I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass

Fortune Magazine's current issue includes an interesting, although I suppose not shocking article on what it takes to be great. The gist of it is that it has little to do with natural talent and a LOT to do with a minimum of 10 years of hard, intensive study/practice including continued, disciplined, focused self-improvement. This was timely since I'm in my periodic professional funk, which I've come to realize from anecdotal evidence, is not confined to my field, but pervasive in younger people who's been going at their profession for a few years. When that steep learning curve starts to plateau, I suppose that's where the fear is that you are stagnating, and it takes a lot of introspection and analysis to figure out how to progress. Not to say I think I'm headed for greatness, because I think I'm far too lazy, but it was good food for thought. So as I reach this little bit of peace, I get a call from Google asking for a phone interview; meanwhile at the office, I am today reassigned to a new project at work with more responsibility and actual thinking and client face time involved. Mr. Director of Operations and Bossboss clued into my lack of satisfaction with pure production work. Now I'm worried that I look too obviously unhappy, or maybe they saw me surfing the internet half the day (eek...it's only CNN!). But I hear about a lot of behind-the-scene wranglings over me and am secretly pleased and a little disturbed to realize that I'm being traded like a baseball player (If we take her, you get one manager half-time and one job captain half-time). Hmm...a respectable trade. So in spite of hearing some rumors of this new team's director being difficult, I'm soldiering in. I like to give everyone a go myself before taking the rumors too seriously.

Friday night I hit the Yo la tengo concert at the Fillmore with hubby. I really hate crowds (yes I lived in NYC for 6 years, so subways were tough), so concerts are not my ideal outing even though I do love music. By the way, this posting's title is their current album's title...love it. Seeing Hubby bopping to 'Mr. Tough', reminded me of a mix CD I made for a bunch of friends of 'walking songs'. You know, a la Ally McBeal. I found it a lot easier to come up with theme/walking songs for guys than girls. Maybe it's harder to offend guys. For example, one guy who had a habit of feeling his own pecs got 'I'm too Sexy' by Right Said Fred. Another one who liked to air guitar in your ear got 'Frankenstein.' A smarty-pants friend who was a TA got the Mighty Mouse theme song. No mercy, baby. It was a blast to mix and never fails to remind me of that person when I hear any of those songs now. The only rule is that someone else has to nominate your song, and if others agree you can't veto it. I was somehow assigned Bow Wow Wow's 'I Want Candy' because they said it sounded very purposeful while playing off the whole innocent asian girl thing. I'm not so sure, but I made the rules so now I unfortunately have a compulsion to strut a bit more whenever I hear that stupid song, which is usually in the Macy's men's department or some embarassing place like that. So I told you mine, what is your walking song? I'm sure we all have different songs for different moods, but the intent here is that it's your song on a good day, the tune in your head as you walk down the street to your opening credits.

Dig Dug

Remember that game? I love those old Atari games...
I have a million side projects always percolating in my head, but it's hard to motivate to do it all. I have no idea how that is actually accomplished by people who work full time, take care of kids, elderly parents, walk dogs, volunteer, and bake all in a day- meanwhile writing a great bestseller. Sometimes it's easy to figure out- they have daycare/nanny, a very good assisted living facility for the parents, a professional dog walker, extended family pitching in, or a ghost office sidekick who actually does all the work. Sometimes I'm convinced they are really just robots.

I would love to accomplish at least one thing for a broader group of people...even though I work on buildings all day and make small adjustments like making it easier to open doors all the day, making a hall feel less claustrophobic, finding a way to save you money on repairs if an earthquake really cracks that seismic joint...they are rather invisible accomplishments since people generally notice only BIG architectural moves, or architecture gone horribly wrong. Not that I expect a 'f*&kin' hero biscuit' as one classmate of mine's favorite term went, but it is much more rewarding to do the "less profitable" residential projects where you know your client and actually see the joy (and relief) on their face when they see their finished house/bathroom/etc, that the doorknobs actually coordinate with the kitchen hardware and the faucets and so on. People who LIVE in a designed space notice the little moves. So I think I'm going to start slowly sending out feelers to freelance on small residential projects in the Bay Area. Dearies if you need/know anyone in need of a freelance architect please forward them along...this would be for small projects now, like home addition/renovation, pool houses etc. My disclaimer though, is that until I pass all the exams (just starting to study) I am technically a 'designer' not an 'architect'. I should also add that many architects practice for 20+ years without ever getting a license since the exam process is so arduous and a license is not actually required if you work on houses (2 stories max) or work with someone else with a license who signs off on the drawings. Meanwhile, until last year, someone who just graduated with no experience could take the exams, pass them all, and be licensed without having ever worked on a project. The law has recently been changed in CA regarding this, requiring the 3 years training/apprenticeship required in many other states. I've already done this since I started working in NYC, so am now in the exam phase.

In the meantime, my current projects, aside from my aunt's bathrooms, are studying for the architectural registration exams (currently on soil, soon concrete....woohoo!) and laying out the foundation ideas of a website I've had in mind. I recently bought my first URL, DigDuds.com, in preparation for an idea I've been thinking about for a few weeks. Basically I noticed that many clients, particularly residential ones, have a really hard time figuring out how to even start the design process, whether it's building a new house or just buying living room furniture. So I want to come up with an interface to do just that...although limiting it first to helping them decorate/furnish their homes. It's really going to be a labor of love since I don't imagine it could be profitable in its current conception, but that's not the immediate goal. After all most people, myself included, couldn't ever afford an interior designer, decorator, or architect, but I don't think it's less important for them to feel like they've set up their crib nice-nice. Hence the name...duds for your digs. Except Digsduds seemed too hard to say.

I'm Just a Girl

So since Monkalicious admitted to knowing about celebrity gossip, I have a confession to make. I have really girly moments that are not apparent to those who just know my snarky public self. I suppose I must have a Napoleon Complex to have such difficulty admitting to feeling emotion, much less being into girliness. I have cried at movies (when it's dark and empty enough) and HGTV is my porn, although I justify that as being professional research. Try as I might, it's hard to resist listening to office gossip, and as much as I make fun of high-maintenance women, I really loved being doted on the day before my wedding when I got my third-ever manicure and second-ever pedicure. When I was planning my wedding, I trolled the forums of weddingchannel.com and theknot.com, and read about other girls' plans and even got some voyeuristic pleasure in reading the 'military wives' section just because the way they discussed their relationships was exotic and foreign to me. My favorite story was a woman who was very pregnant and saving/planning for the first baby, and her husband went out and bought a monster truck without consulting her. When she protested, her told her not to 'run her mouth off'. !!!! I expected a barrage of gasps and indignation, but instead the incoming comments were commiserating women with similar stories of their husbands just 'bein' boys'. I thought this stuff happened only in these far off lands of very young newlyweds but then my husband told me about how his coworker went off to buy a sportscar when his wife was pregnant without telling her, then shortly after totaled it. His friend was fine, but all the coworkers called it karma and gave him no sympathy. I did not realize that this ailment seized so many men, but I suppose if middle-aged men have the reputation of buying the midlife crisis sportscar, it must fall under similar reasoning.
Sometimes I even hit websites like ivillage or find my horoscope. I came upon this funny little quiz today that tells you your personality by your china pattern. It's really only funny because every description starts with 'Girlfriend...' In case you were curious my china is white w/platinum rims- and hasn't yet come out of the box.
Speaking of crying movies, I'll contribute two:


The Road Home never fails to get the waterworks going. It's a Zhang Yimou film with Zhang Ziyi, star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon before she hit megastardom in the West. I think it's more moving to me because of my background...the relative lack of dialogue, and communication between the main characters through simple gestures and deeds make the love story especially moving to me. And I'm a sucker for gorgeous cinematography on top of that. The second is not so much a girly crying movie as simply tragic in an unexpected way:
Grave of the Fireflies is an animated Japanese film about two children orphaned during WWII. Basically, if you don't cry, or at least feel the urge to, you may not have a soul. It's one of the most depressing movies I've ever seen, but its ability to recall the simplicity and beauty in childhood moments is haunting. Although it did not make the list of crying-inducing movies used in this study, which found that emotional tears contained more protein..so maybe a good cry now and then is good for our chemistry. So dearies, let's have it. Out with your tearjerkers! Which ones get your tears flowing?

In a VAN down by the RIVER

I've been AWOL awhile as I had oral surgery last week....so besides spending two days doped up on Vicodin, I've been chilling as much as possible so my stitches heal up nice and neat. I would never make a good drug addict because I dislike not being able to get my shi* together when I need to focus. Having worked on stucco control joints all week, I've been zoning out already (drug-free) at least every 20 minutes or so. Amongst my diversions is CNN. I know, it's not a proper way to screw around, but I don't want to get busted for shoe-shopping. I keep thinking about Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker, from SNL every time I hear about this Mark Foley scandal.










left:
Matt Foley, a.k.a. the late Chris Farley on SNL
right:
Former Congressman Mark Foley

I love how everyone goes to rehab now whenever any kind of bad publicity pops up. Rehab looks like summer camp from those late night commercials...they get to bond, and play out in nature....I'm sure it's intensive if you are really an addict, but hearing about how journalists are even trying to pretend they need treatment to sneak into the rehab center- to beat everyone to the scoop- is really impressive. Now that's dedication, and probably a screenplay in the making. Now who would play such a plucky and subversive reporter? hmm...I would say Tina Fey but if it's Foley we are after, it could be a male-only joint. Chris O'Donnell? As long as we are casting, I think Jeff Goldblum would have made a much more convincing Dr. Langdon in the DaVinci Code.

In the past week or so I've been hearing a lot about baby names lately as two people I know are expecting. It's interesting how people choose names. My manager likes 'melodic' sounding names...likely 3 syllables. I couldn't get him to go for Shyane'-neh, but I think I got him interested in Arianna. We discussed the chapter from Freakonomics where the trend towards bling names was discussed, names that either trickle down from the upper class or celebrities (i.e. Madison), or names that just sound rich. Like Lexus or Porsche. An American friend in Asia is working on naming all his children after the Sesame Street cast, although not exactly intentionally- so far he has Oscar and Ernest (Ernie), which I was surprised to admit I found adorable. My good friend on the east coast favors important-sounding sort of names that can be shortened to nicknames, like Sebastian or Alexander. I even had the discussion with her from Sex and the City, where we lay claim to names we've already reserved as top candidate names, even though any babies of mine are purely hypothetical. I was naturally appalled upon hearing that her husband has taken a liking to my boyname claim...hopefully I can argue that it doesn't flow well with his last name. For me, the name of anyone I dislike is already ruined, which is a pity. I've also never cared for androgynous/crossover names even if they didn't start out that way. I'm embarassingly sexist in that I like powerful, leadership sounding names for men (usually Greek or Roman sounding, funny huh?) and 2 syllable names that just sound pretty and sassy for women, although I've moved away from the super froufrou names I once liked in middle school, like Serena and Melinda. It's amazing also, how some names are so tied to a TV or movie character that even if I like it, the thought of the character ruins it for me. Such as Sophia, which I believe means wisdom...very nice...but then I think of the Golden Girls. egh...
So my few readers, what names have you always loved/hated?