desideratum by harriet may

I'm moving my blog!

2010-09-25T15:16:00.001-04:00

I've decided to move my blog. You can now find me here.

Thanks for reading! xoxo

Learning What Your Limits Are

2010-09-22T08:17:00.007-04:00

Working in Wilmington is not ideal. I'm away from Jason. I'm away from my friends, my gym, my personal regime. I'm away from the city I love. I'm a divided soul.

Yesterday my relationship with Jason was strained for the first time because I am in Wilmington. And I have never felt so disconcerted and disconnected. It was the first time that I really felt that Wilmington was not, could never be, home. Not only am I not whole, but now I'm shattered.

But I also want to put across that I feel this way not because I'm dependent on Jason, or that I'm insecure in my relationship, or that I will shrivel up and die without him (although that's the way I feel. Not because I'm a woman, not because I'm weak, but because I love him with that emotional intensity that can only be described in visions of color.)

Yesterday I saw photographs with their Jim Caspar review, which speaks volumes louder to me now:

These Immortals are real people, young and beautiful, but they seem isolated, exposed and vulnerable, trapped, distant, on guard, defiant, all alone in a strange land, and confronted by echoes of subliminal fears and insecurities.

Right now, I'm learning that getting work done amidst a personal drama is tough. I have Jason tugging on me in one direction (Charlotte) and my career responsibilities and aspirations in another (Wilmington), and I'm alone in the middle, in hostile territory. I'm trying to find a compromise, and it looks like it might work out in my favor. After all, our company has been built virtually. And my immediate boss is also from Charlotte, and is desperate to move back. But it might have to work out eventually. I need to regain focus, and that's hard when you feel like you're existing in a cloud. I just want to be complete, and to move forward. There exists a limit here that is preventing me from being my best self and moving forward towards reaching big goals.

And to think, only yesterday everything was going right.

Building a Community

2010-09-19T14:28:00.007-04:00

Walking through Dilworth with Ninja, we could hear the National Anthem being sung as the Panther's game got under way. Jason was at work, which pained him to no end since it meant missing the Panthers' first home game of the season. He had, however, made sure that Ninja was outfitted with her Panthers bandanna.

Earlier that morning, we'd gone for breakfast, one of our Sunday traditions, at Mattie's Diner over by the NC Music Factory.

Driving across Uptown, crowds of blue and black swarmed the streets, as people from across Charlotte flocked towards Bank of America Stadium. We all love the Panthers. And we're all connected somehow: I watched as Brad Hoover's baby was christened at my mom's church, and Leonard Wheeler teaches my favorite boot camp class at our YMCA (Eugene Robinson helps out sometimes too, and we love him because he actually keeps acurate time. If you've ever taken Leonard's class you'll know what I mean-- "one minute" of push-ups always becomes more like six). And so there really is nothing like watching people gather to tailgate across the Queen City to remind us that Charlotte is indeed a community.

I haven't felt this yet in Wilmington. Not because it doesn't exist, but because everything is so new. But it's important that we develop our own little working community within Loom as we grow, so we grow stronger. Great companies know that creating a great working environment means caring about your employees, so that the company not only attracts good people, but also so that the work produced and services offered are of the utmost quality. Zappos became famous for its unusual business model. And at Alice.com, the founders assign each employee an animal in order to boost their company culture.

So what are we doing at Loom to promote our company culture? Well, we all got incredibly drunk together one night. I liked that. It gave me the chance to bond with Gary over the Daily Dish and Mark over our love of our dogs. And then for us to sit together the following day, sweating vodka in a social media meeting, painfully aware of our livers. Together as a team.

I love working here.

When to Take Risks

2010-09-13T19:15:00.003-04:00

Since I commute to work on a weekly basis, my weekends are pretty busy. I have to take advantage of being able to go to my gym, see my friends, spend time with Jason, walk the dog at our favorite parks (seriously, she never stops) and fit in any errands or jobs that can only be done at home. It gets pretty hectic. In fact, I'm becoming more and more convinced that all the sleep I'm doing is really cutting into my time. (I think Ninja agrees.)

My one big task, though, that I had set out to do this weekend was to paint our bathroom. We've been slowly redecorating our apartment, because when I moved in with Jason I found all the beige depressing, and I told him so. Everyday, until he let me paint over it. Who knows if it's even allowed. Our waste disposal doesn't work, so we'll just have to see if, when we call the maintenance guy in, he has a heart attack.

I don't know much about putting together a cohesive sense of interior design, which is why I'm practicing on our rented apartment. But I do know that I love almost every style (modern, eclectic, English gentry, bohemian,etc). And also color. Lots and lots of color. Luckily Jason partly loves all these things too, and partly just lets me do what I want. But at the end of the day, it's all about taking risks in order to extend the process of learning, and to discover what we like.

Risk taking is a big part of growing as a person, learning what works and what doesn't, and a lot of times, conquering fear. It's something to live by, because only when there's risk involved can there be the potential for magic in your everyday experiences.

Sometimes you don't even realize the risk until you come face-to-face with it, and then you have to overcome the challenge that comes with it. I mentioned that a portion of my weekend is trekking across favorite parks with Ninja. One of those parks is home to a pack of coyotes (pack? Is that what you call a group of coyotes? I can't watch the Discovery Channel anymore because Ninja jumps at the screen, so maybe I'll never know). The first time we saw one Ninja was off her leash and went right up to it. I thought she was going to end up as a midday snack. She didn't. But now I feel like walking in those woods is a risk, and I usually won't go without my mom. My mom thinks I'm crazy, but she hasn't been chased three times by coyotes.

Of course, you can lead a perfectly lovely existence by staying at home with your beige walls. But I love color, and primal fear, and jazz. Even if sometimes that means coming to terms with a garishly fluorescent green bathroom.

Work on Organization in Order to Get Important Things Done

2010-09-09T21:19:00.003-04:00

I'm not complaining that Google is getting closer and closer to thinking for me. Actually, I can use all the help I can get in that area. But I do have a feeling that now Google Instant has been unveiled, my web life is going to become more time consuming through added distractions, rather than saving me thousands of seconds each year by forgoing a click at the end of every search.

I am not naturally an organized person. My mother would be the first person to attest to that. But perhaps for that very reason, I value organization to such a degree that I writhe in envy at the kinds of people who take off their shoes and put them straight in a fancy closet organizer in a fancy closet organized by color or season and don't even notice that they're doing it.

My lack of organization does not just intrude on my closet space. It also imposes itself on the time I spend reading (I realize that I should read work blogs first, then the news, then personal blogs, and lastly whatever book I'm ravenously devouring, but in reality they never get read in any order except the reverse). So I try to write a to-do list each morning, so I can at least keep work-things semi-organized, even if my ballet flats are lying in the middle of the floor.

At home, Jason never ceases to amaze me. He's heading towards a promotion, mostly because he knows he's good at his job, but also that he could be better. His bosses know this too. They've set Jason up with a life coach, and now he is making commitments left and right, not only to do things at work, but also beyond it. Of course, being a fundamental part of productivity, Jason already writes a daily to-do list. So now he's expanded his own daily commitments to include 30 minutes of reading, arranging one-on-one meetings with his sales team, and even running a mile every day. My busy busy, beer-drinking, chain-smoking, cardiophobic boyfriend has committed to running every single day. (And of course, the best thing of all was that he chose running specifically for the very reason that it is one of my loves.) These are just a few of the things that are stretching him as a professional and as a person, as well as requiring him to seriously reorganize his life to make room for them. And he's succeeding at all of it.

So today, while I was busy trying to organize all the things I should have been doing, and thinking about all the things Jason was getting done, I emailed him this video with the subject line "When I'm at work, I think of running away with you":

Sung Lapse from Ezaram Vambe on Vimeo.

Because one reason to stay organized at work is so that everything gets done and we can aim to do big things outside of work, together. And that's important.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

How to Relax

2010-09-08T09:34:00.002-04:00

Working at a start-up can be tough. You are given a lot more responsibility, and find yourself in-the-know a lot more often, than if you were just a tiny working part of a limitless corporate machine. There's always more to do. Sometimes, things go wrong, and it's not your fault. But even then, if you had had one more cup of coffee that morning, maybe you would have spotted it beforehand and drawn attention to it, or worked out how to fix it yourself and informed everyone else. There's no mindless finger pointing to get yourself out of trouble. The fate of the company has mass, the weight of which you can feel on your own shoulders. Working and living blurs, even more than it might do at a better established company, even more so when your dad is the founder and president and everyone at home is holding their breath until you can report back a sign of success, something they can write down on paper. Perhaps even something they can write down in their Christmas letter.

But even though the cases still come in on the website, and the emails keep pouring in, there still must be time to simply be. This, I hear, is called relaxing, or at least that's what it's called on a Sunday, if you're lucky.

But how is it done?

I'm not always sure. Sometimes I think it's done by sleeping in all the way until 7, maybe even 7:30, and if you're really pushing for a long day of relaxing, 8 o'clock in the morning. If this is your idea of relaxing, here's a tip: don't get an Australian shepherd. Or any puppy, for that matter. Even when I'm not relaxing, Ninja often starts licking my face at 5:50, a full ten minutes before my alarm is set to go off on a work day (she knows "sit," just about, but we're still working on "I have ten whole minutes left to sleep, go chew on a rawhide until then"). And she's on a schedule that doesn't include weekends. At least, if you play your cards right, she does take afternoon naps.

Sometimes it's not even Ninja that intrudes on my extra sleep. When a triathlon creeps up, it means getting up at 4:30am on a Saturday or a Sunday, panicking for three hours (Do I have everything? How much can I afford to eat? Can I remember how to get there? Am I even going to make it on time? Why did I sign up to do this again?!) and putting my body through a few hours of physical discomfort. Physical discomfort that is not pain because I get in daily workouts, another form of "relaxing". But then, once that finish line approaches, it becomes easy again to remember how great completing a tri makes you feel, and that now I have a new t-shirt and a series of terrible photographs that are posted to a public website.

Sometimes I feel like it should be done by escaping for a while, to read Jane Eyre or the latest Ian McEwan novel. But the thing is, walking Ninja and completing triathlons are things I would never give up. They make my life fuller, and even though perhaps I get less sleep, I sleep deeper.

Because I'm so tired from relaxing.

How do you relax?

How to Cope When You Don't Belong

2010-09-02T11:20:00.012-04:00

I am no stranger to a nomadic life. I spent eight years moving between Charlotte and England, between family and friends, home and school. But I left at precisely the age that you become naturally restless, itching to prove your independence even though you know you're not ready (money, cooking, laundry still being burdens, not necessities). My life was compartmentalized, but unevenly so, and I rarely felt for what was left behind. Instead of never belonging, I always belonged. Now I don't have that feeling of belonging. Here in Wilmington, I ache for what remains in the other place. Because that other place isn't really a place at all.

I am touched by the beauty in the honesty of Ta-Nahisi Coates' writing (which isn't surprising, since "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," remember?):

Bonds are formed with great velocity. Lives collide and then someone you've met only days ago is opening up on how to survive child molestation or drug addiction or a tsunami. I have heard that people fall in love out here, that perfect relationships back home are sundered by the great loneliness of these Woods and old lives are left by the way. I do not believe it. I question the spine of love born in a place where other people wash your dishes.

In many ways, that describes how I feel when I am here on the coast of North Carolina. Life remains simple. I am free to concentrate on myself, and as a result I am learning, I am growing, I am meeting and connecting to people but I am not truly living, not in the complete sense, anyway; in many aspects my life is stunted here (perhaps that isn't fair, perhaps it's only divided). But at any rate, I am not at home, which means that a large part of me is absent. I am happy at work, but I am also looking forward to the weekends when I can go home and sleep next to the one I love.

Is it possible to be really happy when the things you need are miles apart? Perhaps. Like Mr. Coates, I may have changed here, but I will always be called back. And that's where I belong.

The Goals I Had, and the Ones I Have Now

2010-08-25T23:16:00.004-04:00

Today is a fat day.

I eat, and as I put every mouthful to my lips, I think, "Do I really need to eat this?" I think about how many miles I must run to burn off the calories (the average person, based on weight, burns 100 calories for every mile, but for myself I scale that down to 80-- an apple). I "treat" myself to Diet Coke, even though I am half convinced that it is menacingly preserving the cellulite on my thighs because of something I read. I think about food constantly, and then beat myself up for doing it.

This is how I've thought since I was 15. This is why I was once nearly banned from my high school gym. Why I once had to make weekly trips to the school nurse to be weighed, just in case I had lost any more weight. Why I totally reverted in college, piled on the pounds, started binge eating and dabbled in throwing up. Why I freak out about mayonnaise and heavy cream.

Deep down, I know that I am totally irrational. At a recent local festival, I stopped at the AARP bus where they were giving free health scans: BMI, cholesterol, and bone density checks. My body fat percentage was 21%, the low side of normal for a woman my age. "Don't lose any weight," said the AARP man who went over my results with me. "See?" said Jason, who puts up with me daily out of choice, and not duty. He's a brave soul. I replied, "I don't need to lose weight to be healthy. I need to lose weight to be beautiful."

Remember, I already know that I'm irrational. And even when I am walking down the street on a lovely summer day, comparing myself to every woman I pass, fat and thin, young and old, I try to concentrate on the good that has come out of my internal struggle, one I know I do not face alone.

It's because I thought I was fat, that I became an athlete, then a triathlete. I became stronger, faster, fitter. I learned how to cope with physical discomfort, then pain, then I learned how to overcome them. I accepted challenges. I gained confidence. I changed the way I saw myself, and in doing so, changed the way others saw me, all for the better.

Since I was 15, my goals have, for the most part, been related in some way to losing weight. I still want to be thinner, and I don't think that is going away, not at least without a lobotomy. But I must adjust my goals. I must evolve, to become healthier and happier. So I propose to concentrate on running a half-marathon and completing an Olympic distance triathlon in 2011, and challenging myself at work to move into sales.

Because it's time I stop floundering in the narrow space I have allocated myself, claustrophobically placed amidst self-loathing and self-deprivation, and start reaching my full potential.

How to Tell if Rejection is Really Opportunity Disguised as an Obstacle

2010-08-17T12:29:00.004-04:00

In January I graduated with my Masters. I thought that maybe that would be enough to get a job. I was wrong. Instead, after I moved home to Charlotte after spending four years in Newcastle, England, I got a job in a pet store.

There's nothing wrong with working in a pet store. In fact, a lot of good things started in that pet store. But I had expected to get on a some sort of a career path (one not involving puppies and poop). And by that, what I really mean is that I had been seriously considering going to law school. In fact, although I had envisioned a number of different paths (the thing to do would be to keep all doors open, I thought, I am so smart, I thought) the only destination I had ever imagined myself arriving at was law school. I took my LSAT in October 2008, applied, and when, despite making it on to waiting lists at Wake Forest and William & Mary, I did not get accepted, I plotted alternate ways in. But nothing worked, and in the course of just one year I was rejected from or denied:

Law school
American Citizenship
The US Army
Case Assistant Internship at city law firm
Legal Secretary for a regional price-point retailer

The series of rejections were pretty tough, and each time I felt like I had been dropped right back at square one. Square one seemed like a million miles away from where I thought I should be. I applied to six law schools in total, being rejected outright from three, wait-listed at two, and failing to complete my application at the last thereby totally screwing my chances with the school I had stood the best possibility of acceptance, UNC Chapel Hill. But really I wasn't all that disappointed. I just didn't know what I was supposed to be doing with myself.

Plan B was to join the army as a paralegal to acquire legal experience, training at no expense, and perhaps to use the GI Bill towards my eventual enrollment in law school. But I immediately hit a stumbling block. I am a British national, and as such I cannot gain the top-secret clearance necessary to work in the legal field, even at entry level, within the US Army. So, I did what seemed obvious. I applied for citizenship. I was planning on doing so anyway (I mean, do you know what the weather is like in Britain?) so I shelled out the $700 it costs-- yes, $700-- and mailed off my application. Although I passed my interview and my test, I was declined citizenship. Because I had spent too much time outside of the country studying within the last 5 years to qualify. Even though I have been in the States since I was 5. Even though I have naturalized American parents.

So, again, I found myself back at square one, minus 700 bucks. (You're welcome, Uncle Sam, although you're not really my uncle now, are you?) And after applying for various legal-based jobs and internships, as well as a series of other administrative positions, I realized something. Why all this angst and heartache and time over something I'm not even sure about? I most certainly wouldn't be pursuing a guy with this much effort if he wasn't worth betting crazy, can't-live-without-it passion on. And so I saw myself, grasping at straws. I noticed that perhaps I'm trying to find a direction that corresponds to my parent's expectations. And that what attracted me to law was that nothing else did. For my entire school career, I was a little bit good at everything, talent-lacking, and generally well behaved. Really, everything I did was bland. I was bland. And more distinctly, I was just the bland shade of "good" that sets you on the structured, exam-centric path towards law.

As it is, the legal field has hit newly unstable ground due to the murkiness of outdated practices, and as a result law school can no longer make the promises it once did, largely for our baby boomer parents. This makes a career in law just as uncertain as starting from scratch, and potentially no where near as fulfilling nor financially rewarding as the six-digit price tag would have you believe.

I'm not saying no to law school unequivocally, but the more I think about it the less I think that I'm up to pursuing a career in law. But because of this I have also learned that rejection can be the best way to gain the insight that is otherwise clouded by the expectations of others, as well as the expectations you have built upon the influence of others. At the very least, serial rejection has given me the opportunity to reexamine the goals and intentions I have for my career, and at the very most, it has brought me to a bright new start-up where, hopefully, I can really make my mark.

Why I should be allowed to bring Ninja to the office

2010-08-13T10:25:00.005-04:00

Because now it's science.

And she's adorable. As long as she doesn't chew up the business plan.

Making start-up money, and why I try not to focus on salary

2010-08-12T15:28:00.014-04:00

It was a few weeks ago, right after I had bought five pairs of shoes in one day, that I remembered a promise I had made to myself (and to Jason): live simply. Spend less money on "stuff," accumulate less clutter, experience more, and live more freely.

I certainly have made enough transatlantic flights to know the benefits of doing so, from a logistical standpoint. And on Monday, when Planet Money pointed out a study from last year concluding that Louisiana is the happiest state in the U.S., I thought, well, sure, there have been times when I would have been happier too if I wasn't carrying a bag weighing as much as I do across London on the Underground (which, might I add, is seriously lacking in elevators), and how many Louisianians are doing that?

But the message is really much clearer than that. Excess consumption in any degree is not a path to happiness. I do not necessarily feel five pairs of shoes happier than I did before. What I do feel is that sometimes I have to work hard to adjust my outlook, focusing on optimism and life's experiences rather than the temptation to spend.

Of course, I can't help but hold out for a fatter salary. I work at a start-up, and while the experience itself is a rich one, it definitely is not filling out the bank account. Right now, however, I am doing ok, and I can just about afford the basic needs: food, shelter, clothing, and gym membership (that's right, right?). With Jason's salary (a good one), we live comfortably, save as much as possible, and still do what we like. Although we did buy a sofa this year instead of going on vacation, which apparently is a big no-no. We'll know better next year, meaning that I'll make sure we make it to Barbados.

Of course, I did say at the beginning that I remembered my promise, but in all honesty I really didn't have to. The fact is, it was Jason who remembered for me, right after five boxes of shoes were delivered right into his arms at the threshold of our door.

And I just want you to know, I am working on my online shopping addiction. My inability to travel light? Well, that may be a harder nut to crack.

Rationalizing the Ground Zero Debate

2010-08-11T16:47:00.004-04:00

"Continuing the chain of imaginary offensiveness to stereotypes, I plan to open a Babies R Us next to the gay bar next to the mosque next to Ground Zero. Next to the Babies R Us I will open a pornographic bookstore, and next to that I will open a police station. Next to the police station I will open a hip-hop recording studio, and next to that I will open an Applebees. Next to the Applebees I will open a TGI Fridays (those guys HATE each other) and next to the TGI Fridays I will open a methodone clinic. Next to the methodone clinic I will open a crack house, and finally, next to that, I will open a Catholic church adjoining a daycare center for attractive boys, adjacent to which i will just blow up whatever’s there so I can erect a memorial, and next to that memorial I will open a community center dedicated to a locally inconvenient ethnicity that I hired to blow up the original structure on the memorial site. Next to that I’m just going to put some condos."

- Chris Mohney

As seen on Quote For The Day III - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

A Plea to Men: Don't Let Yourselves Down

2010-08-10T22:02:00.008-04:00

In our family, my little brother is a hot topic. At 17, he's failed two grades at school, doesn't participate in extracuricular activities, and already has a speeding ticket under his belt. And a few weeks ago, on a visit to my parents', my mother looked at me with nervous excitement when I mentioned his name.

"Well, you'll never guess what I found in Richard's room!"

She grabbed my hand and led me to my dad's study, where she had stashed something out of view. She unwrapped the object from a plastic bag, and looked at me perplexed.

"What is it exactly?!"

My mother, who has much the social innocence you might expect from a Baby Boomer who laid low during the Seventies, had found a hookah pipe. She was considering how to approach the subject with my brother, and weighing the possibility that it might be a sign of other, similar but more severe, activities.

Unfortunately, my brother is not an anomaly. Men are increasingly falling behind women in all aspects of society. Only 1 out of every 3 undergraduate degrees now goes to a man. The recession has hit men harder than women, seeing the unemployment gap between the sexes rise. More and more, men are completely absent from the home, leaving women to make all decisions singlehandedly.

The thing is, women are adapting to these changes. Women are filling community colleges, and colleges in general, whether they have domestic duties or not. Women who are busy following career paths or who are finding only men that no longer meet their standards are deciding to postpone marriage, or forgo it all together. And although women are still rare in top executive positions, they are highly prized once they're there: last year they earned 43 per cent more than their male counterparts, as well as topping their bonuses.

Men, however, are not. Boys across America struggle in school, just like my brother does. That turns into men who struggle to complete the college courses that in turn become the higher-paying and more readily available jobs.

And so while these societal and economic changes are good for women, they are not good for men, or for that matter, for children. In the cover story for this month's issue of The Atlantic, "The End of Men," Hanna Rosin considers what this new matriarchal society would look like. "The more women dominate, the more they behave, fittingly, like the dominant sex," she says, noting that violent crime commited by women has spiked. At the same time, adverisments offer the juxtaposing images of men who are no longer given free reign to participate in acts of "machoism." But it's not just a stereotype that exists in marketing campaigns. There is evidence that a series of so-called Omega males, men who fall desperately far down in pack order, are appearing in real life, in examples such as my brother and the simply hoards of boys and young men like him. I may also note that there is no clear reason why my brother struggles like he does: he has a high IQ, an extraordinary amount of natural athletic ability, and was raised in a family where both parents attended college, are life-long readers, and lead active lifestyles.

Well, guys, just take note: we (women) are finding it easier and easier to overtake hookah-smoking, video game-playing Omega males, and we (society) haven't found a place to put them while they consider finally getting around to filling out their college applications either. That doesn't mean we don't need men. What we need is just a little bit of gender equality, so guys, don't let yourselves down.

How to Know if a Long Commute is Worth It

2010-08-05T19:32:00.013-04:00

Today is my fourth day in Wilmington. My dad gave me a job, but he also made me relocate for it. And my mother is convinced that I will have decided to move here permanently by next week. But I fully intend to remain in Charlotte and commute weekly to the coast.

Now, don't get me wrong. Wilmington, NC, is a great coastal town. Historical, artsy, small without being claustrophobic. And friendly. We have already made friends with the man who owns the shop below our office, a little Ethiopian man who gives us tiny spoonfuls of homemade ice cream when we tell him we're dieting. This is convenient because there is a door at the back of our office that leads downstairs to the back of his store, where he keeps his stock of pretzels. If they go missing at any point, remember: we're on a diet.

But really it's a simple case of what I have in Charlotte, versus what I have here in Wilmington. In Charlotte I have my gym girlfriends, with whom I discuss the plastic surgeries I can't yet save up for while they tell me about their latest procedures. I have my triathlon group that is just amazing. It deserves to be called a community, rather than a just group, because the people that are a part of it are bigger than life. And I have other friends, like Kelvin, who puts up with me when I suggest I bring Ninja to run with us, even though I already predicted the uncooperative behavior that means our run is more of a walk/drag, and Amanda, who is still my friend even though I barely saw her right after I had moved in with Jason.

Which brings me to the biggest thing that is all the way in Charlotte. Charlotte is where the love of my life is. While I am here, Jason is currently taking care of our rambunctious ten month old puppy, and working 12-14 hour days. No, I don't know how he does it either. The only break he's getting this week is that I'm not there to make him cook me dinner (yes, I'm that girlfriend. I call it being the modern woman).

Our relationship has been fast-paced, but only because everything has fallen right into place. We never had to fight for anything (although this doesn't mean we never fight with each other-- it's rare but it has been known to occur). We have made major life decisions in no more than a heartbeat and have never looked back, because even the things I thought were crazy in theory only ever seemed like logical next steps with Jason: moving in together, bringing home a puppy, painting a rented apartment, buying new furniture. And with all that in mind, today Rebecca Thorman nearly made me cry. Because even though the people you love most have their idiosyncrasies, it's the ones you feel compelled to mention in blog posts that are the ones that remind you how much you really love them. And while you're remembering that you remember how he kisses you when you're too tired to watch the rest of Weeds, even though he's the one that just got home from work at 10pm. And in that instance you know exactly what this town doesn't have, and that four hour commutes really aren't so bad.

Jambo!

2010-08-04T20:29:00.007-04:00

Welcome to my little blog. To be truthful (and isn't that the point of having a blog in the first place?) I have fully intended on blogging for months now, and I have made several attempts. I am aware of the rewards and benefits of such a place. After all, I do read Penelope Trunk's blog. And how can I possibly miss out on the challenge and the opportunity for self-exploration, not to mention networking and professional development?

So there is how I arrived at my blog's name. This is my little missing piece.

Conquering a little inert laziness has been tough, but really it is a huge amount of insecurity about my writing and ideas that is holding me back. Even once I've published a post I feel the need to edit is constantly-- but I am finding that I have to let go of that if I ever want to see myself grow in the blogosphere, as well as beyond.

But now is the time for growth. I have recently (as in, today was the third day) started working for my dad's start-up, and I can't wait to see it evolve as we evolve as a team and as a company. And already we have developed a common goal on the customer support side of things: during our lunch break Emily and I looked at each other and said, "Cupcake?" And so we made the acquisition of red velvet our goal and we accomplished it quickly and efficiently.