Book review: Stuff

I have a long and complex history of interactions with stuff.

Long enough that it's hard to pinpoint where the more fraught interactions started, although there are artifacts that suggest certain "hot" times: a bright yellow filing cabinet I requested (and received) for my thirteenth birthday; a dedicated "quotes and lists" journal I created during my junior year of college, after a particularly difficult summer.

Complex enough that just thinking about it brings up a variety of disturbing feelings: shame, guilt, confusion, anxiety. My anxiety is bubbling to the surface right now, as I type this, even after a full year of actively sorting through, thinking about, and releasing stuff. My heart is beating faster. I'm warm, a little dizzy, and feel as though it's harder to breathe. I feel "fuzzed out", dissociated, instead of present and fully integrated, like a part of me that didn't want to deal just ran off somewhere else, and now I have to coax it back.

According to Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee, co-authors of Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, and preeminent scholars of hoarding as a behavioral disorder, my symptoms are fairly common. While I'm not a hoarder, or at least, compared to the hoarders I've known and the ones I've been (obsessively) watching on A&E's gripping show, Hoarders, I have significant attachment issues around stuff, and exhibit many of the behaviors and much of the wiring present among compulsive hoarders: perfectionism, distractibility, depression, difficulty making decisions, and, hallelujah for at least one happy trait, a highly creative personality.

Stuff does a superb job of explaining why it is we get attached to things, and why some of us become pathologically attached to things. The authors use a series of case studies to illustrate the various ways the disorder manifests: there are the "opportunity addicts," who see potential in everything; there are people who use their stuff as visual reminders, who use it to make them feel safe, or valued, or in control. The stories are fascinating and often heartbreaking. But while they describe life at the extreme end of the acquiring spectrum, they're also fairly illuminating about the general valuation of objects over experiences, even relationships, that are part of a consumer-driven economy and the culture of materialism it fosters.

In other words, while Stuff is of particular interest to someone who is a hoarder, loves a hoarder or is just interested in learning all about hoarding, it's also a mandatory read for anyone interested understanding more about the fallout from living in this age of unprecedented access to both goods and information. It's gripping from beginning to end, and haunting thereafter.

xxx c

• Buy Stuff, by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee on Amazon [includes excellent Q&A, plus clutter-rating photos created by the authors for evaluation purposes]
• Buy Stuff for Kindle on Amazon [I read it on Kindle, and loved it]

You might also like:

• Excellent, easy-to-understand article on differences between OCD and OCPD
• A&E's Hoarders [occasional full episode on the website, full Season One on DVD or streaming Netflix]
• Compulsive hoarding entry on wikipedia [includes photos of hoarders' homes]

Photos, clockwise from top left: Steketee; Frost; book cover; a level-4 (out of a possible 9) cluttered space.

Still crazy after all six years

In the six years I've kept at this blogging thing, there have been long, loooong stretches of daily writing. And a longer stretch of almost-daily writing. And a few obviously unlinkable stretches of almost no writing at all.

There have been, despite my certainty that there never would be, both poems and video. A little whining. A little explicating. A lot of figuring stuff out, out loud.

Some of the stuff I've said has wound up other places, never the stuff I thought would (which should tell you something about something), and mostly thanks to Laura.

What I'm trying to say, albeit rather clumsily, is that a lot of the time, the reason to write is just that, to write. You can write to promote yourself or write to make money or even write to find yourself but ultimately, you write to write. To be able to keep on writing. To be able to keep on getting better at writing. To be able, god willing, to write long enough that you write well enough to actually say something that will live on after you are no longer there to write.

But even if you don't, even nobody reads your writing while you are alive and all your writing dies with you, if you are a writer (and maybe even if you are not), you are the better for having written.

Now, write.

xxx c

• Fifth anniversary: November 1, 2009
• Fourth anniversary: November 1, 2008
• Third anniversary: November 1, 2007
• Second anniversary: November 1, 2006
• First anniversary: November 1, 2005
• The very first post on this blog, November 1, 2004

Photo of me with delicious SCD-legal pie made for me by my friend, Heather, taken by my friend, Dyana.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #24

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

This manifesto on tolerance from Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Sprong first made the rounds last year around this time, but it is (sadly) more timely than ever.  [delicious-ed, via Bryan Fuller]

Penelope Trunk has been killing it lately. This piece on why she now sorts her books by color is, like the best kinds of essays, about that and so much more. [Google Reader-ed]

I think I lost a year of my own life reading this harrowing story of a young man's two-year stretch for armed robbery. He told it in a series of posts to a forum he frequented before doing time; someone compiled all the pieces, as well as his answers to further questions posted by other forum members. Caveat: while it's really well-told, it's about prison, i.e., not for the faint of heart. [Tumbled]

Even if the story is 100% false (and hey, don't believe everything you see on the TV news), the footage of this lion greeting his Good Samaritan after a long absence is wonderful to watch. [Facebook-ed]

xxx
c

Image by kiwipecora via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Poetry Thursday: My enemy, my Sherpa

Do not wish away time
or fat
or fear
or change
or any other
enemy.

If you face them,
those thieves
of what you thought
you wanted
will show you
to your heart's true love.

If you hide,
in the dark
in a bottle
in a bag of Doritos
in the glow of a screen
under cubicle light
behind walls of silence
beneath waterfalls
of meaningless chatter,
they will hunt you down
anyway.

They will show you.
They will show you.

If they have to wait
until your dying breath

they will show you.

How much better
to invite them in
for a cup of tea
and a moment's rest
and hear
what they have
to offer.

Hello, my enemy!
My teacher!

Let me sit at your feet
and work out the kinks
while you tell me how
to unbuckle my life...

xxx
c

Whom will you offend today?

I have been on an unsubscribing kick lately. And I'm not the only one.

People who track and parse the trends of social media (which is currently being transitioned into "the new media" and which will, soon enough, become just "media") have been saying this for a long time: attention is the new currency. In other words, if you've been paying any kind of attention, this is non-news.

But from the dismaying and ever-expanding swath of garbage I have to wade through every day to get to fresh, open waters, I'd say most people have yet to get the memo. And I say that having already deliberately and painstakingly filtered the firehose down to a relative trickle. I follow fewer than 100 people on Twitter. I have only a dozen or so "always" blogs in my Google Reader. I use delicious and FriendFeed to collect and collate, not chat nor find new material. I stay the hell away from YouTube entirely, just reading the comments there is often enough to lower one's IQ 50 points, not to mention plunge one into a black hole of depression. I will visit HuffPo only out of absolute necessity, and only long enough enough to hit the "Instapaper-izer" bookmarklet I installed on my browser to strip it and its ilk of their Downtown Vegas-like flashing carnival lightshow of crappery.

And yes, Facebook "friends", many of you who are redundant, dour, knee-jerk cheerful, or too talky, especially around the business offerings, just don't show up in my feed at all anymore.

I am not a highly-sensitive person like my friend, Havi, and I never saw that old '90s movie where Julianne Moore became allergic to everything, but as I let go of the clutter I've used both to insulate myself from and inure myself to sensation, I'm freaking out a little bit over how crowded and noisy everything has gotten in the past seven or so years. I mean, I'm as delighted as the next gal about the democratization of dissemination that owning the means of production has created, but does EVERYONE have to make EVERYTHING ALL the time? And with quite so many %#@$ modal windows?

A brief history of the Web 2.0 gold rush

It's not like any of this is news. When most normal people, i.e., non-ADD types and non-change addicts, first come to social media, they ask the same question: how do you deal with the noise?¹

To which the standard reply from a responsible social media tour guide is two-fold:

1. Reduce input to what is necessary
2. Filter the rest with tools and processes

In the beginning, we tended to err on the side of too much info and rely on tools and processes to manage it. Them was heady times, the land-grab days, and we didn't want to miss a minute of it. And yes, it sounds goofy, but there was a great big bunch of us who were writing about the same stuff we were reading about, the stuff we were always interested in, that we were now finally able to swap stories about (productivity pr0n was a big one) and the stuff that was brand spanking new that we were trying to wrap our heads around (i.e. social/"the new" media). I was as guilty as anyone, and guess what? I'm not even the least bit ashamed. This was well before social media hit pop-will-eat-itself levels. There were a handful of gossip bloggers. There were (blessedly) no mommybloggers.² Back then, it was such a relief to be able to have conversations and interactions instead of just consuming page after mind-numbing page of webular data, I loved it all, including the then-occasional "10 Best Whatever" post. I subscribed to blogs, to newsletters, I joined forums and Yahoo! groups. I did way too much, but I learned a lot, which I was then able to sift through, process, and synthesize in purportedly useful ways to people joining the party late.

And then, all of a sudden, a little bit at a time, I realized: I was done.

Done with ubiquity. Done with ravenous, voracious intake. I am back to reading judiciously about process, and intensely in new areas of interest. So I unsubscribed, and unfollowed, and deactivated, and generally went elsewhere. There are plenty of people who have a deep and enduring interest in exploring and sharing the stuff I once did, and some of them are even doing it responsibly, thank goodness, meaning they are not just yakking about social effing media, but talking about it from some sort of useful context. If you're climbing aboard now, you should find one of these people. They're fairly easy to spot, if you like the tenor of my blog.

Walking my own (not-)talk

In February of this year, I did something fairly radical for me: I told people to unsubscribe.

The engagement levels of my newsletter had been dropping for a few months, and I was despondent. Not that I don't spend a great deal of time on this blog, I do!, but I spend even more time on my newsletter, proportionately, plus it costs me money to send out every month. This is one thing when you're working, and when your newsletter is bringing you clients; it's quite another when you're purposely on self-imposed sabbatical and essentially paying for other people to read your work and they're not.

The solution suddenly seemed simple: tell the people who were disinterested that it was fine for them to go. So I did. My unsubscribe rates are now just about dead even with my subscribe rates, so the cost is holding steady. But the range of feelings I was suddenly exposed to was far more valuable than the few bucks that went back into my pocket.

I would be offended and/or surprised at who left, and almost immediately after, I would be joyous. I was letting go! They were letting go! We were all free to go wherever we pleased! I got a taste of what it feels like to be filtered out, along with a kind of permission to filter more honestly. Walking the talk! What a concept!

The remains of the day

What's left is a profound gratitude for who's left, because they're really choosing to be fully present with me, plus a kind of focus I never felt before. I am paying more and more attention to what it is that interests me, and trusting that everyone else is grownup enough to do the same. I'm enjoying the hell out of the time I do spend in social media, and what I read and share there. Out of the nothing, a something emerges, and I realize that this is all one process, and that it doesn't end until we do: we take in, we interact, we synthesize, we release. The landscape of our lives is always changing, just like life is always changing. It's so obvious, it's ridiculous, but there it is.

I look at what is left of all I've learned from so much time spent absorbing these various modalities of communication, at what has stayed with me, and I start to get a sense of how I might be useful to people when I emerge from self-imposed sabbatical. I've been playing with it a bit here and there, quietly test-driving it with a few longtime clients who are, for whatever reasons, also happy to play in this space, to cop a coach-y term. I'm hopeful that by February, when the odometer on my year rolls over, I'll have some clear and useful offering to extend more widely.

In the meantime, though, I hope that if you are here, you will be really here with me. And that if you are not, you will feel free to let go. And that if there are impediments to your finding utility here, a lack of organization in some critical area, or a missing delivery system, you'll let me know, either via a comment or an email. Comments and emails remain a constant, I do not see giving them up anytime soon.

You are my great love, giver of useful feedback, engager in meaningful conversation. I will give up much to share in this way...

xxx
c

¹In fairness, the first question many people ask is, "What the hell is the point of this crap?", but these folk are unlikely to use social media for any purposes, good or ill.)

²There were plenty of mothers who happened to blog, and some outstanding blogs from them. They just weren't the ad-splattered, Proctor-and-Gamblized, black holes of mediocrity you find in such woeful numbers today.

Image by woodley wonderworks via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Something for nothing

I spent the weekend with friends, away from home. A short trip this time, both because circumstances dictated it could not be longer and because I have finally started to get a sense of what I need, how much of it, and when.

This, alone, is a miracle of sorts. Not that I haven't actively been working for years and years (and again, I say, YEARS) at getting a handle on things; it's more that because I've been working at it so long, I'm shocked when start to feel like there's actually been some kind of improvement. (It's also shocking to feel creeping realizations because I've grown accustomed to epiphany-esque indicators, but that's a discussion for another day.)

Nominally, I went up for an evening of poetry, and brother, did I get it. Akka B. raised the metaphorical roof, there is none actually at Bart's to be raised, but if there were, she'd have raised it, too. Instead, she brought us together and howled at the (full) moon, and it was pretty great. You should probably go subscribe to her blog immediately¹, so you can participate in the next one, remote participation actively encouraged, and 3D, in-person visitors welcome.

But as is the way with these kinds of things, you go in for a little pecan pie and come out with a new set of radial tires, or something like that. While Ojai is a mighty small place, and while I know enough folks up there to qualify as an honorary citizen, I still manage to meet new ones on every trip north. This trip was no exception, and between a whole slew of new people at our monthly Jerry's mixers (see here) and a mini-slew this weekend, I had to trot out my long-and-boring story of Self-Imposed Sabbatical so many times, it even started to sound weird and lame to me.

The last person I shared it with, though, had the reply that made every other painful telling worthwhile. Hell, she may have just made the entire sabbatical worthwhile. Because when I gave her my usual answer ("Nothing!") to the eternal question of "What do you do?", without missing a beat, she said, "Well, you know what Akka B. would say: 'If you do nothing long enough, you're bound to find something.'"

People who have a direction, a focus, think this sort of process is bananas. I know, because I used to think this sort of process was bananas, that there had to be something to do to make the next thing happen. Now I know better. Now, some three years after this maddening, horrifying stretch of nothing, I can feel something coming into view. The metaphor is purposely mixed, because while I still see nothing, I am starting to feel plenty. My head feels clearer. My feet feel like they make firmer contact with the ground. (I know, incredibly weird, but I'm telling you, that's what it feels like.) I'm not advanced enough at any of this chi stuff to assess it with complete confidence, but I feel like the circuitry has been somehow rewired, and that the energy is flowing a little more regularly, a little more evenly, and a lot more reliably. I notice that things around me are starting to take shape: I like doing this. I feel good sharing this. I want to wake up here. What I say "no" to is comes more quickly, which seems to make what to say "yes" to more obvious. Or maybe it's the other way around.

A big part of me is still flying on faith, a bigger part that I'd ordinarily be comfortable with. Yet. Slowly but surely, though something is starting to emerge from the nothing. And the work I've done so far has made me more comfortable with the messy, dangling, unfinished parts of the work left to do.

Glory, hallelujah.

May your own nothing unfold in its own perfect way to reveal exactly the something waiting just beyond, and may we all hold each other's hand and stop for an occasional, poetic howl at the moon in the meantime...

xxx
c

¹And friend her fan page, or whatever the hell it is you do on the Facebook these days, while you're at it. It's easy, and she's lovely.

Photo © Nathalie Raijmakers Photography.

Frrrrriday Rrrrround-up! #23

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week here, but which I post on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

I'd actually sampled that magic pickle thing that makes everything taste sweet after you eat it, so naturally, I was fascinated to read about this stuff that removes all of the sweet taste in anything so you can taste what's left behind. [Facebook-ed]

Raw, brave post about giving up the bottle.  [delicious-ed]

LOVED this piece from my friend, Danielle LaPorte, about transparency: when it's good, and when/how it goes awry. [Google Reader-ed]

I think I sang this song about 400 times in the car on the way to and from Portland, so naturally, I had to find (and Stumble) the video of it. [Stumbled]

xxx
c

Image by me'nthedogs via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Poetry Thursday: 50,002 miles

I waited

for weeks
for that odometer to roll
over:
the first 50,000 miles
I'd put on a car
ever.

First EVER.

Not the extra fifty
I helped put
on the family car
or the twenty/ten/five
that got me to fifty
on all of those  
other cars,

50,000 miles,
from zero to five-oh
(save the few it took
to get it from factory
to me),
all by my lonesome.

For months
I guessed at
the rollover date:
in L.A.,
on the 101,
running mundane errands
or my own crazy ass
over the hill and back
for to get my head shrunk?

In the valley of Ojai,
at night, climbing
the hill toward the stars?

On the road in between,
windows down,
singing to the oldies?

As it happened,
I was somewhere on the outskirts
of Sacto,
negotiating my way
through a surprising number
of Sunday drivers
on their way to salvation,
two miles before I had a moment
to look down
and notice.

Fifty-thousand
and two.

I thought about it
all the way
to Bakersfield.

And then,
somewhere on the outskirts
of L.A. County
I realized:
I would remember
Fifty-thousand
and two
far, far longer
than I could have dreamed
I'd remember
five-zero-zero-zero-zero.

xxx
c

Image by Glenn Gutierrez via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Trixercising, "video is hard" and Tuesday, deconstructed

I've been a bit wobbly, finding my land legs again.

Or maybe my regular-usual legs are my sea legs. Maybe I'm usually adrift, out voyaging in an inward fashion, and the concrete trips here and there, the actual vagabonding, are my trips ashore, where I land hard, and, finding the land hard, can hardly walk.

Either way, it has been an interesting process this past week or so, getting back into the groove I'd just begun to establish before I hit the road.

We discussed grooves today in my now-Tuesday morning writing group: what are habits and rituals and patterns? And what does it mean if you make having no habits/rituals/patterns your habit/ritual/pattern? Is that even possible, or do we just not have our radar tuned in properly to pick up on them? Does it take a major happening, or maybe a series of minor ones, plus one to tip us, to make us see them well enough to consider changing them?

Not all rituals are bad, of course. Most aren't, or at least, not until they've outlived their usefulness in our lives. If you had to think through every process you've learned since you started learning things, just driving to the 7-11 for a Big Gulp would be an odyssey of epic proportions. (I know; it was a joke, see?)

The reason I take classes and seek out accountability partners and hire professionals to help me untangle my brain and redirect my chi and see my stuff clearly enough to decide what should stay and what should go is because I can't see it all by myself. Not all at once. Not when it matters. And I'm someone who sees a fair amount. What I could not see about Monday's post, though, is what my colleagues pointed out in Tuesday's workshop: that I'd left some things hanging, that I'd missed some opportunities. I mean, I knew these things; I know I'm missing opportunities and dropping threads of ideas all over the place. These are not polished essays I write, but blog posts. For the most part, I write them in one shot, straight through, with very little editing. The true miracle is when one works.

I would like to write a whole post about trixercise, because I think that this idea of true discovery coming from these three things, a cordoning off, a distancing, and a mindful attention throughout the process, might be a big and a useful enough idea to warrant deeper and more thoughtful explanation. Just not today. Because I write this at the end of a day where I'd thought I'd be posting a breezy instructional video, not wrassling for three hours with firmware upgrades, bad light and goddamn .AVI files.

In the meantime, I will settle for a wrap-up of discoveries from the day:

1. Your writing needs to be done first, or you're done for.
2. You can make a dent in your gnarliest issue if you chip away at it for a half-hour per day.
3. Just because pain is dormant doesn't mean it's over.
4. Knowing there is a little chopped liver left in the fridge is a great comfort.
5. Setting yourself a hard in and hard out may be the self-employed's greatest self-gift.

May we both continue to uncover many wonderful things moving forward...

xxx
c

Image by IntangibleArts via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Boxing yourself off for a while

There's a clutter-reducing trick many people advocate for dealing with the really stubborn, clingy stuff.

You take a box, fill it with the Questionable Clutter, and mark it with a date. Then, over the next weeks or months, if you find yourself truly in need of one of the items, you go back to the box, retrieve it for use, and find a permanent place for it among other like items, kitchen gadgets, the coat closet, what-have-you.

Some versions of the trick have you seal up the box, noting only D-day; some others have you additionally remove it to some hard-to-reach place, like an attic or basement.

The variations matter far less than the act itself: of bringing your attention to something, of cordoning it off and creating distance from it without recklessly, mindlessly tossing it. Because the real lesson in the trick, the exercise, let's call it, is not whether you need this particular hand-juicer or that particular argyle sweater vest: it's to bring your attention to something to create meaning and lasting change. It's to transform yourself through a timed examination of your relationship to objects. And so each of the components of the trick is necessary for the trixercize to work: the cordoning, the distance, and the mindful attention.

This is what sabbaticals are for, I am finally realizing, or at least, what this particular one has been for me. I remove myself from my way of being, set a span of time in which to observe what's needed and what can go, and throughout, do my best to bring my mindful attention to it. How do I feel, not working with clients? Not marketing myself constantly? Or, and much, much more on this to come, marketing myself completely differently? Un-marketing myself.

This is also why, over the course of this sabbatical, I've found it very useful not only to travel a great deal more in general, but to take a couple of extended trips away from Los Angeles, specifically. I was in Ojai for most of August and then, after a two-week turn at home, off to Ojai and the PacNW for a month in September and October. Somewhere in the middle, I felt an insanely strong pull to call it all off, to just stay in L.A. and start working on the various ideas that had begun brewing during my long, daily walks in Ojai. I'd committed to a few things in Portland, though, and am trying to get better about following through on my commitments, so I didn't. And I'm glad I didn't, because the extra four weeks and 2,000 miles of driving distance back and forth from that giant, marked box that is my life here in Los Angeles helped me to see much, much more clearly what I have use for and what can go.

I love my apartment, for example. This surprised me, how much I missed my incredibly modest and even slightly dingy rent-controlled slice of paradise here in an undisclosed sector of Los Angeles. I missed my things a bit, after all, pretty much only the stuff I really love is left. But I missed using those things more: sleeping in my own bed, cooking in my own kitchen, working at my own table, with my own rig set up just as I like it.

I'd go so far as to say that I could dispense with Los Angeles as a location and just have my stuff wherever, but for now, I realized I'd also really miss the incredible light we have here, that for now, I really depend on it. It was far more difficult to stay buoyant in Portland, where, paradoxically (if I'm using that correctly), they were enjoying the sunniest time they've had so far this year. Kill me now.

I realize this is an incredible luxury, being able to take this much time off and away in one chunk. I have definitely relied on the kindness of fine and amazing facilitators to make this happen; I'm blessed with dear and interesting and incredibly generous friends who also happen to jetset it up enough to require housesitting services. Not to mention the staggeringly long list of people who have offered up their spare bedrooms and couches for those in-between times. I'm also in the highly unusual position of having sufficient funds, via savings, investments and dumb luck, to deliberately take time off from pursuing paying work (although sadly, there are a whole lot of people these days with more time off than they'd anticipated having, paying-work-wise.)

Is there a way to do this when one is encumbered by responsibilities? Families, mortgages, debt, local obligations? I think there must be. Not for as long, maybe, and not so dramatic a separation. But I've managed to maneuver myself through other massive transitions, other gigantic lettings-go, by doing it more incrementally. Julia Cameron's tools, the Artist's Date and Morning Pages, are both good for this, as are walks of any length beyond your car to the mall entrance. Walks by water are my main thing, but I'll take a good, long walk anywhere, city streets included, over nothing. In fact, I have been drumming up ways of incorporating more massively long walks into my daily life, like my ingenius friend, Havi, has done.

Maybe the simplest way is this: to set a goal of looking, and some objects or practices to look at, and an end date for the looking. When that date rolls around, you must take some sort of action: a letting-go, a deliberate decision to keep (and an attendant resting time/place for the thing) or, if neither of those are possible, some ideas for concrete help making one of those two things happen.

Something to think about.

xxx
c

Image by Elise Esq via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Frrrrriday Rrrrroundup! #22

An end-of-weekly roundup collecting fffffive of the fffffantabulous things I find stumbling around the web during the week, which I've previously posted on one of the many other Internet outlets I stop by (or tweet at) during my travels. More about the genesis here.

Bunnies. In cups. Yes, really. [Facebook-ed, via getwelltash]

I'd been thinking about how to describe succinctly the changes in marketing for some time, but Michael Hyatt went ahead and did it in one fell blog post title. The piece isn't bad, either. [delicious-ed]

Dave Pollard makes Eckart Tolle not only understandable, but, dare I say?, compelling. Especially around our inability as a species to learn to be present. [Google Reader-ed]

If you like those OK GO! videos, you'll love this low-budget, real-life "8-bit" by and for indie band Hollerado. [YouTube-d, via Bob Lefsetz]

xxx
c

Image by Joryâ„¢ via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

What's up & what's gone down :: October 2010

A mostly monthly but forever occasional round-up of what I've been up to and what I plan to be. For full credits and details, see this entry.

Colleen of the future (places I'll be)

• October L.A. Biznik Mixer at Jerry's Famous [Los Angeles], Finally, I'm ba-a-a-ck from all my travels, and ready to rock some networking, L.A.-style. If you haven't been, Biznik events are networking the way God intended, non-sucky, with none of the usual shovery of cards in people's faces uninvited. Join up here (free membership, which is nice), then sign up here.
• Teaching some kind of "non-awful mastery of the web for your creative and promotional purposes" class at w o r d s p a c e [Los Angeles] , I co-taught a successful pilot workshop with Erin Jourdan a few months ago, and Brenda wants to do more. Sign up for the free newsletter or "like" the Facebook page to stay in the loop.
• World-Domination Summit, June 2011 [Portland, OR], Without knowing Thing #1 about the agenda, I signed on the dotted line. I'm a big Guillebeau fan from way back, and every event I've been to that gathers around Chris has been great. Ergo, this thing is going to rock. Small group, so you should think about getting in while you can.

Colleen of the Past (stuff I did you might not know about)

• Ignite Portland 9 , Sophomore efforts are always an order of magnitude more difficult to pull off. In my case, that thing about having your whole life to do your first album is the truth: the little talk I gave last year about liked my bloody insides was the culmination of 48 years of living, including six years of processing that crazy episode. This time, I gave a mini-acting class in five minutes. It's not my favorite talk I've given, but some people were moved to submit their own talk ideas by it, and that will have to do. Plus, I learned a ton about what to do and not do, as I usually do when I fall short of my own expectations. You can click to view it, below, or if whatever device you're reading this in won't let you, you can stroll over to YouTube and see it here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha5fR60DrlM&w=475&h=292]

• L.A. Examiner interview , Brenda Spandrio, fellow enthusiast both of reading and of the wildly popular Women's Business Socials, so enjoyed my crazy sticky-note hack, she wanted more details about it and anything else that helped me reach my 2010 goal of reading 52 books by August 16.
• Work Happy Now review , My friend Karl Staib really went above and beyond any expectations I might ever have had for how someone processes my process. His piece is complimentary, so YES, hooray and stuff. But it also sums up quite well why I try to do what I do, and how it might benefit someone else. Other than "She writes these crazy poems!" or "She swears a lot on video!", both of which are certainly true!
• Amazon (video) book review This time, I review Cheryl Richardson's Life Makeovers. The short of it? Some good tips and many, many phenomenal resources.

Colleen of the Present (ongoing projects)

• communicatrix | focuses My monthly newsletter devoted to the ways and means of becoming a better clearer communicator (plus a few special treats I post nowhere else). Free! (archives & sign-up)
• Act Smart! is my monthly column about marketing for actors for LA Casting, but I swear, you'll find stuff in it that's useful, too. Browse the archives, here.
• Internet flotsam If you suffer from a surfeit of time, you can always look for me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, StumbleUpon and delicious.

xxx
c

Image by madnzany via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

Selling My Crap on eBay, Day 21: Moving on

This is Day 21 of a 21-day series. More scoop on the who/what/why, here. I grew up to the drone of an endless series of angel/devil discussions, my paternal grandfather lecturing me on the value of this item or that, supporting his claims with the odd magazine or newspaper or even catalogue clipping on how much this rare book or that Indian artifact or those other old advertising mementos were now worth, while his wife, my sweet, quiet Gram, hissed into my ear, sotto voce, "Sell it!"

He was a teller of stories, an acquirer of things and experiences, a desirer of fame and glory; she was a lover, of people, especially babies, and of love itself. Not that Les Weinrott didn't love; he did. He loved his father, his son, his friends. He loved us, his grandchildren, robustly and effusively and wide-openly. He loved his adoptive city, Chicago, and his country, the United States of America, in the way that probably only first-generation countrymen can, especially those who spring from centuries of persecution and diaspora.

But he also loved things: pretty things, rich things, delightful things, sentimental things. He loved ideas, too, but he anchored himself with things, as if those things proved, for a time, anyway, until they didn't, his value. This breaks my heart, because of all the things he and Gram gave me, the thing I value most of all is what I think all of us do, the way they made me feel, smart, important, delightful and most of all, loved. When things were difficult between me and my mother, or me and my father, or me and any stupid boy who was too dumb to see how smart, important, delightful and lovable I was, it was the love of my grandparents that steered me through the rocks back to safety. And it was especially the love of my grandmother, whose love was absolutely unconditional, for which I am grateful. I have learned many, many great lessons from many, many great teachers, but without that base of unconditional love, I doubt very much whether I'd have been able to stay alive and buoyant enough to weave together anything really meaningful and useful out of them. Which, you know, I'm just getting started doing now.

* * *

This is a ring that was Gram's. It is what they call a "cocktail ring", designed to be dazzling, and to be worn on a non-usual ring finger, in this case, the pinky (although I wore it on my ring finger, as my pinkies are a bit scrawny).

The 'tater has been dealing with a vast quantity of personal stuff, so she has not had a chance yet to photograph the ring for this series. It is gold, 14 or 18K, I think, although she can fill you in, set with baguette stones of a reddish-pink hue, and some diamonds. The center stone is a star sapphire, and was apparently a replacement for a diamond they inexplicably had taken out. I say "inexplicably" because they could not come up with a satisfactory explanation for me, someone who never, ever got the appeal of star sapphires, especially as compared to diamonds, but oh, well. Perhaps it matches more this way; perhaps it is more dazzling, in the cocktail-ring tradition.

It almost matched the hideous cap-and-gown combo I graduated from high school in. (Vile, vile school colors.) I wore it because it was the first Really Valuable Thing my grandparents had given it to me, and thus that I owned. It made me feel rich, and it made me feel like things were possible, which is how one should feel upon graduating from high school.

There is a downside to having valuable things, though, and that is that they can be taken from you. Perhaps I made the right call, leaving this valuable ring with someone back home while I went off to school, considering that the ring was awfully portable and I had the misfortune of sharing a dorm with a soon-to-be-notorious kleptomaniac. But in my absence, the caretaker of the ring saw fit to wear it as she pleased, and in doing so, lost one of the baguettes, which she flatly refused to replace, saying, if memory serves, that this is the condition in which she received it. So, in other words, I employed a liar to protect my "valuable" possession from a kleptomaniac. Brilliant.

Neither the kleptomaniac nor the liar ever came clean. I lost track of the klepto, who was never a really close friend, but I gather she outgrew or outran her kleptomania enough to live a reasonably happy and settled life. The liar, sadly, just went on to tell bigger and more damaging lies, both to herself and to those around her, about herself and about me and finally, untenably, about someone I love. There are things up with which I will not put, and trashing the people I truly love is one of them.

Thus, the liar and I parted ways, and violently. I steadfastly maintain that there is, to quote my ex, The Youngster, "always room for sorry." However, "sorry" must truly be so, and openly so, with attendant and appropriate reparations, penance and submission, and I ain't holding my breath where the liar is concerned. There is just too, too much at stake for the liar to come around, I fear. Thus, I have understanding, and even some compassion, but no more room for the liar.

It is a beautiful ring, and I would love for someone else slip it on her own finger and start a new chapter in the ring's life. I would like for the ring to carry forth more stories, and more learning, and more sparkle, and more joy. If this is not to be, then the 'tater and I will pull out all of the stones, sell it for scrap, and someone else would truly change the life of this ring.

I am a believer in redemption, though, and our ability to change. I am a believer in building on the knowledge and experience we have, and of fusing those lessons and pain and experiences into something freshly wonderful, but rich with history.

Are you a part of this ring's story? Email the 'tater: miz.tater AT gmail DOT com.

xxx c

Selling My Crap on eBay, Day 20: It's all in the wrist

This is Day 20 of a 21-day series. More scoop on the who/what/why, here.

My grandmother was a great beauty and awfully stylish when she was in the mood, but like many people who grow up with money and all the fine things it can buy, in and and especially toward the end she didn't give much of a hoot for anything beyond comfort and shmoopies with her grandbabies. (Or anyone else's grandbabies, really, Gramma was a great fan of all things baby.)

Gramps, on the other hand, came from very humble beginnings and was scrupulously careful about the image he projected. He  was one of the most dapper men I've met to date, outside of perhaps one or two gents whose existence only serves to prove the rule.

Were you to show up unannounced at their home, Gramps would still be better-dressed than you, at the very least wearing a woven (not knit) shirt and a vest, knit or woven (which he refused to call by anything other than its proper name, "waistcoat," and with the old-timey English pronunciation). With any advance notice whatsoever, there was a jacket involved, and usually a tie (he'd switch between regular and bow versions). But he'd sooner answer the door in the altogether than without something about the neck, a cravat or a kerchief, depending on his mood and ensemble.

In warmer weather, he might sport a short-sleeved shirt, hemmed to a straight edge (no tails, please!), but he also kept a couple of casual long-sleeved shirts, a red and white check, a la Studs Terkel, or a chambray he liked to wear with a turquoise bolo tie he and Gram bought on one of their trips to Santa Fe, way, way before it was a trendy destination. (Or rather, one of the very first times it was a trendy destination.)

Year-round, he'd take a daily constitutional, to Potash Brothers, the local family-run grocery store, or to the post office, or later, to the video store I bought them a subscription to so they could watch their old favorite movies at home (they never had cable TV). If he had no errands to run, he'd just take a stroll up and down a boulevard: Michigan Avenue, for most of his life, then a northerly stretch of Sheridan Road towards the end, when Dad moved them into an assisted-care building. But wherever he walked, Gramps carried a walking stick, just for show, early on, then utility, toward the end, but always, always, beautiful.

Most of his shirts fastened with buttons, but even toward the end, he had a goodly number that required cufflinks. Besides, as Jesse points out, cufflinks are the most fun form of Universally-Acceptable Male Jewelry (although Gramps, who never wore a wedding band, was known to sport a tasteful man's pinky ring, in the fashion of the day.)

Over the years, many of my significant others have been the beneficiaries of Gramps' compulsive collecting of cufflinks, and a few were turned into stud earrings for the ladies, so we're down to the last few pairs extant. The 'tater and I decided to sell them all together as a lot, and to throw in a jaunty tie clip, as well. (It's quite small, and best for narrower ties.) The knots are brass, the ovals are gold with some kind of chip stone inset, and the round ones are sterling. At least, I think they are, the 'tater has them all in her possession, and can answer any questions you might have.

Interested? Make an offer: miz.tater AT gmail DOT com

xxx c

Selling My Crap on eBay, Day 19: Art of Chicago

This is Day 19 of a 21-day series. More scoop on the who/what/why, here.

My grandparents changed apartments over the years, but from home to sweet home, one constant was the art.

The pieces they'd collected over the years followed them from place to place, and many of them would end up in a configuration my grandfather called a "picture wall," something which came into style in the 1950s. Here's a stunning shot of their first and best picture wall, which crept up a story and a half in my favorite of their apartments. The colors have shifted in the 50 or so years since the photo was taken, but the feel still comes through loud and strong.

They collected many pieces from local artists, and were champion supporters of a select few. John Averill, an art director (I think) at one of the agencies my gramps worked at, and Victor Ing, who worked beautifully both in oils and watercolor. (You can spot an Ing on the wall above my desk, the monkey hanging from a branch, as well as an Averill linoleum block print of a cat and butterfly.)

I never became the devotée I'm sure Gramps wished I'd become when he passed along his copy of Art of Today: Chicago, 1933, a book filled with plates of paintings by artists whom he knew and collected. I probably wasn't even suitably impressed that he owned the originals of one or two pieces from the book. I've only ever really been moved by what I've been moved by, and that dark oil of the two ladies top row, center, sisters, I think, mostly freaked me out.

But maybe you are from Chicago, and collect the art of mid-Century Chicago artists. Or maybe you know someone who does. In either case, this would be a lovely book for you, I'm sure, and one we'll let go of for a song. The right song, and postage.

Email the 'tater: miz.tater AT gmail DOT com.

xxx
c

Selling My Crap on eBay, Day 18: From the library

This is Day 18 of a 21-day series. More scoop on the who/what/why here.

You don't have to look far to find the source of my booklust.

The photos of it are buried in a pile of other photos, to be rescued and scanned, finally, Sally, upon my return to Los Angeles, but my Grandfather Weinrott, a.k.a. "Gramps," a.k.a. Les, had the library full of them I was sure I'd have when I grew up.

There were always books everywhere at Gramma & Grampa's: bestsellers (including a few written by friends) on reading tables next to rocking chairs, and under a good light; sci-fi and thrillers in nightstands and nearby overflow cases; a mixed-bag of titles piled up next to every toilet in the house; glossy coffee-table books tucked neatly in a sturdy low bookcase near another reading chair. (I

The crème de la crème made it into Gramps' study, to become part of his real library, what he called a "working" library, a thing he insisted every writer worth her salt had to maintain. A working library included reference books, of course, but also seminal works one would want at one's disposal while writing various books, articles or lessons of note. Your Plato, your Shakespeare, your myths and and your history (European, North American and Balkan, for sure); the Greek plays, the German philosophers, the "important" modern writers of fiction and nonfiction (and "modern" went back to Wilde for a man born in 1907.)

What was loveliest to me about this working library was not the content of the books, most of which, for better or for worse (probably worse) never really appealed, but the books themselves. Gramps came up in a time where books were rare and precious things, like all things, because things were still expensive to produce, ergo good things, like the Great Works, were worth making well. His books were as beautifully made as most everything he collected, partly because he liked nice things, and partly because things were nicer. Many of the books had "plates," not to be confused with bookplates, which my Gramps was also partial to, and which are affixed to many of his books, and many more had illustrations, a word Gramps always pronounced in the archaic fashion, with the stress on the second syllable. (He also used that sexy, old-timer hard-g for "Los Angeles," not out of affectation, but because that's how people pronounced it when he lived there, back in the early 1930s.)

The 'tater can give you any particular info you might want on this edition of Voltaire's classic Candide. It was published by Three Sirens Press, and features ilLUStrations by Mahlon Blaine, who seems to have been rather something in his heyday. I'm guessing this was originally given to me after either some conversation about the text, which I read in high school, or Aubrey Beardsley, whom I was obsessed with in high school. The ilLUStration featured here, for instance, had that kind of lush decadence that thrilled me in Beardsley's raciest stuff, like his own iLUStrations for Wilde's Salomé.

As you can see, the poor book has taken a beating over the years; you're not getting some mint-condition prize to haul off to Antiques Roadshow and make a killing on. But if you like old books printed on fine paper, or are a Pangloss-head, or wanna get your Mahlon Blaine on*, or just feel like owning something that was passed on from Lester to Colleen to you, well, you would probably like owning this.

Email the 'tater: miz.tater AT gmail DOT com.

xxx
c

*Someone has also created a whole lot of Mahlon Blaine merch for CaféPress, so you can REALLY get your Mahlon on if you want to!

Selling My Crap on eBay, Day 17: More (g)loves

This is Day 17 of a 21-day series. More scoop on the who/what/why, here.

I knew it was bound to happen, 17 days in, the 'tater is starting to show signs of battle fatigue. So weak, she can barely pick up a camera, much less hold it steady.

This is hard work, people, getting all of this stuff up on the eBay, out to the postal scales, into the mail to you! Not to mention all the emails back and forth.

So. These are the last of the last of the Great Glove Collection of Betty Weinrott (save the few that are still in my collection, getting daily use in cooler weather). When these are gone, that's it. That other pair? Snapped up faster than you can say jack rabbit goes to town in top hat and tails.

These are truly beauties. The caramel-brown body is doeskin-soft suede, like buttah; the thumbs are a contrasting very, very dark brown. Or black. Really, hard to tell, and hardly matters. I think Gram bought them a half-size too small, because they looked brand new when I got them, and I've only worn them to try them on. If I had to guess, I'd say size 7, since I'm a 7 1/2. They're so nice, you almost just want to put them in a nice shadow box, hang them on the wall, and call it a day. Either way, lovely gloves, of a quality just not seen anymore.

Email the 'tater with an offer. No effin' around, people, I need her for another week!

xxx
c

Selling My Crap on eBay, Day 16: Fabulous Palm Springs

This is Day 16 of a 21-day series. More scoop on the who/what/why, here.

There is a part of me that wants to live in 1957.

Or rather, that longs for a completely phony 1957, a mid-Century that Madison Avenue and Hollywood colluded to provide us with, in glorious Technicolor and tufted leatherette. A grownup, made-up 1957 that always existed just outside my reach as a real child born in 1961. I would only ever get to enjoy the ladies-in-gloves/men-in-ties styling, the swank "Continental" and exotic Polynesian dining, the cigarettes proffered on every coffee table from one step removed.

Of all the storied places from my aspirational youth, the one that intrigued me the most was Palm Springs, the spot where my parents madly, all-too-quickly fell in love, at Jack Webb's house, no less. According to my grandfather (who was known to embellish the yarns he spun, so, you know, caveat, etc.), Jack Webb was a man who enjoyed the company of young people so much that on occasion, he had a batch of them imported to his place in Bel Air and/or his fabulous Palm Springs getaway. My parents, according to legend, met at the former and, three days later, announced their engagement via telephone at the latter.

I wish I could tell you they all lived happily ever after, but they did not, neither severally nor together. The various twists and turns of fate that helped drive them apart I'll save for another time; for now, suffice to say that one should be wary of falling in love with gloss, or at least that one should reserve gloss-lust for objets, not people.

This here magazine is some of that acceptable gloss. This particular issue of The Villager, "the magazine of fine desert living," is from November of 1957, and sports a Spanish-y theme. ¡Olé! The articles are, well, pretty much what you'd expect: innocuous, non-noteworthy advertorial-type filler. But oh, my, the photos and advertisements! If you are a fan of mid-Century typefaces, you will be in hog heaven: it's all Futura and swooshy, handmade serifs inside.

There is even a hint of mildewy-old scent, to conjure up images of kidney-shaped pools wrapped by Case Study houses in that indoor-outdoor California style of yore. (No actual mildew, just a bit of funk to keep it real.)

Would this item complete your homage-to-mid-Century-eclectic sunken living room? Email the 'tater and make us an offer: miz.tater AT gmail DOT com.

xxx
c

Selling My Crap on eBay, Day 15: (S)crap

This is Day 15 of a 21-day series. More scoop on the who/what/why, here.

Change happens a little bit at a time, then all at once.

Or at least, it seems to happen all at once. Ten-year "overnight" successes are inevitably outed as a series of dreary, plodding steps, missteps and backtracking, fueled by hope and intermittent peeks under the tents of greatness. And usually, there's something horrible in there, nadir-wise, like living in a car you're about to turn around and point towards your hometown while there's still enough gas to get you there RIGHT BEFORE the big break comes. (Only if you look closer, it's never even a big break, just the right level of readiness meeting the right brand of opportunity.)

Did things start working for me when I had my bloody epiphany? Or did they start when I first became truly disillusioned with my big, fat advertising job in New York City, some 17 years before? Or was it the next crushing blow, in Chicago, the trifecta of new horrible job, old boss who brought me there abandoning me within two months, Love of My Life dumping me inside of 11?

The answer is yes. And in between, there were a lot more "yes"-es. There was my first-shrink-slash-astrologer, who made me understand that I could be deeply broken and still work. There was volunteering. There was a new job, and agency, and a marriage, and a move, and an end of the marriage, and yoga, and a hating of yoga, and Nei Kung, which is (knock wood/so far) still pretty awesome and showing signs of staying power, and a new career, and another new career, and the same amount of new significant others.

Oh, yeah, and a blog.

Somewhere in there was a whole lot of sanding and polishing. I forget how I stumbled upon it, but I fell into and subsequently became kind of (surprise, surprise) obsessed with metalsmithing. It was the first non-writing practice I found that I liked, and I loved it: the fussing with details, the acquisition of new skills, the making of an actual thing. It was my own first meditative practice that actually worked: the ungodly amounts of polishing and sanding involved turned out to be highly enjoyable and therapeutic; if they didn't prove to translate literally to Karate Kid-style wax-on/wax-off training, they definitely opened the door to...something. A series of other doors, perhaps, leading to where I am now. (And as soon as I figure out where that is, you'll be the second to know.)

I dragged my findings and scrap and new-in-box equipment from Chicago to Los Angeles, always thinking I'd pick it all up again, maybe even become a real metalsmith! But I finally realized earlier this year that the only thing that all that stuff was doing these days was filling up an out-of-reach cupboard in my kitchen, and let all of it go for $100 to someone at a different part of the trajectory. A thousand-dollar, 18-year lesson. (What can I say? Some of us learn more slowly than others.)

Now we come to the finished jewelry itself. I am hanging onto a very, very few pieces left which I still wear and love; the rest, I'm letting go of in one lot. It weighs 2.2 ounces, according to the 'tater, who dragged it to the Mayberry P.O. to get weighed. That includes whatever stones, all cabachons, none precious, that are set in the pieces, and the findings, which may be silver, but I can't say. I can say that any of those pin-backs I shaped myself, because our teacher was kind of Miyagi-like in her insistence on form.

I will also say that I had a penchant for filing things to a rather sharp edge, and a couple of the pins could probably double as a throwing star.

Of course, if you like not-very-beautifully-designed sterling jewelry, you could have a big set instantly, for cheap. Or a lot of holiday "shopping" done in a heartbeat.

I'm really kind of hoping that some nice metalsmith who casts will buy the lot, though, and transform it. Circle of life, etc.

Is that you? Or someone you know? Email the 'tater: miz.tater AT gmail DOT com.

xxx
c

Selling My Crap on eBay, Day 14: Infinite Elsa

This is Day 14 of a 21-day series. More scoop on the who/what/why, here.

By the time I got to the end of my senior year of high school, my Elsa love had grown from a single bean to include a sterling teardrop pendant and a knock-off of her famed (and oft-knocked-off) floating heart pendant, also in silver.

For my graduation, I got my first piece of Tiffany Peretti gold: an "infinity" loop pendant on a 15" gold chain. I wore it for years, off and on, here, you see me in my first official photo as a Delta Gamma at Cornell. The Preppy Handbook was all the rage (as it looks like Lisa's new book, done with Chip Kidd, may be now); not a bona fide prepster myself, I learned to copy their ways as best I could, but it was never quite right: my turtlenecks were never Skyr, my crew neck Shetlands were never true Scots versions.

Even my Elsa Peretti, I'm sure, was not quite right. I dangled it over my unfolded turtleneck anyway, in the style of the day, and pretended to be a sorority girl. I definitely never got that one right, while I met some wonderful women there, a few of whom are good friends to this day, the house on Triphammer Road never truly felt like home, and I always felt like an actor playing a part.

While the chain broke and got tossed long ago (oh, lordy! the symbolism!), I somehow managed to hang onto the loop pendant. I'd try wearing it with some other gold chain now and again, but gold just ain't my thang. Neither are earrings and crew-neck Shetland sweaters. Although I still wear my turtlenecks as high as I can.

If you like dainty things and gold, this will probably look lovely on you. Or if you have a charm bracelet, you could add it to that. Come to think of it, if none of you buy it, I may add it to mine.

Really, though, I'd rather it dangle from some nice young lady's neck. Know one? Email the 'tater and make an offer: miz.tater AT gmail DOT com.

xxx
c