Sep 26 2011
6 Comments
Web 2.0 Bubble

Leave it to a credit card company to make my travel fantasies come true.

We all have our completely irrational wishes. Well, I know I do. And I have always, always wished that someone would just call me up one day and offer me a free trip to wherever I wanted to go. That and tell me that I’m the proud owner of a cuddly monkey that doesn’t take bites out of human faces for dinner.

Fast forward to the digital age, where no one really uses phones anymore, and yet, it happened. Yes, it really did.

Well, not the monkey part, unfortch.

One day, I sat down at my desk, and I had an email from Ogilvy in New York City (which, of course, I thought was fake). They wanted to give me American Express Membership Rewards points — 150,000 of them, to be exact — so I could plan a weekend getaway. That I would take. For free. No strings attached. Unless you call writing about it “strings.”

I write for a living, man. I can’t think of any strings I’d like more.

So through the American Express Membership Rewards program and its nifty little Pay With Points feature, I’m going to pretend I’m, like, a legit cardmember and stuff, and use my 150,000 membership points to take a trip to …

Yeah, I have no idea.

Good thing I have you.

You see, there’s something in it for you, too, my friends. A $100 American Express gift card.

That’s right, American Express wants to buy your love, too.

You tell me where you think I should go, what you think I should do when I get there, and how I should skirt the law while I’m doing those things (KIDDING! I think). Whoever’s ideas rock the hardest gets a $100 American Express gift card. Just for making my travel itinerary happy.

While I figure out the ins and outs of the American Express Membership Rewards program, why don’t you leave me a few comments and tell me what the heck I should do with my 150,000 points?

And make ‘em good, lovies. I want to reward you.

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Jun 29 2011
4 Comments
Navel-Gazing

Dear Everyone: I need your advice.

I know, I know, I’m the damn advice columnist around here. I realize this effectively means that I have all the answers (shhh, yes, it does). You believe I know it all, and even if I don’t, you’re content when I make it up.

I’m flattered.

I have a secret to share with you. Are you ready for this jelly? Lo and behold, I don’t have the solution for this one. Can you believe it? This one’s a real doozy. Trust me, I’m quite flummoxed myself.

But if anyone can snake a path through my dilemma, I know you can, slithering friends. I really do mean that in the nicest way possible.

Here goes.

***

Dear Everyone,

I don’t know how it happened or who overthrew whom for power, but man, I’ve got this serious problem with time, man.  And I’m really gonna need your help.

I didn’t say timeliness (hush your mouth, Brandi). I said time.

You see, somewhere in my mid-20s, time, like, sped up. When I was in law school, the days (and classes) used to stretch their legs like ribbons of sand along deserted beaches, lacking clear definition of where the shore began and the water ended. I often wondered how on earth I would fill an entire day (groan!), despite the cases I had to read and outline, the research papers I had to complete, and the bar nights where I was obliged to drink away my student loan allocation for the semester.

Alas (for many reasons), those halcyon days and I have parted ways. And there’s also been a notable regime change in management at Father Time’s office as well.

Now, the days are feverish commuters on a freeway without a speed limit, going everywhere and nowhere, all at once. I don’t understand when or how everyone got on this freeway, but man, it might as well be a conveyor belt. On crack. Everyone is moving at the speed of drugs, including time. Not only are there not enough hours in the day, but there aren’t enough hours in my life. Wasn’t I 25 yesterday? Not technically, okay, but yes, I think I was.

This is where you come in. I need to know: How do I slow down time? I have so many things to do in life, and the lines are only deepening on my face.

I need time to slow down. Desperately. I need to put a harness on ye olde time thing. Will you teach me how?

- “Time In a Bottle “Was a Lie

Feb 13 2011
2 Comments
Refining Fayza

Oh, stupid Cupid, you got me good.

I used to be the kind of girl that ran her life according to a predetermined set of instructions. And by “predetermined,” I mean, something I thought sounded good on Career Day in 1990, so I went with it.

This life plan that I concocted in 6th grade prompted me to go away to college, stick with my (useless, in hindsight) major of international relations (when journalism or interior design would’ve been a much better fit — again, in hindsight), move to California, go to law school, and become a woman that lived life sitting atop the bull, jabbing it with her heel when it didn’t move fast enough.

Never in that equation did I ever plan to become a wife or a mother. In fact, it never crossed my mind to fall in love at all. Why? For what? With what time? I had SO MUCH TO ACCOMPLISH. And women like me — inconsistent, impulsive, highly opinionated, unyielding, fickle women like me — don’t have serious relationships. “It’ll just hold me back,” I convinced myself. “I’m selfish, I’ve got my own agenda, I’m an independent woman.”

Oh sure, I had relationships. If that’s what you’d call a few months of childish games. I’ll make it brief: They all failed. Miserably. Fiery vehicles squarely hitting a concrete wall and then bursting into flames have nothing on my past paramours. Sure, I cried, because of course, it sucked to get my hopes up. But if I’d ever truly believed I was meant to be someone’s girlfriend, it would’ve hurt a lot worse.

But we know what happens to the best laid plans, don’t we?

So when I met Him, I was already with someone else (albeit an ill-suited situation that was about to get worse after I caught him cheating). I’ve never been one to look around while I’m in a relationship, as pathetic as the circumstances might be.

But I couldn’t deny it. As soon as we were introduced, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

My whole life, I had convinced myself that I wasn’t meant to be in love. But that day, I realized how wrong I had been. I was meant to be in love. With Him.

I spent a month or so trying to patch my deceit-ravaged relationship, although I didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t going to work, for many reasons, and we both knew that. But I told myself that I didn’t need it, or deserve it, that love thing. And you know, it’s pretty hard to reverse years and years of self-inflicted brainwashing.

When Fate is talking, you’d better be listening, because she’s telling you what’s up.

Rest assured that over a year later, Fate has done her job well.

Love has gotten me good. I am smitten. I am unabashed. I’ve been knocked so hard upside the head that I don’t even remember life before Him. I love Him something fierce and something deep and something so profound, I never knew I was capable of feeling this way. Never in a million years would I have imagined feeling so passionately about someone other than, well, myself.

And now it’s coming up on Valentine’s Day #2 with Him, and I couldn’t be happier. Or more in love with Him. My whole life has changed — my way of thinking, my outlook on the future, my hopes and dreams for what I want — in the very best way.

I’m so lucky. I know this. I recognize it every day. Because the love I have is the love I need and the love I never knew existed in this world for me.

Happy Love Day to you and the one you cherish and adore. And if you don’t have one of those, keep that heart of yours buoyed. There’s no telling what’s around the corner that’ll suck the air out of your atmosphere and replace it with a cheesiness that knows no bounds.

I wish it on all of you.

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Feb 08 2011
4 Comments
Navel-Gazing, Refining Fayza

I think I was supposed to be asking these questions when I was, like, 17.

I know it seems like I talk about my age a lot, but as I get older, I become acutely aware of it. I remember turning 25, for instance, and thinking I’d be in my twenties forever. Of course I thought I would be. There was plenty of time for my thirties and beyond at a later date, with which I was unconcerned and probably wasn’t going to come, for that matter.

But now that I’m 31, panic has set in. Not that I’m in a rush to do anything. I’m unmarried, childless, have very little assets to my name (unless you can slap shiny price tags with plenty of digits on two naughty cats and an eight-year-old vehicle), and that’s just fine with me. I realize we’re not getting any younger, but settling down, buying a house, having a family — those things just aren’t priorities to me right now. (I know you don’t believe me about the kids thing, but trust me, my biological clock ain’t tickin’.) Maybe they will be, maybe they won’t be, but I’m not in a hurry to check off any of those boxes.

But like I said, there’s still that nagging whirr of panic. I’m 31. And I don’t have anything to show for it. I’m not talking about progeny or material things. Nah. It’s more existential than that. It’s meaning. Being useful. Having purpose. It’s just not there.

Perhaps I’m in the minority. Perhaps everyone else with 2.5 kids, a picket fence, and a mid-life crisis looming just ahead of the erectile dysfunction diagnosis on the horizon could care less about their places in this world.

Despite it not being presumptively popular, I’m certainly not the only one in her early thirties feeling this inability to fulfill a higher calling. I actually had this text message exchange just this evening:

“You know how older people look back at their lives and regret what they did/didn’t do with it? I feel like that now.”

“We’re not old enough for that yet! What do you still want to do?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know but I don’t want to look back and regret anything.”

“You can still do those things.”

“I feel like there has to be something more to it than the everyday grind of the 9-5.”

But is there something more?

As Americans, we work. We work all the time. We work hard, we work hard, and we work hard some more. We squeeze in play wherever we can fit it, and make excuses when we don’t, justified by clucking tongues and pitying nods. Sometimes even play becomes work. We don’t mean it that way, but it does. And then sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between work and life.

Is that how it’s meant to be?

I’m not sure. I do know that I lead a generally privileged life. Not as a result of my upbringing, but because of sacrifices and hard work and smart moves and tears, lots of those. Does everyone have the same opportunity to make the same pivotal decisions that I could? Of course they don’t. Am I lucky? Absolutely am. Should I hoard that luck? I should think not.

Therein lies the problem. The purpose that’s so required to make charmed, spoiled grown-ups like me feel whole and maybe even a little bit special. It’s a First World dilemma to the highest degree, but there it is — the intense need to make your fortunate days on earth count for something. Or else, your horribly wonderful life seems so, well, gloriously vapid, doesn’t it?

Cue the violin. This one’s a real weeper.

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Dec 24 2010
1 Comment
And the Kitchen Sink, Navel-Gazing

Don’t say Pandora never did anything for you.

You don’t always get what you want out of life. Sometimes, that’s the dirty hand you’ve been dealt. But other times, that’s your fault.

I’m of the mindset that you can fix most anything you’ve broken, and that you can end most anything you’ve started. I won’t discount the fact that some life extractions are more surgical than others, but I believe what has been done to you (or what you’ve done to yourself) has a better shot at being undone if you just start pulling at the corners.

I’m a Libra. This is of virtually no consequence to most things, save that I fit a Libra profile generally well. And just like the scales that represent the celestial sign, I’m a weigher. Certain decisions can be agonizing for me, if I don’t reel in the process quickly. If sharpened senses fail to catch it, I can find myself debilitated by indecision, so much that I get horribly mired in the details, and up looks exactly the same as down.

Perspective is a beautiful state of mind, though. And some things really are that simple.

There was a time when I was neck-deep in a situation that seemed insurmountable. And unsurvivable. So what did I do? I wasted my energy wracking my brain with permutations and proposed solutions to a problem that seemingly couldn’t be solved.

And then I was cleaning my humble little palace one day, and this song popped up on Pandora.

And just like that, the answer was simply, unquestioningly, crystal clear.

And I didn’t live my life that way.

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Oct 11 2010
1 Comment
Navel-Gazing

Do you really want to live forever, forever, and ever?

There's a rumbler behind you.My, what a difference a year makes.

Last year, I had you by the throat, sucker. You were writhing and whimpering and begging for mercy. And yet, my inner benevolent being would not spare you.

Instead, I drove a satisfying stake through your smug smirk, and then pummeled you with my own fists, just to be sure you couldn’t and wouldn’t be resurrected.

And as you lay there, still as a stone, I cackled with glee at the triumph of my victory – your defeat – and heaved the weight of my jubilant footsteps upon your cold, lifeless body with pleasure.

Oh, how you didn’t scare me, 30.

You were pregnant with possibility, a brand-spankin’-new infant of a decade, primed for my nurturing, my molding, my encouraging, my blossoming.

If life is Seattle (which it is, in my head), then I should’ve known. The thrill of the unexpected, tangential sunshine is always, inevitably, chased away by the predictable rain.

And what goes 30 must go 31.

With 31 looming on the horizon (no, today is not my birthday, but eventually, it will be, Sherlock), it’s hard to see past the cumulonimbus (I learned something in elementary school science class!) on the twitchy horizon this go ’round.

What is it about 31 that makes me lose sleep?

The inching. The inching toward real, bona fide aging.

I know I’m supposed to age gracefully, according to Oil of Olay and Dove and Nice ‘n Easy. But the truth is, I’m not going to. Like anything, I’m going to kick, scream, and claw all the way down the calendar. Because I refuse to age. I just don’t want to do it.

I don’t want to embrace the wrinkles deepening themselves around my eyes and on my knuckles. I don’t want to get further and further away from my perception of being young. I don’t want to watch the chasm widen between me and people in their 20s. I don’t want to one day find myself out of touch with the world of technology or music or spontaneity. I don’t want to make excuses for my hiccuping memory or my body’s inability to complete the task I assign to it.

I just don’t want to get old, that’s all.

Some people can do it, this aging thing. And they can defy it better than their days of textbook youth. But for someone like me, whose entire persona is based upon her youthfulness, what happens when, suddenly, you’re actually careening toward not youthful?

It was such an age of power, that 30 thing. So balls-to-the-wall, try-to-stop-me, catch-me-if-you-can, choke-on-my-dust, so…mine.

But I’m not delusional, and I’m almost not 30 anymore.

Rod Stewart thinks he’s forever young, but those crow’s feet don’t lie, bubba. And to be honest, neither do mine.

I’m all for a hearty game of pretend, but I think my birth certificate will be sitting out this roll of the die. Because this year, I’m not acknowledging the fact that I’m gaining a ring on my trunk. In fact, I’m staying exactly the same until further notice. Of which you will get none, mind you.

I won’t miss you, cake. I won’t miss you, party. You’re a negligible sacrifice to remain at the dawning of my own Aquarius age forever.

Birthday? What birthday? I’m eternal. Don’t argue with me.

And swish swish! That’s the end of that. Carry on.

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May 02 2010
1 Comment
A Day in the Life

Sweaty in the City

For my regularly scheduled monthly blogpost, I’d like to complain. Actually, I’d like to be asleep. But because I don’t have a choice in that matter (reason to follow), I figured complaining was the next best option. Yes, I learned that process of deduction in law school. You should be very jealous.

Complaining isn’t exactly my bag – oh, hush; I’d liken it more to “a critical eye,” mind you – but at 4:40 a.m. the morning of a bike race, you’re only getting complaints out of me.

Houston, gawd. It’s hot already! Muggy, sticky, peel-yourself-off-things-and-out-of-things nasty. Change-your-t-shirt-three-times-a-day gross. Walk-around-your-house-without-pants-and-mulling-over-going-outdoors-that-way yucky. And it’s only May 2nd.

I mean, seriously, Houston. Why are you doing this already? My appetite has shriveled to nonexistent, I clearly can’t remain in REM mode for an extended period of time, and unless I plan on swimming in the sweat pools forming around my hairline, I can’t exercise, either. I am useless. A slug! A sloth! A waste! Nice time for a bike race, eh?

My air conditioner is happily humming along after a long winter hiatus, my fan is merrily churning loop after loop of recycled air, and yet, my body temperature rivals a sidewalk at noon in July. Because it’s damn, damn hot.

I’m here to tell you, Houston, that you’re being a real stupidhead. Yeah, it’s almost 5:00 a.m., and yeah, that’s all I’ve got. You stupidhead.

I’m no native Houstonian; this much is true. I would normally call myself an acclimated Midwestern expat, under better circumstances. The Texas transition from pleasant to insufferable in May is one with which I am intimately familiar. Three years in, and you’d think I’d have gotten it right by now. You’d think.

And yet, at every reliable onset of every predictable humid snap, at the cusp of every pre-summer, it never ceases to amaze me just how icky a city can get. And how ill-equipped for this meteorlogical torture test I am.

Sigh.

I’d sign off with “good night,” but let’s be honest – this is probably “good morning” more than anything.

Argh.

Oh well. At least you can type out entire blogposts on your iPhone without pulling out that leg-scorching laptop, right?

There I go, making lemonade outta lemons already.

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Apr 02 2010
4 Comments
Navel-Gazing, Refining Fayza

Now look what you did.

Mistakes. They’re a fact of life. Unavoidable, sometimes excusable, always inevitable.  Whether they’re grand or dismissible, whether they’re rectifiable or complete, they happen.  We’re not born perfect, with perfect brains or perfect thought processes or perfect reasoning skills or perfect processes of deduction.  And so we make them.

What we do following a mistake is really where all the difference in the world rests.  Do we beat ourselves up over it, damning our actions and berating our choices, dwelling on what we did, refusing to move forward? Do we wonder in bewilderment how it happened, yet continue doing the same thing we were doing before we made the mistake, sure to repeat it again because we are unable to see? Do we evaluate what we’ve done, take away the tough lessons, and correct our methods for the future, secure in the fact that what occurred had meaning for occurring?

For as flighty and impulsive as I am (or may seem), I am generally decent at learning from my mistakes.  It might take a little while – I tend to be stubborn or bullheaded, at times – but I come around.  Sometimes in my own time, sometimes in good time, but more or less, in time.  I am a firm supporter of the mantra, “Everything happens for a reason,” and as long as I can find a reason, I believe it.  The desperate brain will concoct the strangest of things when it wants to see the light.  But mostly, humans thrive off of having the answer.  I’m no exception.

Some mistakes, however, plague me. Even if I logically understand why I did what I did, and why it needed to happen the way it did, I still have trouble letting a few particularly notable mistakes go. I ask myself how I could’ve been so stupid, why I simply didn’t listen to myself, how I could’ve been so numb to the reality.  I don’t come up with excuses. I knew better. I continued anyway.

Because, as you can see, although I’m fully capable of processing why something happened and I’m also quite adept at making sure I will avoid said circumstances or situations again, I kick myself over and over for some mistakes.

No, it’s not healthy.  And no, it’s not fair.  And even though it’s a fact of life that mistakes will come and mistakes will go, sometimes, regret lingers far longer than any ol’ lesson ever does.

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Mar 18 2010
3 Comments
A Day in the Life

A-ha! 30. You are so mine.

Photo by Karen Walrond.

Hello.

Have you seen me lately?  Have you talked to me lately? Have you smelled my aura lately?

Yup. By golly, they’re all sprayin’ and emittin’ the same thing.

I. Am. So. Happy.

Around my 30th birthday, things got messy.  Okay, let’s be honest. Shit hit the fan.  Wonderful women a few years my senior were telling me, “30 was the best year of my life.” But I wasn’t seeing it or feeling it.  I thought, “Dammit to hell, 30 sucks!”

But there’s something that comes with getting older, you know. It’s called wisdom.

I began to realize that 30 was turning out to be a massive disappointment because I let it be so.  I LET IT BE SO.  It was my fault.  I allowed my 30th year to progress in a sucky way. Therefore, it was my responsibility to take back 30, and fucking fix it.

And damn skippy, I did.

It’s March. I’ve been 30 since October. I am happy. Very happy. So, so very happy. My life in all respects is great. No, no, not just great. Fantastic! Amazing! Fabulous! Phenomenal!  Astounding! Terrific! And it’s taken me this long to shout it from the rooftops simply because I’ve been too busy.  Too busy being happy.

It’s been years since I’ve been this happy.  Wait.  Have I ever been this happy?  It’s not quite clear.  The happiness is clouding my vision.  And I’m not turning the misery windshield wipers on.

While I’d love to dote on the science behind why I wasn’t happy and how it came to evolve that I was happy, truthfully, I’d rather focus my happiness-blurred vision on the present than fixate on the past.  Because the here, the now makes me happy.  Genuinely happy.  And I’m gonna roll with it.

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Dec 09 2009
3 Comments
The Best of 2009

Best of 2009: The Best-of Ketchup Edition. Yes, already.

Uh. As might be painfully evident to the naked eye, I’m woefully behind on the blog challenge.

I have a defense, though, I swear.

Well, you see, there was this beautiful, raven-haired fairy – she kinda looked like pre-Whenever Wherever Shakira, truth be told.  She fluttered up to my earlobe, her hair falling over her delicate little face, and whispered in my ear, “If you eat this cube of cheese-flavored sugar, all your dreams will come true.”  I know there’s no such thing, and it was really mean of her to taunt me like that.

I said, “Listen, lady, your hips may not lie, but your mouth does.  Sugar never tastes like cheese.  And I certainly don’t need any sugar, anyway.”  She took one look at me, buzzing steadily and glowing merrily. Then she pulled this amazingly iridescent sparkling bat from behind her tiny wings, and clubbed me right over the damn head.

You wouldn’t think something so miniscule would cause so much agony, and yet, there you have it (that’s what she said).

It happened that way.  I kid you not.

December 4. Book. What book – fiction or non – touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

I would generally call myself quite derelict in the “touching reading” department this year.  I spent too much time doing other things that made curling up with a book a luxury for which I longed much more than engaged in.  With that said, I can’t recall any books better than White Teeth and The Princess Bride.  And yes, I read Twilight.  Okay, half of it.  That was all that necessitated my attention.

December 5. Night out. Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?

Ah yes, there were a few good, good times.


December 6. Workshop or conference. Was there a conference or workshop you attended that was especially beneficial? Where was it? What did you learn?

While I loveloveloved NTEN, and I learned oodles and oodles and gobs of practical, useful, invaluable information, there truly was nothing that quite compared to or paralleled SXSWi.

December 7. Blog find of the year. That gem of a blog you can’t believe you didn’t know about until this year.

If you are gainfully employed at all (hey, stay-at-home-moms, that includes you, too!), and if you count your lucky stars for the black bean burritos at Taco Cabana, you should all be reading and taking notes from Dr. Miggy’s Healthy Blog for Busy Folks on Tight Budgets.  Of all the blogs that pass by my peepers, Dr. Miggy’s blog is the one that I want to bookmark most, and actually try the recipes that she artfully depicts.  She happens to be one of my dearest, most valued friends on this earth, so there’s your disclaimer.  I’m clearly biased in favor of a really effing rad blog.  Sue me.

December 8. Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?

Striking this one.  It’s way too hokey for me.

December 9. Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?


Adventure racing.  And events associated.  Hands fucking down.

What made it the best challenge of the year for me?  You be the judge.

Call it like you see it.  I’m a badass.

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