Sisterhood...

Myself & some of the lovely ladies I consider my 'sisters'
at my Halloweenie Roast Masquerade.

My work life has been less than rosy lately. I work with mostly women who are so completely different than me in every way, shape and form imaginable. They're skinny and polished with perfect hair and make-up. They don't mind making fun of people over lunch on Fridays, read chick lit obsessively, and they think people like Katy Perry and Lady Gaga are the be-all, end-all of music.

I've always been a curvy girl with glasses. I'm not perfect, but if I don't have something nice to say I generally keep my mouth shut. I listen to bands most of these girls have never heard of and read nonfiction book on topics like the Columbine shootings and the founding of Rolling Stone magazine to educate myself on topics I'm interested in.

To say I don't really fit in is an understatement at this point. And lately, the gap between 'me and them' seems to grow wider. On top of it all, instead of feeling like we're all working towards one common goal, I constantly feel like I'm working with people who are scared you're trying to steal their success rather than help them be successful - a viewpoint I just don't understand. No matter what I do, I cannot seem to please them.

And it's slowly killing me - which is why tonight was such a blessing.

Top 10 songs of 2011

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My favorite former Austinites, Mel & Luis, are hosting a dinner party tomorrow night to celebrate the end of Mel's law school semester. For Luis and I, parties are always a great excuse to create a playlist. He texted me this afternoon asking me to pick my top 10 favorite songs with a few contingencies:

1. Only 10 songs. No more, no less.
2. Each song MUST have been released in 2011.
3. Each song must be from a different artist.

No problem! I thought. This will be easy and fun.

Well, I got the fun part right. Easy was a whole other story...

Thanksgiving 2011's Good Eats

I feel like I blinked, and Thanksgiving is already over. Heck, November is already over too. I was just putting away all my Halloween decorations, and now it's time to get down to business with Christmas shopping.

I was excited for this year's Thanksgiving too - for the first time ever, I was allowed to play a small part in making the turkey. Actually, I can't even say making since I only did about a third of the work - more like, I got to help flavor the turkey, courtesy of my Food Network husband's brining recipe:

Social media vacation

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I'm a bit of a media junkie. It comes with the territory when you work in the media industry - it's an unspoken job requirement to have a 'nose for news.' I remember sitting at the dinner table growing up, asking my dad the most random questions like "How is mustard made?" because I wanted needed to know. I've always wanted to be in the know. I've always been interested in learning how the world works and why people live their lives the way they do.

So when major news happens, you can pretty much guarantee I'll be glued to a television or computer screen, anxious to know the latest details. The only thing I clearly remember about the week following Sept. 11, 2001 is racing home every day after school and flipping on the news - the TV didn't go off until I had to go to bed. When Hurricane Ike hit Houston while I lived in Oklahoma, I was glued to cable news coverage and live streams of local newscasts online.

Needless to say, social media is kind of a dream come true for someone like me. Constant streams of information about any topic I could possible desire to be updated on? Yes, please!

Once a Girl Scout, always a Girl Scout

Katie Couric at the Girl Scout National Convention.

Fulfilling, gratifying and inspiring only scratch the surface on what this past weekend was like for me. Starting last Thursday at noon, I spent three straight days at the George R. Brown Convention Center (it felt like I was living there, seriously) volunteering at the Girl Scouts' 52nd National Convention - and it was the best experience I've had in a long time.

I'm a lifelong Girl Scout. I joined at age five. I became a lifetime member the year I graduated from high school. I've worked for my home Council multiple times - two summers as a counselor, one year in their communications department. I never considered myself a gung-ho Girl Scout growing up because I didn't earn every last award or want to go camping constantly...but looking back, I guess I am. I really love the organization and the leadership it teaches girls, and I will tell anyone who will listen that Girl Scouting is awesome.

A love letter...

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Dear blogging,

I miss you. A lot. I hate that we don't spend time together anymore, and I'm a big enough person to admit it's completely my fault.

See, I've been writing - seriously writing - for years. Well over a decade, in fact. It started in high school when my creative writing teacher got me addicted to writing in journals. Fifth period became my favorite part of the day, where I'd spend the 48 minute class pouring my soul onto paper...a practice that would usually bleed over into sixth period pre-calculus and probably didn't do my steady-B-that-could-have-been-an-A-if-I-just-applied-myself any favors since I spent most of my time making sense of the thoughts in my head rather than sense of the numbers that didn't compute.

Things I Love Thursday

I remember a time when I used to be blog every day. It was a necessary part of my to-do list, just like eating, brushing my teeth or sleeping for 10 hours. Oh college, some days I miss you...

Things I Love Thursday

• Reading. More specifically, reading about social media. I ordered "Socialnomics" by Erik Equalman from Amazon a few weeks ago. This is one of the few books that's held my attention this summer. It's all about how social media has integrated into our businesses and lives. Very interesting stuff. It's making me want a social media job. I also got "The Facebook Effect" and the Social Media Bible, which is more of a resource guide.

What's up Wednesday

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It seems like every blogger in the world makes up some silly weekly blog thing, so here's mine: What's up Wednesday. Why? Because this is all I have time for, and despite not writing for nearly a week, I'm still trying to keep up with writing daily. So here's what's been up in the last week:

• I gave up on the "swim" prompts from NaBloPoMo because they digressed into stupid "who would you want to eat lunch with?" type questions...BOR-ING.
• I practically had a meltdown Saturday evening at a show. It was like every last word Andrew McMahon was singing was a sword cutting through my heart, and it was all I could do not to be reduced to tears by it. Thank god for Katie. She not only knows why, but I'm sure she knows exactly which lines and she made it better with side-hugs and dancing. I'm so thankful for the friends I have who speak music too.
• I've now seen Harry Potter three times, and it just gets better each time. This final movie is absolutely perfect.
• Today I went to a Facebook marketing seminar for work. About a third of it was things I already knew, but it was a nice break from the office and I got some good information out of it. I love print media so much - I felt lost without it - but I think I could go into a social media position and enjoy it just as much. Perhaps I'm more of a people person than I think.
• My mother has been in Wisconsin for nearly a month. I kind of really miss her. But I also don't hate the bachelor lifestyle with my dad.
• I finally started watching season 5 of "30 Rock." My transition to Liz Lemon became official when she announced "And I didn't pack all grey underwear!" regarding her trip with her boyfriend. Overshare? Oh well. When you share undergarment habits with LL, there really is no hope for you.
• I've been reading "Valley of the Dolls," and I'm sort of struggling to finish it. When I'm reading it, I love it. I don't want to put it down. But once I do put it down, I find it hard to convince myself to pick it back up and read. Perhaps a switch to a nonfiction book after this is due. Either "Columbine" by Dave Cullen or "Dead Certain" by Robert Draper.

And that's what's up.

It All Ends.

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You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be. - Albus Dumbledore

I was sitting in the hallway of my high school, waiting for driver's ed to start and sneaking glances at the boy in my group who I thought was cute. He was sitting against the industrial brick wall, deeply buried in his book. And I felt a little pang of jealousy.

He was reading "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

I had just come off a summer working my first real job. It was a very demanding position: part-time summer school receptionist at my junior high school. My favorite part of the job? Since there was a lot of downtime, I was allowed to read a book when I had nothing else to do - which was often because I was efficient. My mother had bought books 1-3 in the Harry Potter series, hoping my brother would give them a try and discover he loved reading.

Instead, her voracious reader of a daughter quite literally stole them all and devoured them in a matter of days, savoring every last word of this new, magical world she had stumbled into. I never wanted it to end, and I couldn't wait for more.

With a little help from my friends...

April 2008

What is going swimmingly in your life at the moment?

After all my mopey life posts this week, it's nice to finally have a prompt I have a good, solid answer for. The thing that is going swimmingly in my life right now? My friends.

Living in Oklahoma, I made friends but the ones I was closest to were in OKC. My friends in Tulsa were usually busy with work or school when I had free time. Suffice it to say, I spent a lot of lonely weekends cleaning my apartment, grocery shopping and generally being bored. It wasn't fun.

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Do you consider yourself a strong swimmer?

(Note: too much coffee and over-thinking went into this post.)

This post could very easily be one word: no.

In the metaphorical sense, no I don't think I'm a strong swimmer, and I never have been. I'm too indecisive. It takes me forever to make a decision and when I do, I worry it wasn't the best decision to make. I'm slowly learning to let go and just live. I'm way too hard on myself for decisions I made three years ago, still. This is the time in my life when it's okay to make mistakes, to make changes and figure it all out. As long as I reach some stability and eventually stay there, it's okay.

YA Saves

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For as long as I can remember, I have been an avid reader. Some of my best summer memories are from staying up late under the covers with my flashlight, flying through page after page of a good book. As I grew older, I began devouring young adult novels left and right, expanding my horizons and discovering more about the world around me through the pages of a book than life itself.

Open waters

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Are you scared of being in open water?

In a word, terrified. 

I learned how to swim at an early age. (Physically swim, that is, since many of my 'swim' posts have been a metaphorical swim.) I swam in the pool and we went to the beach open enough that I wasn't scared of the ocean. My grandparents own a lake house in Wisconsin, and I spent many summers swimming and tubing/boating on a lake where I couldn't see the bottom. As I got older and attended Girl Scout camps, I learned more advanced swimming strokes and techniques, like treading water. To pass a swim test one year, we had to tread water for three minutes without our heads going under while singing camp songs.

So to say the least, I have a very good grasp on how to keep my head above water. 

Gone swimmin'

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Where would you love to go swimming?

For me, reading a good book is much like delving into a swimming pool in the heat of summer. You take a deep breath and within five pages, you're completely submerged in the story. If I'm particularly drawn to a book, I only surface when forced - when my lunch break ends, when my eyes won't stay open anymore, when there's another obligation. There is nothing quite as satisfying as living in someone else's world for a few days.

Swim.

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Oh, little blog. How I have neglected you. Partly out of lack of time. Mostly out of fear of repercussions should anyone come across this, decide my writing a blog is grounds to fire me and...fire me. Well, been there done that and I've decided if that's the worst that could happen, bring it.

Besides, what good is a writer who does write at least a little every day - even if it is only a lame blog post about nothing that two of her friends skim? I wrote two articles for my fall issue of the magazine - the medical one which I enjoyed much more than I should have - and I realized I need to make it a point to write more. So starting tomorrow, I'm going to seriously undertake the NaBloPoMo challenge and attempt to write in this blog every day.

Mostly because the July theme caught my attention: swim. Esp. after Jack's Mannequin's song by the same name hit me like a ton of bricks today...which is one of the many reasons I love music. Sometimes you need that one song to jolt you back awake and make you realize you're completely missing your life.

Fill in the blank Friday!

1. Fridays are…full of infinite possibilities. Fridays are probably my favorite day of the week. There’s a lax quality that goes with the day, from start to finish. And they usually mean spending the night with friends, enjoying pizza with my family or simply relaxing.
2. Ice tea, bright blue skies and starting new books…make me terribly happy.
3. Something that inspires me is…music. You can say so much in so few words. I’ve never been much for poetry or lyric writing, so I really admire those who do it so well. And since I live my life by lyrics, how could music not constantly inspire me?
4. If I had the day off today I would…be catching up on my music blog, reading “Catching Fire” or making the perfect deviled eggs for Sunday, courtesy of Alton Brown.
5. If I had to put a label on my home decor style, I would say my style is…homey. Though I don’t truly have my own space at the moment, I’ve tried to make previous residences just feel like a place I’m happy to go at the end of the day. A place I WANT to go.
6. Concerning politics I would say I'm…moderate, but I probably lean to the more liberal side. I was once accused of being a “damn liberal journalist,” but…if you think about how many walks of life a good journalist is exposed to on a daily/weekly/monthly basis…I don’t think it’s that surprising they’re more liberal in their views. They seek to understand the world, so they see a LOT. I think that makes them grow as a person and consider a lot more than just themselves.
7. I’d like to go to…ANYWHERE! I’ve only been to Canada, and that was maybe for an hour or two when I was in elementary school. (We were touring lighthouses up and down the coast of Maine.) At the top of my list is Europe – England, France and Italy rank the highest. I’d also love to visit Australia and New Zealand, as well as northern Africa to see the Sahara (but not until their politics calm down.)
   
   
   Play along here.

Fill in the Blank Friday

I kind of forgot about TILT, so how about...fill in the blank Friday?

1.   My favorite daily responsibility is updating the magazine Facebook pages and interacting with readers. It's fun seeing what gets replies, what doesn't and chatting with people who care about what we do.

2.  My least favorite daily responsibility is washing my hair. It gets disgusting easily, so I have to wash it daily...and there's some days where I just don't feel like putting the effort into it. (But I do anyway because the few times I haven't, I walk around all day self-conscious about my gross hair...)

3.  My favorite cuisine to eat when going out is TexMex. Living in Texas, is there really any other answer for this? Well, maybe sushi...

4.  My favorite cuisine to prepare at home is pizza. When I was growing up, my mom would make pizza dough in her bread maker and we used to make our own pizzas on Friday nights. The best part about pizza is you can throw anything together and it tastes good.

5.  Andy Warhol said that everyone is famous for 15 minutes. My claim to fame is being famous on Twitter? I kid...

6.  If I could have 3 wishes I would wish...for three things, but I won't tell you. I don't believe wishes come true if you say them out loud.

7.  My biggest pet peeve is people who call their events "first annual." It grates on me in ways you could never imagine. (For the record, even if you intend to make the event annual, you can't truly call it annual until the second year.)

Play along here!

I ♥ my curves.

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Never, ever in a million years would I have thought I'd be willing to write a blog post about my weight. But here goes...

I've always been a curvy girl. I've also always been a tall girl, which I know makes a difference in my weight. I still remember getting weighed and measured in sixth grade and a classmate just as tall as me flipping out because she was exactly 100 pounds. (I think I was just over it.) Her friends consoled her with, "But you're tall!" which is a refrain I often hear when discussing weight with friends. Me? I just wanted to punch her.

Honestly though, for the most part I've always been okay with being the curvy girl. I really don't think girls who are a size zero are that attractive because there's nothing to them. I would rather look healthy than fit into designer clothing or constantly stress about my weight.

A lesson, truth be told, I learned the hard way because I was that girl from time to time growing up - mostly in high school. But following a weekend of not eating, passing out and landing face-first into a tile floor, I changed my mind: being a dumb girl is painful. (And scary when you're subjected to medicine in east Texas, just let me say...) Fourteen stitches in my forehead later, I sheepishly returned to my freshman dorm room, embarrassed and a little worse for the wear...

And determined not to do dumb things like feign anorexia for a weekend.

Things I Love Thursday

Two blog posts in as many days - what?! Is the world coming to an end? Nope. Just trying to be more proactive about writing on a regular basis. And that starts with this fantastic blogging idea I used to participate in: Things I Love Thursday.

For those not familiar with TILT, here's the deal. I met my friend Melanie years and year and years ago through blogging. At some point, she fell in love with Gala Darling who initiated this idea of posting about things you love on a weekly basis. I loved it because I felt like it was a great reflection on the positive things happening in your life, rather than letting all the bad stuff weigh you down.

So...here's my entrance back into TILT. Got a blog? Do it too and leave me a link in the comments!

On the Book of Face.

I had a little bit of a rock star moment last week. Well, social media rock star that is. Our editor-in-chief hired a new personal assistant and was going from office to office introducing her.

When she was introduced to me, the one who handles my magazine as well as two of the Facebook pages, the new PAs face lit up.

"THAT'S YOU?!" she exclaimed. I was slightly taken aback.

"Um...yes? That's me..."

"Ohmigod, you do such a good job!"

You can't BUY that kind of praise to happen right in front of my boss if you tried. Seriously.

Facebook is some serious business, y'all.

One phone call can change everything...

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Today was a pretty blah Wednesday.

While I got my to-do list at work under control, I still had a lot to accomplish - esp. after website updates necessitated three hours of painstaking editing because the formatting was all shot to hell. (I HATE the interface we use and cannot wait until we move that site to WordPress - sorry Blogger...)

Just about the only thing I was looking forward to was Happy Hour. My clock hit five o'clock and I was ready to go.

Then the phone rang. And it was for me.

And we'll all be safe by St. Patrick's Day...

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Valentine's Day.

It's never been one of my favorite holidays - even when I was in elementary school and everyone was obligated to give the entire class Valentine's, I disliked it because I felt like my cool factor solely depended on this one day. And I was definitely never a cool kid. I would carefully pick out the message I wanted to send to each of my classmates, but I felt like no one ever returned the favor.

It wasn't until three or four years ago I started to enjoy this holiday. You know why?

Because I was completely alone.

Journalistic achievements: it's the little things

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Today, I published a photo of a high school wrestling team, and no one in the photo was indecent.

I consider this the greatest of journalistic achievements.

Because yes, there is precedent of publishing an indecent photo of high school wrestlers in my professional journalistic past...

Top Books of 2010

Around the start of the year, my friend Rhiannon asked me to make a list of my must-read books (or something to that effect) from 2010. It's taken me awhile to get around to it, but here are my favorite reads from the past year:

Waiting: True Confessions of a Waitress
By Debra Ginsberg
I picked this up at a Half Price Books in Austin shortly after moving back home to Texas. This "part memoir, part social commentary, part guide to how to behave when dining out" intrigued me because I've worked in food service through the years. When I was younger, I also loved the idea of becoming a waitress when I was old enough to work a part-time job...the closest I got were my two jobs in bakeries.

Aside from amusing anecdotes about her wide variety of waitressing jobs, I also felt like I got an excellent perspective of what it's like to be a waitress - the good and the bad. And it definitely makes me think twice how I act towards a server who may not be top-notch. People are HORRIBLE and sometimes as a customer you're just caught in the aftermath. It happens, deal with it.

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011

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I'm kind of happy 2010 is over.

Don't get me wrong, the year gave me lots of great things: I got to see Conan O'Brien live, I traveled to Chicago to see Hanson and Rooney with my girls, I get to MEET my beloved Alton Brown, aka my Food Network Husband. Oh, and I got a real job back in print, which at the end of the day still makes me very happy.

But the whole year felt like a roller coaster ride as I worked two jobs, cut hours back at job #2 and then left completely to pursue a full-time print position...which I found just when I was about to give up. Between the exciting moments, there was lots of confusion, frustration and some crying. More than anything, I wanted to put myself back together.

And, for the most part, I feel like I have. I work for a beautiful, well-respected magazine. I have an awesome music blog that's just beginning to take off.

I'm ready for you, 2011!