xoxoANP

The keg is kicked.

2006-11-23T02:26:00.000-05:00

The party has moved. Join me?

x

Biz idea: rent a wife

2006-11-21T14:11:00.000-05:00

Inspired by a fascinating article from the fifties sent to me by my boss

here's a business idea. Think "Polish lady" (read: cleaning lady) on crack.

- Wife goes to your apartment around 5:30 (or at a time that will allow her* to complete her tasks before you get home)
- Wife then preps your house for you (varies per client)

House preparation for me would involve:

- Making sure the heat is cranked up to 72
- Slippers by the front door, next to room temperature glass of water
- Comfy non-capitalist clothes on my leather bench, next to body lotion and near a robe
- Mail neatly sorted
- Reading material on the kitchen table, ready to go
- Tea cup with non caffeinated tea on the counter; tea kettle filled with water and rarin' to go

- Music playing softly. I'm thinking good jazz here. Ornette, Thelony, Jimmy Smiff ... whatevs.
- Good lighting.
- Turndown service with chocolate by pillow!

This is appropriate for the cold months more than the warm months, as my nesting instinct is in overgear when it gets chilly willy out.

Mmm. Wife.

Anyone have any recos for comfy slippers and a good robe? One step at a time here ...

(Hmm, maybe I can figure out a way to do this for myself before leaving the house each day ...)

* Gender neutral 'her'

Welcome, Illinois!

2006-11-20T17:37:00.000-05:00

Yo yo! Illinois just joined EZPass, what! That's right, all y'all mofos be representin' on I-80 from the East Coast to the Midwest!

Two words: road trip. I was toying with the idea of driving home for Christmas; this might be just the impetus I need to close the deal.

Nickles dimes n quarters

2006-11-20T17:07:00.000-05:00

Dude, the new nickle is kinda hot.

Thanks to Unicef for sending me one. suckaz!

Libertarian ish

2006-11-20T16:56:00.000-05:00

From a Malcolm Gladwell niblet in the September 4 ish of The New Yorker:

But making a fetish of personal accountability conveniently removes the need for institutional accountability. (We court-martial the grunts who abuse prisoners, not the commanding officers who let the abuse happen.) To acknowledge that the causes of our actions are complex and muddy seems permissive, and permissiveness is the hallmark of an ideology now firmly in disgrace.

I do admit I am confused and concerned regarding the continuum between personal and governmental responsibility. Yes, individuals should be responsible for their own damn selves, but the government is also responsible for a certain network of services, no? The government must provide things like education, etc., yes?

The question is, of course, and of all time, is to what point? At one point has the gubmint does its job? How much do individuals owe the club in terms of membership dues (read: taxes)?

I don't know the answers to these things. I've decided to put off figuring 'em out until the post-breeding chapter in my life, when I'll turn my duties toward the world of civic duty.

Browster

2006-11-20T16:10:00.000-05:00

I read in an August issue of Red Herring some noise about Browster, a plug-in which claims it's the fastest way to surf the internet (no matter that loading their corporate site took four minutes on my machine).

The schtick is that rolling over a URL will allow you to see a screen shot. From the Red Herring article:

The plug-in reduces the need to click by showing a preview window with search results when users move their cursor over a link.

Umm, great, but, umm, doesn't Ask.com already do that? (Roll over the binox graphic.)

Ugh. If only I had the cojones to go out there and get in the fray myself. Until then, I will have to content myself with whining about everyone else :)

Marketplace ANP

2006-11-19T18:54:00.000-05:00

I have been spending money like there's no tomorrow. It's time to buckle down and sell some of my stuff.

Buy my stuff on Amazon.com

Buy my stuff on eBay

I hope these dern links work... if I don't hit my liquidity target for the month of November I don't get a spa treatment. boo hoo

Get a move on, Mercury

2006-11-17T16:24:00.000-05:00

Mercury's been retrograde or some shit like that for the past I don't know how many weeks.

Finally, after at least three weeks of depressing, bury-head-in-blankets nonsense, at 7:20 p.m. tonight Mercury moves its fatass and let's the game re-begin!

Shit, and not a moment too soon, I was about to call up my girl and get my meth on.

Hairy

2006-11-16T13:28:00.000-05:00

haven't v-logged about the relevant adweek event yet, but when i do, i'm posting this as a note-to-self ...

remington pussy parade ad

Tuesday to-do: Schmooze

2006-11-14T15:40:00.000-05:00

As I am a workerbee, I missed the grand re-opening of the Brooklyn Public Library's Highlawn Branch (designed by Louise Braverman, with whom I had dinner on Thursday and Friday night last week), but I do plan on heading over to Christie's tonight for this shin-dig:

Alliance for the Arts party

My friend Raoul B. is heavily involved, as well as fellow alum Sidney Mack and former coworker Gigi G. It should be interesting. Plus, two words: tax deduction.

Word.

p.s. the mark v. core workout = yoga as repackaged for jocks. discuss.

Wise crack

2006-11-13T14:46:00.000-05:00

Scene: Living room. Brooklyn. A woman reclines on a couch, watching TV. Another sits at a desk, tapping away at a laptop.

On the TV, a black woman speaks.

TV WOMAN: Well, it was just like, you know, I always had to had some. Always had to get my next fix, no matter what. You just felt like on top of the world, nothing else mattered. You'd leave your baby alone in the crib to get more crack. It was that bad.

LAPTOP WOMAN: (Looking up; to couch woman) What is this, the home shopping network?

-- cut

If you identified ANP as laptop woman, you win!

Barbie story

2006-11-13T13:13:00.000-05:00

Sent from my little sister:

Barbie can't find sweaters that fit her properly, either

I know how you feel, toots. Just when you think, "Ah, Eddie Bauer! Long sleeves! For Tall girls! Hooray!" you try it on and the damned tum tum area pooches out like your preggers. market failure

Jonathan Ames > Our Selves Between Us

2006-11-12T20:50:00.000-05:00

The following essay appeared in Ames' compilation "I love you more than you know." I read it again earlier this week and, given the cold water splashed onto my face this weekend (METAPHOR ALERT), it seems particularly apropos.

I'm reprinting sans permission. Seeing as Ames aggressively fondled me in the shadows of Park Slope this spring sans permission, I figure it's the least I can do to return the favor.

OUR SELVES BETWEEN US
Jonathan Ames
2004

It's my opinion that my heart is rather broken. But that implies that I have a heart. I guess I do, but it's a totally flawed heart. It doesn't work for shit. I don't know how to love. I'm forty years old. I'm bald. I think my penis has stopped working. My fingernails are all ridged and dying. A sun-blemish on my shoulder ripped open the other day and was bleeding. That can't be good. I probably have skin cancer on my shoulder and it's eating its way through me as I type.

I've been crying for the last hour and not because of skin cancer, but because I was listening to the mixed tape that my love made for me. It takes devotion to make a mixed tape, and it's a dying art. Sneaking off with someone's iPod and downloading songs on the sly is not quite the same thing, but I imagine that it's the wave of the future.

So the tape really made me cry. I figured that all the songs were like her singing to me. For part of the tape, I sat at the kitchen table where we used to sit. I sat in her chair. I've almost never sat in that chair and I've lived in this apartment for five years. The floor is at a weird angle by that chair. But for two years she sat there. I also gave her the bad side of the bed. She made those sacrifices. She wanted to be in my bed and she liked for us to eat together. I often felt rushed, though, when we had meals. I didn't want to take the time to sit down and eat properly. But I would. And a lot of times, I would try to correct her posture. She told me I could. She has bad posture and she wanted me to remind her to straighten up. She's beautiful, but when she sits to eat, she slumps terribly, curves her spine. I never should have tried to get her to sit right. It was wrong of me.

So sitting there now, listening to the tape, missing her, I was starting to lose it, and then I heard this lyric --"We sat here with our selves between us." It's from a John Cale song, "Anda Lucia," and when I heard that line I really started weeping. It made me think of the two of us sitting there, trapped, our selves blocking us from being able to love, the way all selves block all love. How do you get past the self?

Then I was back in the moment and the kitchen was empty -- it's a mess now that she's gone. The sink dirty, the floor dirty. Everything barren and stained. I'm forty and I can't take care of myself. Or, rather, I'm too lazy to take care of myself.

So she moved out two months ago. It was a hard decision we came to. I moved in with my parents to give her time, and then I paid for her move. Big deal. When I came back to the apartment, the first thing I saw was her empty closet. It had been filled with her pretty clothes for two years. That empty closet was like a grave. A death. An end. I started crying bad. I took one look at it and ran to the bed and cried facedown in the pilow. I'm halfway through life and have no idea how to live.

There's this scene in Richard Yates's book Revolutionary Road which is the most painful thing I've ever read. This neglectful husband has lost his wife to suicide. He goes into her closet and smells her clothes and for a moment he has her back, he can smell her, she's there, not dead, and he feels all the love he had for her, the love which had been lost, and then this horrible intrusive neighbor is banging on the door, and the husband hides in the closet until the neighbor leaves, but the spell has been broken, he can't get his wife back, he tries, but he can't reconjure her and he's lost her for good now, and this second death is worse than the first.

So when I got off the bed, done crying, I waved my hand in that empty closet to see if it was real. To see if I had really lost something so precious, and my hand sliced through the air and I knew I had lost her and I went back to the bed and cried some more. Just recently I put some of my raggedy clothes in there and they look ugly. They look like me.

Best sales schlock ever

2006-11-03T11:17:00.000-05:00

I've been inundated with a lot of tchotchkes throughout my career. At first it was fun: the first trade show I attended two months out of undergrad was during the .com boom 1.0, and I raced around the Javitz cramming as much blinking and bouncing crap into my free attache as possible. I still use the LL Bean tote from MagazineOutlet.com's launch party at the Rainbow Room.

But soon the oversized tee shirts and business card holders and blinking plastic balls get old. Yeah, I've found some ways to repurpose them -- just ask my family, the proud recipients of many a Google fleece blanket or LowerMyBills translucent green piggy bank. But most of the shlock is unoriginal. C'mon, how many plastic containers of mints can a girl stand?

But I just opened what may classify as the best sales schlock of all time. Congrats to pay per call network ingenio, who sent me a box containing:

ingenios high performance cereal (think cheerios; wish i had a cammyra on me)
ingenio branded spoon
ingenio branded bowl

Sure, I had a chocolate cupcake and some apple cake over esprsso this morning, but guess who is going to trot over to the pantry for some parmalat over ingenios?

And maybe I'll even check out their booth at Ad Tech and see if there's anyway to work with them.

"Innate morality of business" ?

2006-10-16T15:59:00.000-04:00

Intriguing article in strategy+business issue 43 re: The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (University of Chicago Press, 2006), where Deirdre (formerly Donald) McCloskey, a professor of econ, English, and history (yes, you read that correctly) declares, "The market supports the virtues."

In other words, capitalism not only thrives in an atmosphere of prudence, temperance, and justice, but also can foster those qualities and other moral virtues, including love... The question is not whether greed is natural -- or even good -- but whether it adequately explains capitalist behavior.

Deirdre McCloskey's Seven Bourgeois Virtues

Prudence not just to buy low and sell high, but "to trade rather than to invade, to calculate the consequences, to pursue the good with competence."

Temperance "to save and accumulate, of course. But it is also the temperance to educate oneself in business and in life, to listen to the customer humbly, to resist the temptations to cheat, to ask quietly whether there might be a
compromise here."

Justice "to insist on private property honestly acquired. But it is also the courage to pay willingly for good work, to honor labor, to break down privilege, to value people for what they can do rather than for who they are, to view success without envy."

Courage "to venture on new ways of business. But it is also the courage to overcome the fear of change, to bear defeat unto bankruptcy, to be courteous to new ideas, to wake up next morning and face work with cheer."

Love "to care for employees and partners and colleagues and customers and fellow citizens, to wish well of humankind, finding human and transcendent connection in the marketplace."

Faith "to honor one's community of business. But it is also the faith to build monuments to the glorious past, to sustain traditions of commerce, of learning, of religion."

Hope "to imagine a better machine. But it is also the hope to see the future as something other than stagnation or eternal recurrence, to infuse the day's work with purpose, seeing one's labor as a glorious calling."

I'm curious to read the book.

Delayed from AdWeek > The Race is On

2006-09-30T20:34:00.000-04:00

AdWeek > IAB Mixx > The Race is On: Consumer Content v Original Content held at the Crowne Plaza Times Square

Writeup claims

“Publishers across the media and entertainment spectrums are looking for the winning formula to provide marketers with the best opportunities for brand alignment. What will marketers choose? Sites that deliver consumer generated content or programming that is strategically created by professionals? Hear from all sites of this hotly debated topic – from well known brands like MTV Networks to the newly created sites like Heavy and directly from the consumers that are creating their content. Who will win – David or Goliath?”

Simon Assaad, CEO, Heavy.com
Rob Bennett, General Manager, MSN Entertainment & Video Services
Keith Richman, CEO, Break.com
John Trimble, SVP Branded Sales, FOX Interactive Media
Moderator: Stacey Lynn Koerner, President, Consumer Experience Practice, Interpublic Media

For my reaction, play the video.

Live from AdWeek > Brand Sirens

2006-09-25T16:48:00.000-04:00

As part of Ad Week NYC 2006, I attended a presentation entitled Brand Sirens: Today’s Super-Influencers: Who They Are, What They Do, and How Marketers Can Engage Them, presented by Starcom MediaVest Group and CNET Networks.

Goal: Help marketers understand how to reach today’s elusive population of 13- to 34-year-olds

Methodology: Interviews and discussions with more than 10,000 young people through 30 ethnographies, followed by a series of online surveys and conversations.

Study highlights:
• Two-thirds feel there are important differences between brands
• More than half talk to friends often about brands
• Seven in ten will spend more to purchase a brand they know and trust

Brand sirens have been defined as the 15 – 20% “distinguished by their deep expertise in their passions and interests, their constant quest for information on those interests, and their desire to share what they learn with large groups of people who rely on them for advice.”

Brand sirens exhibit some key features;
• Almost 100% more likely than the average consumer to talk about brands with their friends
• 87% love sharing info about brands
• 70% send emails to friends about products and services

For my thoughts I had during and immediately after the presentation, play the video.

Own the pipes

2006-09-24T23:39:00.000-04:00

FedEx had just acquired Kinko's with the stated purpose of fueling its retail outlet expansion and driving growth of its transportation services.
- Autumn 2006 ish of strategy + business

Basically, FedEx didn't have enough pipes to access its customers, and wanted to maximize usage of its existing pipes (i.e., the truck fleet).

So it's all about, as I've chanted since Winter 2004, owning the pipes. Buy 'em if you don't got 'em, and stuff 'em full o' shit once you do.

Damn I hate being right!

Clean it up

2006-08-31T13:56:00.000-04:00

A friend who works in the government can't receive profanity-laced emails. Recent hubbub at The Bank has resulted in a crackdown on the use of sarcasm and four letter words in email communications. In order to demonstrate my commitment to the franchise, I created an Outlook email inbox rule:

Tools > Rules Wizard > New

Apply this rule after the message arrives with

"fuck" or "shit" or "damn" or "asshole" or "fucked" or "fucker" or "dammit" or "cunt" or "sex" or "tits" or "dildo" or "pussy" or "nigger" or "kike" or "gook" or "chink" or "spic"

in the subject or body reply using

Subject: Your message was not delivered

Thank you for your message.

Please note that due to content that may be construed as objectionable, your email was not delivered. You are welcome to revise the content and re-send at your convenience.

Your sensitivity to the importance of maintaining a respectful work environment is very much appreciated.

Kind regards,

ANP
Capitalist
The Bank

and move it to the 'xxx' folder

Need glasses?

2006-08-30T15:46:00.000-04:00

Don't worry, honey; I got Lasik last year.

(Found by the office yogi by googling 'Porsche' then subsequently futzing)

English class

2006-08-28T11:30:00.000-04:00

In honor of my next round of writing classes, I present you a list of inventive analogies.

(Thanks to Birddog for putting on my radar.)

A Capitalista speaks

2006-08-24T13:12:00.000-04:00

A coworker sent me the Forbes.com article yesterday regarding career women, and how they are more likely to cheat on you and dump you if you make less than they do. I thought the article had some good points. I did not disagree with it.

Cue the whiny bitches.

There is nothing I despise more than the middling knee-jerk faux intellectual responses from graduates of third rate liberal arts institutions, very few of whom are actually career women I am sure.

Now let's talk about this. I have a career. It's a good one. I do rather well at it. I lurfe it. I make good money.

Let's think about many career women. What drives them? It's not like career men, who make money because they want to ultimately lure a woman. Women aren't looking to their careers as a means to an end (e.g., man). Women who are more likely to devote considerable amounts of energy and time to developing a career are more likely to be overachievers in other aspects of their lives as well.

Is this a big secret? No. But let's continue digging to get at first principles.

- Woman overachieves in her career
- Woman overachives in life
- Woman looks to trade up in title, pay, etc.
- Woman wants better handbag, car, house, shoes
- Woman wants to trade up on her man as well

I'm sorry, this is somehow shocking and newsworthy? The article had zero revelations if you ask me. And why is this all so obvious, so 'no duh'?

What kind of person is always so restlessly seeking to trade up and overachieve in all aspects of her life?

What qualities do many overachievers share? Could it be, oh, I don't know, that they are fundamentally unhappy with themselves and incorrectly seek happiness in externals?

Could it be that no matter how big their house is or how wonderful their husband is, they will never realize and appreciate their lives to the fullest and will thus always be miserable and always anxiously seeking the next big thing?

None of this comes as a surprise to me. I'm so bored with it already that the only reason I blogged about it today was all the hubbub surrounding it.

It's obvious to me. The only problem with the article is that it should have been entitled, "Don't marry an unhappy woman. If a woman is unhappy with herself, she will never be happy with you, or her career, or her car. She will always be looking for the keys to her happiness outside of herself.

No duh.

MacBook

2006-08-24T12:26:00.000-04:00

Last night it became evident to me why I didn't want to buy a laptop. As the minutes ticked by, the warm rectangle of white MacBook lurfe resting happily on my bed where I should have been sleeping, it was obvious that

I cannot unplug
Some jerk in the building has really fast wireless
It's three a.m.
I cannot unplug

As soon as I woke up this morning I checked gmail, sent a couple IMs, etc.

Ugh.

- The MacBook is amazing
- iSight is hella fun
- I wish I could send video to someone who doesn't have iSight; is there a way?
- The newest features on iPhoto rock

I think my MacBook might be more powerful than my iMac. I think I may have to bite the bullet and transfer my life to my MacBook and per the recos of my friends turn my iMac into a music server / internet station.

Can I handle such change??

Fun with iPhoto's 'Antique' feature:

adult-y

2006-08-21T10:57:00.000-04:00

Why does a nice hotel room paid for by the company always make me feel like an adult?

Michigan Avenue reminds me of Nevskiy Prospekt, in a way.

Migraines are the worst.

What is it about polished granite and "luxury" appointments including cushy white bathrobes (that aren't even that soft) that make me feel grown-up on the inside?

Insert commentary connecting therapy and real estate here.

I guess I am turning thirty this year.

I guess I am an adult.

I want babies.

Wait. Write book first. Then breed.

Good thing I have friends with parent blogs so I can learn from their experiences. It takes a village.

I don't think I ever had a false start when I was a trackstar. There's a first time for everything.

Damn this MacBook is the shiznit.

Sixteen limbs

2006-08-17T13:27:00.000-04:00

Woah. These guys look like they're having so much fun. A FOF sent me a link to

four dudes singin' on eight treadmills

which I found delicious. Friend then sent link to

which is equal to EVEN MORE FUN!

This makes me want to choreograph something for the sake of nothing in particular, nothing in particular at all.

Mmm. Happiness.

Dear Match.com

2005-12-28T13:05:00.000-05:00

Dear Match.com -

I know there are 13 people who have emailed me. I understand that your members take the service seriously, and that I should really email them back.

But guess what? Each of the 13 people that emailed me? They all suck. Sorry, truth hurts. But I signed up for your little service with the hopes that maybe -- MAYBE -- maybe I'd find somebody who was on my level.

Three months of incessant winking and dozens of emails later, I have felt NO reason to pony up the loot for a membership. Well, there's one guy who might be worth something, but he's divorced, so ...

Look, don't guilt ME because your members suck. If you get someone who hasn't responded to anyone's emails ... maybe that's because they're in high demand. Maybe you should comp them a membership.

Yeah, I'm cheap, so what. But if you're so worried about the 13 losers who are waiting for an email back from me, maybe you should give me a free membership.

Love,

Me.

geez louise

2005-08-08T14:38:00.000-04:00

What I want is a steam room followed by a sauna followed by a splash in not-too-heated pool followed by a hot shower followed by a steam room followed by a massage followed by using that cinnamon and vanilla lotion I got at ABC Carpet & Home in Dumbo. Right! Now! I have a pounding headache, I suspect that despite the Powerade I'm totally dehydrated, my muscles are sore, I have aches in places I did not know existed.

Ah yes, another weekend in New York fuckin' City!

I can't believe that this is my life. I need to be dragged by my hair and locked into a padded room somewhere, left to my own devices in a space where I cannot impale myself on anything or otherwise cause injury. Sheesh, what kind of trouble will I get into next, me wonders!

Camera purchased, BBQs attended, fun (good, bad, and ugly) had. Hey man, there's a good month of summer left!

My best friend thinks I am avoiding a real relationship. Maybe she's right, but damn, do I ever miss the warm familiarity and safety of my passionless LTR.

Can't I find a job where all I do is go out and have dinner with people while looking hot and being charming and smart? Argh.

Back to clock punching.

Berlin. Sweden. & Stuff.

2005-08-01T17:44:00.000-04:00

Advice needed!

I just got approval to be MIA from my ofc from Thursday, September 8 through Thursday, September 22. I'll be flying out of JFK and into London, with plans to have Berlin as my homebase (staying with Sandeman). I'm also planning on a weekend+ to connect with John, who is in Sweden for graduate school.

Would love tips, recommendations, insights, etc. from y'all.

xo

Here comes success

2005-07-30T02:15:00.000-04:00

1. Note to self: if future husband starts to shave balls, be suspicious.

2. Dude. I'm in New York fuckin' City. Why am I all mopey dopey?

3. Time to go party with my friend, the former meth addict, and current New York City Public Schools' teacher.

spinal cord injuries

2005-07-28T23:52:00.000-04:00

So, this Erin Lavik chick, now teaching at Yale, created a polymer-based scaffold to implant into rats whose spinal cords had been injured. This was for her MIT master's thesis. 30% of the control group learned to walk again. 70% of those in the test cell (har har ... this means they had the scaffolds + neural progenitor cells) learned to walk.

Uhm. Wow.

Click here to check out a video.

It's crazy to think about how this work, embryonic as it may be, could end up helping humans suffering from spinal cord injuries. Can you imagine? Christ almighty.

It makes me wish I used my big juicy brain for something more important than hawking credit cards. * sigh *

Buy this: Crate & Barrel Lamont Wool Rug

2005-05-19T19:46:00.000-04:00

Actually, it's 60% cotton and 40% wool, but since when am I maff genius?

One day, I woke up, said to self, "I need to get some kind of area rug." Moons ago I tore this page out of the Crate and Barrel catalog, and voila. Mine, 4'x6', blue. I tested in the store to see how it felt under bare foot, and twas good indeed.

Now that it's in my room, I need a anti skid thing. I like the punch of color, and I can't wait to stencil in "SOME KIND OF AREA RUG".

Kinda heavy, so don't go trotting around SoHo all day while carrying it with a Mac keyboard strapped to your back...

Plan: Aneta Grzeszykowska & Jan Smaga

2005-04-12T22:40:00.000-04:00

I saw this exhibit with a weird dude from Italy who smelled like patchoulli and had lots of piercings. It was good, really sucked me in. Then again, I have always been a sucker for graph paper and floor plans. I don't remember who wrote this or where I ripped this off, but here goes:

Robert Mann Gallery

It was good stuff and if you can make it, I highly recommend. The gallery is located at 210 11th Avenue.

Buy this: Pleasure wipes

2005-03-26T23:44:00.000-05:00

If you know me in real life and would rather not think about my bidness, don't read this post!

I read about these in an issue of Budget Living and naturally, my interest was piqued, not just because I'd thought about inventing some of these my own damned self. The person who wrote in also outlined the non-pleasury uses for these pups: pop into the gym bag or the cubicle (imagine ...), use to wipe up the kids without the odor of Wet Ones.

They come in mango or vanilla but apparently DrugStore.com only sells the mango. I've tried to track these things down in retail stores but to no avail (not even Ricky's). I've been very happy with the vanilla. At the very least, it's nice for that whole confidence thing until they actually do come up with the Woomba.

stressor

2005-02-22T15:58:00.000-05:00

My mom stresses me out. No, you cannot move in with me, back off.

Boys stress me out. No, you cannot move in with me, back off.

I stress me out. Stop it with the obsessing, the emoting, the general being-a-freak tendencies.

* sigh *

To do:

* Attend Craig's opening
* MCV
* Scheherezade with my sister, not Photoboy (*sniffle*)

I switched

2005-02-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

My friend JRC is an engineer at Apple, and sent me the link to submit one of them there switcher stories. I wrote the following in about eight minutes and submitted it. We'll see.

I remember being six years old and tooling away at a $10,000 IBM with two big fat floppy drives. It was me, this dogeared book about BASIC that I purchased through Scholastic, and the green screen. It was my first love affair; I spent hours in front of that bad boy crafting programs laden with inputs and gotos and cls.

I remember being annoyed when I arrived on the Yale campus and the computer labs were filled with Macs. I wanted myself a nice DOS prompt. Was that too much to ask? Once I entered corporate America, I demanded an IBM laptop even though the majority of the company was on Mac. Only a piteous fool would want to use the dumbed-down interface of a Mac. Give me shell access or give me death!

And then, something happened. This beautiful machine began appearing everywhere. Billboards. Retail establishments. The desks of art directors. I would find myself inadvertently reaching for its smooth curves, transfixed by the sleeping pulsing light. And anyway, who logged in to a DOS prompt anymore?

It was over. I was sold. My knees buckled, my wallet opened, I bought myself an iMac. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Perhaps it is simply coincidence that since purchasing my iMac a year ago I've started enjoying my music again after three years of silence, writing again after a five year hiatus, started drawing again after 12 years off. Cause or simply correlation, I don't know. But I do know that the Apple sticker is proudly on the back of my car, and I folded and renounced my MiniDisc in favor of the iPod mini, and I proselytize my friends about the wondrous small ways in which Apple can reengineer their relationship to their computer, nay, their world.

xoxo

Done did:
* Saw Joe and Rishi and Mia at the Mercury Lounge on Tuesday. I love being with the band.
* Received the best, best email ever from photoboy. A really nice, warm, 'fondlier' email that essentially said, "You changed my life, and I'll remember you until my last breath. I'm so grateful to have met you." Now, where are those tickets!
* Chatted with the boy I met on Lincoln's Birthday who really has driven home the "obnoxious, funny, and true" nature of the thin upper crust. He took the bait and agreed to my upsell of attending Boozy Show on Saturday night.

I'm alive.

Progress is my middle name

2005-02-11T12:20:00.000-05:00

I had a date last night. He didn't show. Had a conference in Cali that he was leaving for this morning and had forgotten some stuff at his office, so didn't have time to make it down to see Matty Charles @ The Living Room.

And you know what? I don't care. Old me: freak out, obsess, get all insecure. New me: enjoy the great show anyway, buy my fat ass a tasty crepe, have a great evening anyway.

It's not a land of scarcity. Options exist. "If ya look hungry, ya starve!" (From Lynn during drinks with her & Jordana Wednesday night.) I spoke this morning with someone who matches my current Checklist For Hotness: objectively hot, artist (sculptor), witty.

It's nice to chill the fuck out and not get all freaky-deaky co-dependent. Don't get me wrong. Photoboy was. He knocked my socks off. He's an incredibly special human being. But maybe our paths will intersect, maybe they won't. That's not something that I necessarily have any control over. I do know that the scent of his skin is intoxicating, and my spirit aches for the nearness of him. But if we are to have any holders-of-hands, lips-blue-from-cotton-candy episodes, they won't be time now. I'm not in that place, he's not in that place.

Perhaps it seems that aching for him and releasing him are contradictory. It may simply be my inner Kierkegaard, turning it over, infinitely resigned. Or maybe, maybe I'm just making progress down the path of inner completeness, contentment, SERENITY NOW, and dare I say, actually loving myself.

To do:
- Hang out with Academy friend Adrian, who is in town for internship interviews
- Design Is Not Art with Adrian and his GF?
- Figure drawing group near Prospect Park

I don't believe you

2005-02-09T16:20:00.000-05:00

I get home from a nice evening with my dear friend Little 13, and wouldn't you know it, there's an email from photoboy requesting that I hook his friend up with Sandeman. It could actually be a mutually beneficial meeting, so of course I emailed his friend.

But it got me thinking. About photoboy. And his beautiful eyes and his tasty lips and the scent of his skin and the way we were together. The chemistry. Like. A. Drug. It was all I could do to not drunk-text him this past weekend.

Yes. On the one hand. I think things would never work out. But is that me believing that, or is that my bruised ego? I mean, what the hell do I know? When have I ever actually been able to articulate my own opinion, separated from the voices of The Other? Do I feel things because *I* *feel* *things*, or is it all one giant reactionary clusterfuck?

Photoboy said at the end of version 1.0 that he could go either way on whether or not he wanted things to work out for us at some point. I'm feeling the same way now. I could take it, give it another whirl, taste the deliciosity of that rush. Not now, certainly -- now I'm not good to me and sure as heck wouldn't be good to him or us. I could leave it, too. He was fantastic and fun and delightful, and I sincerely wish him the best. But I'm not going to live an impoverished life if he's not in it. Ya heard?

This is a marked departure from the old me. The old me equates loss of boy with loss of life, utter devastation, let's lock ourselves into our dorm room for three days at a time. But I'm beginning to learn that wait-a-fucking-second. Life is not one of deprivation. This is a land of plenty. I gotta lotta shit going on. People like me. There's another boy right around the corner. And if not, well shit, I have me, and pretty much, I kick ass. (Paraphrasing from a friendster's testimonial for me.)

Miss Zinegrrl, I don't believe you when I hear you say things like it would have been okay to just have NSA with photoboy. I don't believe you when you say that it was just about the physical stuff. I don't believe you when you positively rule out a LTR with him. You're too good at weaving in what you'd LIKE to feel (in order to seem cool, unhurt, "above" ... again, continuing the mom-battle) with what you REALLY feel (vulnerable, heartbroken, sad).

To do:
- Drinks with Jordana & Lynn tonight?
- Watch Josh play bass tomorrow
- Attend first figure drawing group mtg near Prospect Park on Saturday
- Fall in love with self

Buy this: Propaganda rubber tub stopper

2005-01-30T19:56:00.000-05:00

I saw this in an August/September issue of Budget Living (probably 2003) and promptly ordered one in each color. They're way cute, make great gifts, and one of these days, I'll work the soft scrub and actually take a baff in my bafftub.

Also, spent much of this weekend with Photoboy. dot dot dot

dark center of the universe - modest mouse - lyrics

2005-01-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

Isn't it ironic that soldierboy included this song on his mix CD for me? Particularly in light of the following heretofore incomprehensible lyrics that my best friend pointed out before knowing this song had been included on said mix:

"Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I'm real damn sure that anyone can, equally easily fuck you over"

Obviously, anyone can equally easily fuck me over, as evidenced by photoboy. (I take that back. It's not the same at all. Not even the same planet.)

DARK CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE
I might disintegrate into the thin air if you'd like
I'm not the dark center of the universe like you thought [x2]
Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I'm real damn sure that anyone can, equally easily fuck you over
Well, died sayin' something, but didn't mean it
Everyone's life ends, but no one ever completes it
Dry or wet ice, they both melt and you're equally cheated
Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I'm really damn sure that anyone can, equally easily fuck you over
Well, an endless ocean landin' on an endless desert
Well, its funny as hell, but no one laughs when they get there
If you can't see the thin air than why the hell should you care?
Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I'm really damn sure that anyone can, equally easily fuck you over
Well, I'm sure you'd tell me you got nothing to say
But our voices shook hands the other day
If you can't see the thin air what the hell is in the way?
[repeated lyrics]
Well, God sayin' somethin', but he didn't mean it
Everyone's life ends, but no one ever completes it
Dry or wet ice, they both melt and you're equally cheated
Well, it took a lot of work to be the ass that I am
And I'm really damn sure that anyone can, equally easily fuck you over
I'm sure you'll tell me you got nothin' to say
But our voices shook hands the other day
If you can't see the thin air then what the hells in your way?

And so, I retained some legal counsel.

There's a portion of the law called equity or chancery. Most of the
law is "at law." Some of the law is "in equity." It used to be that
there were separate courts-courts at law and chancery courts. Most
states now have courts that do both, except DE which still has a very
influential chancery court. At law basically refers to past court
decisions and statutes, etc., what you think of as the law. "In
equity" refers to the court's power to create fairness between the
parties, by, for example, making them perform a contract to sell real
estate, or preventing someone from carrying out a harmful act by
granting an injunction. The idea is that you need the court to do
something for you other than award damages. Now, if you come to the
court and ask them to use their powers "in equity," the other side
gets to argue that you aren't so innocent and you have "unclean
hands," so the court should ignore your request.

That's my take. I'm sure a law professor would find ways to quibble
about that description.

Which basically means, adding up everything, I can basically do whatever I want, no matter how balls-out crazy, to soldier boy. His unclean hands make it a-ok.

Here I go! Commence fun multimedia art project! Hooray!

Life is good

2005-01-25T14:37:00.000-05:00

Life is not all stinky turds that have been lurking in your closet for years.

Cretins of the Year - 2004

To do:

* work on 'sense of touch' piece for mr. bipolar
* scrabble night
* drinks with prender (?)

Million Dollar Booty

2005-01-24T13:19:00.000-05:00

I saw Million Dollar Baby this weekend and cried like a two dollar whore. First, I emoted because of the plotline. Second, I cried because I at once was reminded of that powerful urge I have (always juiced when I see movies like G.I. Jane or Girlfight) to learn how to box, to kick people's asses, to continue the fight with my mom. I don't want to fight any more. I don't. I lay down my arms. But letting go of all that, it's difficult.

Particularly when these past few days I've felt such anger and resentment. Mom called me last night and for once, I didn't call her right back. Still haven't called her back. I'm brimming with anger. Why did she have to drag us down into her shit, punish us for the transgressions of another? Weave your web and all that shit. Ignorance really is bliss; this newfound knowledge of mind is heavy, yo.

But! Or shall I say, butt. The cleans that I've been doing since Photoboy broke my heart (caved and emailed him) a couple of weeks ago are finally paying off. Even though it's not much -- 1 set of ten reps of forty pounds -- my ghetto booty is slowly but surely returning. 'Return of the back'...

So, pretty soon the chip on my shoulder can turn into junk in my trunk. That's a fair trade, IMHO.

And, saw an Academy friend who has spent the last decade or so completely stoned / tripping / out of her mind on drugs. She's not totally sober these days (definitely did K on Friday night) but she's so much healthier than when I saw her three years ago -- that was a dark, scary place she was in. It's good to have her back.

It's good to start having me back, too. I don't know where the fuck I've been the past 10+ years or so.

"AND WE'RE BACK!"

Kick that rock outta the way

2005-01-20T13:54:00.000-05:00

I realized after seeing Accidental Nostalgia that I've buried a lot of things from my childhood. Talking with my older sister on Saturday morning bubbled up a lot of stuff that I haven't thought about in a dozen odd years. Specifically, all of the emotional abuse suffered at the hand of my lunatic, emotionally unstable mother. Which is difficult to admit much less put into writing because I love her desperately and have bought into the party line that she is a victim, that she is the martyr, she is King Baby and do not ever question your mother. There were terrible things that happened to her, terrible unjustices that she suffered at the hands of abusive men, terrible terrible terrible.

My older sister told me how, after an elementary school presentation on alcoholism, a lightbulb went off in her head and she started measuring alcohol in the house -- certain it was the explanation for mom's psychotic behavior since the presentation read like a checklist. Namely. Never knowing if it was going to be safe when you got home from school (mom taking a nap: good. mom awake: run for the hills). Never knowing what was going to unleash her torrent of fury. Never knowing what sort of mindfuck game you would have to play at the age of 8 in order to get your mom to stop screaming at you, stop telling you to go to hell, stop putting you out on the porch in the middle of the night and locking the door behind you.

I'd forgotten all of this, swept it under the rug, tidied things up, ran off to the Academy and never looked back. But sure enough, I read through my childhood diary this weekend and there it was, buried in between a detailed list of boys I liked and awards I'd won.

Mom is so hard to live with sometimes.
Mom can be such a bitch.
Maybe I should take Mom's advice and just go to hell.

'I keep trippin' over the same damn rock instead of kickin' it out of the way.'

It came to me, babbling like a brook, burst out while making steak fajitas on saturday evening. I remembered it all. Floating up and disappearing while she screamed at me. Going numb as I saw the bottom of the vacuum cleaner above my head; watching it come down towards me. Mastering the art of not being present if it was safer to emotionally disappear. Mastering the art of being a chameleon. Getting straight As because maybe it would make her happy. Joining every afterschool activity because I did not want to come home. Being a control freak because ordered gridlines was the only place where I felt safe. Seeking out confrontation because confrontation equals love, mindgames equal love, screaming and bawling and abusive behavior equals love.

Being the only one in my family who didn't play an instrument. Acing the singing solos in elementary school except when my mom was in the audience -- then I fell hard (forgetting lyrics, voice cracking). Because when I was 4 I used to hum myself to sleep and mom would burst into the room and slap the shit out of me.

I have the right to sing, dammit. I don't have to fight the world; fighting the world is nothing more than a continuation of the battle with my mother.

I lay down my arms.

Perhaps this is too much information. But it feels like the more I address it, stare it in the face, recognize it for the truth that it is, the closer I can come to figuring out what to do next.

Accidental Nostalgia

2005-01-15T11:20:00.000-05:00

My godparents quote unquote are in town from PDX and took me to see Cynthia Hopkins in Accidental Nostalgia last night. Their son is the bassist.

Reading through the descriptions, I thought it might be a little weird and the guy I'm kind of dating (new one, not the emotionally unstable photographer fucker) said it looked a little 'off'. But when I saw it, I was blown away -- so many interesting almost Kierkegaardian layers of intrigue. On one hand, it's superficially entertaining -- great music, interesting multimedia uses, full frontal nudity. But dig deeper, and it's an interesting exploration of how we define ourselves -- by what we are not (what we choose to forget -- since the process of memory necessarily involves forgetting the majority of whatever happens to you) and who we wish to become (by selecting that which we choose to remember).

Anyway, post-fucko(s), I thought it was awesome awesome awesome. Yes, part of me was thinking, photoboy would love this and I wish we were 'holders of hands' right now enjoying this together so we could talk about it later. But, instead, new boy texted me last night then called me this a.m. when I replied and 'still in love' by the stills doesn't necessarily hurt to listen to. Anyway, it was new boy that lent it to me anyway.

To do: head to ICP to see exhibit, see Jules & Jim, go to Maggie's bday partay, remember that I am a vibrant amazing passionate woman and that yes, some men actually can love you one minute and a few hours later insist that they're not sure they ever want to be with you again...

Portishead - It Could Be Sweet - Lyrics

2005-01-13T11:44:00.000-05:00

But the thoughts we try to deny
Take a toll upon our lives

Retraction

2005-01-11T13:46:00.000-05:00

Actually, no, there will be no Scheherezade in February, because I just mailed my ticket to you know who, who announced last night that he doesn't want us to get back together again.

I cried so hard my eyes are still puffy (cover: I'm allergic to cats).

I am so sick of being the few-week fling of men (LCG, Guy Smiley, now DTB). It's like, intense and amazing and soul-shaking, and then suddenly, POUF.

What. The. Fuck.

Is it me? It's me, isn't it?

Another one bites the dust

2005-01-09T01:30:00.000-05:00

Happy one month anniversary! Now, let's call a TV time out because we're just not ready to deal with the kinds of feelings that we're having, shall we?

Who needs to visit Cedar Point when you can have a roller coaster from the comfort of your own bedroom, from laughing so hard at 5 a.m. that you suspect you may very well get evicted to curling yourself up into a ball in a dark place while your lover holds you knowing exactly what you're going through. And then, in twelve hours, having things cut off.

Well anyway, perhaps it's for the best. Lord knows that being called girlfriend was at once thrilling and something I was definitely not ready for. I still feel terrible about the JJC situation and haven't processed the Guy Smiley affair either.

But Lord. What I felt for DTB was so fucking authentic and honest and beautiful. Even if I knew we had an expiration date, even if I knew the pace we were going at was untenable over the long haul, even if I knew I had all the shit from JJC and Guy Smiley to process, even if I really wanted was some god-damned space these past two days.

There is always Scheherezade in February.

Notes: Gus Speth Lecture

2004-12-29T18:33:00.000-05:00

While cleaning out my agenda in preparation for the onslaught of '05, I happened upon some notes from a lecture by Gus Speth that I attended in conjunction with a Yale Alumni Assembly. Here they are, unedited.

I love men who wear green pants with pink grosgrain ribbon belts non-ironically. Yes, they do exist, as Bob Martin Class of '54 can attest.

Vision of sink, water flowing down.

Increased carbon dioxide = disruption of global climate
100 to 1000 x species disappearing caused by deforestation in the tropics (1 acre a second for 40 years)
Desertification - agricultural production size of Maine
90% of predator fish gone, over 1/2 corals
Our fat tissue carries toxic materials
75% of fisheries are overfished (vs 5% in '60)
Spring arrives early, huge loss of ice in arctic & antarctic glaciers, thinning of the arctic ice sheet

WHY?

Did not deal w/underlying forces
- huge pop growth
- phenomenal expansion rates of economy & deploying technology which was not designed w/environment in mind
- market pricing which does not reflect economic costs perverted by environmentally perverse subsidies. Failure to have environmentally honest prices
Relied on international environmental law
- Process is flawed - treaties are toothless
- not bad enforcement or bad compliance; bad treaties. process of passing a treaty is flawed.
- U.S. demos & repubs drag feet on intnat'l treaties

SO WHAT DO WE DO?

need to deal with population issues; poverty
ensure that technology captures best of environmental thinking
need to be environmentally responsible for our products & have our marketplace consumption patterns follow Europe's lead on eco-labelling
getting the prices right

in U.N. for six years
Former environmental advisor to Carter
Green investor movement

I bought his book, Red Sky at Dawn I think, but haven't made my way through the pile to read it just yet.

I'm with the band

2004-12-23T10:41:00.000-05:00

God! Could life be any more interesting and complex and unabashedly fun?

Last night I went to see my high school friend Dorothea kick ass on the drums in Duenow, the band that she and her husband Zach created. Afterwards, we piled into their big ass green van (with friends Joel, Josh, and Chance the big ole' dog) and headed over to an afterparty at Underbar that a friend of a friend threw together.

Underbar is below the W hotel -- whose neon signage formed the backdrop for the 20041218 Union Square Park footage -- and teeming with blue button down Wall Street types. Dorothea walks in in her get up -- can we say, Frederick's of Hollywood, I kid you not? Garters, bustier, stilettos, the whole nine. And she's a hottie patottie - platinum blonde, fake lashes, perfect porcelain skin, gorgeous. She was a rockstar at the Academy and now it's fucking official.

So we're in tow and everyone is looking. It's quite a sensation. And we get a booth and free bottles of Ketel One and We Are Fucking Rockstars and I Am With The Band. Joel and Josh are interesting as fuck; Joel's got a love in NYC though he lives in Chicago and does spoken word poetry, Josh gave me shit about the Citigroup thing but we shared our love for Magnetic Fields/Future Bible Heroes. They all wanted to know about my non-boyfriend.

And I'm sitting/standing/holding hands with the girl in the Frederick's of Hollywood getup. As the unmarried fully clothed one, men approached me left and right, suggesting that ---'s proclamation that I could have any man I wanted may have a nugget of truth. I'd forgotten the fun of fucking with a man whose had a few drinks who thinks he's more clever than you are. Ha! Part of me feels sorry for the Greenwich Capital Markets sales guy who ventures a toe in the water to chat with me, only to realize that I'm not a money hungry girly girl.

I promise I only gave my number to one guy, and frankly, his friend from out of town was cuter (but less interesting).

So Zach, Dot, Chance and I git into the green van and drive on over to BKLYN and I literally make 'em a bed to sleep in, put up a ghetto shower curtain, project the macro lens brilliance onto the wall. Dot drops some advice about the situation and thinks my plan is a good one; I realize that shit, I actually do like dogs, I'm just scared to death that I might kill one if I had to be responsible for it.

But anyway. So life is interesting, there are tons of people out there, and I think I can deal with the "loss" of Dan without totally losing my shit. (Ha! We'll see about that.)

Soundtrack: Yellow by Coldplay, live, from the You're So Beautiful Mix.
To do: See Life Aquatic with --- tonight, finish Christmas gifting!!, crank out a few more hours in the ofc

Day six!

2004-12-17T09:01:00.000-05:00

I met this person six days ago. SIX! And the universe is exploding with potential, fireworks-ing into possibility, thundering with WOW!

What I love the most is the utter lack of ambiguity. He who does not sign all emails to everyone with love signs emails to me with Love! And puts it on the You're So Beautiful mix! This is black and white!

No more guessing about what the other person is feeling -- it's all very clear. No more struggling internally trying to make myself feel something I am not -- I know exactly how I feel.

* sigh * Oh my word, I feel like I am seventeen again. 'And I can't sleep, 'cause you got strange powers.'

Have a brilliant weekend!

Plastic bags in the wind

2004-12-16T09:18:00.000-05:00

I work on the 46th floor. From my cubicle, I can see the East River and all of Manhattan. Today, crisp and cold in its winter beauty, the sky is clear and you can see the hills of Jersey, the Palisades, the whole wide world in the distance.

I'm playing Track 21 of the You're So Beautiful! mix that a certain someone gave me on Tuesday. I don't know the name of the track but it's gorgeous, has this floaty purply blue quality that makes the lungs feel expansive and infinite.

I heard a girl's voice and I looked up from my computer to see who it was. I knew today was the children's holiday party for the company and I thought it might be one of my boss' daughters. I immediately saw two girls, one probably seven and the other 11, with their faces pressed up against the window looking out over the world. They were pointing and drinking it all in unabashedly, much in the way I wish I could ogle the view and not look like a freak (can't exactly press your nose to the glass while sporting business attire...).

Their father, whose cube I've walked by countless times, whose cube is filled with pictures of his daughters, whose cube has always made me smile, is behind them and showing them the City to their softly squealing delight.

My heart, meanwhile, is brimming with emotion from recognizing that the seemingly neverending GUy Smiley saga is finally over. And then I see the father put his hand on his youngest daughter's shoulder and squeeze, and I am thinking of the love between my own father and myself, and I am struck by the beauty of it all and immediately begin to cry in my cube.

Not a weepy sad cry, but a 'sometimes there's so much beauty in the world it hurts' kind of cry. The cry of celebrating the release from the grip of the memory of Guy Smiley, the cry of knowing the boundless love of a father, the cry of the sum of all possibilities of the world.

And with this track on repeat I am thinking about the heartbreakingly beautiful eyes and heart of this man, this amazing man, this beautiful soul who has made me look at the world with eyes anew and dazzled me with the aching deliciousness of feeling connected and alive and hopelessly head over heels.

Hurry up, Friday!!!

Hold onto me

2004-12-15T15:14:00.000-05:00

Just enjoy this, you silly girl, let these strange powers take you under and make you blush on the inside. It's the rare magic elixir you chased in vain for four years, the narcotic of affection and connection that make you dizzy with the infinite possibilities of the universe.

As surreal as it seems, this bliss exists. The horizon stretches out and wraps its warm arms around the earth and fills the day with vibrancy, injects each moment with energy, infects its victims with the fantastic desire to embark on new adventures together.

Like kissing in the brand new daylight of New York fuckin' City amidst the hustle and bustle of Union Square and pretending that the rest of the world has melted away and no longer exists, all the while fully cognizant that the rest of the world really does exist, and that delivery truck driver watching the whole New York moment unfold is probably thinking that these two young kids in all their hotness and glory and beauty are probably in the throes of a maddeningly passionate brand-new love affair.

God, to fall in love in New York City on a crisp winter day. Gets you higher than the 46th floor.

Shit, man. You are so fuckin' beautiful.

Not stupid ... just hopeful

2004-12-07T21:58:00.000-05:00

I'm not stupid, I just believe in the wondrous possibilities of the universe. I feel things intensely -- I love people intensely and I am open to the infinite ebbs and flows of the world around me.

I give a shit about people, about people I don't even know, and I hunger for human connection. Life is meaningful. Yes?

I have no respect for those who exploit these things about me. In fact, I feel intensely about them as well, but in an entirely opposite way.

The being-toward-death evolution continues ...

Disarray

2004-12-07T15:12:00.000-05:00

I am so friggin' confused.

Saturn's return

2004-11-24T08:23:00.000-05:00

I just had my first capuccino in the States since returning from Italy. I thought it might be good as it was from a funky cafe tucked in between industrial outposts and hardware stores in LIC; the workers had that 'I'm an actually a painter but I gotta pay for my loft' look about them.

It tasted like ass. The train station in Vicenza had capuccino 1,000 times better than this bitter drink.

But being able to stop in and get copies of my apartment key and some liquid crack en route to my office (from my parking garage ...) is one of the delicious new treats of leaving my apartment before 7 a.m.

This Italy trip really completed the Saturn's return / being-toward-death evolution that may have been kickstarted by the car accident in late March. Life is short. You can float along thinking of purchasing a 2 BR townhome in Bloomington, Indiana because it's time to settle down and think about breeding, miss thang ... or you can upend your whole life, quit your job, walk away from a beautiful if safe and predictable relationship, get a new job, move ... inch closer to your authentic self.

This Saturn's return thing theorizes that every 28 years, give or take, Saturn returns to the place in the universe that it was when you were born. So, if your life isn't what you had thought it might be, when Saturn returns you may find yourself shakin' things up like a Polaroid picture.

And thus, the grrl who was nocturnal her freshman year in college now gets up at 5:30 a.m. and is in the office before 8 a.m. each day. Sure, I can say it's because I'm still on Europe time, but the reality is that I've got a freshly invigorated take on life -- I'm clear-sightedly facing up to the responsibility that I have to engineer a life that is restlessly exciting and challenging and vibrant. There is no Coach to diagram the fourth quarter play, no Mom to set a curfew, no Visio diagram and Project plan. The onus is on me.

An old refrain from the zine days of yore still rings true; it's living, not existing, that is bliss.

To do: forecast Q1, sand off the globs of black paint on my freshly painted furniture, return $600 worth of shoes to Zappos, figure out what to return to Anthropologie, host brilliant Thanksgiving day dinner for half a dozen friends

I flip the board

2004-11-22T09:02:00.000-05:00

When it comes right down to it, I'm pretty sure the universe is a hostile and confusing place. It's not neat and ordered and gridlined and mathemagicland. There are all these italicized i's, these irrational elements, these variables that I cannot control. It scares the shit out of me.

So, what do I do? I try and create a toothpick world of organization and control in the onslaught of such chaos. I create an intricate Plinko game for sorting my magazines. I have an elaborate system for selecting the clothes I wear each day. I sort and organize my shoeboxes very carefully. I institute tight controls for playing my iTunes. Purchases go through a rigorous sorting and filing system before they actually hit my credit card.

It's no wonder that I played Little Peoples until I was ten, or that I played Barbies until I was sixteen. These were worlds that I could control, understand; worlds within which I could feel safe.

After my pretend world of black and white was obliterated by the suicides, the attempted murders, the breakup -- the world felt more hostile and cruel than ever. I would lie in bed, covers to my chin, listening to my safe pre-selected indie music mix tapes, until the light got purple and soft outside. I couldn't bear dealing with reality in the cold harsh daylight; it was only palatable at night when the edges were soft and I didn't have to look at everything and see what I felt to be the hideous lies and gross injustices of society all around me.

To this day, I get cold easily and need layers of insulation to protect me from the world. I prefer a firm mattress so that I don't feel like I am slipping away into some rabbit hole of chaos. Ideally I could sleep against a wall to avoid the possibility of being whipped off the edge of my bed and into some vast unknown. I like the gun seat in busy rooms so that I can evaluate the world, calculate risks, plan my escape if things get too scary.

I crave definition. Can I get that in writing? is more than just corporate cover-my-ass; it's a god damned survival technique.

And while I say 'Seek Chaos' in the form of embroidered oxfords and pencils and what-have-you, this is just a pep talk to remind myself that a life worth living isn't one that is within the lines, isn't one that is black and white. But the reality is that ambiguity and infinite grey -- while I intellectually understand to be beautiful and amazing and the whole reason we are pulsing beings and not Ayn Rand automatons -- scares the fucking shit out of me.

So when I feel like I am wading in an abyss of confusion and grey, when I feel like I am drowning in chaos and the stuff of non-quadratic life, I flail about and try and grab on to anything that will help me make sense of it all. Like a Johnny One Note, I'll read through journal entries or old emails or look at photos ad nauseum in order to construct an elaborate mathematical proof that sounds something like:

Yes, this is reality, this happened, you were there, your understanding of the world is correct, the rug is not about to be pulled out from underneath you, A+
For a girl whose name means unpredictable, it's a god damned miracle I can get my ass out of (my firm) bed every morning.

At the same time, the people whose life forces tunnel deep within me are those that disrupt the order of my universe and lawlessly disregard its makeshift rules. They metaphorically toss the magazines onto the floor, make me wear the same outfit four days in a row, confuse the fucking shit out of me and send me spinning quickly into the deep end of the pool. I try in vain to hold on to something -- Chris, give me your hand, tell me it's okay for me to be drowning -- and usually it just makes it worse.

When I am trying not to choke on the water as I gasp for air, I am frozen in the moment and feeling completely alive and marvelling at the wonder of it all. I break through, I'm ascending some ever-rising land mass that lifts me above the banality of my Tron-world, my heart rate is 230 and I see a brilliant blinding slice of the infinite possibilities of the universe. It is dizzying and spellbinding and breathtaking but then I falter, I lose my footing, something generally mundane happens and my tenuous grasp on existing outside of the toothpicks gets lost.

I go spinning down down down and search for the black and white, knocking over and tearing down and ruining the rare and beautiful moment and insight and feeling that I was able to achieve in that moment of successfully seeking chaos.

I want to get back to that place, that rush, where I can confidently seek chaos, where I am brilliantly dazzlingly alive, where I don't give a flying fuck if dwell and Budget Living are in the same damned pile. Where I am not trying to fast forward or foot on the gas to the bottom line, the QED, the last page of the book. Where I am not trying to squish and reduce everything into neat orderly black and white 01010100101001001s. Where I'm not trying to choke everything that is beautiful out of life in order to satisfy my own weakness and inability to deal with the unknown.

Here's to confidently advancing in the direction of that place where parallel lines go out of their minds and intersect, where 2+2=5, where I slip into the deep end of the pool and I like it.

I don't know shit

2004-11-17T22:19:00.000-05:00

Good experiments tend to raise more questions than they answer. But can my integrated whole (rational brain + irrational heart) keep itself on solid footing in the face of such ambiguity? Or will I resort to my old methods of mapping everything to some coordinate plane, ad nauseum, until all that is beautiful and gray has been ruined, crushed by the onslaught of my mediocre desire for black and white answers now now now.

Remove the finger from the fast forward. Take the foot off of the gas. Enjoy this splendid moment before it passes, and resist the urge to push it along or force it into something it is not ready to become. (Repeat 10x)

Election 2004 Errors

2004-11-03T19:46:00.000-05:00

I'm deeply saddened by this election but am not going to let it beat me down. I've been in the minority my entire life; while I'd hoped that my optimistic feelings about my fellow Americans would bear fruit, I'm not letting this setback cloud my focus.

I am bothered by letting the hoi polloi decide on an issue as important as gay marriage, however. If The People had voted about miscegenation, the same kind of GroupThink ... well anyway. A benevolent, intelligent autocracy would be better than this fine mess.

In other news, my best friend was a poll monitor in Indianapolis, Indiana yesterday. She reports:

* Sigh * And, a dear friend who is in the military e-mailed me today:

my mail-in ballot arrived today, with a message that it will be cast on November 3rd when it is received back in Connecticut.

Brilliant. I wonder how many other disgruntled servicemen and women stationed abroad were unable to voice their opinion about their boss. Although, I guess a lot of those who would have wanted him out have already been blown to bits in battle.

Well, that's that. Time to leave the country, I suppose!

Snark is so 2003

2004-10-26T14:29:00.000-04:00

I was in the elevator up to my desk from the cafeteria when I heard some guy getting off on the 45th floor say "... probably bring his laptop with him ..." followed by much hearty laughter from his colleague.

It reminded me of a girl I knew in college who, bless her heart, attended the JE Spider Ball one year (in a dress from RAVE no less) with her laptop. I remember floating around with a champagne glass in hand to the strawberries and chocolate fondue; there she was, huddled over the glowing screen of a laptop. It was the most ridiculous and pathetic and sad thing I'd ever seen. And even though I like the girl, always thought of her as sweet, I laughed out loud and rushed to find my date to point her out so he too could join in on the mockery.

I don't know if it's a liberal arts college graduation requirement to master the art of being a snarky jackass (some refer to these types as 'clever'), but I'd like to unlearn this peculiar talent that I too possess. Gawker and most lit/TV/film critics are experts in crafting scathing reviews; troll through people's Friendster's profiles and you can see plenty of examples of people trying to impress upon a version of themself that essentially reads:

"I'm clever, mean, and bitchy, which equals cool, but I'm going to act like I don't care about cool by inserting something aloof and distant and devil-may-care."

For the past three and two-thirds year I have shared my world, my life, and my heart with a man who was not a liberal arts grad, who was not witty or charming or any of that, and who certainly was not clever. Which is to say he was warm and caring and selfless and unequivocally nice. I do not believe I heard him ever once utter a phrase that was snarky or insincere. His heart, his soul, his entire being was angelic and pristine.

Whether or not that was why our relationship filled me with a deep sense of unhappiness; whether or not his fearless love for me and unclever take on the world was what I found most attractive about him -- possibly in an attempt to myself become less clever and more pure -- none of these things I know.

But I do know that I am fatigued from an existence of clever verbal one-upmanship, where the parties are always trying to craft a more perfect and succinct insult loaded with fifty cent words and complex grammatical constructions. While out with some Yale buddies this past weekend, we mocked an average-looking girl with a large nose for deluding herself into thinking that she could go home with one of us (never mind that the man in question was definitively leading her on). I no longer think that's cool. Mean is not funny and while I am guilty of finding snarky cynicism terribly amusing at times, there's no place for it in that Jedediah Purdy world I'd like to create and inhabit.

I want to be funny in that Ellen way, loving in that JJC way, beautiful and pure in a Mormon way. Which isn't to say that I'm interested in being naive or feel a need to have my Yale degree revoked, but it is to say that I don't want to spend all day obsessing about whether or not my Friendster profile makes me seem appropriately hardened, edgy, and ironic.

There's no law that says an honest, sincere life can't be filled with breathtaking fun and passion at the same time, right?

I've ruined the neighborhood

2004-10-21T13:56:00.000-04:00

I used to find those people who took taxis or car service or actually drove to work as wasteful indulgent slobs. Why bother with vehicles when public transit often gets you there faster, for exponentially less?

A decade ago, I also looked at anyone in a trench coat and business dress with deep disdain. Capitalist tools! I declared, scowling in my baggy curdoroys and angsty tee shirt and John Fluevogs, journal with which to capture a future zine rant firmly in hand.

Last night I got home late from a night on the town with my dad, starting with a tourist-y trip to the top of the Empire State Building and culminating in an incredible steak dinner. Pops really enjoyed himself, as did I. I was too exhausted to try and find alternate side street parking, so I did what a few months ago would be unthinkable:

I drove to work, instead of taking the subway two blocks from my apartment. And parked in a parking garage. ! And while en route, I'm stopped at a stop light, tapping my leather-wrapped steering wheel to the beat of that former Cubbies theme song (Jump? By Mike & The Mechanics?) when a dude wrapped head to toe in black -- including requisite leather biker jacket with heavy zipper action and combat boots (ha! I remember my pair from high school) -- walks in front of my car. I can only imagine what he thought of me in my German car and trench coat and general yuppie ooze.

It's funny how easily people can change if they let themselves. Six months ago I would rather have lived in Indiana than dare drive to work instead of taking the subway; ten years ago I would have glared at the capitalist fuck behind the wheel of an import.

As my old man said last night, change is never a bad thing. It can be a bitch when you're in the midst of it, but when you come out the other side, it's always been good.

That which does not kill you ... and all that jazz.

Thin upper crust, right to your door

2004-10-18T22:42:00.000-04:00

I just unpacked my first-ever shipment of FreshDirect, and there it was: my name in big bold black letters atop an address based in Brooklyn, New York. ! All three dozen eggs arrived, unbroken, to my delight. I was dismayed to see that the 'best use by' dates on a couple of items had already passed, but optimistically I'm assuming that FreshDirect's standards of 'best use by' are just insanely aggressive. I've been known to dumpster dive, so I think I can ignore that pesky date. (In the meantime, note to self: must locate and unpack freezer bags.)

As it turns out, the private equity deal that I was doing menial grunt work for several weeks ago was being lead by my contact's colleague's colleague "Jeff" as she (my contact's colleague, with whom I share one very special alma mater) introduced us. Jeff wore slightly baggy unflattering faded jeans with a polo and boat shoes, very 1987. He's probably in his fifties and worked diligently at some model on his IBM ThinkPad, grunting occasionally but otherwise quite focussed peering over the edge of his glasses. Jeff, she informed me, was one of the original investors of FreshDirect. How nice for him! I thought. And how nice for my contact's colleague with her gorgeous penthouse apartment and well-mannered private school kids being raised by a nice woman who speaks Spanish! And how nice that this deal was esssentially looking to take a publicly held company private! Isn't nice that we are all so well-moneyed and well-degreed and can change people's lives with an -- oops! -- manipulation of this one cell and -- oh! -- a modification of this formula!

Thanks to Gawker -- which fortunately is not blocked by the firewall of the company for which I am currently consulting -- I now know Jeff's last name. And to think, I sat across from him at an expensive dining room table in a fabulous Upper East Side penthouse just a few weeks ago. I wonder if the cell phone call that he took and then scurried off to the balcony had anything to do with Radar, or if it was for yet another magnificent takeover of someone else's passion.

And gawd, did I mention how dreadful the work that I had to do was? Truly, astoundingly dull. And I thought working for crackhead college flunkies was bad. (That was uncalled for, don't you think?)

Where ya at, Zyprexa?

2004-10-16T21:49:00.000-04:00

Found while unpacking a box that has sat sealed in my attic since May of 1999.

Small slip of paper with quotation scrawled in purple felt tip pen:

"THIS school is full of fucking whack jobs, and I'm eight of them."
- me, to me, 6:08 a.m. 4/13/98 after a 6:06 a.m. hang up call

The beat of my own drum

2004-10-16T16:41:00.000-04:00

This whole process is much more difficult than I had imagined. It comes in waves, of course. I’ll go for long stretches, happily plodding along in my new job or unpacking boxes. And then something, generally mundane, will happen and jolt me into pangs of sadness, remorse, and guilt and I’ll be curled up in a bawl.

My new apartment is finally coming together. Days of it feeling cold and vast and echo-y with the hardwood floors are ending; I’ve turned the corner and as my best friend ALO insisted:

I’m sure you’ll turn it into a cozy tea-drinker’s paradise in no time.

(or something like that).

The gas man came today, so as soon as I unpack the teacups and tea there may actually be legitimate, I’m-a-grrl-in-Brooklyn tea-drinking underway.

Here’s what jolted me into writing this in the first place: I’m puttering around, unpacking things, wondering when the heck Mister High Speed Internet is going to arrive, listening to the Lazy Afternoon playlist, when I hear drums or pounding or something. I peek out the window and see bystanders looking at something. The noise is getting louder. It’s drums for sure.

I kill the iTunes and open my blinds. There they are, a drum corps, dressed smashingly, marching down the street. Right outside my window! I look across the street and see brownstones, a woman with a full afro leaning out of her window soaking it all in, the kids and families proudly trailing the corps as they make their way down the cobblestone sidewalk.

I’m really here. This is really my amazing three bedroom (glutton!!!) apartment with the hardwood floors and the wood trim and the friggin’ molding. I really did rip that protective, suffocating plastic off my iMac last night after ten months of safety. I really am playing my highly-rated songs rather than my least played songs for once. I really did have dinner at an amazing French bistro-type thing in my very own neighborhood !!! after work !!! with my dear friend Little 13 the other night!

She made an incredibly apt illustration over dinner, describing her impending breakup with her boyfriend of eight years. (What the heck am I crying about, then? Eight years!) She crossed her arms over her chest, and then flung them out like wings, letting out a huge breath of air. You are an eagle, and eagles are meant to soar, my old coworker LaxChica once said.

But the removal of the training wheels, the safety net, the plastic covering. While mostly liberating and invigorating and exciting, there are times when I tumble into the unbearable darkness of what-the-fuck-have-I-done.

For now, with the drummers replaced by the gentle distant wail of police sirens, I am just going to distract myself with: where the fuck is the cable guy?

Dodge ball > calculus?

2004-10-12T17:22:00.000-04:00

American Heart Assocation sez: Gym Class Thru Senior Year

The American Heart Association has issued a statement encouraging schools to join in on the fight against obesity. According to the article linked above, one of the specific recommendations is as follows:

Physical education should be required a minimum of three times a week from kindergarten through twelfth grade

On the clock right now, but this is the kind of dangerous recommendation that morons misinterpret, run with, and then wreak havoc with. My beef with this:

My older sister is disabled and got enough crap from Miz Osowski the gym teacher for not being able to participate in phys ed. Imagine the b/s that similarly disabled students would have to endure, three times a week through HS graduation, at the hands of a friggin' PE major from a barely accredited university.
Schools would have to hire more PE instructors to accommodate the forced classes. Because more money for PE instructors vs. physics teachers is a brilliant use of funds.
Hello, what about jocks? The dumb jocks take weightlifting so they'd meet these asinine requirements, but the smart jocks (like me) who don't have a study hall but are physically active -- hello, ten varsity letters -- actually use all their class times for academic work. So they can take calculus with all the seniors or world history and physics with all the juniors. So some bozos at the AHA think that I should take PE instead of calculus? Even though I'm busy setting records for track? What a crock.

That's the end of my ranting for today. I can only hope that the statement issued spells out in greater detail caveats that can assuage my fears detailed above.

The end of 10573 Grrl

2004-10-11T11:37:00.000-04:00

JJC is passed out on the futon after a hard day of heavy lifting. Little sister is puttering around taking a last look at the apartment. I'm sitting in front of my iMac listening to the Goooood Morning mix on iTunes, sunshine pouring in from the window which no longer has any curtains. My shoulders are sore, my back is sore, the skin on my hands is raw, etc.

The sky is a brilliant crisp autumn blue. It's time to wrap up the story of Port Chester and start a new one.

Soon as the cable dudes hook me up, I'll see ya soon as 11238 Grrl. Until then, consider this: 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' by Deep Blue Something and Friendster both insist there's something to be said about a connection over a movie. Isn't that also something that, like, freshmen in college bond over?

My friend John decried the use of mass media in the Friendster profile. His tagline, as it were, is "For that which makes us human."

Of course, in my human weakness, I can't help but feel a li'l bit giddy when someone else drives a Jetta, uses an iMac, came from the Midwest, and has big feet. =)

Sayanora, Port Chester

2004-10-09T19:03:00.000-04:00

5.5 years later, I'm moving out. There are demarcations in the carpet that I installed silhouetting the ghosts of furniture. Shadows in the walls I painted highlight the former haunts of pictures that I had framed. It's hard to believe.

Last week, I ran into a guy I knew at the bread store, and I ran into my next door neighbor at the diner. This kind of thing has never happened to me before. Today, three of the people that I was in line with at the post office then went straight to the bread store. We all laughed about it together. I've never met these people before in my life, yet suddenly it feels like a small town.

My neighbor gave me a big bear hug this afternoon. Her son was ten when I moved in. One of the first parties I threw, I imagined him sidling up to the keg when no one was looking and then passing out bloated in his backyard. Now he's a sophomore in high school, always practicing the drums when he's not skateboarding with his buddies. He has the angsty punk rock black tee shirts and baggy pants and long hair. And a girrrrrrlfriend, reports his mom. Tonight's even his homecoming.

Can you imagine? Homecoming?

Homegoing is more like it for me. The neighbors across the street -- who I have felt nothing but elitist disregard for with their yelling and horn-honking and seasonal colorful nylon flags -- chatted up my little sister about The Apprentice. God, you appear in the town newspaper and suddenly the people that haven't said two words to you want to get all up in your business.

But despite my annoyance, it's kind of nice that Port Chester's feeling like a small town. Things are comfortable, I've got a little nest, life is good.

Then again, I do have a knack for upsetting the comfortable, fleeing the nest, restlessly seeking something better than good.

No sleep 'til Brooklyn!

Good blogs re: presidential race '04

2004-10-06T14:34:00.000-04:00

Just happened upon this blog when surfing blogspot:

An intelligent blog covering the Presidential race of 2004

and also:

Hilarious, straight-shootin' blog covering the race

Did some investigating on the FactCheck.com thing mentioned in the latter, and although it redirects to GeorgeSoros.com (mwahahahahhaa) it is apparently not owned by him. According to whois:

Administration, Inc.
Box 10518 A.P.O.
Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

is the registrant of said URL. Naturally, admin@nameadmininc.com is also registered in the Cayman Islands.

Whoever they are, I love them. Wouldn't it be amusing if they had shell offices right next to the shell offices of the Iran and Libya-lovin' Halliburton subsidiary?

I'm feeing more confident with each debate about the chances for K&E to beat B&C. Yalie for President! Oh, wait ...

Plays well in Peoria alone

2004-10-02T16:07:00.000-04:00

I was in the middle of packing up my study in anticipation of my move this afternoon when I happened upon the Literary Magazine for The Ulysses S. Grant Foundation. U.S. Grant was an amazing summer and afterschool program with which I was involved my entire undergraduate career, primarily in a capacity of math instructor but I also ran the program for a year. (Frankly, I prefer teaching ... I love kids.)

Anyhoo, while reading through I remembered the great students that I had. We served middle schoolers in the awkward midst of puberty; kids just beginning to get stinky armpits when they sweat and the painful experience of recognizing the opposite sex. Many of our students were misfits in one way or another; the white kids stuck out like a sore thumb, the short kid was just a little bit taller than his bookpack, one shy fellow had boobies. Reading through their essays and poems and whatnot, I was warmed by the memory of their spirit and enthusiasm and energy and irrepressible life force. I love those kids.

My mind wandered a bit and I began thinking of other awkward moments. I remember the first formal dance-type thing in college. It was a dance in JE, and many of the underclassmen had flown their high school sweethearts in for the event. How exciting for these girls to see ther boyfriend in his exciting Yale life! How proud their mothers were, I'm sure, for being the girlfriend of a Yale man! You could see the way their sparkling eyes soaked it all in, the wood-panelled walls, the rich leather reading chairs, the slate entryways. Wow! they surely thought. This is so cool! What an amazing, incredible world!

I know what their eyes saw, because I remember how my eyes felt too when I first moved in.

But I was now a wisened freshman with several weeks of being a Yalie firmly under my belt, and I knew enough to know that the outfits they donned for the exciting Yale dance were entirely inappropriate. Their hairstyles were reminiscent of the Indiana flatlands I'd left behind; properly curled bangs solidly Aqua-netted into place. Poufy sleeves. Perhaps a large satiny bow innapropriately placed. Bright colors.

I felt embarrassed for their ignorance at what the appropriate attire for a proper Yale event might be. I wanted them to run and find a simple black shell and some pearls and coat them in understated elegance. Their dresses were too loud and ruffly; their hair too big and poufy. Most of them wore makeup that was obvious rather than subtle. It pained me, but at the same time, I felt superior to them. You foolish girls stealing our Yale men, what on earth are you thinking in that dress from RAVE?

It was the same feeling I had when I accompanied Jeremy to the Stony Brook Engineering Ball. The kids were wearing truly unsophisticated attire and everyone looked on the balance quite sloppy. The ball itself was held in a gymnasium-type room with -- egads -- cinder block walls and chairs made of metal and industrial-strength fabric. (As opposed to wood and leather.) I felt terrible at noticing the shabbiness of it all, and wished for a moment that I could erase the kind of knowledge that Yale had bequeathed me.

Sometimes I wish I did not know that there are alternate lives out there, that there are kids with trust funds and summer homes on the coast, that people do have libraries within their homes with reading lamps and $3,000 leather chairs and first editions of the classics. When you're in Peoria and it plays well, the last thing you want is to realize that it sounds like shit everywhere else.

I'm sorry, Half.com

2004-09-29T10:58:00.000-04:00

When Half.com burst onto the web several years ago, I was elated. No longer would I need to find a Cutler's or an Orbit or an indie music store to track down quasi-obscure used CDs. I could punch onto their website and sate my desire for an import Sundays, used, cheap.

A couple of years out of college I realized that I too could unload my pre-loved CDs and books via Half.com. I dutifully entered a bunch of UPCs, named my own price, wrote up some jazzy editorial. (Helpful: if a text had markings in it, the copy would read, "Minor notes in pencil by Yale BA History '99.")

I quickly began making some decent cash, and was getting rid of books I no longer needed (which isn't to say that eighteenth century journals by women in the Middle East didn't serve its useful academic purpose at one time). $350 a month was not unheard of. Life was good.

Then, eBay's acquisition of Half.com meant that the powers that be wanted to transition Half.com buyers and sellers over to the eBay platform. Margins are better for eBay on eBay, and they probably wanted to shed the maintenance costs of operating the Half.com entity.

Half.com sellers, myself included, were tres annoyed. Where once we could punch in a UPC and let a book languish for months, now we were being told to sell on eBay and hope it sold within a week. If it didn't, we'd have to re-list and bear the listing costs once again. Sorry, but the market for obscure CDs and academic texts isn't the same as the market for the rest of eBay stuff. A lot of Half.com merch is a slow burn. There's a dude out there who wants my used copy of Necromonicon, but it's going to take more than a ten day listing for us to find one another.

And so with a heavy heart, many diehard Half.com sellers transitioned to the Amazon marketplace. Margins were slimmer here, it was difficult for buyers to rate us and thus differentiate the good sellers from the bad, and there was no automated way to confirm an order in the way that Half.com allowed. I resisted at first, clinging to the hope that eBay would abandon their transition plans. I even tried eBay to miserable results. But after analyzing the userflow and realizing that the Half.com property was pushing its visitors to eBay, I realized that my efforts to sell and buy through Half.com were in vain. I moved everything over to Amazon.com -- both buying and selling of used books n such.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, Half.com announced that they were putting off their plans to transition to eBay indefinitely, suggesting that they may never kill the Half.com platform. But it was too late. I'd already realized that most consumers go to Amazon.com for books and CDs to buy used, and despite the lower margins, I was turning inventory over more quickly and netting more loot while getting rid of such classics as "Mormonism: What You Need To Know." Sure, some of the functionality that Half.com offered is dearly, dearly missed, and buyers through the Amazon.com marketplace seem to be on the balance less 'net-savvy than Half.com buyers, but on the balance, it works for me. I didn't want to use Amazon.com at first but now that I have, I'm okay with it.

But suddenly, Half.com is back at my doorstep. Sadly, it's the heartbreaking moment when Rico is apologizing to Vanessa for having befriended Infinity in Six Feet Under. Vanessa still loves Rico, yes, but the time they were apart allowed her independence to fluorish and she liked it. She never intended to prefer being a single mom to being married to Rico, but it happened anyway. She doesn't mean to hurt you Rico, but she wants a divorce.

So Half.com is a little bit like Rico here. I love(d?) Half.com, and I didn't want it to go away, but once I got to know Amazon.com I realized I preferred it.

I'm sorry, Half.com. I don't mean to hurt you, but I'm selling my books and CDs through Amazon.com marketplace from now on.

:)

By The People

2004-09-26T01:52:00.000-04:00

Engaging citizens in the political process

At my reunion this year, I attended a lecture by Cynthia Farrar, the Director of Urban Academic Initiatives through Yale's Office of New Haven and State Affairs. Something tells me she's also a professor of history as well. Her lecture outlined the By The People vision and results to date.

I'm exhausted from packing all day and don't have energy to crank out some pithy description. Click the link above to read an overview; basically you randomly pick local folks then get them together to discuss political issues. The effects on the people are profound: they find themselves thereafter more interested in politics, feel engaged in their community, and on the balance are more likely to consider a point of view other than their own. Farrar's goal is to take the best from Athenian democracy and treat citizens like citizens -- not just consumers who are either going to buy "Candidate A" or "Candidate B" at their next trip to the mall, err, voting booth.

It's an interesting concept. I'd like to see it rolled out, along with mandatory civic duty (which could or could not be military duty -- would be up to the citizen).

Time to sleep.

Ephemera

2004-09-21T15:09:00.000-04:00

When you're packing up the place in which you've lived for the past five years, you're bound to discover some juicy tidbits. I found a journal that I'd purchased while on a layover on Chicago (I think); there was only one entry. I've backdated it and added it the blog.

Not in love with indica

Click the link above to check it out. I'm patting myself on the back for ever having crafted such a masterpiece ;)

Six Feet Under: Claire=Zinegrrl, T-4

2004-09-20T21:01:00.000-04:00

Claire (Lauren Ambrose), with her coke-fueled slide into egocentrism, really brings back the breathtaking fun and poisonous self-involvement of being a brand-new adult. But even as she blurts out arrogant proclamations about herself and her photography, her courage and naiveté could still charm us into the sack faster than you can say "Billy Chenowith still belongs in the nut house."

(Click the quotation to read the full article.)

1. I met Lauren Ambrose in person nearly a decade ago, and then ran into her four years ago when I was in the thick of my internet-fueled slide into egocentrism. The first time I met her was at a birthday party in Greenwich after she'd finished wrapping for 'Can't Hardly Wait' with Ethan Embry, Jennifer Love Ho-itt, & Seth Green. We discussed the original name ('The Party') and she explained why they changed the name after sending out the press kits (something about a film in the forties with the same name.) She struck me as kind of blinky, round-faced, nice ... Claire-esque pre-season 4.

2. This paragraph is brilliant, but overall, I must admit that I am a Six Feet Under whore. I love the show. My commuting schedule revolves around the show. I see parallels in the lives of the characters in my own life. The storylines bring me to new emotional highs and lows, usually in the same hour. Rich, complex, delicous. This Heather chick eloquently outlines why.

3. God, do you remember what it was like to be in your early twenties and so ridunculously self-absorbed? Longtime posse members will remember t-4, when zinegrrl.com was little more than something akin to a webcam attached to my headboard. Good lord. The (s)exploits were fun but empty and emptying; I was in sixth gear but running on fumes. (Reminds me of W's approach to fiscal management ... hmmm ...) Fun at the time but really screws up the engine over the long haul. I'm still dealing with the side effects, and no, it doesn't involve burning or frequent urination, but thanks for asking.

4. Trump obviously didn't select me for the third season because he has a fragile ego and couldn't bear the thought of a sharpie like me drawing a Fu Manchu on his portrait. His reaction to Bradford was classic "You didn't appreciate the gift I gave you." Consider if you will that classic line from the movie Christine: "Well don't think about it too long or I'll throw you out on your stinkin' ass." This is from the owner of the body shop, who has just offered a job to the guy who keeps raiding his junk pile, to Arnie, who replies, "Well I'll have to think about it.")

Trump exhibits the same reaction. He offers Bradford a get out of jail free card, and Bradford says thanks but no thanks. Trump is miffed and freaks the fuck out, firing him. Throws him out on his stinkin' ass. Classic! Imagine how he'd respond to the girl that suggested she might fuck Trump in the ass during her semi-final round interview for Apprentice season three. :)

5. How much do I love the use of 'deus ex machina' in the article????

6. Thanks to LHS a.k.a. Jo, Esq. for plucking the quote and ALO Esq. for providing the source.

7. When does the next season of Curb Your Enthusiasm start? :)

Market failure

2004-09-19T15:26:00.000-04:00

The coterie of grrls with whom I used to play Scrabble on Thursdays should recognize the phrase 'market failure' as they're the ones who coined it. Let me expand with personal storytime which, while the bane of every sociology class, is the stuff that blogs are made of, no?

I went shopping on Friday. I was feeling unusually good in this godforsaken season of death: I'd scored a quickie project that would pay a month's rent for three days of work; I'd just killed an interview for a very big firm that I'd very much like to work for. (Talk about "problem with authority" to "working for The Man ... but that's another post...) Why not blow some loot on some togs? Last time I bought new clothes I believe it was some sensibly priced underpants -- purchased only because I was in Canada and dammit if the exchange rate wasn't favorable.

Let me tell you about how I'm built. I gots big feets. Big, flat, wide, long feet. Paris Hilton has nothing on me. I'm a regular platypus. I'm also tall and long limbed, but with broad relatively muscular shoulders.

But the market fails me. Admittedly, stores have gotten exponentially better at carrying tall sizes and size 11 shoes. If I could re-live adolescence I might not have to suffer the cruel injustice of high waters or boys-only shoes. There's still room for improvement if the market wants to get a passing grade. Here's why:

The sleeves are too short. Take the size four shirt and the size ten shirt. Line up the sleeves. Are the proportions (width to length) the same? Hells no. They just make the trunk wider for size ten. So people like me -- who are tall and normally-proportioned, rather than simply being a size four wearing a fat suit -- stick their arms out in front of them and watch the ends of the sleeves slink up to their elbows. Boo. Getting tall shirts helps, but you can't for the life of you get a patterned button-down work shirt (read: suit with style!) in talls. Only the solid colors are carried in tall. Thanks, market.
The shoulders are too narrow. I can deal with the waist of jackets coming in a little too high; it's actually kind of flattering. But the shoulders are killing me. I can't move my arms when I walk let alone cross my arms in front of me. When the shoulders do fit, the bodice swims around me like a burlap muumuu. Ay dios mio!
The jeans stretch too much. Length is no longer cause for complaint to my delight. The problem is that jeans that fit my booty (generally stretch jeans) don't squish my thighs appropriately. I like a durable non-stretch jean that disciplines my thighs into conformity. These stretchy jeans, while great for skinny fifteen year old, do no good when they stretch around every lump of my sausage legs. However, the non-stretch jeans don't accomodate my booty OR if they do, leave that insufferable gap at the waist requiring a belt to avoid major underoo exposure.
The shoes are too narrow. Assuming the size 11 is actually an honest size 11 (oftentimes not), it's not going to be wide enough for me. Again, the shoemakers just take a size six and make it longer. This is not how feet work. Think proportions, people. If it's longer, it's gonna be wider too. I think I may simply have to suck it up and head to stores that outfit transvestites if I have any hope of getting a tweedy pointed-toe flat or kitten heel this fall in size 42 euro.

All I'm sayin' is: stop trying to encourage girls to play sports if you're not going to make clothes for us to wear once we're all growed up. I drank my milk and ate my vegetables and now I'm tall; don't punish me with frump-a-dump clothes for the rest of my life. I already have a tendency to dress like a grandma as it is.

Market failure !!!

Networking to get a job

2004-09-16T19:10:00.000-04:00

I read a lot of articles or blog posts poo-pooing the use of networking to find a job. The official word is that personal and professional networks are used to fill some 80% plus of available job openings, or that most job openings are never officially listed by the time they're filled by a friend of a colleague of an associate of an acquaintance.

But time and again, people are out there hitting their heads against the wall about their inability to get a job through schmoozing.

Here's my balls-out honest theory regarding why some people will never be successful using networking to land a gig: They're unlikeable and/or unqualified.

I'm no guru on the subject matter, but I have met a lot of job-seekers in my time running DinnerGrrls.org, a national not-for-profit women's networking and career development group. I've also worked with people through Category: OTHER, where I help job-seekers with their interviewing and negotiation skills in an effort to help them make more money.

Broadly speaking, people fall into one of two categories in any given business relationship: self-aware or clueless. The self-aware are generally open to social relationships with their coworkers, make an effort to know them as people (not just as perl developers that will help them get the spam out the door that much quicker), and keep in touch with people after their formal relationship as classmates / coworkers / clients draws to a close. They're not always angling for a value-add from the other party; they genuinely like them and/or have a sincere interest in helping the OTHER person succeed.

The clueless types make me wince. They're all business at the office, see their coworkers and clients and vendors as worker bees and worker bees alone, prance around at networking events forcing their business cards down everyone's throat, and only get in touch when they need something from you. Gag me with a spoon.

Truth be told, most of the time I'm self-aware but sometimes I'm clueless. And sometimes this is on purpose: I genuinely dislike some of the people I meet in the workplace, and I'm not about to pretend that I find their regurgitation of the viewpoints of faux-hipsters as impressive. So I'm not opening up to them, and I sure as hell am not going to check their six as their career progresses. It's no accident that I don't return their emails or put on a false smile should I suffer the cruel injustice of running into them after our formal relationship ends.

But getting back to networking as a useful means for getting a job. It's the clueless people who can't use networking effectively. Why? The people that they consider as in their network don't give a shit about them. They don't like that person; they're not interested in helping them succeed. This pariah only gets in touch when they need a job, never offers help in return, doesn't even pay for lunch when they pull you away from your to-do list to help THEM out.

Yes, this has happened to me. On more than one occasion. And wouldn't you know it, the same people that sit there at lunch and offer nothing in return are the people that whine and moan and groan about how ineffective networking is for them in their job hunt.

Here's some quickie advice from yours truly on successfully networking to get a job:

Sincerely care about your business contacts. Give a shit. Get to know them as people. Pay attention to the pictures on their cubicle, or the music they listen to, or the books they read, or the sports teams they follow. Whatever. Don't be the jackass that comes in with your agenda and no time to look behind the professional mask. The people you care about are going to be the people that care about you and your search for a job.
It's a marathon, not a sprint. If you need a job NOW, you'll need to leverage the network you've built up to this point. Now is not the time to cull a bunch of business contacts. You should be building your network along the way. You're in a better position to help others when you're not the one that needs help; others will be more receptive to helping someone they already know. Even more receptive to that someone who knows they love the Cubbies, gets their dorky jokes about artificial intelligence, understands their need for a stick-shift car. And: building your Rolodex is something that you do every day of your life. Middle school nerd camp. High school. College. You've been building it all along.
Give some to get some. When you do hit up your business contacts, don't just come in with your agenda. You should also make it clear that you are poised to help them in whatever it is that they may need help, be it professionally or personally. I'm not saying you bust out the knee pads and crawl under the desk of every stressed-out investment banker in your contact list. But if a colleague mentions offhand they're planning a trip to Morocco, ask your buddy who just got back if he has any inside tips. And pass them along. If you're asking someone to keep their head up for job opportunities, the least you can do is keep your head up for whatever it is they might need.

I truly believe that networking is an incredibly effective way to get a job. My friends IM me with job openings at their firms that aren't listed; my name gets passed on by people with whom I've worked to others who are looking for talent; I polish my presentation skills while schmoozing so that come interview time, I'm ready to blow 'em away.

So boo hoo to those who poo poo. Maybe the reason they're not getting a job through the people they know is that only someone who has no idea what they're getting into would hire them ... ?

The season of the end

2004-09-13T16:54:00.000-04:00

Autumn is sweeping its way up and down I-95. The intermittently warm days, the sun setting early, the crispness in the evening. Locusts. Death.

A list of things that fall reminds me of:

Running long distances on country roads for cross-country, a sport I took up only because nerd camp interfered with volleyball tryouts and my track coach thought it would be a good idea. To this day I am not a fan of slow and steady. That is so not my pace.
Highjinks associated with the nervous energy of the beginning of a school year. Junior year at the Academy and sophomore year at Yale bring back particularly fond feelings.
Heartbreak. Every non-insignificant romantic relationship that I've been in has come to an end in the fall. My high school sweetheart broke up with me over email (he's now married). A deeply irrelevant putz broke up with me by starting out with the tender words, "I don't want you to think that it was just a summer fling." Uh-huh. And on and on and on. This is the season for the end of things. No matter how beautiful I felt things were, we were unable to hold on to it and the magic died, came to an end, changed color.
Mormons. This is the season of visits from Missionaries, hopeful trips to go bowling with apple-cheeked Mormons, baking cupcakes, reading the Book of Mormon by an office park pond.

It's a beautiful season, yes, but bittersweet. I'd like there to be new memories associated with fall, would like the warmth to be punctuated with long spells of bliss rather than melancholy afternoons of reminisce.

2+2=5

2004-09-09T10:52:00.000-04:00

My inner math geek desperately wants a neat little algorithm to provide me with guidance regarding the direction my life should take. Career, housing, relationships ... all of it. I need some black and white answers, preferably presented in grid format.

An essay I wrote in freshman year English focused on the infinite grays of adulthood, how the simple black and white neatness of childhood was being supplanted by confusion and ambiguity as t marched proudly towards infinity. (I suspect I used that exact phrase.) At the time, I thought this was kind of cool -- that there were no clear cut right or wrong answers. Adulthood was awesome, dude!

Now that I am in the midst of a whirlwind of uncertainty, it's like, totally NOT awesome dude. I don't have confidence in any of the choices I make these days. What I would do for a quadratic equation or some nice binomials! It is wrong of me to want to know, with absolute absoluteness, that the direction I am taking is the right one?

I was IM'ing the other day with a former boss and oftentimes mentor of mine. He's 40, three kids, married, mortgage, two cars. You know, the prototype for those I gently mock out of a vague fear of turning into one of them overnight. He told me that he knows two couples that "know" -- two couples. Four people.

Out of his entire Rolodex accumulated over the years from prep school to college to bschool to his professional career ... four people get a quadratic equation? And the rest of us chumps have to flounder about in the infinite gray of uncertainty?

Reminds of that scene in A Christmas Story when Peter Billingsley's character realizes the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring was just an ad for Ovaltine. We're sold this big magical fairy tale of happily ever after, only to realize in our jaded adultness that it ain't like that, unless you're one of the lucky four.

Lobotomy, please

2004-09-07T16:02:00.000-04:00

Why the American system of education is narsty

Pablo just IM'd me this review on slashdot. Haven't read the book, but there are some excellent quotations within the body of the review.

It touches a nerve in me because oftentimes in my life as a corporate peon I wished that I could have been a little less analytical, a little more stupid, a little more willing to tolerate mediocrity. Oh, if only I couldn't read so good!

This also reminds me of that Twilight Zone where the kid takes a test to see if he's smart, and then he does too well so Big Brother kills him off.

Oh to be average and simple!

Recipe: Snickerdoodle Cookies

2004-09-05T20:12:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to use up all the food in my refrigerator. Food product #1: Tub o' Crisco.

Recipe is modified from Wyoming's Best Snickerdoodle Cookies as collected in some recipe book by A&W Root Beer.

Ingredients:

1 c Crisco
1.5 c sugar
2 eggs
2.5 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp salt
optional: 2 tsp cream of tartar

cookie coating:
3 Tbsp sugar
1 T cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375.

Cream together shortening, sugar, and eggs. In a separate bowl (which I failed to do ... oops) mix the remaining ingredients; add this mixture to the creamed stuff in small parts (about 0.5 c at a time worked well for me). Roll into balls somewhere between the size of a walnut and a golf ball and coat in a mixture of 3T sugar and 1T cinnamon.

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10 minutes. I put tin foil on the sheet so that I should put together a second sheet while the first bunch was baking. After ten minutes, check to ensure that the cookie center has fallen (it should be fine). If not, bake a little longer.

Take out and cool on a rack. I don't have a rack and used a metal colander and was fine.

Enjoy! I'd post a picture but I'm too lazy.

Mesothelioma for $35

2004-09-04T14:55:00.000-04:00

I wonder if Google publishes keywords that currently have the highest bids. That would certainly make things interesting, as publishers who rely on revenue from Google adwords scramble to craft content relevant to these terms.

In my previous life, I managed a pharmaceutical client. Much of their work involved search engine keyword buys, and there were certain terms that were incredibly expensive per click. Take, for example, keywords like 'mesothelioma'. In May of this year, clicks for this were going for about $35. (!) Alimta, a treatment for mesothelioma a.k.a. asbestosis, was similarly expensive. (Lawyers for Alimta had asked Google to prevent other firms from bidding on this keyword as it was trademarked.)

So let's see if I can screw with the adwords promoted at the bottom of this page by littering this post with a bunch of keywords related to asbestos litigation, law firms for suing on behalf of victims of mesothelioma, and let's not forget other lucrative terms like accident victim lawsuits. Whee!

If anyone knows of a public way (i.e. aside from getting an Overture account) to access current bids for keywords, I'd love to know. I'm always on the lookout for ways to disrupt The System from within. "You've gotta court The Man before you can fuck him in the ass."

Old as dirt

2004-09-03T23:09:00.000-04:00

I ran a "sprint" workout today on the high school track in town. Lots of townfolk were using it as well which was quite nice.

It's red, six lanes, long turns.

I'd forgotten about the smell of tracks. It's difficult to describe. Part rubber band, part basketball, part indoor plastic gymnasium. Mixed with the freshly cut grass, it was frankly intoxicating.

It reminded me, along with the gorgeous sunshiny weather and happy blue skies, of the infinite possibilities of youth -- when setting records was easy and blue ribbons were a dime a dozen.

I almost gave up on my ambitious (at least in my old age) plan of a 1-2-4-2-1 followed by ten sets of stairs on the bleachers. But I hammered it out, even if my sprinting of today truly resembles a jog of yesteryear.

It's okay though. I'm not competing with myself. I'm not competing with anyone. Competition is for sucks anyway, and it ain't about winning or losing. It's how you play the game. (Repeat 10x.)

Naturally I came home, put on some gangsta rap, and promptly baked two dozen Snickerdoodles.

Blow the dust off

2004-09-02T19:34:00.000-04:00

Here's what I'm wondering: if commerce ruins art, ruins that good fun nugget that is the raison d'etre for all good art. I'm sitting here making a fun gift for my older sister and thinking, "Hmm, should I take a photo so I can maybe make something similar for a theoretical future customer?"

Eeew. Gag me with a spoon. That very impulse might be the reason that art has felt joyless in recent years. Je ne sais pas.

Ex machina has been delivered, BTW. Quit my corporate gig four months ago and am about to be forced to move out of my apartment for the past five and a half years. Lotsa changes. We. Shall. See.

i love vinnie g.

2003-11-14T14:14:00.000-05:00

Guardian Unlimited Film | Features | Jacques Peretti on shooting Vincent Gallo

Gallo is my hero. All slights should be pursued; all grudges should be held. And vicious humor is the only kind of humor worth possessing.

Buffalo '66 was pure artistry. Can I grow up to be Vinnie G.?

Nude kids are good kids too

2003-11-11T14:40:00.000-05:00

Larry Flynt and Jessica Lynch's boobies

Of course people for whom topless photos exist are also good kids. It's a false bifurcation to insist otherwise. What's interesting about this is that Flynt won't publish the pics. Why not? Are those other naked chicks in Hustler not good kids? Are those naked chicks not also victims of administrations who protect the pockets of the rich and shift the economic playing field such that people with certain socioeconomic backgrounds find jobs within the sex industry more lucrative than other jobs?

Troubling.

here, here

2003-11-01T23:54:00.000-05:00

4 Teacher’s Pets

I remember my class swelling to almost 30 in sixth grade, when we had four -- count 'em FOUR! -- new kids move into our district.

Perhaps this is why I feel so lost in the big city and yearn for the cornfields. I had a sense of self when my self wasn't clawing for subway space with hundreds of others.

RIP

2003-10-30T19:23:00.000-05:00

Blink Rewards

I taught her how to walk, and breathed life into her words and her copy, I made her great. Some porkos in LA took her away and turned her into a spamming shitbox.

worship

2003-10-28T16:21:00.000-05:00

Punk'd - Ashton Kutcher - The Download

I love the idea of Ashton Kutcher. I want to be a female Ashton. Minus the older woman thing. I find him terribly fascinating, as far as people in Hollywood go. The dichotomy outlined here is probably why -- the whole "I am the man" vs. "Fuck the man." Love it.

CNN.com - How the rich kids live - Oct. 27, 2003

2003-10-27T15:04:00.000-05:00

CNN.com - How the rich kids live - Oct. 27, 2003

I can't wait to watch this. I hate how much envy and anger and resentment I have towards them. I need to get over myself and stop harboring such negative energy.

Perhaps I need to reinvigorate my relationship with God, says that Mormon missionary voice in the back of my head.

probably, this makes me an asshole

2003-10-27T11:02:00.000-05:00

Boo-hoo, I'm a hipster and I was beaten up with a baseball bat. I'm sorry I can't come up with any sympathy for you.

I remember walking around campus after the assault with a miniature aluminum baseball bat called The Whomper. It was the appropriate size for bashing someone's head in at close range. I had many daydreams of sewing a faux fur cover for The Whomper and tying a delicate light pink ribbon around it.

It went missing after a camping trip with a bunch of the middle schoolers I taught math to. I haven't been able to find one in any mass merchandiser since. But I'd bet The Whomper would become the next It thing among the hipsters if it were around.

Come to think of it, maybe someone SHOULD make trendy coverings for baseball bats and sell 'em to the hipsters (who are now 'arming themselves' according to CL). Maybe that person should be me. (Think Dr. Marvin Monroe's patented aggression mallets.)

Maybe this is my Shangri-La

2003-10-24T14:52:00.000-04:00

Apple - Mac OS X - Up-To-Date Programs

I remember being six and making programs in BASIC in my basement on a $10,000 IBM with huge-ass floppy disks. (They were incredibly floppy.) I love computers. I love that happy orb and glow and the creativity that technology can unleash.

This is why I've obsessed more over the past year about which apple to get (17" imac) than I did when I bought my car (jetta wolfsburg). Nevermind that the car was 20x more expensive.

The apple, I feel, will be my savior. Perhaps I've hemmed and hawed because if it doesn't change my life forever, then I'll be fresh out of ideas.

Hand me the fuzzy slippers.

2003-10-24T14:01:00.000-04:00

Whether it's the dry heat that's hissing out of the office pipes, or the accompanying odor of said heat, or the one-two combo punch of Coldplay then Dido on the speakers, or the autumn daylight reminiscent of so many broken hearts ...

Whatever it is, I cannot help but feel that I am a shadow self of who I was. When did I trade my zest for life into a careful, plotted, responsible approach for doing what's safe?

Perhaps there is something wrong with my thyroid, or it's the never-ending migraines, or it's an undiagnosed case of bipolar disorder. But these all sound like excuses. Excuses, per Coach, are for losers, no?

SOS

2003-10-23T13:19:00.000-04:00

If I have to sit back and think of a nice, team-player way to encourage people to adopt my brilliant idea about this schlocky marketing mess I've gotten myself into, I think I will surely die.

There is a way to walk away from this damned six mile island and start anew in a cornfield somewhere, isn't there?