All Or Nothing

The Boy World

I've always been one of those girls who is equally comfortable hanging out with either gender.  Throw me in the middle of a super girly shopping and spa day, or cram me in the backseat of an all-boy truck, stopping for fast food on the way to a football game, and I'm equally happy.  I don't fare as well once you get to either extreme; for example I'm almost never fluent in female TV talk because I don't really watch Grey's/SYTYCD/Bachelor(ette)/etc, and I get uncomfortable pretty quick when it's just a bunch of guys sitting around a table drinking beer and waxing eloquent on what the best possible Cowboys defensive lineup will be this season.  But anywhere in the middle?  I'm down with it.

I have also always sort of prided myself on knowing how to do some things that have not been traditionally "girl world" activities.  I can change a tire, change my own oil, drive a standard, tell time on a analog clock, figure out which way is north, follow directions, make minor repairs (using tools!), etc.  But there's always been one glaring absence from my boy world repertoire - I have never mowed a lawn. 

Actually, scratch that - I have never even started a lawn mower, never even really looked at one past a two second "yep, there's the red lawnmower, in my way to park in the garage yet again" type of glance.  I know nothing about how they work, whether or not you can run them while they're on the driveway or if that will, somehow, tear up the concrete?  What if I run over a rock?  Will the blades somehow spin the rock violently around inside and then shoot it out directly into my face, causing irreparable damage and all sorts of self-confidence issues?  How do people mow those lines into the grass?  What about piles of dog poop?  Do you just mow right over those or avoid them?  Will the dog poop get caught in the same spinning vector of death the hypothetical rock was in earlier, and also end up on my face? 

The process seemed fraught with potential disaster, and I was content to avoid it altogether.

However, I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine about cliche male and female activities, and it became clear, once again, that I could never really take a super proud stance until I rectified my mowing deficiency.  So last night, I told Cody that I would mow the lawn today while he was at work.  He said ok, but apparently did not believe me because once I started sending him a barrage of text messages this afternoon, requesting different bits of mowing information, he seemed to lose a lot of confidence.

Elise (4:18pm): Any new hints on getting the mower to start?

Cody (4:22pm): I am planning on doing it when I get home

Elise (4:23pm): But wait!  I am trying!  Just give me some steps 2 start it

Cody (4:26pm): (gives me some instruction) and watch out for sprinkler heads along the road and for my gopher things

Elise (4:27pm): Ok. Thanks!

Cody (4:28pm): I would feel better about it if u would wait and let me show u this time...

Cody (4:32pm): Don't run over my gopher things!

Cody (4:39pm): Did you see my gopher things?

Elise (4:42pm): I won't!  Geez...

And you'll be glad to know that I DIDN'T run over Cody's gopher things.  At least I don't think I did.  I did, however, run over a pile of dog poop AND a rock, both accidentally, and neither one ended up all over my face.  Lucky break, or status quo, I still don't know.  But I feel good about it, either way.  In fact, I was feeling SO good about my new-found mowing independence, that I decided I would even go get gas for the mower because I mowed so much (and it took me so many tries to start it) that I ran out of gas.  So off I went to the gas station, covered in grass and sweat and smelling just like a boy.  Take that, cliche!  I am a grass-mowing girl! 

(Sidenote: I see women, ALL the time, mowing their yards.  So believe me, I am well aware that this is not any kind of huge female accomplishment.  I only mean that it's an accomplishment for me, as I have always been completely clueless to the process.)

Anyhow.  I get my little red gas container filled up, drive back home, refill the mower, and begin the rope-pulling, mower-starting process.  Surely I'll be quicker at that now that I am so experienced, right?  Well, it's still taking me forever, and actually the rope won't even pull but I figure out you can't be on an angle or it doesn't work...so I straighten out, start pulling my rope, and hear "Elise?  Hey Elise!  Is Cody not around?"  It's my neighbor Scott, the reigning Lawn and Landscape King of our subdivision, and so I stop yanking on the rope and give a little laugh and try to explain that I am attempting to mow for the experience, and to do something nice for Cody.  Scott turns to survey my progress as I'm explaining, and as I look at the freshly-mowed lawn through his eyes, I start to see less "yay, mission accomplished, shorter grass!" and more "super crooked lines with random patches of long grass in between".  Scott, whose lawn is never anything short of pristine, looks somewhat horrified.  I think we can be pretty confident that he won't be asking me to mow for him anytime soon. 

He's a super nice guy though, and as I ask him if he doesn't think it's just awful that I've never mowed a lawn before, he placates me with a story about how his wife hasn't ever planted a plant.  Now I know this is A) probably not true and B) a story just to make me feel better, but the truth is, even if his wife WANTED to plant a hundred plants, Scott would have that whole project diagrammed, engineered, and perfected to the point where all she would need to do is dig the actual hole over the pre-measured X Scott had drawn in the dirt, drop the plant in, and walk away.  He's seriously a landscaping ninja.  Cody and I are...not so much ninjas with the landscaping.  We're more like landscaping sloths, lazy and producing a lawn full of clumsy attempts at passable neighborhood standards.  So it's not like I'm totally ruining this gorgeous green heaven Cody's slaved over, but in glancing back at my crooked stripes, it's clear I'm not really adding anything to the overall effect, either.

But like I said, Scott's nice, and so to save me from my (probably palpable) embarrassment, he walks over to the side of a small hill we share and pulls on this coat-hanger looking wire that is sticking out of a little mound of dirt.  Suddenly my nasal canal (which is notoriously sensitive anyway) is filled with the most rancid, gag-inducing smell I have ever encountered.  And on the end of this wire, this coat-hanger thing that Scott's just pulled out of the ground, is a dead, rotting gopher. 

"Huh," Scott says.  "Look at that."

I'm having a hard time looking anywhere else, because this rotted half-corpse is crawling, absolutely CRAWLING, with the hugest maggots I've ever seen.

"Wow," I say, trying my best not to gag and run away.  "Are those...um...are those maggots?"

"Yup," says Scott, as he kind of shakes the wire, flinging giant maggots and gopher particles into the air.

I honestly don't remember exactly what happened next, except that it involved me making some excuse about having to go inside so Lydah (who wasn't the least bit interested in the gopher corpse) wouldn't try to eat it or anything.  Scott was saying something about how he should have checked that trap earlier, and I was saying yeah, sure, I'll bet, I'll be back in a minute...and then I ran inside with the dog and slammed the door behind me.

As I sat on the floor, just inside the doorway, I took a deep breath and exhaled.  Gone was the stench of rotting, maggot-ridden, rodent corpse.  In its place was Downy, and laundry detergent, and the basil I have growing in a pot on my windowsill.  I wiped the sweat off my forehead, looked at Lydah (who was giving me a look loosely translated as "are you kidding me with that jab about me EATING that nasty thing?") and thought, not for the first time, that I'm glad Girl World is my natural habitat.

If You Were In My Head

• Is this song by Pink?  I think it's Pink.  Do I even like Pink? 
• If I put on mascara right now, it's a guarantee that someone will come in the store when I only have one eye done, rendering me the one-eyed wonder
• Maybe I do like Pink
• Am I hot enough to turn on the A/C?  I'm not actually sweating yet
• No one's walked by for a while, maybe it's safe to start Operation Mascara
• I wonder if makeup really makes us look better, or if we're just so used to how we look in makeup that we think it looks better
• If it does actually make us look better, score one for girls, because you guys have nothin'
• Aww man, of COURSE someone is coming in right now!  Unbelievable
• Oh good, it's just the mail lady, she'll be too busy complaining to notice my lack of left eye lashes
• This is the most confusing rant I have ever heard, I think she is saying her manager has given her too MANY hours in which to complete her deliveries on this route...
• I need to change the dress on that mannequin stat
• Yes, mail lady is definitely telling me that she has proven to the higher ups that her route takes less time than what they have given her to do it in...I still am failing to see why this is a problem
• Definitely A/C time, starting to feel like a sauna in here
• Is this song lyric saying I want to taste all the chemicals inside?  That can't be healthy
• Do most people use their dominant hand for all eye makeup application?  Or do they use right hand on right eye and left hand on left eye?
• Ooh, Kings of Leon, much better
• I need to change my voicemail to be more like the one I heard the other day: "hey, this is Mr. X, sorry I missed your call, leave me a message if you'd like, OR you can send me a text, that seems to be the best way to get a quick response".  Genius!  I hate voicemail
• Is this dress too short?  I think it's definitely too short for 28.  Wow, when did I start thinking that way?
• I hate almost nothing more than hurting people's feelings
• Fire ants, I do hate those more I think.  It's at least a tie
• Ha, if I had to choose one, being bitten by fire ants for a good portion of every single day, or hurting someone's feelings every day, I wonder which it would be?
• I think I'd start getting immune to both after a while. so maybe it's a bad question.  OR, maybe extended exposure to fire ant poison would kill me, thus rendering the entire experiment moot
• Doubt it, those suckers aren't taking me down like that
• Maybe I should start carrying ant poison around in my car with me, and every time I see a hill, just wage war right then and there
• Is that one of those things that would make me endearing, lovably eccentric, or just plain weird?

After reading this post, you may advise me to go back to my old plan of NOT blogging :)

Vanished

WHY:
I think I forgot how to type.  My shoulder is injured.  My keyboard is dirty.  Typepad won't let me login.  I didn't pay Typepad to renew my blog because I wasn't sure that I wanted to keep writing ever-increasingly lethargic posts.  I thought I'd miss it more if I stopped.  I am a terrible commenter and didn't want to run around commenting on 87 different blogs per day because it took me way too long and started to feel like a job requirement.  I don't like blogging politics and internet cliques.  No one wants to see pictures of Lydah every single day.  I got really busy.  My keyboard is REALLY dirty.

But guess what? 

WHAT:
Separated from writing for long enough, I did start missing it.  And I have been reading blogs again, sans commenting.  I even got up the nerve to open my long-neglected feed reader the other day, and went ahead and marked everything read and now you know what I do?  I just read the ones I feel like reading.  No pressure!  How about that? 

AM WEIRD:
Look, I realize that I am possibly the only person any of us know who is neurotic enough to self-impose all these regulations and requirements on what is, 100%, a hobby.  But there it is. 

I'm neurotic!  And my keyboard is gross!

IN CONCLUSION:
But I'm back.  I paid Typepad, I cleaned my keyboard.  And I'm giving myself a break as far as my self-inflicted blogging guilt.  14 posts in 28 days.  Count it.

OH LOOK, IT'S LYDAH, AFTER ALL:

This Post Brought To You By The Letter T

T, as in THERMOMETER.  And I can use thermometer as the word du jour, because I don't have any strong feelings towards thermometers, one way or the other, and therefore that won't mess up this meme I'm about to do.

Yeah, yeah I know.  A meme.  Or survey, or quiz, whatever you wanna call it.  But don't worry, this one is decently entertaining and easy.

The rules:

You leave a comment on this post, and I’ll assign you a letter. You write about ten things you love that begin with your assigned letter, and post it at your place. When people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain continues on and on.

And then you each send me $25. 

What?  That isn't on the other people's rules?  Well I'll meet you halfway, you don't have to do cash, you could just do a gift card or something.  Geez.  Where's your holiday spirit?

1.  Tea.  Yeah I know, it seems a little bit cheaty since T and Tea are basically the EXACT SAME THING - tricky phonetics - but I genuinely love tea.  Green tea, specifically.  I drink probably 2- 4 cups per day, and yeah yeah I know all the good stuff about moderation, but it's better than soda and my tea tags say cute little things like "grace brings trust, appreciation, love and prosperity".  How can you find anything wrong with that?  I DARE YOU TO TRY.

2.  Tree pose.  Balancing poses in yoga are my kyrptonite and yet I can always count on tree pose to be a real winner.  Steady, easy, natural - it's the one thing I can count on when every other balancing sequence sends me toppling in all directions.

3.  Tiramisu.  Mascarpone cream, chocolate, espresso, ladyfingers... does it get any better than this?  No, no, it does not.

4.  The Raconteurs - namely, their newest album Consolers of the Lonely.  Honestly my favorite album, start to finish, since Radiohead's In Rainbows.  And this is my list, so I can consider "The" as my T-word, NO COMPLAINING.

5.  Travel.  I get super antsy if I am stuck in the same place for any real amount of time.  Even a couple of weeks, and I need a day trip or something.  I love the adventure, I love airports (even after being stuck in way too many of them for way too long), I love watching other people and wondering where they're going and what their stories are, and I love finding myself in a completely different place.  It kind of gives you a fresh start every time.

6.  Texting.  I confess, I am one of those people you probably hate.  Unless you're like me, in which case you would LOVE to be my phone buddy.  I have gotten to the point where, unless a seriously complicated conversation needs to occur, I almost won't ANSWER the phone, preferring rather to send a quick text after the missed call: "yeah, what's up?".  I just can't stand all the small talk, and if all the person needs is to say "I'm running 15 minutes late, meet me then?" then I certainly don't need to spend 5 minutes on the phone discussing THAT.  Ooh, I almost hate myself for being such a snot.

7.  Turtlenecks.  And turtleneck sweaters, especially.  There's something about being bundled up in a cozy, oversized turtleneck sweater that I just can't beat.  However, I know not everyone feels this way; I had a boyfriend for a long time who HATED turtlenecks in all forms, and when I had to give him some particularly bad news one day, I dressed in the biggest turtleneck I could find.  My best friend had dubbed it the "Queen Mother of all turtlenecks", and I guess our reasoning was that the less appealing he found me, the easier the news would go over?  I dunno.  Remember that, Amy?

8.  Tequila.  You know how sometimes when you have a really bad experience with a particular type of liquor it makes you want to swear off it forever?  Yeah, I had that experience with tequila, a few Mardi Gras ago, and I think it only drew us closer.  Tequila + Elise 4EVA.  I have become a bit of a snob as of late thanks to a friend of ours, and a few months ago, I told Cody I would only be drinking Patron.  He said (and I quote): "HA."  And then he bought NOT Patron.  Can you believe him?

9.  Tall people.  I hadn't considered this as something that I LOVE, but to be perfectly honest, I got to 8 and kinda got stuck.  So I started asking around and apparently, I love tall people.  To hear others tell it, I am actually somewhat obsessed with tall people; always going on and on about their incredible height and how impressive I find it.  So, there you go, we both learned something with this list.

10.  Time to myself.  This one is definitely true.  In fact, if I don't get time to myself, I go a little bit crazy.  You know how for some people, being surrounded by friends makes their energy level go up?  Yeah.  That works in the opposite for me.  It wasn't really until college that I figured out the necessity of me being able to get away from everyone, even if it was just for a few hours.  There was more than one Friday night when I told everyone who asked I had plans with someone else and went to hide out in a big, cozy chair in Barnes & Noble with a book and a big cup of tea.  Anti-social?  Perhaps.  Sanity-saving?  Absolutely.

So there you have it, ten things I love that start with T.  Wanna give it a shot?  Like ATW, I promise not to assign you X or Z, unless you're just one of those people who like a challenge.

The Season Of The Witch

I love Christmas, I really do.  I like all the decorations, adore the music, definitely get into the gift-giving spirit - so that's not really my issue.

I'm just in one of those seasons where the store, and all it entails, is really starting to wear on me. 

I honestly believe that EVERYONE, regardless of their job or position in life, goes through these types of seasons, where everything they're doing and all the activities of every day add up to one seemingly pointless total.  And we all look at someone else's life; someone else's job, and think "oh, if ONLY I could be doing that.  That would be SO MUCH BETTER."  And then that person, the one doing THAT, they are looking at you and thinking the same exact thing.

What I'm saying is that I know this is normal (at least it better be), and so I'm not like, rushing out to fire-sale the store or anything.  I am just going through one of those times where every little thing I have to do regarding the store seems like a big, annoying task - and there are a LOT of "big annoying tasks" for the store this time of year.  Even when I have a day off, it never feels like one at all.  I'm either filling out some form (for the store), going to some event (for the store), spending hours trying to book a cheap plane ticket to market (for the store), updating mailing lists and working on a direct mailer (for the store), etc.  You get my drift.  And even when I push all that aside, telling myself it can wait 'til tomorrow, nothing will fall apart overnight (a stress-management technique I had to employ after I spent nearly every waking hour of my first year of ownership AT the store), I have to deal with the phone calls from vendors, telling me that I owe them money.

Yeah, because that's the new and exciting thing that's been happening ever since our economy took a nosedive.  Companies who are hurting just as badly as I am are going through invoices from YEARS back, literally, and calling on them.  Aggressively calling on them.  And the lady who owned the store before I did, when it was a whole different entity, basically - well, apparently she didn't pay some bills.  And now the companies are after their cash, and while I can't blame them, really - I mean I am as desperate as anyone these days - they really don't seem to get the concept of "SHE DOESN'T OWN THIS STORE ANYMORE, AND WE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF YOU".

Not to say that I don't owe anyone money.  Because I do.  Oh, I do.  I am constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul, and sometimes when I get called on an overdue invoice, or something from three years ago that everyone, including me, forgot about until just now - I have to tell them "sorry, I don't got it".  And Internet, let me tell you - I'm not a "sorry, I don't got it" kind of girl.  Well, I WASN'T, anyway.  But it's the truth, and at this point, on a lot of things, the truth is the best I can do. 

Two of the stores in my center went out of business in the past two months.  Things are not getting much better.  And the RIDICULOUSLY SHORT-SIGHTED MEDIA keeps on and on with their doom-and-gloom, predicting that 2009 will be the "weakest economic year in recent history", whatever THAT means (how recent? how weak? what's your definition of weak? oh, to answer all of that wouldn't be NEARLY as sensationalist, would it?).  And the general population, your average Joe who just watches the evening news over dinner, hears the media blathering endlessly about how the economy is falling apart, and he decides that he better pull the purse strings a little tighter.  No more frivolous purchasing!  He's putting his wife on a budget!  And with that, there goes my $200 per month interaction with average Joe's wife.  And if enough average Joe's make that identical decision, well, $200 x 1500 adds up REAL fast.

So when I see a mom pulling her stroller out of the trunk in the middle of the day to kill some time out of the house, I miss the dark circles under her eyes and the look of desperation on her face.  I only see the immense appeal of focusing on ONE task instead of ten million.  Raise your child, keep your house decent.  If you don't have a house-cleaner to do that second one for you, that is.  If your kid has a bad day, no one's gonna lose their job.  You aren't going to file bankruptcy if you can't get potty training down in three months.  And I know - of course that's an unfair comparison - I not only have no idea what all goes into being a stay-at-home mom, I honestly don't even WANT to do it right now - I know it's a super hard job, and when (if) I ever do it, I'm sure I will look back on my store-owner days and think OH MY GOSH, WHAT WAS I COMPLAINING ABOUT?

But maybe I won't. 

And the former scoffing I've done at 9-5 desk jobs, with all their boring monotony and personality-killing sameness - that now looks like blissful regularity, beautiful certainty.  I would go home at 5pm, maybe stop at the grocery store for dinner supplies, and NOT THINK ABOUT MY JOB ANYMORE UNTIL THE NEXT DAY.  Oh, and I'd also be getting a paycheck, which would be awesome.  And I know, I know - I get to have a super flexible schedule and fly to LA all the time, and I'm on like, the MOST INCREDIBLE concert-seeing streak ever - so again, if I was, say, working in a bank or accounting office somewhere, I might be wringing my hands over what I gave up.

But maybe I wouldn't.

The best thing to do when I'm feeling this way seems to be to remember that the store is NOT my life.  So if things at the store aren't going well, I don't need to extrapolate that over my entire life and have this all-consuming cloud of guilt and failure hovering over my every moment.  The store is NOT my life; the store is one aspect of my life, and if I am doing my best at the store, and doing everything I know how to do, then whatever happens, happens.  I have to be okay with that.  And most of the time, truthfully, I am.

But sometimes I'm not.

Thank goodness I'm only 27.

The Seven Year Itch

I get email on my phone now, and maybe that's the problem.  The easy access, the siren call of the flashing red light, the immediate notification - I was drawn in to the cycle without even realizing it.  I don't even have to get online anymore to check Facebook, that amazing time-suck of a social media site.  Yeah, that's right....my phone lets me know of any relevant changes or postings on there as well.  This burgundy piece of equipment is singlehandedly destroying my relationship with the World Wide Web.

Or is that just an excuse?  Is it easier for me to blame the demise of my long-term love affair with all things Internet on this sexy little newcomer in my life?  Or does it run deeper than that?  Perhaps it was inevitable - all good things must come to an end, or so they say.  I don't know if it's similar to the New Car Phenomenon, where you decide you MIGHT be in the market for a new vehicle and then suddenly you seem surrounded, INUNDATED, by new car ads, specials, promotions, enticements...but the few times I have gotten online lately and clicked through to some of my favorite blogs, I have been met with goodbye messages.  So it's not just me, I tell myself.  See, other people are having this issue as well. 

What is it with blogging lately?  I'm just not satisfied anymore.  I don't need you like I used to, blogging.  It's not you, it's me.  Or is it?

Maybe it's that many of the top bloggers out there, the ones I read all those years ago and made this whole endeavor seem so appealing, have turned "corporate" - they write for the money, whether that be product placement posts or merely for the increase in traffic that fuels their ad revenue.  And something about that just hits me as SO disingenuous.  Not that I am against the free market or capitalism or making money with your talents - because I'm all about it.  But mainly because what drew me into blogging in the first place was the rawness of the expression, the naked openness of saying "this is my story, and I want you to know it".  And that theme gets lost rather quickly in all the recipe contests and giveaways and corporate sponsorship of 3-year old birthday parties that I feel like I read about more than anything these days.  As such, I haven't even OPENED my feed reader in probably three weeks.  If I am online with an itch to read blogs, I click through my page to about 4 or 5 different sites, and (imagine this) NONE of them are sponsored by anyone or anything.  In fact, most of then net less than 10 comments per post and seem to be genuinely unconcerned by that fact.  It's refreshing.

So what to do?  I don't really want to stop writing.  I like writing; like the stringing of words together to create coherent thoughts and occasionally funny anecdotes that I would otherwise probably forget.  I enjoy the catharsis of putting swirling emotions in order and organizing them in written form on a page, and then hitting publish and feeling like the whole situation has been solved.  I'm not giving that up.  But what I AM giving up is the pressure to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak.  I'm not going to host recipe contests, or jump around seventeen different social media sites and seventeen HUNDRED blogs just trying to up my traffic or stats.  If I don't post for a week or a month, I'm not going to concern myself with what my readership is doing, or if they're going elsewhere for their fix.  Let's be honest, I obviously haven't concerned myself with that last issue much in the first place, since my last Project Runway recap has been up for over a month at this point.

And you know what?  It's not because I don't love having people who read my blog, and even less because I don't love the individual people who read my blog, because guess what?  I DO love you guys.  I know many of you in real life already, and I have gotten the chance to meet a couple of you that I otherwise knew exclusively online, and there are many of you who (and you know this) I am DYING to meet.  Much like my store, which gives me no end of grief on a regular basis, my favorite part of blogging has got to be the friends I have made through doing it.  And so there's another reason to continue, because I'll never believe that I've met all the amazing people there are to meet in this world. 

So what's my point, you ask?  Well, maybe there isn't one.  Maybe this is one of those cathartic posts, and now that I've expressed to blogging how I'm falling out of love with it, we can get back on track.  Or maybe blogging has changed, and we do need to break up.  But since I'm still writing, and you're still reading, it looks like we're still on.  Maybe all I wanted to say is that 2008 has been one of the weirdest years of my life; in some ways one of the best and in some ways one of the very worst.  And yet, even though this year has been absolutely packed full of experiences and changes, my blog reflects almost none of that.  I am tired of not getting to tell the stories I want to tell on here because I am constantly afraid of who I'll inadvertently offend with MY story, with MY life.  And maybe I'm not going to be afraid of that so much anymore. 

So maybe this isn't a breakup, blogging.  But I gotta tell you - things have got to change a bit for this to work out for us.  You have to be a little less commercialized and popularity-contesty, and I am going to be a little less scared of offending those few people out there with something I say that has nothing to do with them.  I mean let's be honest, they were going to be offended by SOMETHING, anyway.  Might as well be me :)

Also, Lydah wanted to say hello.  She says that if she doesn't care about laying in a dirty fire pit, then everyone can just get over...well, just about everything.  She also wants to add that her ears are just perfect, aren't they?  And also that she would very much like to go camping again, and if any of you can make that happen, please drop her a line at [email protected].  Yeah, she really is THAT conceited.

If All Vampires Are Seducers, And I Am A Vampire, Then Resistance Would Be Futile

However, I am NOT a vampire.  So that takes care of one aspect of the dilemma.  The other aspect is whether or not you believe that all vampires really ARE seducers, and I think all you have to do is look at the wild success of vampire books and movies to see that I'm right about the seduction aspect. 

I'm not sure how they did it, but somehow vampires have made pale skin, gaunt cheekbones, blood-dripping fangs, and immortality sexy.  Congratulations, O' Undead Ones.  That's quite a feat.

Now that we've got all that straightened out, the next order of business is to say I'm sorry for going completely AWOL for the past couple of weeks.  I mean, I'd love to tell you it's because I was swept away (maybe by a vampire?) to a secret island, where I was served hand and foot and engaged in all sorts of glamorous activities.  Or maybe even that I just decided to take some time off from all my responsibilities, read some good books, take some naps...

But no. 

The truth is (and this sums it up quickly for those of you who think brevity is a virtue), bad economy = Elise The Retail Business Owner working her tail off, trying everything she can think of to get things back on track. 

Not very interesting, eh?  I told you.

It's just disconcerting, is all, to have the proverbial rug pulled out from under you like this.  I don't mean you, the reader - I doubt that my posting frequency (or lack thereof) has the ability to leave anyone feeling unsettled.  I mean that as a business owner, especially in the retail sector of things, this "economic crisis" is hitting pretty close to home.

I'm sure many of you have seen the front page stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal today -  but if you haven't, they are telling the same tale I've been telling all summer.  Retail sales are down.  Down more than they have been in a long while.  No one is happy about it.  No one knows exactly what the problem is (other than the ridiculous sub-prime lending/credit crunch situation we all know about).  Everyone thinks things will get better.  In fact, things are getting better!  Yay!

And on we go.

Except really, what I just said up there is the truth of the matter but I fear that the media, with its insatiable thirst for blood, will only focus on the "doom" and will totally ignore the "light at the end of the tunnel" aspect of things.  And that, my dear friends, only makes everything WORSE.  The more the average American THINKS things are bad, the more tight-fisted they'll be with their money, and that means they aren't spending it with me or anyone else.  So stores go out of business and put more employees out of work, who in turn have to be even stingier with their cash, because they really don't know when they'll get more.  And the cycle continues.  However!  Much of the current cycle, especially in high-end areas like the one in which my store does business, is based on somewhat REACTIONARY principles, otherwise known as FREAKING OUT FOR NO GOOD REASON.

So. Stop freaking out, America!  Yes, we got ourselves into a bit of a situation with the sub-prime lending and the massive credit crisis and yes, some of us overextended ourselves and are now paying the price.  And yes, some of us DIDN'T overextend ourselves, we did everything by the book and we STILL feel like we're paying the price.  Well, we are.  But it's going to be okay.  Things will equalize, and whether that means when we come out on the other end of the tunnel things look like our current version of "normal" or if they are a totally new "normal", we can adjust.   Okay?  Okay.

Now!  Guess who I met.

That's right, I got to eat dinner (well, I was the only one eating) and get drinks (was NOT the only one drinking) with none other than Julie!  And even though she texted me, wondering if there were ANY crosswalks or pedestrian-friendly areas near where she was staying (no, there were not) and even though she had to WALK to where we met up (aah! still feel bad about that, Julie!), we had a great time nonetheless.  And I feel pretty confident in saying that Julie got a real solid taste of Texas boys trying to hit on her.

We ended up telling everyone we were on our first date, which, technically, was true.  And, if you'll reference the picture above, I CLEARLY made it up to the hotel room and if that doesn't give you any indication of how things went, well.... Maybe you haven't had very good first dates.

I also did this:

 By myself.  Which shows how much I really love this band, because I wasn't quite sure how I felt about going to a concert by myself.  I mean, is that awesome, or total loserville?  It's a tough call.  Luckily, I got to meet up with these two (getting married in two weeks!) before the show:

We laughed, we drank wine, we discussed politics....and then we tried our hand at governing an errant bee situation.  We roundtabled about what might be the best angle to take with the bees - were they friend or foe?  It was hard to tell.  They were definitely after our bread, so Adam decided that perhaps some peace treaties should be attempted, and he put a piece of Peace (I know, I know) Bread down at one end of the table for the bees to have.  See, they can have their stuff, we have our stuff, and we all live in harmony.  It's a great concept.  Unfortunately (and similarly to how these things go in real life), the bee was discontent with his small slice of bread, kept angling for the whole loaf, and eventually - he had to die. 

I know, it's harsh.  But you may as well know the truth.

Let's see, what else....I've gotta tell you, I've spent the vast majority of the past month or so in near-constant state of feeling flustered.  And that makes it hard to do anything, much less think coherently for long enough to bang out a post.  But I'm nothing if not resourceful, and I'm dealing with it, so you can expect posting to resume as originally scheduled.  Meaning that after the Project Runway season finale tonight (which I WILL recap on Friday), I will go back to my once or twice-weekly posting schedule, and (more importantly) I promise that I cannot wait to read and comment on everything that I've missed while I've been on this strange hiatus.  I can't promise that I won't hit the "mark all read" button in my feeder, because right now it's hovering near the 2000 mark, but after that, I'm back on track.

And after my first real life date with a previously Internet-only friend went SO well, I can't wait to meet more of you guys.  I know I'm all the way down here in Texas (and don't ask Julie how the rest of her visit went) but if you're EVER sent down here for any reason, I promise to make the whole experience just a little more fun.  And I'll even pick you up, so you don't have to search in vain for crosswalks.  I also won't force feed you tequila, ESPECIALLY if you claim to be allergic.

People Confuse Me, Part 13,379

It's been a long time since I've written about the myriad of weirdos who come into my store, and I felt, after yesterday's customer-service melee, that there was no way I could deny you any longer.  So without further ado, allow me to profile several of my strangest shoppers, and please let me know if you can make any more sense of them than I've been able to:

Customer Profile One: The Self-Proclaimed Expert

This customer can be male or female, but in my case, is a youngish, dark-haired male.  He comes in every once in a while, usually with a female companion (never the same one thus far) and although my boutique is (and always has been) exclusively a WOMEN'S shop, he likes to take a careful inventory of my selection anyway.

Self-Proclaimed Expert, looking at a rack of jeans: Ohh, these are NICE.  We carry a spin-off of this brand.  You know, at the Buckle.  That's where I work.  (ed note: he has told me that he works at the Buckle about a million times) 

Me: Yeah.  That's a good denim line for us.

SPE: The thing to remember is that you have to have at least one line for all the high-school chicks who want nothing but skin-tight jeans, and another line for your new mommy types who haven't exactly gotten their thang back, you know? 

Me: Their thang?

SPE: Yeah, I know!  Haha!  Oh wow, look at this strapless number, now this one's not for the small-breasted girls, is it?

Me: Um!  Actually - see that smocking in the back?  That kind of -

SPE, interrupting me: Oh, so that pulls it tighter, I get it.  I mean, I just didn't SEE that before, because if I would've seen the smocking, I'd have known it would work no matter what size boobs you've got.  See, I help the girl customers at the Buckle, where I work...you know, I sort of made it a personal challenge, to see if I could help the girls...and now I totally rock it, so I keep helping 'em.  But the thing you have to remember is that if you let some chick with little boobs in the dressing room, and she's got all this stuff that only looks good on the chicks with BIG boobs, well, she's gonna get depressed.

Me: ....

SPE: Let me ask you something: this dress, it's like, $400.  And I can TOTALLY tell why, I mean, it's obviously very high quality and well-made.  I mean, it seems durable.

Me, looking at the airy silk and chiffon dress that would probably snag on a splinter and hanging around to hear what his question is: Durable, yes...

SPE, glancing at me sideways and looking annoyed that I am still standing there: Okay, yes, thank you.

In case it doesn't come through in written format, the "thank you" at the end is a very clear dismissal ("yes, you can go now"), that, while certainly not the RUDEST thing a customer could do, is a personal pet peeve of mine on par with snapping your fingers at a waiter.

Customer Profile Two: The Customer Who Hates You And Your Store

This customer is nearly always female, because most men don't have the talent of maintaining an unreasonable emotional stance for long periods of time.  She can be any age, but will most likely be on the older side.  In my case, the CWHYAYS is stereotypical: a female in or around her 50's, hell-bent on letting me and my employees know that she DOES NOT LIKE US.

CWHYAYS, entering the store with a disgruntled look: Sigh.

Me: Hi, how are you?  Can I help you find anything?

CWHYAYS: NO.  I'm just looking, but I don't even know why I bother.  There's never anything in here that fits my taste.

Me: Okay... we just got in a shipment of jewelry, and it's all there on the front table.  We also got some new purses, and the most recent tops are at that rack right near the door; they've been selling really well.

CWHYAYS: Well, I can't imagine who is buying them, unless it's all young girls.  I've told you I don't like to show my arms, but you don't have anything in here with sleeves. (ed note: it's September, and I think I MIGHT have one rack that still has sleeveless/tanks.  Everything else in the entire store has sleeves)

Me, still laboring under the delusion that if I show her tops with sleeves, she'll see that we do, in fact, have them: Oh, okay, with sleeves...we have some really nice blouses right here that we just got in, and over on this rack are some wraps that are very versatile, you can tie them in front, or just let them hang loose, or even -

CWHYAYS, interrupting: No, no, no.  I don't wear wrappy things like that.  They aren't flattering at all.  Sigh.  Do you have any capris?

Me: Just the denim ones you see right there.

CWHYAYS: I obviously meant khaki capris; where would I ever wear denim pants like that?  I work for a law firm!

Me: Sorry, it looks like we're striking out today. 

CWHYAYS, grabbing a skin-tight pencil skirt that she would NEVER wear and one of the three sleeveless tops in the store: I guess I'll put a few things on hold, then.

Me, internally: WHY??????  YOU CLEARLY HATE IT ALL!  Now I won't be able to sell it to anyone else and we'll end up putting it back out after the two-day hold period only to have you come back in and get mad at us for not keeping it back for you.

Me, externally: Sure, just let me get a hang-tag for you.

Customer Profile Three: The Insane Neurosurgery Patient

While I'll be the first to admit that not everyone will have this specific type of customer (but of course we do! lucky me!)*, I would feel remiss if I didn't briefly touch on what can easily be a very complicated situation.  This customer has a tentative grasp on reality, and you'll find that it's extremely difficult to differentiate between what is fact and what is fiction with the INP.  The customer will often request special favors from you, and, even when you kindly say no, you'll find that the very next day the customer is back, expecting you to deliver on the very favor you declined.

Insane Neurosurgery Patient: Wow, this dress is amazing.  Is it on sale?

Me: No, we just got it in five minutes ago.  In fact, that's why it's still in a box.  You'll notice the box there, the one you just pulled the dress out of?

INP: Can I try it on?

Me: Well, it's not steamed, but I guess you can...

INP, modeling dress that is FAR too small in the top: My, my, my, this is a saucy little number!  Do you think I could just wear a black bra with this?

Me, gaping at the enormous amount of cleavage shown in what was formerly a demure wrap dress: Um, well, I'd probably put a cami or something underneath that, just to...you know...Cover?

INP: Is it on sale?

Me: Well, no, I mean - remember how I just got it in?  It hasn't even gone out on the floor yet.

INP: Okay, okay.  I just love it though; I may have to get it either way, sale or not!  (ed note: she never buys anything that isn't on sale, so this will never happen)  By the way, have you thought any more about that candle party I want you to do here?

Me, holding brochure for candles INP is hawking: Yes, and I'd love to do it (ed note: LIE) but as I mentioned to you last time, I'm not allowed to sell tax-free items in this retail space according to my Texas State Resale License.

INP: Oh, those bastards, they'd never catch you!  Haha!  You should just do it to spite 'em!  Did I tell you what they did to me when I fell in that hallway and had to have brain surgery?

Me, wondering what the Texas Comptroller's office could possibly have to say about that: I'll be right back, I need to start a dressing room for that customer over there.

INP, whispering conspiratorially to my employee at the cash register: I just love this dress, can you ring it up really quick?  Elise said she'll give me half off.

Employee: She did?  Are you sure?  We just got this dress in...it's not even priced, actually.  Let me ask her.

INP: Don't do that!  Haha!  I'm just kidding.  I mean, a girl's gotta try, right?

Employee, grimacing: Yeah, uh huh.

*Before you think I'm a horrible person, heartlessly making fun of someone with a legitimate medical condition, let me explain that A) we aren't even sure if she's actually had brain surgery or if she's making it up and B) she talks ALL THE TIME about how she wants another surgery of ANY type so that she can continue to receive her disability checks.  And she's even gone as far as to ask MY advice on what type of surgery "looks best for that type of thing".  You know, because as a boutique owner I'd be qualified to dispense surgical advice on how to screw the system.

The Importance Of Being Chill

I live my life in a near-constant state of freaking out.  I'm not sure if that shows on the outside or not - those of you who know me in real life will have to share - but on the inside, I am normally in some degree of turmoil.

It wasn't always like this.  Or was it?  I remember plenty of conversations where I was the footloose and fancy-free one; I've always been the type of girl who will take off, at a moment's notice, on the most random of adventures.  In fact, I seek them out.

Doesn't that make me a free spirit? 

Not really, as it happens.  Looking for chaos, whether that be in the form of a last-minute trip or in the creation of a problem where previously one did not exist, is just a way I make my outward circumstances match my inner mindset.  If I have something concretely chaotic to focus upon, I don't have to consider why my mind is always racing.  I need an off button.

In true all or nothing fashion, when I finally do relax, I REALLY relax.  I don't want to do ANYTHING, don't want to think anything, don't want to have to figure out anything.  I don't want to worry about being social, because then my mind will start spinning again, trying to figure out if this person is having fun, and what about that guy over there?  Who's he with?  Do we need to include him?  Is my house clean enough?  Was that a tuft of dog hair I just saw tumbleweeding across the floor?  I just vacuumed YESTERDAY, for goodness sake.  How much can one dog shed?  Now everyone is going to think I keep a nasty house.  Wait, did we just run out of chips?  I KNEW I should have bought more than two bags.  Oh and now what will we do?  Am I supposed to come up with something?  Because I don't FEEL LIKE DOING ANYTHING!

It's beginning to get tiresome.

I envy the ease with which many of my friends go about their lives.  They go to work, they put in an hour at the gym, they go to the grocery store, they pick up their house.  They fold laundry.  They have visitors drop by unannounced, and they don't care.  They fall asleep without a television on to drown out the noise of their relentless thoughts.

How do they do that?

I realize that much of my stress is self-inflicted.  Like I said, I almost seek out the chaos in a situation, because I am so used to being in that state that I feel like I wouldn't know what to do without it.  I made the decision to start my own retail business at the age of 24, despite being warned numerous times by many, many (well-meaning) people the statistics on small-business failure (over 90% in the first two years) and the ridiculously fickle nature of retail.  Duly noted, and then pushed aside.  I went for my dreams!  I knew it would be hard!

And holy geez, it is hard.

I guess I'm in that middle part of "living your dream".  The part when all the difficult stuff has been realized; the reasons so many people don't do what you're doing become abundantly clear, and you have moved well beyond questioning your own sanity for making the choice you did (verdict: clearly insane).  But I'm not yet to the point where I can fondly look back and say "wow, I really did it, didn't I?  I just took the leap and crossed my fingers and hoped for the best, and if I knew then what I do now, I probably wouldn't have done it.  But my goodness, am I glad I did!" 

Yeah, I could say the first half of that sentiment rings true.  But not that last bit.

At this point, I guess all I am wishing for is to be a little more Zen.  A little more in touch with myself, and a little less inclined to have this constant, relentless "you'renotdoingthisright!" bearing down on me.  I catch myself doing something totally innocuous - stepping out of the bathtub or looking at a not-quite-ripe orange in the grocery store - and I suddenly get a rush of bad adrenaline, that overwhelmingly negative something-is-wrong-feeling.  And if I don't pull myself out of it, the brief moment of self-awareness will pass by and I'll just continue about my day, now saddled with an (unnecessary) impending sense of doom.

The thing that bugs me the most is that I just KNOW the stress sneaks by me undetected more often that not.  There's really no reason to live my life this way; no reason to go from one activity to the next with a giant storm cloud brewing above my head.  Sure, some things are bad.  Some parts of my life are not the way I would want them to be.  And some of those things I can control (to a point) and some I can't. 

So what I want - what I need - is to just chill.  I need to stop the sneaky advances of stress from ruining perfectly innocent grocery store trips.  I need to try my best, and know that it's GOOD ENOUGH.  I need to allow the phrase "good enough" to exist in my personal dictionary.  And much like a good friend ended her entry the other day, this is not a "pity me, I have it so hard" type of post at all.  It's much more a "does anyone else have this ever-present feeling of doom plaguing you at all hours?" type of thing.  And if so, what do you do about it?

The Weirder The Better

Earlier this week I was sitting on a rainbow rug on the floor of an elementary classroom, pinning pieces of fabric together to make curtains.  Not because I have suddenly decided on a career change (what a disaster of a teacher I would make - I can see it now: "WHY don't you understand what I'm demonstrating?  Are you STUPID?") but because one of my best friends has.  And she is going through the somewhat monumental task of getting her room ready for school.  There's an awful lot that goes in to that process, and most of it has to do with things like "sensory stimulation" and "appropriate learning patterns" i.e., "things Elise knows nothing about".  But SOME of it has to do with sewing and hanging curtains, and I can do that just fine.

Anyway, as I was pinning away, another friend of my friend came up to the school to see the room in progress, and we all started chatting.  Okay, I can probably get away with this example, since I've been blogging about Project Runway this season and a decent percentage of you have seen the show - you know how when the designers are in the design room for the main part of their workday, the camera always grabs all these great little sound bytes?  Meaning, all the designers are sitting there, sewing and panicking about time-restraints and still have the time for snarky commentary about one another and funny dialog.  And to the uninitiated, this might seem weird, like wow, they have something ridiculous like 8 hours to make an entire three-piece suit, and yet they have somehow found the leisure time to do sarcastic impressions of one other...I smell creative editing.  But no!  I am here to tell you, it's not only possible, but actually very accurate that even in the midst of a sewing time-crunch, you still have ample opportunities for conversation.  And it's better conversation that normal - much like if you were stuck in an elevator with someone for 5 hours straight - you have to get pretty creative to keep things rolling.  It's because sewing utilizes one part of your brain, and it's not the same part that is used for communication.  So what you end up with is the type of dialog that you normally only find when hanging out with your friends for long, uninterrupted stretches of time.  Interesting, huh?

Anyway!  I was sewing, and I asked my friend how she and her friend met, and they told me that they met while student teaching at the same school.  Okay, so that's the basic answer, right?  That's the small-talk answer.  But then, as good conversations often do, things got a little more in-depth.  We started discussing HOW they actually became friends, as there were lots of people student teaching at that school, and how come THEY connected with each other, rather than with someone else.  This is always fascinating to me, how people come to be friends with one another, and as the conversation progressed, we began telling stories of how we met our good friends; specifically about the MOMENT in which we knew we would totally be able to be friends - that moment where you see something in a fellow human and you're like "I totally get that".

The "small-talk" answer to how me and my new-teacher friend connected is "she shopped in my store, and we ended up finding out our husbands went to school together when we saw each other at their 10-year reunion".  But that's totally NOT how we actually BECAME friends, that's just a physical description of the circumstances that allowed us to meet.  The reason we BECAME friends is because one day, while she was just a customer shopping in my store, I complimented her on something - her hair, probably (she's got some seriously awesome, wild hair) - and she laughed, telling me, quite bluntly, that she had gotten in pretty late the night before, and was proudly sporting last night's hair AND makeup.  I knew, right that minute, that this was the type of poorly-hygiened girl I could be friends with.
And for her, that moment was when Cody and I saw her and her husband out after the aforementioned reunion, and a catty, inebriated girl said something rude to her.  I caught the tail end of the interaction, asked what had happened, and when I heard the story repeated, and had the rude girl in question pointed out to me (as she was ascending a set of stairs) I said "Oh HER?  I wouldn't worry about her - I saw her panties on the stairs and they are (earmuffs, guys) ugly period panties. Who wears panties like that if you're wearing a short dress and going up and down stairs?"  She knew right then that my judgey-undergarment ways would be a perfect friendship fit.

I connected with another one of my best friends when, only a short while after we had been introduced, we realized we had something major in common.  We both saw a crooked shelf and tried, valiantly, to continue our conversation and NOT fixate on the Horrible Crookedness of the shelf, but then, almost simultaneously, rushed over to fix the shelf, apologizing to one another and saying "it just drives me insane!"  "No, I know - it drives ME insane, too!"  "Oh my gosh, can you not stand for things to be even a tiny bit off"?  "No!  It makes my head go crazy!"  "Oh. My. Gosh."  And with that, a deep and abiding love was born, compliments of OCD.

And, back to the classroom where we were making curtains, my friend's friend (we'll call her M, for the sake of the story) told us one of the best stories I have ever heard about meeting a fellow soul-mate.  M was starting her teacher certification classes, and, as she entered her very first class of the whole program and sat down, started to feel nauseous.  She hoped, as many of us do, that the nausea would pass, and settled in to bravely try and tough it out.  As the class began, a girl came in and sat right beside her, giving M yet another reason to worry about whether or not her nausea was going to cause any...noticeable problems, and after about 10 minutes, M said she got that unmistakable "I'm gonna puke" feeling.  You know, your mouth starts watering, you get all clammy - it's not good.  So she leaned over to the girl next to her, and asked if she had any idea where the bathrooms were.  The girl said no, sorry, she didn't...and as she started to offer another suggestion, the moment was upon M and she had to jump up and run out of the classroom. Not knowing where the bathrooms were, M, in desperation, spotted a trash can about 10 feet down the hall from her classroom.  She sprinted to the trash can and threw up for about three full minutes into it.  And, as if to add insult to injury, it wasn't even a full-sized trash can.  It was a little guy, so M was actually on her knees in the hallway, holding this tiny trash can and puking her guts out, definitely in listening-range of her brand new classmates.  As she returned, humiliated, to the classroom and sat down at her desk, the girl next to her leaned over, said "I'm so sorry....do you want a piece of gum?"  And M knew they would be friends forever.

I've got a story like that (although none quite THAT great) about almost every friend I have.  Tell me your favorite "I just knew" moments.  Don't you find it fascinating?