Tenth Musee

This past week in New York, there were so many phrases and jokes coined and/or shared.  There was also an almost embarrassing amount of Bride Wars quotes flying about.  And that’s not even in my top 10 chick movies. Top 15, at best… maybe 20.

Anyway, one of the newer colloquialisms shared with me last week was “feed the pony”.  The first time Statia said it, I’ll admit, I laughed but thought, “I think I get it…”  Who wants to be the nerd that doesn’t get it?  You might be thinking, “I don’t get it”, too — so here’s the scene:  We noticed someone with an extremely short skirt. Like really, really short. SHORT.  And Statia said, “Whoa, feed the pony.”  You can see where she’s going with it, but Kathy had to thoroughly spell it out for me back at the hotel:  “Dude, that skirt is really short.“  “Yeah, it’s so short if she bent over, you could feed the pony.”

{light bulb}  So, that was new. I embraced it.

This, of course, lead me to think of similar references: going commando, going freebird, flashing, etc.  My maternal grandmother used to say “You’re taking my picture.” which I find totally charming.

As a child, my grandmother was my best friend. I spent many nights at her house (she lived across the street) and I’d often shower there in her mid-century green parrot bathroom and then run around her house in my jammies.  Jammies for me consisted of dad’s old t-shirts or flowered flannel nighties popular with the 6x crowd in 1979.

We’d watch The Love Boat or T.J. Hooker, make dinner and occasionally, my grandmother would have an un-fancy beer, in a proper pilsner glass, like a lady does.

I was big into tumbling as a kid, so I’d often do back bends or somersaults, cartwheels, handsprings, what have you, in the middle of her living room while we watched TV.

[Aside, she called the living room the "J Room" because every person in our immediate family had a name that started with J, except the dogs -- they were named after booze.]

I would cavort and carry on and every so often, my grandmother would say, in her vaguely uppercrust way, “Zsoelle!” — She always pronounced my name with a soft J, like Zsa Zsa Gabor — “You’re taking my picture.”

It took me a few times before I understood what she meant — I was flashing her.  She’d remind me to go put on some panties like “a young lady”.  And I would (with the days of the week on them, naturally) and the cavorting would resume. But I always remember that… “You’re taking my picture.”  So when Britney and her pantie-dropping posse were all over the rags with their business like a billboard, I found “You’re taking my picture” especially amusing.

Come to think of it, my grandmother also used another charming phrase: “You’re winking at me.”

I guess I was running around without underpants often enough to warrant two reprimands.

If only she knew…

So, I attended BlogHer for the first time this year. All of my self-image fears were for naught and I ended up having a great time in general. Sure, I slept on a slab of granite (my review is coming on Yelp, Empire Hotel, don’t you worry your shabby little head), but all in all, I met a lot of wonderful people, hung out with old school blog friends and we partied like it was 2099. See the photos here.

One thing I did have a hard time with at BlogHer was introducing myself. I really have no idea how to do that anymore. Once upon a time, I was “Tenth Muse” and that’s it.  Daniel loves to reference me or introduce me to people like, “OMGYOUGUYS! It’s Tenth Muse!” but let’s not kid ourselves. I was “famous” (air quotes!) on the internet once, but it’s been a long, long time and I hardly ever blog here anymore.  In the grand scheme of the blogosphere, no one knows who Tenth Muse is anymore — I’m under no delusion.

Sure, I’m one of the Moxie Girls of Moxie Design Studios, co-author of Blogging with Moxie and that has some cred, but we don’t really blog regularly there unless it’s business updates. So… well, that’s not my blog either. And while we were there as The Moxie Girls, Kathy is now the very popular SafeMama and rockin’ that angle all over the place, which is fantastic. (Seriously, I was so proud — people flocked to her, it was awesome. I loved seeing her face light up when people knew who she was.)  It was a conference full of mostly moms and many green bloggers, so she was hot commodity and for the first time… well, I was kind of the sidekick. That was weird for me. I’m usually the extrovert, the talker, the proverbial jazz hands, if you will, but this time, she was the star. And I was happy about it!  I’m not bitter, it was just… new.

I have Put Down the Donut, of course, but… well, that’s also an awkward spot. Once upon a time, we were one of the first fitness/weight loss blogs out there. Or at least, one of the most popular. We were nominated for a Bloggie, we were published in national magazines, but due to the volume of work at Moxie, I just wasn’t able to maintain it. And in that downtime, fitness blogging blew up and despite the many requests for us to come back, I have to work much harder now at getting the word out about the Donut.  Again, not upset about it… it’s just different. read more >

Let’s talk about Twitter… because I have nothing else to talk about.  But I want to get your take on something: if someone follows you, do you feel obligated to follow them back?

I used to have this list of personal guidelines for Twitter — my personal preferences, not rules for everyone else.  Over time, I’ve bent and/or broken a couple of those guidelines… like, I now follow more than 100 people. I used to think that following more than that wouldn’t allow me to personally interact or catch everything. But, I’ve found that not to be true, so I’ve upped my follow list. There are a lot of interesting people out there and not all of them tweet consistently, so it’s easier to follow more, but I’ll never be that person who follows thousands of people. I still believe in quality over quantity.

And to that end, I won’t just follow someone simply because they follow me. I’m not tweet-easy… tweasy? And I treat Twitter the same way I treat prospective shags — with a thorough once-over.  No one is getting into these twitter pants without an evaluation.

read more >

*deep breath*  So.

Over the last several years, I’ve managed to reacquire much of the weight I lost back in 2003… you know, my magnificent achievement and all that jazz.  In fact, I must have lost and gained that same bunch of pounds a few times over during the last 7 years. I’ve eschewed carbs, I’ve counted Points, I’ve made half-hearted attempts at the gym and I’ve continuously, non-stop, talked about when I would reach my goal weight or how I would reach my goal weight, but the bottom line is… I never actually did anything about reaching my goal weight, at least, not with any results that stuck.

I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been so, so busy I’ve had no time for myself — believe me, I really would — but I have to admit: that’s a crock of crap.  There’s time if I make it. There are boundaries I can set with my work and my personal time. I don’t need to DVR every show on the planet. I don’t need to grab take-out, even if it’s Subway, because I’m too tired to grill a chicken breast.  And I’m tired of making excuses not to hang out with people I care about because deep down, I’m embarrassed about the shape I’m in and maybe moreso, ashamed about my failure.

Dun dun DUN. I said the F word. Failure. I lost 97lbs back in 2003 and I failed at keeping it all off. I failed. Failed, failed, failed. They say a fear of failure is the greatest motivator.  But what do you do when the fear of failure is no longer an incentive? What do you do when you’ve already failed? You could get the hell over it and remind yourself that failure is just a result of trying and not trying is worse than sucking. You could say failure is just a word to describe an experience that ultimately builds character and shows that, at the very least, you tried, right? Right?!

So, I’m accepting the failure. I think. I’m working on it anyway. I don’t think anyone welcomes failure, but I have never been one to not accomplish what I set out to achieve for myself. I’ve survived a lot of things, I’ve accomplished a lot of things, but this… this has been my albatross.  I want to let go of that initial “journey” of weight loss (ew, how touchy-feely). It’s been tough because I never reached my goal the first time… I made great strides, but I never actually got there.  My first experience on Weight Watchers was like a Chicago song from the 80′s: good for the first 3 minutes, then trailing on indulgently until fading out interminably.  In hindsight, I’ve been desperately grasping at the success of that first weight loss and well, it’s just over. That chapter is over. I’m almost a decade older, I’m a different person now and I need to start anew.

read more >

I love Target. No, really.  I LOVE Target. I could go there once a day and see everything in the store 40 times and not get tired of going there. It’s soothing, it’s comforting and oddly seductive. If Target were a person, I’d marry it, jack my hair like Kate Gosselin and become it’s baby machine.  I. love. Target.

What I don’t love is the “new” Target store brand, up & up™.  Target Home products, their former store brand, used to be so good. I could buy any Target knock-off of the fancy brand and know, quite certainly, that it would be just as good.  Since they re-branded their store brand to up & up™, everything’s gone down & down.

Take, for instance, the toilet paper — I used to buy the blue label Target Home brand premium paper, compared to Quilted Northern Ultra.  Not the pink one, compared to Charmin Might-As-Well-Be-a-Towel Ultra Premium, just your garden-variety mid-range bathroom tissue.  It was totally the same as the name-brand, as advertised.  I bought the same brand for years… and a lot of it. Not because I have some weird bathroom habits or I’m a hoarder, but because I have a very staunch 6-roll minimum rule in my house.  At 6 rolls I have to start reminding myself to buy more — if I go below 6 rolls, I’m down to the last square on the roll before I remember to get more.

Sometime, last year I think, they changed to up & up™ and when it came time to buy Ye Old Faithful TP, it was replaced by what I assumed would be the same product in a different wrapper — more like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  This paper is a mere suggestion of what it once was.  It still says “Compare to Quilted Northern Ultra”, but it was like they took one-ply paper, peeled it apart and called it two-ply.  It was like half-ply. I wouldn’t TP a house in this paper, let alone my business.  After enduring it for a full 12-pack, I grudgingly bought yet another 6-pack because it was that or Scott Tissue and sandpaper ain’t my thing.

The next time, I bought the actual Quilted Northern Ultra and found it to be the toilet paper I knew and loved. I just have to get over paying a little more for it. But, in my opinion, I’d rather pay a little more for a quality product.  I believe ‘generic’ store brands can be awesome — take Costco’s Kirkland brand, for instance. Fabulous, especially when their vodka is rumored to be Grey Goose.  It just seems like when Target changed brands, they may have changed manufacturers.  So far, I’ve not tried an up&up product that’s been decent — not the “compare to Glad Forceflex” trashbags (flex? yes. force? laughable.), not the “compare to Ziploc” sandwich bags (the bags separate from the zipper constantly or the zipper is inside out), and certainly not the toilet paper.

I’m curious to know if anyone else has experienced this, or if perhaps my ass is just spoiled.

Last night I decided to listen to a meditation on weight loss that I downloaded to my iPhone. I have a hard time relaxing as it is, so I thought throwing in a little subliminal weight loss action couldn’t hurt.

I skipped the intro about not listening while operating a forklift or whatever, and got down to the business of relaxing. That part of the program was actually quite nice and similar to my own meditation techniques — when I remember to actually use them.  I was way into his soothing, guided affirmations when he said, “You do not want any fatty, greasy, salty, savory, crispy, fattening foods.  You choose to forego sweet, decadent, frosted, sugary, fattening foods.”

I actually started to get a little uncomfortable. First off, when you describe them like that, hell yes, I want them!  But what got me was his Scottish accent.  Every time he said “fattening foods” it came out “fottening feuds”, which kept pulling me out of my relaxation and making me squirmy. “You do not want any shugarrry, sweeet, crrrreeameh FOTTENING FEUDS.”

After a few giggles, I guess I got over it because I don’t remember anything after that for who knows how long until he said “You are now fully awake.”  That prompted me to open my eyes and I put my phone on the nightstand and immediately fell asleep.

I think I slept pretty well — I didn’t dream of Sean Connery like I thought I might.  But I woke up this morning wanting a grreeeasy, sallllty, saaavory, fottening mushroom quesadilla, so I guess it’s not working yet.

I was talking to Kathy this morning about the upcoming holidays and she commented that she’s looking forward to Christmas a little more this year. We pondered that it’s because Reilly is a bit older this year, she’s got two kids now and that sort of thing.  I asked if they did the traditional “bake cookies for Santa, leave a carrot out for Rudolph” scenario and of course, they do.  It made me think of my own holidays with my family and the memories I have of being really small.

I remember being about 3 or 4, wearing footie pajamas and standing on the precipice to the living room from the hallway, with my hands clasped together in utter delight, marveling at all the stuff that Santa had brought. I don’t recall much of it now — I think there was a drum that I promptly stuck my drumsticks through and I remember there being a cowgirl hat and boots and one of those little horses on wheels.  But what I distinctly remember is seeing the plate of cookies we’d set out the night before, missing 3 or 4 bites, the milk half empty and the carrot nibbled just enough.

We’ll just gloss over the fact that one of my earliest Christmas memories revolves around food.

On Christmas Eve, my mom and I made cookies together, cutting them out with cookie cutters, cooling them on racks and eventually frosting and decorating them just so.  I remember mom helping me pour Santa’s milk in a smoke-colored highball glass and setting everything out on our rattan coffee table.  I remember so clearly my mom leaning in and the way she smelled like sugar cookies and Jergen’s lotion, reminding me that these cookies were for Santa, as a thank you for my Christmas gifts, as a snack on his long journey. And while I really wanted that green-frosted Christmas tree with the little silver balls that later in life cracked one of my molars, I remember looking wide-eyed at her as I tucked my hand away, nodding in agreement.  We wouldn’t want Santa or Rudolph to go hungry.

In hindsight, it seems all the other reindeer were left to fend for themselves.

Dad would read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, as Rockwell-esque as that seems. It didn’t last forever, perhaps on the first handful of Christmases and a few scattered over the years after that, but I fondly recall him wearing a very red v-neck sweater with a wide-collared shirt underneath, sitting with his leg crossed in a big 70′s velour chair, reading from a thin hard-cover picturebook with little tears in the sleeve.  And when it was over, he’d scoop up my little PJ’d self and tuck me in, allowing sugarplums to dance accordingly, while mom was in the kitchen, pouring the grown-ups some Benedictine in snifters.

Of course, eventually I realized that Dad also enjoyed green-frosted Christmas tree cookies with little silver balls on them and that Rudolph was really my mom, but there’s something distinctly tactile and emotional about that memory of seeing the cookies on Christmas morning, half eaten, milk glass half empty.  I truly believed that Santa had been there, that he’d brought all these wonderful goodies for me, because I was such a good girl.  It was a time that I never questioned anything about myself or my self-worth, about faith or politics or reality.  It encompasses all the wonder I think Christmas should be for little children… pure and wonderous and magical. It makes me happy for Reilly and Carter, that they’ll get a chance to experience that.

It would nice if the holidays could still be like that for everyone.

I don’t know if I’m a very good boss.  I’m a bit of a control freak, admittedly, and while I don’t really think others are incapable of handling something, I do often feel it’s easier to do it myself than to spend time explaining something that may not be done “right” the first time.  And when I do take the time to explain something that needs to be done, if it’s not done right the first time, I get a little bent — because I could have done it myself and not had to repeat myself.  This is not to say I’m not open to questions and dialog and suggestions, I totally am.  Input is totally great, but in general, I’m on a schedule and I need stuff done at the same quality level as if I were doing it myself.   Period.

Doesn’t that sound like every boss you’ve ever hated?  When I remove myself from it and look at it as an observer, I feel like now, if I were in a traditional office, I’d be that boss that no one invites to anything.  Except… I’m usually the girl that people do invite to things, that coworkers and colleagues want to have around. It occured to me the other night that, now that I’m my own boss and I hire people to do things for me,  I’m totally Chandler when he gets his promotion in Friends.

“Perfectionist” ranks up there with “she’s got a great personality” in terms of desirability, and it makes people think you’re an overbearing pain in the ass, but without perfectionists in this world, the Earth would be (and sometimes is) one giant orb of mediocrity. It drives me crazy when the opportunity for greatness presents itself and it’s met with “good enough”.  Why be good enough when it can be great?

Of course, we’re only human and sometimes things won’t be perfect. And I know I am imperfect, despite my many creative efforts to blind you all with my glorious gloriousness.  (*clap clap*  Look over here!  Awesomeness!  Shiny!)  I don’t think that means I should stop trying to excel, to go beyond and to achieve something greater than was there before.

But it can be… well, a little exhausting.

Along with accepting responsibility for own my quirks and shortcomings, I blame my detail-oriented, perfection-seeking, boss-man-type tendencies on the former Boss Men in my own life.

read more >

There are the people with a lot of rules and strict do’s and don’ts about Twitter.  Then there are the people with a personal set of guidelines. I’m not really one for telling you how to do something — I believe people should use social networking in a way that’s meaningful to them and we should go with the flow, however it evolves.  But I do have some personal guidelines for my own optimum Twitter experience, to use it in way that’s meaningful to me.

Leah recently wrote a great list of “22 Reasons I’m Not Following You on Twitter” and most of her list I agree with (especially #1 and #18), but since I recently unfollowed a slew of people in a huff, the need to expound on and/or add a few guidelines of my own. read more >

I am surprisingly upset right now. Far more upset than I thought I’d be. Not that I ever thought I’d be crying over my former boss — especially not over this, no one wishes for this.

My friend and former coworker, “Stella”,  just sent me a note through Facebook alerting me that our old boss, the doctor in the optometry center where we both worked, met and became friends, is in the end stages of what sounds like a terrible cancer I’d never even heard of until about 4 minutes ago.

I’m… stunned and well, I’m just floored.  And I’m so very, very sad for her and her beautiful family. Such wonderful people. It seems so unfair.

I met Dr. M in 1992 when I walked into the mall to get an eye exam.  First I met Stella, who gave me my pre-exam, then Dr. M, who five minutes into the exam pulled back the keratometer and said, “I like you! Do you want a job here?”

And there you have it. I’d never even had an eye exam, but within minutes, I had a job as the new optometric technician. It all just clicked and I knew right away that I wanted to work for her. I didn’t even hesitate to say “Yes!” even though I already had a perfectly decent job for slightly more money.  I started in a few days and over the next few months, Dr. M. and Stella taught me everything they could about being a great optometric assistant.  They even taught me to fit contacts so I could study for my NCLE (which I never did end up getting — I’m wishing I had now, for some reason).

read more >