Hopefully, by now, my inappropriate, snarky, sarcastic sense of humor has become all-too-obvious to whoever (somebody, anybody) is reading this blog. My feeling about people without an excellent sense of humor is similar to my feeling about people who live without cats or dogs…bewilderment. I’m amazed by how clean their apartments are, that there’s not 4000 damn pieces of toys to trip over, and look: no pet hair on the sofa! No vomit stains on the rug.  Oooh, ahh. But then it strikes me as lonely. It would be weird to open one of my kitchen cabinets, looking for a tea cup and not find a cranky cat giving me the stink eye since I intruded upon their personal time…lonely. (The men come and go, but the cats remain…probably because the door is locked, but anyway.)

Anyway, I’m referencing my sense of humor because as I get deeper in creativity coaching, I am forced to rely upon it ever more. Not just because some, okay many, people, as soon as you tell them you’re a coach give you The Look, and you can tell they’re thinking something like, “Right. And did you ever have any clients who won?” Also, let’s be frank: how many “coaches” have you met who just don’t get it?  And by “it,” I mean the concept of a successful, intellectual, passionate life in general. (These are the coaches who ask me where I got my coaching certificate from. Yeah. Here’s the thing: I have an undergraduate degree from Wellesley, and a law degree from Indiana University so…I’m set. Ima be fine. If a client truly believes that I cannot help him or her figure their ish out because I don’t have a degree (cough cough) from the University (cough cough) of Phoenix…well, go with God, we probably wouldn’t have clicked anyway.)

Just this morning, I got an email from an executive coaching group, expressing their interest in perhaps recruiting me to their team. I was not interested but I checked out their blog anyway…and once I saw all the misspellings, the overall ineptitude, the deadly seriousness…that’s all she wrote. People are going to mock me anyway, I don’t need to go looking for it.

But at least I adore what I do. I’m being forced to chant that to myself like a mantra, since just this morning, I read an article in Bloomberg Business Week about the explosive industry of fake tanning. Explosive as in people paying up to $300 to get spray-tanned in the privacy of their own homes, by people with titles like, “master airbrush tanning guru.” People who charge extra for artistry. Yes. Take a moment to consider that. Me? I’ll wait, right over here, among the ruins of our society, don’t mind me, la la la. Did I mention the woman who holds spray-tan training seminars, costing $2000? Seminars, held virtually ever weekend in cities like Dallas, L.A., Miami and New York? Seminars… that are packed?  

Listen, you can just go ahead and say: damn right I’m jealous. But, I’m not going to become a spray-tanning artist. I never was good at coloring within the lines. But I am obsessed with people using their potential, spray-tanned or not, and who’s to say who can and can’t be a guru? Not me. (And yes, still very jealous…)