Throwing better goals or "bowls for the easily distracted"

So, last night was pottery class and, as always, I had a tremendous time.  (and as usual, I didn't take photos like I had planned)  Last night I worked on a series of bowls that I'm throwing for a pottery show that I'm doing in May at the gallery.  I had thrown 6 stoneware bowls last week and trimmed them last night.  Trimming is to a pot what a good trainer is to an athlete...   it can make a so-so one better and a great one fantastic.  Let's just say that I started with "better than so-so" and ended up with "pretty darned good"...

I did a little bit of ornamentation on the bottom of five of the six bowls.  I have a stamp that I picked up at the pottery supply place; working a pattern with it can produce an effect that I really like...  as I was stamping away Louie commented,

"You're throwing better..."

"Thanks..."

"No, you really are..."  Now, why thanking someone causes them to reiterate what they have already said; it is beyond me...  I guess in some vocabulary "Thanks" actually means "not really"...  but then Francine (she specializes in teaching pottery to the middle aged-klutz) added...

"Actually, you are really getting to the point where you throw what you intend to throw."

Let's just pause for a moment of silence...

In the pottery world that's huge!!!  More often than not, when you are learning to throw you end up with something that is not exactly what you set out to make.  Oh sure, you may want to throw a vase and you get a vase, but instead of a tall narrow vase with a flared collar you end up with a short round thing that's just about big enough to put short stemmed violets in...  show me a beginning potter who doesn't have 10 pencil holders and 25 ash trays and I'll tell you that you've got a hand builder (and hand building is also hard)... 

Oh that I were as successful in life as I am in pottery.  I've kind of specialized in making the most of what I end up with instead of setting a goal and achieving it.  I had goals early on and realized that goals were for people with drive and drive was for people with vision and vision was for people who (a bird just flew by the window and Beestro jumped up on the ledge to see what's going on) aren't easily distracted.  

I am easily distracted.  While my enumployed counterparts were surfing the net today, I found myself waist deep in a pile of leaves that needed pushed into the empty lot behind the house... and under those leaves there were iris and peonies and hyacinth and stuff reaching to get to the sun...  YEA!!!  and the neighbors took the day off and have people over and I went to Wal-Mart to get one of things that dumps salt water into your nose (they neglect to tell you just how much ends up in the back of your throat)...

My old bosses used to berate me (for lack of a better word) during review time because I didn't have 5-year plans.  Now, I knew (and they knew) that it was only because they had push all of their people into a managed bell-curve at review time, but none-the-less this was a consistent theme that came up...  (I had my own view of my personal weaknesses, but my managers didn't necessarily agree with it... when I mentioned in an interview what my old bosses thought my weakness was it cost me a job and when I mentioned what I thought were my weaknesses the interviewer went, "Ooo"... nonetheless I am still enumployed... [apologies for the tangent within a tangent])

I guess all the world wants you driven and undistracted...  or employers at least.  I find myself less impressed with people who set out to become an "X" and end up an "X"...  ooo, you knew what you wanted to be when you were 10 and you achieved it...  and find myself intrigued with people who left behind the job they wanted @10 to pursue something that was consistent with who they had become as an adult...

So here I am, getting better at pottery and actually thinking about who and where and what I want to be in five years...  get ready future boss, I have a plan th

...there are deer in the yard, I gotta go...

-silly