Cement Wall of Ponies

Ever had the feeling that you're just not very good at what you do?  And by "do," I don't just mean your job, the position that someone somewhere thought you would bring benefit to by adding you to the team; I mean "do" in the broadest, unhelpful terms - may it be laundry, cooking, sleeping, Tweeting, breathing.  And yes, your job can also be included in this category. 

[With the flu going around, it's rather easy to consider oneself bad at breathing.  We're all Darth Vadar this season.  (And, as such, we are all Luke's father. Don't think about that one for too long).]

Back to that feeling: A rather morose sort of, "...woah, really?" that burns like acid on the hotplate of your soul.  It's a cement wall of a realization that something you thought you were good at seems to be floundering in a manner that makes you want to run and hide.  And so, you do - run and hide, that is.  You sprint for the hills and pray that they don't have eyes.  You huddle among the mossy tendrils of dread and pity, crying on the inside for a glimmer of what you thought you knew.  You do this for a pathetic amount of time that doesn't seem pathetic in the moment, but is clearly so when you snap out of it.

And you do snap out it.  Kind of.  Perhaps "you deal with it" is a better phrase.  You smile and nod and work.  But it's still there; the feeling of inadequacy.  Take a lot to blast a cement wall.

Like My Little Ponies.

Today, my blast came in the form of a childhood memory and I'd like to share it.  It made me smile and think, "Tomorrow, I'll be better."



Enjoy?

My Co-pilot's a Coffee Cup...no, really.

There is a 3-foot tall coffee cup in my car.

I'm sure this is a hazard of the trade - of working in the coffee industry.  I've already had a few hundred bags of coffee in my car (the best air fresheners around - oh, new tagline!), so it was only natural that a giant mug would find a place as my co-pilot one day.

Hm, maybe "natural" isn't the right word.

Nonetheless, I do admit that it strikes me as odd that not 10-minutes before this entry, my lovely coffee cup was sitting in the front seat of my car, soliciting stares, jutted fingers (not the middle one, to my knowledge), and "...do you see what I see?" connversations from Best Buy shoppers and their small children (AKA soon-to-be Best Buy shoppers).

It makes me rather happy, to be frank.

Truth: There aren't enough oddities in life.  Sure, if you drive down Route 66 you'll see more than a few cockroach farms, large balls of string, and the world's smelliest block of Limburger (which, in itself, says something), but in your hometown?  The odd is missing.  And I like the odd.  I like it a lot.  I like seeing the unexpected, the unusual, and the downright rubber-neck worthy, stop-dead-in-your-tracks, call-all-your-friends-to-tell-them-about-it kind of displays of not-so ordinary life.

Like the 3-foot tall coffee cup in the front seat of my car.

For those who would like an explanation of the mug of a co-pilot, you'll have to do the following:

1. Go to Burlington, Vermont today, Saturday, October 17
   
2. A little before 4:30 PM go into City Hall and then Contois Auditorium
3. Enjoy the Fair Trade Celebration - and look for a very large, walking mug of (Fair Trade) coffee.  Can't miss it - especially since it'll be giving away Fair Trade coffee samples.  And by "it," there is a very high probability I mean "me."

Oddities: I'm one of them.

Who needs Horror - I have the Internet!

There are certain unfinished blog entries that I stare at for days. Truth be told, I'm sure I have more entries in the cue than I've submitted. There's an apprehension around posting them - a sense of unease around the content or merely the (un)polished nature of the piece. And so, entries sit in the cue as a draft, oozing with potential but lacking follow-through.

But why?

You see, the Internet is scary. We hear this from the lips of many, mostly aimed toward children and the college-aged crowd (which, admittedly, can often be one in the same): "Don't tell anyone where you live, Marvin - it's not safe." "You don't know who's looking at your pictures, Jethro - be careful." "Don't write about your wild party, Gertie - you never know if it'll get around."

[And before you ask: Yes, Marvin, Jethro, and Gertie could very well be children's names - no judging.]

The Internet is all potential - potential for good, bad, and in-between. It's a giant web of points of connectivity and, as such, it allows for infinite interaction: education, laughter, release, pain, distraction, conversation, agony, joy. In one word: sharing.

Ah, sharing. Now we're getting to the scary part, folks.

What to share? Share a new job? Share a new recipe? Share your divorce? What about your traffic accident? Or that mysterious lump under your left arm? One way or another, it's all up for debate because what you share on the Internet defines you in a single click. There are no take-backs - this one's for life, kiddo.

I've been told this over and over again, as I'm sure most of us have. I know the power of Google to ruin...well, everything. Or rather to direct others to one's ruin. Either way, ruin lays ahead if you post the wrong thing.

Yes, the "wrong thing." In that mindset, is it foolish to ask, "What's the right thing?"

So, back to my cued entries. Some are rotting; some hidden gems. Some personal; some occupational. Some one sentence; some a manifesto. And yet, all wait for my courage, my willingness to say, "Forget what others think - full steam ahead!"

But for now, I remember that the Internet is a scary place and retreat back to the comfort of my unplugged life. A place where a mob of dismissed blog copy can't find me.

At least, for now.

Twitter Guilt

Twitter me this: Do you have Twitter Guilt?

You know what I'm talking about - that nagging queasiness in the pit of your stomach when you check back in with Twitter after a day or two away? That sand-in-your-eye burning when you see how chatty the Twittervese has been since you logged off? That ringing in your ears when you realize that you just tweeted something "They" all talked about yesterday or that you have DMs that you really, really wish you had seen and replied to a day ago?

Yeah, I have that. Bad.

I try to take the time to log off during the week, to step away from the constant (occasionally annoying, if not entirely overwhelming) updates of not only Twitter, but Facebook, LinkedIn, and my RSS Feed, to name a few. I try to step away and say, "Hey, let's focus people!" And by "people," I do mean me. Oh, and by "focus," I do not mean me.

Just wanted to clarify.

Back to the point, there's a very real feeling of guilt when I return to these series of tubes we call the Internet. I can hear the murmurs of abandonment in my keyboard, taste the bitter bile of being out of the loop for an extended period of time.*

Or I could be overly imaginative. That's a possibility.

Yet, I have it. The guilt. About Twitter.

So, to sum up: I have Twitter Guilt.

My condition makes me wonder: How do other people do it? How do you step away and come back to the Twitterverse with ease, grace, and jazz hands waving proudly in the air?

I'd like to know - even if your jazz hands are more like spirit fingers.



*Which, if I may, is more often than not less than 6-hours.

Of Ms. Johnson

I have a friend. Her name is Ms. Johnson. I have known her since kindergarten. She claims to remember me from a major freak-out from yours truly over a visit to the nurse's office (how was I supposed to know there weren't any needles involved in a hearing check-up?); I claim to remember her from a chorus concert in which we were dressed as Native Americans (in tattered shirts, beads, and war paint - classy, my kindergarten) and we bonded over the matching color of our "authentic" Native American feathers.

Destiny - that's what this was, people. We're friends for the long haul. And by "long haul" I do mean a rather odd shared childhood of oldies music and plaid shirts, an awkward preteen stage of...awkwardness, high school years that sung of mutual angst and change, and finally today, as young adults striving for the stars and believing that Pluto (planet and dog) received the shaft like whoa.

Clearly, good friends. So good of friends, in fact, that I know she will not mind me posting this picture:

Or this picture:

Or this one:

Why am I writing about Ms. Johnson? Because I just got back from a trip to her new Southern abode and thought of how far we've come from the smaller, younger, scruffier versions of ourselves almost 2-decades ago. And she's rather fantastic and seems to be blissfully unaware of the fact. Ergo, ego boost - rock out that new city, Missy!

That's an order. Or request. Or RFP. Your choice.

Cupcakes were made to NOT outlast a celebration

I love cupcakes, as a previous entry may suggest. I love their size, their paper wrappers, their ability to make even the most hardened man look a like a little kid. Cupcakes are powerful and wonderful in my world.

But, today. Today, I fear that the all-mighty cupcake and I are reaching a breaking point.

“Oh, no! Why, Kristen? For all that is holy and pure and delicious in the world, why?” you cry.

Three words: Cupcake buffet overload.

For my family graduation celebration, I baked 10-dozen cupcakes. I frosted 10-dozen cupcakes. I served 10-dozen cupcakes. And today, 4-dozen cupcakes sit contently in my freezer, naïve to the pain they are causing me by their very existence.

I know this venture didn’t start in this anti-cupcake manner – it wasn’t always a sinkhole of flour, sugar, and butter. Once it was a beautiful party for my graduation. And I have pictures to prove it:

The set-up:

How Martha of me! Color-coordinated, labeled, and tiered! I just grabbed white bowls, flipped them over, and used Museum Wax to secure white plates for the cupcakes to rest upon. Call me a simpleton with vision.

The Grub: Vanilla

Plain and simple. For the classic palate.

The Grub: Lemon

Yes, these cupcakes are yellow and blue. Think school colors with a zesty finish.

The Grub: Carrot

The first cupcakes to go…because we forgot there was another dish in the other refrigerator.

Silver lining: They were fun to pipe. Dark, death-metal lining: I still have three bags of orange, green, and brown (see chocolate cupcake) icing in my house.

The Grub: Angel food
Loved by those who ate them; loathed by the rest of us. Sadly, 2- of the 4-dozen cupcakes in my freezer belong in the Angel food category.

The Grub: Pina Coloda

My absolute FAVORITE. Fun to make, fun to decorate, fun to eat.

Plus, the dried pineapple resembles a dorsal fin on a shark, so I was able to make a variety of Jaws references throughout the party. “Here are more cupcakes – oh, no! No room…I think we need a bigger boat!”

The Grub: Double Chocolate Chip with Mortar Boards

Winner of the whimsy award for the mortar board hat and tassel.

The hat? A solid wedge of milk chocolate – hello, sweetheart!

Once, these were dazzling cupcakes. Now, they are a slew of hockey puck sized weights in my freezer. Yes, my guests did their part – chatting, eating, and taking my comments of “Remember, I’m counting all of your cupcake wrappers before you leave” as jest. To their credit, they ate heartily, my brave party-goers, and still...

Still: 4-dozen cupcakes.

*Sigh*

Cupcakes, anyone?

Everything is Cooler...in China [Video] - repost

From the Camp Champ China Mojo Blog, by your's truly:

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I feel like I should have a shirt that says, "It's been three months and all I have to show for it is a 6-minute video."

It's been three months since our little band of MOJO-ers high-tailed it to northwesten China. Three months - good golly, Ms. Molly! I can't say it feels like yesterday, last week, or even last month that we traversed the Chinese landscape and bathed in the generosity of our hosts. It feels entirely like three months. I can say, however, that still feels real, which is more than I can say for my trips to Disney (at age 6 and 17, respectively). And that, ladies and gentlemen, says quite a lot, as I've been staring at the trip footage for, well, three months now.

Oh, yes: the footage. While waltzing along the Yellow River one day, it was brought to my attention by Dr. Rob Williams that even the most mundane activities were instantly cooler as a result of the little phrase "...in China." I lounged on a rock/seat/crevice and said, "I'm sitting on a rock...in China" and it was true! Sitting never looked so cool! Hence, the following retrospective, entitled "Everything is Cooler in China". All edited and ready for your enjoyment.



China. The land of the cool.

-Kristen