Everything Is Smaller

My initial response to England is this: Everything Is Smaller. I think that's one of the main differences between here and the US. The second (and related) is, Everything Is Older.

The biggest (ha!) thing that strikes me is how much smaller the houses generally are. Smaller doors, smaller rooms, narrower hallways, steeper stairwells. This place is directly opposite of the dozens of new, gigantic homes I watched filling the valleys of Utah, with few windows and tiny, freshly planted trees. It doesn't seem to be a matter of not having enough room for a larger house, because most English properties I've seen have extensive backyards (while American houses increasingly have very small yards), but people seem content to live in much less space here. They're pretty creative with what space they do have, none of it's wasted, so you have these interesting nooks and crannies. America is not generally a nook and cranny nation, but I find that I love them. I have to admit that, by and large, smaller usually works just fine.

So instead of feeling cramped, I've been wondering why exactly we need so much room in the States. Is it that we value living space more than the English, who value their gardens more? Is it just that the older houses in England were smaller, so they're used to it, while America is comparatively new and the land is great and spacious? I've been thinking maybe it also taps a little into America's focus on the individual. A person's importance is reflected in the amount of space in his/her home, whether or not that space is actually used.

Not that every person in America is arrogant and self-important—certain things in the US, like stairs and doorways, probably have to be a certain size according to laws and building codes anyway. But it's interesting to consider a cultural difference.

However quaint and thought-provoking, smaller houses can be a little strange for a tall person. One of the first things I noticed was the placement of the doorknobs at the Cameron's. I was just short enough to not bump my head on some of the old doorframes, but I had to stoop a tiny bit to use the knob. The picture is me at my little bedroom door, standing at full height. Is the knob low, or am I gargantuan? That is the question.

The Travelblog

I'd like to turn your attention to the latest gadget in the right sidebar, a feed for my new blog, "No, England." I've talked to many acquaintances who want to know generally what I'm up to in England, and these requests for updates gave me an interesting quandary. I realized that while I'm fine sharing these Rhyme and Reason thoughts with perfect strangers or close friends, strangely the thought of showing them to mere acquaintances makes me uneasy. Close friends know me well enough to understand, and strangers can think whatever they want about me, I don't care, but acquaintances . . . They know just enough about me to possibly misunderstand what I write and then associate me ever after with the misunderstood conception. Which makes seeing them again rather awkward.

So I created "No, England" as a two-month travelblog to give out to everyone for general news and pictures, while this blog remains the spot for anecdotes, opinions, internal debates, and rhymes. Just so y'all know.

Spinning

When she goes, she's gone
If she stays, she stays here
Girl knows what she wants to do
She knows what she wants to do . . .

Simon and Garfunkel, "Fakin It"

Do you ever feel like you're standing in the middle of a freeway? Maybe standing on the barely-there cement median, smack between four busy lanes of traffic? And you stand there, ready to spring forward or back, trying to catch the eyes of the drivers whizzing by carelessly in their machines, looking for a break so you can cross. After awhile it gets really frustrating. You wonder why they can't see you standing there, waving your arms. "Could you just slow down a sec? Hey! Hello! Just stop, it'll just take a minute, then I'll be on my way and you all can drive off to wherever you're so anxious to go. Hey! Could you FREAKING LET ME CROSS ALREADY?"

Well, that's been the past week for me. Life is whizzing by, dragging doppler smears through my days. I'm less than two weeks from moving out, driving home, and then flying to England, and it's terrifying. I have a job to quit, with all its trainings and last-minute projects and goodbye rituals; an apartment to move out of, reminding me once again how much I hate moving; old friends to say frantic goodbyes to; and on top of all that I get to see the new coming in, impatient to replace the old.

That last part is embodied in the new roommate that moved in late last week. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth the effort to get to know her, since I don't expect to be home much while she is, but I'm leaning against it. She's been zealously industrious at reorganizing the entire apartment, shaking her head but patiently holding her tongue as she quickly erases the evidence of my and my roommates' obvious organizational stupidity. Mixing bowls in the kitchen? How foolish! Let's stuff them in the pantry down the hall! So much better!

When you're hesitating in the middle of a freeway, it really doesn't help to have someone standing right behind you, claiming the median for their own and all but shoving you headlong into traffic.

So I'm overwhelmed. I sit at home in all my half-packed junk, and suddenly all I can do is play Freecell or sprawl on the couch watching the Olympics. I go to work and sit in my chair, memos and to-do lists spread over the surface of my desk, and all I can do is stare blankly at my computer screen. Where do I begin? How can I possibly get all this done before I leave? Could everything just STOP, just HOLD STILL FOR A FEW FREAKING MINUTES WHILE I FIGURE THIS OUT?

Work

The All-Hands Meeting

Conference center welcome beeps
important message from the veeps:

"Innovation Home Workstation(blah)
Value-Added Branding Rules
Customer(blah blah) Sales Transformation
(blah)Winning Global Action Tools
Advantage Reaching (blah blah blah)Competition
Total Core Competency
Local (blah)Area Solution
Practice Ethics(blah) Policy
Powerful Alignment Session(blah blah)
Team(blah) Acquired Network Port
Training Scheduling Concession
(blah)Profit End-of-(blah)Year Report."

Back to work. Can hardly wait
for next time they communicate.

***

I've felt quite a range of emotions this past month at work, a few short weeks before I leave; running the gamut from bored to furious to grateful to nostalgic. The hardest part of the job—of any job—is working with people, and although this office is homogenous in a lot of ways, we definitely have a variety of personalities. I have learned a lot by rubbing shoulders with them.

I'm going to miss a lot of things, but one thing I won't, I have to say, is tangled corporate hierarchy and jargon. Don't tell the bigwigs, but during the conference call meetings our office has paper airplane wars. I will miss those.