creativity, I curse thee

Classes in the craft center are not something I've indulged in lately. The choice of the word "indulged" is a perfect example of the issue at hand. Let me explain, I am in a creative funk. A creative funk I am in. In a creative funk am I. See?

I have a theory as to the whys and hows. It's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. And utter bullshit, I'm sure. But it's mine. Perhaps I should start with my fear rather than my theory. My fear is that, quite simply, the normal 9 to 5 working-world I live in will make me dumb. The struggle to sound reasonably intelligent on a consistent basis is pretty small. This is not because the people I work with are idiots, quite the contrary generally speaking, but rather the work environment prizes brevity and (what can only be described as) arena rock fist-pumping. Keeping with the arena rock metaphor, the salesmen all purchased front row tickets, upper management sit a tasteful distance from the stage to keep an eye on which way the wind is blowing, and all entry-level people fill in the space behind. I'm lucky, my work group firmly plants itself in the back row, unwilling to drink the kool-aid.* So at least I have that going for me. What's the point, you ask, dear reader? The point is, this isn't my last gig where I struggled to keep up intellectually. The struggle is good. It makes us better. I'm not trying to posit that I'm smarter than everyone I work with, merely that everyone I used to work with on a daily basis were WAY smarter than me. Way. Circling back around to the fear bit, I fear I am now dumber than I was because I no longer have the daily struggle.

My theory is that intense, sustained intellectual concentration and resultant (ahem, required) production of papers to explain your Buddha-like sitting position act as balm to one's creative thoughts. At least it did for me. You tell a story, give it suspense, evidence (!!), tease out the meaning, and hopefully don't put the reader to sleep. The part I loved about writing academic papers was making them not sound terribly academic.** Perhaps it's just the intellectual exhaustion I miss. What I'm getting at is that I had a creative outlet within my work. No such outlet exists for me now so I must go in search of it elsewhere.

For a while, this blog served as a creative outlet. I've built a kick-ass butcher block table which is functional and quite beautiful. I learned bike maintenance and various other things. But alas, I find myself in another creative funk. Creativity, I curse thee.*** Have no fear, I know what I need to do. Creativity is not something to "indulge" or pander to. It is something to chase after. This is just a rather long explanation of why my blog sucks. And my thoughts over the past couple months.

Sincerely,
AKN


* I am in a creative funk, I'm more than allowed to mix my metaphors.
** Perhaps this is a good indicator of why I ventured out into the working world rather than continuing in higher education.
*** Not really. You know what I mean anyway.

you are not going to heaven

Ummm, had an odd dream. Basically, in the course of an odd dream marathon that involved the combined summer and winter Olympics and me meeting Florence from Florence & the Machine, I ended up looking for something (not religious in nature) in a Morman Temple. Weaving through the stray, scratching dudes who were too pleased with themselves, I burst into the women's chapel on accident where services were being held. A woman walked up to me, put her hand on my head and said, "you are not going to heaven." I really paid her no mind though, because she said that through the giant rat puppet she had on her hand. And when I looked around, there were other giant rat puppet touting women basically keeping people in line all over the room and up and down the aisles.

Avoid people who only speak through rat puppets on their hands. That is the lesson of the day.

so much going on!

Okay, not really. And with that confident statement, I present a list!

1. My knees and ankles survived my alumni game. And we won! Amazing things do happen.
2. This weekend we cobbled enough sunshine together to give me a slight sun burn. Bear in mind the amount of sun it takes for me to burn if you really want to know how consistently "sunny" it was.
3. I love coffee. I know this is nothing new, but it pretty much always deserves an entry.
4. The word "synergy" featured heavily in a training I was involved in last Friday. I threw up a little in my mouth every time they said it. Actually, that training deserves a post of its own.
5. Kickball starts tomorrow people. Theoretically it will not rain. Keep your fingers crossed.
6. As a non-thieving music fan, I endorse Amazon.com for all digital music desires. They give you the mp3 and have smokin' deals on tons of stuff.
   
7. Last night I ate momos until I had to undo the top button of my pants. For real. It was like Thanksgiving, but with delicious Tibetan dumplings. Also tried butter tea. Apparently it is traditionally made with Yak butter, so I don't know what butter portion of the butter tea I consumed. But believe you me, it tasted exactly like drinking hot butter. You could have dipped bread or dunked some crab in there and been fine. Wikipedia tells me this beverage is great for living at high elevations AND chapped lips. So there ya go.

One purchase you should consider is The Bird & The Bee, Interpreting the Masters, Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall & John Oates