Jane Donuts Has Opinions

Shamelessly crib this anti-SOPA letter, and send it to your congressional reps

2012-01-20T11:57:00.001-08:00

My friend wrote a nuanced letter to his congressional rep opposing the SOPA bill, and I'm sharing it with you all so you can send something similar to yours, or to just copy it outright. It's good.

Enjoy. (And in case you need it, here's how to find your rep.)

Hello X,

As a resident in your district, a law-abiding and tax-paying US citizen, a small business entrepreneur and an experienced professional in the fields of technology and media, I would like to add my voice to the millions of others who oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act as it is currently structured, and I strenuously request that you reconsider your support for this bill. I understand that you have received much financial support from entities which support the bill, no doubt motivated by their own short/term financial best interests, but as a servant of the people, I ask that you throw out consideration of the big media lobby (i.e. Hollywood) and simply do what is right, for the people and businesses of the great state of California and the country as a whole.

The truth is that our nation has undergone an incredible amount of new regulation in the past 10 years. From efforts to prevent economic mistakes of the past to those which ostensibly target “terrorism,” the powers of the federal government have been systematically expanded since the turn of the millennium. While many individual bills have been merited, when taken together as a whole, it is difficult to argue that the US federal government has gained increased capacity to limit or postpone traditional American freedoms. SOPA is another entry into this new trend of restriction at the hands of an increasingly autocratic government. Unfortunately, the casualties of this trend are in many cases those entities which we need most to keep this country strong, innovative, informed and moving forward.

While I do not support copyright infringement and I am a firm believer in the just protection of intellectual property, I readily acknowledge that the problem is one of complexity and nuance. The battle against piracy, plagiarism and theft of art is better fought with a well-placed scalpel than the broad-faced hatchet of threats, blanket restrictions and blatant censorship that encompass the proposed SOPA legislation. While its heart might be in the right place, the true implications of SOPA could be catastrophic to businesses and artistic endeavors both here and abroad. And while it may deter some bad people from doing a few bad things, it will undoubtedly deter many good people from doing great things, and contribute to a further weakening of our ailing economy while cutting another rent into our once limitless store of international soft power (i.e. the influence of American artwork, brands and business savvy all across the globe).

Would we give up just a little of this great legacy of ingenuity, resourcefulness and innovation in exchange for a few intellectual thieves behind bars and a bit more money in the hands of some of the world’s most bloated, regressive enterprises? My guess is our founding fathers would be ashamed of any kind of support for this bill. And so should you.

Thanks for your time,
X

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Ring Ring: Guess What, Your Day is F*cked!

2012-01-17T10:49:00.001-08:00

I was having a normal Tuesday morning a couple of weeks ago -- at my desk, drinking coffee, replying to work emails, about to start working on some client-related something or other -- when I got a phone call from my sister. She had called once that morning already, at 7:00, but I didn't answer. I knew that if she was calling again, it was for something urgent.

So I answered this time, and before I knew it, I had been listening to a 15 minute long rant about an argument she'd just had with my mom. There was nothing surprising about the contents of the rant, but what was remarkable was the way it perfectly encapsulated my family's particular brand of emotional dysfunction. Those were 15 minutes that called to mind a lifetime of frustration and familial misery. I'm embarrassed to say this, but I was leveled after that call -- concentration shattered, deep feeling of despair, spirits in the gutter. I don't know if it was just that I'd been anxious about other things and this triggered something larger, but I couldn't get anything done for an hour or so after that.

A close friend experienced something similar the other day when she had a meeting with her bosses and their bosses about a creative project they have in the works. As my friend tells me, this particular project is in horrible shape, but everyone smiled and talked about how great it was, and how it was so amazing and blah, blah, blah. Clearly they were saving face -- a LOT of money is going into this project -- but it was demoralizing to her to see everyone just pretend it all was well and good instead of talking constructively about how they could make it better. But she kept the happy face on throughout the meeting, and when it was over, she went back to her office and cried tears of frustration.

Both of these incidents were disturbing for different reasons, but they reminded me of how hard it is to go about your day when horrible emotional shit happens. Does this happen to everyone? Or just those of us who are perpetually on the verge of a nervous collapse? Mind you, I did recover, it just took a while.

One of the things that continues to bug me about the corporate world is the mask wearing it requires. Over the years I've just started to take mine off, mostly because it exhausts me too much to keep it on and pretend like everything is fine when it isn't. When I graduated from college and got my first job, I was so worried about presenting the right appearance. Wearing the right clothes, obviously, but also talking in the right way and using the right terms suddenly became of paramount importance. (Is there any doubt about why bullshit corpo-speak exists? It's because of insecurity -- people use these words to signify that they're in the know.) Anyway, the more time I've spent in this world, the more I've learned what is and is not essential, and while it is essential to keep a professional appearance, it is not essential to use terms like "decisioning" or "circling the wagons." No one needs to hear that shit.

But I digress. Whether this slow process of mask-taking-off is helping or hurting me is debatable. On the one hand, I put less pressure on myself to feel like I need to constantly be cheerful and approachable -- I'll tell anyone if I'm having a crappy day and that it might not be the best time to approach me -- but on the other hand, these little meltdowns are the kind of thing that has led people to declare that women are too emotionally unstable to be trusted with serious work. I don't believe that is true -- so what if I'm unproductive for a couple of hours every once in a while? It's not like ANYONE else is productive all the time, and anyway, I always make up for it -- but the stigma is troubling. It's not like I'm openly crying at work or anything, it's just that now I know my limits better, and I'll do what I have to to take care of myself first.

I guess I'm getting at something larger here about women in the working world. Stigmas disappear the more you shed light on what's behind them, so hey, maybe it's good for me to openly admit to my ups and downs. I have to imagine I'm not fooling anyone anyway. Over time hopefully my work makes up for it. Now can everyone else do the same so I'm not the only crazy one? Thanks.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Of Drafts and Manicures and Sanity

2012-01-10T22:22:00.001-08:00

I went to a party with a lot of writers the other night. We talked about writing, and how many drafts it takes to get to something that is finished and maybe, hopefully ready to be published. The general consensus: so fucking many.

The piece I'm working on now, for example, is only 4,000 words, but I've been slogging through it for nearly three months. Little by little I am reworking, rethinking, revising, reframing, polishing, making progress. Bit. By. Bit.

But it's frustrating to spend such a long time on one relatively short piece of writing. I don't think there is much I can do to make it go faster, especially considering I am still trying to figure out where my own mind is with regard to the subject.

For me, what makes me think I have a compelling idea for an essay is the way a certain topic will brew inside my head. I started thinking about this one in August or so, and then it marinated for a few months before I even began writing it. I had some things I knew I wanted to say when I started out, but I didn't know exactly where I was going with it overall, and though I've made some decisions, I'm still spinning. Second guessing. Calling bullshit. Questioning everything. By now I've been working on the piece for so long I'm not even sure it's something worth saying to begin with. And then there is the fact that because it's a personal essay, I'm revealing details about my own life. (In this case, they are about some not so good times.) Am I comfortable sharing said details? Are the details themselves too much? What am I gonna do with this piece once it is finished? Send it out, sure, but to where? I have some ideas, but I lack conviction there too.

In short, I find it easy to get lost in my own work, and the questions surrounding it. I'm operating under the assumption that as long as I keep writing regularly and trying to get better and better at the whole process, this will be less of an issue, but sometimes the anxiety, the uncertainty about whether I have any idea what the fuck I'm doing overwhelms me. (This is true not just in writing, but in other pursuits too - I'm a great one for stopping myself in the middle of an enterprise I've spent crazy amounts of energy on and nearly throwing the whole thing out.) The answer is that I probably don't, but I need to do it anyway. You can't let that stop you.

And clearly I'm not going to solve this anytime soon. But you know what helps me feel less anxious in the meantime? Manicures. Yes, manicures. I don't especially enjoy the act of getting them (though yes, the massage part is nice), but I am thorougly in love with the result. In a world where I am constantly second guessing myself and everything I do, I know for certain that I always love a professionally filed and polished fingernail that is surrounded by a smooth cuticle. When I'm properly manicured, I can look down at my hands and think, there, I am a self-possessed woman, a woman who takes care of herself. I know what I'm doing in that aspect. And sometimes that makes all the difference.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Thanks, 2011 -- you were good to me.

2011-12-31T10:43:00.001-08:00

If 2010 was a year of flux, 2011 was a year of...continued flux, I suppose, mixed with a little bit of settling in. I don't really feel like getting too introspective, but suffice it to say that mentally I am in a much better place than I was at this time last year or the year before. Here are some of the things and events that affected/occupied/entertained me.

1. The Nike Training Club App: If you are like me and find weight training essential to looking and feeling good but hate going to the gym to do it because entering the weight room is just such an atrocity, this app is a godsend. It's like a personal trainer - it tells you what to do, how to do it and how long to do it for. But it's free. And it will kick your ass. I completed 3200 minutes of training this year. That's a lot of jump squats, which is to say a lot of pain, which is to say a lot of soreness, which is also to say a lot of muscle. It feels strange to pledge fealty to a dreaded corporation during the year of the 99%, but I have to give Nike credit. This is a phenomenal app and a great service.

2. Breaking Bad: Last summer my brother and I ripped through all four seasons of this grotesque but riveting saga of an ordinary man who tranforms into a depraved scumbag. In the end I found it absolutely chilling and more or less totally implausible, but in the meantime it kept me rapt with attention, and I thought about it a lot. I've been working an essay about the emotional health of men I know that was inspired by this show, and if it ever sees the light of day, I'll have the travails of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman to thank for it.

3. Kurt Vile: I first heard this guy in 2009 through a free Subpop sampler on iTunes, which included the song Overnight Religion, which hooked me immediately. This year he released Smoke Ring For My Halo, and it was on repeat in my car, on my laptop, on my ipod and in my head for most of this year. His sound is reverberating, atmospheric and expansive, his lyrics are ambigous but affecting and he has truly incredible hair. I couldn't get enough of him this year. Play his records in your house, loud, and let them echo in your brain like they have in mine. Sublime.

4. Peet's Coffee in Larchmont Village: Iced coffees. A lot of them. (Plus endearing baristas and some of the best people watching in L.A.)

5. The Lonesome Dove: My dear friend Amy has been bugging me about this book for years, and I finally got around to reading it last spring. It is very long and it took me a little while to get hooked, but it is SO GOOD. Horses, whores, carrots (penises), moustaches, whiskey benders, the great American west. Some of the most memorable characters ever created. Highly recommended.

6. The Hairpin: A delightful, diversionary site for smart, cool women. A great mix of fluff, humor, advice, and discussion. The best commenters on the Internet, for my money.

7. Finding my genre (for now): This was the biggest thing that happened to me this year. For years I've been writing blog posts, journal entries and other littlethings I thought of as trifles, while at the same time trying to force myself into writing in more popular formats like short stories, screenplays, novel, etc. I finally decided to work on some memoir stuff this year and took classes with the fabulous Chris Daley at Writing Workshops Los Angeles, and somewhere along the way discovered that I'm an essayist at heart. Despite having read and loved many essays and essay writers over the years, I never realized this was something you could actually study, write and publish. I had my first piece published this year on Salon.com, have another one coming out soon and a whole collection in the works. It feels good to finally have something concrete to aspire to after all this meandering and searching. I still want to write a novel someday, but, uh, baby steps.

All in all, I feel good going into 2012. Interested to see what's in store.

Happy New Year!

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Top 5 Holiday Moments Chez Donuts

2011-12-30T13:08:00.001-08:00

As usual, I returned to my semi-ancestral home in suburban Atlanta for Christmas this year. This entails gathering a veritable riot of family, which in our case includes nine siblings, four to six siblings in law, depending on wavering marital statuses, two parents, ten grandchildren and various friends and hangers on, for multiple get togethers in my parents' somewhat cluttered colonial house. Always a good time, but never without a good dose of scandal, scuttlebutt and heartbreak. And hilarity. A lot of it.

To wit, here are a few memorable moments from this year's expedition into the holiday melee:

1) Flipping through channels with my parents and my brother and landing on "The Sound of Music" so my dad could hear the Von Trapps sing "Edelweiss", one of his all time favorite songs. We were all together, the Christmas tree was lit, homemade sugar cookies were being consumed. It was an idyllic moment...until the converstion turned to what a notorious "pussy hound" Christopher Plummer had been, and how he'd probably been "porking" both Julie Andrews and the girl who played Liesel (16 going on 17).

2) Sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee with my brother Joey (33) and my niece Madeline (2), while my brother Michael (30) warms up some of my dad's famous goetta. Joey emits a loud fart that echoes against the wooden chair, and says "whoa, what was that?" Maddie smiles and looks over at Michael, notorious in my family for his flatulence, and says "that's my daddy!"

3) Opening gifts on Christmas eve, the family room packed with wine swilling adults, sugar stricken toddlers, overstimulated and underwhelmed teenagers, nutrackers, candy dishes full of truffles, multiple couches, picture frames, candles, mismatched stockings, sparkly lights, bows, ornaments, the whole spectrum of Christmas madness, and one sprawling, ancient black labrador retreiver, Bogans, aka The Boy. I'm in the kitchen pouring myself another glass of cabernet and suddenly a chorus of "ewwwwwws" springs up, followed immediately by a mass exodus from the room. I look over and Bogans has puked up a sizable log of brown, red and green lumps, an accumulation of dog food, milk bones and god knows what other treats people have been slipping him over the course of the evening, because, as my dad keeps saying, "this is The Boy's last Christmas."

4) Asking my 13 year old nephew, Nicholas, what he wanted for Christmas. His answer: a debit card. ! (I later asked my nine year old nephew, Collin, what he wanted, and he said a Kindle Fire. Also !)

5) Looking out the window on our way to Christmas eve dinner and seeing a family standing around on the sidewalk of my parents' neighborhood gawking and taking pictures of a red tailed hawk devouring a small rodent like creature in a nearby yard. Bon appetit!

I can't wait 'til next year.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

A Light in Dark Places

2011-10-19T19:03:00.001-07:00

In the physical and cyberspatial (sorry) nerdville that is Silicon Valley, PowerPoint decks are as plentiful and free flying as fake boobs at a Hollywood casting call.

But there's one that gets more notice than any of the others, and it's by Mary Meeker, a former Internet analyst turned venture capitalist. Each year, she delivers a presentation at the Web 2.0 conference with lots of charts and graphs and stats about the growth of the Internet. It's mostly only interesting if you're in the business, but this year there's a brilliant little nugget that everyone should see.

According to Meeker, a "Mega-trend of the 21st century" is the "Empowerment of People Via Connected Mobile Devices." According to research she cites, 85% of the world's population is covered by commerical wireless signals - that's more than is reached by the electrical grid (80%.) And smartphone usage is also growing at exponential rates, which means that online media sharing is too. Put simply, the ability to share media with each other and media outlets around the world has never been easier, and it's going to get even more so in years to come as mobile devices and wireless coverage continue to improve.

There are tons of ramifications, not all of them positive, but one that is positive is the way it's becoming "hard to hide. The truth is often just a photo/click-send away."

So maybe that's not so good if you're a cheating wife, but think of the implications for enforcing human rights, uncovering corruption, keeping public spaces safe and more. The question Meeker poses is, "is the world on the cusp of being safer than ever?"

It's a good one to ponder. For all the things we'll lose - a certain amount of privacy, the ability to get lost for a while, total anonymity - there are a lot of things we'll gain too. I'm on the optimistic side, as ever. I can't wait to see how things play out.

(And yes, the headline is a Lord of the Rings reference. One of my favorite scenes.)

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Forget the nunnery. Get thee to a commune.

2011-10-16T21:56:00.001-07:00

Every year or so, some highly influential media outlet runs a cover story about how single women over the age of 35 or so would be wise to stop hoping to find a long term relationship. I'm not sure when this started, but the story that really put the genre on the map ran in Newsweek in 1986, and famously declared that a single, college-educated 40-year-old woman was more likely to die in a terrorist attack than ever walk down the aisle.

I'm too lazy to research other examples, but that's the kind of prognostication these articles are built upon. Really uplifting stuff. And also full of hyperbolic shit. Newsweek actually ran an apology for that article 20 years later. And yet the genre persists, and the articles are invariably written by the kind of women they seem hell bent on terrifying.

I didn't start noticing them until my late 20s, at which point I developed an intense fear that this would be my fate too. Nevermind the fact that marriage wasn't something I wasn't especially interested in in the short term, let alone ready for. The fear of becoming one of these single harridans led me to all sorts of insane romantic choices. Specifically, choices to date guys I wasn't attracted to but who I thought might make a good mate in one way or another.

And you know what happens when you date guys you aren't really attracted to? I do. You basically inadvertantly play hard to get because you're genuinely not that interested, which in turn makes them pursue you harder, which makes you continue to entertain them because they're there for the taking and then there are those redeeming qualities that made you consider them in the first place, and then suddenly it's quasi-serious because you're this rare creature that they must win at all costs and it's hard to resist that kind of flattery, and then finally you're in a position of having to break some perfectly nice guy's heart because he was someone you never had any business dating in the first place because you knew from the beginning that it would never work in the long run. (Zooey Deschanel annoys the shit out of me, but 500 Days of Summer actually illustrates this phenomenon pretty well.) (And no, I was not an especially honest, healthy or nice person in those days.)

Anyway, the latest installment of the great "Let's Remind our Fellow Single Women Over 30 That Their Days of Being Considered as Desirable Mates are Laughably Numbered" genre is in this month's Atlantic. It's long and it's depressing, particularly if you're a black woman, and I pretty much knew this would be the case going into it, but I read it anyway. Once you get past all the disheartening statistics and examples of women who've tried and tried and can't find or make a marriage work, it makes some interesting points.

The one I liked best was culled from the work of Bella DePaulo, a social psychologist who studies the single experience. In her view, we're at a point in history where "the cultural fixation on the couple blinds us to the full web of relationships that sustain us on a daily basis." That makes a lot of sense to me. One thing that's always seemed nuts about marriage was how you're expecting this one person to be everything to you. I guess maybe some people get lucky and find someone who does actually do this for them, but it's the exception, not the rule. And the pressure on such a relationship seems like way too much.

In my own life, although I don't have a boyfriend, I do have some very close bonds with friends and siblings that more or less give me what I need in terms of emotional support. That's been the real silver lining to staying single for so long - if I hadn't, I might not have forged these bonds, which would only have put more pressure on the marriage.

I'd still prefer to find a relationship, but I've also realized that given the social support structure I've built - and the hundreds of hours in therapy - I'll be OK without one. So no more stringing the wrong guys along in the hopes that they'll transform into someone I can live with. My bigger worry these days is that I'm so used to being alone that I'm starting to prefer it that way. There are far worse fates than to prefer your own company to that of others, but it is kind of depressing.

The fly in this proverbial honey (R.E.M.-related pun very much intended) is that I do want to have a kid some day, and not only does being a single mother seem like sheer misery, but I also can't afford it. Which means that I either find someone to do it with, or I'll be childless. And that's an experience I don't want to go through life without having. I guess that, as the article suggests, I could team up with some other single people and form some kind of commune-style living quarters, but I don't know, that doesn't seem very appealing either. And that's the problem. I know you have to compromise somewhere, but I have no clue where that might be for me.

I just have to hope I'll know it when I see it.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

In Which Ira Glass Tells Me What I Need to Hear

2011-09-07T08:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I wrote about the frustration I'm experiencing with my work in general. Is it any good, why am I doing this, I suck at revising, etc. Normal creative angst, obviously, but still tough to stomach. I went to bed last night having convinced myself that my ambition far exceeded my talent.

And then this morning I happened to click on this video with This American Life's Ira Glass talking about the creative process. Some great quotes:

"Most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were making wasn't as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short.

...It didn't have this special thing that we wanted it to have. And the thing I would say to you is that everybody goes though that...you've got to know that it's totally normal and the most important possible thing you could do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, every month you know you're going to finish one story.

...It's only by actually going through a volume of work that you're actually going to catch up and close that gap, and the work you're making will be as good as your ambitions."

He then proceeds to play a clip from a terrible radio broadcast he wrote and produced eight years into his career. It's hilariously bad.

I guess the only thing for me to do is just get back to work. Hopefully I'll laugh one day at my older stuff too.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Writerly angst

2011-09-06T18:48:00.001-07:00

Fighting through a super angsty period right now. I thought maybe it was because of the conversation I engaged in with a few of my siblings last weekend about why I would want to pursue writing in any professional way (what was I thinking, didn't I realize it wasn't possible, etc. etc.), but I think it's actually because I have a few pieces hanging out there awaiting judgment.

1. I applied for the Pen Center's Emerging Voices program. It is a longshot, and I've been honest with myself about that fact from the beginning. However, I put a ton of work into the application process, and, of course, I really want it. And I know that they are supposedly notifying finalists any day now, and I hate the not knowing whether I have or have not made it. I wish they'd put up a cut list like when you try out for a high school team. I'd rather be cut than in limbo.

2. I wrote a short piece about 9/11 that I went ahead and submitted to a few online outlets for consideration. Two rejections so far, which I actually feel OK about. It's the ones still hanging out there that make me anxious. It's the waiting. Also, I'm really not sure it's interesting at all. So there's that.

3. My piece about the rise of the use of Botox is being workshopped in my class this Thursday, but I handed it in two weeks ago, so I feel like it's been hanging out there forever. Once again, I don't feel like I have yet developed an internal compass as to what is and isn't good. I suck at revising. I can pour something out there and give it some semblance of shape, but I am not very good at honing in the strong parts and cutting out the weak ones. At least not immediately after writing something.

Oh and also, I have to find a new apartment by the end of the month, my brother/BFF is moving out of the country, and I'm turning 35 in less than two weeks. So maybe those things are making me angsty too. Just a thought.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

On Joan Didion and self-respect and friends with benefits

2011-08-29T21:30:00.001-07:00

I've been reading a lot of Joan Didion lately. Making my way slowly through her essays in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, which are as sharp and relevant as ever. At the moment, I've got an essay on the Botox phenonmenon in the works, and am half assedly working on another one about dating, and feel like such a silly person when I read old Joan. The woman really slices to the heart of things.

Here's a passage from her essay "On Self-Respect" that blew me away:

"People with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named co-respondent. In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues. The measure of its slipping prestige is that one tends to think of it only in connection with homely children and United States senators who have been defeated, preferably in the primary, for re-election. Nonetheless, character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which all self-respect springs."

Damn. I think a lot about how important it is to live honestly, and to be honest about your shortcomings. For one, it's less exhausting than pretending to be someone you're not, but then also it sets a good example for other people. It's refreshing to hear about people you admire, or who seem to really have it together, being utter fuck ups in their private lives. It reminds you you're not alone, and to not judge others too harshly. I need these kind of reminders. I'm too hard on myself, too often comparing myself with others and finding I don't measure up. Which is obviously a short route to misery. (Ahem, comparing oneself to Joan effing Didion being a case in point.)

But I've never really thought about honesty being a key factor in self-respect in such concrete terms. It's true, of course. Taking responsibility for your life is imperative. But one often thinks of it in the more constructive ways - choosing to commit to a job or a marriage or a family or whatever. It's interesting to think of it in terms of the destructive ways too. So you drink too much? Own it. So you still smoke? Own that too. You're overweight because you just can't get it together to be vigilant about your diet? Just own it. Everyone makes tradeoffs.

This is relevant to the dating essay I'm working on, but which I haven't yet gotten to the heart of. My single friends and I often talk about settling. We're in our mid-thirties and are at the point where we don't want to settle - there's no point, we've seen it play out too miserably in other friends' relationships, marriages and divorces - but we also don't want to live like nuns. I'm talking about sex, obviously. And whether to have it with someone you're dating casually, or maybe not dating at all. You can argue that if you find someone to have sex with casually but who you know isn't a candidate for a longterm relationship you're distracting yourself from finding someone who is, but that's risky too. That can lead to long periods of not having sex, which is neither natural nor healthy. So I guess where I'm landing on this is go for it. Have a friend with benefits (that has become such a dreadful, dreadful phrase), be careful, protect yourself and just own it. If executed properly, it builds your character. And your self-respect.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

What to Expect When You're Expecting (a Personal Essay to Hit)

2011-08-07T14:35:00.001-07:00

So, last Saturday afternoon while I was hiking somewhere around 12,000 feet above sea level in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, my first ever published piece went live on Salon.com.

My poor sister Caity sprained her ankle on our way down the trail, so I ran down ahead of her to get the car and drive it to the upper trailhead to pick her up, and when I got back into service range, I checked my email and discovered I had dozens of new followers on Twitter. And that was how I found out it was up.

I'd had no idea it would go live that day, so it was a total surprise. After going six or seven miles in insanely high altitude I was running on fumes, so I was running on adrenaline and panic, but then a few minutes after I picked her up I realized I was a published author, and the rest of the day passed in kind of a blur. Yes, we went to the ER, and yes, Caity will be limping for a couple of weeks, but it was one of the best days I've ever had. And I'm so glad my sister was there to share it with me.

I'd been so worried. Not so much about exposing myself, but about exposing my family. My mom, my dad, my aunts and uncles. So when the comments started rolling in, I didn't even care that some of them were pretty harsh. They were the least of my worries. But they were all over the map - from brutal and derisive to supportive and tremendously insightful. It was overwhelming but in a good way. (And highly entertaining.) I was genuinely touched by some of the comments and emails that came in. It felt good to know I'm not alone, and that some of us tolerate the demands of the corporate world better than others. Some people don't have a choice but to gut it out due to their financial and familial obligations, which fortunately is not a factor for me, but many sent me their best wishes for me to be able continue to make it work. And that's generous and cool, and it warmed my heart.

But the real moments of truth were in the reactions from my family. I'd shown the piece to a few of my siblings, and each one had warned me that my parents might be upset that I had put so much out there about the family. But they were amazing. They loved it. It did, as my mom put it, "sting" at first, but mostly they were excited and proud.

But I knew blowback would come from somewhere, and it did. From my mom's sister, who was (is?) apparently deeply hurt by the way I characterized their family. I think mainly what she took exception to was being described as "round." To which my mother said:

"It takes all kinds of us to make the world go round, round ones are the group I fit into and she does too. Nothing wrong at owning that. We round ones seem to balance out the edgy ones like [my dad]." Damn straight!

My dad also threw in:

"Truth in literary circles is the capturing of what is often thought, but never so well expressed, however piercing it is to those involved. Those on that periphery read at their own peril."

So, crisis averted. I think my aunt will come around eventually, or at least I hope she will. I'm lucky, is all I can say. My family is cool.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Success! Oh my god.

2011-07-24T23:52:00.001-07:00

Big times here. Found out Salon.com will be publishing a personal essay I wrote this week. !!!

I knew the day would come when I would get something published, but I'm pretty stunned it happened so quickly after I started submitting things, and in such a big outlet. It really is a dream of mine come true! I'm somewhere between shocked, ecstatic and terrified. Shocked that this is really happening. Ecstatic for obvious reasons. And terrified because my essay is, well, personal.

I'm fine with the stuff it says about me. It's fairly revealing, but I'm not ashamed of any of it. What makes me nervous is what it says about my parents -- none of it is untrue and it's not at all mean-spirited, but some of it is not especially flattering.

I had this conversation with my brother (another writer) before I submitted the piece, and the consensus was that I had to go ahead and do it, and apologize for it later if necessary. And that's exactly what's going to happen. I just didn't anticipate the guilty conscience I'm experiencing right now. I don't want to hurt my parents. But if I'm going to write about my life - and there's no question that my family will be a big part of it - feelings are going to get hurt sometimes. I've read a lot about how other writers deal with this, and there's no easy answer. As Joan Didion said, "writers are always selling someone out," and that is true as much in fiction as it is in non-fiction, but in non-fiction it's a lot easier for an outsider to tell who's who.

Hopefully in the long run they'll be able to see that I love them dearly but that I need to tell the truth. That's part of the reason I write -- to make sense of things I'm struggling with and sometimes ashamed of. Reading true accounts of other peoples' lives has helped me feel not so alone in this world. Maybe I can help someone feel that way too.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Workout with a Ghoul

2011-07-06T09:40:00.001-07:00

The other day I worked out at the gym in the 60s era condo building where I’ve been housesitting. It’s about what you’d expect from a gym in a building built in 1960s – small, with low ceilings, mirrored walls and outdated equipment.

Seeing as it was a dead time on a Friday afternoon and everyone living in the building is approximately 80 years old, I figured I’d have the place to myself. I planned to do some cardio and a quick shoulders workout via an app on my iPhone. Being alone for this was important, because the workout is kind of embarrassing. (It was only shoulders, so there would be no jump squats or anything really mortifying, but I find all calisthenics workouts kind of tough to do in public.)

So I jumped on the bike, which had a super uncomfortable seat, but was nonetheless a more appealing option than the treadmill from 1984. I had my Kindle and was planning to read and knock out 20 minutes of pedaling as fast and hard as I could. Within five minutes, a man in his late 60s/early 70s came in, smiled and nodded at me, and got on the treadmill. He was wearing jeans and had an old school Sony cassette Walkman. OK fine, I thought. I don’t mind him being in here while I do the app workout. His concentration would be on staying on the treadmill, so that was fine.

And then.

And then a woman walked in. She was terribly thin and dressed all in black, with thick-soled black shoes that added at least three inches to her height. I couldn’t tell how old she was – somewhere between 55 and 80, maybe. Her hair was slicked back in a bun and dyed pitch black, and her face was covered in foundation that was far too light for her actual skin tone. She’d capped off the look with harsh black eyeliner and a garish shade of red lipstick. She looked like an elderly, emaciated geisha.

This being LA, she had a trainer with her. The trainer and I briefly made eye contact, and I tried not to stare as they got started. The guy on the treadmill greeted the woman.

“Hi sweetheart,” he said. “You’re looking great, as always.”

I couldn’t hear what she murmured in reply. But of all the things I could think of to say to that woman, telling her she looked great would not be one of them. To me she looked like a walking fright mask, a perfect extension of what a girl could potentially end up looking like if she bought into all the ‘be-thin and take an inordinate amount of interest in your looks’ bullshit that fashion and beauty culture perpetuates. Of course, this woman had lost perspective on what’s considered attractive to most people, but her appearance clearly reflected that she cared so, so much about what people think about her looks. And that sweet man obviously recognized that and did her a small kindness when he acknowledged them.

Living in LA you do see this kind of thing fairly often – this was an extreme case, but you can set foot in any grocery store in Beverly Hills during daylight hours and find any number of stick skinny women with abnormally smooth foreheads and an unnatural tightness around the eyes. And the lips, yikes. Always with the overly plump lips.

Anyway, I soldiered through my workout, foolish looking though it was, wondering what the woman made of me. I’m not super young and I’m not super thin – both of which I assume are her beauty ideals - but I’m young enough and fit enough. I didn’t see her looking at me, which almost made me wonder if she just didn’t register me at all.

There’s a big chasm between that woman and me both age-wise and philosophy-wise, but the reason her appearance disturbed me is because I’m not exactly free of the beauty culture bullshit myself. The question I always wrestle with is how much maintenance is enough? I watch what I eat, I work out, I wear makeup, I spend money on stylish haircuts and clothes and shoes. But it can be a slippery slope from there. Should I bother covering the gray hair that’s coming in? How about laser facials and microdermabrasion to smooth the lines coming in on my mid-thirties face? After that, what about a shot of Botox? Where’s the line? I’m on it, I know that. Coming right up to the edge.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Are our favorite writers acknowledging truths we can't bear to acknowledge ourselves?

2011-05-15T15:51:00.001-07:00

Haven't been up for blogging lately because I've been hard at work on writing essay and memoir pieces. And really all blogging is, at least the way I do it, is cataloguing kernels of thought that could be turned into essays. So now that I'm actually learning how to write proper essays, I haven't quite wanted to post them. They're too weak and fragile, like little seedlings that may not make it to full flower, and anyway, the eventual goal is to get them published somewhere else. But I don't know, maybe I'll start putting the ones I'm abandoning up here. We'll see.

In the meantime, I came across this excellent essay by Alexander Chee on writing about sex, which turns into a great essay about writing in general, and why we love the writers we love.

I loved this.

"It seems to me that the writers we love most are those who manage to capture something we ourselves have thought and rejected, for being forbidden, dangerous, elusive, something that if we made room for it would undo something else we want to keep, so we force it away—literature as a catalogue of rejected thoughts. For the way they can hold onto what the rest of us would put away as dangerous, they become heroes, the ones who emerge with the one thing we hoped to keep secret, but know we need."

I've never thought of it that way before, but it's so true. I love that image of the great writers having the balls to go places the rest of us don't. It's surely something to aspire to.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

I am Jane Donuts. I am also (really) someone else.

2011-03-21T14:47:00.001-07:00

When I joined Twitter, I made a conscious decision to not use or be associated with my real name. I wanted to say whatever I wanted without fear that it would in some way jeopardize my job, which was doing public relations for technology and entertainment companies, some of which entailed social media strategy.

So I used a handle that I've had online for years. But if you googled it, you could find out all kinds of things about me that were associated with my real name. Blogs I've had, comments I've made on other blogs, old message board postings, etc. Stuff going back to my early twenties, which is now kind of a long time ago, and a lot of which was just dumb and naive.

So then I changed my handle to Jane Donuts. Jane Donuts was a relatively fresh alter ego I'd developed for a creative writing/blogging project that eventually became my current blog, and I liked the name - it made me laugh - so it stuck. And now four years later, I follow and have about four hundred followers. It's not a huge number, but it's not insignificant either when you consider these are mostly people and companies that share my interests - namely music, books, writing, technology and media.

And now I find myself with a little dilemma. I'm in the midst of a career change and am applying to jobs that are heavier on the writing and social media, many of which require the applicant to show they have some skills in those worlds.

So what do I do? Do I just throw Jane Donuts the twitter feed and Jane Donuts the blog out there? If I do that, I should probably go back and look at anything I've said that could be considered offensive, and delete it. But then that would be compromising what I set out to do when I started these things, which was just to use them as an outlet for things I was thinking about or feeling.

I'm leaning toward just saying screw it, and citing them in my job search. I'm not exactly running for president. But if you have any thoughts on this matter, let me know.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Twitter Do's and Twitter Don'ts

2011-03-16T13:09:00.001-07:00

I've been on Twitter for about four years, and although I'm no kingpin (queenpin?), I'm well familiar with these parts. This list is totally subjective, but then, this is my blog and I'll write what I want to.

DO:

Be funny - the world needs more funny. Jokes, inappropriate remarks, pithy observations. People will agree or they won't.
Tweet interesting links - more than anything, we're on here to be amused. So be amusing, or provocative, or something. I want to discover new things.
Recommend other people on Twitter one by one. Give me a reason to follow someone I might like. Or...
Just retweet the good stuff. If someone retweets something that makes me laugh out loud, I'll usually follow the original tweeter.
Follow people. I am instantly turned off when I see someone with a lot of followers who only follow 100 people or less. It basically tells me they're missing the point of the whole service, which is basically to be entertained, informed and introduced to people with common interests. It's fun.

DON'T:

Say something just to say something. Say something good.
If you have an annoying song stuck in your head, please don't tweet about it. Just don't. No one needs to go through the rest of their day with an irritating earworm. This shit will lose you followers.
Tweet lists for Follow Friday. It's a nice gesture, but it's kind of annoying. And it's not effective! I was once given a follow Friday recommendation by someone with more than 100,000 followers, and I don't think I got one new follower from it. People just skip right over those posts. Or at least, I do.
Tweet too much. I can't tell you how much this is because it's totally subjective, but I can tell you that nothing will make me unfollow someone faster than if they're cluttering up my stream. I guess if they're tweeting interesting stuff it's OK, but even then it's hard to stomach. This guy is one of the worst offenders I've come across. And he's written a couple of books I've found useful, too.
Self-aggrandize. There's a fine line between talking about your projects/blog/passions/etc and being too self-promoting. Figure out where that line is and please don't cross it. (This is also known as tweeting too hard. Don't do it.)
Include too many hashtags and @replies in one tweet. My eyes glaze over when I see so much highlighted text. It also seems insincere, and makes me think you learned it in some kind of social media bootcamp. Which makes me want to puke.

Ok, that's all I can think of right now. Tell me what else I'm missing in the comments.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Romantic Advice from Donald Rumsfeld

2011-01-30T16:20:00.001-08:00

I can't resist pop culture entreaties to help me become a better person. Self-help books, makeovers, advice columns, etc.

Tell me you're going to help me overcome my fears/channel my anger/learn to stop being so critical/lose weight/get perfect skin/find love/etc and I'm immediately intrigued. Unfortunately this makes me susceptible to things like the Oprah magazine and high therapy bills, but I can't help being optimistic that I can become a better, happier person. Gullible, I know, but I'm trying. I'm just trying is all.

So I was sucked into a recent email newsletter from The Rumpus, where writer Stephen Elliott translated Donald Rumsfeld's advice for diplomacy into advice for love:

"I wish instead of starting a war Donald Rumsfeld had given relationship advice. This is what he would have said: In love there are things you know, and things you don't know, and things you don't know you don't know. You can't share your feelings with your lover when you don't know what those feelings are. Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up. Don't treat your lover in a way you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the Washington Post. Don't speak ill of your girlfriend's ex-boyfriends. Enjoy your time together, it may well be one of the most interesting and challenging times of your life. First rule of love: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. I don't do quagmires. If you screw up, talk it out, delays only compound mistakes. In our system relationships require consent, not command. Every day every relationship is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error, enjoy it. It is easier to get into something than to get out of it. It isn't making mistakes that's critical; it's correcting them. Leave your lover's family business to them; you'll have plenty to do without trying to manage the First Family. Let your friends know you're still the same person. Look for what's missing, no-one can help you see what isn't there. Love is human beings; it's addition rather than subtraction. Preserve your lover's options, she might need them. The price of being close to another human being is delivering bad news, you fail them when you don't tell the truth. The way to do well is to do well. If possible, visit the ex, they know the ropes and can help you see around corners. When raising an issue with your lover try to come away with a decision; pose issues so as to evoke guidance. You will launch many projects but have time to finish only a few. Your new girlfriend is not your old girlfriend. Your performance in a relationship depends on your significant other; select the best."

Pretty solid advice from an unlikely figure, if you ask me, but then he does kind of remind me of my dad in a curmudgeonly old psycho kind of way. The gist of it is basically to be a self-sufficient individual and to help your ally/lover to be one as well. The world would be a better place if we all took this advice. Now if I could get some of his advice on finding an ally...

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Take Your Pants Off / And Make it Happen

2010-12-27T21:57:00.001-08:00

The prompt for Reverb10 was: "what is the wisest thing you did this year?"

Considering this resulted from my own foolish decision to take the fucking job in the first place, I'm really not sure this can qualify, but the wisest thing I did all year was to quit my job. I had been out of work for almost a year - on a kind of sabbatical, sort of, if losing it and going on indefinite leave counts as a sabbatical - and had decided to take another PR agency job to pay the bills while I figured out a real plan for what was next. I knew from the get go that it wasn't an ideal job. It was a rung or so below the last agency job I'd held, and at a smaller, less prestigious agency, and I was making considerably less money. But I was worried I wasn't going to employable anymore if I didn't get back to work, and I knew it was a job I could do, so I took it with the full intention of phoning it in.

It was fine at first - we had clients, and they were sort of low maintenance and dumb enough to not require any real effort. We had a couple of actually interesting clients in the pipeline. But my boss, whoa-hoh, my boss. I knew going in that he was a Manhattan Beach frat boy/permanent child type who was a douche and sort of a joke, but his stated goal was sales, and the deal we struck was that I would lead all the account work, and he'd stick to administrative functions and new business development. This was fine with me because I don't particularly like sales, and anyway, I knew he'd be easy to manipulate.

What I didn't know was what an epic clown this guy turned out to be. First of all, I discovered he had a ridiculous nickname that I can't put in here, but that was along the lines of something like "Skip" or "Styles" - pure California cheese. And then there was his irritating habit of listening to bad 80s music on Pandora. All day, every day, if we let him get away with it. It was a small office, maybe 15' x 8', and if we didn't have music playing it was too weirdly quiet to work comfortably, so every day was a race to get good music on first before he could come soil us with Mister Mister and the like. Which he hated, but, to his credit, tolerated, because he was a good enough guy that he genuinely wanted to be a good boss and let the underlings have it their way. One time I had on Radiohead and he exploded with frenzied laughter that suggested he'd been biting his tongue all morning and said, "Jesus, do you just want to kill yourself, or what?" The answer to that question was debatable, given that remark, but my co-worker and I laughed it off.

Anyway, that kind of idiocy was readily apparent in his work style too. He was embarrassing to me in his transparency - not knowing what he was doing, he pretty much never had any actual good advice for clients - and mostly he wanted to talk about partying and getting drunk. (He is 39.) One day I was at a client lunch and all he could talk about was how awesome his old client's party at E3, a videogame tradeshow, was, and how they spent a million dollars on an event that contained strippers dancing around a pole. He also once told a female colleague to never use the word "swallow" in an email, because no man would ever be able to take it seriously. (!)

But I think the true breaking point for me was when we were working one morning and the song "What a Feeling" by Irene Cara came on the radio. It was 8:30 am on a Tuesday, and none of us were in a good mood. He started singing, and then stopped to tell us about a lyric he'd misinterpreted. "Guys," he said, addressing me and my 28 year old female colleague and our very naive 19 year old female intern, "when I was little, I used to think the part where she says 'take your passion/and make it happen' was 'take your pants off/and make it happen!! Isn't that hilarious?!!"

That was pretty much when I knew I would no longer be able to work for that agency. I quit within a couple of weeks, and since have landed a couple of freelance gigs that pay OK and are keeping me going for now. Next month, who knows, but I'm still getting by.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

I did not see something nasty in the woodshed, but I did see a wood chipper in action

2010-12-21T15:39:00.001-08:00

I'm staying at my parents' house in suburban Atlanta for the holidays. They live in a 70s colonial-style house on the north side of Atlanta that is very typical for this era and area, brick with white shutters on the windows, all neutral colors and knick knacks and throw blankets.

This morning I awoke to massive thudding noises that sounded like an earthquake or signs of the apocalypse, but really it was just the sounds of massive logs hitting the ground and being fed to a wood chipper. I looked the window and there were tree trimming creatures from north Georgia all swarming the yard - Carhartts and cigarettes and beards and desert camouflage in full effect. My dad called my cell and told me to come see this guy wielding a chainsaw 60 feet up with one arm, cutting off tree branches that weighed 500 pounds.

So I went down with coffee to watch - this is as good as any entertainment suburban Georgia affords - and my thought process went something like this.

A wood chipper, huh?

Wood chippers are often kept in a woodshed.

Woodsheds are places where sometimes you can find hedgehogs.

And then I went back inside for another cup of coffee. The internet has addled my brain.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Letting Go of Being a Hater - Is it Possible?

2010-12-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

My mother never said "if you can't say something nice, don't say it at all."

Mostly my mother talked tremendous amounts of shit about everyone, even (especially?) family members when they weren't around. Opinions on behavior, parenting skills, choice of pastimes, company kept, footwear, hair color, eating habits, spending habits, and on and on. Everything and everyone was game. Still is, in fact. I can't have a conversation with her, or my dad for that matter, without it turning to the judging of others.

On the one hand, it's fun. It's interesting to hear their takes on other people, especially if you agree with the assessments. On the other hand, it's brutal. You can imagine yourself being similarly verbally abused in conversations with other siblings. I used to engage in it, but I find the older I get, I can't. It has the effect of shutting me down.

Not that this stops me from being a hater in my own right - it's pretty deeply ingrained. So often when I feel compelled to write (or tweet, which is sort of embarrassing, this compulsion I have to tweet, but that's for another post), it's to vent about something that pisses me off. And this bothers me. It bothers me that what bubbles up most often in my consciousness is venom. It's directed at everyone - myself, my co-workers, Facebook people, people I follow on Twitter (sorry), musicians, celebrities, politicians, basically anyone I feel is being a loser at any time.

I'm trying very hard to let go of these thoughts, but how do you stop your natural response to something? If you let it fester, it sticks around. It festers. But then if you talk about it, you're spewing negativity. And what do I know anyway? Who am I to judge anyone? It's a fucked up cycle and I'm trying to leave it behind, but it's not easy. I'm working on it.

And if you have any suggestions for how to cure this cancer, please let me know.

p.s. This was written in response to this prompt for #Reverb10

p.p.s. On the non-hating side of things, I really love the vocal harmonies in this song. It's sung by sisters.

The Enemy is Within

2010-12-02T23:03:00.001-08:00

Today for Reverb10 I'm supposed to blog about one thing I do every day that doesn't contribute to my writing. This topic annoyed me, at least in the way it was written. Fuck, there are a ton of things I do every day that don't contribute to my writing. Eating, sleeping, showering, cooking, exercising, working for a living, answering the phone, answering emails, I don't know. Come on.

But OK, fine, the biggest reason I don't write everyday is because I am deeply conflicted. I'm conflicted about why I write, and why I want to write. I'm conflicted about what I want to write about, because a lot of the time it seems silly and I can't imagine why anyone would care to read it. I'm conflicted about being really, truly honest about what I feel, because some of that is so shot through with anger that it kind of scares me. I'm conflicted because I sometimes don't know if I have the balls to write, and then I come back to asking myself why I even want to in the first place, and whether it's worth it. It's a compulsion, I think, but it's blocked and complex and under so many layers of neuroses and defenses and coping mechanisms and plain old self-doubt that it sometimes seems ridiculous to even try. It's a combination of factors that shuts me down on a lot of days.

So I'm trying to work through that. Just not worry about all those things and write anyway and see what happens. It's a process.

p.s. The title of the post is a lyric from an Elliott Smith song, "Stupidity Tries" - a great song about inner conflict.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Describing 2010 in one word

2010-12-01T23:22:00.001-08:00

Flux.

The word is flux. I didn't encapsulate last year in one word, but it would likely have been "upheaval". This year had its own share of ups and downs, but last year - leaving my job without really having a backup plan, taking an extended period of time off, breaking up with the guy I'd been dating, going through tons of therapy to try to get my shit together - was the watershed moment.

This year was a year of constant change. Travel - two trips comprising four weeks in Atlanta, a trip to Japan, a trip to Kentucky, a trip to NYC, a trip to Portland. Work - starting a business with a good friend, taking a screenwriting course and doing some exploration of film/tv writing as a potential career, taking a job in PR and quitting it in less than six weeks when it turned out to be a shit show, eventually grabbing some good freelance PR gigs and exploring broader media consulting. Home - moving apartments, getting a roommate again, making a huge (and still tentative) decision to move back across the country. Dating - dating a pretty fair amount (exhausting enough in its own right).

All of it's just been about trying to keep trying things, hoping that something will feel right and lead to a path I feel good about pursuing. And I am making progress - no on the screenwriting front, thank you - but it's actually really scary to be constantly in flux. I haven't been able to say for sure where I'll be more than a few weeks out in a long time. Sometimes I love that - it's exciting, it's liberating, it feels great to be free - but then sometimes all those options being up in the air completely paralyze me. So much on the table, so much that can be changed, so little in my life that is truly permanent. It's exhausting.

So I hope that next year is the year things start to be less all over the place and more about digging my heels in, in one way or another. I hope next year's word is "settling". Because I'm ready. Maybe for the first time ever. I need some stability.

p.s. By the way, I am doing #Reverb10, which is, in their words "an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next." It will require me to post once a day for the entire month of December. Sounds a little new age-y, maybe, but I'm a little new age-y, and I had actually set out to do this in November, but only eeked out 11 posts. My most prolific month ever, but well short of my goal. And the Reverb people will send me prompts! Yay prompts!

p.p.s Speaking of Flux, the guy who writes Fluxblog, the oldest mp3 blog on the Internets (or so he claims - and it actually was the first one I started reading, round about 2004), just posted an amazing 10.5 hour mix of his favorite songs from 2010. ROCK.

p.p.p.s. I use a lot of parentheticals. Is this annoying?

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Is Hollywood sending us subliminal colon-related messages?

2010-11-23T09:58:00.001-08:00

Just sayin'.

p.s. While searching for colon images, came across this.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Coming Out of the Closet

2010-11-23T00:21:00.001-08:00

I get a daily email newsletter from Stephen Elliott, the editor of The Rumpus. Ostensibly it's a newsletter to promote the site, which is billed as a site on culture, but mostly it's a daily email about whatever is on his mind at the time, and it usually contains links to articles on the site as sort of an afterthought. This might make it sound like I don't like the newsletter, but I actually find it fascinating, definitely more so than if it were just a collection of links. It's written in first person, and it often references conversations he's had with his friends, things they've said, small domestic scenes with women he dates, snippets about his life on the streets as a homeless teen.

I've never met Stephen Elliott, but I feel like I know him a little. I wish he would put the newsletter in blog form, because I'd like to link to some of the things he says in my own blog posts. Here's something he said recently that I liked:

"But I was thinking about stories. I'd talked to a class and they asked if I was comfortable with so much personal information about myself out in the public sphere. I talked about writing as a process of coming out of a closet. You come out of one closet, there's another closet waiting for you. And then, you move through old topics easily, ideas and experiences that you've already unpacked, as you struggle through current binds. But you don't write as if you're still in that closet, exploiting stories based on previous success. You have to look forward, into the dark."

This spoke to me because one of the things I'm having trouble with in terms of blogging - one of the reasons I don't update as often as I'd like to - is that I'm having a hard time coming to terms with 1) why I would want to do so, when I really do value my privacy, 2) how much to say given I'm not really anonymous and 3) why anyone would care. I have no answer to any of these questions. I'm not sure I even have a story, but I do know I have a lot of thoughts that seem to want to be let out, whether it's via talking, or Twitter, or Facebook, or blogging, or whatever, so here I am, continuing to blog. I guess like Stephen said I'm coming out of my own closet through writing. It's an entirely selfish act, but necessary, I guess.

Also, a further note on malaise: "It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth comes to the top" -- Virginia Woolf

I'm taking that as a flat out endorsement.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Malaise Happens

2010-11-15T23:07:00.001-08:00

Maybe it's the lull before the holidays. Maybe it's the reality of my upcoming move and some kind of block against it happening that my subconscious has constructed. Or maybe it's fatigue from this nearly year and a half long period of career limbo I've been in taking its toll. Whatever the case, I've been having some long days lately. I believe the feeling is called malaise. It's a strange feeling because in my case, it's part lack of inspiration and part paralysis - but not exactly boredom, and never a lack of things I need to do. And not even really a lack of things I want to do.

I think it's just that I'm just not one of those people who are excited to hop of out of bed every day. Tammy Pajamas is an early riser and once told me she often has the feeling of not wanting to miss anything. I don't have that. I used to have it as a child or maybe sometimes during vacations, but generally I feel like the world will wait for me, for when I'm good and ready to face it. I guess I'm an egotist in that respect. You could argue that this is the sign of a depressed person, but I'm not actually depressed. (And I know depression.) I'm just sort of nonplussed at the moment. It'll pass. It always does. And I'll keep being interested in all the things I'm interested in, and loving all the people I love, and getting fucking pissed off a few times a day on average. But for now I'm just all "meh". Nothing else to it.

When I was working full time, malaise would strike fairly often. The title of that song by Camper Van Beethoven, "The Humid Press of Days", would run through my head. I wouldn't really think of the actual song (it's not a very good song), just the title. It kind of said everything. My freelance lifestyle has a little bit of it too, though - I may not work in an office, but I still wake up around the same time, make the coffee, go to my desk, work on PR type stuff, look out the same window, watch the mailman walk into the courtyard to deliver the mail around 11:00, make lunch at noonish, etc. Same same. I work out in the middle of the day more often now, but overall, it's same same. But a little different.

I guess what I'm concluding here is that I don't think having a different job will ever really change things too much. This is something about me - I tend to lose interest easily. But luckily I get re-interested too. I just have to remind myself of that before I freak out about the malaise when it sets in, because sometimes I panic and convince myself it's here to stay.

Kind of sucks, but eh, it's actually not that bad. It's definitely not as bad as depression, or outrage. It just is.

p.s. The guy who designed this game clearly has faced the malaise.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Bloggin' Ain't Shit but Bitches and Money

2010-11-12T00:02:00.001-08:00

No, not really. In fact, anything but.

Mostly I'm slightly drunk and haven't posted in a few days due to 1) overthinking, 2) stress and 3) lack of discipline.

But I did watch a good TED video today about the connection between the willingness to be vulnerable and the capacity for joy.

And there was also a new column today from Dear Sugar, also known as the best advice column I have ever read.

There's a connection here, and that is honesty. Both stress the importance of being honest, and how it can redeem you.

In Which I Recommend Zadie Smith Expand her Internet Horizons

2010-11-08T10:21:00.001-08:00

OK, Zadie Smith. We all get it. You’re gorgeous and preternaturally talented, you already, at 35, have a literary career that is the envy of anyone who’s even contemplated picking up a pen (or tapping a keyboard) and you’ve been teaching at Harvard for years, years when most of us (OK fine, me) were mostly spending our free time talking shit with our friends over our beverage of choice.

But you know what you suck at? The Internet.

I came across your piece for the NYTRB last Friday on Twitter, but got bored about halfway through and abandoned it, at least until I came across two prompts to give it another shot. So I soldiered though, and...huh?

Zadie, don’t you know about the Internet? It’s huge. It’s really not just Facebook -- Facebook is just a jumping off point. Facebook long ago ceased being a place where you can find actual honest opinions and interesting dialogue. Oh sure, they’re trying desperately to make it safe for us all to fly our freak flags, what with the Groups and all, but I just don’t think we’ll be so easily misled.

Zadie, when you quit Facebook, you threw the proverbial baby out with bathwater. You ask, “Is it possible that what is communicated between people online “eventually becomes their truth”?” But to ask that assumes that people are only communicating online via Facebook.

Zadie, haven’t you ever watched To Catch a Predator? Don’t you think the guys they’re apprehending by the dozen post the same “falsely jolly, fake-friendly, self-promoting, slickly disingenuous” Facebook status updates as everyone else? Fine, that’s a really dark example - you could just as easily point to people participating in forums for recovering alcoholics or sufferers of incontinence or hell, even people doing online dating - but the point is that people still do plenty of things online and off that they don’t necessarily want to advertise to 400 acquaintances and Great Aunt Dorothy.

To assume that just because we’re putting on a happy face on Facebook we’re not indulging in our passions, urges and fantasies (twisted and morally reprehensible though they may be) is just silly. Seriously, what else is the Internet good for if not giving people the immediate ability to explore any interest they could ever possibly have, and to connect with others who share that interest, or at least to read their thoughts about it? Facebook is one place to do that, but it’s by no means the only place.

The pack mentality is alive and well on Facebook, it’s true, but it’s also alive and well in real life, and until that evolves, it seems crazily naive to assume that a web utility will be responsible for its perpetuation. If anything, Facebook is the phone book of our generation - it has just enough information to make it possible to contact us, but in the end it says very little about who we really are. It might stick around a while because it is useful, but I promise, it's not going to keep people from being who they are.

Let me know if you need help finding some other places where you can really be yourself online, Zadie. They’re out there.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

In Which Liz Phair Speaks for Me (Still)

2010-11-07T23:55:00.001-08:00

Two old Liz Phair songs have been floating around my head a lot lately: "Go West," which I did, when I left NY for LA almost six years ago, and "California," her farewell to the Golden State.

In "Go West", the lyric "And it feels like I've got something to prove / But in some ways it's just something to do" couldn't be more apt for what I was doing when I came out here. There just wasn't much more to it. I wish I had known then what I was trying to prove - I'm still not sure, truthfully - but mostly I just wasn't ready to go back to Atlanta.

"California," on the other hand, doesn't say much at all. And while my departure isn't as much about defeat and sadness (I may well have said that about NYC when I left), as it is just generally about it being time, I love how she captured so much emotion with so few lyrics.

I bought Exile in Guyville when it came out, when I was a senior in high school, and then later dug into the songs she recorded as Girly Sounds through the Juvenilia EP. I haven't listened to her music a ton since then, but my teenage self burned all those lyrics into my brain, and I can still sing pretty much everything she recorded in the 90s from top to bottom without pausing. Her depressive, alternately cocky, self-destructive, and alienated ethos spoke to me more than any other artist I'd ever even heard then, and more than most have since.

So I guess I'll keep letting her speak for me until I can say things better myself.

p.s. Recently came across this piece about what she's up to now. Loved this quote: "Her brand of feminism is simple: “All you have to do is live your life with some pride and some honesty, and you’re pushing it forward,” Phair said." Amen to that.

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Leaving LA is Like Breaking Up with a Man I Still Love (But Can't Live With)

2010-11-06T19:13:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I decided, for real this time, to leave Los Angeles.

It had been a long time coming. I moved here in the spring of 2005, and fell in love with it immediately. After NYC, where I'd spent the previous four years, it felt like freedom and light and light-heartedness embodied in one big, sprawling riot of a city. It scared me a little, but it didn't have the bite of New York. I couldn't feel the cruelty that had seeped into every cold subway ride and drunken cab ride home that I took in the last year of living there. The relentless sunshine and warm weather and open windows and loud music I blared in my car (shitbox though it was) seemed to wipe the chill from those old methods of transportation away in short order.

For the longest time I was in love with this city. Blue skies and sunshine, obviously, but also hikes redolent with sage that I could get to in 20 minutes. A total lack of humidity. Cheaper rent. Excellent tacos. And then there was the proximity of my two brothers and some old friends that I reconnected with and new friends I got to know pretty quickly. Plus it still had a lot of the flash and excitement of NYC, but without being as caustic in day to day life. It was altogether a relief, and a lot of fun.

And I'd say it stayed more or less good for the next five years, even despite some shitty jobs and a soul-destroying relationship I wandered in and out of during that time. I wanted to change many things about my life, but I was always relieved that I still liked LA, that it was one thing that was working and that I didn't have to worry about. I always knew it had problems. The traffic, obviously. The cost of living, and the likelihood that I would not be able to afford a home of my own, not for many many years. The fact that I missed my family, more and more since my brothers had started having kids I saw maybe twice a year.

And then one day I realized my heart was no longer in it. I went to a job interview, and the guy who was interviewing me, whom I really liked, said he wanted to hire someone who could be a cornerstone for the office, someone he could build a long term partnership with. And somewhere in my gut I knew that wasn't me, and that the reality was that I just didn't want to stay here. I couldn't commit.

So I guess you could say I fell out of love with LA. I can see why I loved it for a long time - I still do love it, for all the reasons listed above. But my heart no longer is here. I could stick around and it wouldn't be the worst thing, but I know that in the long term it's not what I want, and the longer I stay here the longer it'll be 'til I find a place I do feel good about settling down in.

So next stop, Atlanta, home of my people. Humid, green, gritty, pretty Atlanta.

Provided I can get off my ass and make the exodus happen.

California - it's pretty here.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Women: We Really Are Fucking Nuts

2010-11-05T10:11:00.001-07:00

I know I’m not supposed to say this because I support the causes of feminism and gender equality and on general principle of not giving men fuel for the “women be crazy” fire, but goddamn, I swear my brain ceases to function at certain times of the month. And not the ones you’re thinking of - really I would say this happens about a week before. Not every month, but most months.
It’s a strange thing. It’s not the crying, irrational kind of crazy, (though that happens sometimes too), but more like I suddenly cease to be able to do my job. It’s bewildering and incredibly frustrating. Out of nowhere I’ll find myself unable to perform tasks I complete on the regular, how to begin, what to say, what should be happening, etc. It’s like some switch in my brain flips, and where conviction and determination normally prevail, I am suddenly overcome with doubt, confusion and exasperation.

Example: Today I was supposed to put together a draft of a plan for my client, and even though I have written literally hundreds of plans exactly like it, I sat in front of my computer utterly incapable of putting down a word. Of course I procrastinated by looking at other web sites, reading the news, reading Twitter, checking Facebook, etc., but even those activities weren’t as compelling as they normally are. No matter what I tried, I simply couldn’t get absorbed in things.

Am I alone here, or does this happen to other women too? It’s a brain chemistry thing, pure and simple, that much I know is true. I’ll be back to usual tomorrow.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Make Readers, Not War

2010-11-03T21:45:00.001-07:00

Interesting article today by Laura Miller at Salon.com, who argues that instead of devoting a month to encouraging writers - with the argument that those who are really and truly determined to write a novel will write it, in November or no - we should be doing more to encourage readers. While I essentially agree with Caroline Kellogg over at LATimes.com, who calls Miller's admonishment "smallhearted," I think Miller has a point. Writers gon' write. But what can we do to encourage readers? Is it even possible to do anything in our attention deficient age?

When I was a kid my (evil) brothers called me "Billie Jean Reads a Book" and "Bookworm" because my way of escaping was to bury myself in literature. But it was second nature to me - I don't know if it's part of my genetic makeup or what, but I just didn't need much nudging to pick up a paperback. I think some people do learn to enjoy it over time, but while I haven't done any actual research to confirm or deny this hunch, I have to assume that fewer kids are being introduced to the joys of long form prose. There are just too many youtube videos and blog posts (ahem) and video games to contend with. I'm not such a naysayer as to suppose that literature is dying - I think if anything, it's just evolving - but I do worry a little about it staying relevant. There's just too much beauty out there that I want others to see and love as much as I do.

So here's my suggestion - I think it's high time someone did a modern, virally equipped update to the "Books: Feed Your Head" campaign that ran in the 90s. Remember this video on MTV, which starred a foxy Sherilyn Fenn reading some naughty bits? It was good. It was memorable. It was compelling. It was sexy without being lewd. And it may even have made some people dig into Kafka and D.H. Lawrence.

MTV, where you at?

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

A Good Cover is Worth...Well, a Lot

2010-11-02T18:56:00.001-07:00

I came across a cover of AA Bondy's "Witness Blues" by Matt Vasquez, the lead singer of Delta Spirit, a band from San Diego that I like OK but haven't really given much thought to. I only discovered Bondy earlier this year, and his voice and music crept into my consciousness over time. His "American Hearts" record accompanied me to Japan, and I'll always associate it with the day I wandered through the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, which consists of thousands of vermillion torii lined up for visitors to walk through. Listening to a haunting piece of music in a haunted atmosphere made for a memorable day.

But back to the cover, since I'm probably one of the only people in the world who still listens to albums beginning to end, I missed "Witness Blues," or at least failed to appreciate it fully, because it’s the second to last song. And hearing Vasquez’s version gave me a whole new appreciation for the original.

How gorgeous is this lyric?
"Once you heard a choir while you were dreaming/and you wish you could remember it today"

Two things: 1) I like Vasquez much more now for choosing to cover a great song by an under appreciated artist, so I’ll probably give Delta Spirit another shot, and 2) I love it when a cover gives me a whole new appreciation for an old song in general. Wins all around.

MP3: A.A. Bondy, "Witness Blues"

Download now or listen on posterous

11_Witness_Blues.mp3 (3683 KB)

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

How not to fail at NaNoWriMo

2010-11-01T20:19:00.001-07:00

Just decide not to do it. I'm not suggesting anyone follow my lead, but this is an easy way to get off on a technicality.

Writing a novel in the span of a month is an amazing feat, and a worthy endeavor, but I just don't think I'm ready. I attempted it, sort of, last year - realized it was happening a few days into the month, and since I wasn't working at the time, figured I should give it a shot. But then I waffled and I couldn't decide what to write about and the idea of writing 1000 words a day did my head in, so I abandoned ship. I had other things I was working on, head wise, and I didn't feel confident that I could commit to doing it without regularly beating myself up about not really doing it. It was a decision to be nice to myself, and patient.

Fast forward a year, and I'm taking another pass. My head is much better, but my obligations have increased. At the highest level, I'm trying to get my freelance career off the ground while orchestrating a cross country move, and I just know it's not gonna fit into my list of priorities. To say nothing of the fact that I still don't really know what my novel would be about.

So instead, I'm instituting a one blog post a day rule. This here's my stake in the ground. What should I call it? National Blogging Month? National Aspiring Writers Who Haven't Quite Gotten to the Noveling Stage but are Still Trying to Be Productive Month? Copout November? Whatevs.

One year, I will do NaNoWriMo. It's on the list.

Unrelated: Here's a great picture I took on a hike last month outside of Sun Valley, Idaho. It's not terribly indicative of the incredible scenery, but the light turned out pretty cool.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

How to have a total change of heart in 24 hours

2010-09-06T11:25:00.001-07:00

Is it possible to have a total change of heart in 24 hours?

I did after I wrote that last post. I woke up the next day and thought, wait, I don't want to leave LA. I like it here still, despite many, many issues. There will probably be a time - a time in the not so distant future - when I am forced to leave for economic reasons, but that time is not here yet. And I have a life and friends and a great apartment and a whole professional network here that I am going to need to tap into if I want to make this next phase of my career work.

Big decisions are always like this for me. Usually what happens is that I start to feel like I need to make a change, and I convince myself I need to do something. (Like move to ATL, for example.) Then I ponder that for a while and come up with a whole list of reasons why it is imperative that I do that, and why it makes the most sense and is the best possible course of action, and so on and so on. And then, like a good girl, I zoom out and try to look at it from a holistic perspective and be as objective as possible about the whole thing, often even making a list of pros and cons for each side. It is during this point when I vacillate wildly between the two choices, and drive my friends nuts with declarations that change on an hour to hour basis.

And ultimately, I arrive at a decision that is some combination of reason and gut feeling, and usually I just go with it and everything is fine. But then occasionally, like with this decision, I get a clear sign that I picked the wrong side and have to reverse course. In this instance I just woke up feeling completely differently even though I had resolved the matter and started making plans to pack up my apartment and sublease my room. Sometimes it's a little more dramatic, though.

Case in point: when I was 28, I decided I'd had enough of New York, and I went back to my parents' house in ATL to figure out what was next. I was thinking of either staying there or moving to LA, and was looking for jobs in both places. Odds were totally against LA - although I had friends and family out there, I had very little money and no real job leads, as opposed to a whole mess of resources I had in ATL. It didn't make a whole lot of sense in strictly logical terms. I ended up getting an offer - a really good offer - from a PR firm in ATL one Friday, and told them I would get back to them on Monday. I spent the weekend going through the process detailed above, and landed on the decision to accept the job and stay in LA. I went to bed on Sunday night with the plan to wake up the next morning and call to accept the job.

And then I woke up nauseous on Monday morning at the thought of staying in Atlanta.

I left for LA the next week.

My new favorite cafe/dance studio - Paper or Plastik

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

10 O'Clock and All's Well

2010-08-30T22:03:00.001-07:00

In the three months since I last posted, I got a job in PR, worked at it for approximately four weeks, and then resigned without a single regret. I'm currently working out my last week.

So much for going back to PR. It was a good idea in theory - get some money coming in, get health insurance, get back into the working world until I can figure out a way to work for myself full time - but the actual job I had was a disaster. Boss was a cretin (albeit a well-meaning one), underling appeared competent at first but was later discovered to (bizarrely) have no capacity for critical thought, clients were a disorganized and neglected mess, firm was overall just sort of cheap and JV. All in all, a total fail.

But I learned things. And one of the things that I learned was that I am really not sure I can go back to the corporate lifestyle for anything less than a stellar situation - I'm somewhere between incapable and just disinterested, and for me that is no way to live. Two weeks in I was buckling under the stress and trying to figure out how long I could last, and desperately looking forward to the weekend. Again, no way to live. So now I'm at the point where I'm preparing to take some pretty drastic measures to be able to go in a different direction for a while.

And it looks like my life in LA is on the chopping block.

Not that I don't like LA and my friends here, but the reality is I can't support myself financially with a reasonable degree of comfort while I go through this transition. And I'm pretty much unwilling to live again like a poor city urchin in one of the wealthiest cities in the world. It's just too difficult, and I'm too old. Been there, done that.

So for now, the plan is to relocate to more affordable (and humid) climes. LA, I'll miss you and your golden light.

Posted via email from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

Weird fishes

2010-05-02T21:35:00.001-07:00

Yes, that's a Radiohead reference, and no, it has nothing to do with this post. At least not yet.

I'm in a weird spot. Here I am, nine months into my sabbatical, and I feel like I'm yet again at a crossroads. Because the reality is, I gotta go back to doing PR. At least for a while. Things with the start up are still chugging along, though we are really struggling with what our actual start up costs will be, as well as how much we even need to raise. We're dead set on creating this company, but despite all the things we have figured out, it's very confusing to try to figure out how to take the first steps. I hope this paralysis is temporary, but the phrase "it's all in the execution" is taking on even more meaning.

And in the meantime, I'm going kind of nuts. As constructive as I've tried to be with my time, and as much as I feel like I've gotten to do and see, I need to get back to work full time. And part of that is because I need to interact with other living humans during the day, something that is not really part of the work I'm doing on the startup. So I'm applying to a few things here and there, and luckily I can afford to be somewhat selective. At least for now.

But as much as I am angsty about going back to the profession for obvious reasons, I also wonder how much of my burnout was due to stress from other factors. Like the fact that I was depressed. And still mending from a broken heart. And just exhausted from trying to cope given both of those facts and a big job. I don't know what the answer will be. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Posted via web from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

What I Did on My Twitter Vacation

2010-04-10T21:40:00.001-07:00

So, I took a break from Twitter for about three months, and inadvertantly took a break from Jane Donuts in general during that time. While I can't say I totally crushed it, I did get some shit done. Here are the highlights:

I went to Japan. My friend had a three day stay in Tokyo on her way back from China, and invited me to come keep her company while she decompressed from Guangzhou and did some shopping/trend research for her job as a product line manager for a big sportswear brand that rhymes with Likey. I obliged and spent a few days eatin, drinking, ogling, walking, butchering Japanese phrases, and shopping for truly amazing things in what is without question the most intense city I've ever visited. (Photo below is of my cohorts in Daikanyama, Tokyo.) Fascinating and so foreign, and absolutely amazing. I then went to stay with my cousin and his charming Japanese wife and two daughters in Kyoto, the former imperial capital. Another magical place full of Shinto shrines and Zen gardens and a palpable sense of a rich and exotic history, right up there with Paris and Florence. I would love to go back when it's not winter.
I took a great screenwriting workshop and made some pretty significant headway on my first script. After mapping out the entire thing and writing about half of it, I've fallen out of love with the concept, but will be playing around with it until I feel it's a little stronger. I now feel like I can and will actually complete something. Whether it will be something in any way viable is another story.
I found my new signature perfume, Lumiere Noire by Francis Kurkdjian. Sounds trivial maybe, but this is huge for me, as I don't ever feel truly dressed without the right scent. I've been looking for something for the last two years and have gone through at least five scents that, while lovely, were just not right. So now I found something that is the right mixture of sophisticated and delicious and unusual and it basically reminds me of the woman I aspire to be. I'm not wearing a lot of beautiful clothes these days, mostly living in jeans, leggings, t-shirts and cardigans, so this as a wardrobe addition is, as they say, pretty major.
I went to Portland, Oregon and Atlanta, Georgia. Saw my people. Played with lots of babies.
And, most importantly, I started a business with one of my oldest and smartest friends. More to come on this, but it's a line of clothing and accessories geared at musicians and their fans. And I am so excited about it! It makes perfect sense, it's a timely concept, and I think we can sell the shit out of it. This is what's taking up most of my time these days, and I couldn't be happier about it. Now I just gotta hustle and get some money for this thing.
I got kicked out of my apartment. Well, not literally, but I got my notice. 45 days and counting til I gotta move, and I'm annoyed but also excited. Onward and upward, I hope.

So, lots happening, and the total instability of my life continues. I didn't miss Twitter, I have to say. I did miss blogging. And I do enjoy shouting into the void, so here I am, back again.

Posted via web from Jane Donuts is Starting Over

In Which I tell a Story

2010-01-26T11:33:00.001-08:00

My brother and I entered a short story contest through NYC Midnight, and I had a week to write a story of no more than 2,500 words in the genre of historical fiction. The assigned topic was "a dare." Here's what I came up with.

The Ball

Civility goes by the wayside when a normally reserved young woman runs into her erstwhile boyfriend's mother.

Margaret woke up with a lump in her throat and a gnawing suspicion that she'd done something untoward the night before. She sat up with a start. Oh good heavens, she thought. It wasn't something she'd done, but something she'd promised to do.

She looked over at Pamela, still sleeping beside her, and wondered how on earth she would get through the day. Although Margaret was not generally given to impulsive behavior, she had a competitive streak a mile wide, and one that her mother often scolded her for indulging.

Unfortunately, when her cousin Fanny was concerned, Margaret usually couldn't resist.

"Pamela," Margaret said, nudging her sister. "Wake up. Wake up at once!"

"What?" Pamela stirred. A deep breath. "Is this pertaining to whatever you and Fanny were whispering about last night? You know we all noticed, even father."

"Well, I'm afraid I've done it this time. She's pushed me too far, she has!"

"Oh come on, then. Out with it. If you're going to wake me up for this you might at least let me in on what's going on," Pamela said. She drew her dressing gown around her as she got out of bed and smoothed her hair, which was puffy from the night's rest.

Margaret stood at the window, pulling at her hands and shifting her weight from foot to foot. "It's just. It's about the ball tonight."

"Oh of course, it must be about the ball." At 24, Pamela was a veteran of balls, and although she was looking forward to the evening, it was with less optimism than her younger sister. The last ball she'd attended had turned mortifying when she inadvertently stepped to another partner after a particularly complicated dance turn. She'd insisted her father practice steps with her for several nights over the previous week to avoid another such debacle. She wasn't getting any younger, after all.

"Well, you know how Fanny can be so insufferable. She knows she'll be better dressed tonight. I certainly know she will. That it should even be in question is ridiculous! And I daresay if our father had 10,000 pounds a year we'd be better dressed, too. But no matter, being Fanny, she's gone and made me enter a pact with her that whichever one of us is deemed to have the least flattering outfit will have to complete a dare."

"Margaret! A dare! What on earth were you thinking?" Pamela said. "For one thing, that's completely silly - how could such a thing even be determined?"

"I know, I know, it was so wicked of me. But I simply cannot back down from her! If I had not accepted she would not have stopped talking about it for weeks! We've determined that Mrs. Dudley shall be the one to decide."

"Mrs. Dudley!" Pamela couldn't help but laugh. "Well, I suppose if you must go about subjecting to yourself to such derision, Mrs. Dudley will do the job rather entertainingly."

Mrs. Dudley, the preacher's wife, had a well-earned reputation for being unable to hold her tongue in her later years. Most recently she'd pronounced the new baby of one of the town of Shropshire's most well-to-do families as looking "fresh from the bog."

"Pamela, don't you want to know what the dare is?," Margaret said. Pamela, who was now making the bed, motioned with her hand for Margaret to keep going. "Whoever loses has to ask Mr. Crawford to dance."

Pamela paused briefly before resuming straightening the pillows. "Asking a gentleman to dance! Have you lost your mind? And Mr. Crawford?," she inquired. "How did he get wrapped up in this? The poor man will be lucky if he even manages to make it through the door without being pecked to death by his mother."

"Well," Margaret tittered. "He's just so maddeningly silent. We're not even sure he can dance! And he is after all an eligible bachelor with 5,000 pounds a year. Socially challenged or not, Fanny and I mean to find out whether he has any hope of being a viable one is all. And it will make such good practice for proper courtship!"

"Fair enough, I suppose," said Pamela. She was old enough to know that there were things more important than dancing. "But I don't expect you'll have an easy time with it."

"What, are you assuming I'll be deemed the less attractive? I'll turn it out just fine, velvet and lace ribbons or no!" At 16, Margaret Woodhouse had fine features and a rosy complexion that was the envy of Shropshire. Fanny Croft, on the other hand, while certainly lovely, didn't quite draw the attention the blond haired Margaret commanded. The girls were the same age, but Fanny, a redhead, possessed an elegance that was on the whole more contrived than Margaret's, much of whose allure arose from a warmth and playfulness of spirit.

"Of course not, darling," Pamela said. "I'm assuming that Fanny won't hold up her end of the pact is all."

Margaret smiled. "We shall see about that."

The day passed slowly but at last the girls wrapped up their sewing and reading and began to prepare for the ball. They were to ride to the nearby Chatsworth estate via the carriage of Fanny's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Croft, who would also serve as their chaperones.

"Pamela," Margaret said as she spun around in front of her sister, "do you think I'll pass muster?"

Pamela looked up and gave her a thorough once over. Though not quite as luminous as her younger sister, she had her own reputation as a dark and intimidating beauty with an intellect to match. "You look as lovely as I've ever seen you," she said, casting an admiring gaze on Margaret's stylish take on a blue column dress. "And I believe all your attention to sewing has paid off." Margaret hugged her sister and held out her hands to her. "And you, Pamela, you look so gay! I am so happy to see it!"

Pamela blushed. She'd picked out a dress of the palest silver, which she hoped it would provide a lightening effect to contrast her black eyes and hair. She smiled and looked away. "I do sometimes try, you know."

"I know you do, I know! And you do succeed."

The carriage ride passed quickly as the five chattered in anticipation. Fanny wore a long gown of moss green velvet that was sure to draw many compliments. Despite their rivalry, she and Margaret held hands throughout the journey. Whatever the outcome of their competition, they would enjoy themselves.

Pamela, on the other hand, grew more and more anxious with each clop of the horses' hooves. She had not admitted it to her sister, but she was more than a little curious about whether Mr. Crawford could or would dance. Perhaps he wasn't a noted conversationalist, but he was indeed an eligible bachelor, and it had not ever escaped Pamela's notice.

What Margaret didn't know was that he and Pamela had conducted a brief courtship the year prior that was known to only the two of them and his mother. In Pamela's estimation, the pernicious Mrs. Crawford had been the problem - after Henry Crawford's older sister had gotten married and moved north, the widower Mrs. Crawford had selfishly insisted that Henry pay her undue attention, and was always inventing tasks and errands that took up any free time he should have had for courting. She knew that if Henry married, his wife would become head of the Crawford estate, and she did not intend to give up stewardship of her home. Mr. Crawford, it seemed, could not see through this and as Pamela couldn't figure out a way to tactfully point it out without him raising objections, their courtship had come to an end when he failed to meet her as promised for a morning walk the previous September.

They found the ball in full procession when they arrived, and the girls set off in search of Mrs. Dudley. Pamela looked around and didn't see any sign of Mr. Crawford, which prompted both relief and disappointment. She vowed to keep her eyes open for other prospects.

She followed close behind Fanny and Margaret, whom she overheard making a scathing remark about a girl from a neighboring town whose frock was deemed plain and uninspiring. At last they came upon Mrs. Dudley, who was tucking into a bread pudding and ignoring the woman standing next to her, whose back was turned. Just as the girls came upon the ladies, Mrs. Dudley's friend turned around and Pamela was unnerved to discover the companion was none other than Mrs. Crawford, the corners of whose mouth turned slightly upward in a tight little smile when she spotted Pamela.

"Hello Mrs. Dudley," Margaret started, with a curtsy to the old woman. "Is it not a breathtaking evening? The first ball of 1813, fancy that!"

Mrs. Dudley smacked the pudding about in her mouth before responding. "Yes, child, and rather better now that I've gotten a spot of nourishment. I feel like I've been on my feet for hours already." Fanny and Pamela curtsied as well as Mrs. Crawford looked on. "You do know Mrs. William Crawford, I'm sure?," Mrs. Dudley asked. "Mr. Henry Crawford is milling about here somewhere, isn't he Mrs. Crawford? Where is he, hiding in the larder?"

Fanny and Margaret stifled a laugh as Mrs. Crawford stiffened and replied, "Certainly he's here. But he's a very busy man now with Mr. William Crawford gone these long years. He has much to do to keep up the household, you know. He's very tired and I don't expect we'll stay long. We have affairs in the morning to attend to."

Fanny, giving her sweetest smile, cast a sideways glance at Margaret before addressing Mrs. Dudley. "Mrs. Dudley, we are wondering if you will do us a small favor. Margaret and I, we've so looked forward to tonight that we've both sworn to do our absolute best to dress for the occasion, and we are wondering if you might decide for us who has put forth the most worthy effort?"

Mrs. Dudley turned her full attention to the girls. "Well, I suppose I might proffer an opinion. But why waste your time with me? I'm quite certain that by the end of the night you'll have your outcome decided by the number of young men who ask you to dance." Mrs. Crawford looked on with interest.

"Oh, but Mrs. Dudley, they can hardly be counted upon to deliver an objective verdict, can they? We need the opinion of a lady!," said Margaret.

Mrs. Dudley began to look the both of them over when Mrs. Crawford interjected, now smiling rather too graciously. "Girls, you two are perfect visions - Ms. Croft, your green dress fits with your red hair and complexion perfectly. And Ms. Margaret, how well the cut of your dress suits your figure." Here she turned and fixed a pointed look upon Pamela, who was standing behind the rivals. "Where I think you might have better focused your attention is on your sister." Pamela, who'd again been searching the room for Mr. Crawford, snapped to attention. "My dear," Mrs. Crawford continued, "I believe you could have used something to make you a little more, well, interesting, don't you think?"

Margaret and Fanny turned to Pamela, who colored slightly from the flash of anger with which she bore the remark. "I'm afraid, Mrs. Crawford, that I haven't the gift for fashion that my sister and cousin possess." The horrid old woman had influenced Mr. Crawford after all!

"Nonsense, dear, you're just about as pretty as the others," Mrs. Dudley said. "So what if you're a good bit older. Surely someone will ask for your hand in a waltz."

Margaret and Fanny took Pamela's hands and led her away, bidding the ladies goodnight as they fled.

"Pamela," Margaret said, laughing, "I am so dreadfully sorry, I didn't expect that to happen. What a miserable woman that Mrs. Crawford is! I'd no idea!"

"Nor I," said Fanny. "I always felt she must be a sad woman for having lost her husband too early."

"Well," said Pamela. "I suppose it shows yet again that one never knows what cunning is lurking in the hearts of Englishwomen." The three laughed, but Pamela was seething.

"So," said Margaret, "will you do it?"

"Do what?," said Pamela.

"Don't be daft," Margaret cried. "Will you take the dare? Will you find out once and for all if Mr. Crawford is capable of dancing?" Margaret and Fanny looked on expectantly.

Pamela considered this for a moment. "I daresay I will," she said, to the girls' delight. And with that, they set out for the dancehall.

She spotted him a short while later, standing next to a few other gentlemen of mutual acquaintance. "Margaret," she said, whispering into her sister's ear. "Where is Mrs. Crawford? Do you see her anywhere?"

"Hmmm. Oh! There she is, she's getting two glasses of punch! Oh! now she's heading toward Mr. Crawford!"

"Perfect," said Pamela. She pinched her cheeks quickly and walked over to where he was standing. She could now see Mrs. Crawford heading toward them out of the corner of her eye.

A lady doesn't ask a gentleman to dance, Pamela thought. But then, nor does a lady stand in the way of the natural order of things.

As she sidled up to Mr. Henry Crawford, Ms. Pamela Davenport held out her hand. "Mr. Crawford, it is so lovely to see you," she said. "It's been too long, I think." As she curtsied, she stuck her back foot out ever so slightly more than necessary, causing the approaching Mrs. Crawford to stumble over it and spill her punch out onto her dress and the floor. The gentlemen standing next to them caught her swiftly, but Mr. Crawford, now flustered and more than a little distracted by the sight of Pamela's exposed decolletage, barely registered his mother's slip.

"I don't suppose you could entertain an old friend for a dance, could you?," Pamela said. She turned briefly to smile at Mrs. Crawford as he led her toward the dance floor.

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Week two of twenty-ten

2010-01-13T23:18:00.001-08:00

First off, I had a great holiday - spent some quality time with my family in Atlanta, which included my nine month old niece, Maddie, and my seven month old niece, Samantha - and it was good medicine. I didn't do a whole lot other than eat a lot of shitty junk food, act like a crazed baby lady with my nieces, see some old friends, watch movies, take walks, and read Anne of Green Gables on my iPhone. (Again.) And then I had a brief stopover in Breckenridge to visit my youngest sister, where I capped off two weeks of mild excess with a few more days of thorough excess in the style that only 24 year olds in a ski town can muster. Suffice it to say that by the time I got back to LA I was ready to return to a more spartan existence.

And now we're two weeks into the new year, and so far, I'm happy. I accomplished so little in December that I was basically desperate to crawl out of the holiday slump, but I did manage to make one important decision last month, and that was on a medium: screenwriting. I'd been agonizing over where to focus my writing energies, and truthfully, if the media world weren't in an outright clusterfucked state, I would have just started applying like crazy to editorial jobs. I did apply to a few, in fact, and I actually think I'd make a decent journalist, but those jobs are in very short supply, and the future there is so uncertain it freaks even me out. So I thought and thought about what I wanted to do, and then made my decision when I came across a great intro to screenwriting program.

Class has only been in session for one week, but I'm already knee deep in the writing. Over my head, really. I've seen thousands of movies, and I even took an intro to screenwriting class at UCLA a few years ago, but this is a serious workshop, and my head is spinning. The class is mostly filled with other people from the entertainment business - a director, a lighting guy, some actors, and even one working writer - so I'm feeling a little intimidated due to my naivete. But besides the occasional moment of panic that I have no business doing this, I'm enjoying it and learning a lot. By the end of eight weeks I'm going to churn out the world's shittiest first draft, but it will be a complete draft!

I don't know if this will stick - I guess you never really know if anything will - but I've told myself I'll give it a year and a few scripts and see how it goes. My one real weakness as I can see it now is that I've only ever read a handful of scripts, so I really don't have a strong feel for how a good one looks, but I'm banking on the feel for story and dialogue that I do have from reading thousands and thousands of books to carry me through. That and the frantic screenplay cramming I'm doing right now.

And on the matter of the day job, I made a decision there too, which in some ways is even scarier. I'm going to wait tables and/or bartend. I'm worried about going back to it after such a long time away, but you can't beat the money, and I figure it'll be nice to have something that gets me out around people to even out the solitude of the writing. I know it will be jarring and a far cry from the time when I had an office and could close the door when I was in a bad mood, but I have to give it a try. I just hope I can get my ego to cooperate.

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To Tweet or not to Tweet

2010-01-05T11:42:00.001-08:00

So, yes, I posted recently about my Twitter loving ways, and yes, I still love it, but I've decided to take a break from it.

Why? In the interest of clearing the decks for the New Year, I want to be more efficient with my time. And, honestly, Twitter, while really valuable to me, is a time suck of epic proportions. I could spend all day, and have, going down the rabbit hole of links, suggestions, articles, lists, whatever. I have a mind that never gets tired of new information, often to my own detriment.

So I asked my sister to change my password so that I literally cannot log in. But here's the thing: I miss it. I miss it a lot. I am still getting emails about people following me, so I go and look at their profiles, and wish I was around to see what they're getting up to. It's been all of, what, three days?

I'm thinking I won't last a week...trick will be to limit my Twitter consumption. We'll see how it goes.

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So long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, goodnight 2009

2009-12-31T19:34:00.001-08:00

Between breakups, breakdowns, old jobs, new jobs, road trips, broken bones, broken hearts, meditations, revelations, friends gained, friends lost, new babies and more, 2009 might have been the most eventful one of my life. I can't say I'm sorry to see it go, but I do think I'll look back on this one as a watershed year, and I think that as painful as it was, I learned lessons and took steps that will make me stronger and happier than ever.

Here's to 2010 - may it be happy, healthy, and prosperous for everyone.

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Decisions, decisions and the frittering away of time

2009-12-11T13:33:00.001-08:00

Things I've done while procrastinating writing this post:

Read a blog post by David Byrne on the ramifications of digitization and computer networking (interesting and scary)
Tried to find online evidence of David Byrne's sexuality (indeterminate, as far as I can tell)
Listened to the Police song "Miss Gradenko", which was in my head when I woke up this morning (decent little song that I haven't heard or thought of in 20 years or so)
Read the NY Times review for "Up in the Air", which I saw at the Arclight this afternoon (I give it a B+/A-)
Read a bunch of crap on Twitter, including a story about penniless brothers who were living in a cave in Hungary and who have just inherited a billion dollars from their long lost granddaughter (!!!)
Listened to Ode to Joy (uplifting)
Read a bunch of "best of 2009" music roundups (a colossal waste of time once you've read a few, as the indie music media/blogosphere is mostly a big echo chamber)
Sought out the MySpace page of local LA band Warpaint, based on recommendation from aforementioned lists (decent)

All told today, I've probably spent five hours meandering aimlessly online, and, truth be told, that is probably less time than usual. It's the result of a combination of a surfeit of time, chronic laziness and plain old fear. Time because I'm not working right now. Laziness because I'm not being disciplined about the use of my time - because I have so much of it, I squander it, whereas if it were more limited, I would probably be more efficient and not, say, spend hours reading blogs that give advice to writers (ha.) Fear because, let's face it, I'm terrified of this whole business of being a writer.

I have known that writing is a calling for me since I was pretty young - probably since second grade, when I "published" my first story, a mystery revolving around an international jewel thief. (My aunt, a lawyer, had her secretary type it up and bind copies for my family.) In the years since, I've stumbled in and out of writing - I've taken classes in creative writing, screenwriting, memoir and "writing from a spiritual perspective"; I've had at least four blogs that have never really taken off; I've written freelance articles for a few publications here and there; and I've entered (and lost) short story writing contests. But I've never been able to commit to a regular writing practice, and that is my biggest struggle of all.

And now here I am, having completely burned out on my career in public relations (which is a story in its own right, but for another time,) and feeling like the only thing I'm sure of is that I want to focus on the craft of writing. Great, right? Right. But then there's the problem of making a living. And here's where it gets tricky. I know for a fact that I need a full time job so that I stay out among the living and so that my time is structured, so this is no lament that I don't want to work. Rather, my dilemma is deciding exactly how - do I try to get paid to write in some way? Or do I go for a job that pays the bills, is not too mentally taxing, and allows me to write whatever I want in my free time?

More to come.

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Job posting of the day

2009-12-08T23:31:00.001-08:00

Check out this website I found at losangeles.craigslist.org

"taking care of udders"???

Must be the weed.

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Wine is not vegan, for fuck's sake. What, you didn't know that?

2009-12-08T00:50:00.001-08:00

So, I've been volunteering at a literacy organization in Echo Park, and they regularly host drop in drinking nights, during which they invite volunteers to meet up for drinks at a bar of interest. Since this week's bar was just down the road and since I would have otherwise spent the night watching Pride and Prejudice for the 47th time, I decided to check it out.

I knew within two minutes of walking in that I was doomed. First of all, most of the attendees were in their early 20s, which would have been fine, but they were also the kind of socially awkward, aspiring hipster twenty-somethings that used to wreak havoc on my self-esteem, and hence my social life. I immediately had a (very unpleasant) flashback to being 22 and having a vague sense that something I was wearing was hopelessly uncool in ways I could never even imagine. What's funny is that I have spent the last ten years living in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and LA, epicenters of hipster attitude, and I have long since learned how to not let it bother me. It is, after all, a manifestation of profound insecurity on the part of the perpetrator, and over the years I've found it's easiest to deal with it by keeping in mind the fact that deep down these people are absolutely terrified that someone will discover that 311 was their favorite band until well into college.

But man, there is something about these early 20s hipsters that still kills me. They're especially vicious -- it's as though they're testing out how badly they can behave without making other hipsters think they're total assholes. (That can be pretty bad.) And although, to be fair, there were only a couple of these types present tonight, they were enough to make the whole affair insufferable. The general disinterest each person displayed during introductions was annoying, but things didn't get really bad until the table talk turned to beers. One girl mentions that not all beer is vegan - did we know that? Fortunately we were at a German bar, however, and they had centuries old quality standards to ensure that our brews would remain untainted by animal products of any kind. Nods around the table. So I'll drink beer, this same girl continues, but not wine. Wine is not vegan, because some winemakers use a filter during processing that is made out of fish parts. It's very sad.

Mind you, this was all stated in the most supercilious way possible, and accompanied by looks around the table to make sure that we were all aware of this unfortunate fact. If I had had a taser available to me at this point, I would have straight tased this bitch. WINE IS NOT VEGAN! You pretentious loser! You pompous, humorless dreg of humanity! Oh, to think of all the fish that have suffered for all the wine we humans have been consuming for the past several millennia. So heartless, so tragic.

And in this way, I was undone. No, I didn't laugh and ask her to repeat herself to make sure I heard it correctly. No, I didn't look down my nose at her and make a snide remark about how I felt sorry for her and all that she was missing. Instead, I went into a fugue state for a full five minutes. The world went black. I had a vague sense that I should say something to make it clear that I was not complicit in this nonsense, but the enormity of the reality that some people actually hold this view stunned me silly. Stupefied me. I'm still processing it.

As soon as I recovered my senses, I laid down a ten and fled the scene. And thus ended this week's (and possibly this entire month's) attempt at networking with like-minded people. I got home, poured a glass of cab and set about hoping 2010 would bring more wine and less assholes.

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Jane Donuts is thankful

2009-11-26T11:45:00.001-08:00

For my health, which has improved greatly this year, both physically and mentally.

For my friends, who are tremendously supportive and cool and funny, and were thoughtful enough to hire a housecleaner for me at one point. Those are good friends.

For my family, who are always there for me no matter what. And always entertaining.

For the things that I've lost that weren't good for me.

And for the things I've gained that are.

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Mind Control

2009-11-18T23:39:00.001-08:00

I like working. I like being industrious and getting things done, and I like the feeling of accomplishment I get after a long day's work or completion of a project. A lazy day to me generally still consists of things like running around, going for a hike, going out to eat, reading a book, watching a movie, surfing the Internet, and hanging out with friends. Not terribly productive things, usually, but also not sedentary. I like to be active in some way.

But over the last few years, I started to notice a feeling of resentment about the diversion of my thoughts during the workday that made it very difficult to get anything done. I really began to despise using my mental energy to think about things that I thought were meaningless. Things like figuring out how to promote products I didn't think were useful, which, sadly, was something I routinely had to do. Things like engaging in really, really inane email exchanges with clients that were too disorganized or short on time to effectively manage their projects. And it got to be so overwhelming that I started to kind of grind to a halt. My pattern would be that I would get into work, read emails, open up a few documents I should have been working on or reviewing, but then spend the first couple of hours messing around online, fielding emails as soon as they came in, and not diving into the work I should have been doing. (I'm realizing as I write this that this sounds like that scene from Office Space. Damn that movie is brilliant.) And then I'd basically play a frantic game of catch-up in the late afternoon hours.

I know the general reaction to such an admission is that I need to face it, work is work, and that I just need to learn to cope with this unfortunate fact. BUT I CAN'T. If I've learned anything from this period of searching and exploration, it's that I cannot force myself to do things I don't care about. It just doesn't work for me the way that others seem to make it work. It ends in me breaking down. But I like to think I'm pretty realistic about the ramifications of this fact. I'll probably be broke, at least for the next few years. And I don't expect that I'll ever have a job that will feel like a picnic. In fact, I feel like whatever great job that I do end up with - and I will end up with one - will feel torturous a lot of the time. But in the best way, where I know that when I've finished my efforts will actually be worth something. At least to me.

So I know that whatever I end up doing, it won't be something that drains my thoughts without some kind of payoff. This means I could well end up doing something mindless that would let me focus on what I really want to do, which is write. The hard part now is to decide in what capacity I want to write. Whether it's for work, or whether I keep it in my own time, I don't know. All I know is that I have to do it.

Also, just came across this quote on my Google homepage. Nevermind that I have no idea what "phlogiston" mean - I'll look it up.

"The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved." - Marge Piercy

Nice.

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Twitter, and why I love it

2009-11-12T14:20:00.001-08:00

I'm a full on Twitter addict. I love it. And I love it in ways I've never loved a social network. Not Facebook, not MySpace, not even the thrill of newness that was Friendster.

But it's not a love that came easily. In fact, I signed up for a Twitter account in the spring of 2007 after reading about how it caught on among festivalgoers at South by Southwest, but got confused and abandoned it for a year and a half. It was only in late 2008, when the site really started gaining momentum and getting love from the media, that I got back on the horse and started tweeting.

And I'm not even sure why I did, because it seemed like my words were just going out into the great chasm of the Internet. Hell, they were. I had maybe five followers at that point, none of which were actively logging into the site. But I just kept tweeting on, and tweeting about stuff that I liked, stuff that pleased me. Anything from music I was listening to, to curious sights I came across in day to day life, to rants, to notes from my travels, and a lot of other stuff in between. And along the way, I started following people who were doing things that interested me. Writers, mostly. Reporters I followed for my career in public relations, music bloggers, novelists, cultural observers, and Twitter celebrities.

Very few of these people followed me back, but I didn't care. I just kept logging on because I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed reading their daily observations and making my own in relative anonymity. (Very few of my connections on Twitter are people I actually know, and I kind of prefer it that way. Facebook is tiresome because no one really says anything that interesting - they're all afraid of offending their 'friends.' But I digress.)

I also enjoyed following and unfollowing people with impunity. Unlike Facebook, if someone I am following starts tweeting annoying/obnoxious/irrelevant/uninteresting shit (ahem, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, many other celebrity twitterers), I unfollow them with a quickness, and no hurt feelings or harm done. And basically, after a year of cultivation, I am following and interacting with some really interesting people who are bringing really interesting, relevant information into my life. It brings me so much knowledge and wisdom, it's like a personal Internet butler service.

And then the other amazing thing is that along the way, other people started to follow me. I have 189 followers right now, and granted, a lot of them are spammers or companies who are probably gathering info on me for marketing purposes, but still, there are a lot of people out there who actually might be reading my tweets! Thrilling. Even more thrilling is that some of them are published authors/writers I admire. Susan Orlean! Laura Zigman! Virginia Heffernan! Following little old me. Little old Jane Donuts. Who'd have thunk it.

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Oh and then also

2009-11-11T10:14:00.001-08:00

Download now or listen on posterous

08 We May Be The Ones.m4a (4049 KB)

I can't stop listening to this song.

We May Be the Ones

Paul Westerberg is a singer I always come back to even after months or years of not listening to him. Sometimes it surprises me. He's got the jaded-but-still-romantic combination that I find irresistable (see Jeff Tweedy also,) and a catalogue I've still not exhausted.

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Yesterday by the Numbers

2009-11-10T23:52:00.001-08:00

Approximate time of waking up: 7:45

Approximate time of exiting bed: 9:10

Number of iced coffees drank while watching the scene at Intelligentsia: 1.5

Number of careers contemplated: 5

Number of random mailbox/copy places visited in frantic effort to send fax: 3

Number of old copies of Domino magazine found and subsequently lifted from aforementioned copy places: 2

Number of libraries visited: 2

Number of times around the Silver Lake reservoir: 1

Number of hours spent lying on the couch absentmindedly surfing the internet while wearing a bathrobe: 6.5

Approximate time of falling asleep: 11:30

Certainly not the most productive day, but, sadly, not atypical either. Right now I have the luxury of a totally open schedule and plenty of time with which to contemplate my next career move, and it's wonderful but also, dare I say it, a little tough. In the past I would have hanged myself with so much rope, but these days I'm mostly ok with it. I try to be fairly constructive with my time, and I am making some progress - have pretty much ruled out being a librarian and teaching as career options - but I definitely feel like I'm not making the most of a very rare and precious opportunity to do whatever I want ALL THE TIME. Don't get me wrong, for the most part I have it pretty nice - sleeping a lot, naps, sunny mornings with big mugs of coffee, running, yoga, meditation, fiction reading, all the web surfing one could possibly want or need - but I'm not really accomplishing anything. At least nothing I can really point to, with this blog, if I actually keep at it, as the only possible exception. I'm full of ideas, but not always so good on the follow through.

Current career ideas I'm working through:

In house blogger at some large company
Writer/editor for online news or cultural commentary
Reseller of antiques and vintage furnishings and home decor

Those are the "career" paths I'm looking at, but I'm also considering waiting tables, working retail, selling Christmas trees, applying to be a census worker, etc. etc. So, at this point, a lot remains up in the air.

So I did a weird thing

2009-11-09T23:31:00.000-08:00

And have been blogging, half-assedly as usual, at another site, Posterous. I read that the platform was great, convenient for posting, innovative, and generally all that, and so I decided to take Jane Donuts to another venue for a topical blog on my current career search.

But then I discovered that I could just use Posterous to update this site, which means I'll resume writing (or not writing) here. Sometimes about the career change, sometimes just about stuff. Sometimes vulgarities, sometimes high brow cultural criticism and ranting. And, also as usual, I'll vow to be more prolific.

One of these days I'll succeed.

Jane Donuts is Still Alive

2009-08-18T15:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks to serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine and a lot of therapy. That and a massive road trip and some time off work, which, thankfully, I still have more of.

More to come.

Oprah asks, Jane Donuts answers

2009-04-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

Saw this question on CNN.com...

Question: Can we talk about past loves with present-day sweethearts?

Answer: No.

(Disclaimer: JD hasn't read the article and furthermore doesn't care what it says.)

OK, fine, I skimmed it. But when does that ever do anything but create paranoia and unrest?

Jane Donuts Reminds You that Anything Can Happen at Any Time

2009-03-30T23:19:00.000-07:00

Jane Donuts indulged in a spur of the moment subscription to HBO last night. Since then, during the hours when she wasn't working or walking around the Silver Lake reservoir with friends and the neurotic dog of said friends, she has watched a series of programs including Eastbound and Down, the network's new ode to rednecks in the American south, The #1 Ladies Detective Agency, a charming show about a lovable, portly African lady detective, the tail end of the dreaded Knocked Up (less awful than the first time around but still vaguely misogynistic drivel) and In Bruges, a surprisingly entertaining and thoughtful crime caper set in the eponymous medieval Belgian city. In addition to being immensely watchable (begging an encore viewing, even) and finally introducing to Jane Donuts the heretofore misunderstood appeal of one Colin Farrell, one scene in particular stood out to her.

During a pretty true to life depiction of a coke binge with a random cast of shady weirdos, Farrell's character at one point delivers a completely unexpected and uncalled for karate chop to a fellow carouser, who also happens to be a midget. The swift act of violence is so startling that it reminded Jane Donuts of the magnificent unpredictability of the human animal. One minute you're sharing beers and stories and generally communing and reveling with your fellow humans, and the next one of them strikes you and leaves you rumpled in a heap on the floor of your hotel room writhing in pain.

It can happen, and it sometimes will when you least expect it.

In fact, the scene was strangely echoed when JD stepped out on her porch for an illicit smoke, which she shouldn't be doing anyway, yes, she is well aware, and came face to face with a well dressed man of questionable sexuality in a nicely tailored pinstripe suit. The man was vaguely handsome and clearly of some means, but the reason for him being out there on a Monday night at 11:20 was not immediately clear. After a moment of tense and uncomfortable small talk, it was revealed that he was there to see her upstairs neighbor and had at one point lived in the apartment above her own, and the neighbor came down to say hello, and Jane Donuts was able to sneak back into her apartment without incident. All in no, no blows were thrown, no harm done, but for a minute there, she wasn't so sure.

So Jane Donuts urges you all to be careful out there. And be alert. You just don't know what's lurking.

Jane Donuts is off the meds

2009-02-26T21:58:00.000-08:00

Well, not really. But maybe partially. Or at least considering it? Came across the card in the picture above the other day - actually came across it numerous times in unrelated public places. Is not wanting to talk about it a good sign or a bad sign? Jane Donuts is thinking of intensifying hibernation. Jane Donuts should probably go ahead and get a new therapist. Jane Donuts doesn't see the point of any of it in the end. Jane Donuts keeps looking for it though.

Point to Ponder

2009-02-17T14:44:00.000-08:00

With the economic downturn in full effect and expected to get much deeper, Jane Donuts wonders what effect that will have on the ever evolving ideal of the woman's physique?

In the way that the skinny, flat-chested flapper ideal of the roaring 20s gave way to the curvy, ultra-feminine silhouettes of the more fiscally conservative 40s and 50s, could the bone-starved status symbol thinness of the 90s and 2000s give way to a more lush form in the 2010s? Out with the Gwenyths and Jennifer Anistons, in with the Beyonces? Don't think we'll ever quite prize a rubenesque figure again, but how about less bicep, more boob?

A girl can dream.

p.s. Holy shit! This article just came up at the top of Jane Donuts's gmail page. Wow.

Oh right.

2009-02-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

The sights here trump anything Jane Donuts has ever actually ingested, but are fascinating nonetheless.

Fashion Show at the Gym = Ugh

2009-02-05T17:37:00.001-08:00

As if getting there wasn't hard enough, now one has to feel like one must be wearing stylish attire? Well, let Jane Donuts tell you something. She goes to the gym in a goddamn ratty t-shirt and plain old black stretch pants.

Although truth be told, she wishes the 80s thong leotard would come back just like she wishes NBA players would bring back short shorts. Because how much more entertaining would the gym be?

Jane Donuts would even give it a go.

p.s. She did see someone wearing stirrup pants the other day. But it was a little too American Apparel to be cool.

Jane Donuts Loves Animals, and So Do Some Presidents!

2009-02-03T14:29:00.001-08:00

Thanks to the Discovery Network, Jane Donuts has learned about pets owned by various presidents:

Thomas Jefferson- pet bear cubs
James Madison- parrot
John Quincy Adams- silkworms, alligator
Andrew Jackson- fighting cocks, a cussing parrot
Martin Van Buren- tiger cubs
William Henry Harrison- pet goat
John Tyler- first president to own a canary
Abraham Lincoln- loved animals and owned many, including a pet rabbit
Andrew Johnson- white mice
Grover Cleveland- mockingbirds
Benjamin Harrison- opossum
Theodore Roosevelt- a full house with a pet garter snake, pig, rat, badger, guinea pig
Calvin Coolidge- pet raccoons, goose, bobcat, lion cubs, wallaby and a pygmy hippopotamus

Never having been much of a student of presidential history, Jane Donuts never felt much kinship with any of these gentleman, with the possible exception of Andrew Jackson, who always struck her as kind of a thrilling individual. (And judging by his choice of pets, perhaps he was a little too thrilling. Fighting cocks? Unnecessary.) But it's funny how knowing what kind of pet someone owns tells you something about their character.

Lincoln? Lovable.
Quincy Adams? Weird.
Harrison? Funny.
Roosevelt? Mischevious.
And Calvin Coolidge? Wild. (Who knew?)

No wonder the Obamas are dragging their feet on the dog decision. So much riding on it. If they get, say, a maltipoo, we'll all lose respect.

Jane Donuts Has a Conversation

2009-01-29T13:15:00.001-08:00

So the other night, Jane Donuts attended a work social function. Jane Donuts works deep, deep in the heart of corporate America. More corporate that you can imagine. Depths you have (hopefully) never seen.

Several glasses of $14 Pinot Noir in she had the following exchange with an older, Southern male colleague.

Weirdo: So, you look like someone who likes music
Jane Donuts: Yeah, I'm kind of a nerd about it
Weirdo: Oh yeah, so who do you listen to?
Jane Donuts: Oh, well, some of my favorites historically are REM, the Pixies, the Beatles
Weirdo: Do you like Staind?
Jane Donuts: Um
Weirdo: Yeah, I've been into them lately. I love Live, they're one of my favorites, but lately they've just started making vaginal rock.
Jane Donuts: What?
Weirdo: Just, you know, for pussies. Just really vaginal and I've just totally lost interest.
Jane Donuts: ...

This was after a chilling conversation with a deposed exec who was still drinking the kool-aid but before a series of blatant propositions from an older, married, avowed Catholic. All in all, an interesting evening.

On undergarments

2009-01-26T17:01:00.000-08:00

A lot of times, underwear seems unnecessary, and that's why Jane Donuts often forgoes it. Barring a few essential days of the month, it's mostly a nuisance and just another item of clothing to be paid for, washed, folded, stored, etc. Who needs it? Plus there's the semi illicit thrill of going commando.

But then I read this account of one of the passengers on US Airways Flight 1549, and, although he survived, his pants were ripped off in the impact and he was forced to pull himself to safety bare bottomed and exposed to the elements and the stares of his fellow passengers. Yes, yes, they were extraordinary circumstances and probably the last thing on anyone's mind was whether the guy's ass was any good, but still in all, this was a horrifying account.

Jane Donuts finds herself reconsidering underpants in the mornings now. Just another small decision to be made.

Watching Rome Burn

2009-01-14T23:37:00.000-08:00

An overwhelming day for Jane Donuts.

Ominous headlines from the financial world. Dramatically receding hopes for exiting credit card debt in the near term. Shame over poor financial choices in the past. Colleagues who showed themselves to be incredibly, maddeningly short-sighted and disappointing on many levels. The locking of eyes with some poor bastard on her floor walking down the hall with a McDonald's bag. The wrong outfit worn to work. And then there were the cravings for chocolate, which were ultimately induldged.

These people with the relentlessly positive attitudes, where do they get them? And how do they maintain them? And how does one balance being content with reality?

It's about developing some kind of filter, isn't it? What to process and what to throw out. Jane Donuts has a long way to go here.

Jane Donuts remarks upon the specter of death hanging over Hollywood

2009-01-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

Jane Donuts doesn't feel bad about this. Watching the Golden Globes with the sound off, beneath the glamour of the gowns and the sparkling jewels, what is most obvious is that some of the most watchable, less than perfect women in town have transmogrified into thinner, blonder versions of themselves, and then some are just outright dying. This is no way to live. (And why would Drew Barrymore want to turn herself into Phyllis Diller anyway?)

Jane Donuts, on the other hand, started the day off with a cupcake and later paraded her sturdy, brunette form through Downtown LA's Grand Central market, where along with several hundred fellow mortals, she indulged in pupusas and heavily sugared dulces. And after that, as she sunned herself in the grass under a clear, 75 degreed, smogless sky, she looked down at her non-pedicured feet and thought to herself, life is good.

JD Says: Happy New Year

2009-01-07T22:28:00.000-08:00

New Year's resolutions, in no particular order:

eat less meat (just cause)
do more squats (on account of future bikini appearances)
blog more (Jane Donuts needs oxygen)
make more friends in the blogosphere (see above)
spend less money (no explanation necessary)
own it (whatever "it" may be)

Wishing all others a Happy New Year too, except for the phonies. And you know who you are.

Various assholes

2008-12-09T14:38:00.000-08:00

Jane Donuts is an avid people watcher. All different types of people. People of various ethnicities. People of various sexes, and heights and weights. People of various ages, young and old.

And people of various political and social leanings, too. The other day Jane Donuts was sitting at an intersection watching cars pass her going in the other direction. Moms in big, dusty SUVs with kids in tow. Twenty-somethings with small compact cars and bumper stickers. Business types with big BMWs. And fortysomething women driving hybrids.

And as Jane Donuts thought about it and the fact that you can pretty much guess what each of these people's political leanings are, she realized that at some point or another, we all fall into these identity traps and cliches. What we wear, what we drive, what we read, all of these things tell the casual observer something very personal about our identities, and no matter what we are, we're always an asshole to someone.

Jane Donuts is no spring chicken, but she still wonders what kind of asshole she'll shake out to be in the end.

The Endless Stretch of Days

2008-12-03T17:44:00.000-08:00

Some days Jane Donuts looks out into the future and sees a depressing series of days that are all frighteningly alike, and it infuses everything she does. It makes her rethink her usual order from the coffee shop. It makes her want to make all new friends and discard the old ones. It makes her wonder how she can get through another work week without quitting in disgust. It makes her wonder how she can get through the rest of her life without quitting in disgust.

Not all days, but some.

Who is everyone kidding?

2008-12-01T15:03:00.000-08:00

Jane Donuts always laughs when people talk about how much they overindulged on Thanksgiving.

"I cannot believe how much I ate!"
"My pants are going to be so tight!"
"I really overdid it this time!"

Who are these people, Jane Donuts thinks? Do they not ever sequester themselves in the house with a large pizza and/or a pint of Ben and Jerry's? Have they never started to eat a forkfull of pie or a handful of cereal and then found themselves finishing the whole thing?

And isn't that sort of the point of Thanksgiving? Are people really going into it thinking/hoping they won't be gluttonous? And if so, isn't that the best way to ensure that they will be?

Jane Donuts really wishes people would be more honest about their weaknesses.

Jane Donuts Often Finds Herself Thinking in Status Updates

2008-11-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

Like the ones on Facebook:
Jane Donuts is so glad she has four weeks of vacation per year.
Jane Donuts had a lovely run around the reservoir this morning.
Jane Donuts just had a delicious cup of coffee.

Jane Donuts also wishes people could say what they're really thinking in their status updates. Like:
Jane Donuts doesn't want to go to work but knows she would get bored at home.
Jane Donuts is filled with self loathing.
Jane Donuts wishes she'd insisted on piano lessons as a child so she could now be a rock star now and not have to pretend to care about her corporate job.
Jane Donuts is wearing her fat pants today; is fucking pissed.

Whatever social media is doing to us is strange if these are the side effects.

In which Jane Donuts suffers a collision.

2008-07-27T13:26:00.001-07:00

Jane Donuts was headed west on Olympic last night at approximately 11:40 when a sixteen year old kid took a left hand turn and crashed into her car, setting off the airbags and leaving her stopped parallel across the road in a cloud of smoke and with a bruised and cut arm. The Silver Jews were on the radio. It was a pretty dark stretch of road and there were a few nighttime creatures walking along on the road. Jane Donuts sat frozen in the car for a minute or two until the youngling that hit her walked up the to the passenger side door to ask her if she was alright. She was alright, just shocked. The kid lit up a smoke. Jane Donuts removed her ipod from the car and got out. A nice lady stopped and told her she saw the crash and that it was not Jane's fault, and gave her her business card and offered to be a witness. So that was nice.

Five minutes or so passed and Jane Donuts was trying to collect her thoughts. The car's back left wheel was crushed in and concave, and so she couldn't move it out of the street. Assholes were driving by and honking. Some bitch shouted out the window that she should move the car, and Jane Donuts gave her the finger and yelled at her that the car wouldn't move. The cops were called, but they didn't want to come since nobody was injured. They transferred Jane Donuts to a tow company. The operator there had attitude, which was not surprising. Jane Donuts was trying to write down her information when a nice looking Indian woman walked up to her and just looked at her. Jane Donuts looked back at her for a minute. The woman said, "I'm his mom." Jane Donuts nodded and was trying to be nice and offer some kind of conciliatory gesture, but found she lacked the strength. The kid was scared shitless. An older black man with a nice gold chain and plaid shorts came up to her and offered her a pen. A younger black man with a pit bull told Jane Donuts and the kid that they should get everything of value out of the cars immediately.

The cops pulled up and shined flashlights, asked if everyone was OK. The tow truck guy came and he was 300 pounds at least. He had some kind of contraption with claws that sought out the wheels and sucked the car up onto the truck. JD asked him for a ride home, which he was not entirely happy about, but was slightly mollified when he was informed that home was just a mile west. There was no music in the car on the ride home. The driver had a blue tooth ear thing. The driver and Jane Donuts didn't speak. Jane Donuts' brother called and Jane Donuts was cursing while describing the incident. The driver did not mind. The tow truck rattled as it rolled over the speed bumps in Jane's neighborhood. He dropped her off and she thanked him kindly.

The night was over and Jane Donuts has all body parts functioning, but a sore arm and shoulder and a slightly bruised psyche.

And that was the end.

Monkey Love

2008-07-08T21:05:00.001-07:00

I have a new friend in the blogosphere. I don't know him very well, but I like his vibe.

Enjoy the first two installments. I'll post more as they come out. Welcome, Monkey.

Part One:

Part Two:

Jane Donuts Takes Your Questions.

2008-07-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

From a love lorn reader on the east side, we have this:

"Will anyone love a plump chick who carries a good extra 15 el bees?"

Jane Donuts can speak from experience here, and the answer is yes. True, he may not himself have rock hard abs, and he may in fact have an addiction to Scrabulous and an undying love of Sparks and taquitos, but good loard, yes, it is possible. While it's true there are many men out there with double standards - like it's OK for him to eat Jack in the Box on a daily basis but he abhors any trace of cellulite - there are also many men out there who yearn for a soft feeling woman with a good set of hips who can make them laugh and entertain them both in and out of the boudoir. Which any friend of Jane Donuts can certainly do.

Think of all women throughout time. How many of them could stand up to the scrutiny of a paparazzi style photograph without getting a label like "Worst Beach Bodies"? Very few, my dear, very few. In fact, I am reminded of the American beauty I once met at an event I produced while living in New York City who not only had a great husband, a life that was by all accounts enviable and a mother who was a legendary beauty, but who also had a sort of saggy bulbous ass in khaki pants. Did this stop her from being stellar? No. And what of these people who really do look stellar all the time? What of these models, these starlets, even these genetic freaks (Halle Berry? Uma Thurman?) who, even after several kids and an age approaching the wrong side of 40, still look amazing? Well, one of the reasons they are so regularly photographed is because of their very genetic freakishness. It's a marvel. It's far stranger to appear perfect (and far more difficult, I might add - don't think those women aren't availing themselves of every beauty treatment modern technology and a shitload of dough has to offer) than it is to appear normal. And that's why we want to look at them, really.

But I'm digressing a bit here. I think the real key is to just own it. Just do the best you can with what you have, as my dad likes to say. On a physical level, anytime you really examine someone, even the most ostensibly physically flawless person, you can find a few flaws. The difference between those who really attract people and those who don't is the attitude. If you can somehow convince yourself that you should be fucked - nay, loved - and of course, some days that's easier than others - then somehow others will want to fuck/love you. Even if you have to wear Spanx and other horrifying female contraptions. Once the clothes start to come off, no one really gives a shit. For reals. Just keep the lights off at first if you have to. After a while, it really won't matter.

Do you have a question for Jane Donuts? Email me at littlejanedonuts@gmail.com

Avoiding the Hot Stove

2008-07-02T22:12:00.000-07:00

As a child, you learn the concept of a hot stove. Mom says "hot," and that means bad, and that you shouldn't touch it. You learn it again (or at least we did, when we were small) when you see the Bugs Bunny public service announcement, which is not so much about not touching the hot burners on the hot stove (which will in fact burn your fat little hand, and possibly cause a paralysis/nub situation), but more about keeping the pot handles turned in. "Keep those pot handles turned in!," says Bugs.

He was smart, Bugs. Anyone with common sense knows to not keep going back to something that harms you, and without any rewards.

So I'm Back to the Velvet Underground

2008-07-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

Not really. But that's the first line to one of my favorite songs ever. "Gypsy." Half bittersweet, half just regular old sweet. Hopeful but at the same time resigned to accept the way things tend to play out.

Reminds me of listening to Fleetwood Mac when I was little. We had a huge old wooden stereo cabinet that my dad used to play records on. He had America and Abbey Road and the soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz, among others, and eight track tapes of other, less interesting stuff. Like Johnny Mathis. (Yikes.) And Elvis. (Never interesting to me.)

My dad would throw on a record and, if the mood was right, we'd go to town, dancing, chasing each other around, singing, spinning and acting slightly less disordered than usual by virtue of keeping in time with the music. Maybe that's where it all started. That and with roadtrips, which involved nonstop music. My mom listening to "The Tide is High" and "Abracadabra" in the station wagon on the radio. Cassette tapes of Hall and Oates, Paul Simon, more Fleetwood Mac in the Buick Delta 88. (My dad: "Christine McVie is a fox!" Strange that he preferred her to Stevie Nicks.)

And no, I'm really not sure where I'm going with this. But if I could figure out how to post a song, I would post "Gypsy."