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I may have mentioned to some that I have a big blog post coming about Pride. It is still in its birthing stages as my virtual life is currently taking a backseat to my actual life.

However, I have just returned from the place that does my weighing in thing. This was my first visit since Pride - I figured I needed a few days to drop the pounds I must have gained with all the:

• wine (an embarrassing amount)
  
• beer (not as much as the wine)
  
• hot dog
• bbq beef on a bun
• dim sum with Lex&Ger, Jeff and Vicki
• chips
• ice cream ... TWICE!
  
• boob cake, courtesy Courtney. Chocolate and vanilla. One of each.
  
• I don't remember what I ate at Pam's. I think there were chips and I think I brought them. Actually, most of that evening is a bit foggy except for a few sweet moments early on that are most definitely not foggy. I also remember the bit at the end where I had to crawl over a very tall fence to get out of the fenced garbage area that I'd become entrapped in. But, I digress ...
• Did I mention the dim sum? That was a whole lotta dim sum ... maybe the guylian saved me ...?
  

Then there was Canada Day dinner with Cate which featured cheese grits that one wishes to simply slather oneself in.  Anything THAT good has got to be bad for you. Cate also plied me with beer before the cheese grits which, purely as a favour, a courtesy to a new friend, I consumed.

In short, I went to diet hell for several days. But, I'm back now ... and I'm down 3.5 pounds for a total of 58 lbs. I really don't understand how this is possible.  Divine intervention, perhaps. Anyway, here I am, down 58 and ready for the final 32. Whoa.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of my teaching practice involves guiding students through the process of problem-solving. In particular, I'm the hard-ass (a quote from a former student) who demands that teams dig all the way down, sort out symptoms from actual causes, to define, in a single sentence, the actual problem that they are attempting to solve. The word "solution" is tossed around technology circles in a manner distinctly out of proportion with the word "problem". Without understanding the exact nature of the problem, most attempts at "solutions" are less than likely to succeed - a waste of resources, in my opinion. Problem-definition is a tedious and frustrating exercise, especially in a cross-cultural, cross-functional team environment. The reason I love teaching it is that when the light bulbs go on, and the analytical rigour pays off, each successful student has a tool they can apply to their own lives in any circumstance, to their workplace, to their relationships to an extent ... even to themselves if they choose to go there.

As you can imagine, my students, the ones who actually show up, like me a whole lot better at the after-party than they do prior to the final exams.

I think it is telling that the student who called me a hard-ass did so over ice cream a few weeks after she graduated. She was looking for some guidance in finding employment and she seemed to know I'd be ok with this descriptor. She was right. Not so much of a hard-ass that I couldn't be approached to join her for ice cream, I guess. Apparently, I was also called "The Time-Keeper" which strikes me as being kind of benign, really, as name-calling goes.  I gather this is in reference to my penchant for giving teams specific lengths of time in which to complete tasks. "OK - here is this three paragraph case - each team has 15 minutes to read through, discuss, and respond to the two questions below ... GO!"  Yeah, my classes sometimes have a sort of boot-camp-esque quality to them. At least I don't ask any student to "give me 20" if they don't complete the tasks on time. Honest.

Nonetheless, imagine my joy when I find that one of my key clients wants me to add a service level clause to an agreement that I am working on demanding that an external organization follow a recognized root cause analysis process when approaching problems. Rapture!

Recently, I've been hoist by my own petard on this issue of root cause analysis. Here is generic version of a conversation I have about three times a week:

Kind, Interested Person: So ... what is the single biggest factor that has resulted in your successful weight loss?

Me: Well, I think the single most important thing I had to do was decide I was ready, that I really wanted it. After I really made that commitment, it was just a matter of finding the right "program" that would work for me.

So far, so good, right?

As I've thought about this, I realize I've been lying all this time. (Sorry.) For me, there is a deeper root cause than the decision and the commitment. Good critical analysis methodology will lead the questioner to ask "why" until there is an endpoint.

Why was I ready ... what drives the commitment, the decision?

The flip response to this is that I'm doing it simply because I can. Not to prove that I can ... but because I'm coming to a place in my life in which I am starting to banish my ghosts and fully appreciate what I'm capable of. This is roughly the same driver/motivator that got me into, through, and successfully out of, the MBA. I knew I could do it, so therefore I had to.

I'm so very incredibly lucky. I have a healthy body, cancer-free (so far), and otherwise disease-free. My mind is clear and strong. Physically, and in so many other ways, all the parts work. I fire on all cylinders, so to speak. I have a roof over my head, access excellent quality food, and an ability to prepare it properly. I get to drink clean water, right out of my tap if I like. I'm blessed in so many other ways ... I have a lifetime of complex experiences that I've tried to learn from. I have had an excellent formal education. I have the pure, unadulterated luxury of time to enjoy excellent music that moves my mind and my heart, to indulge in culture, friends, extended family, lovers ... I think of people who would give their right arm to have been granted the life I live right now. If I don't stretch myself, pour myself into my life fully, I feel as though I'm squandering this amazing opportunity, this outrageously blessed life I've been given to live.  If I am going to pour myself into my life, fully, I need to stay healthy, in all respects. To do otherwise feels vaguely irresponsible and wasteful.

There is another piece to the "because I can" motivator.  

We are, some of us, trained to disrespect ourselves, to de-value so many aspects of our lives, not believing our actions to be significant, important or impactful in any way. Like so many people, I received really mixed messages as a child. I was told by my mother that I could do anything, anything at all that I put my mind to. I would then be informed, forcefully, by my much older brothers, whom I worshiped and whose love and approval I sought constantly, that everything I did was worthless and unimportant. I fight this internal battle between these two competing forces all the time.  I will take some important step or reach some achievement, personally, professionally or spiritually, enjoy a moment of satisfaction - or, more often than not, eye-brow raising surprise - and then immediately dismiss it as being irrelevant. It is how I'm programmed. This makes it extremely difficult to really find satisfaction in the things that others, looking in from the outside, view as "successes".

I sense that I'm not alone in this kind of programming.

Henry Ford reportedly said, "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you are right." Depending on where one places one's locus of control, this can either read as inspiring or threatening.  I've seen it both ways at different times in my life but, at the moment, I see a third element that I've missed until now. The actor/thinker grants themselves (or is granted) a great deal of power to decide, either way. So, I'm developing my own version of this philosophy. It goes something like this: If I think something is important and worthwhile, or if I think it isn't, I am right. No one else can decide this for me.

There are a series of things I'm trying to put in place in my life that will help me keep moving forward in a positive way. These things feel "important". Weight loss is only one of them, but it does seem to be the most visible. The point is, I get to choose the belief system that will support this part of my journey, and I'm choosing to believe that I can do this, and that it is important.

Some days, my self-talk veers dangerously close to some kind of mutant lesbian feminist Tony Robbins which can be a bit startling, especially as a visual. Thank goodness that, with the exception of this particular posting, I'm the only one who hears it.

Since seeing that movie last weekend, I've been stuck in an 80's time warp. Here are a few choice selections from YouTube ...

The afore-mentioned Propaganda, although the YouTube offering is rather weak here.

 
Grace "I've still got legs up to my neck baby" Jones ...
And my favourite embryonic singer, Jimmy Sommerville, post-Bronski Beat, in his Communards phase. This was a difficult choice, between Don't Leave Me This Way, So Cold The Night, and Never Can Say Goodbye - all choice. I got all excited when I found him covering Dancing Queen ... but ...um, not so much ...

One of my heros, Susie Bright, wrote a blog entry today about the enthusiastic tidal wave of queer marriage overtaking California at the moment.

I wrote the following in response.

It is posts like this that make me such a fan. Thanks, Susie ... your common sense is SO HOT!

I've done the long-term monogamous gig that ended, rather predictably, in tears and eventual friendship. I've done sort of "open-ended, dancing on the edges of poly" dating. I've been single. I've watched so many others come together and come apart.

The legal partnership agreement that my same-sex partner and I drew up at the beginning of our long-term relationship worked perfectly when it came time to end it. We also had powers of attorney for property and health care put in place. Interestingly, these are still in place for both of us as no one has come along in a permanent sense to fulfill that kind of role.

This business of being "owned" or "belonging" to another person irks me, not surprisingly, but I'll leave that whole feminist anger management piece aside for now. More pressing it seems is the question of "What do you want out of marriage"? A scary question for people to whom marriage is an end point, a target, a life goal to be reached. I  worry that people "work" at their relationship up to the point of "I do" and then figure, well, my work here is done. Got'em! No one moves forward, no more growth ... stagnation.

That is my nightmare scenario. On the upside, I do know of many long-term couples, straight and not, married and not, who see commitment, however they define it, as a signpost rather than an endpoint of that strange and fantastic voyage of "relationship". Their continuous improvement efforts warm my heart and give me hope.

I applaud that my American friends are, in some states, being at least offered the choice of perceived social equality. It is validating to be included, to be on equal footing, with one's neighbours. The power of this cannot be overstated within a community that has long felt excluded and ostracized, often by our own immediate families, by reactive and hysterical community members and by religious institutions.

And, of course, I too am a sucker for the romanticism of it ... what fool wouldn't want to imagine that there could be some decent, kind, adventurous individual out there who'd be willing to say "yes, and for the rest of my life, yes".

However, when I breathe deeply, and remove the wedding-induced tears from my rose-coloured glasses, I know that the confetti biodegrades, as does the rice, and reality boils down to how you treat each other at your worst, and best, when you are together and when you are apart. No vow, no piece of paper, is going to guarantee consistency from we  frail and flawed human beings. We can promise to do our best for each other and ourselves, and to behave respectfully and with honesty. I'm not sure, if the opportunity should ever arise for me in the future, that I could ever commit to more than this, given what I've seen and what I know to be true about human behaviour. 

Occasionally, I think people use their blogs as sort of "message in a bottle" form of communication. Subtle little messages buried within to people in the writer's life. I'm going to be more overt with this post ... this post is, in fact, directed to one person specifically. The rest of you can bugger off, or read through if you like. Up to you.

This is for my alleged first female romantic involvement, lo these many years ago. I have no idea if you read this but I think this is an excellent way to find out.

Please drop everything you are doing right this moment and take J and T to Son of Rambow, immediately. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. The film is about 10 yr old boys, best friends, movies, restrictive families, and making stuff up. The tag line is "Make Believe, not War" ... what's not to like about that?

Most importantly, check out this soundtrack!
1. The Cure “Close To Me”
2. Siouxsie & The Banshees “Peek-A-Boo”
3. Nu Shooz "I Can't Wait"
4. Duran Duran “Wild Boys”
5. Jonathan Richman “Egyptian Reggae”
6. Gary Numan "Cars”
7. Fun Boy Three “Our Lips Our Sealed”
8. Blondie "Rapture"
9. The Real Roxanne “Bang Zoom (Let's Go Go)”
10. The Human League "Love Action (I Believe In Love)"

Especially that first song. They use the radio version during the final credits. Last Friday night at the Carlton, that song was accompanied by me chortling ... a lot. Gawd, I haven't heard it in ages. All that's missing is Propaganda. This is a UK film ... no Chrissie Hynde. Sorry. Nonetheless, think of how this gets J started on his music history education!

Apparently, Stanley Kubrick's grand-son plays Didier's lead flunky. Cool.

C'mon ... get away from all that Very Important Stuff ... play hooky in favour of a flight of fancy ... you can do it ... in fact, you probably should. I see who you've been hanging out with recently and, well, frankly, that crew could use a sense of humour.  Although they did a surprisingly good job on that apology thing. Even I was impressed. I do think your guy could do with a different shade of lipstick, tho.

(Just visiting? Take the free test and determine your personality type!)

Engaged Idealists are extroverted and helpful. Others find them to be very congenial and inspiring - especially as they are always willing to see the best in the other person. Their humour, their energy and their optimism attract other people. Engaged Idealists are very good at communicating and are good at convincing and firing on others. That is why it is a matter of course that they often take over the leading role in groups. This personality type often produces very charismatic persons.

Engaged Idealists have an unusually strong ability to empathise. They are tolerant and generous towards others; they sometimes tend to idealise their friends. They always try to suit everybody and want their relationships to be harmonious and satisfactory. To achieve this, they are prepared to invest a great deal and to put their requirements last. As Engaged Idealists are very considerate, there is the danger of them sacrificing and overexerting themselves for others. In their job, they therefore have to be very careful not to develop a burnout syndrome.

Engaged Idealists are reliable, well organised and love structuring complicated situations. They have difficulty accepting criticism; they quickly feel hurt and misunderstood. Their perfectionism also influences their love life - they look for the perfect relationship for life. Once they have made their decision, they are faithful, well-balanced and loving partners. However, should they get involved with the wrong person, it can happen that they allow themselves to be exploited for a long time before they end the relationship.

Adjectives which describe your type

extroverted, theoretical, emotional, planning, idealistic, committed, likable, enthusiastic, responsible, helpful, loyal, diplomatic, friendly, inspiring, caring, solicitous, optimistic, effusive, adaptable, communicative, articulate, convincing, energetic, optimistic, open, vulnerable

As much as I find over-cooked nationalism to be distasteful, I am nonetheless a deeply proud Canadian. This much to the annoyance of some of my American Internet buddies.

To imagine the US as a monolithic, homogeneous entity is, of course, ridiculous and I was ultimately cured of this  thinking quite recently after a short-lived but enjoyable relationship with "my" Texan. Can I say that? I hope so.

 As part of the "war on terror", otherwise known as the "let's be afraid of everything and everyone" movement, some in the upper echelons of power in both the US and Canada are attempting to integrate these two quite distinct nations in the unassailable interest of "security".

From a Canadian perspective, this feels pretty threatening. Not many people are discussing this openly, but there is a quiet little grassroots movement afoot here that is gaining limited traction.

Thought y'all might like to know, and thanks to katja's auntie for flagging the Integrate This! site for me.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Morning
Three hours on-site with a client

Afternoon
Then, shopping for a dress. Yup. A dress. I'd been, more or less, dared by my friend/classmate Jane to wear a dress to the MBA class reunion. I think her words were something like, "You aren't going to wear those damn boots, are you?" The reunion was to be held at a swank hotel. I contemplated, realized the idea didn't make me anywhere near as uncomfortable as it once did, and, well, I did it. :-)

Dress, baubles, new watch, purse (!), shoes and shawl all purchased @ Designer Depot, my new fav store.

Last time in a dress - my brother's wedding in 1985.

Around 5:00 p.m., my Chicago buddies arrived for a three day visit. Well, not so much a visit as time in Toronto to pack up Martina's faculty office at her former school and hand in her keys. They arrived just as I was sort of getting assembled, pulling tags off things and trying to fix threads that had been pulled in the shawl - hey it was in a discount store, whaddya expect?

They were a bit shocked that I answered the door in a dress and pantyhose. Once past the shock, they were enormously helpful in fixing up the thread problem in the shawl and generally giving me advice on how to wear it.  Martina has more than enough femme in her to make up for my complete lack of said element.

Evening
Off I go to meet Jane at this shindig and, dammit, she shows up in a pantsuit!!!!

It was a really terrific evening, actually. I had a blast. Wonderful conversation, interesting people. I had the MOST interesting conversation with a lovely woman who is doing her PhD dissertation on Microsoft's homogenization of education in the developing world through their "generous" supply of software. Wow ... must know more about this.

Interesting sociological study regarding the amount of time/attention paid to me by men who generally find me invisible. Hm. This could be good for business.

Got home 11:30 ish, I think, slightly potted on that huge martini I forced down at the end of the evening. Martina and Betsy were still up and so we de-briefed. I took the damn pantyhose off, finally. Enough of that!

In my slightly over-charged state, I checked my e-mail before bed to find a chatty note from a hockey buddy of mine, describing a few of the shinny games I'd missed since I've been working too damn hard. Well, not just ANY hockey buddy ... this is one of Canada's most revered authors. I've revered her from afar for ages, and then she shows up on the ice last fall, which is very cool. Anyway, she read something I wrote - a more formal, structured critical analysis that I'd worked up. She responded, in part, "you can write some, can't you girl". Which meant, really, that I was so pumped that I couldn't sleep much at all on Thursday night. Whoa - I'm thinking of having this framed.

I'm also thinking of doing more writing. Maybe.

Friday, May 30, 2008
Morning
Four hours back at the MBA thing, this time for a life-long learning session. No, I did not wear a dress.

The theme of these sessions, every year, is something along the lines of "Thinking about Thinking" and the speakers are usually excellent. This year was no exception. The morning started with a terrific and thought-arousing talk by Jane Fulton Suri on human-centred design. Then Gerald Zaltman spoke on Deep Metaphor ... less dynamic but equally as meaty. (I wouldn't want to follow Jane as a speaker, either.)

The last hour of the morning was filled by Roger Martin (Dean of the Rotman School of Business) and Malcolm Gladwell in conversation with each other. Turns out they were neighbours in their youth and Malcolm spent quite a bit of time playing Risk with Martin's younger brother in the Martin household basement. In any case, they were very entertaining and quite funny ... but I practically had to sit on my hands and mentally bolt myself to my chair for fear of asking - in a room with 500 of Canada's most powerful business leaders - the dreaded Career Limiting Question.

Actually, not so much a question as a bubble-bursting comment. These two highly successful, incredibly smart men were bandying about the notion that board rooms had, in the past 30 years, started to rely dangerously on "reliable data" without checking first if the data, or the questions posed to gather the data, had any validity at all. Gladwell succinctly, accurately, and amusingly, dissected the notion of IQ having any meaning as a reliable measure of anything useful, and discussed at length the paucity of any valid methodology of assessing the effectiveness of teachers (a US example but equally as applicable to Canada). Professor Gladwell, Malcolm's dad, succinctly told the following anecdote at the end of the session which effectively describes reliability vs. validity. A man is observed under a street light, scanning the ground. When approached, the man reports that he is looking for his wallet. When asked if he is sure he lost his wallet at this location, he replies, "No I lost it over there in the park, but the light is better here."

I started to take notes on how clear the language was in describing what Gladwell/Martin called "reliability".  Linear, data-based, measurable, ranking, risk averse, risk tolerant, competitive, comparable ... and the best was when Gladwell called one preposterous use of data a "hubristic extension" of the use of reliable measures.

Let me oversimplify - the board rooms, the power centres/power brokers of our world in the larger context, are happiest making decisions based on information that contains clearly measurable elements that allow comparison of those elements with their competitors, or with competing forces in the case of non-profits and government agencies. It is irrelevant if the elements being measured have any meaning at all. Bigger is, as always, considered better.

You can perhaps infer the nature of the questioning/commentary that danced on the tip of my tongue that I clamped down on fiercely. Telling a room full of (mostly) men that good old fashioned pissing contests and, more to the point, obsession with matters of size lack much relevance to anyone but them. At one point, Martin suggested that companies consider hiring a Chief Validity Officer and it was all I could do to keep myself from shouting "Yes, and it damn well better be a woman!"

There is a whole other framework of looking at the world. 98% of men I've met don't get it and, frankly, a lot of women have bought into the male "measure it" mindset so fully that they have left behind their intuitive, common sense, "bullshit detector". Jane Fulton Suri suggested that we should be aiming towards "informed intuition" as a balance between the rational and the intuitive. I think she is bang on, so to speak. It would behoove the gentlemen to actually step away from their data gathering methodologies and give real life a try sometime.

I had to get out of there. I ate the schmancy lunch, skipped the afternoon sessions, and headed out to afternoon hockey shinny.

Evening
My houseguests and I and another friend trouped out into the quasi-rain for Ethiopian food. It was WONDERFUL! :-) And a lovely grounding back into sanity after my morning's head-spin.

Saturday, May 31, 2008
Morning
A late morning jaunt to St. Lawrence Market to buy plants for my window boxes. I needed Martina and Betsy's help with this. I'm the world's worst gardener. I now have jolly looking flowers and herbs in my window boxes. Thrilled!

Afternoon
I started a project that took me until the next day to finish. Upgrading and re-organizing my iPod. I added over 800 songs, which means I'm up over 2000 now. About 50% through my CD collection. I've thinned out my CD collection now, some going to yard sale heaven next week. Some I can't part with.

A few years ago, my youngest niece Charlotte was visiting and when she clamped eyes on my CDs she said, "HOLE-LEE ... that's the most CDs I've ever seen in one place!" She is given to hyperbole ... in any case, my collection is a little thinner now and yet I have lost not a whit of music - the magic of technology. Digging stuff up and organizing it was just the kind of project I needed this weekend.

There was a bit of, oh, push-back on my Julie Andrews musical selection in my last entry. I offer, therefore, my two all-time favourite Julie Andrews selections. Tea for Two is from a private CD that Julie recorded for her husband, Blake, as a gift. He convinced her, so the story goes, to release it for public consumption.  Getting Married Today is from the Broadway Cast Recording of the 1993 production of Sondheim's Putting It Together. This was Julie's warm-up attempt at stage performance after a long stint doing only film and TV. She needed to see if it was something she would still enjoy doing. Turns out it was, as she went on to do the full run of Victor/Victoria afterwards, starting with rehearsals and previews late 1994/95. Imagine, if you will, nailing this song through 96 performances in total, on stage. Without a net. Amazing.

I found a few other gems. The entire Yaz album Upstairs at Eric's is a huge buzz for me, big memory piece. So is the song Love Shack by the B-52's.

Wow - How many times do Julie Andrews and the B-52's appear in the same web page!

I'm listening to my iPod more now than I ever have and lovin' it. I've always been a music hound but this work situation

has just cranked that up a notch or two. I find, with the iPod, there are tunes that come on when it is on shuffle that just stop me in my tracks for one reason or other. Here are three that either make me stop and listen, or just make me grin like a stupid fool.

In the "stop me in my tracks" category, we have "Sand and Water" by Beth Nielsen Chapman. There is just  something about the simplicity and the emotional rawness of the lyrics demands that I stop and pay attention. I would love to be able to perform this someday myself.

In the "big stupid grin" category, we have the live version of "Mama Just Wants To Barrelhouse" by Bruce Cockburn. Raise your hand if you are tired of this song. No? Good. When this came on at the gym the other day, I must have looked retarded, hauling myself up the

Gravitron with this silly smile on my face. This live version is the first one I heard and I realize that when I've been performing it, I've been playing it too fast. I made this repeat several times throughout the workout so I could remind myself of a few the the nuances that I'd clearly forgotten. No idea why this song appeals to me so much. And, NO, I don't do all that fancy schmancy Bruce Cockburn guitar work. I just, you know, play it.

The "big stupid grin" category also contains, surprise surprise, anything by Julie Andrews. On my iPod, I have two albums she recorded before the disastrous surgery in the summer of 1997 that killed The Voice. Here is a Broadway standard that has always been one of my favourite pieces of music anyway, regardless of who sings it. There is something about Dame Andrews, in particular her singing voice, that just pushes some ancient button. No idea why, and I know that many many others do NOT share this button with me. That's ok

- diversity makes us strong, right?

Recent lessons, all of which fall into the category "I already knew that ..." but, clearly, not well enough.

1. Uncooked chicken does not keep in the fridge for as long as I think it will.
2. Beer, pizza and scotch are not compatible with my current diet plan.
3. Some music is meant to be appreciated at a higher volume.
4. Music played, consistently, at a high volume is likely to cause hearing loss.
5. Because I have a hearing loss, my "loud" music can often be other people's bone-crushing, wince-inducing, my-ears-are-bleeding loud. If people look like they are in pain, I should consider turning the music down.
6. Music or conversation. When you are with me, you must pick one.
7. "You're just not that into her" is a valid response.
8. "She's just not that into you" is also a valid response.
9. Gossip is a short-cut. Truth is a long and winding road.
10. People will tend to favour the short-cut even when they don't need it.
11. Long and winding roads are WAY more interesting.
12. If it is difficult at the beginning, really difficult, there is not a shred of evidence or life experience that suggests that it is going to get any easier.
13. Paraphrasing a friend's t-shirt - Laundry: It ain't gonna do itself.