Motivational clothing

Long meetings and difficult people always make me squirm. Speakers who attempt to win my support in meetings generally are wasting their breath—I come from the school of thought that says that most real work is done outside meetings, that if you don’t know what decision will be made in the meeting, you probably should not go in. Posturing and posing bore me. Games counting the incidence of corporate-speak make me giggle. Try it. Count them: “at the end of the day,” “net net,” “low hanging fruit,” “opportunity to collaborate,” “draw a bright line,” “where is the tipping point?”

Knitting helps. Focusing on the next stitch and the next and the next somehow makes it easier for me to focus on what the speaker is saying. More important to other meeting participants, the need to watch those stitches keeps me from over-contributing.

The other thing that helps—a lot, as it turns out—is knowing I have on really great underwear. As I seem to listen intently, I am really thinking about my pink and white lace bra with matching tanga with the flower on the back. Or the sculptured lace frill that I wore yesterday. It’s just hard to take irrational ranting seriously when you think about your underwear instead.

In the same spirit, I am saddened to report the loss of one of my favorite shoes. They were cute and comfy, a mary jane style in black sneaker fabric with white and silver trim. When I wore those shoes, I always felt I could go faster and jump higher. I even felt smarter and younger. But Toby, who loves all my shoes indiscriminately, appears to have made off with one of them. I suspect that it has been buried in snow and will only reappear with the spring.