Pants in the Ocean

"Actresses retire, just so they can finally eat."

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 10:52:00 +0000

In all her eloquent splendor, Baraka has published her first piece on a mainstream Muslim web site! Her piece is entitled "Delicious Desi Aunties."

While I was mildly disappointed that my dearest conservative Muslim friend was not overcome with the sudden, desperate need to publish erotica, the real content of her article is well worth a read. In it she discusses the need for naturally voluptuous South Asian women to embrace their curves. In fact, she encourages them to remember a time when round features were all the rage:

"It used to be that South Asian girls had busts and hips, and, in fact,
lived in the hopes of developing them. They filled out a sari or shalvar kameez properly. They saw Moghul miniatures, temple carvings, homegrown actresses and models, and heck, the Aunties all around them and knew that a buxom beauty lay within their reach. Nay, it was their genetic destiny."

The fact that she manages to fit "nay" seamlessly into a sentence written this century is just icing on the cake baked of a solid message everyone should hear. She argues that South Asian women are not meant to have the washboard tummy of western models. I'll take that one step further and argue that western models are not meant to have the washboard tummy of western models. Once upon a time I had a friend who would take one look at the sharp, pointy, waify chics in fashion magazines and mumble, "I want to give her a sandwich." Granted, he likely wanted to feed it to her while they were both naked, but his sentiment was in the right place.

So hurrah, Baraka! Thank you for the reminder meant for your own curvy culture. While I hope they take notice, I also hope that some of my less-brown friends heed your message as well. We're all tired of worrying about a few extra pounds here and there. Even Kirstie Alley, star of her own sitcome called Fat Actress, sold out and became a Jenny Craig spokeswoman. It's time for more gentle reminders like your article to creep into the collective female conscious.

Just buy the Triscuits and screw the Wheat Thins

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 02:42:00 +0000

If you're not ready to have a baby yet, DON'T COME WITHIN FIVE FEET OF ME! Honest to Kokopelli, enough of my friends are knocked up or ready to pop that I'm certain that by now some native culture has heard of me and has placed my image on an alter as a fertility symbol. Barren couples from miles around make a pilgrimage to it because they've heard that forging a friendship with me is like hitching a train straight to Storksville.

I've heard that you reach a certain age and all of a sudden everyone gets married. Then, just when your calendar slows way down to a wedding every other weekend, the first batch of newlyweds start popping out the critters. I'll be damned, but I must be at that age because I need more than one hand to count all of my dear friends who are expecting.

And so it is that they are all a-glow with bulging bellies and the cravings to match.

Of all the happy expecting couples, I am most concerned for my dear friend in Turkey. While there is no shortage of Turkish snacks to keep her busy, her cravings betray her latch-key childhood: Extra-crunchy Jif Peanut butter, Rice Krispie Treats, McCormick's Brown Gravy Mix, Betty Crocker Blueberry Muffin Mix (Just Add Water!), Triscuits and Wheat thins. Alas, the Sultan's homeland runneth over with meatballs and grape leaves, but what's a preggers girl to do when she needs a damn chewy chocolate chip granola bar??

Send her stateside best friend a shopping list, is what.

Yesterday she and I found each other in a splendid instant-messaging conversation, when she told me about her adventures of standing over her kitchen sink while eating an entire jar of pickles. I can totally picture her standing there, pickle jar in one hand, pickle juice running into her sleeve down the other, and my own craving to see her kicked in. So I bought a ticket to Istanbul, departing tomorrow.

Hurrah! This will likely be the last time I get my best friend to herself. God willing, none of my friends will turn into those parents who can't find time to talk to their grown-up friends. But just in case, I'm all about hanging out with her for my last week of unemployment and her last week of girl time, sans baby.

Two minutes after we signed off the IM, I got her email "re: shopping list." Neither of us are good at math, but I'm wondering if she knows that there are weight limits for luggage on international flights and I also need to bring pants? After a quick calculation of item poundage (translation: ask MIT boyfriend how much everything will weigh) I dash an email right back, telling her that I can buy everything, but space may be an issue. I wondered if I could take the crackers out of their boxes?

She must have been salivating at the computer, eagerly waiting for my reply. Thirty seconds after I clicked send she made the snap decision: "Sure, take them out of the boxes. That's how I usually travel. If it still seems like too much, just buy the Triscuits and screw the Wheat Thins. "

Screw the Wheat Thins!

Now there is a girl who knows how to get her snack on. It's good to have strong feelings about crackers. Priorities are important.

If she doesn't grow up to be the overbearing, baby-talking parent type, I'm hoping she can become a cool, Partridge Family mom. She's already found the perfect name for starting her own alt-grunge family band called Screw The Wheat Thins.

Hurtling dangerously toward employment

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:16:00 +0000

Of course I've been looking for a job. I've been doing everything a good job searcher should be doing; namely, applying for jobs.

Thing is, last time I was unemployed, I would send bazillions of resumes into a vast employment vacuum, never hearing from the company again. Every week when I claimed my unemployment benefits, I just checked "Yes" on the box that asked me if I've been looking for work and *poof* - a check would appear with my name on it. Days, weeks, months went by without a fear of having to accept a job offer because I was mostly convinced all the jobs I applied to were posted by the Unemployment Agency people themselves, just so those of us on the dole couldn't do nothing all day long.

This time? Not so easy. As soon as I thought I'd be let go I started submitting resumes with wild abandon. Why not? It's not like I was going to hear back from anyone for months, right? Wrong. Damn market is better now so when you apply for a job, people actually assume that you want it.

Good lesson to learn, I'd say. Because, through the process of hearing back from several companies with soul-sucking names like "Biotron" and "Avotistech," I realized how deeply allergic I am to "The Man." While I was grateful for the callbacks, when one glance at their web sites had me breaking out in hives, I knew that it wasn't meant to be.

Fortunately, it hasn't been too hard finding organizations that actually have a mission I can believe in. One company I was talking to writes software to help investment clubs manage their finances and tax forms. Another helps freshly graduated college students find jobs. And then, of course, there's the hospital I interviewed for that should win major "get into heaven" points when I'm eye to eye with Saint Pete. I'm hoping that just the thought of dedicating 50 hours of my work week to helping sick children will balance out some of my less savory acts of rebellion in my teenage years. Like that time I snuck out at night with some friends to rearrange the letters on a sign in front of the local ice cream shop so that all the flavors had dirty words in them. True, that's about as rebellious as I got and, true, the sign was locked behind glass so we couldn't actually rearrange anything, but hopefully my karma points are more in balance now.

So, after two full months of time off, I'm happy to announce I've accepted a job that will support people who want to make the world a better place by helping disadvantaged children. I wish I could tell you that's the only reason I took it, but I'm still trying to work out the algorithm to calculate the karma points for doing something good while also receiving a nice salary and a kick ass benefits package. It doesn't seem as noble if I'm not actually sacrificing anything to do it. Somehow, I'm okay with that.

The good news is that they don't need me to start for another couple weeks. Woo! More vacation! Time to adjust to the notion of working again. I think I'll need it. Today I rebelled against my impending employment by laying on my futon and watching 5 consecutive episodes of the Gilmore Girls. I ate all day long to the point of discomfort, but kept eating anyway. In renaissance times, I would have been considered among the wealthy elite for being so plump and oily. I think next time I work for a non-profit, I will try to find the people whose mission it is to bring that look back into vogue.

What's your secret?

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 20:08:00 +0000

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project
where people mail-in their secrets anonymously
on one side of a homemade postcard.
Check out the blog.

So, what's your secret? No, really. What is it?

What's the thing you don't tell anyone? What's the thing you think would keep people from loving you? How many do you have? If you found out that other people have the same secret, would you search for them? And if you found them, would you let them in on your own?

Everyone has secrets. Some of them are dark. Some of them are funny. Some of them are spelled out in anonymous blogs. Most of them go with us to our graves. Thanks go out to Baraka for sharing the link to the PostSecret project, where "people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard."

Here are some of my favorites:

Over the image of a broken train someone wrote: "There was a train wreck by my house. I ran to the site and mingled with the other passengers, acting like I had been on the train. I received an $8000 settlement for pain and suffering due to my 'back injury'."
Someone sent in a photo of a Buddha statue speaking the words: "I fed my family for free for about a year by simply wheeling filled shopping carts out the door."
Someone else left lipstick marks all over a piece of paper and wrote: "This is me procrastinating on my suicide note..."

It's strange how a secret can hold power over you. And it's liberating when you tell someone what it is, then realize they're still sitting beside you.

Perhaps the coolest thing I've discovered in this life is the fact that everybody has them.

How do I know? About four years ago, in an attempt to make a few small personal repairs, I went to a weekend-long retreatish/cultish emotional boot camp called Landmark Forum. I went because I knew four people who had done it and who swore it had changed their lives in profound ways. Granted, I caught them immediately post-forum, when most people who go through the program experience a heighted state of elation from discovering why they were so messed up and how they can live from now on as a considerably less messed up person. The question then becomes whether or not they can sustain the changes they want to make, but that's another conversation all together. How the Forum manipulates the audience through the experience is also a topic for later. How the Forum recruits the audience is ethically questionable but, again, a topic for some other time.

To get a sense for what it was like, picture 120 people in a large room with no windows, sitting in 120 chairs facing a stage, where our inspirational speaker led us through a series of exercises designed to get us to sort through our baggage. We sat in this room about 15 hours a day for three days. And pretty much the only way you were going to experience any sort of "breakthrough" was to pay attention to the secrets your peers spoke into the microphones on either side of the stage.

In grand American over-sharing style, it didn't take long for the first person to get up to the microphone to talk about why they were there. You've got to figure that something pretty big inspired each of us to pay $350, give up a vacation day plus a weekend, and go through some sort of magic process that no one could quite describe before we signed up. The first guy at the mic told us that he'd been getting bad grades. The speaker led him, then his mother, through a short series of conversations that exposed some previously unspoken tension between them that led to a grand finale expression of love between them and a promise to be more studious from now on. Hurrah! We all clapped for them and from there on an endless stream of strangers took turns at the microphone to tell us their darkest crap.

And some of it was pretty dark.

And some of the people cried when they said it.

Sometimes I would ache while I listened.

And, yep. While I spent the first day grateful to the brave folk who dared to bare all in front of an audience, I writhed inside my skin at the thought of standing up there to share my own secret dark crap. Until Day 2. That's when I saw so many people actively letting go of years and years of baggage so successfully that I finally took my own turn at the mic, spilling my guts about why I was there and what my baggage looked like.

Sure, the whole thing sounds like a hippy-dippy, tree-hugging, love-in, but I didn't care. Listening to a high-powered executive tell us that he had been cheating on his wife for 15 years and a respected scientist confess her compulsive behavior was liberating. Every time we returned from a break we were encouraged to sit next to someone else, and every someone I sat next to had even more humiliating crap to share. Our leader encouraged us to think of people who had hurt us in the past and encouraged us to call them to talk about it. One by one, people around me started to have the breakthroughs we were promised when we wrote Landmark our checks on registration day. All of these people walked around as if they were Atlas, sans the weight of the world on his shoulders.

I wouldn't say that I had a breakthrough, but I would say I learned a whole lot. Through the bravery of people who were willing to share their stories, I realized that I was not the only one who did not have everything figured out. In fact, I finally felt like part of the majority, because no one really does. While some of the secrets people shared with us seemed like nothing to be ashamed of to me, I could identify with the humiliation that kept them silent. And if their stuff is no big deal to me, then maybe my stuff isn't such a big deal after all.

And if it’s not a big deal, why hold on to it?

While I’m not in a hurry to share every last thing I am ashamed of with the world, I suppose blogging is a small attempt to keep myself honest and real. It’s a constant decision to write or, more to the point, not write about people and topics that are important to me. I would love to have the gigunda balls to talk about issues that plague or amuse me, regardless of who I know is reading about them. David Sedaris is one of my heroes that way, having built his livelihood on hanging his family skeletons under a neon sign that screams “Yo! Over here!” He once said that he writes it like it is, and if those he writes about were honest with themselves, they would find truth in his words.

I dare you to be more honest with yourself and your friends, even for a day.

I’m going to take that challenge myself, and start with confronting the lady with the horrible 80’s hairdo and gem sweater on the other side of this café. Someone really has to tell the poor woman the truth…

A day in the life

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 22:51:00 +0000

Episodes Smallville watched: 6
Times almost cried: 3
Times said "Just one more episode, then I'll do something productive": 5
Times left house: 1
Showers: 1
Fun Size Snickers bars eaten: 3
Devil Dogs consumed: 2
Miles jogged: 3
Epiphanies experienced while discovering gray sweat pants are sexy: 1
Jobs applied for: 2
Contacts made for new job opportunities: 2
Hours spent on freelance work: 0
Thank you cards sent for Christmas presents: 0
Surfaces dusted: 0
Floors vacuumed: 0
Ziti noodles in bowl for dinner: 27
Phone calls from dashing boyfriend: 3
Comments made by boyfriend in reference to unhealthy Smallville addiction: 2
Wishes that Gilmore Girls Season 6 was on DVD: 1672
Degrees of unrequieted love for Lex Luther: 227
Curses against bad boys' fathers who doomed them to lives of evil: 564
Hours of sleep lost while fearing the acquisition of potential new job in development office of leading-edge hospital: 2
Hours of sleep lost while fearing the possibility of not acquiring new job in development office of leading-edge hospital: 2
Kiss ass thank you letters sent to interviewers:1
Lucrative alternatives to desk jobs found: 0
Hours practicing acoustic guitar technique: 0
Hours writing Great American Novel: 0
Words spoken to inanimate objects in apartment: 15
Emails sent to friends regarding social opportunities in coming weeks: 8
Replies: 2

A terrible, sinking feeling

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 20:44:00 +0000

They say when you're unemployed, your full time job becomes the search for a new job. Because I am a strong believer in work/life balance, I also add variety to my day, dedicating time slots my life-long pursuit of watching as many TV series on DVD as possible. And, being that unemployment can be an especially anxious time, I find that I become even more emotionally involved than usual with the Gilmore Girls, the Sex and the City ladies and the Smallville folk.

I really can't call it a day until I have cried at something that happened between my favorite peeps in Stars Hollow, New York City or Smallville. Today? It was the look on Lex's face when Clark/Cal-El stole back the little crystal he dedicated his life to find. Yesterday? It was when Loralai proposed to Luke after watching Rory take the first step to their estrangement as mother and daughter. And then there's always the quintessential tearjerker, sure to bring you down from even the highest level of elation: Aidan's proposal to Carrie.

But I digress.

I suppose it makes sense that if my full time job is to find a new job, then I would eventually have to dust off my powergirl blazer, creased trousers and pumps (aka "interviewing garb") and head into the corporate wilderness to be a chipper, go-getting, can-do job candidate. For me, today was that day.

I typically enjoy job interviews because I get to spend an hour talking about how great I am. While most people cringe at the thought, I am a natural marketer and just pretend I'm telling my mom about getting picked in class to read my book report as an example of excellence. True, I was never chosen by the teacher as the student everyone should try to be, but I always wanted to be that person, and job interviews are my little way of making up for the fact that Laurel Druid was always going to that much more creative, that much cuter and that much more worthy of being homecoming queen than I was. Each interview is worth about five therapy sessions in itself!

Today I took a little twist in approach and, instead of picturing my mom in the interviewer's chair, I made believe that I was in my very own "Behind the Music" video. I talked about my most successful marketing campaigns. I commented thoughtfully on the environments I thrive in. I paused and glanced heavenward, searching for exactly the right words to express my passion for writing brochures. By the end of the session, my interviewer had laughed with me, cried with me and was about to print an offer letter with a six-figure salary when she realized she needed to meet with four other candidates first. "Don't worry, Cella," she said as she wiped away her last tear. "In all my years here, I've never met someone as perfect for this job as you. In fact, you're perfect for my job and I wouldn't be at all surprised if I was reporting to you within six months! I hope you have room in your bank account for many, many more zero's!"

Okay, that didn't happen. But what did happen included listening to her speak for a solid half hour about her current projects, the level of frenzy in the office, the lack of process to keep things running smoothly, and the fact that it's a fun culture, though it definitely does not operate on a 9-5 schedule. Guessing from the number of projects on her corporate plate, I'm fairly sure she does not mean that she strolls into the office around 10, cuts out for a long lunch around noon, and hits the road by 4:30, which is how my work life devolved at my last company.

"But... but... how do you find time to keep up with emailing all of your friends?" I wanted to ask. Instead I smiled in a way that I hoped did not look like a deer caught in headlights and told her I was very impressed with all the good work she'd done on the materials she gave me at the beginning of the interview. I tried not to think about all the message boards she could not participate in, or all the "panic buttons" she never had to hit on entertainment web sites when her boss walked by.

I guess her office had never heard of the movement that has declared "mediocrity" as the new "excellence." One of the most shocking things about becoming a grown up has been the discovery that, in the corporate world, you don't have to work very hard to be considered an over-achiever. Apparently this concept does not extend to the development offices of leading-edge hospitals. Maybe it's because she doesn't work at a technology company, where intermittently-driven folks have learned that they can work really hard for a few weeks, followed by a few more weeks conducting "research," which really means they can surf the web eight hours a day.

Or maybe the lesson is all mine, as I discover that my last company was the only office in the world that was filled with apathetic workers, over-paid and under-challenged, spending their days refilling their coffee cups and collecting pay checks. Oh, the horror! I have a terrible, sinking feeling that my next job is going to require me to actually work for a living.

I've always wondered what that would be like. I've actually harbored a silent envy of my busy friends who take a few days to reply to the emails I send them. The friends who, supposedly, are so busy being productive that they hardly have time to eat lunch, let alone send smoke signals to loved ones informing us they are still alive. In my last job, when things would slow down, I used to click around from news site to entertainment site, daydreaming what it would be like to have a to-do list chock full of productive-sounding activities. I had a to-die-for to-do list in college, and while it's always nice to have down time, there really is nothing like coming home after a busy day, feeling good about what you contributed to the greater good.

Yes, I've had my glory days of feeling like I earned my keep as an employee. I've burned the midnight oil when I've had to. But, for the most part, I've worked at a place that respects the fact that employees are people too -- people with families to tend to, hobbies to enjoy, TV series to watch on DVD. I've been lucky.

Today was a bit of a rude awakening that I may not find another company that embraces goofing-off as much as my last employer did. In all seriousness, I came to depend on the fact that I could leave during the day to go to a doctor's appointment if I had to, or take a lunch hour to walk in the woods behind my office to clear my head. Are there other places out there that don't expect you to live, breathe and dream the company? Is it possible to find a cozy place that will give you the paycheck of the American Dream, without the American tendency to exploit their workers? Is this something I just have to deal with, grinning around the water cooler with my business casual-clad coworkers while daydreaming of what's behind the concrete garage blocking the view? Is it time to ditch office work and seek another career all together?

I wonder what pirates are making these days.

Dinner with the ex-company

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:11:00 +0000

Lots of things probably should have occurred to me before I accepted the invitation to spend last evening at the official office going away party for a former coworker at my former company. Namely:

It was a going away party for my former coworker, not me.
Once I figured that out, I stopped thanking people for coming. You see, I got the invitation and wasn’t sure if I would go. Then Steph (the guest of honor herself) asked me to go because it was also a party for me and my former boss, who got da axe the same day I did. So of course I accepted, and of course I made my ex-boss come as well. But when we got there it seemed that Steph was the only one who thought the party was for us too.
When I'm drunk, I have no filter.
I should have worn a post-it note on my forhead apologizing ahead of time for anything I said to anyone who had a conversation with me. Or maybe just one of those name tag stickers that could have said: "Hello. My name is Cella. I swear to God I'm sad that I don't work with you anymore."
There's a very narrow margin of acceptable responses when someone asks "How are you doing?"
Think about it. Getting laid off isn't good news to most people. But I'd been with the company for eight years! I'm burned out! Time to move on! The only problem is that, in reassuring former coworkers that I'm thrilled about never having to step foot in that soulless office park ever again, I simultaneously insult them and remind them that they still have to work there. I wish I could give some advice about the best thing to say in that situation, but after about fifteen tries last night, I still couldn't get it right.
Former coworkers get uncomfortable when they reference something you used to do at the office and you say too loudly, "I can't do that anymore because I GOT FIRED."
Poor Milly. She was laughing about being tipsy and that I might take her picture and post it on the intranet. All attention was on her, she was basking in the fact that we all "caught her" after an entire glass of wine and was clearly relishing the thought of her rosy cheeks beaming from the home page the next day. Everyone was laughing along with her too, because they all love Milly, and they all love to share a moment of sweet camaraderie with their coworkers when everyone is filled with joy and brimming with good cheer.

That is, they love those moments until someone blurts out, "Don't worry, you're safe. I can't do that anymore because I GOT FIRED." Milly dropped her arm from my shoulders and looked down, most people shuffled their feet or swigged from their glasses and one let out the battle cry, "OhhhhHo!"

I just raised my glass and said, "Cheers. Heh."
People aren't sure if they should laugh when you tell the general manager that it's cool of him to pick up the tab and that it's the least he could do, considering he's the one that canned your ass.
But this isn't as bad as it sounds! I swear! He's got a roughhouse, blue collar sense of humor that appreciates comments that push the edge of social acceptability. In fact, I had said almost the same exact thing in an email to him earlier that week, when I asked him to join an online network of professional associates. He thought it was funny then, and he thought it was funny at the bar. It's just everyone else that thought I was a jackass. But he’s the only one I put down as a reference, so at least I got that going for me.
It's sad to say goodbye.
I worked with most people who were there last night for eight years. Eight years! I've never been anywhere for eight years! These people have seen me grow from being a temp receptionist to a marketing diva. From a fresh-faced college grad to a seasoned (albeit slightly jaded) professional. From a young girl, scrawny from a recent bout of dysentery picked up in India, to a mature older woman who plumped right the frig up! I'm really going to miss 'em.

All said and done, it was a splendid event. Even if I wasn't officially one of the guests of honor, I still got to bid farewell to some good friends and a free meal. I was able to reassure Steph that life after da axe, whether you choose it for yourself or not, is fine just fine.

If nothing else, it was a heckofa reason to shower and leave the house.

I have found my people

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:11:00 +0000

I just did a google search for "Nestle Toll House Cookies," because I need to find resources to support my new position as full time cookie connoisseur. Also because I have no job and it's only 1:00 in the afternoon and I have already run out of things to do today.

A fruitful search! I found an entire thread on a discussion board by people who are just as passionate about Nestle Toll House Break and Bake cookies. With not even a lick of irony, I found this thread in the archives of the Tivo Community Forum.

Here are some excerpts from the discussion. I'm interspersing my own comments because this thread actually took place in 2002, and I'm not sure any of my kindreds are still communicating with the outside world. They may have fallen completely into a Tivo-inspired catatonic trance or, worse, a blood sugar coma. I'm sure they can feel a powerful connection to me, wherever they are.

Darin: Time for me to come clean.... I'm addicted to these things!! What better place to admit this? I love my beer, especially on a Friday night after a long week, and I certainly had my period in my 20's where I was in no shortage of vices. But all those were easily controlled, not like the Nestle Toll House cookies. I can't fight them. When they're all gone, I can't help but buy more. PLEASE HELP ME!!

Cella: Darin, brother, I feel your pain. I admire your plea for help! I aspire to seek help some day too. For now, though, it's just me gettin' jiggy with the elves. The elves live in the Toll House, right? No? That's Keebler? You mean it's just me and ... the ... cookies? All alone? Darin, can you hear me?

Retrodog: YOU BA$^@?D!!! I'd never heard of these before but now I'll probably pick some up. Then I'll try them and inevitably end up in the same condition as you. And then it will all be your fault. I hope you can live with yourself, knowing this.

Cella: Retrodog, don't do it, DON'T DO IT! You're still young! There's still hope for you! Retro, listen to me, babe. Turn off the tv now and go for a jog. Go! Now!

SallyPnut: Yep. It's also frighteningly easy to just reach in the fridge and grab a pre-measured glob of raw dough for snacking....help...

Cella: Sally? Sweetie? We've talked about this in the forum rules. No giving new methods to freebase the treats.

Darin: Hopefully we will all soon be able to eat these along with the new muscle-building pills, and get buff while sitting on the couch watching our recorded shows and eating cookies. Then you will all thank me!

Cella: Darin, you do realize that, when you post something on the internet, everyone in the world can read it, right?

From here the discussion degenerates into baking tips and tricks: which baking sheets are the best to use, an existential question of whether or not it's best to brown the bottoms, and the suggestion to preheat the sheets to which Pan Chun replies, "eeeowch! Sounds painful! Please Mommy, NO! I'll be GOOD, I promise!"

Yeah, that's about when I realized maybe they weren't all my people.

But still, I feel a special connection with some of them. Love is blind, man. Love. Is. Blind.

I have a new full time job!

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 16:07:00 +0000

I don't have an official title yet, but the job description entails eating Nestle Toll House Walnut Chocolate Chip Break and Bake Cookies, in raw cookie dough form, while sitting on my futon wearing sweat pants and a sweatshirt that has seen better days.

I am so styling.

And hot. Don't forget hot. Power jobs are sexy.

Oh no I didn't !

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 15:49:00 +0000

But yes I did. I really, really did.

My friend John, also recently unemployed, sent me to cuteoverload.com. A man of few words, he sent only the link. No hello, no how are you. He doesn't write often, so I clicked.

Evil, evil man, that John. Because I went to every damn link on the site. It's bad enough that I clicked on something I knew was all about being cute but, okayI'lladmitit, I was listening to an easy listening radio station yesterday, and somewhere between Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond, the DJ encouraged everyone to visit cuteoverload.com. The DJ gushed about cuteoverload.com. I'm not sure, but I think the DJ wanted to spend some "alone time" with cuteoverload.com.

If this was 3 weeks ago, during my employment years, I would never, ever, go to that web site. Endorsed by an easy listening DJ? Easy listening stations are for administrative assistants who dress up for work but wear bobby socks and sneakers over their pantyhose for the commute in, then change into the work shoes they carry in their purse. Sartre believed that hell is others. I believe that hell is packed, sardine-like, with pantyhose/sneaker-clad admins, chatting about salad dressing and nail polish. And cuteoverload.com.

But guess what unemployment does to a person, folks? That's right. It gives you no excuse not to click on lame links. On the contrary, it makes you grateful for any link to click on, nevermind the content hiding behind it. So I clicked.

And clicked and clicked and clicked. I could not stop clicking. I loved every damn adorable creature on the site, even the crocheted ones. Yes, I admired crochet.

But really, it's not so much the pictures of cute things that got me. It's the commentary accompanying every photograph. Someone named Meg is in charge of the site, and Meg clearly has a dark side that must want to kick the crap out of the angel sitting on her other shoulder. She's a contradiction of stereotypes. A juxtaposition of stigmas. A fluffy-animal loving BADASS!

Take, for example:

The photo of a kitten with a GIGUNDA head licking its tiny paw, staring straight into your soul with huge saucer-like eyes. One look at this thing and you become its bitch. I think if the CEO that laid me off had seen this photo first, he would have reconsidered painting his yacht and given me a month or two of severance instead. The caption Meg put on it? And I quote: "Is it wrong to want to SQUEEEEZE a kitten?" Umm, Meg? Yes. Yes it is. But I understand. I have a friend who thinks babies are so cute she wants to bite them. Just a nibble on the cheek, though. She swears. Oh, and it really is a friend. It's not me.
A two-photo series under the section of her site called "Cute or Sad?" The first pic shows a huge, all-white, wolf dog teeming with baby chicks crawling all over it. The second photo is of the same dog and his master, strolling down the avenue, followed by a long, single-file line of fuzzy yellow birds. Her caption reads, "Cute or Sad? You be the judge—to me, this entry falls into the Sad category—cause you know those teeny ducklings are like, WTF?" Meg, anyone who can put the words "teeny ducklings" and "WTF" in the same sentence is my hero.
The image of a chiptych (no f'n clue what that is, either? It's a chipmunk-esque rodent about the size of your pointer finger) being fed peanuts. Still in the shell. Two of them. Big ones. The creature is the size of your pointer finger, people! The nuts are half the size of its whole entire body! And there it is, a monstrous human hand cramming peanut #2 into its mouth. It seems twisted and wrong, but the chiptych appears to like it.

After a lovely browse through the site, I can see why John was so taken with it. He and Meg are kindreds! He's got an appreciation for the adorable, yet twisted. He once shared his new, cute electronic toy with me. It wanted to play 20 questions, and dared me to think of a noun, any noun, and then guessed what it was after asking 20 yes/no questions. He left it with me for the morning, and I had fun trying to make it guess "penis." While it accurately guessed tangible things like "apple" and even intangible things like "e-mail," it would only go so far as to guess "urethra" when I tried to make it be dirty. I returned it to John later that morning and told him my findings. He said, "I know."

All righty, then! Thanks for the link, John! But I'm curious -- did you hear about cuteoverload.com on the easy listening station too? This I gotta know. I'd have to start my own web site called ironyoverload.com. Maybe I will anyway. It's not like I don't have the time!

(Hey... anyone want to place a bet that Meg is unemployed too?!)

Life after da axe

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 16:32:00 +0000

I don't want to brag or anything, but unemployment rocks. At least the first couple weeks of unemployment have been rocking. I remember the pitfalls last time around, and so far I've done a reasonably good job of avoiding the inertia that can prevent you from enjoying your time off, let alone doing things like bathing. (See Unemployment Paradise and Unemployment Stasis.)

The most imporant thing is to have a plan. Two weeks ago my plan included things that carved a strategic path to profitability for my company. These days my plan includes things like using coupons and checking pay phones for loose change. No matter, I'm a girl with a purpose -- so long as I can keep thinking up activities for my to-do list.

I'm heading into week two, and so far, here's what I've done:

Organized my home in the throes of an obsessive-compulsive frenzy.
There's really nothing I can do to control the loss of my job, my community of eight years nor my income, so I've over-compensated by removing every last molecule of dust from all surfaces, reorganizing my kitchen for optimium effeciency and doing laundry with wild abandon. Having a clean and organized home provides a solid foundation for conducting an otherwise taxing job search. Besides, with my chores already done, I have no excuse for not leaving the house just because "I really should tend to the mess under my bathroom sink" first. If you lean anywhere in the direction of OCD, or if you have ever lost your job and have become overwhelmed with an overabundance of free time, you know what I'm talking about.
Leveraged my obsessive need for order by shopping for kitchen-organizing baskets at Target.
This really killed two birds with one stone. Now I have separate bins to hold various families of kitchen items (e.g., baking needs, raw grains and legumes, cooking oils, silverware, tubers, etc.) AND I had a reason to leave the house. As they used to say in the corporate world, this was a real "win-win"!
Planned for at least one chore per day that created a reason to shower and leave the house.
I am, perhaps, the most proud of this accomplishment. Monday was Grocery Shopping Day. Tuesday was Kitchen Basket Day. Wednesday was Buy The Cheapest Toaster I Can Find Day. Thursday was Return All My Impulse Purchases From Wednesday Day. Friday was Dig My Car Out From Under Twenty Five Feet Of Snow Day.

I hereby solemnly swear to uphold this practice until I am once again gainfully employed. It will help combat the agoraphobia that can settle in when I lose all ambition for exploring the outside world and, instead, turn to exploring fictional worlds via science fiction novels and television series on DVD.
Unleashed my inner Martha Stewart.
Who knew I was a baking goddess? We're talking cupcakes, death-by-chocolate cake and Winter squash with pine nuts lasagne. We're talking vegetarian enchiladas, extra cheesy tostadas, hot chocolate from scratch! We're talking homemade guacamole, bowties with wild mushrooms, zesty lentil soup!! And that was just Friday.
Joined Weight-Watchers.
Now is the perfect time to start a healthy lifestyle. I also plan to start training for 6k road races, working my way up to the Boston Marathon this spring. After that, the Iron Man triatholon! Yes, I am completely making this part up, but it sounds good, doesn't it?
Crafted careful, yet honest, responses to the question, "What do you do for work?"
People tend to feel bad when you tell them you just got laid off. It's sort of the same discomfort you give someone if they ask how you are doing and you tell them you've got a flaming case of 'roids. If you live in America, no one really wants to know about your woes. So I've market-tested a few quick, socially acceptable responses that save everyone the trouble. Here are my favorite:
- I'm freelancing.
- I'm a full-time blogger.
- I work for the state. (Who do you think sends me unemployment checks?!)
Thought up off-beat inventions that will make a fortune.
Ever been overcome with a brilliant idea and then done nothing about it because you don't have time? Well, I've got the brilliance. And the time. Read 'em and weep:
- Prescription windshields: I dare you to steal my car!
- College Food Cookbook: Featuring innovative recipes you can make using only ingredients found at in a vending machine and a hotplate.
- Wine Pairing Companion Guide to College Food Cookbook: Self explanatory, really.

Whew! As you can see, I've been very busy. And this is just the beginning! Unemployment doesn't have to be fraught with anxiety and boredom. The trick is to keep making lists and, for the love of God, don't just sit there. Now is the time to do everything you wish you could do back when you had to spend eight hours a day in a soulless office park, pretending you weren't surfing the web. Everything, that is, unless it is something that requires money. Or going too far away in case you get a job interview. But everything else is fair game, damnit, and you have to remember that you are the envy of employed people everywhere.

I got da axe

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 17:50:00 +0000

Greetings, readers! It's been a long time, but I'm still alive. It's such a bummer when you check someone's blog and it's been abandoned since Halloween. I'm here with a quick update and a promise for more insightful, humiliating stories to share with you soon. (Really, I just wanted to keep that photo of my wet pants at the top of the screen as long as I could. You're welcome.)

The biggest news is that -- you guessed it -- I got da axe! It happened Monday. I knew it was coming because you figure these things out when you hear about an impending reorganization and your boss says things like, "you're looking for another job, right?" Yep. I'm a sharp knife on a string of bulbs!

I had tons of fun writing blog entries about my impending laid-offed-ness in my head. But I was afraid to write them, just in case the CEO of my parent company happened to:

Realize I exist
Figure out that I keep a blog
Give a crap about the blog
Decipher my highly creative blogonym
Actively search for said blog in blogosphere
Read it and decide that I'd let the cat out of the bag about the BIG FAT SECRET REORG too eary.
Decide that, as punishment, he wouldn't give me the 6 months severance that was burning a hole in his Armani pockets.

So, out of respect to my bank account and meager assets incase he decided to go after them in a law suit if I broke confidentiality about the reorganization, I decided to keep quiet.

Turns out that, at the last minute, he decided the yacht needed an extra coat of paint and that was a better use of his revenue than, say, ensuring that some girl who worked really hard for his company would have something to eat and a roof over her head when he laid her off. So he gave me two-weeks-in-lieu-of-notice instead.

So there you have it.

Am I bitter? Not at all, actually. I love unemployment.

Fa real!

I'm so good at it. I had lots of practice 2 years ago when he laid me off the first time! Well, let me just tell you now, mister. Lay me off once, shame on you! Lay me off twice, shame on .... oops. heh. yeah.

To be completely honest and unjaded, I'm thrilled for some time off. I had been getting burned out on it for a while. Being at a place for 8 years will do that to a gal!

Now I'm thinking about what to do next, and if maybe I can make a bigger contribution to the world than, say, spending the whole day trying to convince CXOs that they really really need us to do some IT work in their data center. More on that to come.

Oh yes, I will be waxing philosophically about The Man, Corporate America, the point of all of this silly working stuff and the movie Office Space. I'll also let you in on my exploration of what is wrong with the world and what I'm doing now to make it a worse place. Then you can help me figure out if maybe I can do something better with my time to try to make things better. Then, after you've been with me through that whole waxing period, you can be with me when I realize that, in order to have a job that makes any sort of positive change in this world, I'll have to make less than half the salary I'm used to making. You can hear me gasp when I exclaim, "What? No more shopping for bazillion dollar lamps at Pottery Barn?" And then we can both hold our breath while we wait for me to make up my mind between the six-figure powerjob offer that will come in on the same day that a non profit invites me to help them feed orphans.

It's going to be a real cliff-hanger, folks!

But first, I'm off to visit my friend who just got dumped. We will have conversations like, "what would you rather have, a stomache ache or headache?" and "Which would you rather be, deaf or blind?" And, "which is worse, losing your job or getting dumped?"

It'll be big fun, I tell ya.

There better be ice cream. LOTS of ice cream.

And he'd better be the one buying.

I wet my pants and nobody noticed: a lesson in self-esteem

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 02:13:00 +0000

This morning started just like every other morning. Got to my cube, checked my email, caught up on the weekend with some cube neighbors. My stories were mostly about the new car I just bought, so I bragged about being the proud owner of not one, but FOUR, cup holders. And a remote keyless entry system. And brake lights that work. I was feeling very good about myself.

Then my good friend RD gave a call. It's always good to hear from him. This time, though? His timing could not have been worse. I suppose it's not his fault that he caught me in the middle of an ADD moment, when I was simultaneously rereading an old email and checking to see who sent a new one, all the while having the thought in the back of my head that I needed to refill my half-full water glass before I started on any *real* work this morning.

What happened next is sort of a blur. You know how people can only vaguely remember a car accident? They say things like, "I was four-wheeling through the field, doing donuts and other rad stunts, and then, like, I remember seeing this huge cow and BLAM! I don't know, dude. All I remember next is waking up in traction three days later. Wild."

Well now I know what they're talking about. Because I remember rereading the email from Erik (ping etcetera) who was inviting me to participate in his podcast sometime (!!!!), then reading an incoming work-related email, and then reaching for my cell phone that was inches from my water glass and then BLAM! All I remember next is watching the whole damn cup spill into my lap and then trying to blame it on RD, who heard all about it when he asked how I was doing.

"Hello?"

"Hey! how are you doing?"

"Not real good. I just dumped a whole glass of water in my lap while I was trying to answer your phone call."

"Oh. Bummer. Hey are you still looking for a new car? I found one for you this weekend."

"Now I look like Steve's Grandma the day she tested how much a Depends will hold while standing in line at Target."

"It's a '99 Corolla, I know the owner!"

"It was a 16 ounce glass. I have 16 ounces of water in my pants now."

"It's in your price range!"

"It looks like I had 5 beers and hang to the right."

"What are you talking about?"

"RD, I told you! I just spilled a whole glass of water in my lap when I TRIED TO ANSWER YOUR DAMN PHONE CALL!"

"Oh. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I wonder if anyone here has extra pants."

"Why don't I give you a call back later?"

"Umyeah. I'll talk to you later."

Then I just sort of stood there. Stunned. Soaking. Not sure what to do next. So I did what I always do when I'm not sure what to do next. I checked my email. Turns out that Mikki from finance had an expense check for me, and all I had to do was walk down the hall to get it.

Aye! There's the rub! I had to leave the relative privacy of my own cube to get the damn check. I couldn't really sit down in my sopping chair to do work, but then again, I didn't want to be in public with a huge stain in a very embarrassing place. What to do, what to do?

I decided to brave it. I mean, come on. If I really wet my pants, would I be parading them around the office for everyone to see? Like most things, if you have the right attitude, you can get away with anything. So I decided to try it.

I poked my head around the corner, saw that no one was around, and walked reallyreallyfast to Mikki's cube. She said hello, how are you, oh yes, I've got your expense check, I've had it for a while. Took her keys, opened the drawer, got my check, handed it to me, then asked me how my weekend was.

Are you kidding me? I was standing in her cube, sopping wet from my waist to my knees, and she makes conversation with a straight face? So I said, "It was good! I went to a couple of parties, met some new people, bought a new car and did you really not notice?"

"Notice what?"

"You really have no idea?"

Nervous laugh. "What are you talking about?"

"My pants, Mikki. My pants."

She looks down. "Oh noooooo! What happened there?"

So I told her I spilled some water and I was a little uncomfortable, but no big deal. She really hadn't noticed.

Huh.

So I decided to try again. I stopped by to see Jake, a couple cubes down from me. I stood in his cube, he said good morning how are you, and I asked him if he noticed anything different about me. Probably trained by his wife, he told me that my new haircut looked great. Thanks, Jake! Have a good day!

This was liberating. I decided to take a walk around the whole office just to see what would happen.

I walked between a group of people by the printer, waved to two people behind their desks, thanked my IT guy for fixing my laptop last week, and NOBODY NOTICED MY PANTS.

No one!

I suppose I don’t look at peoples’ pants either. I’m usually pretty sure they’re wearing them, so I don’t bother to think much about it. But still! If I can walk around the office with the world’s biggest stain in my crotchal area, imagine what else I could get away with?

Imagine all the things I used to worry about but really didn’t have to?

I wish I had done this experiment in high school. I could have saved so much anxiety by realizing the things I obsessed about were really of no consequence to anybody else but me. Bad hair day? No worries. Big fat zit on the nose? Whatever! Sneakers out of style? Bite me!

This sort of thing crops up all the time. I’ve watched friends worry about what other people are thinking of them:

I used to eat lunch with Jessica, who would apologize every time something dropped to her plate from her burrito.
Most Japanese women I know cover their mouths when they laugh.
This last weekend I was at a Halloween party and a person wearing one of the best costumes in the room was obsessed by the fact that her vest wasn’t exactly the way she wanted it to be.

I suppose as humans, we can’t help it, it’s what we do. Acceptance by others is what makes the world go round. Not everyone has been as lucky as I am, having had the opportunity to build character one humiliating experience at a time. After 31 years of tripping over my own feet, forgetting words mid-sentence, speaking my mind with no filter, flushing keys down toilets, spilling stuff in front of everyone, farting at business meetings, getting diarrhea from eating the centerpieces at weddings -- well. I don’t mean to sound righteous or anything, but maybe we should all just relax a little bit. We’re all in the same boat, everyone is human, everyone was once a fetus too, and we all wipe our ass. If we all do the same stupid stuff, then where does embarrassment come from?

After my little stroll around the office I went back to Jake’s cube. I told him that I was surprised that no one noticed my pants. He started laughing when he looked down, then told me not to worry, it would dry in half an hour.

Then he told me not to ask how he knew.

Pants in the ocean. Fa real!

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 04:00:00 +0000

Brings a tear to my eye.

Take that, Steve! I win!

(btw, I shamelessly ripped this image off http://ministry.lmu.edu/service_justice/de_colores/jan2004/index.htm#90. I would like to personally thank you, http://ministry.lmu.edu/service_justice/de_colores/jan2004/index.htm#90!)

Disaster fatigue and the Kumbaya Bandwagon

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 04:58:00 +0000

I believe in God, but I'm not sure which parts of which religious book to believe. I do remember Irene Bennett, who lived next door to my Grandmother when I was really young. She was 150 years old, lived among many doilies in a dark house, smelled like an old lady, made me grilled cheese sandwiches and, in a fit of cold-war fear, once told me that God promised he'd never destroy the earth again with water, but he didn't say anything about fire.

Um yeah, thanks, Irene. I was a 7-year old Catholic schoolgirl who already believed was doomed to an eternal afterlife of hellfire because I hadn't changed my underwear in three days. I knew the story of Noah, and figured we were in the clear until you just HAD TO PIPE UP ABOUT OTHER POSSIBLE DISASTERS too. I could barely finish my grilled cheese that day.

I eventually healed from the paralyzing fear of imminent-death-by-anything, but you can see that it hasn't left me completely. Maybe the crazy lady was more of a prophet than doily-hoarding spinster after all. Just click anywhere on CNN.com and tell me we're not in big trouble.

We're in so much trouble that CNN polled its readers today with this question: “Has your reaction to the quake in South Asia been affected by 'disaster fatigue'?”

93,819 people said yes.

Earthquakes, landslides, flooding. Do I think we’re suffering the wrath of an angry God? Not really. If anything, maybe He’s trying to kick us in the ass to be better people. There’s at least one silver lining in the dark cloud of all these natural disasters that deserves big, huge kudos. In the wake of name-calling and finger-pointing about the (non)rescue efforts in New Orleans, the 30 seconds of media coverage on the hurricane that followed Katrina and did just as much damage to less famous cities, and overflowing rivers in the Northeast that killed “only” 10 people, it sure is nice to hear about India putting down its nuclear weapons long enough to help the earthquake relief effort in Pakistan.

Think about that for a minute.

INDIA is helping PAKISTAN. In 2001, I declined an invitation to attend a wedding in Pakistan because I was worried it would be blown to bits by India while I was there. This is a region where seemingly nothing could ease the conflict – nothing, that is, except 41,000 deaths in a 48 hour period.

I can hear India saying, “Um … Oh. Heh.” as they back away from the red button.

In the words of Alanis Morisette, “Thank you, India.” I think we can all learn something here. It took the world literally shifting under their feet, but Indian Life and Death Decision Makers are choosing life. Maybe our own administration should take notice.

But why would they? My heart is still aching from our reaction to September 11, when my inner Pollyanna was hoping we’d respond to our own tragedy with dignity and peace, not with our typical Schoolyard Bully persona en force. Dubya warned us all so eloquently that no one can take our lunch money without paying some serious consequences, and pay we have. The entire Axis of Evil and their brothers and their kids and their dogs and their old people and England and Indonesia too, and all of our soldiers overseas and their families that worry about them, and every single American who watches low-flying planes and wonders if maybe that’s the one that will kamikaze into a nearby school – we’ve all paid more than Dubya had in the budget.

I’m afraid crazy Irene may be on to something. When you fight fire with fire, all you get is a big ass fire. If she’s right, and God isn’t sending any more water, what’s going to put out all the flames? Seems that all we have is a lot of hot air stoking up a raging inferno.

Wouldn’t it be better to buy the world a Coke? To all hold hands and sing “Give Peace a Chance”? Can’t we just let Michael row his boat ashore?

India isn’t the only country to jump on the Kumbaya Bandwagon. Japan was first. I spent the first several months of my year in Hiroshima in constant guilt-mode, harboring a desire to apologize for the whole A-bomb thing. It finally overtook me one day, while teaching one of my adult English classes. I had asked everyone to tell me when they were the most surprised. One of my older ladies said that she was the most surprised when her house fell down on her head and she had to pull her father out from under the ceiling beams. A nuclear explosion wasn’t exactly what she had in mind that morning, while she was getting ready for school.

I’m not sure of exactly what I said, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I may have said it was a horrible thing for us to do to them, what a terrible thing to endure. I might have said that I wish I could do something to take it back. But guess what this lady said? This lady who had to save her own father’s life after we bombed the crap out of her city? She said that Japan learned a lot from the explosion. Namely, that war is bad. She is not alone in that opinion. Ask the average person on the streets of Hiroshima, and they are likely to tell you the same thing. Instead of seeking revenge, they fold bazillions of paper cranes and leave them on monuments all over their Peace Park.

Everything is complicated. It’s hard to run a country with all of its own natural disasters AND police the rest of the world. Right, wrong, indifferent or otherwise, no one can choose the best thing to do all the time. But here’s to hoping that India’s change of heart does not slip into the news archives too soon. It’s downright refreshing to know that at least some major country has its priorities in order. I’ll pray to God, Dubya and Irene that someday we get the chance to join the Kumbaya Bandwagon and live to tell about it.

Can't not.

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 02:48:00 +0000

Music theory has been kicking my ass, but tonight I think I finally reached the point of understanding what I don't know yet. The concepts are beginning to gel, but I still have a lot of memorizing to do. My instructor keeps telling us that, once we get it, we won't think there's very much too it at all.

So many things are like that, I think. I call it the "Magic Eye Effect." Remember those weird pictures that were all the rage in the late 80's/early 90's? The ones that look like pointless patterns until you set your gaze just right, and then you can see the images that are buried deep inside of them? I remember the challenge of finding in them what everyone else could see, but I could not. So many pieces of advice: "Let your eyes get soft." "Hold it at your nose level." "Don't look at the paper, look beyond the paper." I tried and tried, getting close then losing ground, again and again until, finally, I could see a dolphin. Hurrah! I didn't care as much about the image as I did the fact that I could finally see it.

Typing is another thing that absolulely did not come naturally, but when I finally got it, I was thrilled. There's no turning back! I'm a typing machine!

I have a feeling that understanding music theory will be something like that. I'll be sitting there, eyebrows crinkled, cursing my instructor's name, half way through my 12th Cadbury Fruit and Nut, when all of a sudden, BLAM. I'll get get it. And I'll string together sweet chords and riffs and licks and all those other guitar words I don't know yet, and I'll record my album, do the coffee shop circuit and all together be quite pleased with myself. Can't wait.

But I'm not there yet. The more my instructor explains the theory, the more I wonder how anyone ever thought this stuff up AND had any sort of a life at the same time. I wonder how musicians find it inside of them to sit down and figure it out. And so finally I asked him when it was all going to come together and I'd be able to turn the concepts into music. When, for example, will I instinctively know how to sound bluegrassy?

His response was a story from his own learning. He worked full time at an elevator factory in New England, back in the early 70's. He knew of some other guys who liked bluegrass, but did not know how to play it. They lived in New York, so together they'd decide which songs to learn on their own, then get gigs all over the North East. They'd show up, practice for an hour before the gig, play until close, sleep on the floor of the bar, then drive home. He said he played in a band with Bela Fleck, who would play five sets, go back to their room at 3am, sit in a closet and play some more. "If you want to learn bluegrass, that's how you learn bluegrass," he said.

I had to know what motivated him. What drove him through the frustration of theory? What compelled him to push his fingers past the pain? How did he find the patience with himself when he hit the wrong notes again and again?

So I asked him, "Why are you a musician?"

I don't know exactly what I was expecting. Lots of words, anyway.

What he said? "It's an urge. You can't not."

Can't Not.

I know Can't Not. I've known Can't Not since I was 11 and writing down everything I thought about in a journal. Since I was 12 and writing short stories. Since I was 14 and writing (albeit crappy) poetry. I know that urge -- it's like breathing. You can't not do that either. When you stop, you can tell right away that something is wrong. And so it is for me with writing. And so it is for musicians with music. And for artists with their medium. I was surprised I couldn't have answered the question myself, before he spoke it.

I know the urge, but I wonder where it comes from. Why do some of us have it, and others don't? Or does everyone have it, don't not act on it, and that's why so many people are unhappy? Do others not even recognize it as an urge? How awful to feel a longing for something you can't even identify. And how tragic to recognize it and decide to ignore it instead.

Question for my blogging audience: What is your Can't Not?

Procrastination gone wild

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 04:02:00 +0000

In an attempt to be brutally honest (and also to keep Baraka off my back because I haven’t posted in a bazillion years), I need to come clean about something.

The realization that I do this particular thing came to me tonight, ohhhhhh, about 8:00. Okay, 8:30. I know this, because that’s when I started studying for my music theory class tomorrow. I take this class once a week, so I’ve had aaaaaaaall week to study for it. But have I? Nope. Why not? Because it’s hard. It, like, takes concentration and stuff.

In my defense, in lieu of studying this weekend, I did do 6 loads of laundry, give my apartment a fantabulously deep clean, scrubbed stuff I didn’t realize I owned, balanced my check book, had some quality time with 2 friends, pretended to pay attention while my friend explained where the Red Sox are in the whole baseball thing that’s going on now, talked with a cute boy on the phone, downloaded music (it was legal, so I get extra points), organized my closet, organized a party… you get my drift. I was very productive. And social! Socializing makes you a well-rounded person, you know.

But I still can’t remember what makes a major chord major and not minor, and I certainly can’t tell you which notes make EVERY DAMN CHORD THAT EVER EXISTED, like I was supposed to be figuring out all week.

The thing is, I actually do want to learn this theory stuff. Knowing the science behind the art will only make me a better artist. I know this. But still, I would rather dig out all the hair in my shower drain than take the time to memorize it.

Why do you suppose this is?

It’s probably the same reason behind what happened when I founded a non-profit organization with a friend a few years ago. We made business cards that said “President” and “Vice President” (tossed a coin to see who was who), took a business trip, told a bunch of people that we have a non-profit organization, gave out our cards, put it on our resumes, and then … just sort of … didn’t do anything non-profity.

It’s probably also the same reason I longed for some time off to write my Great American Novel, finally got laid off, and then found it hard to do things like bathe every day, let alone get a jumpstart on my Opus.

My guess is that I’m a procrastinator.

What’s up with that? What’s with having dreams and not making them come true? It’s not like the world is at a loss for projects that need tending to.

It’s this sort of realization that makes me very, very happy that most of what goes on inside our bodies is involuntary. Because if I had to keep on top of things like making my heart beat or tracking glucose into my cells, well … it wouldn’t be pretty. I’d probably keep up on the essentials (I work well under deadlines), but spend waaaayyy too much time in the feel-good-chemicals part of my brain. I’d always be smiling, but all my fingernails would be different lengths. You get the point.

Google Stalking

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 23:02:00 +0000

The concept seemed so much more lighthearted and “7th- grade- girls- gossiping- in- the- bathroom” before a friend recently called it "Google Stalking."

If you don't know what I'm talking about just by the term, then you may be aghast when I tell you what it is. But I assure you; it is absolutely less creepy than it sounds. And I swear I'm not just saying that because I do it all the time.

Google stalking is simply the expression of human nature's natural curiosity to learn, understand and grow. If you're dying to know the lifespan of a lobster, you Google it and 5 seconds later you know the answer. If your car makes a weird noise when it rains, you Google it, and soon you'll know how much it will cost for repairs. Everybody Googles. It's what we do.

So if a girl meets a cool boy in a bar, and he gives her his card with his first and last name, and she happens to plug his name into Google just to, saaaaaay, see if he really is who he says he is (and maybe to find a photograph or two that she can send around to all of her friends), then is that so wrong? Maybe a little obsessive and maladjusted, but wrong? I don't think so. And, besides, Google Stalking can save your life.

Take my friend Amethyst, for example. Amethyst spent the holidays on her own in the Florida Keys a couple of years ago. She was far from home and spending her days on the beach and evenings in the bars. Then she met Jim. Jim was a sexy, sexy bartender at the bar that became her favorite ("Not because of him!" she says. "It had a great atmosphere!" I'm sure it did, Amethyst. I'm sure it did.).

So Amethyst and Jim got all chatty, Jim gave Amethyst free drinks and, by the grace of beer, Jim got more and more attractive. He sent her off that night with an aspirin for later and a napkin with his name and number. The next morning, Amethyst did what any wise and self-sufficient girl would do. She nursed her hangover and Googled Jim. Not necessarily in the order.

And it's a good thing she did!

The search produced a couple interesting tidbits about him. For example, she learned that he was athletic. He belonged to a running group in the late '90's. "Very good," she thought. "Maybe our kids will get his genes and compete in the Olympics one day!"

A few more clicks and Amethyst found what every girl is looking for when she quietly researches her boy of interest. A photo! A quick glance displayed a sexy, unsmiling Jim, looking all manly and gruff with a couple days of stubble on his face. "Whew!" she thought. "He's cute even without the beer goggles."

So with a sigh of relief, she swallowed the aspirin, sipped her coffee, gazed fondly at the napkin with his number, and inspected the photo a little closer.

Then she realized it was a mug shot.

Close call, Amethyst! It's such a surprise that he didn't volunteer this minor detail while he was getting you drunk at the bar! Good thing you're such an avid Google Stalker. Comes in handy, since you obviously missed his debut on Cops, running really, really fast, away from the cameras.

I suppose this is an extreme case, and maybe a lame excuse to defend Google Stalking. My friend who coined the term had a valid argument against the practice, when he mentioned that Google Stalkers are sometimes put in the awkward position of knowing more about a person than they have earned the right to know. The imbalance could put a discomforting slant on the otherwise natural course of getting to know someone.

Let's refer back to Amethyst. About a year after she mined for the mug shot, she Googled a musician she had started to date. His stage name was clearly not his given name, and a little digging turned up his real name and a ton of other factoids that she was happy to know, but had to hide.

"See?" said my phrase-coining friend. "Now she has to act surprised when he tells her this stuff himself, or she has to ask him questions to get him to talk about the stuff she already knows he did!" He's got a good point there.

My own feeling on being Google Stalked is increasingly more grim. Such is what happens when you have a journalist friend who casually asks you if he can do an informal interview about being a heterosexual woman visiting the primarily homosexual village of Provincetown. He apparently leaned more in the direction of "creative license" than "journalistic integrity," because the resulting article contains about 10% of what I actually said. The other 90% makes me sound flighty, dim and jaded. It wouldn't be so bad if there weren't also a photo of yours truly smack in the middle of the article, so I can't even try to blame it on another person with my name.

Google stalking is just a fact of life these days. Like it or not, if you don't live in a cave, chances are there's fodder about you out there for potential employers, parents, creepy strangers and other stalkers to read. At least it's a good incentive for you not to be arrested, or talk to your journalist friends.

Harry Potter Trailer is out!

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:48:00 +0000

I know. I'm like those dorky Star Wars lovers who clapped as soon as the trailer for one of the new movies came on in the theater. Or like the Trekkies who dress up and go to conferences around the world. Or those people who frequent midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and throw toast at the screen.

I used to mock them, but I fear I have become one of them.

Last night I was talking with Baraka, and we decided that if we're on the same coast when the new Potter movie comes out, we're going together. If we make it to the first night, we're dressing up. "Something simple, something tasteful," she said. "I went to the premier of the last movie and I really loved the scarves. You know how I am about accessories."

Yes, yes I know, Baraka. It's just a scarf; no harm in that.

At least you're not my friend D., who is going to a Potter Party this Friday, dressed as a portrait of one of the deceased headmasters on Dumbledore's walls. "Do you know of a place I can get a really big, really cheap frame?" he asked earlier this week. "And a wig?"

"No, D. No I don't."

"I just want a reason to carry my pipe around," he said, kind of like a kid who lost a balloon at the carnival.

Uh-huh.

See? At least we're not that bad, Baraka!

Me, I'd go to the premiere as the Fat Lady. Would give me a reason to break out and celebrate my fat pants. Everyone needs a reason to celebrate those. Besides, sometimes I like to be prim and bitchy, and she's got the market cornered on that.

Or Cho! I change my mind. I'd be Cho, because she gets to snog Harry. And if I was Cho, who is also 15 years old, I wouldn't be creepy at all for kissing an underaged fictional character. That settles it, then. I'll be Cho.

But the point of this blog is to viva la URL!

http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/gobletoffire/

You know how I found out about it?

Baraka: Have you seen the new trailer for the next Potter movie?
Cella: No, where did you see it?
Baraka: Mahuaguahghleah Net.
Cella: What? Where'd you see it?
Baraka: Mahuaguahghleah Net.
Cella: B, I totally don't understand what you're saying.
Baraka: MUGGLENET, OKAY? MUGGLENET!!!
Cella: Tell me you didn't just say "Mugglenet." Did you actually go to a site called "Mugglenet"?
Baraka: Well! It was a link off some other page I found. And it was a really good site, okay?
Cella: Muggle. Net.
Baraka: Shut up! Do you want to see the new trailer or not??

Sorry, B. You're outed. But you're in good company because you could hear me Googling it .074 seconds after you told me about it. I couldn't wait either.

Enjoy, y'all.

What have they done to my Harry??!

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 04:05:00 +0000

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Say they didn't make Harry look like the cover of a Harlequin romance novel! Say it! Say it!

I used to have such a crush on him back when he was, like, 11. I used to imagine that I'd run into him when he was 32 and we'd have such a splendid affair. But round about book 5 he started having all those anger management issues. And now! NOW! JUST LOOK WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO HIM!!

Curses, Warner Brothers!!

And Ms. Rowling is on my shit list too. I just finished reading book 6 and, I swear, she's turning him into a jaded superhero in training. A loner with a mission, who will never be loved. The Spiderman complex is en force -- already turning away his first love at the age of 16.

I'll save you, Harry. Come to Cella.

Operation: Of Course I Floss

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 14:37:00 +0000

It's dental season again. Time to see the dentist. It creeps up on me twice a year, and only once have I been prepared for it. The rest of the time I find myself in the same situation that I am in now, which is having to face my panic mantra: Crap! I haven't been flossing!

There are only two types of people in this world: those of you who understand and also utter the panic mantra, and those of you who don't. And here are the personality profiles of each:

Those of you who don't understand the panic mantra
You floss regularly. You have no idea why on earth someone wouldn't floss regularly. This is as foreign a concept to you as not folding and putting away your laundry fresh from the dryer.
Either that or you've already lost all your teeth and have to deal with a different mantra, which is Crap! I'm out of Pepsodent! You can still join the cool crowd, which I will profile next.

Those of you who do understand the panic mantra
You may or may not even own floss, but you certainly have better things to do than use it every day. You use this extra time constructively, perhaps by getting to work early and contributing heartily to the mission of your company. You are not a bad person, but you feel hideous shame every six months when your hygienist pokes around your mouth, which starts to bleed as soon as it sees the damn steel hook thing coming at it. It hurts, but that's not the worst part. Adding insult to injury is your hygienist’s condescending and righteous question that she has asked EVERY TIME YOU'VE SEEN HER IN THE LAST 7 YEARS: "Do you floss?"

You want to yell, "Of course I don't, you dental beyatch! We've been through this 100 times!" But you can't, because she's got you where she wants you: mouth open, bleeding and stuffed with her latex fingers. You're stuck, and while she gives you the lecture about why you should floss, you recite it along with her in your head. Does she think you don't want to floss? You want nothing more than to be a flosser. You have good intentions, but somehow you've never been able to fulfill that dream. She should be more sensitive, dammit.

For those of you just don't understand the mantra, I'm very happy for you and your fresh, pink gums. You can stop reading now and go organize your medicine cabinet. Again. For those of you who live on the fringe of dental maintenance, never fear. You can still be a slacker and impress your hygenist. Ironically, I stole the idea from my hygienist herself. The one time I actually did go a full six months of flossing every night, she complimented my fabulously healthy mouth and MOCKED non-flossers, while she told me about a brilliant subculture of flossing posers.

Operation: Of Course I Floss (OOCIF)
It's a breathtaking scheme, and one I wish I had thought of myself without the mocking help of my hygienist. It does require a temporary commitment to dental health, so it's not for everybody. But for those of you who would rather join the Pepsodent crowd than be subjected to the flossing lecture one more time, listen up. Apparently neither your dentist nor your hygienist can tell the difference between someone who has flossed every night since they began teething, and someone who has been flossing for only the last two weeks.

See what I'm getting at here?

I am currently on day 5 of OOCIF, and I have never felt better about myself. I have flossed religiously at least 2 out of those 5 nights. Actually, this morning I realized I forgot to do it last night, so I simply did it this morning! Sure, my gums are a little puffy and it feels like someone punched me in the mouth, but I'm suffering in private! I'm getting it all out of the way now, so that on September 16, I will be lecture-free! It's worth the pain now to avoid the pain later.

If you are still not sure about OOCIF, I encourage you to try in, one day at a time. Try it for one night, and if you just can't bring yourself to do it the next night, or the night after that, or the night after that, it's okay. Maybe you can try again next time. The important thing is to realize that help is there for you if you need it. Maybe one morning you will wake up, look at the calendar, realize you have an appointment in two weeks, and decide THAT is the day to try OOCIF. I wish you all the best in finding your inner flossing poser.

Anticlimax. Literally.

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 01:50:00 +0000

I've just researched the top keywords people are using to find my blog, and I feel as though an apology is order. With the exception of one of you who typed "pants in the ocean" (so you were either looking for me... hurrah! Or you also love the idea of pants in the ocean... double hurrah!), the rest of you who arrived via search engine were probably radically disappointed when you got here.

Here are the top searches that landed people on my innocent little blog:

nudie.com
getting naked in the ocean
walking around naked
nudie beach

and, my favorite:
naked scrotum

This cracks me up to no end. First of all, it makes me feel like a total badass. So thanks! This aspect even makes up for the fact that no one found me by typing "extremely witty and well-written commentary on pretty much nothing."

What gets me the most is that I can picture some randy teenager, alone for 1/2 hour on the family computer, feverishly searching for every dirty thing he can imagine before his parents get home from work. He's got very little time to spend with the pictures he wants to find, let alone with lame web sites that don't even have any pictures. Furtively and with a gigantic erection, he types "nudie beach" which, to him, should produce pages and pages of results with beautiful naked women.

Instead he lands on my lame-o, text-only blog entry called "First visit to a nudie beach," which not only has no pictures, but also details the fact that nudie beaches are distinctly lacking in the beautiful naked women department. It is a great market, however, for overweight, balding, hairy gay men -- so if you're interested in that demographic, click here.

Bad Katrina. Bad.

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 03:32:00 +0000

I really don't like not being able to help.

I really don't like how close it is to home.

There's something about this tragedy that feels different from, say, the Tsunami. People are people everywhere and losing your home and family feels the same no matter what language you speak, but there's something about the fact that it happened here that makes it seem so personal. Images from the AP are striking: faces that look like mine, road signs I can read, kids on minivans, American style homes submerged in water. Clicking through a slideshow on Boston.com, I saw an entire family on a roof top, waiting to be rescued. And there's absolutely nothing I can do to save them.

Work felt dumb today. Sure, I sat in my little cube and marketed stuff. I put on a fleece jacket to warm up in the air conditioning while I walked to the kitchen to get a snack. I stood in front of the candy machine, just as I always do, and got angsty about the fact that I wasn't sure what I wanted. Probably about the same time I finally pushed A-10 for a Snickers, the rescue helicopter snapped that photo of the family on their roof.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I'll give blood. I'll donate money. I’ll conserve energy. But the only thing I can do from there is click through news web sites, pray for the best, and be so, so grateful that no one I love lives there. I feel over-privileged. My whole family is safe. All the snapshots that preserve memories from 30 years of living are intact. My toilet flushes. I can choose from 27 different brands of bottled water. Tonight I'm going to sleep in my own bed. Guilt is such a useless emotion.

And what about the city? What about the history? Someone once told me that, when choosing sites to drop the A-bomb, the US Government refused to bomb Kyoto. Seems strangely benevolent for the US to spare a city just because it's the cultural center of a country, but I'll take it. Visiting a reconstructed "ancient" landmark is just not the same. Nature did not have the same compassion, and New Orleans will never be the same again. Will the magic still be there when the water retreats? Did the wind blow away all the jazz ghosts? Can they rebuild the soul of the city with new structures and a clean slate?

My heart is with you, Katrina survivors. I wish I could give you more than that.

Text war with the single chick who dumped me

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 01:26:00 +0000

My friend A. and I were singleton partners in crime, circa 2001. I mean, we had it sooo bad, which was actually really good, since we were both masochistic drama queens. She was coming out of an epic, seven year tale of heartache, and I was coming out of a deep period of self-inflicted man-drama. It was a match made in heaven.

We had a lot to talk about, many reasons to feel sorry for ourselves, and cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. To this day we still get that faraway look in our eyes when we remember the nights spent laying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to Sarah McLachlan, and chain-eating chocolate chip cookies until .... well, until they were gone.

A. scoured the internet daily to find uplifting horoscopes and anecdotes, just to give us reasons to wake up in the morning, bathe, etc. etc. She found one that became our mantra. Something about how you will most likely heal within five years of heartbreak. So we'd chant "Fabulous in five!" every chance we could; sometimes randomly, after 20 minutes of silence, with a mouthful of cookie. Whatever works, you know?

Those were the glory days.

But, sadly, just as what goes up must come down, so it is that what is already down must go back up. When you're the singleton that finds another boy, there's survivor’s guilt. When you're the singleton left behind there's ... well ... all the more cookies for you.

A. left me on a warm summer night, when she was supposed to be out with another angsty friend, drowning their woes in swanky cocktails. But, instead, she found a guy who was wearing the same exact shirt that she was wearing and struck up a conversation with him. They fell in love about 30 seconds later, and the rest is history.

(Note to A: it was fabulous in five YEARS!!! Not MINUTES!!)

Ah, l'amour. You're right, A. There's just something about a man wearing women's clothing. But I digress.

This whole A-getting-married thing has actually worked out quite well for me, and that's what's important. For example, I was frequently thrown together with her hubby's cute single man friend, who was frequently thrown together with me while we were both the respective third wheels hanging out with the happy couple every other Friday night. Also, A. is quite a stylish clotheshorse who has become more conservative in her married life. So guess who gets her sexy, name brand hand-me-downs? That's right. Moi, moi and moi. I have found that some of the shirts look especially good with cookie crumbs splayed across the chest.

For as happy as I am that A. found the love of her life, and that I acquired a fantastic wardrobe for free, I still feel a little sorry for her and the fact that timing has prevented her from ever experiencing the sport of online dating.

Do I sound cheeky? Funny thing is that I'm not kidding.

I've had conversations with the girl about it, and she's riveted. Fascinated. To her, it's a quaint cultural phenomenon, and something she completely missed out on. While she would never trade in her transvestite husband -- er, I mean, um ... classy wedding band -- just to try her hand at e-dating, I think she thinks it would have been a total blast to give it a go. And I'm not completely sure, but I think she obsesses vicariously through her single friends, just so she doesn't miss out on it completely. What makes me think so?

Two weeks ago, when I hadn't heard from her in about a week, AND while she was in the middle of a wholesome family reunion with nieces, nephews, parents, and home cooked food, I get a text message from her.

A: Have you considered eHarmony?

and then, 2 minutes later:

A: As a deeper online dating experience?

Ohhhhhh, a deeper online dating experience. I could see at this point that she'd been completely sucked in by the mezmorizing marketing machine that is eHarmony. I'll admit, it's hard not to think eHarmony is magic, what with their happy little Aryan couples polluting banner ads all over the internet. I had the urge to tell her that, no matter how brilliant their marketing is, their service is a gargantuan waste of time. At least it was for me, and I've got the battle wounds to prove it. Alas, my poor thumb could not face typing those stories in text via cell phone, so instead I sent back:

Me: Sister, I've tried 'em all.

Her: Sluuuuuuuuuuuuuut!

Me: AND I was wearing your clothes while I was doing it!!

That shut her up. I'm not sure, but I think that means I won.

Online dating: a retrospective

noreply@blogger.com (Cella) — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 01:45:00 +0000

Everyone who does online dating thinks that their experiences would make a great book. I think this could have been true pre- Bridget Jones. But, brilliant as it was, BJ launched the whole genre of chick-lit, which still makes me cringe. Everything has been done. It would be tough for some girl who's "laid back and athletic" and who also "loves wine and romantic walks on a beach" to create a compelling novel to stand out among the chick-lit slush.

Even still, do I wish I was Helen Fielding so I could have been the one who paved the way to the exploitation of 30-something singletons and their reckless attempts to find love? Totally! But I wasn't.

That being said, I'd like to share factoids from my online dating history that would go in my book, if I thought such a book would, in any way, be different from all other books just like it (seems only fitting to commemorate my FIFTH TIME on Match.com with such a list):

About 4 years ago, everyone in my immediate family had a profile. Weird? uh-huh. Especially because:
I found out the hard way that reading your own father's profile on Match.com is a very, very bad idea.
The third person to write to me was my high school boyfriend.
I signed up the 2nd time just so I could do it along side my friend, who swore she would write a book about it with me.
One jaded night, after 2 huge sundaes, she recommended that the title of our book be Fat and Fucking Single.
I asked my friend about the list of traits she was looking for in a man and she said, "pulse."
She brought some dude dressed up as a bottle of Colt 45 to my Halloween Party. He was quite a catch.
She's getting married in three weeks, so enough about her.
The first guy I met in person called me his muse and gave me a glass jar of flower petals he picked off of about 4 bouquets of flowers. He was fun until his 5th drunk dial. NEXT!
I totally can't remember the second guy I met in person.
The third guy I met in person was "biologically" 7 years older than his profile stated and, oh, "did I mention my 9 year old daughter?"
Same guy said he had just lost his invisible pet rock. Invisible. Pet. Rock.
The fourth guy was very late, but stood right under the window near my table for 20 minutes talking to someone he knew.
The fifth guy was cute and endearing, but he was emotionally unavailable.
The sixth guy was cute and endearing, but I was emotionally unavailable.
I know several women who are online dating, and all have warned me of at least three guys to avoid.
The second guy I met this time around blogged about our date, in detail.
I'm pretty sure this means that I have free reign to blog about him in mine?
Too late, just did. ;)
One of my best friends hooked up with a guy from Match who went out for a cigarette, came back 3 hours later, ate everything in her kitchen, left a 12-inch string of toothpaste in her sink, and was wearing her pants the entire time.
I know of seven people who met on Match who are getting married this year.