Things You See When You Leave the House
After a long, cooped-up winter I successfully left the house yesterday, and just like I predicted, leaving the house set me up to see something at least halfway remarkable. I went to a presentation and when the woman giving it walked in I stared at her, thunderstruck, because she looked almost exactly like someone I dated years ago. Not just appearance, but height, subtle nuances in gait and posture, type of hair style and footgear, it just went on and on. I tried to talk myself out of it, kept looking for distinct differences, but never managed to find any. If I ever have a chance to talk to a geneticist I'm going to ask if it's possible, in certain very rare instances, for a blonde woman in her forties to have a younger, brunette twin sister.
Another remarkable thing was the strong turnout for this presentation, which was on social-network marketing. Just a few years ago, every business dude kept repeating those words and the phrase "Web 2.0" as if they were mantras like "nam myoho renge kyo" that would make you wildly successful if you just kept saying them mindlessly over and over again, whether you knew what they meant or not. And maybe the idea still retains a bit of mystical allure the less you know about it. Personally I was about at the level most of the other people in the room were—we knew what it was, vaguely, and knew it was probably worthwhile, and also knew it involves extra work. But it's like a law of physics or something that everything worthwhile involves extra work, doesn't it? Can't seem to avoid it, somehow.
I also noticed that the little perennial flowers are blooming, the snowdrops and such. I'll leave it to Verlyn Klinkenborg (who I'm sure is a very nice man) to wring reams of lyrical, rhythmic, pseudopoetic (and at least for Verlyn, obscenely lucrative) prose out of such an observation. They were pretty, certainly. And after all the snow excitement their blooming seemed very matter-of-fact. The storms were dramatic, but the flowers are calm and self-possessed, like people who wake up with pleasantly sleepy smiles, yawn and stretch, and ask what's for breakfast. It's spring again, just like that. That's another thing I noticed, because I left the house.
Another remarkable thing was the strong turnout for this presentation, which was on social-network marketing. Just a few years ago, every business dude kept repeating those words and the phrase "Web 2.0" as if they were mantras like "nam myoho renge kyo" that would make you wildly successful if you just kept saying them mindlessly over and over again, whether you knew what they meant or not. And maybe the idea still retains a bit of mystical allure the less you know about it. Personally I was about at the level most of the other people in the room were—we knew what it was, vaguely, and knew it was probably worthwhile, and also knew it involves extra work. But it's like a law of physics or something that everything worthwhile involves extra work, doesn't it? Can't seem to avoid it, somehow.
I also noticed that the little perennial flowers are blooming, the snowdrops and such. I'll leave it to Verlyn Klinkenborg (who I'm sure is a very nice man) to wring reams of lyrical, rhythmic, pseudopoetic (and at least for Verlyn, obscenely lucrative) prose out of such an observation. They were pretty, certainly. And after all the snow excitement their blooming seemed very matter-of-fact. The storms were dramatic, but the flowers are calm and self-possessed, like people who wake up with pleasantly sleepy smiles, yawn and stretch, and ask what's for breakfast. It's spring again, just like that. That's another thing I noticed, because I left the house.
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