week eight: faulty time continuum

where does it go? i believe i may have entered an actual wormhole this week and surely i'm soon to pop back out at monday. i have 40 minutes before #1's nativity at which she stars as an angel. she has four lines and i've practised them a lot with her, feeling torn between the roles of supporting mother and pushy over-interested control-freak. i just don't want her to feel nervous so i've explored the meaning of the words and lines to give them a structure in her head and help her remember: control freak? she has to say "don't be scared" (because they've not seen something like you, have they? and you're all shiny in the sky... which will hopefully prompt....)"i'm an angel" (and why are you there, talking to those shepherds?....)"baby jesus has been born" (and so what've they got to do?...)"follow me".......yes. i can now see that perhaps i am focusing too much on this. what will presumably happen is a 5 minute shambolically hilarious mishmash of crying, waving and knicker-wetting followed by a lot of chocolate eating. all by me.

this week i had a speednetworking marathon; let's just say that it left me in a monging, unable to communicate, star trek (new generation) data-like mode for 48 hours. it started at 9.30am and until 1pm we networked face to face for 1 minute, alternating then moving on. 43 times. with one small coffee for sustenance. it would have been really really good if my business provided guidance on "how to network interestingly for 1 minute", or "how to keep your breath fresh and saliva in your mouth for short bursts of time", or if i'd been selling espressos. as it was i'm not sure my target audience was hugely represented. i think i quite scared the sole business bank contact with my huge enthusiasm and vigour and the way i leant back to continue talking to her once we'd moved on, and then sent my business cards her way on the back of small paper aeroplances once i was further down the long table of life-coaches or business-mentors. she, unlike quite a lot of others, hasn't thanked me for my interest in her product nor asked me to join her on linked in.

i did meet the operator of another networking group there and attended a session with her yesterday and, without making any slanderous comments, it was the least useful function to date. the harp (?) drowned out everyone's pitches; we'd been told to drop in whenever but then had to adhere to a matrix-like structure of pitching "and now is time for free talking" only to be interrupted with harpy-like yells across the table demanding we attend to a new entrant. lots of talking over people by the two hosts, usually about lattes, and a strange familial connection between them kept the dynamic that of a too intimate christmas gathering of in-laws. i tried to escape but was trapped in by a fund-manager, sadly recently redundant, who was trying to pitch for £500k investment tranches in his new fund....felt a strange empathy for a man caught in the middle of this downturn at a point in life where he was ready to start the last few years pre-retirement and was now floundering in a new field of networking which he hadn't fully grasped. that being said the jowls spoke of years of gout-inducing corporate functions so i don't feel he was totally adrift.

another eye-opener was the fact that someone presented their pitch and it was identical to my raison d'etre. somewhat un-nerving; will have to track down and eliminate the individual. if i then do eventually pop back out at monday then no one will be any the wiser and the market will be ALL MINE!!!!!!