9:29AM: Ensconced in conference room. It's like a bunker, underground, with a thin rug striped with more varieties of brown than Ireland has green. Exposed fluorescent tubes beneath fames of square steel. One mid-room panel of lights dark. A gray projector, boxy and grim like Soviet architecture, hangs forlornly a foot down from the ceiling. The walls are yellow. The chairs comfortable; flexible; rockable.10:07AM: Silo used to be an agricultural term. Now hear it in business setting. I think it means isolated workgroups. Possible usage: "we are removing silos".
10:11AM: "Better alignment": not just for chiropractor conferences anymore.
10:12AM: Over/under on usage of word "synergies" has been reached at seven.
10:15AM: Tag-team speakers. All the speakers had an introduction except the person who introduced the first speaker. The initial introducer forced to introduce himself.
10:16AM: Second usage of "it is what it is." Very, very hot phrase these days. Number of times "Get 'er done!" heard? None.
10:17AM: Subprime! More hated word than "neocon" these days.
10:18AM: Sales momentum...or sails momentum? Context requires superhuman concentration.
10:20AM: Much focus on sales. Or sails. Sales of sails?
10:21AM: Over/under threshold for usage of word "align" met at sixteen.
10:22AM: So many words yet so little word diversity. "Diversity" itself used an amazing number of times.
10:32AM: Drifting...HOUSE episode last night ended cryptically. Was his self-sacrificing for his friend Wilson that despite denial?
10:33AM: Danger Will Robinson! Boredom reaching critical levels. Must evacuate present...proceed immediately to nostalgia refuge floor...
The '80s were lived as if in amniotic fluid, like underwater, invertebrate, weightless, effortless, limbs light with the easy motions of youth. Flashbacks of odd memories: the tan couch cushions of the college rec room, community property winding around to a small antechamber filled with the pale black and whites, '50s portraits of the horses that had been there before me.
Time meditative, there on the well-lit court, the shine of the gym floor, addressing the foul line as a golfer his shot. One fluid motion and then reassuring swish. Later, the gleam of the bar, leaning elbows, males standing quaffing beers. Immobile except for shameful bathroom breaks ("can't hold your liquor" meant small bladder). Stationary as plants, but predatory plants, Venus' fly traps trying to catch passing girls...
...with auburn hair and tawny eyes;
The kind of eyes that hypnotize me through;
Hypnotize me through.
And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldn't get away.
A cloud appears above your head;
A beam of light comes shining down on you,
Shining down on you.
The cloud is moving nearer still.
Aurora borealis comes in view;
Aurora comes in view. -- "I Ran"; from A Flock of Seagulls
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