Chewing Gum Is Really Gross, Chewing Gum I Hate The Most.

Okay folks, I'm just gonna put this out there. I'm probably going to piss a few of you off, and I've decided I'm okay with that, because the truth is that you've probably been irritating ME for years and I've just never said anything. 

Maybe in time you'll forgive me, and if you don't, then we probably weren't meant to be true friends.

Here's the deal: if you chew gum, I hate you. And I want you to stay far, far away from me.

Gum chewers are a special breed of awful. They drive me up a wall. They chomp, they snap, they pop, they chew chew chew, and then they start back over again. Some of them don't realize how much annoying noise they are making. Others realize it and just don't care. A select few -- ones I like to call 'liars' -- will swear that they chew in absolute silence.

I'm here to tell you you're not silent. You are making disgusting noises with your mouth, and I really wish you'd knock it the hell off.

Okay, here's the part where I confess to my own stake in the matter. I read a book a few months ago called The Highly Sensitive Person, and it's like I was reading a novel about myself. In a nutshell, HSPs (as we are called) have biological differences in their nervous system that causes us to hit a saturation point with external stimuli much faster than everyone else. So things such as lights, noises, and crowds can overwhelm a HSP whereas someone else might not even notice them. As I read through this book, I kept saying to myself "oh my god, that's me! That's me!" Weird quirks about me that I never strung together before now seemed to make more sense. Things like:

• I get extremely anxious when I have to go to a crowded mall at Christmas time. I've been known to evacuate and leave family members inside because I just can't do it.
• I have to turn the car radio off when I'm driving in an unfamiliar area because my brain can't concentrate on navigation and music at the same time.
• I can't have the light in the kitchen on when I'm physically in another room. I will notice it and it will bother me until I go turn it off.
• I've asked co-workers to stop eating sunflower seeds at their desk or to take their jangly bracelets off because the sound was so disturbing.
• If I'm in a movie theatre or other large audience, I have to get up and move if I have a spit sucker near me (apologies to any old people who take offense, but it's usually an oldster whose dentures don't fit correctly and who constantly sucks spit between their teeth to correct it. Ew.). And I can hear spit suckers rows and rows away from me.

I could go on and on with other examples, but hopefully you get the idea. Apparently 20% of the population is classified as Highly Sensitive, so it ain't just me (and I know more than a few of you out there reading this are in the same boat, because I've sat through movies and concerts with you and we've both rolled our eyes at the person behind us rustling their candy wrapper.)

So I can say with all honestly that the noise from gum chewers is probably way ickier to me than it is to the other 80% of the population.  And yet, I still thing gum chewing is one of the oogiest things out there, and I wish you all would stop it.

I just learned that Singapore has banned chewing gum. I'd like to meet the man who wrote that law and shake his hand.

Here's the two things that bother me the most:

1. The Holstein Effect. You know you look like a cow chewing its cud, right? Right? You don't see it? Sadly, you are probably like a smoker who no longer realizes their car and clothing and house all smell like cigarettes. You're too far gone to have an objective view. So let me share with you: you look like a cow. And it's gross.
2. Remember trash cans? No, I don't think you do. Because otherwise you'd be using them to dispose of your gum. Instead, it's on the bottom of my shoe or on my knee. I can't tell you how many times I've stepped in gum, sat in gum, or stuck my pant leg to a table because a wad of gum was stuck up under there. Are there no trash cans in your world, gum chewers?

 You gum chewers might think this is overgeneralizing, but I'm going to tell you something: you're wrong. Sorry, but it's true. Think you're the quietest gum chewer in the world? You're not. Trust me.

Chewing gum is really gross. Chewing gum I hate the most.

A writer writes -- always

Some of my favorite movies are about writing. Imagine that -- two of the things I love most in this world, film and the written word, coming together so successfully. And one of my favorite movies about writers is Throw Momma From the Train. (As a side note, if you haven't seen this movie, I'm going to de-friend you until you take care of this. I'm looking at you, people born in the 80s.) 

If you've ever sat down to start on a writing project, large or small, and get stuck on the first sentence, then you're not alone. It happens to the best of us and it happens to all of us. Which is one reason why, when I start writing, my main goal is just to get words down on paper and then go back later and tweak them, massage them, turn them from okay into good, and then from good into great.

They say that perfect is the enemy of good, and in writing this can be a stumbling block that a lot of people can't get past. If it's not perfect the first time, or even the tenth time, then why bother? 

Why? Because good writing is rarely perfect. Good writing takes guts. It's messy. It's uncomfortable. Good writing can lay you bare. Who wants to be perfect? Not me. I'd rather be real, flaws and all, and let you see me through my writing without aiming for perfection.

That can be hard sometimes. I have to decide how much to share, what is private, what is public, and what falls in between.

I want to lean toward sharing as much as possible. But that can make some people uncomfortable. Either because other people are more private, or they consider some things none of other people's business.

I don't want to censor myself, though, if I don't have to. And frankly, sometimes I just forget to until someone comments and I realize they might have a different expectation or set of rules than I do.

After all, I truly believe the best writing comes from the gut, and that's where all the real emotion is. Good, bad, public, private, messy, shameful, proud, lovely, all of it. And sometimes it takes slipping around in the guts of everything you want to write in order to find the right words.

The night was sultry. But Larry didn't know the night was sultry until he met Owen and Owen's momma. Until then, he just thought the night was hot and wet. It took real life, complications, anger, love, laughter, and great adventure before Larry knew it.

The night was sultry.

The Importance of Routine

When you're unemployed, it's important to have a routine. It's probably no surprise to most of you who know me, but I'm a person who loves routine. I crave it. When my schedule or my body gets thrown out of its routine, I get kind of crabby. I get a bit discombobulated. (Side note: the only thing I may enjoy more than my routines are opportunities to use words like discombobulated.)

The thing about routines is that we don't always notice them -- or the importance they play in our lives -- until they are taken away. For example, there's something very powerful about the simple routine of waking up, eating breakfast, getting dressed, and driving to the office. It's so powerful, in fact, that most of the people I know who work from home still follow a similar routine - get up, eat, shower, dress, and then physically move from the bedroom or kitchen into their home office. They shut the door, fire up the laptop, and are at work.  It's just not the same when you prop open a laptop on the coffee table in front of the television. It feels like cheating.

When you lose your job, you lose a big piece of your daily routine, and all of the small but important perks of daily life that come with it. You don't have co-workers to chat with over coffee in the morning. You don't have friends dropping by and asking if you have lunch plans. You don't sneak glances at your smart phone and feel devious when you check Facebook in the middle of the day. There's no monthly birthday cake, no emails about team outings, no company-wide meeting to break up the monotony of the day.

When you lose your job, you lose a lot. 

So I force myself to have a daily routine, because otherwise my cat is going to get sick of me and I'll find myself memorizing the daily time schedule for Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and The Doctors.

Tuesdays and Thursdays start early. I have to be at the gym at 6:00 in the morning, so my day starts several hours before the sun comes up. My routine is coffee and breakfast and a workout, then home to shower and dress before I pick up my laptop and walk out the front door.

I find that I work best when I get out of the house. So everyday, the laptop is packed up and I walk five minutes to the clubhouse of my condo. It's a great little place to work - free wifi, comfy couches, tables and chairs with outlets, even a kitchen if I get hungry. I sit down, I open my laptop, and I write. I'm currently switching back and forth between applying for jobs, and doing some freelance work where I write resumes and cover letters for clients. But I write. Every day.

I feel like I need more routine. Maybe not forever, but at least for the next few months. Job searching in the dead of winter in dreary Sacramento is not fun, and it takes a toll on the psyche. It's very easy to get down on yourself, and when you're down, it's even easier to fall out of good habits and say "fuck it all." I find that having routines makes a big difference in my life, so I might need more of them.

That might sound dull to some people. I don't mind. There's something calming, something soothing, about routine. I always know I'll have a good book to read in bed at night. I know I'll have a pot of coffee ready about ten minutes after I wake up. I know there will always be an episode of Jeopardy in my DVR queue. I know the same smiling faces will greet me at the gym every Tuesday and Thursday, and that Coach Nick will ask how I've been eating and what my potholes are. 

What are your favorite routines?

My ideal job

You know how a lot of people tell you that you have to "put it out there" in order for good things to happen to you? They tell you to say what you want, say it out loud, let other people know you want it, and it will come to you. So I'm going to do just that.

I want a job. But not just any job. I want my ideal job. 

A good friend once told me that your ideal job should consist of the things you can't seem to stop doing, even though nobody is paying you to do them. And so after thinking about it carefully for a few weeks, here's what my ideal job would look like. These are the things I love, and it's about time somebody started paying me to do them.

25% of the time, I will review and revise your resume. I will make you stand out to employers and help you put your best face forward. Not sure how to brag about yourself? I can help. Not sure if you need an objective statement? (Here's a hint: you don't) I can help. Not sure if it should be one page or three? I can help.

50% of the time, I will edit your Facebook posts. I will work with a brainiac programmer (thankfully, I know many of those) to create an app called You, Only Better. I will round up clients to use this app and I will charge them based on how many posts I have to fix so that you don’t get dumped or fired. Any time you write a Facebook post, before it goes live to friends and family, it will run through the app and be filtered by a professional writer (aka me) for things like:

• Typos
• So many typos that you might be drunk
• Photos of you while drunk
• Religious or political statements that you’ll regret tomorrow

I will re-write your post until it shines. So, for example, when you write “Oute havinn good tim at Senterfolds” at 3:00 AM Sunday morning, your professionally filtered post will instead say “What a great morning for a walk with Mom. Stopped to pet a puppy. Now off to brunch at Dennys.”

10% of the time, I will offer proofreading and editing services to large corporations, billboards, and sign generators that have no understanding of basic spelling or grammar. (I'm looking at you, Trader Joe's.) I can't tell you how many times I cringe in shame when I see a misspelled word on a banner or billboard. It happens more often than you realize and I'd like to rid the world of such blight.

10% of the time, I will monitor your customer service and tell you how to improve it. Are your phone operators professional and polite? Do your cashiers know how to count change back to the customer? When a customer has a legitimate complaint, do you treat them with respect or do you give them the runaround? When you open a new checkout line, do you pull from the other lines in order or is it a free-for-all that allows the people in the back to run up and be first in line? I have a lot of opinions about customer service and I want somebody to pay me to share them with the rest of the world.

5% of the time, I will be a professional cat photographer for those of you who need more photos of your feline friends on Facebook.

Bring it on, world!