Of Parsnips and McGookins

Mr and Mrs McGookin plan a road trip in the very near future. They've been in desperate need of a vacation, and being the ever so frugal couple, they've decided to pack up the station wagon and head west. Of course the two highly trained hunting dogs will accompany them. The McGookins never travel anywhere without the hounds. The McGookins start dreaming of road games like Slug Bug and 50 State License Plates, and Rowing their Boat sung repeatedly. They dream of eating salty food and drinking far too much caffeine than one human should consume. Visions of roadside tourist attractions dance in their heads.

But there's a wrinkle in their plans. Mrs McGookin, THE original Mrs McGookin, is on their route west. The McGookins had planned to spend a few days visiting The Elder McGookin while taking in the sights and sounds of a very respectable Las Vegas, Nevada. The Elder McGookin is a worrier. She worries about every detail of every trip including trips to the grocery store. These are planned in meticulous detail, with route maps and mile markers to the next bathroom and slot machine.

At first, The Elder McGookin was most welcoming of the highly trained hunting dogs. Relieved that their hounds would be welcomed in The Elder McGookin home, they made plans and asked for time off from their employers at the lumber yard and fabric store.

However, just as the house always wins, she soon started to worry for all five of them. The Younger Mrs McGookin just shakes it off and waits for the next Thing for The Elder McGookin to think of next. Meanwhile, Mr McGookin, being of The McGookin line, takes on his share of the worry burden.

The concern? Leaving the highly trained hunting dogs alone. Somehow The Elder Mrs McGookin believes the clan would leave the hounds alone for 47 hours strait, because she is a worrier and can only imagine that the one time they leave the house with The Younger McGookins, they would never return due to freak accident in the All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet line. The Elder McGookin imagines a worst case scenario with the peel-n-eat shrimp rising up and attacking the patrons of Circus Circus. The dessert table would join in and the only way to calm the condiments is by bribing them with open space near Laughlin. The neon green pickle relish has long dreamed of a home of his own, free of the nagging vinegar-laced tongue of the ketchup twins.

Now The Elder McGookins have offered to pay for kenneling the highly trained hunting dogs for a week while the Younger McGookins travel west. But The Younger Mrs McGookin knows this can only end badly and shrugs it off. No, no, no, that won't do at all, she says. They might as well fly in and out in a weekend if that is the case, she adds.

So there's the dilemma. To McGookin or to not McGookin? They might as well visit Mr and Mrs Parsnips, Mrs Helen P. McGookin's parents, who are the most hunting dog friendly of The Parsnips line.

I know you're jealous.

As we like to say around Creative HQ, 'home officing' has its ups and downs. Up: working in bunny slippers. Down: you know the delivery drivers' names, spouses' names, childrens' names, country of origin, etc. Too much unnecessary information.

Add another one to the list: neighbors

One of the kids (eeehhh, sonny!?) in the neighborhood either just got his drivers license or a car, or both. He's been driving his POS, which is desperately in need of a new muffler, around the neighborhood all. fricken. after. noon. Now he's let it sit running. For the last 2 hours. Perhaps I should walk over there and teach him how to turn it off? With a sledge hammer.

Hi-de-ho good neighbor!

just for me

Wednesday morning I got up with the rising sun and attended the Women In Corporate Growth breakfast presented by the Association for Corporate Growth. I'm not a member, but a nice friend of mine is their executive director, so I went to see what the brew-ha-ha was all about. Apparently about 200 other women had the same idea. All professional women (not that profession) in a range of industries. It was fabulous. My favorite clients had a table and talked me up - this is why they are my favorite clients.

The keynote speaker was Genevieve Bos, the publisher of PINK magazine. PINK? You ask. Why yes. It's a magazine for professional women, like Fortune meets Cosmo. I loved it immediately. With articles like How to Get Fired Like a Man, and covers featuring powerful, successful women, how could I not?! It's not anti-men, it just pro-pink.

While Genevieve talked on about pay equity and passed on amusing stories of high-powered women, I sat with my clients giggling at the one woman in the crowd who felt it necessary, no vital, to yell out 'That's Right' every time G made a good point. Every third sentence. It got a little absurd. But the breakfast also go me thinking about my recent funk or as they say in the medical field: manic episode. I'm not only in a funk, but I'm way too comfortable in it. It's my new blankie. I need to shake it off, move out of this comfortable position and start on a new path.

No, I'm not giving up the Dream. Creative HQ remains intact. But I do what to do more with it, wanted it for a long time. There's a invisible wall between what I want to do and how I would go about doing it. I can't get past that wall. It's imaginary, and completely imposed on me by me and my own inability to understand the next step.

Next week I'm meeting with another small biz woman to discuss forming a small biz roundtable. We both agreed that it benefit us and other women we know to get together once a month to talk about problems and their solutions. I'll refrain from taking out my list at the first meeting.

Other exciting plans are in the works, like a new self-promo piece and Power Pedicures. All in good time. All in good time.

five days til spring!

Happy memories from spring 2005.

funk buster

Besides being yummiliciously geeky (lucky for my hubby, I'm a sucker for a geek), Mr. A-Z is an automatic funk buster for me these days. I've listened to Life is Wonderful about 50 times in three days. La la la la la la... you try it.

Life is Wonderful - Jason Mraz
It takes a crane to build a crane
It takes two floors to make a story
It takes an egg to make a hen
It takes a hen to make an egg
There is no end to what I'm saying

It takes a thought to make a word
And it takes some words to make an action
And it takes some work to make it work
It takes some good to make it hurt
It takes some bad for satisfaction

La la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la life goes full circle
Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Al la la la la

It takes a night to make it dawn
And it takes a day to make you yawn, brother
It takes some old to make you young
It takes some cold to know the sun
It takes the one to have the other

It takes no time to fall in love
But it takes you years to know what love is
It takes some fears to make you trust
It takes those tears to make it rust
It takes the dust to have it polished

Ha la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la life goes full circle
Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la

Is so...

It takes some silence to make sound
It takes a loss before you found it
It takes a road to go nowhere
It takes a toll to make you care
It takes a hole to make a mountain

Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la life is full circle
Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la life is meaningful
Ah la la la la la la life is wonderful
Ah la la la la la la it is so wonderful
It is so beautiful (x8)
It goes full circle
It is beautiful

a Monday post? why yes!

Dear readers and lurkers, don't get spoiled by this Monday post. I promise it won't become a habit. It's just that there's so much going on in my brain and I'm trying to get going today but the cold weather and fresh blanket of snow keeps me snuggled up in doors. Last night Mr and Mrs McGookin went to Game 3 of the WCHA semi-finals between the back-to-back defending NCAA Champion DU Pioneers and the bastards of UMD. Something strange happened that caused Mrs McGookin to curl up in a fetal position on my office floor. DU lost. Embarrassingly so. Worse yet: It was her boyfriend's, quite possibly, last game, as he is a senior and will getting on with his hockey life after this. Sad times. So once the meds have kicked in, Mrs McGookin may post an angry letter to a certain referee whose eyesight is in desperate need of a checkup and perhaps his whistle is stuck somewhere down south.

But to the wogs! I wog (walk/jog) three days a week per my pre-pre-pre triathlon training. One would think that this would be cause for weight loss. Oh, no, no, you simple thinking readers. See, I was in the Ann Taylor Factory Store trying to take advantage of their suit sale and something horrible happened which caused me to promptly hang up the pants and never return. My standard size, my dependable AT size 12 pants, did. not. fit. And not in a hmm, they're a little snug kind of way. That wasn't even the worst part. Oh, no, no. You see, at the same time, in the next stall, a little thing whom I wanted to force feed a pie and sandwich, was complaining because her size 1 pants were too big. Pout for her. Could they bring her size 0 petite please? Why yes, with a big plate shut the hell up french fries, just for me. Please.

So now I will never return to the AT Factory Store without an escort who is at least as snarky as me and wears a double digit clothing size.

Later today, after I shovel, wog, and um, do some work, for you know, billable hours, I'm off to meet my new mentee. Yes! The fools at my alma mater asked alumni to mentor a college senior. And they picked me! Me of all people, to mentor a soon-to-be unleashed on the world college grad. Honestly now, did they know who they were picking?

confession friday: vinyl

As an iTunes addict sans iPod, this is going to sound unusual. I miss record stores. Remember the last time you were in a record store? And I'm talking about records. Vinyl. Large round black disks inscribed with music. I can still recall the scent of them. The feel of holding them up with my index finger and spinning them around. The last time I was in a record store: high school. I was a borderline punk/hippy dippy/indy/dork. (I know this is a surprise to most of you < /snark >) There is/was a record store on 22nd (Cameron, my memory fades, so correct me if I'm wrong) that the misfits flocked to like Mecca. Social misfits dressed in black, drowning in the misery of adolescence, wandered the aisles, fingering our way through Morrissey, the Cure or otherwise socially absurd musicians. I'm old enough to remember vinyl's allure, but young enough to be entranced by the convenience of downloadable music. Now when I think about that one song, what was it, oh, yes, Papa Was A Rolling Stone, one click gets me a .99 cent download. Or when I look for the latest album from Jason Mraz, M-R-A-Z himself, again I search in iTunes. I own about 20 albums, which is what I still call the "music collections" released today. Some of them are records I imported from my time abroad in Paris or Scotland. Others are downright forgettable. But they all share the same sensory connection to music. A connection lost on a generation of MP3-playing social misfits, dressed in black, still drowning in the misery of adolescence.

The irony? I don't even own a turntable.

reset

Gaa, it felt so good to get that all of my chest. Sometimes I feel like a pressure cooker, dangerously close to bursting open. Be careful, lock the lid on tight. I think I've always been that way. I'm pretty sure I know where it comes from - a childhood hurt so powerful that I learned to lock up my feelings until they became large enough, too large for the space they inhabit.

Now that I link to this blog from my company website, I sometimes feel like I need to censor my feelings in less I offend anyone. I did that once. Maybe. I think. A friend gave me a referral for this guy who needed a new graphic designer. So I emailed him to see when it would be a good time to call/have a meeting. (I don't like cold calling people, it just creeps me out.) He visited my website and then this blog. I got a strange email back about needing a writer and graphic designer and did I write the copy on this blog. Why, yes, I do write the "copy." That was the last I heard from him. I guess I could go back and see what it was I posted to offend. The energy is not there to care. I have a Zen-like approach to business... I only do business with people who "fit" me and vice versa. This way, if someone decides to go another way, to another designer, I don't get upset because it was meant to work out that way. That's not to say that I don't try to get business, I do. I have a ginormous line item in my budget for business development (or BD as we say around Creative HQ.) But it's just that I don't want to invest the emotional capital in something I have no control over. Onward and upward, pip pip, carry on, etc.

I've thought about removing the link, but I think in this new economy a bit of humanity is necessary, vital even. I could be wrong. Time will only prove it one way or another. It just that I like to know the people I do business with. I like to know their hobbies, the names of their kids and what kind of vodka they drink. I like that I went to one of my client's baby shower. But I'm strange that way. Human. Connected.

Speaking of connected. Just now I connected with the other half of my brain, my dear friend Martha* who moved away a year ago. Martha is the other me I posted about a few weeks ago. If she lived nearby, it would be a natural fit for her to join my business. Alas, she lives far, far away and nearly complete with massage therapy school. While talking to her I realized that the time we worked together was one of the best working relationships I've ever had. It was the most fun, most creatively stimulating and intelligently challenging working relationship I've had.

I miss that. So, Universe, I'm putting it out there again. I need another me. Martha would do just fine. I realize that she is on her own path in life, but if you could clone her then send her my way, I won't complain about my golf game ever again. Well, maybe just a little.

*not her real name, duh.

the real thing and confession friday

It's be far, far, far too long since I gave you a true, honest post. Most of them have been drive-bys with a smidge of sarcasm (yes, that's what it's called). I've tried. Really tried. But I'm having a crisis, you see. I used to be called a talented writer or some shit like that. It was back in the days when no one could write a complete sentence so they hired me to write them for newspapers and magazines. Newspapers and magazines no one has heard of, but I wrote for them nonetheless. (is that one word? don't care) Then I wrote dribble for corporate interests for about 8 years, escaped the pod and went on my own. Since then the creative, talented, wonderful me has drifted off and left us. For the last 10 months I've lived in a foggy mess of confusion and disorganization. But at least my clothes have matched. Yes, when your mind is failing you, the best remedy is to hire a wardrobe consultant, hopefully one that doesn't involve malfunctions, and go about your daily business like there's nothing wrong. But fashion and vodka cannot keep the demons of perfection at bay for too long, and your mind struggles to regain its former glory.

Yesterday I nearly burned my house down. That is not a metaphor or parable or code for something else. My house nearly caught on fire. I left a burning candle unattended, which we've all be taught never to do since birth. Regardless, I came back in the room to find a singed desk and a burned picture of my fur children. A minute or two longer and the desk would have caught, spread to the pile of paperwork and then we'd be doing this broadcast live from the Red Cross Shelter. I was on the phone with the CFO at the time and exclaimed, OH SHIT, OH SHIT, I GOTTA GO, I GOTTA GO. Then hung up. He panicked and called me back 45 seconds later. I was putting out the flames and trying to make sense of my unbelievably stupid mistake. I answered to tell him everything was alright and the fire was out. FIRE? Yes, I nearly burned the house down.

There's this block, a switch in my brain, a 'please hold' button, that turns on whenever hubby is around. I can't get a damn thing done. Worse, I can't write when he's around. He comes in the room as I type and I can. not. write. But the problem lies within me. The problem is me. I can't write when it is needed most. I can't focus like I used to. There was a time that I could sit down and make poetry out of extended warranties for refrigerators. But its gone. All gone. Now I'm left with scattered, hard fought, poorly written facsimiles of my faux talent.

Today, every sound grates against my senses like breaks in need of new pads. No, it's not that time of the month. My hearing has been elevated to Superhero perception. I have the S&G blasting, as much as one can blast Bleecker Street, and I can still hear the mundane sounds of life in my house. Brushing teeth, water running, electric razor, light switches being changed into their off position. All of it drives at my brain like Chinese water torture. Even this post is a patchwork of thoughts thrown together, unsure that it even makes sense. Why? He. Keeps. Coming. In. The. Room. I must have a look of sheer disgust on my face. I've never been good at hiding my emotions. Couldn't play poker. He tip toes in to see if everything is ok. Yeah, it's fucking ok. Get the fuck out and let me write some more drivel that no one but 7 people on the planet will give a shit about. But I don't say that. Instead I say that I'll be done in a few minutes. Or whenever the fuck you stop coming in to see if I'm ok. That's the voice in my head screaming at him. Or did I say that out loud? I really couldn't tell you.

I broke down this afternoon and cried over the lack of desk space in my office. There's something wrong in my office. I can feel it. But again, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the problem. A light bulb nearly exploded over my head earlier as I realized that I have a conflict with a person that I can. not. have a conflict with. It's a personality thing. We just do not fit. This makes the dealings we have to deal with very difficult. I'd be surprised if this person didn't know that we have a personality conflict. Maybe not. But the problem remains and there's only one way to remove it. Let it go. Yes, let it go. But saying and doing are two different things. I have courage but courage does not equal stupid.

So that's my confession. My twisted, painful confession that doesn't really tell you much yet tells you everything there is to tell. My mind is working against me. There's a conspiracy inside me and I'm afraid the other side is winning. I won't post on Friday b/c I have early meetings, a deadline and a 30 minute walk/run to fit in before I start two other projects that, thank the Dogs, does not involve writing.

And that Claire/Aussie/Blonde/tart on LOST reeeeelly bugs me. When will they kill her off and be done with it? If I hear her scream, 'MY BAY-BAI' one more time I'm going to hop on a plane to find those castaways just to shut her the hell up. According to Heather, I'd make a fine stalker. Be warned ABC, be warned.

annoying

- Madonna
- forgetting to buy tortillas at the grocery store
- why the dairy delivery doesn't sell tortillas (they sell bread, hello!?)
- dogs (who shall remain nameless) who actually SIT. DOWN. 20 minutes into a walk/run when you have 10 mins to go
- RCF2822 server errors in my email. What does that mean to HUMANS?
- laundry
- bottled water
- parents who raise their now adult children to be forever dependent on them for every. little. thing.
- Carmelo Anthony
- why are there no Girl Scouts in my neighborhood anymore and someone only bought TWO damn boxes, which, hello, were gone in 1.2 minutes

Can you tell I am cranky? The Tagalongs ran out 7 days ago. We are at Red Alert Level 1 here people. All I have left is the hooch. It's a sad day when I type that. Sad indeed.