My Mother Was Right: Work Blog

When I was a kid, I hung out with a Spanish girl, an Italian girl, a Puerto Rican girl and a mutt who was mixed Hungarian, Scottish, Irish and God knows what else-- but she was born with jaundice. See a pattern? They all had skin that would tan.

I, of course, didn't. My mother would slather me with sunscreen, too thick to rub in, coating my portly thighs like a pig covered in Crisco. When I got old enough, I insisted on doing it myself, and in our first real power struggle, my mother would insist on squeezing the SPF into my hands. She would put about four cups of SPF 70 into my palms, telling me to "rub it in." I, of course, obeyed-- rubbing the lotion in... the back of my knees.

My preteen years were filled with water blisters and 2nd degree burns, oatmeal baths and aloe. As a result, I now have freckles permanently seared onto my skin in the shape of a bathing suit. A thick strapped, 80s bathing suit.

Anyway. It's one of my many regrets-- one of the many ways I regret treating my body. I am now a devotee of spray tans. On some level I still believe a tan makes you look thinner (this was part of my motivation as a kid, as opposed to say, dieting and playing sports)-- so while I am orange, I am still looking 10lbs lighter.

In this blog that I wrote for work, I explore a few others-- common ways we damage our skin. Smoking, tanning, all the good stuff. Check it out if you're bored!

The Gift of Beauty: Work Blog

I do all of my holiday shopping online, due to a paralyzing fear of bedbugs and a total lack of motivation. That said, it's safe to say that everything in this blog that I wrote for work is kind of made up. Enjoy!

Holiday Sparkle: Work Blog

Back when the clock was about to ring in 2000 and we were all afraid of Y2K, I was at my second heaviest lifetime weight and had discovered a penchant for sparkling clothes, feathers, and glitter makeup--a style probably brought on by my excessive drinking and love of weed.

Anyway, I had to channel that girl when I wrote this work blog about holiday attire, which, as it turns out, is always sparkly. I guess I was ahead of my time.

Seeing Red: Work Blog

Sometime around late November, I realized that while my work blog might not have a lot of traffic, it did have something I valued: a lack monitoring by any authority figure.

It was a revelation. It meant that I could start writing more like myself-you know, poorly.

Here's the first blog where I just started to be more me at work. It was actually interesting to write-- based on a panel discussion on red lipstick and it's importance in the history of beauty.

Here's something I learned in my research: did you know in WWII, when the allies liberated the Nazi death camp at Bergen-Belsen, supplies came in including food, water and vats of red lipstick. Soldiers thought it was so insane-- why would anyone send red lipstick?

As days went on, the female prisoners gravitated to the makeup. Soldiers started seeing more and more women walking around with red lipstick.

It had given them back their individuality-- their femininity. They went from being prisoners to women again-- it was their first step in being treated like individual, beautiful humans after years of atrocities. Here is an artistic rendering of the scene from my favorite guerrilla artist, Banksy.


Fascinating, right? Here's the excerpt from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin DSO who was among the first British soldiers to liberate Bergen-Belsen in 1945.

Camp

I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diptheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing would save it, one saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference. Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand proping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentary which was scouring their bowels, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated. It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.

Source: Imperial War museum

Anyway. I am anonymous on the blog, and you can't tell the difference from me and the old blogger except that she didn't include images in her posts-- but I'd like to think you can hear more of me starting in this blog and going forward.

Sick on a Saturday

I just reread my last post and realized I was sick when I wrote it. The sickness I have now makes that one look like a silly flu, a sissy virus, the lamest of the lame of germs. Late last night while indulging in some post-Thanksgiving movie watching (The Social Network, bootleg, natch) on Aunt Mary's couch, I started to feel a bit woozy. This morning, it was full blown: thick, scratchy throat, deep cough, head that feels like it's been put in the world's largest vice made specifically for big heads.

It occurs to me that I never fully got better from my last illness. So. I've spent today sleeping, waking up to do shots of Tylenol and Robitussin dropped off by my sweet Florence Nightingale, my cousin Karen. In between I've sandwiched snippets of Uncle Buck, the remaining episodes of Glee that I had to catch up on, and cleaned out the old DVR. It's like the day I always dreamed of, except I am too miserable to enjoy it. Even with ice cream.

In my throbbing head, I keep thinking about the fact that I am still 10 years old when it comes to sick days. Why, oh why, dear God, am I sick on a weekend? When I have a list of things to do that I actually want to do? Like get a Christmas tree, or go to Connecticut to see John Moses headline at Comix at Foxwoods, where we could gamble and eat fudge for free? Or go to yoga, or go out to lunch? Whhhhy?

I guess, since I complained last about having to work sick since I can't take sick days, the fact is that I just hate being sick. I hate it, even when Elf is on.

Pretty Awesome: Work Blog

When you work in editorial, people are forever sending you products to try, in the hopes that you might write about them in your magazine.

I don't work for editorial. I work in advertising, which means not only do editors consider me a bottom feeder, even advertisers don't care what I think. Usually.

That said, every now and then you get an advertiser who recognizes your human characteristics, and wants you to try their product and maybe even write about them on your blog that no one reads.

When it came to Elizabeth Arden Pretty, we had some product lying around from sweepstakes and gift bags we were fulfilling, and they wanted me to try the perfume. So I did, and I wrote about it here.

Do I love it? You know, it's not bad. I generally wear less floral perfumes, but take my opinion for what it's worth... pretty much nothing. But hey, at least I am honest!

True Flu

Ok so maybe it's not the flu but I am damn sick. My immune system-- usually the only strong part of my body thanks to years of drinking and enough stored alcohol to kill any germs that come within a seven foot radius-- is flustered, and I am sick. Beloved's been sick for a while, and my immune system pelted off his little germies for weeks before finally succumbing. I can pinpoint when it happened- after working until 10pm last Thursday, run down-- I had a wedding Friday, a trip to Massachusetts Saturday. That, coupled with Beloved's relentless germ spreading, did me in. In the car, my system gave out. I actually felt myself get sick as we crossed the New York border into Connecticut. At first I thought it was my aversion to the suburbs-- turned out it was actual illness.

Of course I had to work today. Not because I am a go-getter, but because I am paid by the day. That's right: no sick days, no vacation days, just get paid as you go. It seems doubly insulting that the people with no health insurance-- the freelancers-- are also the people with no sick days. I could get all worked up about it but I don't have the energy. And even if I had insurance, I probably wouldn't go to the doctor. I HATE doctors. But what I would do, if I could, is take a day, lay on the couch, watch Maury Povich and relax. This would surely make me feel better. In fact, I was never sick when I was unemployed, largely because that was all I did!

Anyway, it seems cruel that I took my couch for granted for so long. In fact, I had a rule- no TV in the daytime. Hello!? Stupid rule.

I am going to bed.

Get Polished: Work Blog

Another one from the mind of your favorite copywriter...hey, it pays the bills!

Get Polished

Product of My Environment

I moonlight as Lady Gaga's stylist, as you may have guessed ------->
____________________________________

I was talking to an unemployed friend last night, and he said that he'd do anything to be working again. I would say that I remember that feeling, but I think if you know me you know that's not true.

In fact, I was recently waxing poetic about my days of leisure. Sure, there was stress about rent and bills, but I am working now and I still have that stress. Now I just have other things to stress about, like...

- When do I have time to drop off my dry cleaning?
- How can I move my car for alternate side before work when I am already late?
- When can I possibly catch up on episodes of Cake Boss when I am not getting home until 8:30pm?

I like my new gig- but I work hard. I am in at 9am, and I don't leave until about 6:45pm on average. I don't take lunch. Every minute of my day is filled with work- the days fly by, which is nice, but at the same time... holy shit. I get home, I eat dinner, I get ready for bed and then it's bedtime, and I am doing it all again. It reminds me of something...



Please, don't worry-- we all know I can't afford cocaine. Though it sure would make me skinny.

It's not that I am complaining. I just think that maybe we should completely overhaul the work culture in the United States. Maybe I was born in the wrong era-- maybe I should have been Don Draper's dowdy copywriting assistant, in at 9, out by 5, drinking bourbons and chain smoking Luckys in between. Why can't we go back to that?

Maybe it's my town. This week, the Daily News reported that New Yorkers are more stressed out than other Americans. I can sort of see why, between the shitty trains(that were rated an enthusiastic C as opposed to last year's C- by riders), ridiculous rents, and, of course, the scourge of the century, who wouldn't be stressed? What's so great about this stupid city anyway?

Or maybe it's just me. I tend to throw myself into my work-- I try to BECOME the thing I write about. If it's fashion or beauty, suddenly I am upping the ante on my shopping. If it's food, I am hungry. Very hungry.

When I was unemployed, I became your typical unemployed person. I hit the gym, I relaxed, I laughed off the idea of the "Sunday Night Blues." I went out on a Tuesday night because I could.

I guess the thing I am realizing is that I adapt to my environment, but not just that, I adapt to the WORST parts of my environment. I pick up all the vices everywhere I go-- never the good traits. Maybe I should work at Forbes, or some kind of budget magazine. If I worked at Oprah, maybe I'd end up saving the world. But more than likely, I'd just badmouth beef farmers, yo-yo diet and start saying Umm Hmmm a lot.

You're Semi-Hired!

(Hire me! I can make rainbows fly out of my butt!)
____________________________________




In the immortal words of the Talking Heads, I ask: "Wait... how did I get here?"

Where's here? A desk- in an office, actually. A real, live office. My first ever. When I was at Former Fashion Magazine they kept me in a storage closet which, given my aversion to people, really worked out nicely for me. Not today, though. Today I have a desk in an office with a door that (blessedly) shuts.

It's sort of like this-- as Renton told Spud, you can't try too hard, of you'll end up employed. You can't not try, or they'll know you're not trying. It was a fine line to walk, and I walked the wrong way. And ended up with a job. Sort of.



So, I guess I am employed. As Beloved has been pointing out, I've been fairly employed for a while. (Hence my lack of blogging. I felt like a Funemployed Fraud!) I have been taking any freelance I can, doing maternity fill-ins as a copy director and going to school so that I can continue towards my goal of becoming a high school English teacher.

I am employed, but-- I am kind of barely so. The new-fangled job market in advertising means that I have been hired as a perma-lancer. What's that, you ask? It's a person with all of the responsibilities, less of the perks. At the New Fashion Magazine where I am semi-employed, I have an office, but no healthcare. I filed for that from the Freelancers Union who, it turns out, are kind of crooks, just like every other insurance based entity. I have a regular gig I can depend on, but no recourse if they decide one day they don't need me. Also, I have a fairly steady paycheck, but no vacation days... so if I do decide to take a day off for, say, Thanksgiving, I won't be paid for it. Of course, the office is closed on Thanksgiving or I'd probably come in, being the cheap bitch that I am.

It's sort of crazy being back. I am thrust back into my same self-loathing, fueled by the matchsticks that ride the elevator and load up on lettuce leafs in the cafeteria at lunch. I realize my attention span in meetings has been drastically reduced by 18 months of unemployment and Maury Povich reruns. I can barely make it through a brainstorming without shouting "You are NOT the FATHER!" Yet at the same time, it comes back, like riding a bike. (I should probably mention I was hit by a car riding a bike in high school, so this isn't the best analogy, but you get the point.) In this part of my life I am responsible, and organized, and at the risk of sounding conceited, quite good at what I do, which is writing ad copy. There's an energy to it that I thrive on, and I missed that. I work hard at it and I nail it down and I deliver within deadlines-- just like I always did. It kind of makes me wonder what made me so expendable to begin with.

So that's where I stand. Do I need to change the name of my blog? You tell me, but I don't think so. I think Semi-Employed doesn't convey the fun I have being barely employed at the lowest possible level.

You'll hear a lot more out of me now, because after some time I have finally decided on the new direction for this blog. Just because I am semi-employed doesn't mean I am not a deadbeat, so we'll see where it goes, but honestly this blog was always just an outlet for me to write about what I wanted, what I saw, what was important to me, and it will continue to be the same thing. So expect lots of posts on inane things. Um, I didn't ask you to follow me, you got yourself into this shitheap yourself.

Credit Where Credit is Due: Plum Crazy (Work Blog)

I realize I am not, by practice, your most diligent blogger. It could be weeks before I add a new post, and when I do I am often promising to do it more often.

That said, you should know, this isn't my only blog. I actually now need to blog as part of my job at New Fashion/Beauty Magazine. I am not really a diligent blogger there, either-- but since I am my only reader and I am grossly overworked, I think it's okay.

If you subscribe to this blog, you like the way I write. And if you like the way I write, you'll like my work blog. No one reads it except for me, so I have the liberty of being myself. Well, my more professional self.

So, I've decided to start linking the two blogs. It might get me more traffic on that blog, and it will make me feel less like a slacker on this one. That said, I will ALWAYS label it a work blog when it is one--so you know any products I am promoting are advertisers for that magazine. Cool?

Cool.

Here's the first post I did for them, called "Plum Crazy," wherein I try to pretend I know all about the plum makeup trend.

Things You Need When You're Funemployed

It's tough out there-- don't let the "falling unemployment claims" that our slick-haired politicians are touting fool you. What that means is that people are timing out of their unemployment benefits-- they've been unemployed so long that they're not able to claim any more. Look at me- I've been out of work 10.5 months already. Tempus fugit- or in my case, tempus fukkit--that's Latin for "time fucks you over." Americans everywhere are still losing their jobs-- but don't worry. When your boss drags to you HR kicking and screaming to hand you that delicate pink slip that's simultaneously the key to your personal freedom and your financial dependency, there's only one thing you can do. Ok- fine--AFTER you have a drink. Or ten. Whatever- I get it, do that first, and then get ready to do The Second Thing: consult my list of the must-have items that are essential for your pending unemployment.

Take it from me, someone who has been there and is, in fact, still there: it can be traumatic, and you kind of forget everything the HR people tell you on your way out the door, so it's best to have someone recap. And that's why I am here. And also, I know much more than they do about the real essentials of unemployment.

Not going to lose your job? Lucky you. But you can still help your unemployed friends out by getting them items on the list. And buy them a drink, you cheap, employed a-hole.

Things You Need When You're Funemployed

1. This website: https://ui.labor.state.ny.us/UBC/home.do

2. A notebook to write down jobs leads, phone numbers and important health insurance mumbo jumbo. Keep it solely dedicated to your job search, so you know where EVERYTHING is. I recommend stealing it from your former employer on the way out the door. They owe you. (*Addendum: If you can, SOME might recommend also hawking tape, a stapler, folders, scissors, a 3-hole punch and a lable-maker. But I can't say for sure that I am the one recommending that. Or that's what my lawyers told me.)

3. Cable TV, or access to the Maury Povich Show

4. Rich friends who offer free dinner

5. A bathing suit and SPF, if it's May-September

6. Wireless internet- job searching without it is a horrific nightmare from which you might never wake

7. Gift certificates for manicures and pedicures. No one should have to choose.

8. A gym membership. On days when we feel like sleeping in has lost its luster, it's good to go, work out and feel productive, and like we actually earned our afternoon nap.

9. Coupon cards for your local supermarket. Never signed up for your Pathmark card? Get it. And for those of you who go to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods... you better sign up for a Pathmark card, too. Couture grocery shopping is a luxury of the community of the gainfully employed- of which you are no longer a member.

10. An account on the networking site of your choice. No, not Facebook you tool-friend me, by the way, if you didn't already!- I am talking about LinkedIn or whatever you use in your specific industry.

11. A social plan: you'll be surprised at just how quickly you get isolated without a job to go to every day. Who will you discuss the latest episode of Gossip Girl with, if not your cube-neighbor? Ah, I miss you Annie an Derrica. Join a club, make a friend, volunteer- you need things to keep you actively speaking.

12. A Facebook profile. It fills the void of actual human interaction when the "social plan" falls apart.

13. Comfortable lounge clothes that can also double as outside clothes. I recommend yoga pants and have three pairs- my workout yoga pants, my lounge yoga pants and my dress-up yoga pants.

14. A sad voice. Use it to call your cable and phone company, explain that you've lost your job and that you need your bill reduced. I got Time Warner to reduce mine by $60 a month AND give me free Showtime, just because I tried. They're just waiting for your call. Oh, and for you to threaten to switch to Fios.

15. Friends. There are lots of ups and downs, emotionally and financially... you'll be fine one minute and the next you'll realize that you can't afford a cup of coffee.

At the end of the day, you just have to remember that this is temporary. And it's an opportunity. I am back in school and changing careers-- that never would have happened if I was still making bank. Now, I am painfully poor and happy. I slept til noon today! and now I am going to work out and do some homework for class, then go meet some friends. There is opportunity here. And if you can't fight it, you might as well enjoy it until it's over. Right?

Train to Nowheresville

The day I started my freelance gig at Unnamed Fashion Magazine, I got myself dressed up in a cute little dress, polished my favorite black boots, put on my chic winter hat and coat and headed out, my proud expression silently proclaiming "Here I am, World! Did you miss me?"

With eager anticipation, I hustled down to the subway, ready to board the N Train. The Success Express! I was ready to rub elbows with the Cream of the Crop- the Employed people of America! At last, I had returned.

And then, with one mighty whiff, my disillusion was shattered.

THESE people have jobs, and I don't?

Wait. I know that sounded judgmental.

THESE PEOPLE have jobs, and I don't??

Let me explain the N train, for you out-of-towners/Express Bus Elitists. First there's the Nail Clippers, the Booger Pickers and the Smells-Like-Shitters. To our left we have the Disgruntled Elbow Jabbers and the Dirty Look Givers, and to our right you'll see the Ones Who Talk to Themselves cuddled up to The Ones Who Snore with Their Mouths Wide Open. And let's not forget the woman with a piece of Scotch tape placed across her forehead-- she's next to the guy who's shaving-- yes shaving-- directly in front of me.*

How did it happen that a responsible, hard working and--I'll just say it-- mildly charming woman like myself finds herself on the breadline while the Weirdos of the world, (all of whom seem to ride the N train) go about their day, collect their paychecks, and go back to grooming themselves on public transportation?

As my time at Unnamed Fashion Magazine draws to a close, and I ready to rejoin the ranks of the remarkably unproductive, I realize that you know what? There was nothing I could have done to keep from losing my job. I worked hard, I was professional, I even dressed nice. But in the end, times are tough. Some people will hold on to employment and others won't. It's not personal, it's business-- and there's no rhyme or reason to it.

And at least I don't have to ride the N train if I don't want to now. I can just nap instead.

*These are all based on actual train experiences. and people I have seen, though generally not at once. I am not even getting into the guy who was dressed like Dick Tracy in August, or the lady who filled her cheeks with sunflower seeds only to spit them all over herself when I looked at her. So let's just agree that this is all real, if unbelievable.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I've said it before and I will say it again: I have a crush on Joan Halloway Harris. You know- the secretary from Mad Men. And yes, I know she's not real, but I love her! I love her style and her sass and the way the two things go together-- and I love that she's curvy and she rocks it. I can finally embrace my hips again. Bite me, Gisele! If only she didn't make me want to smoke cigarettes and drink Scotch and eat red meat. Ok, eat more red meat.

So today, I am at work wearing my Joan Halloway best: a pencil skirt, big belt, cap sleeved top and round-toe pumps, complete with a bow. Yes, I want to BE her.

I see a lot of women on the street that I want to be. I like to dissect outfits and find what would and what would not work on me. Sometimes, I'll even snap a pic.

So now, dear reader, I do you a service: you can do the same, and you can win a shopping spree at H&M! They're running the H&M Style Eye Sweepstakes, all via Facebook. Stop playing Bejeweled for a second, then take a picture of the women who you think have the look you love, even if it's you. Post it online here and you could win an H&M shopping spree AND get featured in Lucky magazine. Got an opinion? Go vote.

Yes, yes. You're welcome. Now, be a dear and pass me a smoke.

Oh. You Again.

The thing about being unemployed is that you spend most of your time figuring out how to be un-unemployed, and then you’re so busy that suddenly you’re busier than a one-legged man in an ass kicking race, and everyone in your life starts saying things like:

“How are you so busy? You’re unemployed.”

And:

“What ever happened to that blog of yours?”

I think honestly that there are two reasons I haven’t written. The first is that I am, by nature, a self-saboteur. I found this blog to be an outlet, I received positive feedback and thus… I had to stop working on it. Why wait to fail when you can speed up the process?

Secondly, I have been engaged in said ass-kicking contest. The real thrill of being unemployed is not the freedom to watch paternity test after paternity test on Maury Povich, or to nap when it rains or loll about reading the classics on your stoop as spring makes it’s long-awaited debut. No—the real excitement is the adreneline rush that comes with the very real fear that the bottom is about to fall out.

Since I last blogged, I’ve been hustling. Not real pimp-and-ho hustling, and not pool shark hustling- but I’ve been moving. I’ve been, frankly, trying to make money and sock it away so that I don’t end up homeless. A silly fear, maybe- but not completely implausible. In the meantime I am working towards a future: I am back in school, studying to get certified to teach. High school English. Can you imagine? AND I took on a freelance position two days a week, and I get to feel employed for a little while. On the days I am not there, I am substitute teaching, where I live in fear that every day the kids will catch on that a.) I am clueless and b.) they outnumber me.

So now that I’ve gotten this “Where have you BEEN?” blog posting out of the way, let’s get back to the fun stuff, shall we?