Ordinary Extraordinary

Boxing Up My Well Wishes

I have a handful of friends serving overseas at the moment, so every couple of months I spend a Sunday afternoon putting together care packages. I send one to each of my friends as well as to a couple of servicemen (or women) whose addresses I get from AnySoldier. I've done enough of these now that I've got it down to a science.

• First, a trip to Target and the 99 Cent store for snacks, hygiene items, magazines, and whatever else seems useful or has been requested. I have a stock of the basic items, so I'm usually just shopping for specifics or anything on which I'm low.
• Next, I assemble the boxes with the strongest packing tape possible. It's hard to predict what the boxes will have to go through before they arrive at their destination, so it's important that they be sturdy.
• Then, I spread all of my purchases out on the dining room table and start sorting and re-packaging. Anything that could leak or melt (including bar soap) gets double-bagged in a freezer-strength Ziploc. Anything that can be condensed (like boxes of single-serving drink mix) is removed from its box and also flung into a Ziploc.
• Next, I jot down a note to put in each box. My friends get longer personal letters, the folks from Any Soldier (obviously) get more generic ones. I always my email address at the end of the Any Soldier notes, in case they have time to respond (many do, eventually).
• Finally, it's time to load up the boxes! Food, magazines & games are put into one box, toiletries into another. The separation is key - otherwise they get snacks that taste like deodorant and really, who wants that?  When everything's packed securely, I put the note at the top and seal up the boxes (again, with lots of strong tape).

All that's left after all that is to address them and take them to the post office.

It's hard to describe how I feel at the end of a care package afternoon. On the one hand, I'm happy to have accomplished something that will bring other people some cheer. On the other, I hate the fact that there are so many people over there who need cheering. The whole business of war seems very personal when I'm looking at a collection of brown boxes lined up on my table.

No matter what your politics, please remember that there are thousands troops deployed overseas whose lives are in danger every single day. They deserve to know that they have the support of the people back home. If you have a few dollars and minutes to spare, I sincerely hope that each and every one of you will box up your well wishes and send it to any of the more than 3000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who have signed up  with AnySoldier.

Breakup Hair

Last night, as I was on my way out of the office, I stopped to chat with a female co-worker. I mentioned that I was on my way to the salon for my breakup haircut and she (having just gotten hers a few weeks ago) laughed knowlingly. The male co-worker walking by, however, stopped dead in his tracks and looked utterly mystified.

He: Did you just say "breakup haircut?"
Me: Yes. The Fireman and I broke up so now I need a haircut.
He: I fail to see how these things are related.
Me: Girls have a system for coping with breakups. First, we eat a lot of chocolate, drink a lot of wine, and cry. Then we get angry, tear up pictures, and throw stuff out. Next we get a haircut.
She: Don't forget the nails! We go and get our nails done, too.
Me: Yes! So we get a fabulous new haircut, get our nails done, buy a new pair of jeans or some shoes, and then we're fine. It's an ancient ritual and it's never failed us.
He: Guys do NOT do that. You people are freaks.

Female co-worker and I just shrugged and smiled as he walked away, shaking his head.

She: You know you left out the most important step, the last one.
Me: I know
We, in unison: No-strings sex with someone else!
Me: I didn't want to bend his brain any more this week - he just recently learned that women sometimes decide if they'll sleep with their date before they've even left the house.
She: Aww, poor guy.

Girls rule.

So, anyway, I have a fabulous new haircut (shorter, darker, sassier!) and guess where I'll be flaunting it this evening? The laundromat! Oh yeah baby, I'm a swingin' single now... look out!

An ego check, and some pimpage

This morning I left my house feeling chipper and fabulous. The sun was shining, my outfit was cute, I'd finally installed an adapter to allow me to listen to my iPod in my car, and I had free bagels to look forward to at work. Life was pretty darn good.

I pulled into the gas station to fill up my tank and, when I hopped out of my car, I was pleased to notice that I'd managed to line my gas cap up almost perfectly with the pump (I usually undershoot it a bit). I grabbed my wallet out of my purse, turned to pay, and promptly smacked myself in the back of the head with my door as I swung it closed. The impact was so startling that tears sprang to my eyes and for a split second I had no idea what had happened.

Then the (cute) guy at the pump across from me burst into laughter. Thanks, jerk.

Ahem.

In other news, it occurred to me this morning that I have been dreadfully remiss in not pimping Sound & Fury's current show, Cyranose! Your last two chances to see it are tomorrow and Saturday so get thee to Club Fais Do-Do! Personally, I'll be there Saturday!

Growth

We as a society spend a lot of time focusing on personal growth. We talk about it, and write about it, and meditate on it. We read books and attend classes and join groups devoted to this idea of growing. Of changing. Of evolving. Of becoming better versions of ourselves. Hell, there's a multi-billion dollar self-help industry built around the cause. And though there are certainly some terrible abuses of the idea, in general I think we can all agree that personal growth is a good thing.

There's this dirty little secret about it, though, that no one ever talks about.

It sucks. Personal growth sucks. A lot.

Sure, once you've crossed through the valley of shadows you can see that it was worth it, but that bit in the middle where you actually have to do all the growing and the changing? That part sucks.

For some reason, the blurbs on the back of self-help books never mention that.

To truly grow and change as a person, you have to confront the very ugliest parts of yourself. You have to be able to stand alone with yourself and really see those things that need work. Every destructive habit, and bad pattern, and poor choice is washed in 1000 watts of florescent light and there is nowhere to hide from them. Even if you close your eyes against the glare, their images are seared into your eyelids. Nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to watch their carefully constructed facades crumble in the face of The Truth. No one looks around at their own ugliness and says "Oh, look at how much work I have to do! How fabulous!" It is much, much easier to turn around and run hell for leather away from that sight than it is to step forward and decide to make a change.

Anyone who says differently is probably selling a path to enlightenment.

The process is brutal, and unforgiving, and painfully slow. Progress is almost impossible to see while you're in the moment and more often than not you're going to take the longest possible route from Point A to Point B. There are no shortcuts. Your feet are unsteady and your hands and knees are raw from all the falling down, and scrambling, and climbing. The people on whom you thought you could rely have evaporated like a morning mist and all you want to do is turn back, to wrap yourself in the safe comfort of the familiar. It is a constant and exhausting battle against the worst parts of yourself and you will never meet a fiercer, or more determined, opponent.

But what's the alternative?

Inertia, blindness, and a perpetually repeating cycle of Things That Don't Work. The slow shrinking and dimming of your world until everything is dull, and comfortable, and safe.

I don't know about you, but I'll take the brutality of growth over the sticky mire of a stagnant life any day.

To quote Steve Pavlina, . . . getting moving again is far better than remaining stuck. . . It sure beats dying a slow death while waiting for the vultures to swoop down.

It's time for me to get moving again.

Crushing

Neil is trying to kill me.

On Saturday he got me all aflutter by remembering something that I'd written, and today I'm the blog crush of the day.

Guess I'm going to have to lay off the week long pauses in blogging, huh?

Catching Up

It's Tuesday afternoon so I'm just about on time for my DaveL.A recap!

Oh c'mon, cut a girl some slack. Not only did I work 148.5 hours in ten days (and then 15 more yesterday), somewhere in there my dining room ceiling started leaking pouring water, my car battery died, and The Fireman and I called it quits. Oh, and I came home Friday night to find my landlord up on my roof trying to find the cause of the dining room waterfall; when I asked him how bad the problem was he just shook his head and said "Bad, very bad. Very not good at all." Awesome! (Dear Universe, WTF? No love, Me)

Given all that, I think it's safe to say that by the time Saturday afternoon rolled around I was NOT feeling terribly social. In fact, I was feeling like crawling into bed with a bottle of bourbon was the best idea I'd ever had. However, I'd RSVP'd for DaveL.A. weeks earlier and didn't want to be that blogger - the one who tries to attend but mysteriously never makes it (*coughPaulycough*) - so I dutifully threw on some clothes, brushed my hair, and headed over the hill to Lucky Strike.

Boy am I ever glad that I left the house; Dave throws a hell of a gathering, let me tell you. (And he looks awfully dapper while doing it, all dressed up in a zombie t-shirt and snappy blazer)

I'm always a little trepidatious about blogger meet-ups. Though I've had very good luck with the ones I've attended so far, there's something slightly nerve-wracking about meeting people you know (and who know you) only via blog.  A blog is not a person, it is a creative medium that reveals a small, edited fraction of a person. Consequently, gathering a bunch of bloggers together without the safety of an edit feature, or our thin veils of anonymity, can either go fantastically well or horribly awry.

Fortunately DaveL.A. fell into the former category and we all had a smashing time! Smashed being the operative word here as everyone had two or three (or ten) drinks while we ate dinner and bowled threw brightly colored balls in the general direction of some pin-shaped things.

Since the guest list was super-duper top secret, I was curious to see who would attend. I was pretty sure that Hilly would be there (And she was! And we got hit on! And now we're lovahs!), but I was pleasantly surprised by everyone else: the Atomic Bombshell and her Ninja, Neil and his lovely wife Sophia, Liz, SJ and her pro-bowler Bret, Catherine, Foo, Peggy, and of course our Master of Ceremonies - Dave!

(Why do I suddenly feel like Dorothy? And you were there, and you were there, and Toto - you were there too!)

Being in such exalted company, I was surprised and flattered that anyone at the table had ever read my blog; I very nearly blushed myself to death when Neil told me that he'd been reading for a couple of years. Citizen of the Month is one of my very favorite blogs so I was touched to hear that something I'd written so long ago stood out in his memory. Thanks, Neil :-)

We had PLENTY of time to chat both before we ordered our food and while we were waiting for our lanes (Lucky Strike is not known for its prompt service), which worked out well because there wasn't ever a pause in conversation longer than the span of time necessary to take a sip of beer or lemon drop. Since I was sitting in the middle of the table, I actually had the problem of being between conversations and wanting to take part in both! I should have followed Catherine's lead and hopped from one end of the table to the other.

When we finally got down to the lanes we split up into two teams and promptly laughed, danced, and high-fived our way through two games. I did my part to make sure the gutters were working properly and was very proud when I broke 70 on our second game. (Seriously, I cannot bowl. SJ has proof.) It all ended much too soon, but this is what happens when a bunch of old folks like us start drinking at 6pm. We're trashed and ready to call it quits by 11! OK I wasn't trashed, I was driving, but Dave & Hilly were fulfilling that role for all of us. Off we stumbled to our various cars and away into the night we went.

I came away from the evening with an official DaveL.A. lanyard, a handful of fabulous Artificial Duck pins, a gift certificate for an Artificial Duck t-shirt, a nifty Everyday Goddess sticker, some truly fantastic new friends, and a lesbian lovah. It was hands down the best Saturday night that I've had in quite some time.

Thanks, Dave, for giving such good party!

Diversionary Tactic

Blog, what blog? I'm supposed to be writing a blog? Um...

Hey!

Look!

Over there!

New glasses!

(Which I picked up today, ten days after the optometrist called me to tell me that they were ready. Oops.)

(Also, I feel like this picture makes me look really smug or bitchy or something when in reality, all I am is mind-meltingly tired. I've worked 148.5 hours since last Monday. 148.5 hours. Needless to say there were no days off tucked in there. I's tired folks.)

Never Forget

Open Letter: MTV Edition

Dear MTV,

You fought a hard battle to resuscitate the VMAs. Really, you did. After watching your ratings tank for the last couple of years, you decided to put all your chips in on one last hand with a new location, new format, and new categories. A valiant effort.

However, I think it's safe to say that you lost that hand; it's time to back away from the table and head back to your hotel suite to sleep it off. Maybe when you wake up, it will all have been a bad dream.

Your first mistake was signing Britney up to open the show. Not only has she not had an album out since 2004, she's a complete trainwreck. Unsurprisingly, she wandered through her choreography and mumbled through her lip-sync, looking slightly confused and lost in the bright lights the whole time. She was painful to watch, but it was moderately entertaining to watch the audience members try to keep a straight face when the cameras panned across them.

Your second mistake was Sarah Silverman. As has been proven countless times before, she is not funny when she's put in any kind of hosting situation. Scripted comedy? FIne. Stand up? Fine? But she is not good at hosting and you people need to stop making her try. Plus, did she really need to do so many Britney jokes? The audience was already squirming from Britney's performance, the tired old jokes about her cooch and her kids were totally unnecessary.

Your third mistake was the new categories. "Monster SIngle of the Year" essentially translates to "Most Overplayed Song of the Year" and "Quadruple Threat of the Year" is just... stupid. Stop it. Just stop it.

There were some mistakes on the technical side too. Please fire whoever designed the seating arrangement. It should never take a winner more than 45 seconds to get to the stage; watching Beyonce squeeze her way between tables didn't exactly make for compelling television. If you insist on having the tables that close together so they can be danced on later, at least have the good sense to put the nominees at the front and on the outside edges so they have some hope of getting on the stage to accept their awards in a reasonable amount of time.

Also, please fire your Graphics department. The robotic nomination packages got old really, really fast.

All that being said, there were some highlights. Chris Brown gave an absolutely phenomenal performance (which should have opened the show) and Justin totally gets a round of applause for asking (twice!) that you "play more damn videos." The suite parties were way more entertaining than the main show and hey, at least now we know the title of the next Indiana Jones movie. But a handful of highlights does not a good show make.

I realize that I'm dating myself with this question, but do you remember when the Video Music Awards were about, I don't know... music? And videos?

Yeah, neither do I.

Perhaps next year you'd like to refresh everyone's memory?

No Love,
Me

Talk the Talk

Earlier today, in discussion about a location shoot we're doing soon:

Me: D, do I need to find you another juicer?
D: Nope, strictly silks and flags on this one. Hoff will Key-G.
Me: OK. We're dropping a lunchbox at the first position anyway so it'll be there if you need it. A, what about the catcher?
A: We're all set, I've got the spot reserved.
Me: B, have you done a site visit? Can you see the bird from there?
B: Yeah, we'll be fine.
Me: Awesome. Then I think we're all set!
Wide Eyed Intern: I have no idea what just happened, but I think we're having lunch and smoothies at a baseball parade.

Translation under the cut.