July 17, 2002 |
The Adventures of Paisley
Blue
This has been a big day for me, professionally and privately. Let me tell you all about it.
Everyone remembers the first time they ever drove a stick shift. Well, my first time was today, in the middle of rush hour traffic in downtown Seattle. Let's just say that I was a passenger in the brown car and the person who was driving it could no longer drive it. It was up to me. It was not an option to park it and leave it where it was.
I pulled out into traffic with a lurch and immediately was confused by the addition of a third pedal at my feet. My passenger assisted me with shifting, telling me when to press on the clutch... and we lurched along. Somehow I made it, but I was so freaked out by the time I parked it that I was shaking. Oh my goodness! Later it was funny, though, and made a good story.
At work I attended the big meeting that I mentioned yesterday. For me, it was exhilerating to be there, to participate, and to even provide some input. This is one of the biggest name web projects I've ever been involved in, and it'll look way cool on my resume.
In the meantime I finished up the rush project that I was given Monday. It consists of a calendar of events that covers a two-week period, an online registration form, and a little thank you page that pops up after you register. When someone submits the form, it goes to an email account, and also goes to a text file that can be opened in Excel.
Due to my attention to detail and desire to make it easy for everyone who has to work with this data, it looks absolutely awesome. I was called a miracle worker. Tomorrow the program that these webpages was built for will be launched with all the staff in my organization. We'll start getting those registration emails and with the aid of that text file, we will be able to easily keep track of how many people sign up for each event.
I was really cooking at work. Sometimes I think that it doesn't show much, because when I've completed hours and hours worth of work, there is just a few webpages to show for it. However, those pages are beautiful and streamlined, all the bugs are worked out of them, and I get to interject my creativity and that little habit I have of trying to make things better than originally envisioned.
Every now and then it's good to do things like that so your superiors remember why they love you so much. LOL
I left work pretty much on time which felt good, especially considering how late I worked the night before. When I got home, Michael and Mechanic weren't really doing much, but somehow before long we all got motivated to start cleaning the house. I believe Michael gets the credit for that.
Yesterday we had decided to go to the Sea Wolf for karaoke, and we kept to those plans. I had been looking forward to it all day. In some ways, the idea of going out and having fun helped me stay motivated and happy at work today.
We decided to take the bus up there and keep enough money held back to take a taxi home. As it turns out, Queen gave us a ride home which was much appreciated. While we were there, though, we all sang. Mechanic and I sang "Somewhere Out There" and while it was fun, I'm afraid I butchered some parts of the female vocals. But he just laughed and I kept going, and at the end, people clapped. At least they didn't just sit there silently. LOL
Michael sang a few songs, including "Thunder Rolls" (Garth Brooks), "New York, New York" (Frank Sinatra) and "Bright Eyes" (who sang that?). I did a few, too. "She's Got You" (Patsy Cline) went really well - it's one that I've done so many times that I think I do it nicely.
When I did "Just Like Jesse James" (Cher) I was really putting my soul into it. The most awesome thing, though, was when a gentleman came up and tipped me a dollar and a kiss on the cheek. I was stunned!
I also sang "I Can't Make You Love Me" (Bonnie Raitt) and later Mechanic told me it made him cry. That's another song that I pour my heart into. My last song was "Grandpa" (The Judds). What I really love after each song is the eruption of applause -- it's like there's a split second where you don't know whether or not people liked you, but then you hear the clapping begin.
There's just something about the applause, the pats on the back and the people who come up to me and tell me how much they love my singing... it's addictive. I always feel like I'm sharing something with the audience. I could easily slip into a little fantasy daydream here.... Paisley loses several pounds and becomes knock-out gorgeous, gets better at her singing and performing, and somehow gets discovered ending up with her own recording contract and concert tours......
Okay, fantasy over. LOL
When we got home, we walked into a nice, clean apartment. It was very cool. We were still energized and feeling hungry, so Michael made some awesome egg-sausage-cheese sandwiches.
It's been months since I've done karaoke. It's probably also been months since I impressed my job like I did. Today was a good day.
~Paisley Blue
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