Good... And Good for You

while manning the booth at the salt lake gift show, i was forced to defend the droppings. nightmare. i looked up from "silas marner" to see a woman staring at me. "how are you?" "i'm good", she said, "and you?" "i'm good." "can i give you some feedback?" she asked. "i can think of nothing i'd like more." "i hate your droppings line." "... me too. " "it's offensive." "offensive?" "yes. offensive." "you're offended by our candy bags?" "yes i am." "... okay then." i've gone to a few tradeshows now- the fancy food show, the outdoor retailers show, the craft and hobby show, the "what women want" show, and the salt lake gift show- so i feel i can say this with some authority... trade shows attract the crazy. and i choose not to apologize to the crazy for something i have had to spend weeks/months/years designi...

in response to the several comments bringing up the point that i may have forgotten to share any real information about my new dog other than he belongs to me and that i am responsible for keeping something besides myself and my car gulp alive , i have been trying to take a picture of my dog. ziggy. his name is ziggy. (not like the mopey cartoon but like the spaceman sent here to earth to learn life lessons. that's right, david bowie, i'm looking at you.) but see the problem is that like his owner me , ziggy has a distaste for cold. and like his owner me , ziggy runs away from january and hides under any blanket he can find. see? this is a pile of blankets. and i'm pretty sure ziggy is somewhere in there. let's examine the pile a little closer, shall we? aHA! there is definitely a pansy dog in the pile of blankets. i rest my case. maybe i can lure my ever elusive, greta garbo-esque dog out into the open with a piece of cheese. or maybe he'll sniff the cheese and ...

let me take this opportunity to tell you that yes, the rumors are true. winter is sucking my will to live. with a straw. a crazy straw. my soul is being sucked through a crazy straw by winter. some people are telling me to please not over dramatize but when you're soul-sapped you can't help but exaggerate.

five years. i've been writing about myself for over five years. and everything i write is basically an echo of these four ideas... 1. i'm addicted to diet coke. 2. my family is crazy. but not as crazy as me. 3. i've unlearned all the punctuation rules i ever knew. 4. i want to quit my job. i do. really. really really. but the cosmic forces of the universe (or if you want to be more rational you could read "but my cowardice and complacency") always get in my way. i should think about that.

ahem... so. i bought a dog on saturday. it was very random. what i've discovered is that i have been reincarnated. like you, i was under the impression a person had to die to be reincarnated, nevertheless i now own the canine version of myself. as far as i can tell, his interests include the following: uno- sleeping dos- wearing fetching sweaters tres- being told he is attractive quatro- staying warm cinco- sleeping some more seis- turkey see?

back to the everyday, non holiday, one job way of life. and by that i mean i'm designing halloween labels. again. a quick pre-tradeshow rush job for some potential new products like this... mmm... chocolate eyeballs... my job is intensely glamorous. okay so i'm trying to put some stuff together and immediately my internal heckler pipes up, refusing to be ignored... "an eyeball. your idea for an eyeball candy label... is an eyeball ? way to explore the literal." " multiple eyeballs. really? i mean eyeballs are kind of gross in an anatomical, optometrist chart kind of a way but that's as spooky as it gets. but whatever, take your eyeball and run with it. and that's not bad hypothetical life advice either. if you ever have reason to take your eyeball and run with it then you take your eyeball and you run with it . to the emergency room. and you take the scissors you were probably running with earlier and you put them away. because you should've known...

these were my feet yesterday and before you're all "hey, teen witch ! ankle socks? ankle socks?? " let me just say that this is utah, this is winter, this was the only pair of shoes i had available, and regardless of footwear a guy named mark still totally asked for my digits. top that!

the good thing about working at a super casual, everybody is related to everybody, chocolate factory for 4 1/2 years is that your favorite people might quit, but they never really leave. the bad thing is that when they come in to visit, the first thing they ask you is if you date and when you say "no", they say, "man, you're like mother hubbard." and when you say, "... what ?" and give them this face , they clarify their statement with, "you know... you're like the old woman in the cupboard." . . . . . . ya. i don't know what that means either. but i can't think of a single context in which it might be complimentary. at least i wasn't the recipient of the "so i hear you got tweaked out and disappeared to mexico" confrontation.