How to play your way into a work meeting

Before I begin, Batman wanted me to tell you quick that he has a new girlfriend. Housemate Narisa named her Sock Monquette. Batman fell for her hard the moment he saw her. I made her at a sock monkey making party last week, hosted here by Tabitha, who, I learned, is an amazing teacher, because I literally didn’t know how to thread a needle when we started. And by the end, I’d managed to make the love of Batman’s life.

If loving Monquette is wrong, Batman doesn’t want to be right

Now to business.

Today we played our way into a work meeting.

Not Batman, Sock Monquette, and I–I’m not that crazy yet. No, my friend and creative partner Bas de Baar and I played our way into work. I’ve noticed recently that all my favorite collective ideas–those that we actually follow through on and try out and experiment with and do and finish and celebrate–are those we stumbled upon while just messing around, while playing, not planning. And since today we happened to be on Facebook when this happened, lucky me, I can easily show you.

Important to me: The following conversation began and ended—as many deeply important human conversations do—with cats in costumes. But the idea that came from it, for us, is gold. And I learned again not to fear lightheartedness, and frivolity, and silly cats in costumes, and Facebook, and dear friends bearing apparently “time-wasting” gifts. I learned that they are all here for good purpose when we’re open to it. Please feel free to learn something else entirely or nothing at all from this. Teaching others isn’t my business. Learning is…

From Bas de Baarto Lori Kane

 Lori Kane Oh God, and she’s only been blogging two years longer than me! This is my future!!!

Bas de Baar You don’t know The Bloggess? Oh my, you are in for a treat… she’s awesome.  Like this…

 Here’s a picture of Wil Wheaton collating papers thebloggess.com

 Lori Kane Well, if my destiny is to have cats in suits so be it. But mine are going to be way cooler than seersucker suits with bowties.

 BATMAN Dog Cat Pet Rabbit Costume Party Halloween Cosplay Fancy Outfit Clothing  www.ebay.com

Bas de Baar Holy crap! I am in awe. Way cooler. Very weird. But cool. But weird.

 Lori Kane You started it.

Bas de Baar That’s true.

 Lori Kane I actually cannot imagine doing this to my cats. Although Batman would totally pull it off.

Bas de Baar Why would one otherwise need a name like Batman?

 Lori Kane Hey, I thought of another idea for doodle artwork you could do: coworking workspace documentation! http://indyhall.org/. Scroll down the page to see the floor plan these guys created for themselves. This would be another very useful thing for most coworking spaces to have (and none of the 14 in Seattle, that I know of, have one). And they could be done in fun ways (introvert fortress of solitude, chatty island, etc.) Just a thought…

 Coworking in Philadelphia – Indy Hall – a Community and Workspace – Est. 2006 indyhall.org  Indy Hall is home to the coworkers you always wanted. You’ll have endless opport…unities to meet new colleagues — and to become new friends — every day. Every week. All the time.

Bas de Baar Cool idea. I was toying with a related idea to have “pararllel universe” maps in buildings that point to spaces like chatty island. 🙂 I got the idea from this mind boggling art thingy.. http://www.kcymaerxthaere.com/index.php/about/about_kcy

  www.kcymaerxthaere.com Kcymaerxthaere is a parallel universe that includes in its embrace our linear world—by which we mean our 3 dimensions of space—to the extent that places we encounter on what we call the Earth can become points of some kind of departure to these other realms….

Bas de Baar want one?

  Lori Kane If by “one” you mean a parallel universe map, ala Bas, then yes. 🙂 That short video clip is kind of creepy. We have at least three universes here: the spaces as people who live here use them, the coworking spaces as I imagined them, and the coworking spaces as other coworkers have imagined and used them. So far, only the bathroom is consistently used the same way from universe to universe. 😉

 Lori Kane I’d be happy to share with other coworking spaces…

Bas de Baar hahahaha! ok. lets work with that 🙂 (yeah that site is not ready accessable but i spent a long time there and the ideas are quite intruiging — don’t ask :D)

Bas de Baar ok. we have another project … 😀

  Lori Kane Batman wants a map in which the entire house footprint reads “bat cave”

The end!

To see some of Bas’ doodle artwork, visit Shinkonia.com and Different Office. To see us have more of these work meetings on the fly, or to hear more about Batman and Sock Monquette, visit our Facebook page: Bas and Lori’s Big Adventure in Trans-Planetary Storytelling.