the kindness of strangers

At work, we usually steal a few extra moments for lunch but I rarely have 90 minutes to do whatever I want in the middle of the day. Hell, I often don’t know what to do with myself when I have the entire day to do whatever I want but as long as it’s not work, I’m okay with sitting in a big room with people from all walks of life just waiting to be pulled into a jury room.

When we were told we could escape for lunch, I headed across the street to Corner Bakery, completely forgetting that everyone and their sister goes to lunch at Noon. Luckily, there was a seat across from a woman sitting and enjoying her salad. She politely said, “sure you can” when I asked if I could sit with her and proceeded to tell me we could pretend we met to have lunch together. Why not!

We exchanged pleasantries (except our names, now that I think about) and she told me she’s a music editor for a small Catholic publication. Religion isn’t my thing but to each his / her own. She plays the keyboard and basically spends her days reading music, finding composition errors, and correcting them. It’s a small, laid back publishing house and she loves her job. I told her I think that sounds like a fantastic way to spend her days and when she asked what I do, I gave the obligatory “I’m an administrative assistant at a tax firm,” which I don’t really utter with a great deal of enthusiasm.

I went on to tell her that I’m a mixture, as I’m sure plenty of people are, of left-brained and right-brained. My general love of reading and writing and music and doing my part, however big or small, in creating them, reassures me I’m a creative person. But I’m also a lover of…order and direction and linear thinking. Want me to do something? Tell me what needs to be done, a general “how to go about it”, and I’m good to go. I often wonder if I could make a living off my creative side because I need to be held accountable. I need order and direction and structure in my life. The creative part of me has always been an outlet and not something I live and breathe every day that results in a paycheck. I often think how great it would be to be a writer and make a living with it but I often think that I don’t want my passion to be turned into…a means to an end. Sure, I’d love to be able to do something I love and make money but in a lot of ways, I just don’t want what I love to be what I rely on to live. I want it to be what I rely on…to grow and live better and happier. Something that’s just for me, when and how I want it to be.

We got to talking about writing and music and creative endeavors and despite the fact that music has always been a part of her life, something I think most people consider to be a very creative act, she’s not much for reading novels but is a great admirer of those who can write and she wishes she could.

I told her about National Novel Writing Month and that I’d decided to shoot for taking part in it this year. That is, until about a week or so ago when I was bored at work, my mind was wondering, and it wondered right into some ideas about what I could write about. So I told a complete stranger what I’ve, until now, only told one person. That I’ve started writing…something. Screw November. As much as I often believe “procrastination pays,” why the hell wait around eight months when I can very easily get started now? Where it will take me, I have no idea. But it’ll lead somewhere.

We got to talking about how, thanks to luck and randomly meeting someone in the field, she got into the publishing side of things and the fact that I’ve always wanted to get into publishing. She then told me, “keep cultivating those writing skills. I love music but as soon as you play a note, it’s gone. The written word…it’s out there. It’s permanent. It takes talent and skill to be able to create that and I envy those who can.”

Helping decide someone’s legal fate wasn’t in the cards for me today and I’m now comfy and cozy at home. But I consider it an all-around productive, enlightening, quite delightful day.

I may start making a list

Because there is a great deal of Golden Girls awesomeness that I would like in my possession.

Last year, Santa didn't bring me the bag I wanted. But perhaps this year, he'll realize just what a good girl I am and reward me with this little beauty right here. Or maybe I'll just shell out the $6.95 and reward myself.

If you look closely, you'll notice the pendant is made from a Scrabble tile. I want my girls on the front and the letter G, which is worth 2 points, on the back, please.

Golden. Girls. G squared!

I've. Gotta. Get.

EDIT: Well, fuck me right on their wicker furniture. It sold out today.

fear: big overture, little show

In an attempt to drown out and ignore what I can of my work environment, I've been watching Buffy. Well, minimizing the screen and listening, really. One of my all-time favourite episodes is in one of my all-time least favourite seasons.

In Fear, Itself, it's Halloween in Sunnydale and the scoobies are headed to a frat party horror house, where they find themselves facing their own fears. Willow's afraid she'll be unsuccessful stepping up her magic abilities. Xander, the only member without superpowers (Buffy - slayer, Willow - witch, Oz - werewolf, Anya - former vengeance demon), fears he doesn't fit in with the rest of the gang now that they're all in college and he isn't. Oz, who keeps himself caged three nights out of the month, is afraid of going all wolfy and hurting his friends. Buffy, after having slept with a college guy who wasn't looking for a relationship but just to get into her pants, has growing fears about serious relationships and letting people into her life. And Anya...well, Anya is seriously afraid of bunnies. 'Cause c'mon, they got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses!

At the frat house, a fear demon is inadvertently released and in different ways, their fears manifest and scare the bejeesus out of them. When the demon finally rises, he winds up being only a few inches tall. After he tries for a minute to be creepy and scary, Buffy laughs, squashes him with her shoe, and they all go home and eat candy.

Forty-some minutes of Whedon-witty entertainment and one simple little message: fear, itself is actually really small. You spot it, you squash it, you go home and eat candy.

At one point in the episode, my least favourite character tells Buffy he thinks she seems like the kind of person who makes things hard on herself. Yeah. Um. Hi. Right here. When it comes to squashing fear in its tracks, my natural response is usually easier said than done.

But that's a piss poor attitude. It doesn't have to be the case and it often shouldn't be as difficult as I make it. Some of the best things that have ever happened to me weren't things I had planned. They're things that just happened. And if I don't allow for change, I don't allow for the possibility of...well, any and everything. I think it certainly takes work to overcome certain fears but the things I seem to be afraid of these days aren't really of that variety.

I fear change. And it's been sucking the life out of me because even though I've felt it before and I'll feel it again, it's never quite been to this degree. I think maybe I've let some things get so out of control that I've been overcompensating when trying to get back to a comfortable balance. But the simple truth is that the things I have no control over...I can't make them how I need them to be. Because how I need them to be is really just how I want them to be. I can fight and scream and take it out on people at work or my family or most often, myself, and I can watch that accomplish absolutely nothing. Or I can focus on the things I can control and simply accept and deal with the things I can't.

Hell, I left everything and everyone I know and love, moved to Chicago with $62 to my name, and feel pretty satisfied with and proud about that decision. That's not someone who fears change. That's someone who can't fucking wait for it.

I'm going to reintroduce her.

suck this

I'm a bit conflicted about this OB tampon ad, which was created by an all-male creative team in Switzerland. (clickety click)

On one hand, I'm a member of the "vampires are hot" camp. Biting. Fear. Pain. Yes please. I also like that the ad is an acknowledgement that once a month, blood comes out of a vagina. I have a very low tolerance for ads relating to menstruation that have nothing to do with the purpose of the product they're selling. In the case of tampons, it's to absorb blood. I don't want to see women frolicking around doing gymnastics or watch a woman swimming. Just give me the facts about what the product is going to do. Much like birth control pills. Sure, they often help with one's complexion and for those who get uncharacteristically emotional in the days right before their periods, it can help make you feel like you're in a bit more control of your feelings. And sure, there are plenty of women who take the pill for regulating their periods and / or any other number of female health concerns that don't have to do with preventing pregnancy. But for the most part, the purpose of birth control pills is to prevent yourself from getting knocked up. Yet very few commercials or advertisements for birth control actually say anything that even vaguely sounds like, "if you take this pill every day, you can fuck without reproductive consequences." And I think they should.

I also don't believe the act of going down on a woman who has her period is icky and gross. I understand it may not be everybody's cuppa tea and that's fine...to each his / her own. But I don't believe there's a week out of every month where certain sex acts are off the table. Hell, survey a group of women who are all days away from their period and quite a number of them are going to tell you their overtime-working hormones are partly responsible for desperately wanting to throw their legs up behind their heads and engage in any and all sex acts. So I love the fact that a bunch of men came up with this ad and I'm sure, at some point in their brainstorming session, realized it may evoke thoughts or images of oral sex while a girl is having her period.

On the other hand, vamp teeth made of tampons? Please. Those things aren't going to pierce anything and everyone knows a vampire isn't just gonna dive in and start sucking. He's going to bite, get an artery and go to town. So the whole "tampon as teeth" thing is just silly. And just makes me giggle.

Which, I suppose, may have been the intention. And if that's the case, then the advertising fellas have succeeded. Where they haven't succeeded is in giving me even one reason, if I were a purchaser of tampons, to buy OB's brand instead of any of the other brands.

And isn't that pretty much the main objective of the advertising world?

mine always took the time

A PSA from the White House's fatherhood initiative



I love this.

I've always been a daddy's girl. My parents still tell the story of the day I was born and how my father kept telling my mother, "Hon, I just gotta go see here again" as he ran off every few minutes to go look at me hanging out with the other adorable newborns.

I'm sure there are plenty of biological and / or psychological reasons for the closeness a lot of fathers and daughters share but for me, I've simply always felt a closer bond with my father. When I was young, I couldn't explain it beyond, "I like Dad better" (not that I ever said that aloud. And not that our father/daughter relationship can be that simplified nor my relationship with my mother that minimized). But as I got older, I grew to realize that I have more in common with my father than I do with my mother. I have a lot of his more desirable traits and more of her less than desirable ones. Whether it was a conscious decision or not, I think I distanced myself from my mother because I saw in her the things I'd hoped I wouldn't see in myself as I grew up. In my father, I saw all the things I'd hoped I would be when I grew up.

They both were perfectly good parents and they played an active role in my brother's and my life. But my father drove my giddy friends and I from house to house. He dropped us off at the Debbie Gibson concert, picked us up when it was over and put up with our incessant talking and giggling in the car. He was the one to come out to the living room and without scolding, reminded us that our sleepovers needed to involve not only talking and laughing and television but also a little bit of sleeping. He did those little things everyday.

I love that this ad doesn't scream, "look how silly a man looks playing dress up, even if it is with his daughter!" And it's not an ad depicting a father tossing the football around or playing catch with his equally as "manly" son. It simply looks like the father is having a genuinely good time hanging out with his daughter doing something she enjoys.

I wasn't a cheerleader kind of young girl. But had I been, I have no doubt in the world my father would have been out there helping me practice. And I have no doubt we would have been equally as adorable as the father and daughter in this PSA.

a goal

My piano teacher updated her website to include recordings from past recitals and I'd completely forgotten that I once played one of my favorite Buffy pieces.

My version: Remembering Jenny
Professional version: here

Sacrifice, from the last episode of Season Five, is another beautiful piece and also one of my favorites.

I certainly have some relearning to do before I get back to the level of being able to play the arrangement I have but at some point this year, it will be one of my recital pieces.