damn you, Phil!

We are all home today. It is overcast and just cool enough that we all pulled out our jeans to wear on a morning excursion to Whole Foods for coffee (or milk, depending on which family member you are) and muffins.

I am going to try not to think about work too much this weekend, but I do have to get one thing off my chest before I retire the subject, and I'm warning you, it ends with a Dilbert analogy. It's that not pretty.

Lately my job has been flirting with me, me and my decision to quit. The fact is, I like being Someone (at least a small, provincial someone) in my field.

Just this week, I got to attend a really smart presentation by some out-of-town design consultants at a schwanky club, which is so not my scene but I do enjoy the open bar, constantly circulating hors d’ouevres, and general atmosphere of Gilded Age opulence as an occasional treat; give a presentation on my work to a class of wide-eyed undergraduates – very rewarding; and receive a hand-written invitation from a former NY Times fashion editor, who has bought the Granite Building downtown, to her private preview of said building.

The point is not that my job is so glamorous, because that could not be farther from the truth. The point is – actually there are two points: 1. I like my chosen field and really don’t want to leave it, and 2. Notice that all of the above-mentioned events took place outside the office.

As a non-corporate drone, I’ve never seen my life in terms of Dilbert references, but I do now feel as if I’ve wandered into the cartoon in which Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light and Supreme Ruler of Heck, wearing a devil costume and brandishing a spoon, visits Dilbert in his cubicle and says: “You can choose eternal high pay, but your work will be burned in front of you at the end of each day. Or you can choose eternal poverty, but your work will be useful and appreciated.” Just substitute positive/poisonous work environments for the high/poor pay.

Hokay. Now that I've hung my own little cartoon version of a Faustian dilemma out for all to see, here are some gratuitous pictures of things that make me unambiguously happy, followed by another reference to my favorite invertebrate:


My carnelian bangle and red mary janes



Striped tights and Austrian boiled-wool houseshoes on two-year-old legs and feet



Iris wanting a spoon to stir her drink just like Mama stirred her iced coffee.

Iris on octopi: Why ottopusses have eight arms?

Me: So they can grab lots of things.

Iris: Like books! They can grab eight books!