What are you really buying, anyway?

It's been an interesting week so far, and it's only Monday.

First of all, something seems to have been dislodged in my brain, that thing that keeps me from processing stuff I don't feel like, like paperwork and phone calls (wah wah wah, First World white girl) and from finishing things I've started, like work. Not that I've gotten everything tidied up and on its way: today saw the dispensing of my DMV registration, some queries about my post-COBRA world (universal health care cannot come soon enough) and a number of other annoying/scary if smallish items, but several others are getting rolled over (again) to tomorrow, my favorite day. (Just like my favorite week, month and year are "Next.")

I made a dent in it though, especially by my standards. And I felt so gosh-darn good about it, I decided I would spread a little of that sunshine and head over to My Country House (a.k.a. The BF's) to visit the dog (a.k.a. Arno J. McScruff) as his master (a.k.a. The BF) is living in the Land of the Stupid Day Job for the next several weeks and poor Arnie, well, he has dogly needs.

Now, this sort of thing does not occur to me usually, and when it does, to actually do it feels burdensome. Yes, I'll go see you in the hospital or water your plants or take in your mail, but only if I'm allowed to feel grumpy and put-upon, at least to start with. Do not let the cheery photo fool you, my Internet friends! I am a crab and a bee-yotch of the highest order, and I've got plenty of real-life backup on that.

But today, I'm driving the five miles from my place to Arnie's and practically whistling. At 3:30, no less, pretty much guaranteed that I'll hit traffic going at least one way. In fact, I think I probably was in traffic; it just didn't bother me, so it didn't feel like traffic. And as I'm cruising through this traffic-that-is-not, I pass a place I've passed 1,000 times before. No, really: this is the route I take between my place and The BF's; I could probably drive it blindfolded. Once, anyway.

It's a shitty little storefront restaurant, nominally Chinese, but selling all manner of crap from gyros to boba tea like every other shitty little storefront restaurant I've seen like it. Might not, probably isn't even run by Chinese people. Could be Koreans, could be Salvadorans, could be Armenians: it's that kind of neighborhood.

But whoever owned it had hung one of those bright paper lanterns with the fringe on it that you see in Chinatown stores. It was kitschy and alive and pretty, and one thought flitted through my head:

I want.

Now let me assure you that while my taste in furnishings is somewhat eclectic, it's not so boho-funky that a Chinese paper lantern would fit right in. In fact, it would look dreadful. I know this because I'm a designer, and I make my living knowing what will look right and what will look like ass. This would be the latter, trust me. There's not one place in my place it would look right, including outside my front door, bapping about in the breeze just like it was in front of the not-Chinese restaurant.

Instead of feeling disappointed, though, I had this amazing flash of insight into why, for most of my life, I've been a hopeless accumulator of crap: I want that feeling.

That feeling that a particular shirt or dish or gadget gives me. The promise that's inside that book, I want to retain that rush of inspiration I felt when I pulled it from the shelf. Or to be the person who has absorbed and processed its contents. Or to have a piece of that author (or artist, or musician) in my hands.

Or I want to be the person who can cook a perfect omelet with that pan. Who has pictures filling frames hanging on walls that burst with life, a host of beautiful craft projects made from these bolts of fabric, a lady who has the carefree life requiring, as my old art director, Sherry Scharschmidt used to call them, "Running-on-the-Beach Dresses."

Maybe that's why Peter Walsh and his ilk are making so much money these days: because we all have needs we're shortchanging ourselves on; we're all spending money instead of time, which becomes starting instead of finishing, which becomes a heap of never-worn, never-used crap we eventually haul off to Goodwill. And, since I've trained myself to understand that I never will have the time, that I will rush and rush, on and on, never stopping to take a breath and do the thing or even feel the feeling, I buy the souvenir instead.

It's scarcity thinking in the middle of unprecedented abundance. And it's a bitch of a habit to break.

I stopped myself today, though, in the middle of a thought of buying such a lantern. Because for ONCE, I realized I wanted the feeling of serendipitously stumbling upon a beautiful thing like that, blapping around in the clean, post-rain breeze. And I can't own that any more than I can bottle happiness and save it for later. The wet jewels you find along the shore on holiday are just dull bits of rock when you get them home; a fleeting whatever is beautiful, in part, because it's fleeting.

I'm not quite ready to do a spend-out yet, although I'm starting to see how it might help people like me who are used to going too fast and treating themselves too roughly. For now, though, I think I'll try something else: going slower and treating myself more kindly.

Better. Cheaper.

And takes up a lot less room in a tiny apartment...

xxx c

Image by Geopelia via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

"Thank you, sir! May I have another!?"™, Day 10: It is always about money

This is Day 10 of a 21-day effort to see the good in what might, at first, look like an irredeemable drag. Its name comes from a classic bit of dialogue uttered by actor Kevin Bacon in a classic film of my generation, Animal House.

My late father was in the habit of mocking my late mother's side of the family for what he saw as their massively fucked up views on money and blithe disregard for facing up to the truth of just about everything, their mortality included.

It was not without some irony, therefore, that my sister and I viewed the colossal disarray in which he'd left his own affairs. And as for his relationship with the truth...well, let's just say it was rockier than we'd been led to believe.

Of course, we should have been prepared for this: there are few people who get excited at the prospect of their inevitable demise, and we'd been blindsided once by the bizarre structure our maternal grandmother had left in place. But this was our dad: the sensible parent, the one who didn't drink. If he had put a bit of a gloss on some...shall we say...interesting life choices, well, hell, we were a family of storytellers and ad people, for crying out loud! We spun for a living.

When there is a dispute about shekels left behind, the warring parties always declaim, "It's not about the money." But of course it is: the money is what's there representing the promises made (and broken). And since money means different things to different people, bequests represent love, security, freedom, fear and probably a host of other things. As with fetishes, there's one for everything you can name, and entire online communities for many things you can't.

For me, the difference between the airtight provisions that had supposedly been made and the jerry-rigged structure my sister and I ultimately discovered was devastating. Yes, because of the money, we're talking a lot of money, here, but also because of the years and years of haranguing about our supposedly subpar handling of our lives. My sister and I chose some pretty non-traditional paths, and while we weren't what I'd call irresponsible, we also were not living the suburban-American dream, socking away millions from our jobs at Shearson Lehman.

Dad was the responsible one. The one who supported his aging parents for the last 20 or so years of their lives while never, ever rubbing his father's pride in it. The one who paid for our mother's funeral, even though they had openly despised one another for most of their lives. The one who always always always asked if we needed money, and, though we always replied in the negative, quite often sent some anyway. The one who told us we'd be taken care of, and the precise sum that translated into, despite our protests that the whole discussion was silly and morbid.

So the blow was hard to take. And it was followed by another, far worse one which there's no reason to go into, the story is so old and clichéd and obvious, it's laughable. A story that happens to rich people and crazy fourth wives of famous singers, not middle-class girls from Chicago. The details hardly matter. Suffice it to say that it involved lawyers and family members taking sides and the besmirching of our good names. No one wins in a game like that, except the lawyers.

And yet, almost four years after the fact, I am grateful for this happening. My blood sister and I are closer than ever, having walked through the fire together. The family and friends who stood by us, I have an even greater appreciation for. More than anything, though, I am thankful for being introduced to who I am at my core, and for discovering the striking similarity it bears to the me that walks around from day to day in more mundane settings.

It is a good thing to sleep well at night...

xxx c

Image by distinguish via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

The Stone Soup House

For you busy types, here's the topline: the communicatrix is well rested, the happy couple is well (and legally) married and (surprise, surprise) I did not get half as much done as I thought I would on my merry jaunt up the coast.

For the rest of you, settle in. Because that last bit was the source of a lot of deep thinking over the past several days.

I thought about it as I gazed out the window at the view of all views, not doing the Important Writing I was sure the solitude would facilitate. I thought about it as I walked the six happy, hilly miles to get my cup of espresso from the village every day. And I thought about it quite a bit on the long and tedious drive home this afternoon.

One of the excellent civic truisms I learned from my ex-husband, Chief Atheist of the West Coast and World-Class Urban Driver from way back was "If you're passed on the right, you're wrong." Clearly, 95% of the people on the 101 S never had the Chief for their traffic school instructor. Between the uptick in asshats and the population boom overall, what used to be a beautiful drive is now little more than a colossal pain in the ass, at least for sadly long stretches.

Get mad at the people for being in the way. Get mad at me for not being perfect. Expect things to be different without really changing. How ridiculous I can be! How amazing it is that anyone at all listens to a thing I say! How fortunate it is that I have my monthly shrink appointment in two days to sort out some of this mess!

Of course, the heavy lifting of shrinkage is done outside of the 50-minute hour. You get assignments and perspective for those 50 minutes, but you do the work on your own. Or you'd better, unless you like wasting time and annoying the pig. And I have done a bunch of mine this week, even if it wasn't the Important Writing kind.

• I spent a day positively convinced I had back-of-the-leg cancer, when really I just had a case of too much exercise for too-atrophied muscles. Because I worry about everything.
• I spent two nights watching Law & Order marathons. Because I am an addict.
• I spent five nights freezing my ass off before I finally broke down and turned on the gas furnace. Because a part of me will always be 12, forced to live in my grandparents' drafty barn of a house and afraid afraid afraid to ask for anything.
• I ate cookies and burritos, beans and bread, chips and corn and god-knows-what in the delicious sauce of the meal my friends Terry and Gus bought me, and paid for it all in many square yards of methane output. Because I am the spawn of the King and Queen of Denial.

That's a lot of thinking for one week, huh? I wish I could give credit to my wonderful brain and ferocious will to change. The truth is, though, it was the house: I was staying in a magical house.

Its location is magical, certainly, poised as it is a mere 10 yards up from and 20 yards away from the mighty Pacific. Few things are as restorative as viewing a fine sunset over sea water and a cold beer.

But I think the house itself must be magic. Compared to the outsized homes of the neighboring "Yankee fuckers"--swathed in decks, crapped up with all manner of aggressively country decor, my house is a pint-sized throwback to another time--a kinder, funkier time, when four swingin' cats might just bake a doob in the glassed-in turret (accessed via the bathtub!) or while away a rainy day playing strip Yahtzee. My house all crazy angles and dark, moldy wood--including the countertops! It's practically decomposing before your eyes, with its long-busted pocket doors, its non-functioning locks, its stop-gap newspaper insulation held in place with brittle masking tape. So what? There was a broken recliner and high-speed internet and a view: I was ready to move in, brother.

And I'm not the only one. My fellow outcasts--the ones without yellow magnet ribbons on our SUVs, the ones who like things a little sexy-grubby-rundown, had all left pieces of themselves there. Books with loving inscriptions to future guests. A closet full of puzzles, games, and 8-track tapes. A pantry full of foods, fancy and plain, with a little extra stock in the fridge.

People leaving stuff instead of stealing the toiletries. I was ashamed of my fleeting thought to abscond with a jar of barely used peanut butter--which I'd bought myself.

Never fear--it was fleeting, and just the lack talking. The weeks and months of people not letting you merge, not saying "please" or "thank you", avoiding "hello" or even eye contact. And I can't blame them: I am them, on my not-so-great days. I left my own contributions to the pot: Mrs. Meyer's Dish Soap, the aforementioned jar of Laura Scudders, a lone Sierra Nevada beer.

I suppose the real topline for this week's adventures is Wherever You Go, There You Are. I had my Dorothy Gale experience and it was all marvelous and trippy and very, very Technicolor in nature, but now I am back in my own backyard, ready (I hope) to deal with the accumulation of rusted out cars and old refrigerators that have been piling up there.

Because I would like to have fewer not-so-great days and more dancing-around-the-house days. More laughing days. More reading, walking, thinking, skipping, lounging days. I got an infusion of good mojo from the residual juju of a thousand happy Stone Soup House inhabitants before me; now it's up to me to get some of that good witches' brew going down here.

xxx c

Photo of paradise courtesy of The BF.

Can you lead an authentic life with fake hair?

I make no secret of my age. (46, and if you haven't wished me a "happy" yet, feel free to!)

I'm up front about my struggles to get organized, to get happy, to get my bowels in working order.

So why, oh, why am I having such a problem letting my hair go gray?

A little backstory: unlike many of the women on my mother's side, while I had a few stray grays pop up as early as my 20s, I didn't need to start actively coloring to cover them until my late 30s. And I was earning a nice living via acting at that point (with good health insurance...sigh...), so it made sense to make sure my hair matched my face, which for some reason insisted on looking 5 - 10 years younger than the rat's nest on top of it.

But if I'm honest, and dammit, if I'm not, there's little point to anything anymore, I wanted to look chronologically younger for me, too. In the late 90s, I'd just left my marriage of 8 1/2 years for a man 12 years younger than I, who looked 5 - 7 years younger than he really was. And who was also, shall we say, empirically good looking. It was frustrating enough for me and my fragile self-esteem to flit about with The Youngster in public; add to that the subtle and ongoing pressure from him to "look my best" (what is it with these empirically good looking people?) and you have a perfect storm for public deceit.

Well, I'm not acting anymore. And dye, in addition to being not inexpensive, is toxic and time-consuming. What could I do with those extra two hours per month? Those extra 1000 or so cancer-free years days of my life? Or, while we're at it, the extra 750 bucks a year? (A steal in L.A., but still.)

I find myself obsessing over gray hair. It seems to be a trend, or a meme, the ladies lettin' it go, perhaps kicked off by Meryl Streep in the otherwise forgettable Devil Wears Prada. Someone wrote a book about it. There's a Yahoo! group devoted to it, a graying Botticelli's Venus as their icon. (I joined.) There's that idiotic Dove campaign.

I think it comes down to this: vanity.

Not vanity about looking my age, but about looking good for my age. Or maybe just looking good, period. I quit wearing makeup long ago, and I've let myself get woefully squishy around the middle; strictly from a design/style perspective, hair dye saves my beauty bacon. It's the lazy gal's way to look good (at least, until your face and skin tone stop coordinating well with dark hair. I am going to look like a raggedy-ass schlub growing out my gray if I don't work a little harder to look good in other departments, like clothes and fitness.

Maybe that's the thing: put "Pilates body" on the to-do list. Make it a big goal for...say...2010, and get crackin'. Then, once I'm leading the yoga class, shave my damned globey-head bald and wear all black or something.

It's an option I've discussed with my patient, generous colorist. He's amazing, really, basically helping me figure out how and when to fire him.

There are no easy answers to this. I would like to think I'm "there", but clearly, it ain't so. Whether I like it or not, going gray is a political statement in a patriarchal society where a woman's currency is tied to her looks and reproductive status. As is toeing the party line with a box of dye.

I do not like the lies I am telling, and yet, here I am.

Now, where's the way out, I wonder...

xxx c

UPDATE 9/19: I wrote another blog post about aging (and lying about aging) here that may help illuminate some of this thinking.

Image by s.o.f.t. via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Here I go, shooting my big mouth off again

Believe it or not, it's been over a year since I've been on a stage. Yup, one whole year (and a summer) since Shane Nickerson organized the first L.A. blogger performance thingy I'd ever heard of, "Subject Line Here."

Since then, Leah Peterson of LeahPeah has taken on the heinous task of riding nerd herd patrol. I was unable to attend the first gathering of L.A. Bloggers Live! because I was busy being inducted as Chief Nerd, but--gawd help us all--I'm doing this one. (I have no idea what I'm doing yet, but oh, well!)

Here's the line up as of now:

• Julia Frey
• Abigail M Schilling
• Liz Rizzo
• Kevin Charnas
• Bonnie Gillespie
• Colleen Wainwright
• Carly Milne

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 22nd, at Tangier. 4 bucks cheep. Be there or be square.

Oh, wait, if you're reading this, you probably already are...

xxx c

What I learned on my trip to Seattle

1. The standards for Seattle coffee are so high that even Starbucks tastes better there.
2. The early settlers accidentally built all of their gift shops underground.
3. Two miles feels like 22 when it is all uphill.
4. Mel Brooks has another big hit on his hands.
5. Crumpets taste better by the water.
6. Ditto cupcakes, ham & eggs, beer, coconut pie, and everything on the menu at Etta's.
7. If I lived there, I would have two muffin tops.
8. From across the room, in glasses and pigtails, I am Decoy Megan Mullally.
9. The ride to Bainbridge beats the island itself, hands down.
10. I still like Portland best.

Anatomy of a meme

This comes to me via my pal, Jeremy Cherfas. I admit to being completely befuddled when I first looked over the questions. Then bummed.

And then, I figured out what to do with it...

1. What's in your pocket?

Left rear: a rectangle of vivid orange velvet, trimmed for me from a larger rectangle of same by a small fry of great passion, kindness and unbridled creativity.

Right rear: A "communicatrix.com" card I had printed up for SXSW last year, deposited there by aforementioned small fry.

Great meme-responding requires a delicate mix of wit, bravado and truthiness. This response has none of those; all but the most diehard readers of this blog will hightail it out of here after reading this first response.

2. Is the pork ready?

If it's been cooking in the gravy for a minimum of eight hours, yes.

Right away, we see the the author of this meme is either: (a) non-American; (b) trying to out-smartypants his respondents; (c) all of the above. Note to would-be meme crafters: attempt (c) at your own peril. You will almost certainly fail, either at propagating your meme on a broad scale with the many, or out-smartypants-ing the few.

3. Have you ever had to rock to and fro to make your poopie go?

Yes. Apparently, the constipated are as likely to develop Crohn's as the loose-poopeys.

After reading this question, I am fairly certain of the meme's provenance. The question, while not particularly clever, feels steeped in foreign idiom. The best way to handle memes like this, should your colloquialisms not align with those of the meme-writer, is to mainly take things at face value, then look for an opening.

4. Do you like onions?

Yes. Unfortunately, the feeling is most decidedly not mutual.

While awaiting an opening, try to maintain a good ratio of wit to truthiness.

5. So, how big is it?

Big enough to know better.

See above. This is a sass-based answer, although not smart enough to turn off a reader who's made it this far.

6. Budweiser or real beer?

No beer on SCD.

Another excellent function that memes provide is the chance for internal links. Also, in my case, I never met a platform I couldn't turn into a soapbox.

7. What do you feel about your nose?

It's less what I feel about mine, than what I do about other people's, namely, how the hell do most of you breathe out of those pinholes?

Remember, a good part of truthiness is deflection. This is not untrue, but it not the full (and boring) truth. For posts about my nose in full, stay tuned to this blog channel.

8. Children: Baked or broiled?

Yes.

With memes, as with all lists, the better part of excellence is often restraint. Mix your longs with your shorts, people, your longs with your shorts...

9. Do you like it when I do this?

Depends on my mood. I'm a mystery wrapped in a goddamn enigma.

There are a good deal of perverts in the intertubes. If you don't believe me, feel free to browse some of the search strings that brought people here. A firm hand is a lady's best friend. Don't give the pervs an inch. (Cf #7 re: deflection)

10. Do you like the sound of chickens?

As an enlightened person, I prefer the sound of "womens".

This is one of those Dennis Miller lines. Hope both of you liked it.

11. Would Beyonce clip her own toenails?

If what...she had hands? If her hands were broken and she could only use her teeth? If someone stole her clippers and she had to use two toothpicks and a piece of string? How can I be expected to answer these incomplete questions?!?

Not a bad question, but this is where we separate the meme-boys from the meme-men, as it were. Seize every opportunity to grab the reins.

12. Do you like pork?

Yes. You want go at it now?

For example, when the bar is (supposedly) raised by this second pork question, it's important to establish superiority. Resist the urge to build on your previous pork answer. Sharp left turn. Comedy is the unexpected meeting the ill-prepared. Or something like that.

13. If the butter is soft, does the bus arrive on time?

Wait, is this some foreign meme?!?

With memes, as with most interactions, timing is everything. Note how I bided my time, waiting for the right opening? NOTE: another nice way to deal with this is to drop a hint-joke in early and do a callback later on. In this case, since the first indication that this might be a foreign meme was rather oblique, I opted to wait.

14. When do you get up?

When I'm stiff from sitting.

Filler answer. Pacing, remember?

15. How did you survive childhood?

By hanging on with all my might to the occasional glimpses I got of me as an adult, free of them all.

If you want to make a serious point, it's almost always best to slip it in amongst a lot of silliness. That way, it will both be more effective, and more deniable.

16. What do you do before bed?

Indulge in some sort of media input.

Pacing, again. Think of certain of your answers as sorbet courses in between the saucy richness.

17. What are your hidden charges?

All fees negotiated up front and signed off on by both parties.

Ramping back up to something racier.

18. Who's behind you?

Those on the Side of Right, Jesus, and elite team of venture capitalists. (Duh.)

Bang! Even slipped in a Jeebus crack!

19. Why don't people go to the bathroom on TV?

It shorts the circuitry.

Everyone loves a little potty joke. I skipped the obvious one, on poop, above. You do want to play to your audience a bit, though.

20. What's a soylent green popsicle?

Whoville-illians.

Rule #407: Obscure must be met by more obscure.

21. What does it taste like?

I do not like them, Sam-I-Am.

Rule #408: Everyone likes a follow-up joke.

22. Why doesn't Consumer Reports rate hookers?

No balls. (Get it? No balls!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!)

If you don't see the joke immediately, come back to it. I couldn't see the obvious joke right away as I was too close to this. The Consumer Reports part, not the hooker part. Animals....

23. Does George Bush replace the toilet paper tube?

When my super-Christian, ultra-capitalist, uber-Republican father met with GWB back in the late '90s to discuss running his ad campaign for the first election, I braced myself for the worst. But Dad turned down the gig, noting that dude was a wrong guy, the kind of person "who probably pulled the wings off flies when he was a kid."

He leaves those two last sheets that are stuck on with glue, drinks the last of the mild and puts it back and doesn't redeposit the balled-up Kleenexes that glance off the rim back onto the floor. An entitled putz, we have for a president.

Save up your stories, you never know when they'll come in handy. Opportunity comes in strange guises...

xxx
c

P.S. While I thank Jeremy for the opportunity, I'm afraid this meme comes here to die. I have absolutely no idea who to tag who wouldn't come back an kill me in the night.

Image by via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license. Pass it on...

8 random facts about the communicatrix

What do I love after I've been sucked dry and spit out by a 21-Day Saluteâ„¢? I loves me a meme!

Like the title sez, 8 utterly random facts about the communicatrix:

1. The first "rock" concert I went to was Sonny & Cher.

2. The, um, second "rock" concert I went to was also Sonny & Cher.

3. When I first started elementary school, someone got the bright idea I should be moved up a grade. But I hated the second graders so much I cried until the nuns let me go back to first. My promotion lasted a total of three hours, and started me off on a lifetime of manipulation through deviosity.

4. I lived in a bubble of privileged belovedness that was forever rent when I attended Cimarroncita Ranch Camp in Taos, New Mexico, during the summer between seventh and eighth grade. My very good friend of seven years, Alexis LeBlanc*, washed her hands of me at some point when the train that brought us from Chicago passed through Texas and her "real" friends, the ones who'd been going to CRC since they were wee tykes, got on. From that point on, I was openly reviled, mocked and tortured until my return home, the nadir of my experience being the ingestion of FOUR!!! COUNT 'EM! FOUR!!! squares of Ex-Laxâ„¢, administered under highly false pretenses. I and my colon, temporarily renamed "the greased chute", spent 24 hours in the infirmary, and after a good talking-to, the girls dialed down the hatred to a simmering-but-dormant "yellow alert" status.

I would like to say I told Alexis LeBlanc to eff off and that I have never been mean since, but in truth, while I never trusted her again, I hewed to the old "keep your enemies closer" line when it came to Lexy**. And was slightly less mean where the rubber met the road.

5. My favorite thing in the whole, wide, wonderful world is to make someone laugh who's not given to it.

6. If I am in a deep funk, nothing sets me to rights like a viewing of Car Wash, The Magnificent Seven or Superstar.

7. I have had sex here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

8. I have been driving around for over two months with 30 lbs. of unused fabric I've been meaning to donate to my costume designer friend, Ann Closs-Farley, and I'm hoping this meme shames me into actually unloading it from my car.

Thank you, Rob Kendt. And now, it's time for these eight merry reindeer to chime in...

• Bonnie Gillespie
• Dave Greten
• Chris Glass
• Anne Sertich
• Danny Miller
• Neil Kramer
• Jenny Amadeo
• Brandon Rogers (that's right, motherf*cker, go find a guest blog spot to kill off this damned meme)

xxx
c

*Not her real name
**Not her real nickname

Image of me, circa 1974, along with my five merry Torquemadas and the adult who was supposedly in charge of preventing this kind of Animal Farm-foolery

Frugality: the art of looking at things inside out

One of my odder fascinations has always been with the homely, humble art of thrift. I'm sure it springs partly from my fear of money (more specifically, of living out my retirement years in a shopping cart). Like lots of 60's babies, my young world was populated by adults who lived through the Depression; spend enough time in the Museum of Rubber Bands and Grocery Bags, it's bound to influence you.

But my passion for thrift is about more than saving the odd dollar or being able to wave the flag of righteousness. Frugal living satisfies the urge to create, to conjure. To think outside the box (which can be re-used as an inbox, cat bed, fort for the very tiny or jaunty chapeau for the mad). It's contemplative and giving, not loud and grabby. And as life gets louder and faster, I value quiet, both internal and external, more and more.

I remember the excess of my father's house as just that: excess. Too many things, too much noise, too much churn. TVs everywhere, closets bursting with unworn clothes, new cars before the last ones were old cars, jewelry bought at a premium and given away on eBay. Pointless, inelegant things, like the $300 throw pillow covered in, I shit you not, seashells. Because there's nothing that spells comfy snuggle on the couch like a gigantic coral reef against your head. And how.

I'd blame it on his significant other, who was clearly the shopper in the family, but the truth is, Dad just as down with the always-on, bigger-is-better, 20th century-American lifestyle. Or inured to it. Or something. He lived in those houses, he drove those cars, he chose that life.

Taken too far, or course, thrift veers into tightwaddery, its dingy, B.O.-stained cousin. I've learned the hard way not to cheap out on health care, for example: an early, scary brush with an HMO OB/GYN has kept me on the straight and narrow for over 20 years. And don't get me started on the freezing showers and the three-square allotment of toilet paper of my maternal grandparents' house, a falling-down paean to thrift fondly dubbed "Gloomy Manor" by the ones with the bag collection.

Goodness and greatness both lie, as usual, in the ho-hum middle. What seems to work best for me is a foundation of alert and sensible thrift, gently padded here and there with worthwhile luxuries. As I drill down to the center of the mess that is my money, I get comfortable both with having more and needing less, with conserving usually and splurging occasionally. True, my version of splurging, lunch out at a restaurant just because, good incense and candles, 2-color Pantone business cards on heavy stock, is probably laughably tiny to most of my neighbors in a 5-block radius.

But I don't live in a 5-block radius anymore. I live on a big, beautiful planet.

See? It's all in how you look at it...

xxx c

Image by Richard- via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Portland, 10; communicatrix, 0

I came, I saw, I got conquered.

Seriously, Portland kicked my everlovin' city-girl ass. It's green, it's filled with books and really good coffee, the neighborhoods are adorable without tipping over into twee and, joy of joys, it's schlub-friendly. I mean, I love New York and L.A. and London and Paris and Rome and lots of other fancy-schmancy places, but I feel at home in places like Chicago and Ithaca and San Simeon and Austin and Bloomington, places with a little less gloss and a little more underarm stubble. Provided, you know, there's good food and wine and such. Which Portland has in spades, along with old buildings, trees and (woohoo!) free WiFi in the airport.

TequilaCon was fun, too. I'm really glad that I'd already met Neil and Sophia and Jenny and DeeDee, since there were so many new faces and I tend to get a little shy around new faces. And exhausted, did I mention exhausted? The BF and I had to call it a night way before (apparently) it was actually a night. Meeting a whole slew of new people is tiring for an introvert, even when the people are very, very nice. And while our TCPacNW07 venue, The Kennedy School, was every bit as fabulous as promised (and more!), old people like me need places to sit where we can hear the young people talk or we start to lose it. (Although I did not actually "lose it," unlike some other poor soul on the McMenamin's patio, thanks principally to the ninja drinkers' one-two practice of Pacing Oneself and Never Mixing.)

But it was delightful finally meeting some of my longtime blog crushes, and getting exposed (literally!) to a slew of other local-to-their-localities talents. Your friendliness and high-level social skills were awesome, if intimidating. The BF took tons of wonderful photos to document the wonderfulness, the best of which I'll post to Flickr when he quits futzing with them in Photoshop and hands them over.

Brandon, Jenny: words fail me. Thank you for organizing. Thank you for caring enough to give me my own, SCD-compliant schwag bag. (Thank you even more for caring enough to NOT give me herpes.)

And Dave? Dave, you crazy, mad, lovable genius of design deliciousness? Those lanyards are THE TITS, baby...THE TITS!!!

xxx c

Image by Whateverthing via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license. If you want a good feel for why I fell in love with Portland, check out his photostream.

What money really means

One of my dirty little secrets has to do with money: I'm afraid of it.

Between role models who lived it up with cavalier disregard for cash, dying either in debt or indebted to loved ones (myself included) for covering them towards the end, and others who destroyed their health and emotional life in the pursuit of money, it's a miracle I'm neither pushing a shopping cart nor wedged between walls of newspaper, tying used paper bags together with twine against some future disaster, like a Depression-era baby gone whack job.

While I'm not rich, I'm also not in debt, and there's no wolf at the door. For my age and considering my nutty career trajectory, I'm actually doing well, living proof of the magic of compound interest. I socked away whatever I could as a Young Corporate Tool, living in rat-traps (okay, mouse-traps) in Brooklyn on overtime meals and happy hour appetizers while maxing out my 401k contributions. And this was back in the golden '80s, with dollar-for-dollar matching employer funds. Yes, you heard me: dollar for dollar.

And I've never exactly been a slacker. I was fortunate enough to have my college paid for, received gifts of cash here and there from my generous relatives and yes, I was subsidized to the tune of $50/week for the first six months I lived and worked in New York. Still, I've always worked, and never lived off the largesse of a partner or spouse. There were fat times and lean, but I managed to stay afloat, buy and sell a condo, keep clothes on my back and food in my gut, have health insurance (the good kind) and, while I've never been one to live high on the hog, even enjoy some luxuries like nice dinners out, nice food in, travel, cars (every one of which, of course, I've owned outright).

So this is not the story of someone who suffered the financial equivalent of being raised in a locked closet and never knowing light or human touch until age 16. I was good, I was fine, I looked completely normal, even together, compared to some people I know.

And yet, I am so conflicted about money, so filled with anxiety and conflict and trepidation, I cannot balance my checkbook. I mean, I have, at times, but I won't do it consistently. I've let money languish in low-interest accounts rather than make the simple step of moving it to a higher-interest vehicle because somehow, keeping it vague is more comfortable to me that keeping it real. I stubbornly resist getting a handle on my money which, believe you me, is not the best modus operandi for anyone, much less a sole proprietor.

But I've never really understood why until today, when I read something Suze "Yes, I'm Gay!" Orman wrote in her column for the March issue of Oprah's magazine. Orman was counseling a woman who's in a relationship with a guy who sounds kind of creepy about money, and she suggests that maybe this chick should bolt, because...

When a person can't share his financial life, I question his ability to share his heart. The way we handle money is a manifestation of who we are inside, and how he approaches the subject signifies his love and respect for you.

I tell you, I almost burst into tears reading this. Because it suddenly struck me how much of my life I have lived in fear, how worthless I have often felt about myself and my abilities, how much better it felt to look somewhere, anywhere, else, to tap dance a little faster, instead of sitting in the feeling I was really having until I owned it and could move on.

I have a lot of work to do yet, but I feel like the worst of it is over. Because at least for this last stretch of uncovering myself, thanks to a freshly-out financial guru to the masses, I have some direction and a little more light to find my way...

xxx c

Image by Simon Pais via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Nerd Love, Day 20: "A" is for alpha channel

Some days, you just get by.

Tired Fearful Small and crawly

on no sleep (troubles, troubles) and a too-early dentist appointment made in good faith a year ago kept in resignation and out of more fear (bad gums, the family curse).

And then after a day of throwing down too many cups of caffeine (all flavors)

and an afternoon of pushing through too many scary jobs,

tired and fearful, small and crawly

you straggle home exhausted from An Event (really, it was lovely, we were just fagged out and not in a gay way)

and The BF gives you a tutorial in alpha channels and makes all the bad things disappear.

This is why I love being a nerd

This is why I love being in love with one.

xxx c

Image by Colleen Wainwright and Brenton Fletcher

Nerd Love, Day 16: Obsession, a.k.a. Nerd Koan

To you, it is a collection of keys (and affinity tags) on a key ring. (Okay, carabiner.)

To me, it represents dozens of man-hours of thought:

One ring or two? Or three? And what diameter? Fob choice? Fob size? What is too heavy? What is too light? What feels good in my hands? What feels so good I'll forget about it? Is that too good? Is that bad? What would be useful? What would be more useful? Is yesterday's 'useful' no longer so? Where to forgo elegance for functionality? What is the nature of elegance, anyway?

The difference between being a baby nerd and a grownup one is that grownup nerds know to enjoy the process or abandon it altogether, because the "goal", perfection, will continue to recede in the distance as you move toward it.

The key ring of my 20's is not the key ring of my 30's is not the key ring of my 40's.

In my 50's? There may not be a key ring at all.

And maybe that is what I am working towards.

If, indeed, any of this is a working towards anything...

xxx c

Nerd Love, Day 13: Nerd Wayback Machine

Yes, that's communicatrix-dot-com, circa December, 2004, courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

Just shows what a couple of years and a couple of hundred hours at the computer can do for a girl.

And her blog...

xxx c

Click the image above for rollover commentary and larger sized display of my shame. Or click here.

Nerd Love, Day 11: When nerds travel

Nerds want...

1. ...free WiFi in all airports.
2. ...more outlets to plug in...
3. ...that actually work.
4. ...people on cell phones to use their inside voice...
5. ...or hang up.
6. ...maps in the "L" cars.
7. ...people watching movies on their laptops to use headphones.
8. ...to be there when rude lady hogging outlet finds out five minutes after her three-hour flight takes off that outlet she was hogging was not getting any juice.

xxx c

Image by caribb via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

Nerd Love, Day 8: Nerds on Holiday!

Chief Nerd and her hot Nerd Arm Candy are off to Chicago for the next four days, because nerds travel when:

1. prices are low
2. they feel like it
3. they need a break from the relentless taskmistress that is the 21-Day Saluteâ„¢

Kidding on that last one.

There may be some posts of the canned variety until our return. No whining. It is, after all, winter in this part of the world. That's when you're supposed to have canned goods...

xxx
c

Image by never mind her via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

Nerd Love, Day 4: I'll show you mine if you show me yours

I've alluded before to Best Year Yet on this here bloggy, but for those of you who missed class and/or are too f**king lazy to click the links or Google it, Best Year Yet is a values-based goal-setting system which I discovered via Heidi Miller's podcast long ago, and which could just as rightly be called "The Nerdiest Goal-Setting System Yet" except that it'd be redundant.

My friend, Kathy (zen-shiatsu mistress supreme) and I spent four, count 'em, four, hours today going over our plans. We'd both done all of our (nerd) homework and I've been implementing mine since the second week of January, but Kathy's a single mom and, as I understand it, time bends in funny ways when you're situated thusly.

Anyway, I buffed out the scratches in my Best Year Yet plan and, because one of the things that tripped me up the first time I tried doing it was a lack of concrete examples of workable plans, I decided to make mine public.

Via Backpack. Because that's how I roll, baby.

Feel free to check it out (link here), and contact me with any questions or comments. You can do it via email or the comments section of this post. I'd like to keep the process as transparent as possible, to help the most people; so if you email me, I may use your question to work up an FAQ somewhere here on the site, but if I do, I promise to keep your identity a total, double-secret-probation-level secret, should you so desire.

Bottom line: if you're already doing BYY, I encourage you to post somewhere and share a link. If you're not, consider doing something similar with your goals and post a link.

Accountability ain't everything, but it helps.

Later, nerds...

xxx c

SEE THE COMMUNICATRIX'S BEST YEAR YET 2007 PLAN HERE

UPDATE: I got an email from my pal, Neil, asking why the monthly and weekly goals were missing. They're not: they just get a little too personal, so they're not displayed for public consumption. But rest assured, I have them and am doing them. And it's working!!!

Image by occipital lobe via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

RIP, YMDB; hello, redundancy

I know nothing lasts forever. I also know I'm overly attached to things. But a list of movies? Who thought I'd have to back up a list of my 20 favorite movies?!?

1. If del.icio.us goes under? I lose my links. AKA I'm screwed.
2. If gmail goes down? I lose my email backup. (I've got it all locally, but I'm perched on the edge of a rusty scimitar, AKA, I'm screwed.)
3. If DreamHost goes down? I lose this whole blog, past the last time I backed it up (note to self: find that plug-in that backs up automagically) (and for good measure, back up when you're done with this).

Before I go on, please know that I actually do have a keen sense of perspective when it comes to "stuff", based in no small part to, well, I can't even bring it up in a post this frivolous. You'll just have to trust me, my friend: between my travels abroad and my travels, period, I have an acute understanding not only of the fundamental impermanence of life, but of priorities in general.

Still, we cling to what we cling to, idiotic or not. And today, I'm clinging to movies. I had a list of them on a site called YMDB, which I won't even link to, because it redirects to IMDB, which needs more traffic like I need more holiday fat around my middle, and it Summed Me Up in Movies, and it was a link between me and my beloved Neilochka, and now it's gone.

Worse, occasionally, when I'd be hard up for a good video rental, I'd hop on YMDB and find a similar list. You know, like how you people who don't yet know amazon.com is the devil sometimes use it for other recommendations on crap you might be interested in. Who doesn't want a nice page filled with crap they might be interested in!?! No one, I say!

So to hell with it. I'm putting my new and improved list of fave flickage right here. If anyone has any ideas on other stuff I might want to see, let me know. I gave up TV, remember? I need distraction!

Some disclaimers before I give up the list itself:

• This list was cobbled together from dim, dim memory and a MySpace list, so, you know, it's likely to change
• Drastic change
• This list is in no particular order (although I really, really love The Third Man)
• My criteria have more to do with desirability of repeat viewing than inherent greatness, which is to don't even start about Showgirls, people
• That's it, but bulleted lists look better in odd numbers

Now, without further ado, the list itself:

1. The Third Man
2. The Godfather
3. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
4. Showgirls
5. All About Eve
6. Jackie Brown
7. Brazil
8. Nashville
9. Caddyshack
10. Ed Wood
11. Fat City
12. Le Rayon Vert (aka Summer, in U.S. release)
13. Johnny Guitar
14. Saturday Night Fever
15. The Gay Divorcée
16. Sunset Boulevard
17. Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
18. Play Misty for Me
19. Vertigo
20. Singin' in the Rain

As I said, list subject to change. Like me...

xxx c

Image by bryanF via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license

the communicatrix elsewhere: How to make resolutions that actually work

I've spoken before about how resolutions blow big, stinky chunks, but only hinted at how goal-setting can really work.

If you are over 40 or a realist (I am in the former camp, but hardly the latter), you doubtless understand too well that there is no one book or system or piece of software that will change you life for you, only tools and hacks that help facilitate the growth you are ready to embrace.

I know: I spent 40+ years accumulating tools, and while I made incremental progress on my own, I didn't get Big Mama Change until the universe saw fit to sit me down and teach me a hard lesson. Fortunately, I was ready for it. Because really, the universe's next move was, like, non-operative cancer or some shit, and while the morphine and pot-smoking part of hellish pain sounds good, I question how well I would do with the rest of it.

So if you are change-ready (or change-curious) and want a new tool to play with, I humbly suggest you check out my latest column for LAcasting.com on effecting real change. Included are three steps I've found work well for me, as well as one really excellent book/system which I've hinted at here called Your Best Year Yet, by Ginny Ditzler. I did write the column for actors, but it's not totally acting-centric, and besides, it's always fun to read stuff about actors: ask the publishers of US and People and every other fucking consumer magazine aimed at women 18 - 54 in the U.S.

Also, I'm trying to add to my own body of knowledge on this stuff, so if you've found tactics or tools that work for you, please let me know either in the comments or via email (communicatrix at gmail dotterooski com). I first heard of Best Year Yet via Heidi Miller's excellent small biz marketing podcast, and I totally stole that theme thing from Jenny, for example (she was very gracious about it) and would be happy to steal equally good ideas from you, too.

With attribution, of course...

xxx
c

HELPFUL LINKS:

• Your Best Year Yet, by Ginny Ditzler, on Amazon
  One of the top five books I recommend for turning your life around. Its practices are simple and transformational, if you work them.
• The Best Year Yet website
  The cult around BYY isn't as geek-centric as GTD, so there's less online documentation. Hopefully, that will change at some point. In the meantime, my suggestion is to scan the BYY site, get the book, and see for yourself if it floats your boat.
• Heidi Miller's podcast about Best Year Yet on Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter
  If you're the listening type, download this episode of Heidi's podcast. She outlines the 10 questions that form the backbone of the BYY system.
• "What to do with that Big, Shiny New Year of Yours" (one of my columns for The Networker)

Image by carf via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

5 things you didn't know about me(me)

I think this is the first time I've been tagged for one of those meme thingys. (Thanks, Jessica. No, really, thanks a lot: I had completely lost the will to blog, and you've jogged me out of it, which in addition to being really cool, also rhymes.)

I have participated in memes, back before I understood blogging protocol forbade participation sans tagging, but they don't count then, do they?

Even if this is not the first time I've been tagged, I'm sure this is the first one I found out about, and that only thanks to Google alerts, I'm afraid I've been as terrible at keeping up with the rest of you as I've been with keeping the blog.

At any rate, this ain't no easy meme for a tell-it-all blabbermouth like me. The whole point of communicatrix, The Blog, and I know, some of you are shaking your heads slowly in disbelief that there actually is a point, is to lay my truth out there in the wee, vain hope that it might help someone else find his. Or, for those of you who stare your damn truth in the face 24/7/365 (366 on leap year), that I might make you laugh and forget it for a few moments.

My point is, what haven't I told you people? Seriously. Sure, there are a (very) few items which must needs remain unspoken for modesty's sake, other people's modesty, not my own. (As if!) But stay that way they must. And I'm sure there are thousands of items which are eminently share-worthy, only I can't think of them now that I'm put on the spot. So if these five seem lame, well, blame it on the excessive drinking and drug-taking of my early years. Or my current years. The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be.

1. I have not balanced my checkbook in over 15 years. 2. My favorite food is stone crab with butter. 3. I am terrified to spend the night at The BF's when he is not here. 4. I have parachuted out of an airplane. Twice. 5. I fold my underwear.

God. I am even more simultaneously boring and weird than I thought I was.

xxx c

P.S. Since you're supposed to tag someone, I'm tagging Erik, partly because he is my favorite new blogger of 2006 so far*, partly because he shares my love of lists, and partly just because!

*The BF may start a blog before January and his children descend upon us, so I reserve my final vote for Favorite Blog until December 31 at 11:59pm. After that, Erik, it's all you...

UPDATE: Apparently, I was tagged by Tim Donnelly, over to the Aquent blog, a day after posting this here thing here. Which means (a) I am much beloved even if (b) I am not much read. (Giant aside: can I have your job when you tire of it, please?) Photo by marjo0o via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.