The Army of Faceless Gray Men

(My guess is that they haven't found the blog yet, so I can speak freely.)

Oh. Hi, there.

We seem to have at least 10 newbies this year (plus God knows how many came in on the speech side.) Since I am about as good with names as I am with cabinetry, this is a challenge for me. After all, I only see them once a week, and they are, as the title says, an army of faceless gray men. Their names are all huddled in roughly the same part of the alphabet. They're all average height, average weight. Each one has a face-like face. What I want is the classic 40s-movie bomber crew: the white guy, the black guy, the Jewish guy, the Kid, the fast-talker, the Indian, the old-timer and Steve McQueen. Where are the casting gods when you need them?

I've managed to get this far: Liza is the girl I won't recognize next week because she wasn't there this week. Emily and Katie are simple enough because I asked one of them who she was when she came in a minute late and she said she was Katie. Having had the odd daughter with that name, it'll stick. Emily is the one who isn't Katie and isn't that other one who was new this week. As for the A of FGMs, there's AF who will never have to fill in past the initials because, sorry, I'm done. There's Paul Unspellable, but that's because Phil Unspellable made such an impression when he used to come to meetings and pore over his math texts, presumably seeking the number of the beast (it's 18, but you didn't hear it here). The younger Unspellable seems to have inherited the verbal gene. There's some guy who would have been Dynamite but he said he won't be wearing the same t-shirt for the next few years, so that's no help. And then...there's...uh... Oh, I don't know. Others. Next week I'll have them keep saying their names; that should help. I know I'll get it before they graduate. I almost always do. But nicknames are SOOOOO much easier than real names, especially when they're descriptive. Red; that's a good clear descriptive nickname, except we don't have any red people. Curly would be good too, but I'm saving it for the next bald guy. NoShow works (descriptive, although he came in last night looking like it was 1968 and Jerry Garcia has got to be around here somewhere). Wheatgerm (descriptive and linguistic). Schlub. (All right, we've never had a specific Schlub, but we've had schlubs up the wazoo). Nostrumite (also descriptive and linguistic). Hey, How Ya Doin'? which is what I call 98% of the people I run into whom I've known for at least eleven years but I still don't really know who they are, like have the people at debate tournaments. Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Anyhow, half of these schlubs are on the listserver, we'll get the other half in a day or so, and we'll browbeat the third half before next week's meeting. The meeting itself last night was the traditional parts-of-LD explanation for newbies only, followed by pretty much the last tutti session on Sept-Oct. My poor sick voice was weak by the end, but everyone was either paying attention or asleep, either one of which is acceptable.

Meanwhile, Kurt and I are in need of having a bank account for the MHL, which sounds bloody complicated, but at least we've got the trophies all sorted out. We're hoping to give one to each member of a team; I like it, if we can afford it, and we probably can.

Other than that, it's quiet around here. Too quiet...