Go Ahead. Make my Day
I am looking for refreshment. Can’t come up with any ideas. Feels impossible. The empty well feels rather like a bottomless pit. Remember trying to create a mote around the sand castle, and how that sand just kept sucking it up?
What works for you? Let me know (Just don’t suggest a stiff drink or wrinkle cream). Even my coffee pot has a hole in it, and i don’t know how it got there…
I feel really bad about this. It was dark, and I was tired. that’s my excuse. I was pulling all those dam palm fronds out to the street for pick up tomorrow, and I was wondering if there were snakes hiding in the pile.
I hear a voice. “Do you want some help?” I look up and there’s a man standing there with a little boy, maybe 8 or so? I say, “No thanks. I’m almost done.”
They do not move along, and I wonder what there is left to say. The little boy asks if I want to buy candy for his fundraiser. I say, no. I’m sorry.
The dad kindly says, “Don’t want a sugar rush, huh?”
The thing is, I always buy the candy. And I would have this time, too, if I wasn’t going full tilt trying to get done with those stupid leaves.
I should have said yes. I wanted to call after them to come back, but they were too far away.
Next time. I’ll stop for two minutes. I’ll say yes.
Makes me think about my own selling technique. Rather like the little boy asking a tired woman in a frenzy who just wanted to drop into bed. Trying hard to make a living, I should pay attention to the mood of my clients. Everyone is so darn tired, these days. Worn out. No wonder sales are so slow! Everyone’s working too hard to stop, take a look, say yes.
And you know what? I wish I had that piece of candy right now…
Game Theory class at Yale. Look here.
By end of class 1, here was the game:
“Without showing your neighbor what you’re doing, put in the box below a whole number between 1 and a 100 [whole number between 1 and 100–integer.] We will calculate the average number chosen in the class. The winner in this game is the person whose number is closest to two-thirds times the average in the class.” [Again: the winner is the person whose number is closest to two-thirds times the average number in the class.] The winner will win $5 minus the difference in pennies between her choice and that two-thirds of the average.”
Rules are:
(from the class transcript:)
“Before you go I want five things from you. I want to know the five lessons from this class. Tell me what you learnt? What were the five lessons? Without looking at your notes, what were the five lessons? Anybody, shout out one of the lessons, yes madam.
Student: Don’t play a strictly dominated strategy.
Professor Ben Polak: Don’t play a strictly dominated strategy, anything else? Yes sir.
Student: Yale students are evil.
Professor Ben Polak: Yale students are evil. Two lessons down, three to go. The guy over here.
Student: Rational choices can lead to bad outcomes.
Professor Ben Polak: Rational choices can lead to bad outcomes. We put it more graphically before but that’s fine. Two more outcomes.
Student: Put yourself in other people’s shoes.
Professor Ben Polak: Put yourself in other people’s shoes and I’m missing one, I can’t recall which one I’m missing now.
You could but it’s a good idea to figure out what you want before you try and get what you want.
The basic game plan:
1. Figure out a strategy that is going to bring you out on top
2. In this particular classroom, know that everyone else is coming from that position.
3. Rational choices can lead to bad outcomes (when everyone is being rational, it’s harder to win)
4. Think about what your opponent is thinking, knowing he/she is rational, too.
5. Figure out what you want before you try to get what you want
los venduros puodo the vendor I
In my dream, I was trying to learn Spanish, and I was the only one not getting it. There was a book, but I couldn’t read it. I didn’t even know what page the words were on, and no one would tell me. Everyone was impatient because I could not learn.
I could not hear the words. I could not see the words. I tried to write them down, but I didn’t have them right, and in a dream, it’s hard to make them stay on the page.
And, even when I am awake, I can’t read my handwriting, anyway.
Everyone else was learning organically. I could not. I do not learn by immersion. I learn by seeing, hearing, reading. But wait a minute. Isn’t that immersion?
So, what do I need?
A book.
I need to know what page the words are on.
I need to see the sentence of Spanish words.
I need to know the translation.
Give me a book. Tell me where in the book we are reading. Where is the sentence? And I can see it. Read it. Force myself to remember it.
Next morning, I don’t remember the exact words in my dream. There were two sentences. I looked up the words I recall and they are not words.
Aquí está la ropa. que estén limpias. Here are the clothes. They are clean.
Last night’s Nightmare.
I was in bed, flipping inattentively through a catalogue. I put it down. “Hey,” I heard a little voice say.
It was coming from the catalogue. I glanced over. “Now that I have your attention, I can continue…” the little voice said.
Amused, I watched as the catalogue’s pages turned.
One of the pages tore.
“You are going too fast,” I said. “Slow down.”
A page ripped out. “Turn over,” I said.
When I went to reach for the catalogue, wanting to take a closer look at its intriguing items and clothing, a woman approached me with a catalogue in her hand. “Here, give me that one and take this one,” she said.
“No. I want this one,” I told her, holding the catalogue against me.
“All the items are the same,” she insisted, grabbing me. “Don’t make me do this!”
“Young woman,” I said. “Take your hands off me.”
I was becoming fearful, but resolute. All I had to do was wake up to win this battle.
Which I did.
In the corner of my bedroom, on the ceiling, was a small box about five inches by three inches.
Coming from the box was a tube that extended within inches of my head. As I watched the tube retracted, telescoping back into the box, then the box slipped through the wall. Of course, I no longer had the catalogue. Who won?
Who is Win Wenger? I found him by accident last night — in one of those emails I have subscribed to and usually don’t read anymore (this one was from Mark Joyner and the subject line read “Awaken your brain in 30 seconds.”
Ok, I thought. Let’s see what he’s up to.
Here’s part of what was in the email:
“Now, if you’re looking for a quick fix, here’s what
you do.
“This is a technique taught by Win Wenger …
“It’s simple: close your eyes and visualize in your mind that your head is about one inch bigger all around than it is.
“Actually *see* this in your mind’s eye.
“If you hold this image in your head for about 30 seconds straight it sends your nervous system a signal to pump more oxygen to your brain.
“It’s a bizarre “brain hack,” but it’s actually measurable via CT scan.
“People who try it usually experience a sense of heightened alertness on the first try. (if it didn’t work – try a few times – really *see* your head as
being larger in your mind’s eye).
“Wow! Remind me not to do this again before bedtime!
This morning, after a truly strange “sleep,” I reread the email and saw that Mark attributed this to Win Wenger. I looked him up and see that he is working on something that he calls “Project Renaissance.” There are even job openings for writers. I skip around, and come to his bio. At the end I come to “…Win Wenger and his wife, Susan — herself the author of The Better Baby Book…”
Yikes, I remember her. I took her course and did her flash cards for Aimee 28 years ago! The math series contained cards with red dots up to 100, I think. You say a number, and your 8-month-old (or younger) crawls over and picks up the right card. Aimee was pretty good at it — and she’s still good at math!
Yesterday, I talked to a friend of mine, an ex-boss, who was telling me he recently had visited with a couple of my ex-co-workers. Although both are excellent writers and good editors, they are out of work, and often, they told him, they don’t get responses when they answer an ad.
Made me think about my own decisions. I wouldn’t know about that, I told my friend, because I haven’t been trying to get a job. Building up my freelance has been difficult, for sure, but it feels more like the pain you have after exercise – it comes from the process of exertion, and, although it hurts, you know that it will go away eventually, and, in the meantime, you are getting stronger…
Perhaps that’s the feeling they have too. I don’t know. I hope so.
For fun…
You know, there’s a reason why they called them magic carpets. I look at the one by my bed. My grandfather brought it with him from Armenia, I was told.
This one is not a floral. Geometric bands in gold, camel, brown and blue march around this little rug. Touches of coral – was it a deep red at one time? – intermingle and weave in life’s blood and fire.
What do we have here? Checkerboards of color, I see. Are they flowers or crosses? And next, a row of crosses for sure. Coming in another level, closer to its soul, is another band in lighter tones. The centers of each repeat create an intricate pattern that is hardly decipherable. I can read it, though. The cross is held within a diamond – protection from the evil eye, and interspersed north, east, south and west is the dot within a circle, an ode to fertility. Oh how lovely to have this charming magic carpet inches from me while I sleep!
Next come two more bands that echo the edges of this small world, and then I get to the heart of the matter. On a field of the deepest blue, there bursts an orgy of symbols. Birds appear amid flower blossoms, dragons, I think, ram’s horns, swords and crowns.
Pagan Celts, horse whisperers to my left. Near-Eastern Christians to my right, silk weavers with secrets of their own. They speak back and forth, compare notes. Eventually, I hope, they will make sense and who they are and what they mean will leap off their fields of midnight blue and earthy brown.
So, what does the MOB have to be thankful for? Plenty! For one thing, I am really thankful that I don’t mind being a MOB.
It took plenty of time to get to this point, and there are some advantages.
1. The kids are grown and they actually are entertaining and nice (yes, for those of you with little ones, the day will come!)
2. I’m not going broke (well, maybe I am, but it’s so slow, I don’t notice).
3. I have a roof over my head (It’s old. the original tin. And it doesn’t need to be repaired. I love it! The insurance adjuster gave it a 90 percent, and said old tin roofs are the best! and the plumbing and wiring aren’t bad, either I have been told).
4. My body is holding up for the time being, and I haven’t paid it a bit of attention (I file my nails while driving).
5. I have lovely friends and a darling family.
6. And even though the economy sucks, I think I might be getting a toe hold.
So, thank you, God, Goddess, turkey, my lucky stars, blue sky, terra firma…
Bitch Rag 