Things I do anyway

I made an easy $80 last night participating in a focus group for bloggers. Yes, I think this officially qualifies me for dedicated nerd status.

If only I could find someone who would pay me for going to the gym...

The right to choose

I had a very, well, interesting day. It started off in a panic, and then took a dip south for a while, and then made me laugh and believe in karma after all. Unfortunately, I can't write about any of the above scenerios, for various reasons that I won't go into here.

So, instead, I'll write about a dream I had on Sunday night. I dreamt that I was pregnant.

I've actually had this dream before, usually where I'll realize somewhere around the fifth or sixth month that I've been carrying a baby in my belly for two entire trimesters, and what on earth was I thinking? I'm not ready to have a kid! All the usual thoughts run through my head - I'm too young, I love my life, I have no boyfriend, etc. and panic ensues until I wake up in a cold sweat.

On Sunday night though, the dream was different. I was six weeks along, and I was SO happy. I was Rachel Green in that episode when you just know she wants the baby, regardless of who the father was. In my dream, I knew who the father was but I had no intention of telling him or getting him involved. I was ready to raise the baby on my own, as if I were Rachel herself.

But suddenly, the panic set in. I was not financially secure! I loved my life as it was! I didn't want a baby! But I DID want that baby, the baby I felt so wholly in my body that when I realized that I was going to have to abort it, I cried with devastation. I felt such loss, such sadness, over what was going to be taken from me, when I already loved it so much.

And then the sadness turned to anger. Anger that I was almost 31 and still single, that I may never actually have the option of giving birth to a child. That, because I had no one to raise it with, I had to choose between the baby's life and my own as I knew it. I had to decide the lesser of two evils, even though I truly believed I deserved to have it all.

I woke up overwhelmed with an emotional hangover, which eventually just turned into a plain old bad mood. The rainy Monday morning didn't help. I've always been told that I have unusually vivid dreams; this one was so real, had I any reason to believe I might actually be pregnant, I would have bought a First Response that morning.

Was my body trying to tell me something, I thought? I suppose the timeline is right, if you believe in the biological clock.

But, then, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I had just watched that episode of Friends the night before, the one where Phoebe finds the test in the trash and everyone assumes it's Monica's, but the audience gets that it's SO Rachel's. (OMG Season Cliffhanger!!!)

As I was writing my post on Sunday night, I kept thinking to myself, somewhat smugly, How do people with kids do it? They would never have this much free time! I thought how nice it was to be able to complain about being responsible, when all I really had to look after was myself. That is all I can handle for now. Happily. And I think therein lies my ambivalence.

I'm nearly 31 years old, and I am quite happy sans children. I don't really get excited about other people's kids the way most of my girlfriends do, and I am pretty content just concentrating on my social life for a while. But I never imagined I would grow old that way; I've always assumed kids would be in my future. I WANT kids in my future. I think.

Am I just hyper-aware of this looming deadline, thinking ahead "responsibly" so I don't end up SOOL in the baby department?

It's not that I want kids now, or next year, and probably not even the year after that. I am just so afraid of not ever having the option.

Responsible Smurf

For my last four semesters of college, my final class of the week would end on Thursday afternoon, allowing me a three-day weekend and effectively turning Fridays into the new Saturdays. My how times have changed, I thought yesterday, as I woke up to yet another Saturday filled with a seemingly endless list of tasks to be completed. When, I thought, did I become responsible for so many chores? When did Saturdays become the new Fridays?

Every Saturday, for the last five weeks, I have woken up, gotten coffee, and sat down to write out my weekend to-do list so that I would not forget anything. Something I should be doing on a Monday, at work - not on a bright sunny Saturday morning. But there's just always something. Last week was my taxes. The week before, I had to go to the eye doctor for a new prescription. The week before that, I believe I was mopping. This week, it turned out unexpectedly, I had to get new car insurance.

I knew my insurance contract was up this month; however I had been expecting a renewal notice in the mail, just like last year. It suddenly occurred to me that since my two-year anniversary in LA had just passed, I must be cutting it close with the car insurance, as well. I went to view my policy, and sure enough, it had expired three days prior, on the 21st. I had been driving around for three days with no insurance!

I called the company, and unsurprisingly, they were closed for the weekend. I left a voice mail, more for my own backup than anything else, should (God forbid) something happen in the small time frame in which I was uninsured. Given the Frankenfinger incident, in which I visited the Emergency Room during the only 30 days of my life that I WASN'T covered by health insurance, I wasn't taking any chances. Then I remembered a flier for Mercury insurance I had been saving for when I got the renewal, so that I could compare quotes. I called their toll-free number and was pleased to find that they had 24 hour customer service. On weekends! The woman gave me a reasonable quote and the name of two agents less than a mile from me. By 1:00 PM that afternoon, I had a new insurance policy that is less that what I was paying before. So, yay for that.

But then I had to go back to Lenscrafters to pick up my trial lenses I had ordered two weeks ago. The doctor said they looked fine, but to come back (again) next week, just to make sure. That's three Saturdays of my life spent at the eye doctor. I know my eyes are important, but really?

And then there is the endless cycle of food shopping, Target runs, laundry, and dry cleaning that gets pushed to the weekend because weeknights are reserved for the gym and social outings. Of course, some of my other weekend tasks are not so much chores but just an effort on my part to fit into society - regular waxing, pedicures, haircuts and gym trips aren't much more than routine maintenance but take up valuable time nonetheless. (Speaking of the gym, I've been on a super ambitious running kick lately, which has taken up to two hours of every Saturday as I have been greatly increasing my mileage.)

I'm not so much complaining about all that needs to get done over the weekends, just wondering when it happened that I suddenly became a grown-up with chores? I still feel like I should be pushing a Fisher-Price shopping cart around the supermarket, or at least just nursing a hangover in my jammies; not responsibly managing my bank account or (irresponsibly) worrying about car insurance. When, exactly, did Saturday mornings go from being all about cartoons and shopping splurges to seeming like an unofficial sixth day of the workweek?

I must have slept in that morning.

The commute could be worse

The 10 West, 7:02 PM

(And yes, I took these while driving.)

Why market research can be a good thing, or, it's not easy being green

Last year around this time, my office spent a good few weeks attempting to choose a color palette for our new spa. After our designer submitted a basic brand identity system, we decided to make our logo green, in part to represent our products' natural ingredients, but also because green would stand out in a market mainly saturated with copycats of boring-blue Bliss.

Our company's president, our brand development VP, and myself, all agreed upon our favorite green early on. But then the other president jumped in, asked to see about 20 additional variations of the green we chose, and frustration ensued. Every day he had a new opinion. The wall next to my office became wallpapered with options, swatches of greens in every PMS shade available.

(Aside: Once, when I was like, 8, I asked my mother, who was an art director, why all of her markers had PMS.)

For weeks we went in circles, weighing why one hue might be better than the next; why one green was too blah and boring, another one too shocking. We dissected green as if it were literally a frog in seventh grade biology, picking apart every nuance until we could no longer recognize the beast at all. In the end, weeks after the process began and a day away from our printing deadline, the president decided he liked the initial green color the rest of us had recommended in the first place.

Imagine my dismay this weekend when I took my taxes to H&R Block and recognized their logo color as unfortunately familiar.

Moving to LA, flashback weekend, part 3

I had a car coming in the late afternoon to take me, my many suitcases, and Kristin to the airport. I will never forget that ride out of Manhattan, through the decrepit streets that led from Kristin's office downtown to the Holland tunnel, and looking back upon the city from New Jersey for my last time as a New Yorker. The sun had already started to set in the late winter sky and I thought it was an apt metaphor for my own situation.

We arrived on time in LA, picked up the rental car from Avis, and I was secretly relieved to be driving at 10 PM, when the freeway was mostly empty and my chances of getting the both of us into an accident were minimal. Ted was supposed to have mailed me the house keys earlier in the week, but, being Ted, didn't. Instead, I had to climb up on my banister to retrieve the key from the roof, balancing on one foot in the dark for close to a minute before I found it.

We walked in, and the apartment was better than I had remembered. The walls had been painted, the carpets cleaned, and it was mine. It was twice the size of my New York apartment and it was all mine. Any annoyance I had felt over the keys diminished minutes later, when Kris and I explored the apartment and I saw that Ted had left us a bottle of champagne in the fridge, a note attached offering his congratulations. His legacy, really.

We popped the cork and, with little else to do, sat on the floor to watch a few episodes of The Brady Bunch before going to bed. I was officially a California girl.

Moving to LA, flashback weekend, part 2

I had spent more than a year hating New York City and over six months looking forward to the move; maybe that's why it never occured to me that I might get slightly emotional when the day finally arrived.

I had sold my bed earlier in the week and spent the last five nights sleeping on my trusty aerobed. Since it didn't make sense to schlep the aerobed to LA, I offered it to my aunt who would find a use for it among the four kids and their many friends who spent weekends sleeping over. When I went to drop the bed off, though, the irony hit me like a ton of bricks. My aunt was the whole reason I moved to New York.

After college graduation, I was in complete denial that that part of my life was actually over. I stayed up in my Syracuse apartment as long as I could, or at least until I figured out the next step. I had majored in advertising, so my logical choices were either New York or Boston; I hated the idea of both. But I was dating someone on Long Island and had friends there and in New Jersey, so when my aunt offered me the spare bedroom for a few weeks, it seemed like as good of an idea as any. In my mind it was just another adventure, even though I packed the majority of my belongings as if I knew I would stay.

My aunt allowed me two weeks of play before bringing home the Sunday Times and announcing that I would be looking for a job. We circled a few leads, set up the interviews, and I accepted the first position I was offered only a week or so later. It wasn't until a month later that my younger friends started heading back to school and I really understood that this wasn't a summer job, that my life was no longer measured in semesters and weekends were back to being only two days long. It was a hard fall.

But in the meantime, it became time to find an apartment. At the time, Nick was the only other friend I knew who was ready to move. We checked out a few places across town, but became quickly discouraged at what was offered and at what price. Understanding my frustration (or perhaps getting tired of my now permanent presence), my aunt called her realtor company to see if they had anything available. It turned out, they had an enormous three bedroom a block away that was right in our price range. Nick made some calls, and recruited our common friend Ryan to act as the third roommate, and in October, the three of us began our lives as real New Yorkers.

I lived on 86th street for three years, and I will always remember those years as my best in New York. The apartment was the best, and our social lives were the best. So when I passed off the aerobed and said goodbye to my aunt on that last morning, I became very nostalgic and thankful and sorrowful, and wondered if I would ever feel about LA the way I felt about my life in New York. Something so familiar, it seemed literally part of my blood.

I can say that I do feel that way now. In these last two years, I have come to view my neighborhood with the same degree of comfort and familiarity I felt back then. I feel like I am in the prime of my life, the way I felt after two years in New York, when things were still new enough to seem exciting but I had been around the block enough to know how to handle myself.

Walking down the street that morning, though, back to the subway towards the final hours in my empty apartment, I had no idea what was in store.

Moving to LA, flashback weekend, part 1, in rhyme

Two years ago today, I moved to LA.

The actual move date was March 18th, but that was a Friday, like today. The day before had been St. Patrick's Day, and I had plenty to say.

Lifetime movie extras

It may have been on an old episode of Seinfeld or just part of an early-90's stand-up show, but I have always remembered this bit of a comedian's act: "Have you ever run into someone you don't know? Again? It's like God's making a movie of your life, and he's running out of extras."

When I lived in New York, the extra in the movie of my life was, oddly, Ann Curry. I've actually met Ann a couple times - both for work - but even before and after those meetings, I would catch random glimpses of her around the city. In Union Square, on the West side - wherever I went, she seemed to follow. It was kind of nice, actually, feeling like I had a celebrity stalker. But that's part of the nature of New York, that because everyone walks around so much, you're bound to start running into the same people after a while. I guess.

That logic doesn't fly in LA. It's huge here, and because people spend so much time cruising in their cars, chances for run-ins are far less likely. Sure, there are those neighborhood strangers you see regularly at the Starbucks or walking their dogs; but I'm talking about real strangers who have turned up in so many different neighborhoods and scenerios, you can't help but wonder if they really ARE following you. And if you haven't met them by now, well, why not? What is The Universe trying to shove down your ignorant, oblivious throat?

I first noticed my LA extra at the gym in Westwood. At approximately 6'9, he was hard to miss. I know that he is 6'9, because back when I did Match over a year ago, I saw him on there, too. Not a big deal - I've recognized a lot of strangers from Match, and two common sightings does not a stalker make. Within the last six months, though, I have run into this guy at three different bars alone - one in Venice, one in Beverly Hills, and last night in West Hollywood. Venice was a Saturday night, Beverly Hills was a Friday night, and WeHo was on a Tuesday. If we have nothing else in common, at least I know we both like to drink.

Last night I noticed that recognized me too, and even looked like he might approach, but we were both wedged into different tables with different groups of friends, and neither of us got the chance to say something. That is probably a good thing, because after a few glasses of wine, I might not have been demure enough to pretend like I haven't noticed him before. Fifty times. Or ask something dumb, like where on earth he finds suits in his size?

At the foundation of one of my favorite books, The Celestine Prophecy, lies a simple edict: that there are no coincidences - if you keep running into someone, there is a message to be learned or shared. If that is truly the case, then I am now hyper-aware of this recurring character, interested to know what or who we may have in common. What is this message that needs to be delivered? And why is he auditioning for a larger role?

Give it to me straight

So, I went to the dentist this morning. No, not that dentist. I found a new one, which, although didn't hit on me, still found it completely normal to use my draped neck and chest as a shelf for his dental tools. I got felt up more this morning than all of eighth grade combined. Is this an LA thing, or is going to the dentist now synonymous with sexual innuendo?

Anyway, I went for a routine check-up/cleaning, but also have been interested in getting my slight overbite fixed. I was thinking I'd get a referral for an orthodontist, but instead he recommended Invisalign, which he could do right there, as if I couldn't tell from the many posters which essentially wallpapered his otherwise-beautiful office space.

What do you all know? Does Invisalign fix overbites, or is he trying to make money off an idea that he got roped into during it's heyday, 5-7 years ago? I only know one person that has tried it, and all I remember is him saying that he lost 10 pounds in the process, which is enough to make me sign on the dotted line tomorrow. With the exception of my bite/jaw, my teeth are pretty much straight and perfect (and white!) so there would be no other benefit to this except the weight loss. Which I am pretty sure I don't need to spend this kind of money for.

No question, a California girl

I couldn't have had any more of an "LA day" had I written a screenplay about it.

The weather this weekend was forecasted for the high 80's. Even though Daylight Savings Time stole an hour of my beauty sleep, I bounded out of bed early to picked up my friend Mia for a morning hike through Runyon Canyon. By the time we found parking, it was near 11 AM, and we spent the next two hours burning our quads as well as our shoulders under the midday sun.

After our hike we hit Urth Cafe on Melrose for smoothies. I know.

We walked around a farmer's market for a bit, but ultimately, I dropped Mia off and went to meet my other friend Miya at the beach. I flew down to Venice, and then sat in traffic for 45 minutes until I finally found a spot. I met Miya and her friends at the Whaler for drinks, until we ultimately moved the party to their other friends house on the beach. And we sat and watched the sunset from their balcony overlooking the ocean.

Who am I, and how did I get here? And how on earth did I ever get so lucky?

Not Panicking any more

For five months in 2003, I worked at a PR agency we'll call Panic - in part because that rhymes with the company's actual name, but mostly because that's the state I was in for the majority of the short time I worked there. One of my accounts was a high end jewelry company, and I shared the responsibilities with a girl in the agency's west coast office. My job was to pitch the product to the (NY-based) accessory editors for magazine coverage, while hers was to get it in the hands of (LA-based) celebrities via their stylists.

We spoke on the phone every other week or so for our client conference calls; however other than those calls and a few internal strategy sessions, we never actually met. I didn't know her well enough to stay in touch after I got a new (and better) job, and by the time I moved to LA, had either forgotten about her or just assumed she had forgotten about me.

Then, a few weeks ago, another friend in the business forwarded me an industry document, and there, on the second page, was this girl's name alongside the same client we had both worked on. Somewhere in the span of the last few years she had moved to a new agency but taken the client with her. I emailed her that afternoon, and had a response within an hour. I was going to provide my products for her gift bags, and we were going to do drinks shortly thereafter. We spent the afternoon and the next couple weeks going back and forth, chatting and gossipping, and actually striking up a professional partnership that benefitted both of our brands.

I met her this past Thursday for drinks. Going in, I wasn't sure what to expect. When I worked at Panic, I had asked others what she was like. The answer was always, "Oh, she's very LA." Nobody could ever really elaborate on what that meant, so I just assumed she'd be tall, thin, blond, one-dimensional, and very trendy. Imagine my suprise when a near carbon copy of me walked in. Definitely a bit trendier than me, but same straight dark hair, same thin but not "LA thin" body, and just a totally normal-looking girl. I could tell she was three-dimensional from the second she walked through the door and I just got a very warm, friendly vibe.

We spent about an hour catching up and really just getting to know each other. And it turned out that, at every corner of the conversation, we had even more in common than we thought. In addition to liking and not liking the same types of foods (which is unusual since I am a very picky eater), playing at the same tennis level (embarrassing) and (obviously) working in the same business, we are almost exactly one month apart in age, both from the east coast, and have nearly identically-parallel recent histories in things like when we both moved into our apartments, into our jobs, and when we both got out of our last relationships. And the weirdest part? She was AT the bar I went to on Tuesday night, and was supposed to go to the party I ended up at last Saturday. Our paths had virtually crossed twice in the last week alone!

I don't know why I am writing about this, exactly. She could end up becoming a new best friend or she could end up just as one of those peripheral work friends I only see now and again. But I love when coincidences like this happen, like it fell out of the sky and into my lap for a reason. My last few weeks have been like that, actually, one thing building on another so that almost every single thing I do feels like there is a greater purpose to it.

I don't know what that purpose is yet, but I am really enjoying the energy.

Adventures in Blogging

So, you may have heard that I went to the Mediabistro blogging party last night with Hilary and Nicole. They've done a great job summing up, so I don't have much to add other than that it was a really fun night. And that I need to stop going out on weeknights if I ever want to wear a bathing suit this summer.

I met a lot of nice people and even some "famous" LA bloggers. Although it turns out that Hilary is pretty famous herself and I tried to soak up some of the glow of her celebrity, or at least I did until she pointed out that the glow was actually just a reflection off my beer bottle. Score!

And just when I thought that this blogging thing couldn't get much better, I came into work this morning to see a new comment on my mopping post, below. AmyBow, it turns out, was one of my close camp friends from childhood, and even before I knew the comment was from her, I knew, just by the tone, that it had to be someone from Birchmont. I followed the link to her email address and sure enough, I recognized the name as her own. We spent the morning catching up and reminiscing, and she reminded me that 20 years have passed since we initially met. Twenty years. How did we get so old?

Regardless, this is just another example of all the good blogging has brought me since I started this modest thing just over two years ago. Last night, as I met other bloggers, a popular question was, "What is your blog about?" My answer, in short, was, "Me." And while it is about me and my experiences and my viewpoint as an east coast transplant in La La Land, the bigger picture is that this blog is about so much more. It has served as an introduction to new people, a reconnection with old friends, an outlet for whatever creativity hasn't already been sucked dry. The blog has grown so much in the past year alone, I kind of feel like maybe I should declare it a dependant on my taxes. In all seriousness, though, blogging has become such a big part of who I am that I am no longer shy about it, and even find myself referring to Lori MacBlogger as if she were a real person.

A real person who undoubtably looks fabulous in a bathing suit.

(I won't "out" Amy, but feel free to guess where I am in this picture. Click to enlarge.)

Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

From the time I was 11 up until I was 17, I spent every summer at sleepaway camp. Every morning after breakfast, we'd have cabin cleanup, where each camper would be responsible for one chore per day, determined by a spin on the job wheel. Some chores were easier than others, but I remember that, hands down, the worst chore was mopping the bathroom floor.

It was the worst chore because, first of all, you likely had around 10 campers and four counselors who used the bathroom daily. Aside from showering and just going to the bathroom, that also meant 14 pairs of feet that brought in gunk from the outside, whether it was mud from one of the many playing fields or just the dust that always seemed a permanent fixture on the wooden cabin floors.

The other reason why mopping was so bad was because you had to wait for everyone else to finish their chores before you could even begin. So while the rest of the cabin cleans up and gets ready for the day, you just have to sit and watch while they keep bringing their dirt in, making seemingly even more work for you. Finally, once the sink person and the toilet person and the bathroom sweeper person are finished, only then can you go in and get to work. And by that point the whole cabin is running late for archery and they all yell at you to hurry it up already.

Nevertheless, I spent five summers mopping the bathroom floor, once every week or so depending on how many girls were in my bunk. Only when I became a counselor did I get relieved from cabin cleanup, and, like many other things I learned as an adolescent (basic Algebra, for example) my knowledge of mopping was lost almost as quickly as it was learned.

Now, over the years, I have had many a bathroom and kitchen floor that have required mopping. I am literally going to "come clean" now, and tell you that all this time, I simply have been faking it. In NYC, most of the surface areas were small enough as to not need a mop - a single sponge and elbow grease were enough to take care of any visible dirt accumulation. And because I tended to move every two years, well, let's just say I was more than happy to make that someone else's problem.

But my kitchen here is huge. HUGE. And I actually like the tile, a 1950's black and white check that adds some kitschy character I never had in New York. However every time I have gone to clean it I have felt like one big failure, because I have no idea what on earth I am doing.

For the first time in my life I actually own a bucket made for this purpose. I've filled it with water, many times, dipped the mop in, and then proceeded to move the water around the floor with said mop. I rinse the mop out in the sink, dip it back in, rinse and repeat until my arms fall off and the floor looks moderately cleaner. But, is this mopping?

Unlike the old Murphy's Oil commercials where the woman is practically dancing as she glides her mop across the floor, I find myself constantly in my own way, smacking myself in the face with the wet sponge (I know, gross, I was not meant for menial labor, thank you) or bruising my arms and legs as I twirl the handle, baton-like, from the sink to the floor.

Today I decided I was going to go back to the sponge and Clorox method. After five minutes scrubbing on my hands and knees, however, I started feeling like Private Benjamin with her toothbrush and fished the mop out of the closet to finish the job. And while the floor definitely looks cleaner, I can't help but feel that I have just moved the dirt somewhere else.

So, I ask you people, what am I doing wrong here? Can you give me some tips? Or the number for a cleaning lady?

Next stop: Wonderland*

I didn't go to the gym after work tonight, and found myself driving home in daylight for the first time in quite a while. YAY, spring time!

I didn't go to the gym after work because it seems that my week-long bender has finally caught up with me. It's funny: a few weeks ago, after I got back from my umpteenth New York trip and was feeling a little less gymmy and a little more belly, I really cleaned up my act. No more drinking on school nights, no caffeine after lunch, waking up an hour early to fit in a morning workout - I started feeling really good. Even Vegas, the disaster that it was, hardly detracted from my detox diet.

But then I just had one of those weeks where there were a million things going on and not enough nights to fit them all in; at least not without sacrificing something like a good sleep or size 4. Not that I am complaining, mind you, I am just Tired.

The drinking started last Thursday during Grey's Anatomy, because, let's face it, that show is better with a buzz. Thursday hasn't technically been a school night since college, anyway, so what's a few glasses between me and the interns at Seattle Grace? Friday night I went over Mia's, where we had another bottle of wine and got sucked into a series of so-bad-they're-my-absolute-favorite movies: Say Anything and then Dazed and Confused. Ask me if I've seen more than two movies that were nominated for Oscars this week, and the answer is no. But can I recite, by heart, the dialogue from every teen movie made between 1982 and 1999? Pretty much.

Saturday night was my friend Ryan's birthday party. Held at a low key German bar in Silver Lake where even the bartenders wore leiderhosen, it was old-fashioned fun with the Syracuse boys I have come to feel I've grown up with. Sunday night I had friends over for the Oscars, where we went through even more wine and possibly some vodka cocktails. Monday night I continued my quest to meet every blogger on my blogroll and grabbed drinks with Keith. (Not to be confused with Keith my ex-boyfriend, Keith my substitute trainer, or Keith, my gym's training manager. Were everyone's parents that stoned in the 70's that they couldn't come up with more original names?) Tuesday I took a break, shared my eyebrow enlightenment with you all, and went to bed at 9:30. Finally, last night, I went over my other friend Miya's (different spelling, same pronunciation) to catch up and we drank yet another bottle-plus of wine before I finally called it quits.

And now it's back to Thursday, where I am preparing for a night of Grey's, alcohol-free. I mean, if Lindsay can do it... um, never mind.

*Wonderland