Saturday, March 31, 2018

Pep Talk

My eyebrows have been slowly eroding as I've aged. I've pencilled my (pale blonde) brows in for ages to make them less-invisible, but at the rate they've been disappearing I'm going to be free-styling a pair of surprised granny arches by the time I'm 45. That's how it all starts, you know: from the time you first free your brows from the bounds of reality it's a dangerously short slope to a poodle perm and white orthopaedic sneakers. Or so I've heard.

I look terrible in purple, so I decided to give one of these new-fangled eyelash-growing potions a try. Not on my eyelashes - my glasses already have the permanent appearance of a patio door in a daycare - but on my brows. In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure how I thought it was going to pan out - the stuff makes lashes longer, so what exactly did I think it was going to do with my brows? Offer tax incentives to lure them back from whatever more southerly climes they've migrated to?

I need longer eyebrows like I need more luxurious knuckle hair. What am I supposed to do with longer eyebrows, style them? Add brow trimming to the already exhaustive - and still sprouting anew! - list of personal grooming I'm expected to keep up with? There has got to be a better way to keep myself on this side of the support hose and Scotch mints crowd. If only there were administrative options one could pursue...

* * *

"Listen up, people: we don't need the same personnel stretched thinner over more ground. What we need is to take the learnings from our gap analysis and do some strategic recruitment. I would like to see each of these roles filled within this quarter. In the meantime, we need to develop our team-building approaches and better our management strategies to improve retention - I want our turnover rates down at least 50% over the next year.

Folks, BROW & Co. cut too deep in the 90s - no matter if it was right or wrong, those pencil-thin margins were just a sign of the times, everyone was doing it - but it is clear we never fully recovered from that. We have a lot of work ahead of us if we want to maintain the growth we're trying to achieve now. From here on our goal is sleek and streamlined, appropriate for a company of our vintage, and never again a slave to the whims of fashion.

Together, I'm convinced we will be able to keep this old gal out of velour tracksuits for a long while yet. Keep up the good work everyone."

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Naturally Delicious

Most of my neighbours seem pretty decent: they cut their grass, they rumble their bins to the curb at not-unreasonable times of day, and their free-roaming cats only occasionally sneak into my house and surprise me on my couch. Not that I'm watching or anything, but in my humble opinion every one of them leaves their vehicles to "warm up" for far longer than is strictly necessary, and I also can't help but notice that *some* of them seem to produce an astounding amount of garbage each week, yet suspiciously little blue or green bin fodder. Plus I accidentally couldn't help seeing that *someone* hired a tree-removal company to cut down a perfectly healthy pin cherry tree last year, yet left a dead spruce standing in their front yard...

Anyway, like I was saying, perfectly normal and environmentally-conscious people whom I am definitely not watching and judging from my nice big kitchen window, which happens to face out over the street.

But the "new" guy next door? I am absolutely judging that guy. I have never spoken with him, but having lived next door to him for around 3 years now I like to think I've gotten to know enough about him - through an as-yet undefined method of neighbourly osmosis - that I am able to pass judgement on him, and that judgement is not favourable. In addition to leaving his car running too long and not sorting recyclables or compostables, he has never - not once - mowed his lawn, shoveled his snow, or walked his dog. (I only know the dog exists because I can hear it howling all day long.) Plus he orders So. Much. Take-out. that we've had more delivery drivers mistakenly come to our door with his food in the past 3 years than we have had delivery drivers delivering our own food to our door in the entire 11 years we've lived here. Who needs that much take-out?! Really, he only has himself (and maybe Skip the Dishes) to blame for my poor opinion of him.

People always say that karma will take care of things. Although I too wish the world was a more fair and just place than it is, sadly I have seen no evidence suggesting this karma business is anything more than wishful thinking. However, even I must admit that every so often a natural consequence of impeccable timing and proportion occurs, and I think we would be remiss if we did not take a moment to relish those happy coincidences. You can even call them karma if that makes you feel better about the world.

For instance, while it seems like everyone would rather forget this long, snowy winter, I will forever remember it fondly as the winter my lazy-ass neighbour got his car high-centered on the snow at the end of his driveway. I was cooking supper so I had an excellent view of the entire "karmic" comedy playing out: no amount of pushing or revving would get his little car over the entire winter's accumulation of snow. And what kind of homeowner would think to invest $20 on a shovel in a measly 3 years of homeownership? Not this guy! So he very laboriously dug his car out and cleared his entire 21.5 metre driveway (I measured) with a wee trunk-sized half-shovel.

Delicious.

To be clear, I've helped other neighbours get their cars unstuck in the past, but this was such a profoundly satisfying win for natural consequences that I kept right on cooking supper while I enjoyed the show. Our kitchen window so beautifully frames the sunsets that we usually call it Tom Thomson, but that night it was nothing less than Norman Rockwell.

For the record, new neighbour guy since bought himself a real shovel and has been shoveling his driveway shortly after each snowfall ever since that fateful night. I think his parents would be proud of my work. Now if I could only figure out how to get his car high-centered on the waist-high grass in his backyard...

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Beware the Unguarded Heart

I think it's the uncertainty of social media feedback that makes it so compelling. And it's not only that you don't know whether you are going to get Likes or hearts or whatever, it's also that even when you do get them, you don't know what the hell they mean.

Let's say you post something one day about the whole household having the flu, and Aunt Melba gives it a heart. Ideally she'd drop off some of her famous chicken soup to help out in a quaintly old-fashioned (i.e., meaningful) way, but she's 105 and lives in another town so that e-heart is all you've got to work with. Is Aunt Melba sending love to help us get over the flu, or does she love that we all have the flu, or is she just 105 and confused about the Facebook?

Unless it is well established that Aunt Melba is a crusty old bitch, I'd tend to assume she is sending love. But not every Like is so straightforward, and not every person seems to subscribe to the same social media philosophy. I, for instance, only press the heart button when I truly heart something - like, I pause each time and carefully consider, Do I really love this? Is this worthy of my love? - but other people are out there throwing hearts around like Oprah throws out cars: YOU get a heart, and YOU get a heart, and EVERYBODY GETS A HEART! (Cut this shit out, people - it's causing heart inflation and devaluing all the other hearts out there.)

Further-further confounding things is that we - messy humans - view everything through a self-centric lens, whether it's incoming or outgoing. Aunt Melba can intend whatever she wants with that heart, but I am going to interpret it however I am inclined to interpret it. Conversely, I can hit Like or heart or angry face with whatever muddled and endlessly variable rationale driving me in that moment, but all anyone gets out of it is an opaque little icon. Am I angry along with you at the injustice detailed in the article you shared, or angry at you for posting something I disagree with, or just an angry person in general and why are you even friends with me anyway? You get to be the judge and the jury - and yes, even the victim, if you wish.

I propose a classic yet classically onerous solution: crosswalk tables. I suspect we're going to need to perfect the Vulcan mind-meld in order to get sufficiently detailed personal classification matrices in place and cross-correlated, and I predict a lot of hurt feelings coming out of that process, but it will all be worth it to have a perfect, icon-based communication system in place on social media platforms. I mean, we could try using our words and stuff, but that would take up so much valuable Facebook time plus potentially mean having to interact with other humans in person or - heaven forbid - over the phone. Ew!

In the meantime I guess we're 100% stuck communicating using only Likes and hearts. So be sure to leave me a Like. Or not. Your choice. Regardless, I will definitely be racking my brains wondering why.

Like mice to a food lever with a random interval reward schedule, these are the days of our lives.