A vote for me is a vote for??????????

I played French horn in the high school band back in the 70s.

I was terrible at it, but I surely loved band.

When we’d get ready to head for our competition events,the director would look at me, point a finger and say, “You with the French horn--  just pretend to play.  We want to win this competition!” 

Ok, I will confess that I was not musically gifted.

The secret I will confess to you, but never  to my  band director is that part of the reason I was so terrible is because I never practiced.

Face it.

You get better at what you practice.

That little axiom has no age limit.

If you want to improve yourself, it is going to take some doing.

The start-up of you by Reid Hoffman, purportedly teaches us how to “adapt to the future, invest in yourself, and transform your career.”

I totally buy into this.

The people around us change, industries change, we better be ready to “jump onto our lifeboat and regroup,” as the book suggests.

One of my favorite chapters of the book was “Do the Hustle.”

I’m pretty sure this book was not supposed to add comedic relief,but hey, laughter is the best medicine.  As the book theorizes, “No matter where you are in your career, there will be moments when you feel like your back is against the wall.  When you may be short on funds or allies or both.  When no one is knocking at your door inviting you to stuff.  These situations call for :  hustle.  (hustler is bad, but hustle is good.)

The book packs a really terrific pep talk.

Question for you?  why is it  so difficult for us to invest in ourselves? 

Doing so is not being selfish. Actually we are better equipped to help others when we have first taken the best care of ourselves.

Can I see the value of something even if it goes against my personal beliefs?

Welcome to the 2012 political season………………..

You do the Hokey Pokey

 “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”

  --Nietzsche

It is time to face the truth:  I am a book snob.

Or maybe I’m a rebel book snob, which would be even more exciting to my robin-hood-ish mindset.

And to what am I referring?

I’m just saying if a book is on the bestseller list, I avoid it.

Not that I have no intention of ever reading it, it’s just that there are plenty of books at my fingertips, and I don’t want to feel pressured into reading the “flavor of the month.”

So, I held off awhile before reading Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto.

  No, I don’t normally wait a decade to read a book, but I knew I’d get around to it eventually.’

  Or not.

“Bel Canto,” which is  Italian for “beautiful singing,” is the story of the crisis that erupts when members of a terrorist organization  take hostages in a mansion.  After realizing they have too many hostages, the group decides to keep only the hostages they deem important, including a wealthy businessman, his translator, and a beautiful opera singer.  Neither the terrorists nor the hostages can foresee the months ahead, the friendships forged, the sorrowful deaths that await.

Reminiscent of The Great Gatsby, there is beauty, politics, elegance, danger, romance, and yes, yes, the music.

Patchett says, “How much does a house know?  There could not have been gossip and yet there was a slight tension in the air, the vaguest electricity that made men lift their heads and look and find nothing.”  As a reader, I could hear the house whispering but I sure missed the message.  I could have read the ending to this book first and STILL wouldn’t have seen it coming when it arrived.