Tuesday, November 07, 2006

It’s raining again, Supertramps


Sometimes you just coast along for days, months, even years and nothing exciting happens. Then all of a sudden, you experience a massive downpour of excitement that generally lasts for approximately three minutes before you return to your drought. Well, welcome to my downpour. When most of you finish reading this, you’ll probably scratch your head and wonder where the aforementioned excitement is (except for maybe one thing that actually really is exciting). But that should give you some insight as to the state of my drought.

In any case, let’s start with my exciting Saturday. I’m sitting on Fillmore Street having coffee with the lovely DShaw and CEinie. C, eagle eye that she is, brought a potential star sighting to our attention. D and I rushed into Noah’s Bagels to see what was truly an amazing site for our uncelebrified San Francisco.

There she was, barely past five feet tall, practically drowning in an oversized hoodie, oversized white sunglasses, leggings, flats and a ginormous bag. Let me give you a little clue (if the picture isn't enough): she’s worth billions and she had (has?) an eating disorder. And Uncle Jesse wasn’t present to monitor her eating. That’s right. I saw. An Olsen twin. Can you even fucking believe it? Even better – she was ordering half a dozen bagels. Get your carb on, girl! The ridiculous part of this story is that I’m 25 days shy of being somewhere in my (mid to late) 30s yet I ran into Noah’s Bagels to get a glimpse of her. Oh the shame! But seriously – an OLSEN TWIN. That’s rich.

The second piece of exciting news is actually reallllllly exciting. It’s so exciting that I need a moment to place the html commands for bolding and italicizing around it. And I need to hit the caps lock button. Here goes: I’M LEAVING ADVERTISING. Again I say, can you even fucking believe it?? For something I’m SO (all caps) excited to do. I’m actually going to write – lots of words, not just taglines and lame credit card copy – for a women’s website that’s launching on January 1. The crazy part is that my collective “learning experiences” (i.e, failed marriage, online dating shenanigans, yo-yo dieting, crazy in-laws, proclaiming that I’ve found the perfect exercise for my body, leaving a career in my 30s) will finally pay off: I’m going to be the Relationships editor and the Body & Soul editor. No, seriously. I am. Really. I know it seems odd given what you know about me from this blog, but it’s true. When I sat down and made a list of things I’d like to write about and talk to women about, those themes came up over and over again. God help the women who read this site – and I hope there will be gazillions. Our mission is to empower. Can I empower? I hope so. At the very least, I think I can make a few people laugh and go “What the fuck was that girl thinking??” In any event, from what I can tell, I’ll be working with an amazing group of really smart women (and probably a few men too, but I haven’t come across any yet).

I have to admit, it felt a little strange to have spent so much time on creating a portfolio, traveling around the world, freelancing, sacrificing and working like a pack mule to walk away from something that used to be such a big deal to me. But the strangeness went away after about 7 seconds. The truth is, I like writing. Lots of words. Not just three. I don’t get to do that in advertising. But this door probably never would have opened if I hadn’t gone to portfolio school because I’m not sure I would’ve found my way back to writing at all. (My dream as a 16-year old: to be the editor of French Vogue. Yeah, I got a little off track, with writing, with my French lessons and with fashion.) And I never would’ve had any writing samples without this blog, which I owe to the wise guidance of my girl Crazy V (moment of reverent silence in her honor), or without any of you fine people who actually read this thing. So thank you. You guys are really taking the sting out of the (insert enormous monthly dollar sum here) I pay monthly to those hideola student loan people.

So that’s my downpour.

Oh, I also bought a bike, which would’ve been the highlight of my quarter so far had I not spotted an Olsen twin and just landed a great new job.

Now, if I could somehow be lucky enough to spot either George Clooney, Colin Firth, Chris Martin, Clive Owen, or Cillian Murphy buying a Noah’s Bagel, my life would really and truly be complete.

Please, karma, hook a sister up.