It may be geography, but I can tell immediately looking at the people on the bus in Seattle if they also work for my current employer. Sort of like when I went to University, we could always pick out the polygamists (I went to school in Utah.)

There’s a variety of looks. There’s the khaki chino with denim button down guy with the branded laptop bag. There’s the woman with Birkenstocks and Gap jeans and a North Face fleece vest. There’s the guy in Buddy Holly glasses, flannel shirt and studiously scruffy hair with just enough 2 day growth on his face. Then there’s me. I’m not sure what stereotype I fall into.

One thing that amuses me when I people watch my co-workers. . . 86.7% of them have iPhones.*

*This number was not arrived at with any sort of scientific statistical reliability and you should seriously consider its veracity given the authors penchant for hyperbole and mendacity.

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I’ve always been a big reader. I don’t recall even learning to read. When I was seven and I got busted for not doing my homework, my parents took my books away to punish me.

Nana, my father’s mother is also a big reader. She would send my mom big boxes of novels that she had read when she was done with them.

I wasn’t allowed to read these books. The covers of the novels that Mom kept in big dusty boxes in the garage were the sort that Fabio would pose for. Bodice rippers.

Of course my not being able to read these books meant that I would of course read them and so I had my first introduction to porn for women when I was 11 or 12. Gentleman, if you see a woman reading one of these novels and then giving you stick about your videos and FHM, know that she is a hypocrite because these books are nothing but erotica dressed up as romance.

One of my favourites from the smut pile was Sky O’Malley. I tell myself that I got some history in between the good parts.

Reading these books was certainly titillating, but it did mess with my head I think. It took me a while once I was in the game to realise that everything didn’t. . . errr. . . work. . . as easily as they do in the books.

It wasn’t until years later, when reflecting on secret stash of girl porn in the garage that I felt a certain amount of -ICK- at the knowledge that I was getting off on the same books as my Mother and Grandmother.

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I was a bit crap this week because I was in DC.

Monday- 4.4 miles
Tuesday 2 miles walking so slowly around the mall in DC, I was practically going back in time so I probably shouldn’t include it in my weekly millage, but I don’t care.
Wednesday- 0
Thursday- 0
Friday- Yeah. Zero. Whatever. Bite Me.
Saturday- 3.5 miles
Sunday- 3.7
Total: 13.6

What a rubbish week. Will be more better this week.

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My favourite drug of all time is when I’m sitting in the audience of something I have written and people laugh at all of the right places. There is nothing like it. Even E can’t touch it.

A far away second is when I am training or just telling a story with mates and you hit the punch line and they laugh.

Today one of my stories that I told got the exact same laugh that it got in London and it was wonderful.

I realise that this makes me shallow and sad. I don’t care.

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Did my Giving & Receiving Feedback workshop this morning and I kicked serious ass.

Still a few things I want to tweak, so I would grade myself a B+/A- but even with that said. . . I am a Golden God.

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If all of your rants about Congress and politics. If things really are bad. As bad as you say they are? When thousands of American troops are dead- and more dying. Probably as we speak. You tell me? How can we enjoy the good life?

Rome is burning son!

And the problem is not with the people that started this. They’re past irredeemable. The problem is with us. All of us- who do nothing. Who just fiddle. Who try to manoeuvre around the edges of the flame. And I’ll tell you something. There are people out that door today, all over the world that are fighting to make things better.

Robert Redford in Lions for Lambs

I watched Lions for Lambs on the plane over and this speech affected me so much I took the time to fight with the entertainment system to transcribe it.

After we checked into the hotel, Mark and I took the Metro into DC and walked around the mall. The last time I had been in DC I was a 16 year old puppy. Being there as a 37 year old woman seeing all the young things that were zygotes when I was their age, I had a fresh appreciation of how annoying I must have been.

It was a beautiful day. Bright, warm. All the usual clichés.

We walked past the Washington monument, the WWII memorial up to the Lincoln memorial and then stumbled on the Vietnam memorial. It starts out so small when the US ‘officially’ became involved in Vietnam in 1955, then the granite full of names tower over you until Saigon fell in 1975. So many names.

The granite reflects your face back at you.

In the DC airport there was a shop called ‘America’ with cheap jingoistic tchotchkes and cardboard cut-outs of McCain and Obama being used to sell tee shirts.

People can wear a tee shirt and say, “This is who I am. This is what I stand for.” They can buy a tee shirt that was probably made in a sweatshop and they can walk away and think that means something.

I protested the war before it started, walking down the street holding a sign. A big sign that said, “This is who I am. This is what I stand for.” But I haven’t done anything. I haven’t done anything real.

What might happen if we all stood up today and did something? If we took action that said, “This is who I am. This is what I stand for.”

What terrifies me is how many people would just shrug. And that I would be one of them.

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I have put together a Giving and Receiving Colleague feedback workshop and have started doing the Beta. Last Friday I did it in the UK- went ok. I would give myself a solid B. I think it is rather difficult to facilitate for a small group of people that are mostly your friends as I can be too informal. Colm gave me feedback to not curse- I don’t think I said anything really bad but there may have been a phrase that was a bit looser than what I would use in Seattle. Next time will be better.

Woke up this morning in the middle of a serious nightmare. I was doing the feedback session. Mark, one of the managers was there, but he didn’t say anything the entire time. I didn’t know anyone else. They were all really young. University young. In the middle of my introduction, one of the women got up and left the class. She came back a few minutes later and passed out hand outs that she thought would help people with the topic.

I got a bit assy with her.

People started moving around and sitting up in the area where I was with the flip charts and getting in the way of the power point projector. No one was listening to me. They were talking to each other and were disengaged from the class.

I finally lost it and asked them to leave because it was really fucking me off what they were doing and that it was disrespectful.

Everyone looked shocked that I had said fuck. They shuffled out and I got slammed in the feedback.

I know exactly what this dream is about. Last time I was in Seattle for a beta, my team was a horrible audience. They were giving the presenter feedback as the class was going on. They were like small children. And now I’m scared that I am going to say something I shouldn’t.

I know it will be fine, I just think I would prefer it if I didn’t remember my dreams.

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Walking off the plane in DC onto the bus tram thing that will take us to passport control. I’m carrying my carry-on, hand bag and my rucksack with my very heavy computer. Rucksack is slung over my right shoulder. All of a sudden I feel a snap and I feel a bit free. I realise with a small amount of oh god why me, that the rucksack has managed to do what most boys I have been with are unable to do. . . unhook my bra strap.

I sit down next to my ex boss who is now my dotted line manager.

I reach behind myself up under the shirt and refasten the girls. There was no way I could do this manoeuvre subtly.

“Excuse me. My bag just unhooked my bra.”

Mark looked bemused and thankfully looked away.

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Saw this at Little Red Boat.

Brilliant. . .

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I was bad again this week - not doing my smaller bursts and after my longer walk yesterday, my old bones are feeling it. I’m thinking I will need to add some yoga in to what I am doing. When I get back from the states in a couple of weeks I’m also adding in free weights.

My schedule was supposed to be:

Monday- Rest
Tuesday- 3 miles
Wednesday- 2 miles
Thursday- 3 miles
Friday- Cross Train
Saturday- 3 miles
Sunday- 4 miles

Total: 15 miles

What I did:

Monday- Rest
Tuesday- 2.5 miles
Wednesday- 2.4 miles
Thursday- 0
Friday- 1.6 (my drunken walk from Clapham Junction home. If I had to do it, I’m counting it in my mileage.
Saturday- 1.7 miles (leisurely walk along the south bank from Waterloo to London Bridge.
Sunday- 7.6 miles

Total: 15.8

I’m traveling the next two weeks so I will need to force myself into the hotel gym. I’m hoping that the treadmill will be the answer to the jet lag hell I often find myself in.

The best part about doing this besides my working toward a goal that I have wanted to achieve for ten years is that according to the scale, I’ve lost 4 pounds since April 21st.

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