Monthly Archives: February 2004

Having blown yesterday napping on & off, I should probably be productive & proactive today.

Yesterday was recovery from the Brownie sleepover. I got about 5 hours sleep, on the floor, surrounded by the other leaders & tents full of giggling 6-8 year olds. At bedtime, it took ten minutes to go from “ok girls, it’s quiet time” to, “[name], shut it!”

I love the kids, I do – Monica (“Barn Owl”) and I were discussing how great it feels working with them. They’re wonderful girls, all of them, and it’s almost therapeutic being with them. You’re so busy with the kids that you forget how stressed you are, or what you’re stressed over. I just don’t love them as much when they won’t shut up and go to sleep – and are keeping the other girls awake.

i might be qualified for bwown owl after all

I wasn’t going to ask to leave New Orleans on the last Sunday night we’re there. I wouldn’t ask Tonya to do that.

But she volunteered – “hey, we could leave early and go to the Church on Sunday night in Dallas”

The Church is the best goth night I’ve ever seen. I have membership to the Mercury in Seattle, but the Church is two rooms, two DJs, catwalks and stairs, hundreds of people. It’s awesome, and I wanted to go while I was there – but I wouldn’t ask Tonya to leave New Orleans early. I love her for offering, because now I can go.

another survey meme

Five years ago today, I was on a Southwest Airlines flight to Amarillo. The memory that comes to mind is the sun on the plane wing, and New Order’s “True Faith.”

I remember staring out the window at the Sangre de Cristo mountains in New Mexico, surprised at how they were completely bare. I’m from the Northwest. My mountains have either trees or snow. And nothing up here looks like Palo Duro Canyon.

I was on this great adventure that day, but I have a weakness for the epic.

Still, I’m not particulary driven this week. I’m kind of coasting. Hello, ambition? Where are you? It isn’t that I’ve lost my taste for power, I’ve just lost my appetite for it temporarily.
minor work complaint

While the MSN servers are offiline, I shall explain the big theory of how everything in my life can be equated to Middle Earth.

Victoria/Oak Bay = Hobbiton (gardens galore)
Vancouver = Eastfarthing (because you have to take a ferry to get to it)
Seattle = Bree (it’s kind of like home but not quite)
San Francisco = Minas Tirith (seven hills instead of seven tiers of city)

That means that L.A. is well into the Morgul Vale, and Texas is off in Rhun somewhere.

Y’know who lives in Rhun? CRAZY GUYS ON OLIPHAUNTS. Replace “oliphaunts” with “monster trucks” and “arrows” with “guns” and you pretty much have Texas right there anyways.

I should probably lay off the Dictionary of Imaginary Places, I know.

Cell phone rings, 312 area code. 312 is downtown Chicago. Only person who would be calling me from there would be the recruiter from Sklar & Assoc., who I talked to in October, for ten minutes, while shopping for dress pants for the Avenue A interview.

There’s another opening at GS&DM in Austin, TX – a full service, national caliber ad agency. It’s an interactive media planner position. It is very much on my career path. In fact, it’s a step or two ahead on my career path – what I do now, for a “real”, respected, creative agency.

Seattle or San Francisco? I’d jump on it with both feet. L.A. even – like the DDB job I drooled over three weeks ago – I’d chase it. But Texas? Austin is the Texan Seattle, but, um…Texas?

Odds of getting this are high – this is the second time they’ve headhunted me for this position. It’s just in Texas, and it’s even stranger – the call should come almost five years to the day from when I moved to Amarillo to start with.

—

Boss just walked into my office. He talked to a big cheese at a casino software company. Apparently, one of the licensees of said software (online casinos license their software from a parent company), who I talked to two weeks ago, told Big Software Cheese that I, Jillian, was very professional and knowledgeable. And that the licensee was impressed. Since the licensee is going to be opening HIS online casino soon, and has a huge marketing budget, my boss is happy. Hooray.

On the Victoria alt-station today:
“Letter from a guy in Langford: ‘Don’t bother going to see ‘Passion’ because the end is a huge letdown. The hero dies'”

And in the New York Times today, “As the Max von Sydow character said in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters,” while watching a TV evangelist appealing for money: “If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”

Oh and:

George W. Bush is Hate

So who wants to recommend a digital camera and/or place to buy one? I found out I’m getting more than expected in commissions this month. So rather than pay down my credit cards & atone for blowing entirely too much money on books/clothes/accessories/video games this month, I’d like to drop $200 on a camera.

Yes, part of this is because I have an Big Stupid Roadtrip Vacation coming up, but there’s other uses:

I’m slightly less angst ridden, but still grumpy as hell today. Some days, I hate the control my female body has over my mind. I’m glad this will all be over in a few days, but I hate going off-the-deep-end-crazy when it’s That Time every month. I don’t like having the chemicals in my brain that far out of whack, to the point where I can’t psych myself out of it.

Anyways, I had a dream sequence last night which involved Benjamin Mackenzie from the OC, so I guess that cheered me up. I’m not particularly enamoured of Russell Crowe – just his “bastard son”. I’ll plan to spend an hour in cardio tonight watching that show, and take extra St. John’s Wort, and hope that all this gets better tomorrow. I have too bumpy a workweek to waste time being stressed.

Besides, today I start the Six Weeks To Vacation plan. Between now and April, I’m planning to drop another ten pounds, get an artificial tan, all that junk. I’m determined to wear a miniskirt and sandals without blinding anyone with pasty white thighs. Secondary effects of exercise and imitation sunshine should also help with the whole “going crazy” thing.

Never, ever buy what is purported to be an “opt-in only” mailing list of “Japanese consumers who have requested adult material” from “some guys in a basement in East Van.”

Result? The porn e-mail got spammed TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE COMPANY WHO ORDERED IT.

Hilarity is ensuing. I cut payment to the boys in East Van for not telling me the list was so low quality & refunded the difference to the company who bought the mailing. I’m so tempted to say, “what did you THINK you were getting for that low a price to that many people?” – but I’m not.

in which jillian responds to psycho client e-mail