I am a mom, entrepreneur, occasional blogger, and creator. I recently launched Here Comes the Apocalypse, a self-paced disaster preparedness system with a dark sense of humor. My team and I make up Artsy Geek, a top-ranked Bay Area branding and digital agency.
You have stumbled on my little corner of the internet. Thanks for coming by.
and by cleaning, I mean rinsing out all the Diet Coke from this last weekend spent slinging sponges. I couldn’t find the Woolite, even though I recognize its amazing effect–my carpet just sparkles with clean!
So tonight I was rinsing my carpet, and I came to understand that not only does the Super Sponge really suck, but, no matter how badly one doesn’t want to take it, good advice is both always warranted and relevant.
More to come on my one year anniversary as a sponge sales woman.
Whenever they didn’t speak, Susie’s tattoo itched with a mixture of anticipation and irritation–an expected reaction to such an unnatural separation. This time, however, the snail gathered its home upon its shoulders and made the long, slow trek to take residence in her heart, to keep company its ache from the days of residual regret.
I’m listed in the phone book.
And you can find me if you search my name+Berkeley. I know cause my company’s website got a few hits in February that way.
I don’t know how I’ll ever hide from the Mary Kay lady now.
1. If one clips their toe nails regularly, their socks aren’t wont to get those gaping holes in the big toe.
2. If drinking six vodka tonics and two beers one night lands one in the depths of the H.O., one should deduce that drinking nine vodka tonics and three beers the next night will do the same.
3. Always avoid saying I love you as long as possible.
4. Neglected eyebrows will never pluck themselves.
5. Not only does Schwan deliver delicious ice cream to your doorstep, but it also offers lots of yummy and convenient microwavable party food–the perfect contribution to any friends’ soiree. And they’re hiring. I know cause they have a van parked right outside. It’s going to get a ticket come 9 a.m. for blocking the street sweeper. But I won’t. I learned that lesson.
6. Regretfully, a filing system requires a modest amount of upkeep.
7. America’s Best Value Inn is not, at first inquiry, America’s best value for accomodations.
The most recent self-rejuvenation e-book my parents are reading is requiring them to make a list of all of their possessions. I think it’s part of Chapter Six on understanding how your consciousness is ruled by your possessions. Thankfully, they remark, they have far less fewer possessions as a result of my dad’s perpetual campaigning for donations for Goodwill.*
As a disturbingly time-intensive manisfestation of my Virgo moon, I, too, am undergoing a dramatic renovation to my life. It involves a new cabinet for my yarn (now untangled!! (mostly)), actual effective organization of my art supplies, an eventual closet retrofit, and, most importantly, an elaborate new filing system. I decided to go with the brightly colored hanging file folders and the matching letter sized 1/3 cut files. Yellow makes you wanna clean.** And green is the perfect color for my Botany & Landscaping file.
Erin says to me the other day, pointing to my banker’s box of paper to file, “Why don’t you just set a torch on the whole thing?”
“But you see, an independent sales representative needs to track her expenses.” And it’s true.
But really, does your everyday independent sales representative need a hanging file for every long term friend? Cause I do. I am so unable to part with love letters, paintings, old Kingman social surveys, et cetera. Everyone’s file will be complete with an internal organizational structure dividing the memorabilia into Photos, Postcards, College Notes & Homework, whatever.* There will probably have to be a more general Misc. friends: 1995-2000. I’m not even sure everyone will get their own internal folder within that category. Hopefully.
This filing system solves so many of my problems. Today, for instance, I came home to a bank statement. With my new filing system–after opening and giving it a quick run down to assure its accuracy–I can just stick it in the Co-op section of Banks. I’ve recently realized that I make a penny a month on the $45.00 I deposited in the Young Savers Bank Account I started my first year of college. I’m at $45.47 now! Before my recent organizational triumphs, that bank statement would have stayed on my desk for months–years, even. And it’d never have gotten past that fated bankers box.
The filing system not only solves the problem of the perpetual influx of paper (I even have a hanging folder for Ongoing Legal Difficulties!), but it’s also educational. I’ve already begun to look at my bank statements in a new way (i.e., at all); but as destiny will have it, I will finally have easy access to many of the resources my friends and family provide. A Mom file–for instance. A place where I can store her account of the differences of brain neurochemistry between men and women according to whoever wrote that Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus book for easy access. Did you realize–?
Here I was going to provide a real world instantiation of how understanding these differences in neurochemistry can help us all understand both our and others’ behavior. But I haven’t made the Mom file yet, so I think I put her summary back in the Need to File box.
* Hmm…are those donations tax deductible? Are the broken computer parts I left in the co-op free pile tax deductible? No, seriously. Please, can someone tell me where I can get my actual tax questions answered? Is it bad for me to deduct as expenses nearly 4/5 of my total reported income in sales this year?!
** According to me, on why my yellow PVA mop is better than the competitor’s otherwise identical green PVA mop. It’s amazing how much the color of a mop head can confuse the general public!
*** The actual internal divisions will be determined on a case by case basis. And I’ve tried to give g. back that problem set from CS61C, but she doesn’t want it. Even though she got 100%. I have a folder for A Papers. I guess maybe I could give her a subsection of that one.
I read Brautigan’s In Watermelon Sugar. I read it about once a year. Coincidentally enough, it normally happens sometime in the month following February, following the anniversary of that day I ingested my first psychedelic substance and my life forever changed.
I normally follow it with The Sun Also Rises.
The Quick n’ Brite salesman at this latest show claimed to have me figured out. He was right, too, to a certain extent. He knew if I was away from the booth, I was either putting on my long john’s, dumping my buckets or uploading my credit card transactions.
But he didn’t know about In Watermelon Sugar, and its presence as a defining characteristic of my life. There are so few, really. I could make a checklist. That might prove to be a useful commodity for future relationships. A reader, if you will.
that my unrequieted high school crush admitted regret for not having “done it” with me back in high school.
What a world, what a world.
Quick poll:
Do you agree that the pain, and thus lesson, of unrequieted love is unavoidable in any given human life?
I’m really curious. I’m afraid it might just be so.
That is, according to my neighboring vendor at the 2006 Denver Home and Garden Show, the Homemade Goods salesman.
“It either is or it ain’t.
You either will or you won’t.
You either do or you don’t.
You either are or you ain’t.”
Notice the prevelance of the contractions. It did help me out of a tough spot though. I’d been biting back tears, and, upon receipt of this advice, shut myself in a bathroom stall, cried a little and decided that if I either do or I don’t, I’ll by-God-be-dead-before-I-don’t!
I gave him my email address later. The real one. We’d had good conversations about nutrition and the fate of humanity. It really had been a fairly boring show.
And cold. I’m thankful to be home. Finally!
Anyway, after I had given him my email address–the real one!–he said,”You know, I get pretty nasty over email.”
He’s been divorced as long as I’ve been alive. A pig valve keeps his heart beating. He’s a veteran of some war, and he doesn’t eat coconut cause there’s too much cholesterol. I love coconut. And I’m shocked. “So, you’ll send me all those links to your favorite porno sites?” I’m cool, you see. Down with the shiznet.
“No, not that kind of nasty.”
That was that. I await the results. As a handy man, he only uses email early in the morning, so we shouldn’t have to wait too long. I need to email him to make sure I got the Meaning of Life right, anyway. Wouldn’t want to misquote the Meaning of Life.
WHAT?!! Someone sent me flowers?! On Valentine’s Day?!!!!
What universe is this, and where is my head and my ass? I’m confused about that right now.
