The Little Words Mean the Most

Why go to Australia?

People ask: It's 30 hours on a plane each direction. Why?

Because of the shoes. I went to Australia to speak at a conference, 30 hours in an aluminum tube both ways, with a surplus of food and drink on hand. My consumer destination: R. M. Williams, the outback outfitter. I craved their half-boots. In the US, think Orvis.

Flying business/first class. The chairs recline into beds. You're handed pajamas. Barely tolerable: "Mom, are we there yet?!?"

I almost ran screaming from my seat. But then they served the duck breast. With unlimited champagne.

If you flew around the globe constantly, you'd gain 10 pounds every revolution. I came back with two pairs of shoes designed in the 1930s and built to outlast asteroid collisions. Plus I bought smoked, salted peanuts with the skins still on, in Adelaide. Criminally addictive. If you could go to jail for crunch.

I don't lie.

I tell pre-truths.

Carol Scott, Mushroom Raider - Episode 2

What do I have?

Have we put schools in the wrong hands?

In the previous century, we put schools on a pedestal. The Great Books. The eternal verities. We hired pillars to lead them: straight, strong, and true. And, of course, now they are a-holes. I have just returned from Australia, where clichés about the English academy apparently travel to die (someday, unremarked). Headmasters there are up in arms about grammar. As in: sticking to the way it was in Victoria's court. If it didn't dent the confidence of so many eager-to-succeed fundraisers, it would be worth a sorry laugh.

Hello, slug-a-beds

And this is the jet-lag report, just in. It's 1:19 AM and I am wide awake, taking photos and arranging my office. You can see my projects lined up for the coming week, one pile per client. The ones in the front are current, the ones in the back are inactive at the moment. Since no project has a hard, looming deadline, the ALARM signs remain at rest on their push pins. The window is open. Inside, it's warm-to-stifling. Outside, it's cool-to-chilly. It's pitch black; we have no street lights. Night sounds in the country lean toward geese honks and heavy engines and the occasional wild animal on wild animal attack. Like a bucket of diamond paint spilled across a dark linoleum sky.

In my own defense...

...I did travel more than 10,000 miles on Friday, Sept. 10, 2010, Adelaide to Fostah, Roe Dyeland. So if I have nothing really to say at this late moment past gurgles I claim your indulgence. I am monumentally lagged.

Field note: I checked with several Aussies, and they confirmed that there are really only two national sayings you need to know: (1) "G'day" (add "mate," if the person is male; or "Madam Prime Minister" if you're addressing the nation's new chief of state; and (2) "No worries." In French, #2 translates to a murmured "D'accord," a refined social lubricant accompanied often by a tiny nod.

Step 1 to the other side of the planet

Step 1: get to Logan airport, for the flight to LA. Done. Here. Checked in. I leave behind the pleasures of Simone and Laura, my two faves. I leave behind the miracle weeping frame. And I leave behind the pressure of sharp notes to myself.

 

What school did you go to?

I went to All-Time High.

That was the level of attendance at my workshop for the Virginia Association of Fund Raising Executives back in February 2009. I know this because Simone is scheduled to speak for the same fine folks on September 14 in Richmond and will not, apparently, be attending All-Time High herself, as her much more esoteric topic has attracted so far (there could still be a surge) about a third as many attendees....

I want the "Palin Package"

I was signing a contract for speaking in Kansas City in November, to be followed by speaking in Tucson, to be followed by speaking in Toronto, to be preceded by speaking in Amsterdam, to be preceded by speaking in Texas, to be preceded by speaking in Adelaide, Australia next week. And here's what I began thinking: I want the "Palin Package." You know, the list of demands Sarah Palin has for her speaking venues. Flights: first class or private jet. Fees: astronomical. Extras, well, there you go: one moose, ready for the kill shot; a teenage daughter who isn't pregnant and unwed; and lots of soothing appendage stuff. You know, those pedi- and handi-cures.

The Army of the People's Republic of China...

...their logo police invaded the garden, painting the nasty nasturtiums corporate green and good-luck red.