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Girls should gossip

A few months ago I watched with interest as a woman unfolded a bit of drama on Facebook. “Who else knew?” an acquaintance posted, and her comments filled with, “Knew what?” A few rows down she exposed that her long-term boyfriend had been cheating on her, for a long time. She felt betrayed, obviously, by friends and family who may have known about his actions and never told her.

I watched another woman friend lament that she had a bad picker and had her heart broken by a jerk. “Dogs are the only creatures worthy of my love,” she said, and her friends told her not to throw out all men just because of one bad apple.

I didn’t know they were talking about the same cheating jerk until talking with another friend who had fallen under his spell several years ago. This third girlfriend had had a hunch when they were seeing each other that he hadn’t broken up with his serious girlfriend, in spite of his insistence that it was over, consensually, and he wasn’t seeing her anymore. It ends up he was lying to everyone.

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Building trust through a sense of relief

I have been working for a few years with a digital marketing agency, and have had the honor of developing a friendship with the founder. We often refer clients to each other, and today I was thinking about what a relief it is that I can trust her judgment.

“It is so nice to have a friend whom I trust professionally,” I messaged her. “I trust recommending you to people and when you recommend me, I trust they’ll be good clients.”

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Feeling unremarkable? Rewrite your resume

In the coming weeks, some of my largest long-term contracts will be wrapping up, and I’ve found myself wondering if I should try to put myself into the workforce as a full-time employee at a single company again, rather than as a freelancer on several different projects.

Of course, the main thing that keeps me from applying to the full-time grind is a reminder of the horrors of the application process: the rejections with no explanation, the clear lack of a recruiter or hiring manager even looking at your experience, the understanding that only people who knew people could get in to an interview, and even then, you may be disregarded as a piece of human resource rather than a person with feelings.

But another of the hardest aspects of diving back into the application process for me is having to rewrite my resume.

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Going full creative

Ever since I was 13, I wanted to have blue hair. I can’t remember what enticed me to want it exactly, except the wave of Manic Panic colors that tinged the heads of my favorite punky bands in middle school and high school with a bit of late-night anime cartoons for good measure. Changing my hair to an unexpected shape or color was always a thrill for me, from the first time I cut it all off in fourth grade on. Some people get tattoos; I just change my hair. I shaved my head several times in my teens and 20s, but never quite got around to bleaching my light brown hair the platinum required to do a real true blue. I had teal bangs for a day or two one summer, but it washed out pretty quickly, much to my mother’s relief.

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My tiger

In 2002, I was a junior in college, and I met Chris, a senior, with whom I would spend the next several years in love.

Within a few weeks of meeting, I decided to take the remainder of the fall semester off from school and go home to Albuquerque, due to my first serious bout of depression. Chris’s and my relationship moved from working together at a coffee shop and hanging out once in a while to writing emails to each other, and then handwritten letters to each other, and eventually calling each other.

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Holding a seance

Wednesday, October 26, 2016 marked the 10th anniversary of my best friend Adam’s suicide.

Stories about Ouija boards have been going around on social media because there’s a new movie out, and it occurred to me while wasting a few minutes on Snapchat with one of these articles that perhaps I could hold a seance in honor of the 10th anniversary of Adam’s death, for his mother and his two brothers and me.

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A complete change of perspective

I have worn an A-cup bra since I started wearing bras. That is, if I wear a bra at all. I am a card-holding member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee, and by card-holding member, I mean I have small breasts. I have never had a man look at my chest instead of my eyes when speaking to me. Not even in one of those push-up bras that adds two cup sizes. I have been proud to brag about the fact that if I don’t have a sports bra, I can go for a run — a long run — without being smacked in the face by my boobs, or even experiencing any mild discomfort.

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