Category Archives: People

Carl and Me

Memories, People

I’d forgotten about my reverence for Carl Sagan until my daughter played a mash-up video for me. I think I’d seen the video before, but her excitement about Carl Sagan brought back memories of my excitement about the man.

I must have liked his series, Cosmos, or something. I don’t remember why I liked him so much. It might have been because I was teaching science at the time and especially liked astronomy. I don’t even remember what decade it was, although the 1980’s is a safe bet. It could have been the 1990’s but I don’t remember having kids when he was my hero.

Anyway, whenever it was, I thought he was a demi-god and when I heard he was going to be at an event on the Mall, I made sure we went too. The event was commemorating the 1963 march on Washington — one of the half-decade anniversaries — probably the 25th because we would have had both Clare and Andrew by the 30th anniversary.

I had pretty high expectations back then. I assumed that since Carl Sagan was going to be on the Washington Mall, I would see him. He may have talked, I don’t know. Probably. He was famous and all. We’d planned on meeting up with friends but, in the days before cell phones, never connected. There were a heck of a lot of people there.

While listening to one speaker I looked up and realized I was standing next to Betty Thomas. And when I say up I mean UP. She is very tall. (Since Hill Street Blues ended in 1987, I’m more and more sure this event was in the 1980’s). Betty took no notice of me, but I felt like this was really an event since she was just part of the crowd.

Later, Dean and I walked around. I politely took,  and mistakenly looked at, a pamphlet from someone who was part of an organization I’d not heard of: PETA. No more meat for me until 1990 when I became pregnant with Clare.

We continued walking and saw a crowd of people ahead. As we got closer, I saw that the crowd was gathered around a dark haired man. As we got even closer I realized it was Carl Sagan. I stood on the outskirts of the crowd, wanting to tell him of my admiration, but being too afraid. He smiled and walked and talked with the crowd. I looked away and began walking — perhaps trying to find Dean or maybe just following him. I looked down at the ground — it was crowded. I didn’t want to fall. I bumped into someone. Looking up I saw I’d bumped into Carl Sagan. I muttered my apologies and ran away, heart beating faster than it probably should.

So, that’s the story of Carl and me.

Here’s the mash-up video if you have not seen it (I later fell in love with Bill Nye):

Why I should never leave my attic

People, Rant

If I could explain my behavior this morning, it might help those who know me in person to understand where I’m coming from when I act the way I do in certain situations.

There are times (most of the time) when I’m content to take a back seat. When I’m content to do whatever I’m told and that’s that. Most of my life was spent in the back seat (Indigo Bunting — not that back seat) and I knew very little about the front seat, but once I tasted leadership I was addicted (another blog post altogether).

Anyway, until a few days ago I thought I was going to be the most knowledgeable person on a team of volunteers brought together to redesign the website for our local high school. I’d been on redesign teams before and had singlehandedly redesigned a number of websites. Then I was told that another person wanted to join the team. This person immediately sent out an email with all the thoughts and questions I’d had, but was planning on bringing up at the meeting because I didn’t want to overwhelm the team.

I responded with a couple of paragraphs only to show (the new person) I wasn’t some web design Luddite — that I knew a thing or two about web design. I was also pissed off. And when Dona gets pissed off, she sometimes is impossible to deal with (and talks in Facebookish third person).

So today we had our meeting. The PTSA president had us introduce ourselves and I introduced myself as someone who wanted to learn the content management system that the county provided and as a usability & accessibility specialist. When it got to the new guy he took up a lot of time telling us his credentials (large websites, own company, international blah blah zzzzzzzzz). I admit to not always looking his way and nodding in a polite manner.

Then the PTSA president suggested we talk about the county content management system but newguy interrupted and began talking about why it was a bad idea to use the system that was already in place. He obviously wants a static system where a set number of people are sent things to upload in HTML. Or something. I was wiggling, then sleeping.

Come on. He talked for 20 minutes.

At one point I interrupted him and I think we are now at battle. Unfortunately one of the assistant principals thinks he’s got a good idea.

In the meantime I’m the Usability Queen.

Gaaagh

(Ok, I didn’t explain why I’m such a bitch. Sorry. Maybe next time)

Busy — but that’s good

Events, People

November and December are busy months. Not just for me, but for most people I know. Family & social gatherings for the holidays are most of the reason — at least for us. We tend to try to pack things in before the rush of the holiday season sets in — and sometimes end up with more than we can handle.

We’d been meaning to have a small dinner party for some neighbors and I put it off until November for no reason than laziness. That’s planned for this coming Saturday. Then we were invited for dinner at another neighbor’s house on Sunday. Then we got an invitation to a small gathering of parents of wrestlers for Friday. The next day we received another invitation to a combined meeting & dinner party with the wrestling coaches and parents of the entire team for Saturday.

1 weekend, 4 dinner party invitations. And we’re doing them all. At least Dean will be doing them all. I’m not going to the party on Saturday because I’ll be cooking paella for my neighbors. Dean will simply show up here late.

I discovered this weekend (but really knew this already) that I really need to socialize [offline] more often. I’d been in a funk for a while — sometimes not leaving the house for days. I’d get up, turn on the computer, work / play / work /maybe shower/ play /work / play on the computer until it was time to make dinner. When Dean got home I had little to say and often would return to the computer for more work / play / work before going to bed. I’d do this all week and even some weekends. I’m not sure it is actually laziness — more like inertia.

This Saturday, after attending BarCampDC, I felt like a new person. It wasn’t just the sessions I attended, but being around people. On Sunday I went to a local Unitarian church with a friend. While I may not go back to that church,  I enjoyed the day. They were very welcoming. I’m not really looking for a church, but this might do if and when I do decide to attend a church regularly. I was around people again.

I had a hard time settling down to do work yesterday afternoon — I have a lot of deadlines to meet this week. Part of the reason was that the weather — 70 degrees in November — was amazing. But another part was the solitude. I felt lonely — something that I’d not felt in a long time, at least not that I recognized.

So, I’m glad that we have a lot of activities coming up — this food packed weekend, then Thanksgiving weekend, then work parties, book groups, Christmas. Maybe a resolution should be to be more social in an off-line kind of way. Hopefully the good kind of inertia has taken hold.