You can create your own country at Nationstates.net. I am now the ruler of the Most Serene Republic of Melgibson, an "inoffensive centrist democracy" whose motto is "A job worth doing is hard to find."

A brief description: The Most Serene Republic of Melgibson is a tiny, pleasant nation, remarkable for its burgeoning woodland creature population. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 5 million have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The medium-sized government juggles the competing demands of Healthcare, Social Welfare, and Law & Order. The average income tax rate is 18%. A small but healthy private sector is led by the Basket Weaving industry, followed by Book Publishing and Furniture Restoration.

Crime is moderate. Melgibson's national animal is the Small Woodland Creature and its currency is the Zrbtt.

If you decide to play, let me know. But the name "Melgibson" is now taken.

Here's a nifty poem I found on Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor.

What are big girls made of?
--Marge Piercy (1936-)

Look at pictures in French fashion
magazines of the 18th century:
century of the ultimate lady
fantasy wrought of silk and corseting.
Paniers bring her hips out three feet
each way, while the waist is pinched
and the belly flattened under wood.
The breasts are stuffed up and out
offered like apples in a bowl.
The tiny foot is encased in a slipper
never meant for walking.
On top is a grandiose headache:
hair like a museum piece, daily
ornamented with ribbons, vases,
grottoes, mountains, frigates in full
sail, balloons, baboons, the fancy
of a hairdresser turned loose.
The hats were rococo wedding cakes
that would dim the Las Vegas strip.
Here is a woman forced into shape
rigid exoskeleton torturing flesh:
a woman made of pain.

How superior we are now: see the modern woman
thin as a blade of scissors.
She runs on a treadmill every morning,
fits herself into machines of weights
and pulleys to heave and grunt,
an image in her mind she can never
approximate, a body of rosy
glass that never wrinkles,
never grows, never fades. She
sits at the table closing her eyes to food
hungry, always hungry:
a woman made of pain.

If only we could like each other raw.
If only we could love ourselves
like healthy babies burbling in our arms.
If only we were not programmed and reprogrammed
to need what is sold us.
Why should we want to live inside ads?
Why should we want to scourge our softness
to straight lines like a Mondrian painting?
Why should we punish each other with scorn
as if to have a large ass
were worse than being greedy or mean?

When will women not be compelled
to view their bodies as science projects,
gardens to be weeded,
dogs to be trained?
When will a woman cease
to be made of pain?

I'm in and out of town, not sure I remember where I work (Yes. I have a job. Right.), neither home feels like home, and confused about which drycleaners have which of my clothes. Maybe I need to rethink some things. (Maybe I need to get more sleep and write some letters so I can memorize my return address.)

I'd like to be writing here about substantive topics of importance and worthy of thought. The problem is, I believe I may have fallen out of the habit of thinking about substantive topics.

Actually, much of what I've been focusing on has been God -- who is he, what does he know to be true about himself and me, and how can I enter into it more fully. Not light stuff, not easy to reduce to a 2 paragraph post, and an area in which my own thoughts and feelings are not always apparent to me.

I've also been messing about with financial institutions, wondering why things don't always work the way they're supposed to. Hmm. This is indeed a fallen world.

I've spent a fair amount of time lately indulging my new hobby of Blog Cruising. A number of my favorite bloggers (not I, I'm sorry to say) provide links to their favorite blogs, and so on. It reminds me of my first days of Internet Discovery -- what a wonderful land to explore, and how am I ever going to tear myself away? I shall exercise self control, but in the meantime, here's a fun link for all of you who, like me, enjoy words as an art form. It's a post from Tom Bress, whose motto is "If a thing is worth blogging, it's worth blogging badly." A man after my own heart.

P.S. Yet another fun link. I must be a hedonist.

I had a great time with Julia this weekend. She came down for the last part of her spring break, and we had a chance to see a little bit of the area, have a nice dinner out, and "chill" as my kids so eloquently phrase it. Happiness is having reared children that you really enjoy spending time with, and I sure have seen that come to pass. Thanks, J., for passing up the opportunity to stay home sleeping the clock around, which must have been an enticing alternative.

It was also nice to reacquaint myself with my own apartment. Between travels and on-site programs, I hardly remembered what my own pillow feels like.

I've got some busy days coming up. I'm going to try to cram 5 days of work into 3 so I can take a long weekend off. I had a restful afternoon, so I'm ready to figuratively and literally roll up my sleeves and make things happen on Monday. Have a good week, friends.

[The author understands that the existence of a hyperlink was not clear to her readers. Forgive me. Please note that the language used on others' sites does not necessarily meet with the approval of The Management. Caveat reader.]

I've always wondered what my cats do when I leave the house. Now I know. Click here to see for yourself.

Unlike others who are privileged to have only their less-eloquent blogs erased by the Blogger gremlins, it was a well-thought-out, deeply reflective piece on my experience of The Passion of the Christ which I lost abruptly several days ago. I can't recapture it, but much of the way the movie touched me has stayed with me, so I hope to jot some thoughts sometime soon.

For now, however, the need to earn a living drives my priorities. I have a conference call (two words that are beginning to send chills through me whenever they occur) for which I need to plan.

Today I've been trying to research how other companies and organizations match executives who desire coaching with the appropriate resources, so we can learn to do a better job ourselves. At a Succession Planning conference, my boss had met a woman from the National Security Agency who had mentioned a group reportedly doing a pretty good job of it.

I undertook to track her down via the NSA web site and ran across the following e-mail address for someone in the Technology, Assessment, Forecasting and Transfer branch of the organization. What do they do there, you may ask? There might be a clue in the fellow's e-mail address: xxxx@afterlife.ncsc.mil.

I didn't think there was a line item in the Federal Budget for that sort of thing.

As you may recall from when the first executive program ended a couple of weeks ago, tonight also included a closing dinner that was more fun than I would have thought possible, followed by lively karaoke singing in the lounge. It was pretty amazing to see how much fun these folks are when they bond and relax. A pretty cynical, distant fellow from D.C. who does a lot of dealing with Congress got "All My Lovin'" by the Beatles dedicated to him from the rest of the class - you should have seen him practically burst out of his skin with delight.

And once again, I'm amazed at how these people, who were just names on a page to one another 11 days ago, are ready to put themselves at the disposal of one another going forward. There will be a follow-up conference call in 45 days and another in 90 days to discuss our ongoing projects. At the beginning, this announcement was accompanied by subtle eye-rolling. Today, the guy in charge of engines for the 737 invited us all to Seattle so we can have the follow-up meeting at his office, after which he wants to show us the town and have us out to his house.

And I, the most affiliative of women, get paid for this! I'm speechless -- figuratively speaking.

I had an e-mail exchange with a friend that taught me a lot. I had mentioned an interesting after-hours conversation one evening in the Leadership Center's lounge with a fellow program participant who was from the Audit area of the business. To my surprise, in spite of being an auditor (only one step above an actuary in my book) he had turned out to be an interesting fellow.

To my surprise, I received the following narrative from my friend. I had had no idea that I was leading such an interesting life.

His Dubonnet lay neglected by his right hand as he held her gaze with his confidences concerning cost control and departmental accountability. Her eyes glowed as she remembered the presentations on advanced fighter systems and remote guided munitions they had just shared earlier in that exciting evening. With a thrill she noticed the gleaming Palm Pilot in its shoulder holster peeping from under the jacket of his Armani suit as he leaned forward to explain how he had, against impossible odds, single-handedly saved twelve million dollars by directing the outsourcing of plant decontamination. 'The latest model,' she thought, and her breath caught in involuntary anticipation . . .

The moral of the story: Never let any actual facts get in the way of a good flight of the imagination.

I'm greatly enjoying the intellectual stimulation of this program. Even though it's less rigorous than the last one, I get the feeling that I'm not doing as good a job as before in being a steward of my personal resources. Maybe that's just a reaction to being tired right now. I had dessert** tonight, something I almost religiously avoid, partly because my calories of choice come in the form of protein and starches rather than sugar, and partly because I don't want to be too aware of how wonderful the pastry chef is. I suspect my energy level is crashing because of rebounding blood sugar as much as anything. Oh, yes, it's 10:30, which might be another reason.

I could go into details about what I'm learning this week, which would be dense, pretty boring to most except me and business geeks, and take up a lot of space. I'm learning a lot, and it's really interesting.

I could tell you about what's going on with my children, except that I probably don't know much and it wouldn't be my story to tell, anyway.

I could tell you how much I enjoy my job. I really enjoy my job.

I could tell you about my personal life. It's great and I'm doing very well, thanks. That's all that's going to get posted in this public forum.

I could tell you about my spiritual life. I'm not praying as much as I'd like, but God is blessing me in many tangible ways. I'm exceedingly grateful.

I could tell you about movies I've seen lately. I'm in the middle of what is approximately my 12th viewing of Sleepless in Seattle which absolutely should be seen by everyone who has any capacity at all to enjoy the Romantic Comedy genre.

Now, do you feel like you're all caught up with me? :-)


**Dessert was Key Lime Pie. It was worth it.

In residence at the Leadership Center until Friday, March 12. Phone: (314) 493-3505.

Today a prominent author on business strategy presented all day (!!!) to my class. Rubbing elbows with strategic thinking has reminded me of one of the main contributions that business school and coach training have made to my life.

I realize the importance of doing what is right, defending what is true, and making wise choices (as far as those things can be known). But in order to do these things, it's important to question my own questions. The conclusions I reach are hugely influenced, if not determined, by which questions I choose to ask. The ability to step back and examine my questions gives me the opportunity to conceive of other questions, viewpoints, assumptions, that might be equally or more valid.

One example is something I've shared with many of you -- how I came to the decision to leave Ford in 2002. Dave had had various health crises from time to time, but for a while we had experienced a long plateau in which he was doing pretty well. I thought in an ongoing way about how to serve him the best - trying to make sure that I had enough time and flexibility to meet his needs and be with him as much as possible. However, at a certain point, I realized that I was considering the issue from too narrow a perspective.

I had been asking myself how I could manage work in order to spend enough 'quality time' with Dave. I don't particularly remember how it came to me (though I have the impression that it was quite sudden), but I was struck by an alternative way of posing the question that seemed to me to be much more reflective of what was truly important. I began to consider how to go about maximizing the level at which Dave and I could live a common life together. As soon as it occurred to me, I knew that this was the question that was really important -- not how Dave was going to fit into my life at Ford, but how (or whether) Ford was going to fit into my life at all.

This wasn't the end of the story. But it helped me take aim at what was important. In the end, I believe I hit the bullseye. I'm very thankful for that wonderful hiatus.