Sometimes “Less” is “More”

I was watching a powerpoint presentation this morning and when it was finished, I realized that I hadn’t read a single word of it! The pretty colored typewriter entrances were so beautiful as the letters danced, one by one, onto the screen from alternating corners!…Ah! What a work of art! I started thinking about flowers, animations, beautiful snowstorms,…the waterfall I had seen yesterday!… “Calia? Do you have anything to add on the subject?”…uh…what?…I wondered how long it had been over…and what the heck was the presentation about?… “Yes! I just want to say that I think Mary did a really nice job on this!”…Luckily my strong personality was one that could insight a crowd and there was an instant round of applause for Mary’s hard work that permanently distracted everyone from my real answer that would’ve been, “huh?” I tuned out the conversation again as I thought about all the times in college I had used a similar technique!

I flashed back to an evening when I was sitting in a drafting class (I think…I actually have no idea what the class was about). It was about an hour and 45 minutes into the class when I found myself pushing the desk with my foot, slowly out of the room to prevent the numbing in my brain from overcoming my vital organs! The door slammed on the room as I cleared the threshold and sat, still in my chair, on the other side in the hallway. Seconds later, the professor opened the door and said, “Calia? Do we need to take a break?”… “Oh my God YES! Thank you!”…Luckily this professor understood the creative mind…either that or he knew that it was likely the department would need my singing voice for an upcoming show and it was best not to worry about the fact that there would be no chance that I was going to be able to do any drafting after this 4 credit course was completed! – He was right! I still can’t draft and I don’t even remember going to that class after that day. I have no idea what happened. Hmm…The question does remain however…how the heck did I get those degrees of mine? I have to assume that in my case, “more” was “less” and my versions of the assignments given may have been completely off the mark, but at the top of the entertainment meter! Lucky me!

Now I use my brain for something other than perpetuating the image of the dumb blonde performer!…Boy! It sure was a lot of work! Once in a while I tune my thoughts to a different channel out of habit, but most of the time, when I have no idea what’s going on, I just answer a question with a thought that stimulates the conversation in a useful direction….ie: “Yes. The presentation was very good, though I wondered what she was getting at on slide 16? What do you think?”…Someone else who wasn’t listening will be bound to agree with me!