I will no longer be updating Iron Guide (see below). Instead, I am now writing at my new, personal blog. Though that will be about some of the newer things I'm doing in life, if you want to see updates about Louie, Lester, and now Dusky, add me on Facebook -- there's enough ridiculously cute pictures to go around.

A few people, including my mom [!], have come up wondering if everything is OK between Frank and I. So, now, I'm worried that my post wasn't sufficiently clear and that people are getting totally the wrong impression.

Really, everything is good. We had a rough couple weeks, but we're back in the green now. Frank and I are and have always been on the same page. (As much as humanly possible for two very passionate, very driven, and very goal-oriented people.) We may not always agree, but we do always respect each others' opinions. My post was just an amusing analogy that had popped into my silly head, and in no way some kind of profound, covert commentary on the state of my team or our managers.

I thought that I'd added enough hints and (bad) jokes to make that clear, but I guess I was wrong. I had, for example, very carefully and very consciously inserted "(understandably)" into "Frank, our manager, went home (understandably) very grumpy." I totally understood his position and my post was in no way intended to reflect on him. I just found the parallel between human behavior and puppy training amusing and wrote an entry on it. Nothing more, nothing less. I guess that wasn't totally clear though. Sorry about that.

All this reminds me of my 10th grade English teacher, Ms. Yamaguchi, from whom I learned more about writing than any other (living) person. (If you allow dead people, that would add Victor Hugo and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Or their translators, at the very least.) Ms. Yamaguchi, summarized in two sentences:

"I don't care how clear you think it is. If it's not clear to me, it's not clear."

Take a moment to internalize that. She's not being mean or self-centered. She's saying, as a writer, your first and only responsibility is to your reader. People write to communicate, and regardless of how well you thought you communicated, if the other person doesn't think you communicated well, you didn't communicate well. Period. If your reader doesn't understand you, then it doesn't matter how beautiful or articulate you thought it was, your supposed masterpiece was a waste of perfectly good trees.

I guess in my case it was a waste of electrons.

Now, all that said, let me return you back to your regularly scheduled programming. Enough talk of these boring humans. Where's Lester? He's sleeping under my chair. My toes are cold, so I've got them stuffed under his (very warm and toasty) belly. The little joys of having a dog. :)

Labels: Lester

Permalink | Written at 3:23 AM | Post a comment | 1 comments | Trackbacks

poor lester.. he has to warm your toes now! :o
and 'waste of electrons' ?? u gotta explain that sometime...
Permalink   | Posted by  Karan at February 17, 2007 10:28 PM