I love you guys. Maybe I’m feeling gooey because I beat my muscles into a rubber band with some oak branches (a la the banya in Piter) at my local spa on Sunday afternoon. Or maybe the kind reminder from the old guy in my urine-scented parking garage elevator (”Well, maybe you didn’t win your basketball game, but you got some good exercise!”) is making me feel happy.

Or maybe I’m just glad that y’all let me love you. Maybe not always the way I’d like to, but being allowed the joy of having you somewhere deep in my rich red heart, bubbling with benevolent brisance, makes me feel glowy.

Now, here:

1. An article about the office park in which I began my career as an ace online marketer (See also: bullet point six from this post)
   
2. A great pick-up line which, per the ruling today in NYC, is now illegal
3. Good thing I drove to ALO’s place
4. Minute 4:40 made me cry. A beautiful video by brown girls. If it moves you, I love you.
5. Great analysis of industry responses to the iPhone

Sleep.

A couple of years ago, I attended Deutsche Bank’s 11th Annual Women on Wall Street(R) Conference. The keynote speaker was Wanda T. Wallace, Ph.D. and President and CEO of Leadership Forum, Inc. Her presentation was entitled “Reaching the top: Factors that impact the retention and effectiveness of senior women.”

An excerpt:

Why Women Leave Corporate Roles

Women who have left the corporate world did so largely because they no longer found the job exciting or challenging. They did not like the current corporate culture or at least the culture created by their boss. They were tired of the political games. As one woman stated, “You break so many glass ceilings on the way up that you finally come to realize you have accumulated a lot of shards along the way.” The reasons for departing in order of most significance include:

• Not getting a sought after promotion (or increased level of responsibility) and being told that she had gone as far as she could go within the corporation.
• A change in the organizational climate such that her agenda could no longer be accomplished, climate was no longer positive, and/or a merger provided a great opportunity to exit.
• Being driven out — usually from a change in senior leadership, followed by a series of decisions that decreased rank, responsibility, or sense of value as a contributor.
• Not having as much fun as they used to.
• Wanting time to “defuse” and re-think the next chapter.
• Achieving everything they ever sought to prove to themselves.
• Children were a factor though not the deciding factor — Although often discussed as a factor for the exit in the popular press, this was an issue for only two of the eleven leaders and it was not the only issue. Consistently across organizations, about 45 to 50% of senior women do not have children.

Under Wallace’s “Recommendations for women” section, there were a couple that really spoke to me:

…perfectionism may mean you micromanage… work harder at something than is really necessary; over deliver when efforts would be better spent elsewhere…

Just because you understand the issue doesn’t mean others do…

• People are typically more willing to follow a calm, cool, collected leader than one who can go into a tirade at any minute.
• Impatience can leave dead bodies in your wake — dead bodies increase the enemy count.

… to affect change you need to become an insider.

I’ve consciously worked to heed these recommendations, and they’ve helped tremendously over the past couple of years.

And that last point (”to affect change you need to become an insider”) reminds me of a vulgar mantra I coined when signing the offer letter from my first company. I was a wily undergraduate, making zines and causing trouble, and here I was getting ready to suit up and work for the supposed enemy. “You’ve gotta court The Man before you f— him in the ass,” I told myself, as if to not spiral into a bout of self-loathing regarding “the reductive nature of capitalism and inherent self-alienation that would necessarily result.”

I don’t see things as naively as I used to, and I’ve come to terms with capitalism. I’m becoming an insider. And maybe someday, I’ll be able to affect change.

And on a side note, maybe I’m cynical, but the Forte Foundation seems to fall short of its tagline: inspiring women business leaders. (How clever! Is inspiring an adjective or a verb?!) Instead it seems like a glorified lead generation scheme for business schools. UNSUBSCRIBE

Tangential posts:

• Women & company
• Women & real estate
• Women & C-level gigs
• Networking to find a job

Logged into my Yahoo! finance portfolio for the first time since I used a $2,000 MBNA cash advance check to fund my bubble-crazed day trading circa 1999.

Was amused to see that the following tickers n’existe plus:

• KRB
• SLVN
• DIGX
• INKP
• DVNT
• LATD

Oh Digex, how I miss your thirty degree angle growth trajectory!

Which formerly-tracked equities of yours now rest in peace?

Was reading the December issue of Vibe magazine when … woah.

Intelligent, tall, thirty-something knockout brown person …

“Reminds me of me!”  (Monty Burns, while looking at a dog and noticing its “proud, firm buttocks.”)

I used to have a vague sense in the back of my pea brain that my life would begin as soon as I found the right man.

Well, I could buy some property, but maybe that’ll scare someone off, so I’ll wait a while.

I don’t want to put too much into my retirement accounts because what if my future husband is lazy? I’ll resent him for enjoying the benefits of my hard work and discipline.

And oh, the irony!

You know when my life really began?

When I stopped waiting for it to begin.

When I stopped looking outside myself for the stopwatch.

When I stopped craning my neck for the metaphorical dude with the starter’s pistol.

My life started the second I stopped looking for “the right man.”

And you know who I found standing there?

xoxoANP!

Dear self, rub a dub dub, thanks for the grub. Let’s eat from this smorgasbord called life and git our “elastic pant” on!

Do you remember when your life began?

Pick up a copy of this week’s New York Press and you’ll see the ANP gumline in all its glistening glory.

Jerry Portwood, the Arts & Entertainment Editor, clearly gets it when he writes:

(Amateur Female Jello Wrestling founder Dana) Sterling has successfully created a space that gives women permission to forget the hassle of deflecting criticism for their bodies’ inadequacies and regress to a time when they felt comfortable being ridiculous.

Of course, by now all y’all are intimately familiar with the fact that I always feel comfortable being ridiculous.

An excerpt from the article:

After losing all her matches (on purpose) in January, ANP decided to return for a second match—although she did have her doubts.

She was feeling “moody and bitchy,” she says, but as a marketing executive at The Bank, she doesn’t get many excuses to suit up and get slippery with a dozen other women. Most days, she’s like other corporate stiffs: sitting in a cubicle, making PowerPoint presentations, working with a sales team. But tonight she doesn’t have to think about shareholders, instead she sheds all inhibitions and becomes The Thaigrr (her mother is Thai and she used to be into the riot grrl scene, she explains). Assuming a brutish, uneducated persona, she speaks with a stereotypical Asian accent and growls; the audience growls back in support.

Unlike many of the others participating this evening, ANP is extremely athletic. She’s 5 foot 10 and currently on an urban basketball league and was on the varsity track and crew team in college. “The kinds of women that are involved here, they were the ones wearing black combat boots and Manic Panic hair dye. This might be a way for them to be a part of something athletic,” she says. “I’m not trying to cultivate this personality of a weirdo. When I heard it was available, and I wouldn’t have to pay for it? I had to do it; it sounded like so much fun.”

But that doesn’t mean that her friends and colleagues don’t look at her like she’s crazy. “My boss said, ‘I thought when you were telling me you were Jell-O wrestling, it was like you were saying you were going to be invisible next week.’ They think it’s bizarre, but how many other opportunities am I going to have to do something this fun?”

Read Jerry Portwood’s full article at:

GIRL FIGHT! The rise of fringe contact sports — for women, by women

Update: Here are my very minor context additions given the difficulty of interviewing and intent-capturing in an otherwise great piece:

• “cultivate the personality of a weirdo” context: I don’t need to cultivate squat. Being a weirdo comes naturally.
• The comment regarding the girls wearing combat boots:
• I wore combat boots in high school
• I rocked some Manic Panic (pink!)
• I was mentioning Jello Wrestling as a great way to let “non-athletic” women enjoy and experience an athletic activity. Celebrating sport and physicality for those who may otherwise have been turned off to it — much in the way that the woman in the roller derby party says she couldn’t deal with a coach telling her what to do, etc.
• Was also quoted incorrectly, because that’s not quite what I said… I started it with “Perhaps the kinds of women …” and I was referring to all the fringe sport grrrls, not just the jello wrestlers.

All this addenda because my little sister just informed me that I come off as “bitchy” in the article. Shit! Moody and bitchy, okay.

But judgmental bitchy! That just cannot stand.

I just donated a couple hundred bucks to The Indiana Academy Scholars Fund

Fund #1023- Indiana Academy Scholars Fund

The Scholars Fund: A specific purpose fund.
Gifts to this fund have the sole purpose of assisting students who cannot afford the room and board fees to attend the Academy and are not eligible for other assistance.

via this link. (Chose “Indiana Academy” under Gift Information and included the fund name in the Comments at the very bottom. Click here for more info.)

The short? Budget cuts have forced The Academy to charge its students $1,500 in room and board. May not sound like much, but when I think about kids like Curtis or Eatin’ Beaver or most of the other students that made my experience so incredible, it made it easy to bust out my wallet and earn Thank You points for each dollar donated.

Of course, when I think about Nate or Scott or Kevin, it makes me wish they had a fund dedicated to provided top-notch therapy gratis to anyone who needed it. And by top-notch, I don’t mean a graduate student nodding silently for an hour and then telling you that you’d better head back to class.

I’d give a lot more to that fund. But something is better than nothing.

Join me –

Click here to donate.

After the jump, Drew Ramsey IASMH’92’s thoughts, as well as the curiously titled “Special Initiative”’s timeline.

(Click here to continue reading…)

Not Champaign-Urbana.

I have had a lot of champagne in my fridge, thanks to a pre-New Years‘ Vine Wine champagne tasting (and the fact that I earn American Airlines miles or Starwood Hotels Starpoints whenever I buy stuff, thus encouraging consumption).

Noticing this, a friend once remarked in between sips of champagne that I needed to start having “more life events.”

Indeed. What better life event than life itself? (Or so I tell myself to the sound of my kitchen clock a tickin’ and my MacBook keys a clackin’ with my belly full of crab cakes and A. Margaine bubbly.)

Oh yeah, I pink-cheekedly remember what I was gonna tell y’all:

Scorpio can become intensely fixated on a person and possessive… Scorpio’s “urge to merge” can be very powerful… Scorpio tends to periodically become intensely focused on some area of concern and become even fanatical in pursuit of some interest…
Scorpio… has a quiet disposition that makes much emotional complexity and sensitivity. Light, superficial social interaction doesn’t interest Scorpio at all, and, in fat, frequently makes Scorpio feel separate and lonely.

Scorpio feels a whole range of powerful emotions – desire, jealousy, rage, fierce loving attachments or intense loathing – and Scorpio cannot live without relating on a very deep, intimate level, which often includes conflict and confrontation. In fact, if things become too easy and mellow, Scorpio will (consciously or unconsciously) provoke some trouble in a relationship. Scorpio seems to thrive on emotional drama and intensity… Scorpio is drawn to the hidden, dark, mysterious side of life and of people… Scorpio probes and analyses and is more suspicious. Also, Scorpio can be manipulative and controlling, and may be subtly dominating.

Although the point is currently moot, I’ve often felt I should come with a warning label.

To prospective suitors: SEE ABOVE. This is not a joke.

To past suitors: All of you were right to have dumped me. SEE ABOVE.

Also, I like hand-coding basic .html. It makes me feel very happy.

* burp *

Why all the food recipes all at once and on a Saturday night, ANP?

I’ve done much thinking the past week and another lightbulb’s gone off in my head. This one deserves celebration in the form of the written word, like, in a piece, or something. So although I can’t expand-o on it so much here (particularly still the thought is still amorphous), just like last year I’ve decided to take a vow of celibacy for a hot moment. While personal hot moments will be authorized, there will be no dicks in my box for at least a few months.

Maybe not even until I have a real live boyfriend again.

Making the return (in the form of free meals) on my investment in online dating more of a challenge, but then again, I’ve always been up for a good challenge.

And anyway, I’m already bored with dating, and I haven’t even gone on one date yet. Frankly I’m more in the mood to cook some food and read some magazines and go on hot dates with myself. As ALO Esq. pointed out in an earlier comment:

You are top shelf goods, mentally, physically and spiritually, in the realm of 99th percentile. That means 99.01% of the male adult population is completely undatable. Or something–you’ll have to check my math. But the point is, the pool for potential soulmates is small.

“Soulmates” aside, by this rationale my time is better spent with me than the vast majority of prospective suitors. And I’m finally beginning to realize this.

But this is starting to get into the territory of the piece I want to write.

So I’mma get back to today’s bidness of making muffins and not having sex.

I gripped this recipe from the October 2006 of Latina magazine* (which I enjoy and recommend despite the occasional minor editing boo). I am ghetto when it comes to making omelets but don’t worry, they still taste the same if when you botch the flipping.

I like this because it’s like scrammied egg with home fries all in one.

Spanish omelet

Servings: 4 / Cooking time: 1 hour

Took much less than an hour to whip this up

Ingredients:

• 1-2 tsp. olive oil
• 3 medium potatoes, sliced
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 6 large eggs
• Sauteed onions, pepper and parsley (optional)

Preparation:

In medium saute pan, place potatoes (you should have enough to make a layer three potatoes deep over the bottom). Add olive oil, then fry potatoes until soft on inside and crispy and browning on outside. Season with salt.  (Pic)

In bowl, place eggs, add small amount of water and whisk. Pour eggs over potatoes, lifting them so eggs mix well. (Pic) Over medium-low heat, cook until omelets set and brown on bottom, then flip and repeat.

When done, remove omelets, place on plate and cut into wedges. (Pic)

Add sauteed onion (pic), pepper or parsley, if desired.

Does anyone know which meal this is “supposed” to be eaten at? I ate mine with ketchup and a dash of sugar at dinnertime.

I leave you with … “I hate those overly-proud Hispanics!” — Overheard on the L train

* My review of Latina:

I don’t think it’s fair to make Latina magazine be the be-all, end-all magazine for American Latinas. It’s not like we throw a fit when Cosmopolitan perpetuates “female” stereotypes. I understand that for minorities, it would be nice to hold mainstream media to a higher standard, but sometimes, don’t you just want to kick back on the couch and not stress?

For those moments of kicking back, not stressing, and not finding fault with everything around me, I love reading Latina magazine. Thoughtful articles and first-person essays, easy recipes, and great trends.

And, I’m not even Latina — I’m Asian-American. And I have to say, reading this magazine has made me appreciate just that much more how we are all sisters in this world, just trying to find happiness, love, and a hot pair of shoes.