First day of the real, full-time, PERMANENT job

Guess who’s not an intern anymore? That’s right, I’m back to plain old Stupid New Girl. New agency, new stories and holy bloody hell, I have my own cubicle. It’s been so long since I haven’t sat at a temporary space that I kind of forgot what to do with so much of my very own dull, gray wall space. But as the morning wore on, I felt a familiar comfort or two. Frozen air-conditionified nose and toes by mid-morning. The sweet shivers up and down my spine every time I open a new Word doc. Some sort of office technology (voicemail in this case) that abhors me already.

But the most important one happened before I even got to the office. There I was, driving and rocking out to my Let’s go kick some ass! tunes. Excited, pumped up. I was ready, damn it, so ready!

Ready to make a wrong turn. Two minutes away from the new office and right where two highways meet with all kinds of weird loops and turns. Outstanding! And strangely comforting. Because after three years of life upheaval, my ditzy mistakes still remind me of who I am and have always been.

And thank God. This blog would be awfully boring otherwise.

I wrote this post on the actual first day of my new job, which was about a month ago. But no worries - at one month, I'm still new, stupid and girl. And I promise to keep the stories coming.

Ready to move on. To first grade.

Just another typical father-daughter exchange.

ME: Why would you have a layover all the way over there? Asia is east of here.

DAD: West.

ME: East. You know, the east meets west thing.

DAD: Asia is to the west.

ME: I’ve seen a map. North America is way on the west and Asia is way on the east.

DAD: You’re talking about one of those flat maps?

ME: Yeah, like that big one in our house growing up. North America is one the left side and Asia’s on the right side.

DAD: Left? Right?

ME: Yes.

DAD: bebe Me. The EARTH. IS ROUND.

And I haven’t gotten my wise self up off my knees ever since

You may remember when I was passing off assignments from my writing class as original blog posts. One of the assignments I didn’t post was a letter to my future self. Partly because I thought it might be fun to post it in the future, but mostly because I’d forgotten to do the assignment.

I tried to write a letter to my past self once, but writing a letter to someone that dumb wasn't so fun after all. But writing a letter to a hypothetically wiser version of myself? Kind of intriguing. I started making mental notes as soon as it was assigned. I had a million ideas flying around in my head. But on the day we were supposed to bring it in a stamped, addressed envelope so that our teacher could mail it to us sometime in the future, I was hanging around in the creative lab when a girl in my class asked me about my letter. I cursed my inner ditz, looked at the time and ripped a 4X6 sheet of paper out of my notebook. And this is what I scribbled:

Hello there you (me),

You’ve got to be smarter now than you were on Nov. 25, 2008, that being the day you were supposed to turn in this letter to yourself and then you forgot because you are ridiculous. So this is all you get.

Get down on your knees and thank God and the Universe that you are NOT. IN. SCHOOL.

Get to work.

I got this little missive in the mail recently. I remembered something about having a whole lot of brilliant ideas that I’d planned to write about until I ran out of time. But I couldn’t remember any of those ideas.

And then I thought, Ideas, Schmideas. That second paragraph nailed it.

Not yet a woman

A little earlier this summer, I was lounging on my sofa watching TV when I felt a snap! under my shirt. Startled, I sat up in utter confusion. Because the snap felt a lot like my bra had just broken in the front. MY bra. The one that covers my very flat chest. A flat chest that apparently just BUSTED OUT OF ITS BRA.

Well, I thought, I’m finally turning into a woman.

So a few days later, I went to Victoria’s Secret.

ME (with unbridled pride in my new womanliness): Hello. I need a new bra. You see, I busted out of my old one.

SALESPERSON: Ah. I see. What size do you wear?

ME: 34B

SALESPERSON (eyeing my bust suspiciously): Ok, but it looks like you might need a bigger cup size.

ME (beaming): Wonderful. Well, I’ll show it to you when I’ve tried it on.


Standing in the fitting room, wearing one of the 34B bras.

ME: Well, here it is. What do you think?

SALESPERSON: Ah yes - you’re going to need a smaller cup. I’ll just bring around some A cups.


Nope, still not a woman.

That’s alright because I like the way it hurts (the last sappy intern moment)

About a year ago, I graduated. I had a complete portfolio. It won a national award. My teachers told me I knew what I was doing. Professionals told me I knew what I was doing. I told myself I knew what I was doing. But actually, I wasn’t all that certain if I, you know, knew what I was doing.

It took me sixteen years to trust my gut as a violinist. And I still remember the moment it happened. It was right before I graduated from college. I was being torn down and insulted by my studio teacher. He was not a teacher I’d chosen. He was a teacher who had been brought in to fill the position of the teacher I did choose. She’d passed away the year before. And as I stood there, listening to this new teacher who’d known me for less than one year, I suddenly knew. I just knew. That he was a violinist with an opinion that was different from mine. Not a teacher who I had to believe because I didn’t know enough yet.

As soon as I started the creative program in grad school, I started wondering when I’d feel that way as a copywriter. It didn’t happen when I graduated. Or won awards. It didn’t happen when I landed the internship and started working. I felt ok, confident enough. But I didn’t know.

Until the last part of my internship when two things happened. The first thing was that I created an ad campaign. Not for work, but for my personal portfolio. Just me and my art director from school who I’d roped into helping me in exchange for inordinate amounts of coffee and Eatzi’s. This was not just a new campaign, but one that included more than a paragraph of copy. One that veered from my usual funny, sassy or tongue-in-cheek into the rarely explored heartfelt. It was unfamiliar and it was painful. I spent evenings and weekends staring at a blank page, breaking out into a mournful “I SUCK” or two (hundred). Then starting all over again. And again. And again. You know, the usual. But this time, my art director and I couldn’t count on office hours and weekly in-class critiques to help us annihilate the bad ideas and play “keep or kill” with my copy. We had to trust our instincts.

Then it came time to show it to someone else. I chose to unveil this new unfunny, uncheeky campaign to the mid-level copywriter on my team at work. My heart was so far up my throat that I could taste my aorta. Unfortunate since I also felt like I was going to lose a week’s worth of lunch. I braced myself for bloody murder. Which is why I wanted to write her into my will when she liked it. Really genuinely liked it. And everyone else that saw it – including the president of the agency – liked it too. And that is when I started to trust.

The second thing that happened was alarmingly similar to the violin situation. Except that this time, my portfolio and ideas were being lacerated by someone I have long admired and respected. Even revered. So you’d think I’d have been on my knees, peeling fragments of my heart off the floor. But I wasn’t. And somewhere amid hearing the word “WRONG” over and over again, that feeling finally came. I thought of all the work I’d been doing at my internship. Work that was accepted, purchased, produced. I thought of the new campaign that had just bled out of the pores of my brain. And I looked at the portfolio that he found so vile. And I still liked it.

Then I knew. This person is not a god. He is a talented and successful advertising person with an opinion that is different from mine. Good for him. But good for me too. Because y’all, I know I have a lot more to learn. Years of colossal failures and small triumphs more to learn. But I’ll be damned if I let myself believe I don’t know a bit about what I’m doing right now.

Significant Intern Moment #5+

Truthfully, most of my significant intern moments were boringly sappy. And while it's SO much more fun to self-deprecate, I suppose I should write a bit about the boring sappy too. One reason being that apparently, when a blonde, girl-pop-lovin’ eternal optimist gets too carried away with her dark black self-deprecating humor, people start to worry. Too much cognitive dissonance (yeah, that’s right - I went to GRAD SCHOOL. If I don’t get to spout off an impressive academic term here and there, what’s in it for me?). So sit back and enjoy a little sweet:

ZSA ZSA ZSU
Sometime during that first week of my internship, I sat at my little intern desk juggling a handful of impossible deadlines and cranking out all the crap headlines that pop into my brain before the acceptable ones start taking shape, when I had a thought that I have never ever had, not even once, in all of my 34 years of living: I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this. And I stopped cold to make sure I’d heard my head right. I’d heard people say this before, but I kind of thought it was a myth. Something people said just because it was a thing to say. Much like I thought being in love was a myth before I actually fell in love for the first time. But, you know what? It’s not a myth. You really can enjoy a job that much. I felt it from head to toe. And it was about time.

WORKING IN THE TRENCHES
A creative intern at this particular agency is not a coffee-making grunt doing stupid jobs. From day one, people treated me like a real person. Like a regular, full-time (albeit junior) writer - same assignments, same expectations, same level of trust and respect. Seven different creative teams genuinely trusted Stupid New Girl to work everything from print to broadcast to online for eight different clients. Including the direct mail campaign where I got to work with a full-time art director on everything from conceptualizing to presenting to the client to getting several pieces produced. And the new web page launch where I was the only writer and only creative and got to present to the client all on my own. It was nice to get things purchased and produced, but even better to learn how and when to stick up for my ideas and push back to the client.


BLOODY HELL, PEOPLE RESPECT ME!
There was the art director from that direct mail campaign who had to put up with every layer of my personality - the new girl freak outs, the early-morning cheerleaderese, the ditziness. I knew we’d gelled as soon as she felt comfortable enough to tell me to “shut up and work please” and to ask me if I could POSSIBLY wear anymore rhinestones. But she also told me that I knew what I was doing, that I was a great writer and that she depended on me. Me!

There was my boss who continually praised me for my writing progress and more importantly, my good work ethic and positive attitude. The last two being even more important to me than being good at writing copy. I'm scandalously dull that way. And when I told him that I found the 45-minute, early morning creative status meeting “fascinating,” I think he fell out of his chair. On his way down, he added, “God bless your bright-eyed eagerness. Don’t ever lose that.”

And there were all the other wonderful creative directors, writers, art directors, account planners and managers that believed in me and encouraged me until the very end. They will never know the significance of that to me. Any copy I might have written for them could never be an equal payback. I can only hope that someday, I will pay it forward to some other clueless intern. Preferably one who wears a lot of rhinestones, takes the stairs to the wrong floor and then wonders why she can’t find the conference room that was there just the other day.




P.S. And just when you thought I couldn’t spin any more sugar, I have one more sappy moment to post. Watch this space.

Significant Intern Moment #4: Some like it corny

You may or may not be wondering what exactly happened next in the Scriptwriting Sink or Swim. I’ll tell you anyway. I swam. And I paddled and floated right into the next Significant Moment.

You see, what happens after you read your scripts aloud to the room is that every person at the table takes a turn to critique each script. And this is when the opening line of one of my scripts was raved over by half the room (“Perfect opening line!” “Makes me hungry!” “Takes me right there!”) and hated and spat upon by the other half. One of those being the copywriting creative director who has a reputation of telling it like it is and who I’m pretty sure, wanted to throw up right there in the room. Something about the corniest, cheesiest line ever – one that reeked of advertisingese.

And while he was losing his breakfast in the corner, I was glowing. I’d polarized the room! Hell yeah.

Significant Intern Moment #3: Scriptwriting Sink or Swim

In all the time I was in school, learning how to create ads, I wrote one TV spot. More print ads than I can count, a whole lot of non-traditional placements, some online pieces, a few radio spots and one TV spot. And I believe my teacher’s comment was something like, “How is this interesting?”

So when I got my first TV assignment about a month into my internship and found out that the first creative internal would be in two days, I felt a tiny bit out of my element.

And when the team called me two hours before the internal was scheduled to start and told me that they were just going to go ahead and start NOW instead, I felt a whole lot out of my element. So without any time to ask anybody how one was supposed to present a TV script in a professional agency, I walked into the room. And with this being one of the agency’s biggest clients, that room was pretty bloody full. A few planners, a few managers, the principal on the account and the two creative directors on the account. And me, the clueless intern clutching three raw TV scripts in hand, waiting for my cue to present, and acting as if my brain wasn’t screaming: OMG, I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I’M DOING. HOLY CRAP, HOLY CRAP, HOLY CRAP!

And that, y’all, was how my 2nd, 3rd and 4th TV scripts met the world.



Also, I’m not going to lie. I LOVED it. This kind of delicious adrenaline being a performance major’s crack and all (not the right reason to choose a degree in music, by the way.)

Significant Intern Moment #2: Crickets and Tumbleweeds

On the very same day that those first headlines were slaughtered , I was at the internal creative review for that same client – an internal creative review being the equivalent of portfolio class at school except that my words and ideas were up to be crucified by real-life creative directors plus account managers and planners.

So there I sat as the principal account manager peered at one of my headlines and said, “I love the thought, but the line… it just doesn’t have enough… something.” Not to be daunted, I said, “I have more.”

And the wonderful, wonderful copywriting creative director that was working with me on this project said, “Yes, yes. She has more. Let’s let her read them.”

At which time the entire team turns, looks and listens expectantly. The newest little copywriting intern at the center of attention and the wonderful, wonderful copywriting CD nodding encouragingly.

So I read one.

Silence.

I read another.

Silence.

I read two or three more in a row without pause. Crickets. Tumbleweeds. And more crickets.

And that afternoon, my skin proudly grew one more layer.

Off the bench

A week and a half into my internship, it happened. What every little copywriter who has ever thought she might work in advertising daydreams about – the day when you offer the work that you wrote with such care and affection up to the client and watch as they shoot a bullet in its heart.

Every single one of your headlines murdered, swift and brutal.

It was a moment that was simultaneously totally sucky and completely euphoric. Yes, I said euphoric. Because that, my friends, is the moment you know you’re in the game.



More significant moments in The Internship to come.

And I still don't got milk

Milk tastes like nothing.

That’s what I told my mom at the age of three when she asked me why I gagged every time I tried to drink some.

I was the kid who was drinking pickle juice, sucking on lemon slices, craving black licorice, guzzling root beer, devouring ginger, licking the flavor off salt ‘n vinegar chips (only available in Canada at the time), and of course sinking my teeth into bitter chocolate. I wanted sour. I wanted bitter. I wanted spicy, extra salty, and super sweet. And all the combinations of the above.

I am now the adult who is drinking pickle juice, craving black licorice, downing root beer, you get the picture. I don’t suck on lemon slices anymore, but I do prefer an Amstel Light with four or five green olives stuffed down into the bottle.

I’ve gotten used to the looks of horror and disgust. It embarrassed me a bit when I was little, but then I started feeling proud. I’m not afraid of taste, I cry. I like my food the way I like my life. With some kick, some edge, and some ferocity along with the super sweet. I am a real woman.

That is until I had a conversation with a couple of coworkers recently and learned about supertasters - the superheroes of taste. Born with more taste buds than the rest of us and the special power to experience flavors more intensely. They’re out there tasting flavors in broccoli that my simple tongue can’t even begin to comprehend. It turns out that I'm not so fierce after all. It’s just that I was born with maybe ½ of a taste bud. I am not brave, I am not super. And, I am a second-rate taster.

Off to drown my sorrows in dark chocolate covered black licorice, salt ‘n vinegar greek olives and a cocktail of pickle juice, root beer and ginger ale.

To all the art directors I’ve ever exasperated

I’m sorry. I didn’t know. But I’ve repented and I’ve changed my ways. Do you see it now? One space after a period at the end of a sentence. ONE. You may thank the proofreaders at my internship who catch every single one of my evil sins and then tell my art director who was the first one to finally grab me by the arms and say, “EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU DO THIS? I HAVE TO CHANGE IT.” God bless her.

So please forgive me. And maybe give me a break? I learned to type on a typewriter for Pete’s sake. I used to get a pat on the back and a cookie for remembering two spaces.

My eyes only, never my heart. So there, God & ESPN.

With genuine respect for all the men (real and fantastical) in my life, I’d like to share a story called, Why Professional Athletes Start Thinking They are God & ESPN’s Gift to Women.

I would first like to say that I am not a girl who scopes out men at all times. Not when I’m by myself, not when I’m with Significant Man, not when I’m with my girlfriends, not when I’m with the gay men. Never. I know it makes me somewhat boring, but I’m just not that girl. I’ll admit that I have a bit of a weakness for athletes when they’re out on the court/field/ice. But still, if I’m at a game, I’m not there to look at men. I’m there to scream, cheer and watch a game. Also, I happen to take some pride in not being one of those girls who contributes to the tragically inflated egos that result from Why Professional Athletes Start Thinking They are God & ESPN’s Gift to Women. And no, the Dirk thing doesn’t count. His ego is just fine and if you try to argue with me, well then you will lose.

So a couple of weekends ago, I went to a Stars game. Sure, they were probably going to get their asses kicked by the Colorado Avalanche, but a simple fan like me is just happy to be at a game. Especially when I’m sitting third row from the glass and 10 ft. from the penalty box. Eye contact range.

So there I am, sitting next to the Boutique VIP who so generously shared those great seats, yelling for the Stars, making some noise, wearing green. But I’ll be damned if within the first ten minutes of that game, someone wasn’t sent to the penalty box for fighting – a certain #15 of the Colorado Avalanche. And y’all. As soon as he took off his helmet, revealed his sweaty blond hair and skated into that penalty box a mere ten feet away, I took one look at the blue-eyed, 6-ft warrior on ice (oh yes I did write that) and my eyes popped out of my head. Popped. Out. Of my head. I nearly bruised Boutique VIP’s arm and knocked her out of her seat, screaming, “LOOK AT THE HOT GUY IN THE PENALTY BOX! LOOK! LOOK! LOOOOOOOOK! HE IS HOT. HOLY, BLOODY HELL, HE IS HOT!” God bless the people sitting around me for not throwing me out on the ice. Especially since he was sent to the box a couple more times (#15 is a hell raiser) and they then had to hear me yell, “MATT HENDRICKS. HIS NAME IS MATT HENDRICKS! #15!” and “HIS EYEBROW IS BLEEDING. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING SO DAMN HOT?”

In one afternoon, the girl who never scopes out men reverted back to a boy-crazy teenager. And another pro athlete was wrapped up in a bow and dropped in the lap of my eyes. The tag attached said, “Dirk, Matt. Stop lying to yourself. YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE GIRLS. Love, God & ESPN.”

A brand I can trip over

As part of our creative internship, we make what we call a self-promotion piece. It’s a way to think about how we brand ourselves and how to represent that brand in a small tangible piece that we can use to get our names and faces in front of creative directors. As usual, I went through a few hundred ideas before settling on this:

HAIKU OF A VIOLINIST TURNED WRITER

That damn violin
it’s strings just give me blisters.
Words don’t butcher skin

-bebe Me
recovering violinist, diehard Longhorn and the newest little copywriting intern

If you need some help, please give me a call. I work hard, I care very much about doing my best and I like to think and write. Also, I’m remarkably good at tripping over invisible dogs.


I laid it out, printed it on glossy cardstock, and then handed one to each of the agency's 30 or so creative directors. I met most of them within a span of two days. That’s a lot of faces to remember in two days. You can see why I'm terrified that I’ll run into one of them and blurt out, “You’re the one with the crazy black glasses!” And then, I will trip and sprain my ankle.

A good place

It’s been too many weeks and not enough posts about my internship. But I have a completely unoriginal excuse that you may or may not accept: I’ve been thrilled, exhausted, in love and wanting nothing more than to spend any free time I have in a selfish state of brainless indulgence. Which does not necessarily include writing for the blog because as hard as it is to believe, I really do use a brain cell or two when I write the cotton candy for the brain.

I have lots of stories to post about the internship, but until I can sit down and craft them in a way that won’t make you nod off mid-post, I’ll start out by sharing a few things overheard that remind me that I’m indeed at an ad agency:

We have similar panties, but our bra is more sheer.

-said in all seriousness by another writer

I made the mistake of going to lunch today.

-said in all seriousness by a brand manager

Now if we can just get the cows to quote scripture.

-could have been serious, could have been joking. I’m still not sure. And said by my brilliant writer boss

Back to bebe

A few weeks ago, I got a text message:

Your bebe vacation is over.

I knew what that meant - word had spread among bebe store managers that I’m out of school, back in town and bringing in a bit of money. And this was their way of welcoming me back. Me and my credit card.

You may remember that before I went back to school, I modeled at local bebe stores for the spring and fall premier collection events. It’s a brilliant promotional tactic: bebe gets real live bodies to model the clothing during the event and models get a nice discount on anything in the store that day. And because the models are carefully-selected, top-spending clients, store managers get to hear a sound that's sweeter than the fluttered sleeves of this knit top that evening: screams of delight from the models in the fitting rooms, credit cards being whipped out at the register and multiple tags being scanned. Sales for them, style for us. Everybody wins.

Of course, the rule is that if in the middle of modeling, you tell the store manager that oh, you think you’ll only buy 1 or 2 items, then even faster than you can say “just kid-” she will strip you down and throw you out of the store in your underwear. Don’t even joke around about it. 

You can bet that I never joked about it. In fact, I’d been modeling and rightly spending for so long that when I moved to Austin three years ago, the Boutique VIP asked me if I’d want to model in one of the Austin stores while I was there.  My reply was, “Um, school remember? I have no mon-“  At which point, she hung up the phone.

But this spring, I was back on the floor in 4-inch heels, showing clients where to find the various pieces I wore throughout the night. My favorite: this smokey rose pleat folded corset. And God bless the store manager for not throwing me out when I asked her which store was carrying bebe Sport these days (the line was discontinued a couple years or so ago) and when I took a whole 60 seconds to unearth my club bebe card from the depths of my wallet.  God also bless her and bless the Boutique VIP for letting me on the floor in the first place. Sure I’m bringing in a bit of income - enough to buy more than two items, but certainly not enough to buy the bagsful and hangersful that I once did.  Ether they really do like me or they’re counting on a future of even more very full bags and hangers.

In return for their generosity (and also just because I love the merchandise), I will now properly gush about a few of the looks in bebe stores right now. Just like old times. 

My favorites: Bold tops and dresses with asymmetric lines and cuts in vibrant colors, including hot pink, yellow, and coral.  Stretchy, snug skinny jeans with rockstar embellishments - I picked up a silver-studded pair. Cropped denim jacket (went for it) and leatherette denim jacket with a wicked cool asymmetrical zipper (lusted after, but didn’t get it this time). Clean pencil skirts and short shorts. Unapologetically high heels and wedges with funky straps and crazy studs/bling. Fun metallic or otherwise shiny hairbands.

More looks: Modern ruffled tops. Fitted blazers and military blazers. Skinny jeans, some distressed, some solid, some with a sheen. Long mermaid dresses. Fedoras with bands.

Now if it would just stop snowing out of the blue around here, we could put our sweaters away and start wearing spring. There's nothing like a few new looks to motivate a girl to look forward to another season of Texas heat. Bring it on.

Stupid New Girl in Adland

Yes, I really did.  I survived the first week of my writing internship at The Ad Agency.  And the only thing I broke was a cowboy boot. 

My brain, of course, is crispy-fried and bulging at the seams.  And I still carry a 7 -paged map of the office every time I leave my desk.  I’ve walked back to the wrong desk (five times and counting) and noticed only when I couldn’t find my handbag in somebody else’s drawer.  I’ve shown up to meetings, certain that I was being hazed (and probably recorded by a secret camera) because no one else was there yet.  Let’s see how long the intern will sit in a conference room all by herself.  And if we’re really lucky, she’ll face the camera and PICK HER NOSE.

But y’all, it’s been fantastic.  Because, well, there’s the most obvious reason - I get to go to work and think of ideas, find stories, craft voices and write.  But also, the culture at this agency is pretty damn great.  The people take one look at me, my maps and my perpetually startled expression and ask how they can help.  When my above-mentioned $30 fake-leather boot came apart at the sole, the girls in the cubicles next to me whipped out the packing tape and helped me tape it back together.  And the founder and principal of this very established agency also sits in a cubicle (albeit a very spacious and cool-shaped one) and he didn’t blink an eye - even seemed thrilled - when I spontaneously walked into his office on my first afternoon and introduced myself as the newest little intern. 

And then there was the first warm and fuzzy moment:  I told someone that, you know, he could just call me Stupid New Girl. And I did NOT get a look of silent horror.  Or awkward sympathy.  Instead, just like that, I got a brand-new nickname: StoopidLee.

To She of the Cool Hats (the creator behind the original best nickname ever) and everyone else there from Event Management Company X:  it’s our people!  Hallelujah, it’s OUR PEOPLE.

Shout out to The Other SNG

To The Girl with the Platinum Locks:


From one Stupid New Girl to another, you rock. I wish I'd have thought of sending YOU a card to the office on your first week of work. But I bet I can SNG you under the table any day.  How many times have YOU walked to the wrong desk and started opening drawers that don't belong to you?

All warm and fuzzy

God & the Universe may have given me a dumb blonde karma, but at least they’ve blessed me with a mother who truly hears me when I self-deprecate.

I’d just sent her an email about how an ad agency had expressed some interest in me and told me they’d call me back the next day.  And I felt pretty good until I found out that they’d also been asking around about my old art director, hoping that we could work together as a team.  So when this agency found out that she is already art directing somewhere else and I didn’t hear back from them the next day, I told my mom that they must’ve wanted her – and I was just included.  Like the plastic fork that comes with the salad.  The sticker on the banana.  The ketchup packet that comes with the burger.

Almost immediately, I got an email back from my mom.  It started with, “Dear Ketchup,” 


And that y'all, is the kind of thing is that confirms that this woman is my own flesh and blood.




P.S. It turns out that I am not a plastic fork after all.  And the good news for y'all is that I will soon  be Stupid New Girl somewhere else.  Get ready.

Once a salesperson, always a manipulative little bitch

Conversation this morning with the sales guy in the next cubicle:

ME: Hey, how are you?  How was your weekend?

congenial chitchat and exchanging of weekend stories

ME: That's great, sounds like a good weekend.  Oh and hey by the way, can you send me the updates for the Top 20 list?

HIM: Wait a minute.  Is that why you came over here to ask me about my weekend?

I guess it takes one to know one and all that.

Just ask Earl Hickey

Dear Person who stole my Beautiful iPod Nano,

I have just this to say:  My karma may be a dumb blonde, but she is real and so is yours.

Love,

bebe Me

P.S.  And even if I do end up finding the shiny pink light of my life under the seat in my car, well then I'm still not going to apologize for writing this note.  Mostly because you don't exist.