You've Got Mail!

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It's just roughly one month since I began my new job as a magazine editor, and it definitely feels good to be back in print media. Since October 2008 (it took me awhile to realize what I'd essentially thrown away), a part of me has ached to return to assigning articles, selecting photography, making deadlines and approving page proofs. I love it all.

Of course, my previous print job was with a newspaper in a much smaller city where you make four right turns and run into everyone you know. (Okay, Tulsa isn't literally that small, but it's pretty close when you run in small circles, like local media.) I never seemed to keep busy for my full eight-hour days until it was deadline week - and then I was easily running 12+ hour days. One reason was the lack of e-mail. I was on every imaginable distribution list and constantly asking to be added to new ones, but in a town of a couple hundred-thousand people...there's only so much news. Esp. when you're a community publication and don't cover the nitty gritty stuff.

Because of this experience, the thing that's surprised me the most about my new job in a city of two million is the amount of e-mail I get on a daily basis. In the first week, my inbox was a flood of constant messages, leaving me feeling a bit overwhelmed. I easily go through 75-100 e-mails per day. It is for this reason I have zero desire to put my BlackBerry to work doing the exact thing I purchased it for in the first place: fielding work e-mails. It would drive me insane.

Quest for the perfect purse

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a love for faux snake-skin purses. Clutches, hand bags, totes. Black, pink, teal, blue. Doesn't matter what type size or color, I want it. (Unless it looks cheap.)

My philosophy when it comes to purses is why spend a ton when you can spend a little and change it every season? (Or even in between, if you find a bag you can't live without.)

I am on an endless quest for a teal one shaped like the classic Louis Vuitton handbag. Per my blog description, I plan to chronicle every bag I purchase and carry. Think of it like Carrie and her shoes.

This is my most recent find, discovered at a craft show two weekends ago. Might not quite be LV quality, but once I saw it, I knew I couldn't live without it. It might be a bit loud for winter - I do have a subconscious need to pair the color of my bag with the tone of the season - but I don't care. I adore it.

Close up.

Well, I've never been to heaven...

Tell us the story of a piece of jewelry you own. Where did it come from, and what does it mean to you?

I'm a Texan, born and bred. Growing up in the only state that was once its own country and is the largest state in the continental US has certain...effects on a person.

Yes, that infamous Texas ego. I might have been raised by two Yanks, but I'm proud to be a Texan and can't imagine being raised in another state. I like my Shiner ice cold, my freeways 12 lanes wide (so I don't die) and  enjoy keeping Austin weird when I visit.

Then I got this crazy idea to move to Oklahoma for school. I walked in with my Texas pride and those Okies humbled me. I kind of fell in love with their state and while I rolled my eyes a lot and thought they made big deals out of nothing, making the decision to come back to the TX was not an easy one.

Luckily, I get to carry a little piece of Oklahoma with my every day. On my last birthday in Tulsa, Katie gave me an Oklahoma charm from James Avery. She had an identical one I'd been eying for...forever. It went on immediately, and I wore it proudly my last two months in the state. She told me when she bought it she was torn: she wanted to get me the Texas one as well but thought Oklahoma was more deserving given the circumstances.

I agreed.

And then I put the Texas charm on my Christmas wish list and made sure to drop plenty of hints. Santa Claus listened, and on Christmas morning I got what I consider to be my matching charm.

I wear the charms on a necklace often - mostly when I'm out at a show because I feel like in some way it identifies me - and when I do, I feel like I'm carrying a little piece of myself on a chain around my neck. Having this tiny sterling silver Oklahoma makes me feel like I didn't lose it completely, but the Texas reminds me who I am first and foremost.

Both remind me of who I've been, who I became and who I am now. I like having that tangible reminder.

A blog about...blogging.

I started blogging on OpenDiary.com when I was a junior in high school. Up to this point, I kept journals on and off, and I was in the midst of learning journalistic style so free-form writing online was a new, exciting concept for me. (Obviously still is.) 

The thing I most enjoyed was discovered new people who led lives so very different from my own. I looked forward to reading about their latest life details, no matter how boring. When I first started blogging, I read a girl who was a sophomore in college and wrote about her obsession with soap operas. Later, I followed a girl heavily into the London goth scene. There was the girl who I swore was living out novels by my favorite author and then the girl who wrote poetic posts and poems and took beautiful photos to illustrate how not-boring Ohio could be.


And I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing, but some of these people I've read I remember better than people who have passed through my life.

It was on OpenDiary that I met two girls who changed my life with their love of fiction: Ivy and Violet, better known as Melanie and Avery. They both introduced me to who would quickly become one of my favorite authors, Miss Francesca Lia Block. To them I am Allie and Claire, respectively. Our nicknames all come from characters in FLB books each pair best identifies with.

I may have also become friends with these two girls because at that point in time, we all had a favorite band in common as well...

Through the years, I have kept up with these girls in their various blogging adventures. We've moved from site to site (OpenDiary to Xanga, to LiveJournal to all three being on separate sites now...) as we've shared our lives through the written word. Melanie and I met in person and enjoyed living out our Lady Ivory/Alabaster Duchess roles at a music and arts festival in Tulsa in May 2005. We've also shared lots of fiction we've written with each other, namely during November's NaNoWriMo. (National Novel Writing Month.)


I've participated but never completed the 50,000 words in 30 days challenge. Melanie is participating this year...and has been trying to guilt me into participating as well. And its worked. Kind of.

In her most recent blog post, she mentioned giving NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posing Month, which is every month - a try instead of NaNoWriMo. And without the daunting word count, I think that's something I can handle.

So consider this me throwing my hat in the ring. Prompt by prompt, I will work my way through November and hopefully along the way, I'll entertain you with my love of the written word.

The First Chapter.

I decided it was time to get back into blogging for myself, so here it is: girlslikewords.

Since I was a little girl, I have always loved writing. I remember being in elementary school, writing stories on our fancy new home computer about CareBears. When I was older, it was fictionalized versions of what I thought high school would look like: giggling girls in bathrooms, talking about the "big game" and their crushes. (And upon arriving at my freshman year of high school, I learned it was anything but. Clearly, I listened to "Be True to Your School" by the Beach Boys one too many times for my own good growing up...)

Then in eighth grade, I joined an after school writing club and wrote a goofy essay about who my best friend was: my teddy bear, Snuggle. (Yes, that Snuggle.) I submitted it to an essay contest in the Houston Chronicle and low and behold...I was one of eight winners.

I guess it was pretty hopeless after seeing my name in print. I joined journalism in high school. I majored in communications in college. Monday morning after graduation, I showed up at my internship-turned-real-job at a newspaper.

In the last two years, there's been lots of ups and downs. Lots of making mistakes, growing up and moving on. I like to think of it as my quarter-life crisis. I've spent most of the last two years, helplessly wandering from one temporary part-time job to the next. (Counting all my individual freelance gigs, the total sits at a hefty eight jobs from January 2009-August 2010.) But I have no regrets because I firmly believe every single decision you make gets you to the next page, the next chapter, the next book in the series.

So I guess I should look at this as a brand new book: I'm home in the place I grew up. I have a beyond perfect job, finally. And as a single twenty-something girl, I have the freedom to do whatever I want with my life. The possibilities are endless.

I still have some things to figure out: paying off school debt, finding my own place to live again, oh...and that pesky boyfriend thing so my well-meaning mother will stop talking about the "nice, tall" night manager at Target...

But until I get that all sorted out, here's to being the Carrie Bradshaw of the suburbs, writing about daily adventures as a magazine editor, life lessons still in the learning process...and the constant quest for the perfect faux snake skin bag.