heathervescent

what did they expect?

Newsweek has an article about how the recent blogger attendees to the Harvard blog conference were mostly male. To that I say DOH! The Harvard conference was invite-only and of course the largest boys club would invite mostly males to their conference. Where and how did they do their research?

Newsweek is completely off, as well as Harvard in their conference. I don't think any of the bloggers I frequent were included in the invite. My blogroll and the blogs I read are more than 50% women. I would suggest a poll be done at some of the open blogger conferences and communities and see how that compares with the Harvard sample.

Grrr... the more you perpetuate the male boys club worldview, the longer it will persist.

reminder on risk

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~ Mark Twain

This is very appropriate as I think about the things I am not so excited about and new possibilities for life. It's a reminder to take risks and jump long and far and to not cut short my dreams.

New List: Mash-ups

I've enjoyed mashups for a while and recently thanks to Theory Radio found a slew a links. They've been added to the side of my blog. Check out the links, and be sure to check out Theory Radio. I think I have a crunch on one of the DJs....

have I done enough?

I've spent the late morning and afternoon purging more paper. Letters and cards and poetry and more love letters. Comments and observations on Heather from other people, friends, lovers, those already dead. I know how people see me. It's simply reflected in the question that Tom asked me at the housewarming: "So what do you do? ... I'm interested to know what someone who has the energy you have does." I paused, because I didn't like what I would usually say, which is a diatribe about building internet tech products. Because my job description just did/does not stand up to what I think someone like me should be doing. But if I twist it, I'm an inventor, a visionary, a dreamer, an actor, and all. I get paid to create, define, execute. That sounds a lot more interesting than Senior Product Manager.

Some thoughts on _Blink_ by Malcolm Gladwell

I've been reading _Blink_ by Malcolm Gladwell the past week. It's a fascinating read and I can't even attempt to provide a synopsis. So many concepts have already been explored. The main focus is the split-second decisions, where and how we make them and when they work.

I've just finished reading the chapter on Market Research. Talking about the Pepsi challenge, the Aeron chair, food tasters. A sentence resonates with me, p 175. Gladwell is talking about when traditional Market Research fails to provide an accurate estimate of the audience's response to a new product.

... Market research isn't always wrong, of course. If All in the Family had been more traditional -- and if the Aeron had been a minor variation on the chair that came before it -- the act of measuring consumer reactions would not have been nearly as difficult. But testing products or ideas that are truly revolutionary is another matter, and the most successful companies are those that understand that in those cases, the first impressions of their consumers need interpretation. We like market research because it provides certainty -- a score, a prediction; if someone asks us why we made the decision we did, we can point to a number. But the truth is that for the most important decisions, there can be no certainty. ...[I]t is the new and different that is always most vulnerable to market research.

This reminds me of some Guy Kawasaki books I've read. And makes me think more on the nature of what I do in my job with technology and the difficulties I've had and the despair I feel at certain times.

To be successful at new and innovative projects, ideas, innovations, one must have additional energy, drive, focus and internal strength... one something could call ego - ergo my previous post.

newfound respect for the ego

A few weeks ago when I was carpooling with Erika she mentioned her view of the ego. My understanding of what she said is that the ego serves only yourself. It gives you the support to do the things you want to do when anyone else (and the world) is telling you otherwise. It gives you internal strength and confidence to what YOU personally want. It's not negative at all. The ego is for your eyes only.

It was interesting to hear and think about. And it's been on my mind ever since. It's true, the ego does support yourself. When you are not thinking about anyone else and your ego expands to be your all encompassing view, the ego gets a negative connotation, it's no longer self-serving, it's expecting to be served. Thinking about this this way, made me realize how much negativity I have fixated on "the ego" and my ego and trying to become egoless or egopowerless. This is because when the ego expresses itself to others others have no interest in it. This frustrates ego and people act or react differently to this.

There is such a sense of freshness and release to have respect for my ego. To think about its positive position. To know that it can live and direct my life, without having to be a center of attention to others, or even be known to others. That gives me internal strength, fire, drive and confidence. Second guessing is the validation of my ego. This is an oxy-moron and something I struggle to overcome. Validation does nothing for the ego except usurp its power. I'm done with that.

11:11 and all your dreams come true

it's synchronicity at it again. it's easy to project in various directions. to see possibilities. but a reminder, to be curious and not afraid is good advice.

but I'm impatient. I'm demanding. and damn it, I'm worth it too. time to focus on what I want and be more specific and open at the same time to the unknown.

11:11 - all my dreams come true.

energy and trouble

can too much energy get you in trouble? I pose this question to you my readers and friends? As well as pose it to myself. Has my energy ever gotten me into trouble? I think not, if anything, it has allowed for me to do much much more with less issues and trouble. Granted, the net trouble may be more but the net activity is also much more - and not just proportionately.

Got my skin back

It's taken longer and cost more and I sat through much traffic and broke all my driving habits, but she's back. Today Erika and I rocked out to Basement Jaxx and ZZ Top at high speeds on the LA freeways. Left leg and right hand were back in syncronicity action with shifting. The sweet butter clutch. It took me about 5 minutes to get used to her low seat, center key and window controls again. It was interesting to listen to the CDs I left in the changer and haven't heard for 6 weeks. It's good to break habits. I can't wait for the sun to come out and take her top down. Wind blowing back in my hair, sun in my eyes, happiness on my face again.

Everything is turning around. It's also spring. Always the darkness just before the dawn, ne?

please go out with my friend

She is one of the totally coolest people I know. Don't be intimidated by her 6 tallness - she has great legs. (I was intimidated by her at first.) Don't worry that she has more power than you just because she rides killer motorcycles. (Her bikes kick my mere Lady Knight's dual side exhaust.) She's a fashion plate, but don't worry she has great taste. If I were a black man over 6 feet tall, I would sweep pinky off her feet and take her to a far away place where she wouldn't be able to celebrate 35 years of kicking ass with her friends. That's ok. That's good. Because I would be very sad if that man existed to steal Pinky #1 away from Pinky #2. But if you do exist - you are a hot black man, taller than 6 feet tall, be incredibly smart, sexy, mature, willing to commit and living in the greater Los Angeles area, please go out with my friend. But wait until after this weekend to ask her out. PS. Pinky, this is payback for the hot asian waiter you introduced me to!

abandon hope all ye who enter the future

It was a fun party. The guest surprise author was Tom Robbins, the  non suprise authors were Gloria and Franco. There was vodka, chocolate pots du Creme for pinky. There was a rubix cube champion and a kinky girlfriend. Tom fell in love with my ribbon coat. I made him wear it with a feather boa and gave him a dinosaur spark gun. Lars came and was distracted from solving the cube by a friend's girlfriend. I have photos. It was entertaining to say the least. It was a good housewarming. I have great neighbors.

Amazing new friends (at least I hope they want to be friends with me). If life is like this in the future, I'm glad I live here.

I'll post the whole album soon.

Just so you know, it wasn't all party games. I was busy filling my brain with character analysis only to spend the next day crunching it. More on that later too.

LA Fashion Week pics

It was a week ago, but only just getting the pics posted. More photos coming shortly of the fabulous housewarming on Saturday.

That's Suz and I in our fashion delights and then there's me hanging out on the earthquake retrofitting in 3 in heels and corset.

Get down to David Bowie and don't smile! ;)

biwana bollywood, LA freeways and glass

I love driving on the greater LA freeways. I have a passion for pavement (actually ribbed concrete is my favorite in the car, fresh blacktop on the moto - that sounds strangely sexual, and I guess it is). It was foggy/hazy when I awoke Sat morning. I planned to spend some quality time on some new to me freeways. Jetted out to Riverside via 134/210/91/10/15. I love the interchange from the 10 to the 15. I find freeway overpasses completely and utterly erotic. The curves and my knowledge of centrifugal force. The stacked criss-crossing curves often many many stories high.

One of my dreams is to have the LA freeways completely to myself to drive on them where ever I want, as fast as I want, in any car that I want. In your dreams, heather!

Later I discovered the toll roads of orange county. This is the most amazing concept. I've been on some before, but this day, I found 241 - a gorgeous stretch. Pay to go on a road where there are less people. It's too bad that I can't drive as fast as I want. The scenery was gorgeous on 241. I was driving my Aunt's big truck blasting the biwana bollywood mix CD. I pulled up to the toll both manned by an Indian and he smiled as my open window poured forth a strange mix of music for a white girl in southern california to have.

Later I unpacked the boxes from my grandmother's house. I closed it up earlier this summer and unwrapped package upon package of antique glass. Etched, green, cut, frosted, goblets, platters, glasses, serving dishes. I unpack them and put them on display. Not many have broken. There are a lot. Many many more than I can use.

I thought I knew it all about California. It's the center of my universe. One day, when I am finished with my time here, I will leave and burn like the letter I burned a few weeks ago. Until then, I will love her streets, her crimes, her tall building, her shudders, her tears, her mind-transforming landscapes. There's no place I love better than here.

kiss with death

Sometimes I feel my death in an instant. I experience it viscerally as it happened in an alternate reality - a different possibility. Tonight it was as I turned onto San Fernando from the freeway. The car was hit sideways on the driver's side. I felt the blossoming and release. I thought about the last two documents I faxed today to my attorney and who would collect on my life insurance. I had no regret. I felt the anguish of someone who lost only because he fails to take action. I felt nothing.

It was a flash. A complete feeling and experience and I felt it's echo as I sped away into the darkness thinking I have lived those realities. They exist. However the one I experience now, typing this entry, is different. I've jumped up high and spun the wheel of fortune. I've made a deal with the devil, which is merely myself.

I am reminded of this deal, this difference, when I taste the sweet flowering of my death in my mouth. The blossoming sweetness. Armagura na minha boca. The broken mayonnaise jar on the white kitchen tile. Blood in another country.

termites, construction, paint - oh my!

It's been an house busy weekend and still doesn't end. This weekend consisted of moving furniture, lots of quality time on LA freeways (more on that later), home construction, planning for painting, cleaning, messing it all up again, etc.

Today - Monday - Gloria and I have more stuff going on. She's at the house dealing the painters and our construction guy - who is really nice and does good work, but can't keep an appointment time for his life. Here's what she sent me earlier today.

I am completely impressed with both of us. We are about to go crazy insane and yet, no fight between us, no harsh or bad words. We're working together, knowing we're stressed yet not taking it out on each other - which is an amazing situation in itself. We are kick-ass women. ;)

Anyway, we've decided that new and current boyfriends will have to pass the Heather and Gloria Future home test. Which basically means they must be handy and be available to help us with manly home improvement. Like pulling down the tree, digging a hole for the fountain, painting the eaves, drywalling the garage, building shelves, etc. We have a whole list of projects for your potentials. But stay potentials for the time being.

In the meantime, enjoy the show that is our life! It just doesn't stop!

-------

12.10 p.m., phone call.
-Gloria, this is Ray. I'm so sorry, I was so tired last night and I overslept. is it ok if I come now?
-Sure, but come soon because the painters are waiting for you.
-I'll be there immediately.

12.40 p.m. The painters have just finished priming the three rooms. Now, they open the gallon of yellow paint and try a strip on the wall. Only, it's not the right yellow! One of them has to go back to the paint shop and return it, bring the right one back. No trace of Ray, the never-on-time handyman.

1.10 p.m. A never seen before guy shows up, and says "Ray sent me. What should I do?" This really starts to look interesting.

1.11 p.m. ray show up. two minutes after he takes his place "at work,",
-Gloria-he hollers from the stairway-do you have some plastic I can put on the floor for not making it dirty?-
-Sure, here's the plastic--aren't handymen supposed to carry that? well, whatever!

1.13 p.m,. -Gloria, i forgot some...
--I swear, at this point I don't even know what's the other piece he
needs to go get disappearing again--.

1.14 p.m  Now it's Melissa.
-Gloria, since it's now obvious I won't be able to paint the bathroom too today, can I come back tomorrow?-
-Wow. Not really, I just set two appointments tomorrow and I need to do a bunch of writing as well. Could you come eventually on Thursday?-

As soon as I say that, I think about how disappointed my roommate would be if her bathroom can't get done asap. Plus, Melissa is just hinting that she might not be don with the living room as well by tonight. Plus more, didn't I just set also the cleaning people plus the termites inspection, all on Thursday to keep my precious sanctuary on tracks? So:

-Well, Melissa, if you could be here tomorrow at 8 a.m.

Deal. Melissa will be here tomorrow. I'll just have to get the hell away from here and stay away until
they're done before going totally nuts.

Meanwhile, I am also thinking to book a suite in a nice (and expensive, and clean) hotel for me and
Heather so that all these people who need to work at our house on their own time don't get too disturbed by our presence and needs. As and added advantage, I might even get some work done at the hotel, without anybody hollering to me or asking me this and that every five minutes.

1.25 p.m. You know what? Now that everybody's here, I'm going to get out for a walk with my dog. Not very productive but surely stress-relieving. I'm sure they will survive without my reassuring and soothing --for their stress--presence.

not my city anymore

Earlier this week I spent a day in San Francisco. I walked the downtown streets I used to visit daily. I drove through the mission, parked in an old favorite garage and walked through a park I used to each lunch in almost every day. I got coffee at Peet's on Market - my first job was 2 blocks away and I used to step away for lunch at specialties. I got the same looks from random men on the street. Come ons muttered as I passed a bicyclist and crossed the street. I remembered my mindset, my objectives, my worldview of that time.

It was all different.

I experienced this city detached from myself. Detached from the person I was in the past. I'm different now. San Francisco is no longer my city. I felt no twing of remorse for not living there. I regretted nothing. I enjoyed my time remember many things. And at the same time felt so happy to have left. Happy to know that my home is Los Angeles. There is nothing that I own in this city. Happy also to have spent my last months in San Francisco in complete love and awe and cherishment of her wonders.

I realize, I never felt at home in the Bay Area. Sure, I made myself feel good, I was successful, found things I liked in the city with the people and my friends, I had an apartment, then a house, a boyfriend, then a marriage, a couple cats, a garden, a view of the bay area, but it was never home. Never had the cozy womblike comfort that Anthony Kiedes croons about in a red hot chili pepper ballad. I feel that feeling in Los Angeles. It makes me so happy to come home. Home to the Lost Angeles I love. To the city of my birth. Why did it take so long for me to realize this and return?

join em?

Maybe I'll become one of those ****** MBA types I have learned to despise.

died following his dream

Simon Milward and his Millennium Ride ended March 4th.

"On 1.1.2000 I left Western Europe to ride my handmade motorcycle around the world on a humanitarian mission. To date I have ridden 194,000km through 58 countries in Europe, the Middle East, South and East Asia, Australia, the Americas and Africa. Uganda is in the middle of Africa, I am heading West and North to Morocco from November 2004, from where I’ll cross to Spain, visit all of Europe and a part of the Middle East before arriving back to the UK around October 2005."

change is eternal

Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let's love turbulence and use it for change. --Ramsay Clark

10 rules to live by

From Milton Glaser via Boing Boing

1. YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
2. IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB.
3. SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.
4. PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT ENOUGH or THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT.
5. LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE.
6. STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
7. HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.
8. DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
9. SOLVING THE PROBLEM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING RIGHT.
10. TELL THE TRUTH.

"Affection, trust and sharing some common ground is the only way good work         can be achieved. Otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle."

demoralized

There's nothing more demoralizing than finding out some idiot at work has been promoted. So much for my work ethic and attempting to do novel and innovative stuff. No, I get to convince a bunch of super Conservative old men to change a few fucking pixels. Argh. Business is a man's world, and they should all be shot.

--/more Tuesday morning 7.08am\--

The thing the bothers me the most about this, is that the company I work for promoted this clueless mba type. That says more to me about the company I work for. The complete difficulty for women to be promoted and recognized. It's not just the men who are hard on women. Women are the worst critics of each other in work. (I realized this through my own self-observation after reading a HBR article.) It's another boys club. This says to me, there is no long term possibility for my success there. In actuality my short term success has been practically nothing because of their failure prone corporate structure. Some things are impossible regardless of the person.

I knew that, but seeing it again makes it difficult for me to endure the short time I must before moving on. I was hoping there was some possibility of stability, but it seems my stability is within myself only.  So I intend a new possibility. A path without topanga canyon boulders of obstacles, with amazingly smart people, who are fun, have a good time, work hard, work smart, have interesting lives - and change people's lives - not just figure out how to sell more crap or send opt-in "spam" to more people or coerce people to give personal information to sell to third parties all while copying the competition because they are clueless and can't come up with an original thought process or rise to a challenge. Lifestyle company indeed.

I want to kick ass. I want to be in a place where my wings are not clipped. Where I thrive, where it doesn't matter how my passion comes out. There are too many dead walkers in the world. I am not one of them, nor can I fake it.

I live in the Future, not in Hades.

love is not eternal, love is eternal

All maneuvers are not temporary. tonight my love went up in flames. No longer can they claim to love me unconditionally, or always, or for all time, or forever. Forever ends tonight. Ash flys up into the LA night sky and lands on my fingers typing. I stir up the ashes and small pieces catch fire. All will be ash before morning.

I thought about auctioning all my love letters off on eBay. I had quite a collection. Wonderful prose and poetry from a variety of boys and men from the past 16 years. I thought they might fetch a decent price or at least get me some press. I decided instead on the age old fire form.

But fire can not burn emails. So I must satisfy myself and the universe by changing the recycle bin icon to that of a burning flame and delete all those messages.

"It is imperative that you try to understand that the only thing solid and unbreakable in your life is and should be your heart and your spirit, but they are frail, so your imperative is to keep them intact. But it is easy to do, follow your heart and never let the spirit sink. Everything else can go, and should go. There is nothing else that you need." Jane says.

on maneuvers

"Don't worry all maneuvers are temporary."

haunted

And I'm haunted
By the lives that I have loved
And actions I have hated

I'm haunted
By the promises I've made
And others I have broken

I'm haunted
By the lives that wove the web
Inside my haunted head

- Poe