Why I love the internets...

(I accidentally typed "live" instead of "love" and almost left it that way...I am face-in-computer 99% at work and about 50% at home, if my iPhone counts as internets.)

I'm laptop-bound, smart phone saddled and soon, cuddling a Kindle (the version I pre-ordered doesn't come out until Nov. 21). I've caught myself (maybe twice) wanting to point my phone* at the stocked shelves in a grocery store so it could find the particular brand and product (shampoo, whole wheat couscous, balsamic vinegar) for which I was searching. Ten years ago if you'd asked how much time I thought I'd spend online, I would have thrown the word "luddite" at you. Today I'm wondering just how long before I can download my dreams port-to-port.

[insert segue here] I love llamas. The llama is my spirit animal. One of my dearest friends got married in Asheville on a farm with llamas. I attended her wedding with two other dear friends. These things are not related, except that one of my favorite pictures of that day is me + llama. And because one of my favorite time-sucks online is Pinterest, I love knowing that I am not the only one who loves llamas.

Speaking of weddings in Asheville, my super smart and savvy friend Aleigh shares her organic beauty love and insight with the world at Indigo + Canary. It completely makes sense that what you put on your body goes into your body, but I never really understood how it can negatively affect my health. I now use chemical-free shampoo, makeup and skin care (and she's hunting down some great at-home hair color that passes the organic test for an upcoming post).

I've been mulling over my next tattoo for almost two years now. I keep returning to this one (quote by Kurt Vonnegut). I shared it with my BFF from college who still lives in Charleston and now she's mulling it over too.

We're finally getting cooler weather in Austin - it dropped 30-something degrees quickly last night and was in the high 40s early this morning. I celebrated by buying this gorgeous weekend sweater online from The Gap and can't wait for it to arrive.

I picked up my new glasses earlier this week and love them. While they don't exactly make me look like Zooey Deschanel, they are slightly adorkable.

Also, fall makes me happy, I love my job and I feel healthier after just under a week of packing my lunch for work. The weekend's almost here. I'm wearing my favorite boots today. My dog has two Halloween costumes. A library book I've been waiting for (Laurie Notaro's latest) has finally arrived. All is right in the world.

*If you take this idea and make an app for it, consider this my copyright claim and trademark. Please get my name right when you send the check.

Today I am happy because...

Despite having lowered the bar quite a bit when it comes to the heat of summer (Austin Summer 2011 = 76 consecutive days of 100+ degree temperatures and makes summer in Charleston seem like a breeze), I am happy that the highs are just 95 or 96 now and the lows at night are dipping into the 60s. I get stupid happy when the sun goes down, just thinking that fall is around the corner (two months or more around, but around all the same).

After being in Austin for nearly two years, I finally visited a local farmer's market (something I used to do regularly in Charleston because I lived within bicycle-riding distance of Marion Square). I went with my friend Lisa on Saturday and it was wonderful. Besides fresh arugula, onions, artisan fig balsamic vinegar, rustic bread and lavender, I also bought lovely ginger lemongrass soy candles and handmade "dope" soap that smells a but like pot and patchouli.

Also on Saturday? Almost 30 minutes of rain. Enough to stand in it and get wet. It's been eight months since any significant rainfall in Central Texas. I'd forgotten how magical rain can be and how great it smells when it rains, what thunder sounds like, and what it feels like to be rained upon. Adored every minute.

I hate labels and the tendency to refer to myself in the third person, but having a name for what I thought was something I'd have to live with and accept forever is a blessing. I get to choose whether or not I do something about it or keep it. Sometimes having the power is just enough and sitting on the sidelines instead of participating is a choice, not a punishment.

I woke up this morning, got out of bed, and went to work at my day job. I thought I'd add this to the list because I have had some days over the past several months for which "got out of bed" was the first and only item on my gratitude list. Happy to add more to that sentence.

I don't have to apologize for anything today. I am happy that fall television has begun and am not ashamed that I plan to spend most of the week watching new shows just for fun. I am also in the middle of a book ( The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta) and an entire season of "Doctor Who" that I borrowed from a friend (the Christopher Eccleston, or 9th doctor, season). I didn't watch the roast of Charlie Sheen. I didn't watch Ashton Kutcher on "Two and a Half Men." I've never liked the show and I'm not sorry.

What are you happy about or not sorry for? I know there's something. Share!

Today I shall share things with which I am obsessed...

I was reading some old blog posts this week (yes, I do that, like anyone would look back through a journal or diary) and wondering (yet again) what happened to my inspiration, my funny, my neurosis, f-words and emotional clutter. My latest theory is that I still have it all, I've just been keeping it to myself. So now I will share.

Rookie. I am a grown woman and I love this site because it makes me feel nostalgic for my younger self who loved Sassy magazine and "My So-Called Life" and pink Hello Kitty notebooks. It was founded by a 15-year-old style blogger. Swap out your plain shoelaces for ribbon or yarn.

A Beautiful Mess. The first time I've wanted to introduce a blog site to another blog site because I think they should know one another. Sabrina, meet Elsiecake. Elsiecake, Sabrina. You both inspire me to be more creative.

The Johnny Cash Project. A fine tribute to the man in black.

Doctor Who. Go ahead and laugh at the woman who said "I'm just not into sci-fi." I've laughed (because others were laughing, not because I got the joke) at "Trust me, I'm a doctor" out of the mouths of many friends in the past 15 years. Caught a few episodes from 2010 on BBC On Demand and now I'm hooked. And too old to care if you think I'm a nerd.

Pinterest. Sucked into the k-hole of pinning and re-pinning, liking and loving my Pinterest boards. They're like mood boards, but online and you can see your friends' boards. Join me?

As Simple as That. It's been a long time since I read a stranger's blog and wanted to smack myself for crushing my own creativity. Hannah Katy made me do that. Especially this post.

Other than that, I'm obsessed with getting from the south side to the north side of the city today without losing my sanity (an attendance record-breaking Austin City Limits Fest starts today and bad traffic has turned to primary highway parking lot). I'm obsessed with doing nothing this weekend except laundry. I have brain drain. I have allergies. I miss my dog when I'm at work. I finished A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and it made me cry in three places and feel gut-wrenchingly nostalgic throughout. Still wondering what the female version of Peter Pan is because I don't know what to call my delayed adolescence (although my delayed adolescent "doesn't like labels") and I'm starting to feel like a babysitter for myself.

And if you could do me a small favor? Use the word "indeed" on a regular basis. It's a wonderful word and I fear that it could disappear from our language altogether. Indeed.

Vacation, all I never wanted...

I've never been great about taking vacations, especially as a freelancer when every hour is a potentially billable one. Over the past year - actually since moving to Austin in early 2010 - work-life balance has been one of my priorities.

This holiday weekend, I'm not headed on a jaunt to the islands, to a cabin in the mountains, or on my dream Alaskan cruise (whale-watching!), but I am disconnecting from work and work-related marketing tasks for the weekend. I have a great stack of books to read, my air conditioning works really well, I plan on taking lots of naps (had a good one this afternoon, falling asleep on the couch with a book open on my chest), getting some things in my house in order, re-organizing my home office space, maybe doing some housekeeping on my own personal sites (not really work-related, but I know that one is a stretch), taking the dog to a dog park for some running around and ball-throwing, and sleeping until my furbaby wakes me up instead of the alarm.

Right now, this is the vacation I need: taking my brain to a new creative space, writing for personal gratification instead of professional gain, taking my body outside for some people-watching and dog-bonding, exploring a few parts of the city I haven't seen yet (yes, I've been here a while but there's lots to see in Austin), and reading for pleasure instead of research.

I might even break out the Moleskine and colored pens and do some actual handwriting (can't remember the last time I went there, but my Moleskine dated pages says it's been too long). And I'm charging my camera now in case I feel like wandering around and snapping a few pictures of this crazy city in which I live, maybe find some interesting things off the beaten path, strike up some conversations with strangers, re-set my internal clock. It's not the Caribbean, but it's what I need now - and bonus: it's all here in a 10-mile radius.

I hope you're getting out - of town or in - and doing some exciting things this holiday weekend. And I haven't forgotten why we have a three-day weekend and plan on including some thoughts on gratitude and respect for the brave people who have sacrificed so much to make our country a better place (you can't see it, but I'm waving a tiny American flag right now). For those of you spending the weekend with your families, be grateful. I'm thinking about mine far away right now after having a marathon phone conversation tonight with my older sister, who I know will have the family over for a barbecue on Monday and I'm going to miss out on the chaos and laughter.

Love you, mean it.

I surrender...

I admit it, I give in. This day has completely kicked my ass.

Started off with a way-too-early doctor's appointment (note to self: don't schedule during drive-time traffic). Also, I discovered I am running slightly low on clean clothes about the same time I was getting dressed to leave, so ended up wearing a Depeche Mode t-shirt from high school with a sweater thrown over it.

Back home with a loooong to-do list, I figured I'd throw a load of clothes in while I worked. Sounded good, but after I moved them from washer to dryer, it started getting really warm in the kitchen area. I had to pull out and crawl up and over and behind the dryer for the THIRD time in a year to re-attach the hose to the dryer (you know, so the outflow will go outside instead of turning my laundry room into a steam room). My laundry room is just about large enough for a washer, dryer, and some shelving, so contortions were required. I think I pulled something.

I remembered to eat lunch (leftover Chinese food), but it was awful. Good for dinner last night, terrible reheated. Add that to the list of why I hate microwaves.

As a freelancer, I find it really difficult to turn down any projects (a good freelancer really shouldn't), unless it's something that violates my personal ethics. What happens as a result is that your days run into other days with things called "sleep breaks" in between and you no longer have time to do laundry, shop for groceries, make hair appointments, get a pedicure (summer's just about here!), and those things that you used to call "weekends" are just extra work days.

I'm a terrible person to complain about ANYTHING. Seriously. I have work that pays my bills, a mostly flexible schedule, and I get to hang out with my dog all day wearing yoga pants and a tank top.

But today? I'm allowing it. Just one day that kicked my butt, I'm offline for the evening, planning on actually cooking some food for dinner, watching mindless TV (Glee!) and that should be enough to regroup and start fresh in the morning. There's a light at the end of the tunnel and its name is "Balance." Also: "Day Job." Still looking.

Speaking of blogs not being cool anymore...

There was a New York Times article last week on the waning readership and usage of blogs...this is iMediaConnection's take on it.

So if you're reading this, you're probably at least 34 years old. It's fine with me, since occasionally my writing can be a little PG-13 anyway. Still keeping it. Still reading other blogs. However, I now call it "my site" instead of "my blog." Got to keep some of that cool factor.

My new personal mantra...

"Be strong, little marshmallow."

It's from a bumper sticker. I want one.

One of the nicest compliments I've ever received...

Wasn't when my 27-year-old stylist assumed "we were the same age" (and this was just last year).
Wasn't when my dermatologist told me I had "fabulous" skin (yes, he frequently used the word "fabulous" and said this during a full-body skin cancer check).
Wasn't when a good friend of many years sent me a birthday package addressed to "Kelly Love Johnson, Rock Star."
Wasn't when I got a "fan email" recently - two years after my book came out - from a lovely 25-year-old woman who told me that my book gave her the courage to ask her boss for a raise after 3 years on the job - and she got it.

I've been on a lot of job interviews in the past few months because I'm searching for the perfect day job (something I can be passionate about, challenged by, creatively stimulated, etc.). I'm interviewing the interviewer as much as they're interviewing me (because of all of the above, I wouldn't accept a job if I didn't think it would be my perfect day job). In one of these interviews, the woman conducting the interview told me she Googled me (good for her!) and found this blog. I don't hide my blog...it's actually on my LinkedIn profile...but I'm always a little nervous when someone I meet for the first time brings it up (as in "oh crap, have I dropped the f-bomb recently? Did I say I hate pork and her family owns a pig farm? Do I talk too much about watching TV? Does she think I'm totally neurotic?").

Anyhoochie, what she said (and I'm paraphrasing) is that she spent a good bit of time perusing my archives here, found them amusing, but what impressed her the most is that I (a) never trashed my then current day job and (b) when I talked about work, even in a funny way, I kept it professional. In other words, I walk the line. I'm honest, but not so honest I'd get Dooced. I was really flattered, but I had to be honest: I've never had a day job that didn't encourage me to be creative, be myself, and when I have been in situations (hello politics) that require me to keep my mouth shut, I'm smart enough to do it.

After our interview, I really started thinking about it. I've had bad days at work. I've written about them, but not in such a way that disparaged my employer (my bad days at work had everything to do with me and nothing to do with them anyway). I've had jobs go wrong, but I had the sense to make a graceful exit and not use this site to bitch about it. And other than cancer, death, and 3rd degree burns, everything is funny - EVENTUALLY. So yes, I've been in bad work situations. I've had to leave jobs with a broken heart. I've had bad bosses. I've found myself curled up on the living room rug in a fetal position, sobbing into my dog's fur. But I didn't write about it at the time. Because it wasn't funny at the time.

It is now. I talk to a friend and former co-worker occasionally about a shared boss's craziness (this is from YEARS ago so don't get all bajiggity thinking I'm referring to you) and we giggle our asses off. Would I write about those stories here? Probably not. Maybe at some point. I don't know. I've gone a little soft as I've gotten older and I no longer enjoy hurting people's feelings. But it's funny now. It wasn't funny when it was happening and I had to step out of the office, get in my car, make sure the windows were up, and scream my head off. The stories are too damn good to keep hidden away forever and ever, so I'm writing them down - as personal narrative that I may or may not include in my second book.

BACK to my point: I've been blogging here for more than 7 years and through 3 or 4 day jobs. And the fact that someone noticed that I can write, maintain a sense of humor, not whine about my job, and protect my then employer's privacy all at the same time was nice to hear. I didn't end up taking the job, but I took the compliment.

Reality versus platitudes...

"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."
~Rose Kennedy

I love this quote and remember it every time someone tells me "time heals all wounds" - not because I want to hold on to my wounds, but because my wounds made me who I am now. Scar tissue makes one stronger. And the fact is, they never do go away.

Adding "platitudes" to my list of pet peeves, right after "people who wear cheap perfume."

Time flies, which means I am old...

I can't shake a story I heard on NPR's "All Things Considered" last week by one of my favorite reporters, Robert Krulwich (his stories are always fascinating). It isn't the first time someone has asked the question, "Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?" but it is one of the best explanations I've heard. Everything is new when you're young. When you're older, it isn't. There are a few other theories in the story, but the bottom line is that it's true. I left Charleston more than a month ago, I've been living and working in Austin for over a month - and that month has gone by like a DAY.

Sort of. There have been wonderful moments, wheeling a cart through a grocery store or eating lunch at a great Tex Mex place downtown (Guero's last week - yum), when it has occurred to me that I will not run into a single person I know. I don't have to be on guard all the time. I can turn the bitch alert off and not even worry about it. I'm not talking about the wonderful friends and family and other people I miss in Charleston. I'm talking about the "didn't you used to be Kelly Love Johnson" gossipy bitches, the "hey can I pick your brain over lunch" mooches, the "bless your heart, are you ill?" fake people (I've been asked that question when I went out without makeup in Charleston). There is an amazing freedom in being in a city where no-one knows you, where you can leave the house wearing tights, boots, a ripped Depeche Mode t-shirt, sunglasses, and hair like a rat's nest and no one will look at you twice. Or even once. There's no-one here to ask me why I'm no longer writing for/working for the magazine I used to work for. I can be whoever I want to be - who I really am, once I find out who that is.

But I've also been working, so time has flown by. I even began to wonder why my days seemed so short, why I was tired so early (only an hour time difference, folks), and even while writing this, wondering why I haven't been able to write a damn word in my own voice. Until now.

Last year was hard, for me and many people I know for a variety of reasons. The economy, layoffs, the unemployment rate in South Carolina. For me, 2009 will always be "the bad year" when I lost my SELF. I forgot who I was. I stopped believing in myself. I lost faith in humanity, in people I once cared about, and in me. I was my own worst enemy - and a dangerous one. I had to pick up and move to another city halfway across the country to get enough perspective to realize how bad things were. Mostly because I'm really good at pretending things are OK when they're not.

Last year, because it was full of "novelty" for me, so to speak - I've never experienced some of the emotions, the personal crises, and the joylessness that I felt then - made my days, weeks, and months feel like a fucking eternity. I was so focused on survival that I stopped having fun. Time did not fly in 2009.

But it is now. Which means I have perspective. It also means that I'm back. Oh, and I'm old.

Twitter ate my blog...

No, I'm not really blaming Twitter for my slacking off on the blog posting. But it's just so damn easy to do my navel gazing in 140 character spurts than it is to sit down and write a blog post. I won't lie and say that the idea of shutting my blog down entirely hasn't crossed my mind. I have friends who did it and they don't seem to regret it. I miss reading their blogs, but if they're on Twitter I can still keep up with their goings-on.

It wasn't until I realized I was writing an email yesterday in "Twitterese" (abbreviating, leaving out pronouns) that it hit me: relying on Twitter to communicate so often not only takes away from my blogging time, but also that it has impacted my ability to think and write in complete sentences. I'm still writing essays, so I know I haven't lost it entirely, but I've also noticed that some of the editing I've had to do with my essays lately is different than the editing I did a year ago. A year ago, to get a 900-1200 word essay, I'd write about 2000 or 2500 words, then tighten everything to get my final, shorter word count. Now I write almost exactly to word count and during the editing process find myself having to flesh out sentences, change abbreviations, clarify thoughts, and basically translate Twitter-esque sentences into something that the general public will be able to read and understand. And I've been on Twitter for just about a year now.

Don't get me wrong - I love Twitter. I love being able to keep up with friends, find great links, find new blogs to read, and communicate faster online than ever before. I'm definitely a #twitteraddict. But if I don't keep up my regular writing here, I'm going to end up writing and speaking in 140-character bursts and completely forget how to express myself like a normal human being. Or a writer. It reminds me a little bit of "IM speak," something I fell prey to a few years ago myself to the point where (I admit this with some embarrassment) I actually SAID "O M G" and "I D K" (yes, out loud). I'm over 30 and shouldn't talk like a teenager. I blame my nieces and modern technology in general for that phase. And cheerleader movies.

This isn't an excuse or a promise to blog more often. This is the ultimate in navel-gazing: Me telling ME that I need to step it up. I still plan on Tweeting about what I had for lunch, about my puppy's behavior, about the weather. When you work from home and have little contact with people during the day, Twitter is like a group of online co-workers. But I also know I need a little self-intervention in the form of writing in full paragraphs. I also have VisualCV, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and my other blog for my book to keep up.

I hope blogs aren't dying. Watching print media take a dive has been bad enough. I still love reading blogs and my friends are funny as f*ck, so I hope they won't stop writing them. I've had this little corner of the web since 2003 and I'm not going anywhere soon. I'm going to keep navel-gazing, making lists of things that make me happy, rambling on about my lack of cooking skills, curing my social phobia, mocking family members (my mother hasn't managed to find my blog in six years, my younger sister still doesn't have internet access at home, and my nephew can't read yet), and bitching about politics, the neighbor's dinosaur that won't stop pooping in my front yard, how much I love naps, and my television addiction.

p.s. I was going to write this yesterday, but I was almost finished with Kate Christensen's "The Great Man" and couldn't put it down.

p.p.s. I was going to write this earlier this afternoon, but decided to give the dog a bath instead so she would smell like apples instead of wet dog ass.

p.p.p.s. You can find me on Twitter here.

Puppy looks less like hamster, more like dog...

Before, at 2 months old:



After, at 4 months:



She's over 5 lbs. now and I no longer fear she'll be snatched up by a bird of prey. Some milestones: She can jump up on the couch (and did it all day long once she discovered she could). She can reach objects on the coffee table (which is why my Prada frames for my favorite pair of glasses look like I have an oral fixation). She chases squirrels instead of running away from them. Best of all, no one mistakes her for another animal when I take her for a walk (she was accused of being a cat twice and a guinea pig once).

Cleaning house...

It's not a euphemism. I'm working long days now, usually six days a week (because politics never sleeps), and after about five weeks of it my house looks like a deranged pack of 16-year-olds have been camping out for Spring Break weekend (without the empty beer bottles and vomit). Disarray rules. It got so bad last week I didn't want to go home one night so I spent almost an hour killing time at Whole Foods (if you know how much I hate grocery shopping, you'll understand) in order to avoid my messy home. I realized if I go straight to the back bedroom without turning on the living room lights, I don't notice it as much. Except for the pile of clothes on the bathroom floor and the fist-sized dust bunnies in my bedroom.

I am gross.

So I broke down on Sunday morning, went to my friendly neighborhood Food Lion, and bought a cartful of cleaning supplies. I bought anything that looked like it would clean something. The woman at the checkout said, "so, you're cleaning house today?" I said, "No, I just like to have an entire aisle of products in my house in case I ever feel like cleaning." Ha. I really just said, "mmm hmmm" and tried not to look her in the eye. She scanned my product after product, at one point holding up a bottle and asking, "did you know you have three kinds of bathroom cleanser?"

OK, so I'm not an expert on cleaning products. Also, there are hundreds of them. And they all look like they do something. Better safe than sorry, right? I just told her that I'm not used to deep cleaning (as my former roommate would say, I'm a "surface cleaner"). The checkout lady asked me flat out if I had a housekeeper. Still not looking her in the eye, I said, "used to." She laughed her ASS off. Seriously, she was scanning and bagging and laughing right in my face. The laugh sounded something like: "spoiled brat isn't used to cleaning up after herself and it serves her right for bein' spoiled so I'm going to go ahead and ring the hell up her $75 worth of cleaning products and bag them and send her ass on her way because she is STUPID and I hope she has fun sticking her hand into a toilet bowl." I might have been reading a little much into it, but I swear that's what it sounded like.

However, she did give me a fine tip before I departed with my bags: "Don't use that bleach on hardwood floors, now!"

I spent hours cleaning and am now well-acquainted with Swiffer, Mr. Clean, Kaboom, Lysol Tub & Tile, Clorox spray with bleach, Greased Lightning, Oxyclean, Lysol floor cleaner, Murphy's Wood Oil Soap, fizzy toilet bowl spray, fizzy shower spray, vacuum cleaner belts and bags, Febreze dusting polish, and some kind of "all surface" cleaner that smells like lavender. Note: "all-surface" does not mean all surface. This should not be used on electronic items. Also, you shouldn't use more than one product on your shower and tub unless you want to wake up on the floor with a headache three hours later. And there's my wisdom for the day.

Today, I get to go home to a clean house. I no longer have to worry that I will wake up to a dust bunny uprising and mutiny. I can find the book I was reading instead of giving up and starting a new one. Today is a good day.

Maybe she's born with it...

Charlie sent this to me (and I'd forgotten about it) with the email subject line "Maybe it's Maybelline!" Hilarious. We'd stopped off at Walgreens before the wedding we went to on Saturday to get memory cards for our cameras and I posed in front of the cosmetic display on the way out. Because I'd had some Xanax (at least the equivalent of a martini or two). And we're hilarious. Charlie kept calling me "trannie" and "hot mess" and "fierce" interchangeably. I did have enough makeup on to qualify for drag queen status.


p.s. It is not Maybelline. I am born with it.

I'm back, Jack....

(for those of you wondering, "Jack" is my imaginary friend who misses me when I'm gone)

Back from five days of travel and happy to be home (though it was a lot of fun). My return on Saturday was a little hairy because of weather. Tornadoes in the south and I had my head on my knees on a flight from Knoxville to Charlotte silently chanting "there's no place like home, there's no place like home." When I arrived in Charlotte, all the flights were grounded. No hotel rooms available. The airport looked like a third world country. I could have gone standby on a flight in the morning, but the US Air rep told me it was a 40-seater and they already had several standing by. Soooo....I rented a car and drove back to Charleston in the middle of the night on Saturday. With a nun from Pittsburgh. I'm not kidding. It's a long story and I think I'm actually going to save it for my next essay, but it was nice to be able to give a Sister a ride.

I'll be posting pics from the events last week and updates on new events here.

Bitch is the new black...