[deleted paragraphs about election returns]
Hey! Pretty heartening U.S. election returns, eh?
[deleted paragraph about weather and leaky apartment windows]
Guess what? It's cold here.
But my new all-glass door is tight and dry. I love it!
And now...
I had a revelation last week:
I DON'T WANT TO STUDY NONPROFITS.
I don't want to go into business management, even for Important Causes.
NO. I am not suited.
I want to be an artist!
I mean, I want to spend my time on fiddling with things, and with bits of things, including words, at my own whim.
This will be more profitable all-round because it will protect me (and those around me) from terminal annoyance.
In recent weeks, I'd gone to the library twice to get books about nonprofits--once re fundraising, once re creating and running committees--my workplace does neither, or not well...
I'd researched, read, and chose key passages online about best practices for nonprofits.
It was fun, because I like digging into things, and it was annoying to realize how our practices are far from the best. I was wondering, I truly was, if I should sign up for some workshops... grad school even fleetingly occurred to me.
It became clear to me that my boss wasn't reading the carefully selected passages I was sending him. He's good, but he's not a reader: when he asks me for help, I'm realizing he means in spoken word, and actions.
That can work.
Still, I was pissed off and deflated at the same time, and I felt lonely, tribeless among nonreaders.
"What should I be doing here?" I asked. And what do I want to be doing?
My job is to be a custodian of books.
I should do that.
I want to do that.
Further, I think "fixing" the store might break it.
Things that drive me crazy, I also benefit from:
Because there's no oversight, I could ask ArtSparker for a bookmark, print and distribute it, without getting approval.
That is not "best practice," and I do well with it.
(My boss did say he loved the bookmark when I showed it to him, printed up.)
Yesterday, it was as if I were rewarded for recognizing my Personal Best Practice:
When I got to work, my desk was blocked in with a couple dozen boxes--dropped off, my workmate told me, by "a guy in a van."
That was hopeful, as opposed to boxes dropped off from our warehouse truck.
The truck picks up leftovers of library sales and the like, and I get boxes of worn paperback bestsellers––equivalent to hit TV shows from the 1980s––and hardback thrillers, only read once.
My nonreading bosses think these shiny books are the good ones, but they are a dime a dozen.
(NO MORE TOM CLANCY!!!)
Plenty of individuals have libraries of them same sort, of course, but I was hopeful.
And . . .
BINGO!
The first book I pulled out was a 1928 copy of "We" by Charles Lindbergh. The 33rd impression = not valuable to collectors, but a Cool Old Book, for sure, with its yellow, embossed biplane flying across a blue cover.
I priced it high: $4.99.
I've barely started unpacking, but I've pulled out a couple cool old things too--including this amazing glass jar:
It has a screw-on metal lid that identifies it as a mustard jar, and I was able to find out it's Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949.
It reminds me of a Benin mask--like this ivory one (at the Met).
* goes off to work, singing,
"I aint' gonna study nonprofits no more..."
Hey! Pretty heartening U.S. election returns, eh?
[deleted paragraph about weather and leaky apartment windows]
Guess what? It's cold here.
But my new all-glass door is tight and dry. I love it!
And now...
I had a revelation last week:
I DON'T WANT TO STUDY NONPROFITS.
I don't want to go into business management, even for Important Causes.
NO. I am not suited.
I want to be an artist!
I mean, I want to spend my time on fiddling with things, and with bits of things, including words, at my own whim.
This will be more profitable all-round because it will protect me (and those around me) from terminal annoyance.
In recent weeks, I'd gone to the library twice to get books about nonprofits--once re fundraising, once re creating and running committees--my workplace does neither, or not well...
I'd researched, read, and chose key passages online about best practices for nonprofits.
It was fun, because I like digging into things, and it was annoying to realize how our practices are far from the best. I was wondering, I truly was, if I should sign up for some workshops... grad school even fleetingly occurred to me.
It became clear to me that my boss wasn't reading the carefully selected passages I was sending him. He's good, but he's not a reader: when he asks me for help, I'm realizing he means in spoken word, and actions.
That can work.
Still, I was pissed off and deflated at the same time, and I felt lonely, tribeless among nonreaders.
"What should I be doing here?" I asked. And what do I want to be doing?
My job is to be a custodian of books.
I should do that.
I want to do that.
Further, I think "fixing" the store might break it.
Things that drive me crazy, I also benefit from:
Because there's no oversight, I could ask ArtSparker for a bookmark, print and distribute it, without getting approval.
That is not "best practice," and I do well with it.
(My boss did say he loved the bookmark when I showed it to him, printed up.)
Yesterday, it was as if I were rewarded for recognizing my Personal Best Practice:
When I got to work, my desk was blocked in with a couple dozen boxes--dropped off, my workmate told me, by "a guy in a van."
That was hopeful, as opposed to boxes dropped off from our warehouse truck.
The truck picks up leftovers of library sales and the like, and I get boxes of worn paperback bestsellers––equivalent to hit TV shows from the 1980s––and hardback thrillers, only read once.
My nonreading bosses think these shiny books are the good ones, but they are a dime a dozen.
(NO MORE TOM CLANCY!!!)
Plenty of individuals have libraries of them same sort, of course, but I was hopeful.
And . . .
BINGO!
The first book I pulled out was a 1928 copy of "We" by Charles Lindbergh. The 33rd impression = not valuable to collectors, but a Cool Old Book, for sure, with its yellow, embossed biplane flying across a blue cover.
I priced it high: $4.99.
I've barely started unpacking, but I've pulled out a couple cool old things too--including this amazing glass jar:
It has a screw-on metal lid that identifies it as a mustard jar, and I was able to find out it's Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949.
It reminds me of a Benin mask--like this ivory one (at the Met).
* goes off to work, singing,
"I aint' gonna study nonprofits no more..."
