Butter Face

Last night I dreamt of white cake with vanilla buttercream icing. In my dream, my Dad ('cause he's cool like that) took me on the hunt for the perfect cake. We didn't find it, but ate many while searching for the one I wanted. My Dad, of course, made the infallible choice of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I chose nothing and awoke full of dream cake and longing. Now, in my waking hours, I feel like I'm still searching for my perfect slice.

This is not a metaphor. I just want a piece of cake.

Of Leaf Blowers and Hand-Grenades

One of my clients called and yelled at me this morning after he had made a mistake and I had told him I wasn't sure that I could fix it. After we hung up the phone, I stormed outside to get some air. The lawn service was there, blowing newly mowed grass off the sidewalk. I wondered if one of the guys would let me use his leaf blower, and I considered taking it to my client's office and attacking him with it. Why a leaf blower, you ask? A leaf blower lends a lot of power without actually being harmful. Wielding a leaf blower in a moment of anger also says, "You don't want to play the crazy game with me. I WILL win."

Is it really possible to know someone through a series of tweets, chirps, blurbs and blips?

"Turkey in the Straw?" What does that song even mean?

I’m looking forward to seeing my family in two weeks. It will be nice to have a bit of a holiday. It’s a pleasure to eat compulsively without guilt and with encouragement from my fellow human beings. Of all the American commercialistic pursuits, Thanksgiving Day is the most appealing to me. It’s good to have available a societal cue to get my mind in the right place; to get out of my own head and realize that there is good all around me and I ought to focus on the good rather than on the economy, war(s), irritations, failed attempts at [insert most recent frustration here] or what is missing in life and in general. Despite all of these things, thankfulness is really not something which should center on a day. It’s really more of a lifestyle choice, don’t you think?

Think of it This Way

This is going to sound a bit strange, which is probably why I’m saying it. It shouldn’t be strange; it should be a matter of fact. When I think about relationships, what often comes to mind is the difficulty that many of us describe in finding the right person and, more importantly, making a connection. Many of my friends have mentioned problems with either 1. Not finding people who really suit them or 2. (This is what I’m talking about) Finding people they like who don’t find them suitable.

The point I wish to make is that if you’re getting it right, then you know yourself. You know what you want. If you find someone you feel is suitable for you (based on your own inclinations, likes/dislikes, goals, etc…), the true measure of your ability to make the connection is your ability to send out the correct information. You can’t send out the correct information if you don’t know the person on the other end. Think of it as good marketing.

You can’t promote a product if you don’t know your target audience. Rather than trying to immediately position yourself as a “market leader,” consider asking questions—lots of them—until you feel you really understand your target audience.

Yes, you know what you’re offering, but it’s more important to know to whom you’re offering it. If you want to sell a particular food item to a child, then it’s not in your best interest to use terms like “immune-boosting antioxidants.” You should consider words like, “crunchy,” “fun,” “yummy,” “swirls” and “awesome.” The information you broadcast must be based on the receiver.

My thinking is that it is self-centeredness which leads any of us to approach another person with tons of information about himself/herself and few questions about the other person. Hel-LO, this is marketing research.

Step one: Decide what you’re trying to accomplish.
Step two: Develop your approach.
Step three: Design your research. How can you most efficiently collect data that will help you make the necessary decisions? How will you analyze the data?
Step four: Do your field work (email, telephone interviews, home visits, etc…)
Step five: Verify the data you’ve collected.
Step six: Arrange the data in a way that’s useful to you.

Next, check out the market. Do some customer analysis, risk analysis and even competitor analysis.

Next, determine your marketing objectives. Maybe you want to increase product awareness by your target audience. Perhaps you want to better inform your target audience about your product and point out some competitive advantages. It’s even possible that you want to eliminate a potential customer’s resistance to your brand.

This brings me to the issue of branding. Whether you focus on it or not, everything about you contributes to a big picture—it’s your brand identity. Think about this before your begin advertising.

Again, if you don’t resist talking at great length about yourself in the very beginning, you’re not doing any marketing. You’re basically just reference material. Ask questions. Don’t say “This is who I am” before you know to whom you’re speaking. This is the thing: There are many characteristics which make up your personality. Think of each one as a color. They must be arranged properly to make a pretty picture. Throw them all out at once and the result is just a muddy mess.

Next week’s topic: How Football is Just like the Opera

No Laughing Matter

I’ve had it. Stop it with your “LOL” already. “LOL,” in instant messaging or email, used to mean “What you just said was so funny that now I am laughing out loud.”

Now we use it to punctuate our sentences (“I am eating corn on the cob … lol”), let others know we are laughing (which is probably a lie, since these days “LOL” normally follows a phrase with little or no comedic value) or indicate to others when something is meant to be funny (“The chicken crossed the road, LOL!”). This is almost used as an instruction, as if it were actually the word “laugh.” (The chicken crossed the road, laugh!”)

I will not.

No Harm, No Foul

I'm trying something new today: It's a twist on forgiveness. I think I'm typically a forgiving person, but I find that forgiveness becomes more difficult to implement the longer I wait. And think. And stew. I'm trying a more efficient method of forgiveness: The preemptive strike. I'm just going to forgive before the apology comes--maybe even before I have a chance to register the offense. What's in it for me: Maybe a bit of reverse psychology. Maybe if I can get in the habit of forgiving preemptively, I'll become one of the least easily-offended people I know. I won't get mad a you for being a jerk (and you WILL be, on occasion, for you are human)--I won't even notice.

I had finally gotten the words out, said that after all this time, I felt as though you didn't know me at all. You looked completely trapped by your confusion. You did not respond. You looked to your left at a small pile of clothes, taken from the dryer and dropped carelessly on the couch. You picked up my little orange tank top, shook it out gently and then folded it, lengthwise, into three equal parts. Then you folded back the bottom of it, then the middle, making a perfect square.

That was enough for me.

Morning Musings

1. "The early bird gets the worm?" They all get worms. They're all early birds--too early, frankly, for my taste.... But any bird who decided to sleep in would starve. Or have to go home and throw a chick out of the nest so that the rest of the family could survive off of his slacker 8 AM earnings.

2. Why is it that, no matter how much I rush in the morning, I can take no shower shorter than 15 minutes? It makes no difference that I feel like I'm moving at the speed of light. At the end of the process, the time elapsed is always 15 minutes. Maybe that's just the amount of time it takes to accomplish the moderate cleanliness to which I aspire.

3. The reflection of my face on the bottom of my coffee mug looks funny.

About the Size of It

I'm thinking about our penchant for likening the shape of a human body to the shape of an inanimate object. This doesn't seem to be quite right. Isn't it dehumanizing to hear a body referred to as "pear-shaped?" Is it really shaped like a pear?

My proposition is that we liken the shape, any shape, of the human body to the shape of another living, breathing, moving thing. People aren't ever shaped like apples. They are, occasionally, shaped like seals or blowfish.

The "pear" is now a "kangaroo." (It's more stylish, no?) The "hourglass" becomes the "horse" (slightly less glamorous but, hey: Take one for the team).

"Stick/ruler-shaped?" No, he's shaped like a snake (or grasshopper, ferret or meerkat).

I can't readily think of a replacement for the "V shape" reference. Warthog?