The Sam and BeckyBoo Show

First Quarter last year I got a pretty big promotion and my job has eaten my life since - in both a good and bad way.  I have whined plenty about the bad but there has been a lot of good too, and I have had a lot of growth in areas I desperately needed it.

My resolution was to post more, and as it’s already 1/13, it’s about time I post.  Plus, I hope not to flakeand to start w/ theFriday 10 again (cross fingers).

Went with a friend to the Ritz to see a premiere “doubleshot” for Showtime’s THE UNITED STATES OF TARA and was pretty impressed (and a little sad I do not have Showtime, although if I can get a good HD conversion deal with it in a package {Comcast = package deal ho} I may get it). It was incredible!  It is a comedy about a housewife with MPD and Toni Collete is the lead - showing a lot of sublety in a role that could easily be overacted. Highly recommend with those of you with Showtime.

And because neglecting a blog is not enough, and my neglected photos (many that I need to get off my camera and on the PC - including my Christmas Cats), I started with Facebook under my real name (mainly driven by a family member who moved out of area who has a much stronger social side than I do, so feel free to friend me.  I like that it’s not visually or aurally obnoxious like MySpace.  My view is not public, so I will need to friend you 1st.  I do still suck quite a bit at it, but I did figure out how to Catbook Sam and the Bookit.  Unlike IRL, she does not hiss there.

Next post - mfacebook dilemma and facebook nondilemma…

My bf is getting married and she’s being a little timid in asking us about gowns and such.  Despite never having been a bride, I am a big fan of letting the bride be the boss and reminded bf of that.  We know nothing she picks will be hideous or expensive, and even if it was, we’d suck it up.  Why - because she’s the bride.  That simple. The only rule I have, that I know she won’t break, is I wear no heels.  Both of us agree that bad-ankle-girl shouldn’t be getting a sprain walking down the aisle (you know, cursing in a church sucks, taking attention from bride and such).

Anyway - doing some fantasizing about my dream wedding/reception (du jour) - had a cool little vision of a ceremony in flannel jammies (men in plaid, women in cutesy prints).  Food theme - Brunch.  Full cereal bar and everything.  Saturday morning cartoons in lieu of music.  Toasting with mimosas.  Just me being nuts…

Please note - I am wearing Hello Kitty jammies as I write this…

I am my own comic book

Sometimes it’s as easy to excel as it is to find a phone booth

throw aside the glasses

to strip to tights and a cape

Sometimes I ache to succeed somewhere outside my web

to be able to be something that’s not professional and yet not a dolt

I am my own TV show

a dramedy in infinite acts

Sometimes we all react on cue - high or low

but at least it makes sense

Other times you laugh at my failures

and cry at my joy

and the confusion of pratfalls with poignancyand vice versa

is a special guest star intruding on my set

I am my own radio

although I do not have

the rhythm I need to dance to what’s playing

I fear I never will

I wouldn’t know my top ten list to save my life

I dislike the sense of lying that comes with  guessing it

The second it’s announced it’s wrong

I remember something I forgot

I am my own masterpiece

but none of the frames fit

Some days that matters

Some days not

I may have trouble seeing the beauty some days

but I refuse to give up the pen, the film, the brush

and will always hum my own tune doing it

SSDD - still going 90 MPH.  Desparately looking forward to upcoming shore weekend and Homecoming (been out of my Bachelors school 20 years - EGADS).

Things are going to get worse before they get better.  I am likely to lose A, my #2 - he is slated to move to a different area within my team. A has most of my strengths and some I don’t.  He started Act. a year after me and had transfered to my team a year after I came over, so we joke about himbeing a tagalong.

He is not a mouth like me, but he is much stronger tech-wise.  And I believe he is ready to proceed - when I went to VA for 4th of July week, I brought him up to speed on a difficult project I had mostly wrapped up “just in case” (and still left him the cell #).  It heated up with changes from the business when I was out, so he became an expert in it, and would not let me have it back to this date (sadly, if he leaves, I get it back).

Part of it is my own damned fault.  When A told me that he was looking to make the move and would get a promotion (to my level) if he was the pick of the other manager J, I knew he meant it.   He really liked the boss he had prior to coming over to our team. So after A & I talked, I found J in his office.  I told J that as much as I hated doing so, I thought it would be the worse decision he ever made if he didn’t take A.  And followed it up with saying how Andre’s entire reputation on paper is that he’s an excellent worker bee.  But every worker bee is not slated to be more than that.  Then I gave him a detailed reasoning as to why A is the worker bee who will kick butt when he would be allowed to get to the level beyond.

i.e. basically killed any chance A would be passed over

J laughed when I was done and told me that the choice between teams would be A’s because A was his 1st choice and he was glad I was being a sport about it. but he still had to go thru the motions and interview all candidates, etc.  Actually, I kind of got the impression J sought A out with the apple instead of A discovering it on his own.  Whatever, no hard feelings.

Makes me sound artificially like an angel.  But like ripping off a bandaid, I had to do it quickly.  Otherwise the conversation might have gone differently:

“Good luck with A - of course you’ll have to clear it with his parole officer.  Didn’t you notice the people who sit across from him just end up disappearing?  This is what I THINK is the complete list of topics you need to avoid so that he doesn’t have to cut you”

****************************************************

(note about the disappearing- the seat across from A has been the seat of a revolving door of consultants)

Since what seems to be my last “monthly” post (I keep intending to do this regularly again someday - maybe someday I will), I’ve had a vacation at the “end” of a busy season at work, come back to things hadn’t quite slowed down yet, and there keeps being an end in sight just around the horizon.  End meaning decelleration, not cessation (that would bring a whole slew of new worries).

My BF is in a position where it has become very clear she needs to get a new job.  Someone less competant than her just got promoted over her and several of her colleagues who were also more competant than the promotee.  A reorg restructured things to make future promotions rare to impossible.  Her headhunter is heating up her plate with new opportunities.

I got the promotion last year and I get absolutely no disrespect  that way.  I am a “lead” which is a sort of supervisor, no HR headaches but I am in charge indirectly of a couple people and keeping a huge chunk of work afloat.  I think they are great and basically like my boss and my bosses boss as well.  And I would love my job if it was going at 45 rpm instead of the 78 that seems to be steady state anymore.  Today, the side of my desk totally ate my day and I got 0% of my work done.

The new means of catching up I have (I am lucky to have a boss that supports this) is to take an occasional “work from home” day.  The insanely wonderful part of a WFH day is that peopleare a lot more disinclined to call you at home than to swing by your desk, thus making it possible for me to get a whole slew of MY work done instead of helping get everyone else’s done.  Pure heaven!  These are probably the single biggest thing (besides basically liking my job and the folk I do it with) that keeps my resume out of the headhunters hands.

One of these days I’ll get use to the pace…I think!

Chris Noth, regarding his choice to leave LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT, “When others couldn’t get television shows produced in New York, Dick Wolf found a way to do it, and as a New Yorker I truly appreciate all that he has done for the city. The last few years have been fantastic, and both sides are happy with the result. ‘All’s well that ends well.’”

This actually helped me sharpen some observations about the L&O-iverse.  I frequently find myself looking up key players in the reruns I see.  I actually see 2 groups of people frequently score guest roles.  One are theatre folk and the other are soap stars from the NY soap operas.  Some actually have a pretty good rep in both genres. And some actually get several eps, both within and across the serieses.  Barbara Garrick isan example of someone who has dabbled in soaps, Broadway, and also excelled in her supporting role (DeDe Halcyon Day) in the Tales of the City movies.

I haven’t really seen a soap in a few years, but hold none of the anti-soap snobbery.  I know many people may, I’ll hold off on disabusing you of that.  But the way I see it, soap contract players can use L&O to get a little variety creatively outside their time-intensive full-time role.  Broadway actors can get some money to help between plays.

It really seems that L&O’s survival for near 20 years may just be because it is a very favorable element in the NYC entertainment industry’s ecosystem.  And deservedly so.  I know the stark police procedural feel of these shows seems to be very cookie cutter, and I am not really a fan of their sometimes reliance on “Ripped From The Headlines”, but yet the shows are very entertaining (and sometimes thought provoking) and that may be because of the wise usage of a very talented field of players.

Figured I’d give you a bouquet of PSYCH-outs to send you to a recent Happy Place of mine. PSYCH-outs are the ending scenes from PSYCH, using the cast to remake music videos.  I was sad I couldn’t find Shawn and Gus’s “Carrbean Queen” as done while our heroes are swimming away from some baddies.

Funny + Murder Mystery = my ideal form of entertainment.  Just like Ebony +Ivory+ overly!earnest!pop!stars! = zzzzz but Ebony +Ivory+ wisecracking!competitive!BFFs!! = (ha)^8.