May 2008

The last week has been extremely difficult but also extremely rewarding. My business picked up a little too much a little too fast, which led to an impressive string of 14-hour days and the very weird sensation of feeling both self-pity and a sense of accomplishment at the same time. The good news is that I’ve made in a week what it took me a month to make at my office job, not that I have the time to deposit the checks, let alone spend it.

And even though I haven’t had the strength to update my blog for more than a few days, much has happened in our little world. I’ll start catching you up with an update from our freaking horrible neighbors - you remember, the Christian children’s performance artists who play a variety of instruments all day long very loudly and very badly?

On Friday night, our best friend Dan came over to hang out for the evening after a long week of work for all three of us. All we wanted to do was watch a movie and catch up. However, around 10 PM, the girl evil neighbor knocked on our door. I answered. I was told by the evil neighbor that we were being too loud. I nod and close the door.

For the next three days, I seethed and brooded (what I do best). How could three people be louder than a tuba? I could not, for the life of me, stop thinking of cooler scenarios than nodding and closing the door. It was as if God gave me this one chance to tell the evil neighbors off, and I let it slide by. I suffered deep, deep insult regret.

In one imagined scenario, she tells me that we are being too loud and I respond with, “Really? I’m surprised you can hear anything over that cello that you torture daily.”

Or I’d say, “Yes, we are being too loud. After almost two years, it’s our turn.”

Or, as soon as I opened the door and saw it was her, I would close it before she said anything.

Oh! Or I’d go the personal-but-unrelated attack route: “We’re being too loud? Well, to that I’d have to say that you are a simpering, mousy, tone-deaf troll whose hell will consist of eternally living next to an orchestra of monkeys attempting to play French horns.”

Then, on Sunday night, as both Ben and I were racing against any number of deadlines, the cello playing starts. Again, I’d like to remind everyone that when I say “playing the cello,” I don’t mean that she’s playing scales or songs. I mean that she is playing the cello in much the same way that I would play the cello if I were to go across the hall and try.

Now, while neither Ben nor I are the type of people to complain (we’d rather keep to ourselves) we are the kind of people that respond to an open attack. Ben walked over, knocked on the door, and told her to stop playing - they had been playing all day and it was ten at night. She agreed, but then, five minutes later, began playing again! I could tell that she was trying to play softly, but let me assure you that there is no way to play the cello badly and softly.

We have now openly declared war. And, since we are moving in about a month, we can alienate them even more than if we had a longer lease. What is our next step? I am open to your ideas. All I know is that I’m not going to just nod next time.

One of the problems that I’ve been struggling with since I started my freelance business has been holding my cell phone to my ear with my shoulder while I talk to clients and type notes on my laptop at the same time. To free up my hands, my parents got me a blue tooth for my phone on my birthday - you know, those things that short men with leather suit jackets always have stuck in their ears at the grocery store?

Well, I know it’s a little uncool to wear when you aren’t using it, but this thing has changed my life. Although its number one use is to allow me to take detailed notes during meetings with clients, I’ve also discovered an even better application for the blue tooth: it allows me to do whatever I want during the two-hour multi-office conference calls that I often have to sit through. During these calls I often don’t have to say more than “hello” and “nice talking with you.” The majority of these calls are about web design and roughly 5% is about written content - it’s kind of like listening to a baseball game on the radio but only having to pay attention to one inning.

For the last two months, I’ve sat through these meetings as if I were physically present at a meeting - kind of paying attention, very bored. But now my blue tooth - which not only frees my hands but also blocks out background noise — has unshackled me from my conference call prison.

Before the blue tooth I would do regular meeting things: drink a lot of tea, try to pay attention and fail, stare at the clock, think about other things I could be doing that are also not pleasant but that I would still rather be doing, like folding the laundry. Now, though, today - I actually did get to fold my laundry. And since I get paid to sit in on these meetings, it’s like I’m getting paid to fold my laundry! I also got paid to write some thank you notes, iChat, brush the cat, and pay my phone bill - all for the same hourly rate. At the end of the meeting, I even started writing the web content that the meeting was about, both saving myself some time and saving my clients some money. What a beautiful world.

It also makes me wonder what the other three people on the line are doing, since we all work from home. Is the coordinator flossing her teeth? Is the tech guy putting the final touches on that free verse poem he’s been working on? I never thought I’d say this before I started working from home, but it might be true: there’s such a thing as a productive meeting.

Ben and I attended our first wedding since getting hitched ourselves. It was really, really nice - one of those weddings where, as I’m taking my third coconut shrimp from a gloved waiter with one hand and sipping from my ice cold vodka tonic with the other hand, I can’t help but think of African children squatting with flies on their lips. But then the guy with the mini quiches comes around and the image leaves me.

At the wedding, I had to confront one new difference in my life: that I will be, for the rest of my days or at least until the impending divorce, politely correcting people about what my name is. Since it’s never bothered me, I didn’t realize that it’s kind of a touchy point with some people, especially women who have changed their own name. And perhaps especially with women who have changed their names on that very day. I think the only thing that actually gets under my skin is when people say, “Mrs. Ben Fowlkes,” as if I have completely disappeared altogether.

I admit, I learned a lot about how not to let someone know you’re not Mrs. [husband’s full name]. For one, don’t say that you’ve kept your name because you are a writer and couldn’t change your last name due to your career - that’s kind of like saying that the other person’s identity/career didn’t really matter enough for them to keep their name. Secondly, stay away from the phrase, “I kept my name” - it sounds like you’re implying that the other person threw theirs away like a dirty tissue. Thirdly, don’t imply that you are a liberated, independent feminist, while the person who changed their name is living in the archaic past, where they might as well be wearing whalebone corsets and taking her husband’s muddy boots off when he comes home from work. I would especially stay away from the phrase, “Honestly, I think it’s a pretty retarded tradition that when a couple gets married they both take the name of the one with the penis. Seriously - go ask your husband if he’d ever change his name out of love for you. He’ll get a good laugh out of it.”

After talking with some friends, it seems like the best thing to say is, simply, “My name is still Sarah Aswell,” and to ignore all the stuff that they may or not be implying with their own comment - that I don’t respect tradition or that I’m obviously not ready for marriage or that I’m selfish or that I obviously don’t love Ben enough.

Ben thinks that whenever anyone asks me about it, I should simply explain that I married for nothing except the green card. This is why I love Ben. He doesn’t care what my last name is, as long as I continue to alienate strangers as a hobby.

In the end, I’d like to make it clear to everyone that I don’t really care whether you personally change your name at all - even if I have trouble telling you in person. It sure does seem simpler and it probably saves people a lot of time when addressing Christmas card envelopes. All I want is for people not to care what I do, either. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just stand drinking silently in groups and wait for the waiter with the scallops wrapped in bacon to come around again?

I’ll admit it: for me, the Gap exists for one reason and one reason only: each time I am required to wear a sunny, bright, and wholly uninteresting dress to a wedding, I run in on Saturday morning, buy the first sunny, bright, wholly uninteresting dress I see, wear it to the wedding, and then return it on Sunday.

I’m not sure how evil this might be on the evil-o-meter, but it makes the most sense to me - I don’t wear sunny, bright, uninteresting dresses on any other occasion and it doesn’t make sense to drop $70 each on a collection of dresses that I’ll only wear once or twice. Plus, don’t they use child labor or something?

In any case, this morning I was at the Gap buying a dress for a wedding along with a delicate and wholly uninteresting cardigan since it’s somewhat cold today. I walked in, hastily tried it on over my pants (I’m nothing but class, if you haven’t noticed) and walked my outfit over to the cashier. Usually, they don’t say anything, but this girl - she saw right through me.

“Last minute wedding outfit. Good choice. Conservative but spring-y. Nice cardigan match. This dress was also popular the day before Easter.”

It was so refreshing. I was stunned. I decided to be refreshing back.

“Yeah, now I just have to make sure to drink $120 worth of drinks at the open bar to make up for it.”

And she took it a step further!

“I recommend martinis. They’re expensive and even if you spill, you can still return the dress without anyone noticing the stains.”

I don’t know how this girl has possibly held down her job at the Gap, but I’ve never been happier about a purchase. I pray that she is also working tomorrow when I return the dress so that I can ask her if I’m fat and get a straight answer.

In fact, it made me envision a world where the customer service everywhere was just as honest - like if for once I was in a restaurant and when I asked what was good there, the waitress didn’t say, ” I think everything’s good here!”

And maybe the new Gap commercial could just come out and say it: “At the Gap, you can fill all of your one-event needs for conservative but youthful attire. Looking to buy some khakis just for the weekend because you’re meeting your boyfriend’s republican parents for the first time? Need a dress for a wedding that won’t upstage the bride and that hides your tattoo? Need the perfect business casual linen button-down for your much-dreaded company picnic? Come on down! It’s like rummaging through the closet of someone just like you, except without the offensive personality!”

I have a feeling that perhaps only I enjoy this website, but let’s give it a try: Truck Spills.

It is what it says it is: a collection of images of trucks that have turned over, letting loose their precious and mostly weird cargo. To put it more simply, it may be the only non-porno website perfectly tailored for 12-year-old boys: it’s about big trucks crashing with hilarious and gross consequences.

As I flipped through the pictures of jell-o spills, live alligator spills, and squash avalanches, I tried to put my finger on what was just so great about seeing a lot of one thing strewn all over a highway. I’m still not sure, although I am sure that eight tons of rabbits is way more interesting to look at than just a few rabbits. I also think that it is totally amazing that we don’t package things more — did they really think it was a smart move to transport Sunny-D or horse guts all in one giant container? And did they really think it was a good idea to transport a decomposing whale like that?

It’s also fun to look at the poor highway workers trying to recollect hundreds of spilled live chickens or clean up hundreds of active bee hives.

Okay, I admit this is juvenile. But what else are you going to do on Friday afternoon? Work?

It’s official: Ben is the new (and first ever) mixed martial arts columnist for Sports Illustrated. His first column published today. I can’t tell you how proud I am or how quickly I will spend his paycheck. From here on out, it should publish every Thursday until he is inevitably fired.

You can read it here.

Even if you’re not an MMA fan, please click the link to give his stats a nudge.

Today was also his first day working fulltime for another MMA website, CagePotato, which is a bit more casual, to say the least. On that site, he posts four times a day, although he only has a byline for his longer opinion pieces.

Me: Hi, my name is Sarah Aswell, and I’m trying to reach [generic lawyer name]. He contacted me this week about writing web content for his firm.
Assistant: Is he expecting your call, Barah?
Me: It’s actually Sarah. With an S. Yes, he told me to call at one.
Assistant: I don’t see your name in the appointment book.
Me: That’s strange, since he emailed me the meeting time yesterday and said he would put it in his Outlook calendar.
Assistant: Let me check with him. Hold on.

I hold. She returns.

Assistant: Hi, Barah?
Me: Hi. My name’s Sarah. Not Barah. I don’t really think Barah is even a name. I’m guessing that this ongoing issue might be why you can’t find my name in your appointment book.
Assistant: He’s in the middle of something. Can he call you back?
Me: Sure.
Assistant: Can I have your number, Barah?
Me: Are you serious?

…and then I gave her my number as slowly and clearly as I could, as if I were talking to an old person from the 1800s holding one of those huge gramophone horn hearing aids. I am sure this law firm will never call me back, although if a person named Barah actually exists on the planet (which I doubt) I wouldn’t be surprised if she got a call from the dumbest secretary that there has ever been.