SEE it. I don't HAVE it. I GAVE IT AWAY TO SOMEONE ELSE. Now it is more precious than anything else I might write today...My Precious....

So in an effort to purge the residual story from my brain, here is the experiment: 

I am going to re-write it from memory.
The Writing Coach I work with said that opening a fresh page and starting over from memory is actually a specific technique for editing. (Albeit one that sounds like a nightmare to me, but then, I get a little attached to my THINGS, as you can see).

I will have, and post the ORIGINAL next week.
We can see how it differs!

For The Book Of Possibilities:

 He knew nothing was impossible when he saw the four-leaf clover in front of the gypsy fortune teller’s caravan. His jaw hurt where the left-hook had landed. Despite the grass crushed by his fall, the little plant stood tall and unscathed.

Her brother stood above, taunting and cursing him furiously. The ground he lay on pounded with the footsteps of every gypsy in the camp running toward the shouting. Silence fell when he plucked the clover, stood up in the circle of violence, brandished the small green talisman and cried, “May I marry her now!?”

The image I wrote from looked like this:

Courtesy of Google Images

Character sketches and language

I don't know if I have the right attitude about this whole NaNoWriMo editing thing or not, but there it is. And by that I mean, HERE is my plan (and I am not open to other suggestions about how revisiting a NaNo Novel could be done).

1) I'm going to read what I have written aloud to my workshopping group. One chapter or 6 pages at a time (whichever is less). I will gather feedback. I will learn. I will take notes on what I learn.

What I have learned, re-learned, reinforced, and should make efforts to ponder seriously so far:

Confusion = BAD

• Ask - Which dialog is CRITICAL to the character, story, style, theme, etc. and which can be summarized by the narrator?
• Ask - Would your character actually SAY THAT? Word choice is critical when character building.
• Narrator, Writer, Characters are different "people." Keep them clear for the reader.
• Know if your character is trustworthy or not, and make sure your reader knows too. 
• Don't unintentionally confuse readers.
• BE CAREFUL if you want to intentionally confuse or misdirect readers.
• Structure may come later, but whatever the structure ends up being, make sure that your readers want to read and keep reading from the very beginning.

2) Once I've read the WHOLE DRAFT I will ask myself the following:

• Do you LIKE this novel?
• Would YOU read it?
• Does it say something important?
• Are you still interested in working on it?

3) Then after that, I'll decide if I want to do something with it...in full awareness and acceptance of the fact that no matter what, I had a FANTASTIC experience participating in NaNoWriMo, and everyone who thinks they might have a novel in them should absolutely join the fun!

Synopsis for my NaNoWriMo novel - Maybe.

I promise nothing, but this MIGHT be a synopsis that will have something to do with whatever I end up writing this month. 

After a year full of the deaths of friends and family, Janette was tired, emotionally hollowed out, and in need of closure. Or Fun. Or Both. So when her pagan friend Allie invited her to a Wiccan "ritual" with costumes, dancing, and an introduction to a hot guy she wanted to meet, it seemed like a good alternative to a night alone handing out (scarfing down) Halloween candy. As it turned out, Janette's dead were not as ready as she was to say farewell.Now on the wrong side of the veil between the worlds, Janette has to navigate across the Isle du Mort, making peace with "beloved dead" who want to weigh her down with rummicube rules, very odd favors, and midlife crisis advice. If she can make peace with every dead person she has ever known - and FAST - she might make it back to the world of the living in time for her date.

Writing Exercise: What smells would you want to take with you to heaven?

• Husband's forehead
• Cockatoo powder
• Fresh popcorn with real butter
• Bruising unexpected bushes
• Fresh, post-storm seaweed
• Hot, dry pine needles in the woods
• Horse brushing
• Horse manure
• Shampoo
• Hot, sweaty, buff guy running past on the narrow hiking trail
• Santa Barbara Sandstone dust in the summer
• Fresh bread
• Cinnamon
• Baked apples
• Lysol
• Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap
• Honeysuckle
• Starch - hot on the ironed clothes
• Warm clothes from the dryer
• Downy
• Freshly poured hard cider
• Fine cabernet
• Hot leather seats in the car
• Open window in a stuffy room
• Basement
• Concrete slab
• Crawl space under the house
• Wine cellar
• Doug's pipe smoke
• Hawaii
• Lemon verbena
• Grease paint make up

--------------

Exercise: Write about one smell (with prompts during continuous writing)

Open window in a stuffy room

The smell of an open window in a stuffy room hits me in the neck,
behind each ear. This part of my body relaxes as the fresh air pushes curtains aside. 
There is blue sky outside and fresh green of the grass and
bushes outdoors. This smell makes me relaxed. My stuffed inside body
can expand with air, and the neck and ears get bigger, wider, longer.

The smell is always available but needs precaution from weather. 
Rain into the stuffy room is best even when frills of lace get damp. 
The day - end of day - is time to come home and open windows and chase out
the heavy waiting. Bird waiting for attention. Home waiting to be
lived in. 

Each home needs to be allowed to steep - to become what it IS all day alone. 
And then the people come in and open the windows and
let the fresh movement in. From outside. Fresh halts the decay.
Rejuvenates, sparkles the wooden floor, warms linens, releasing the
comfort smells of husbands and laundry and fabric softener. 

A solitary smell. Open the window anytime, but the smell only comes when alone -
when there is time to just breathe. Maybe it could be shared with an
intimate loved one. Open windows merge the possible future and the
current moment. The outside of fresh with the inside of decay...or dust...or simply calm. Calm. Warm. Settled. Not stirred...moved...complicated. In/out and constant versus perpetual motion.

Not Ready To Leave...

...my hotel room. After a few days here, I'm nice and safe; I found a radio station I can deal with, I have lots of clean towels, and the bed finally holds the impression of my frame enough that I slept the whole night through.

But it is almost time to go, and really I'm just stalling because if I'm not sitting here, then I'm sitting in the airport. Much less interesting. Although there are people there, and I'd be doing the same things (well, not blogging, as there's no guarantee of internet access).

But I *would* in fact be reading (most of what I've been doing this morning). Enjoying another great new book, Wit's End, by Karen Joy Fowler, whose Jane Austen Book Club I enjoyed so much. Wit's is also great...so compelling, that I had to tear myself away to get my teeth brushed and the last few little things packed. I'm quite grateful I didn't start it until the end of my trip - I would certainly not have been as on-my-game for work if I was constantly sneaking out for a 5 minute read-break...

Should I admit I do that sometimes? When the book is truly as well-written and engrossing as this one is? Well, this book is also conducive to that: Lots of short segments, so it is easy to set down and pick up. But I don't want to.

Really the reason I wanted to blog today was that I had other confessions to make. I did a truly, consciously anti-social thing: I put a half hamburger bun in the toaster at my hotel kitchenette...and it already had ketchup and mustard on it. There's no chance the condiment-side wouldn't touch the coils. Anyone staying in this room in the future is going to get just a little spice to their toast.

I thought about this before I did it, and I TOLD myself it was anti-social, unfair to the next person...but for all I know, someone has done the same thing before me, and I was getting a little bit of who-knows-what on the top side of my bun. In my head it is the same conversation I have when deciding whether or not to report the fairly serious trickle from the bathtub to the hotel owners. Well, I haven't done that yet, but I WILL let them know as I leave - a decidedly unnecessary waste of water. I didn't shower each day I was here, so maybe that makes up for it.

Nearly everything is packed, the suitcases are MUCH lighter, because I was good, and I ate most of the food I brought with me, and stuck primarily to my diet. I have been awake for hours because unfortunately, I awoke to one of those you-want-to-be-completely-organized-but-you-know-that-you're-not
mini-panic moments, and I thought that maybe I had my flight time wrong - YIKES!

But no, I got up and double checked; And double-checked...and couldn't really go back to sleep. It is going to make being on CA time especially hard, I know, but oh well. Time to post, close up the computer and go. And who knows - maybe there WILL be wireless at the airport...?

Reader / Writer?

I feel like I've heard it said before, but I'm NOT going to waste any of my 12 writing minutes, and 3 editing minutes (trying to be regimented about this) looking up who and how many and when they might have said something like: Readers are Writers. I think that is true.

If you don't love words, why pick up a book, let alone spend time instead of earning money, doing something that is highly unlikely to contribute to anything except personal fulfillment (can you tell I'm feeling unemployed right now?).

I HAD to write today, my "unemployed" goal is to write for 15-30 minutes, minimum each day...but I wasn't "good" about it. I didn't get up and make time and space for my writing. Instead, I "wasted" several hours this morning the way I wasted several last night: Getting through and amazing, wonderful new book: Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay (I'm not wasting time making this a link now, but might later...see this is REAL stream of conscious, wordvomit).

I won't say why exactly it was so amazingly wonderful to me, except to say K.M. will know, because he was there. How very Kaylike of me. The fact remains that there is truly NOTHING...No Thing...in the universe similar in any way to a good book. Today (and it may be different tomorrow), that is because books can include all the best, the worst, the darkest and the brightest things in the whole world, wrapped into words, and they are real to those with imagination...and you get to close the cover. You can get distance or deep intimacy as you like, wholly under your control. Man, I love books.

Books are filled with people to love and hate and, when the writer is incredible, like this one, those people can seem more real than the corporeal folks occupying the seats on either side of you.

Juxtapose my deep elation with another piece of data: There are LOTS of people out there who read the end of books first. SACRILIDGE! (in my humble opinion, of course) NPR was just doing a whole hour talking to a writer and these people who can't take the suspense of working through the whole book to allow the ending to be as big, incredible and deeply affecting as it can be...I guess they aren't reading for the emotional thrills...wonder why they bother?

And a third thing: I know my husband, and other friends who skip the "flowery" language. My husband says he can flip to anyplace in book and tell fairly quickly if it is "literary" or not by the ratio of words and description to the action. I don't need action at all. I need depth, images, and words, words, word...Anne Rice is on my team - which team are you on...?

Mother of a Rant

The Mother Wrote (TMW):
Daughter, Never mind, I'll catch a shuttle. Definitely sounds like your friend's work is crazed and I don't want to impose or add any more to that. I didn't realize that where you and I are going are in opposite directions.

The Adult Daughter Replied (TADR):
Yes. Ex-Husband's warehouse location is West, very close to the airport, and where I am going is South East.

TMW:
Sorry you felt you were having to "take care of me." I wasn't looking to be taken care of.

TADR:
Good to know. Carpooling is always desireable when it makes sense, but since we were not going to the same places, I didn't really "get it" when you proposed it. I think I said that it didn't make sense to me pretty clearly.

After I wrote to you that we were not going in the same direction - literally - you then asked Ex-Husband if you could get a ride from him, or would he please send shuttle info. Mother, that seemed like a pretty desperate act to me. Why would you ask Ex-Husband, or expect that he would be willing to help you in any way? Ex-Husband is angry with you and does not want to help you. Why would you ask him?

I can think of only one reason: You feel he "owes" it to you. People don't like to do nice things for each other out of a sense of obligation, Mother.

No matter why you did it, it made me sad for you and for him that you had asked for help. I felt bad that I was not able to "take care of you," meaning, have you get the help you wanted from someone you wanted it from. You really seemed to want help - even if you had to get it from Ex-Husband.

Because I am Adult Daughter, I felt like I needed to say, "Sure, if you can't find another ride, I can help." Which is still true, but you have to take the help how / when it is offered. I can help you, but you have to do it my way. It is my help to give. You need to respect my friend's time and not take advantage of a friend's generosity and love for me to make your life a little easier.

TMW:
I was just coming from the place where it made sense to see if we could coordinate transportation since we are arriving at almost exactly the same time (you know, like carpooling). Would not have even suggested it if arrival times were different.

Glad to hear you're feeling better. Hope you're over your hurt feelings by the time I see you on Sunday.

TADR:
I think part of the problem is the "hurt" doesn't go away. Especially without any acknowledgement / apologies or attempt to make it different the next time. It just gets worse and worse each time, and, Mother, we seem to be able to spend less and less time together without hurting each other again. Pretty nasty.

My theory is that you're prickly because of Some Thing, and I'm prickly because of Some Thing Else. Doesn't make for a good combination.

TMW:
I was over my hurt feelings from you being mean to me until your recent emails. (I decided I should have been more patient and understanding since you were sick.)

TADR:
That is interesting. Sick shouldn't have much to do with it. My reaction right now is that I have no idea why your feelings were hurt.

As far as I can tell, you're feelings got hurt because I tried to convince you to stay until Monday, like you'd previously planned, in case I needed help with Jeremy The Cockatoo. Either with boarding him at your place or taking him to Birdie Hotel.

Why did that hurt or upset you? I would not have asked if I hadn't REALLY needed the help. If you hadn't already been here, and going back to Santa Barbara. With Jeremy there are so few options. I cannot put him in a shuttle or a taxi.

I was really scared and upset about termites in my house. You said you were staying until Monday, so I called all over to try to find someone who could look at the termites as early as possible on Monday (since no one was available the holiday weekend). We talked about this when you arrived Wednesday, while we made banana pumpkin bread.

TMW:
Seems like it's OK for you to have me go out of my way to help out and/or take care of your needs (like waiting around for the termite guy, driving in the rain, and not getting back into SB in time to get bird vegies and/or keeping Jeremy if your house needed tenting) but not the other way around.

TADR:
Ah, and here I feel like you are very inaccurate. The idea that you think this makes me really angry. This is what you think of Your Sister too. And what you think of Ex-Husband. You appear to think everyone around you expects an unequal relationship.

The Adult Son and I have had that expectation, since we're your kids, HOWEVER, for a long time now, I DO NOT BEHAVE THAT WAY.

I have been trying to treat you just the same as everyone else. When you have needs, and you ask me to help, like with taxes, I say yes or no. Like with your house, yes or no. Like with crazy schemes for WorldCon. Yes, or No. Like with "I want to go to Hawaii for my birthday." Yes or No.

We each get into trouble when it is not that cut and dry, Mother. You did NOT say, "I need to leave, can you help me pack up?" If you had, I would have said, "No. I just puked for eight hours, that isn't going to happen." Instead you said something like, "Its going to rain, I'm thinking of leaving." To which I replied by trying to convince you not to go because I needed your help.

Perhaps it was unfair of me to make my case for why I needed the help so badly. Perhaps you felt guilty to say no. In any case, Mother, these are not excuses for being hurtful.

Mother, it is a situation of expectations. I specifically asked you when you were coming to visit and staying, and you said until Monday.

I asked again because I was *desperately* trying to find a termite guy that could come out before you left, just in case we had to tent and I had to send Jeremy away. When you arrived Wednesday, I went over the whole termite thing with you, and you did not seem put-out.

If I had asked you more clearly Wed night "I need you to stay until Monday, and if the house needs to be tented, take Jeremy either to your place, or to Jaime's" I believe you probably would have said YES. You certainly implied yes, while we were talking that night.

All that changed from then until you left was YOU. You wanted to do something else because of the rain, your needs changed, and so you bailed on me. That is part one of why I was hurt and angry.

Part two of hurt and angry layers on because none of the above that you list as your "needs" (rain, bird veggies) is anything I had any control over or previous knowledge of. I can't have "done it" to you, but you certainly took out your frustration on me.

To be clear, I didn't spend 8 hours puking to ruin your Sunday morning. I didn't do a rain-dance, or forget to close up your house before you left so that you would be stressed out. I didn't rent movies that I thought would specifically be fun to watch with YOU so that I could taunt you with "ha, ha, you have to leave, so I'm going to watch movies you wish you could see..."

The ONLY reason I left my bed Sunday, given how completely AWFUL I felt, was because I knew you were there, and I had specifically rented movies for us to watch TOGETHER. I was damned if I was going to stay in bed, no matter what.

Instead of a nice, restful day of fun movies, I was told you were leaving. I said I needed your help, and you didn't even say "No, that doesn't work for me, I need to leave." You were snide and instead said something like "Well, I'm *so* *sorry* that I can't stay and help you, and take care of your bird and I'll just be out of your way if you'll show me my turkey..."

What you are hurt by, as far as I can tell, is your imagination. It FREAKS ME OUT because it is very Your Sister-Like. I'm having conversations with you that just dissappear into the ether.

It was completely sickening. Not as sickening as you trying to HUG me after you had just been _off_the_chart_ nasty.

I get that you feel bad. I feel bad about the whole thing too, even if I can't figure out what set you off. But don't expect me to be all smiles and stick my damn neck out again by being nice to you. And don't expect me to WANT to help you when you were rotten.

It occurs to me at the last to ask whether you are actually okay with finding your own transportation tomorrow, or whether you are actually really upset and dissapointed?

I care, so I'd like to know the answer...and at the same time, I couldn't care less.

First Time - Draft 2

I left the post-it on his desk because I couldn't end the day without making sure Jack knew he was wrong: JP call EB.

This morning, Jack sat across the table in the small conference room and said, "I will not, Evan. They refuse to participate."
"What...?"
"They refuse to participate. So. I have respect for the hierarchical structure of this organization. I have informed my manager and it is his problem now. The organization's problem - Not Mine."
"Did they give a reason why?"
"I don't care why."

I couldn't look him in the eye. The issue I had stumbled across was a hot one. I tried again and again to elicit a clear picture of the conflict from his information. Even after an hour all I could see was a gaping hole where the "big picture" of the situation should be.

Like a black cloud, it hovered above and to the right of his close-cropped hairline. Beyond a shoulder that leaned hard, aggressively nonchalant on the arm of a blue chair.

"I'm not upset!" he said again, raising his voice. "I also don't care why and I won't do anything about it until I'm asked. Until then, I don't know there is a problem." One of many conflicts in our organization; Dogging him, and like a stray mutt, just as pointedly ignored.

I hate recognizing it when he acts like a five year old. I feel compelled to cover his ass.

So I spent my workday in someone else's problem. Not Jack's problem, not mine: a problem that should have been confronted by the whole organization...but was instead being tossed over cubicle half-walls like a hot potato.

A conflict averse work environment with no management leadership. A fun place to work. Places like this one need lubricant in the form of neutral third parties, troublemakers...HR managers. The organizational caretakers and problem solvers of the world who are powerfully motivated to solve heated and divisive problems. Not necessarily urgent ones: the ones all about communication and personalities and styles of interaction.

As HR Managers go, I am good at my job. I challenged, asked questions, developed a plan of action. I used individual discussions with each personality to understand the whole picture. I spoke with everyone struggling busily to avoid solving the problem.

Suddenly, after 6PM, my own yellow sticky note was in front of my face. Between me and my monitor, I saw my own scrawl stuck to Jack's clean hand. Polished, even nails confronted me at the end of an arm, covered by the softest brushed cotton twill.

He walks up silently, but I never jump anymore. Every part of his body invades the typical, American "personal space." Jack knows he is mandated to keep the distance clear, and he is reminded in a painful waste of two productive hours, every two years, at the Sexual Harassment Prevention course. Maybe I should make him go annually.

"Is it brief? I want to go home," he said while draping himself, quite at ease, in my guest chair. I turned a few pages in a nearby notebook, then swiveled to face him.

"You're wrong," I said, knowing I was safe. "I want you to be successful, and I can't take it when you are, instead, being a complete ass. Change your attitude. I spoke with everyone individually today and the only person with a problem is you. Come back Monday with that problem fixed. Because you're my hero, and I can't stand it when you're wrong."

"Allright. That's fine," came from a tired Jack. He stood up to go, but only moved a foot away. He picked up a magazine from the cubicle next to mine, and stood, looking down at a picture of a famous actress. Well, once famous, then an obesity poster child, now a slim sexpot of a woman again.

"Amazing," he said. And then stood there. With that invitation, I got up to stand next to him. He wanted me to look at the picture I had already noticed returning to my desk a half hour before. I couldn't see the picture this time.

-Comment-
All I could see was the rough stubble across his face at the end of such a long day. Striking on someone meticulously clean shaven each morning.

-Response-
I realized that he smelled fantastic, and I took a deep breath, staring down at a Cover Girl but seeing Jack's chin, neck...an open collar.

-See you Monday-
My strong urge to rub a hand, a cheek, a chest, a groin...across that abrasive surface was overwhelming...and stifled immediately.

I returned to my chair, feeling pumped with the ache of arousal and weak with the cold of imagined betrayal. Emotionally unfaithful for the first time.