Hey Shorty . . . It's Your Birthday

We're gonna party like it's your birthday . . .

Seriously though, my 30th birthday was last weekend and it was awesome!!!!

I was a little bummed at first because I didn't think my dad would be able to make it to dinner on Friday night. He was flying back to N.O. from a business trip and wasn't due back until 7 pm. We were having dinner at 5:30 because everyone was tired from the week. S, J and I were hanging out on my mom's back porch when I see this shadow through the sliding glass doors . . . it was dad!!!!

He'd taken an earlier flight and surprised all of us!!!!!

On Saturday we all went to breakast and I got to hang out with my mom. She took me shopping and even bought me a birthday outfit. Later that afternoon we went back to the house and my longest-lasting friend Mischa was there.

I've known Mischa since we were in third grade and although our friendship has had lots of ups and downs she is the only woman I have ever known that will tell me when my face is dirty and help me clean it up.

She drove in from Baton Rouge at the last minute to help me celebrate my birthday. She left her three girls (three under six years of age) and her husband to party with with me.

S, J, Mischa and I met out with my brother and his partner. We started out with a really long dinner (due to the tragic waitress) that didn't need to be as long as it was, but man was it fun. Then, we went over to Parade (a gay bar in New Orleans) and were fortunate to get in before they started charging a cover (we got there at 9ish or so) AND it was still happy hour.

And then something truly wild happened. I'm sitting on a stool (yes, we even had bar stools to perch on) and I look over J's shoulder and see this guy. This guy that looks really familiar and I ask J, "Hey, is that Ty?"

So, always the forward person, J goes over there and asks, "Hey, is your name Ty?"

And, it totally was. Ty was a guy that I new at LSU. He was an aerobics instructor back in the day so I didn't really know him, but then he sort of fell into my circle of friends through another friend so we really go to know him really well. The amazing thing was that in 1994 Ty was HIV positive and we just never knew how much more time we'd have with him. 11 years later he's still around (although he did have a close call two years ago) and as crazy as ever.

We did a lot of drinking and a lot of dancing and on the ride home I realized how truly blessed I am. J flew across the country to help me celebrate my 30th birthday, Mischa dropped her plans at the last second to hang out with me, S took time off to drive in with me and my dad caught an earlier flight to make it for dinner . . . how did I get so lucky to have all of these wonderful people in my life?

I'm not going into 30 with that sense of dread that most people seem to when they hit this age. I'm embracing this new decade with all of the joy and energy that is humanly possible and with these amazing people in my life I can't wait to see what's next.

Oh, How the Blush of New Love Quickly Fades

See, I told you that eventually I would quit writing with any regularity.

I was thinking the other day how March 3 is my anniversary date. My work anniversary date, and as you all know, a yearly anniversary usually means a review and maybe a raise.

I really wasn't thinking about that though, as much as I was thinking about how much I've changed in the last year.

Right before I started this job, I'd left a job in advertising that left me completely destroyed.

So destroyed that I just walked in one day and quit . . . WITH NOTHING LINED UP.

You have to understand how big that is for me. I graduated college in 1997 and in the intervening eight years I've had six jobs. That might seem like a lot and might even lead you to believe I'm flighty, but I've always had a reason for leaving a job, and I always had a better job lined up.

Sure, some of those jobs I left because I had a boss that was batshit crazy and one of those jobs I left because my ex was military and it was either follow him or forget our marriage, but for the most part I left to expand my professional experience and earn a bigger paycheck.

I never just walked out without a safety net.

But the design house, I left because after a year I was so broken I felt like a total loser. It was a constant uphill battle for me because as it turns out, I hate advertising. In all fairness, I'm pretty sure I hated it because I sucked at it.

It was a vicious cycle because like many things in one's professional life, you actually have to care in order to do a good. Whether that's as a sales clerk at a shop, or selling someone's corporate image or enticing folks to shop at the new mall.

So, here's how things would go: I'd get this assignment that seemed fairly easy and I'd crank it out as quickly as possible (the more jobs we passed through the shop meant the more money we made) only to get them back from my incredibly disappointed boss.

There were times where I wrote things that were really good. My particular forte, as it turns out, was writing radio scripts. Which really comes as no surprise to me because writing dialogue is something that's always come easily to me.

Writing a great headline though? Not so much.

This just killed my boss. For one, my inconsistency lead her to rightfully question my dependability. Sometimes I could knock something great out in 15 minutes, but other times I'd agonize for hours over a seven word headline.

I think it also killed her because I wasn't becoming what she wanted me to be. See, she has this thing for hiring the young and inexperienced. Not only can she pay them squat, but she can also mold their young minds to her style. So, she'd get personally vested in all of her creative staff because it was a direct reflection on her and her company.

I can understand that, but in time I really lost respect for her.

First, there was the "meeting" she called me in for when she heard that I'd been talking about her with people from her church. That's a long story that I'll save for another day, but let's just say I just said, "A is a very driven woman who knows what she wants from her company and she works hard to get it."

So, in our "meeting" she wants to discuss what she heard from a third party (an ex-employee). He'd been busted for sleeping in his car on lunch breaks. Mind you, he no longer worked with A when he learned that she knew.

I told her the gist of the story and she gets TEARY-EYED and says to me, "I just don't like thinking that the people that work for me think I'm a bitch."

Me, "No, never at any point in that conversation did I even discuss what it was like to work with you, or what I thought of you personally. The word bitch didn't even pass my lips."

(Hmm, reading that sentence back to myself I realize I sort of implied that while I thought she was a bitch, I wasn't stupid enough to say that to someone that attended her church.)

I walked out thinking, "Suck it up." You started a business to make money, not to make friends. Whether or not someone thinks your a bitch shouldn't be your concern. Get over it.

With that conversation behind us, we continued to work and produce. But, then we had this weird discussion one day. It's been so long that I don't even remember it now.

See, I'd go into her office for "mentoring," requested on my behalf. I really wanted to make this thing work and she really is the best in town so I wanted to learn from her. The truth is, I am amazed by her talent and really felt like I was working under someone that would go on to do something really big.

What it all boiled down to was that she couldn't understand why I wasn't as passionate about the work as she was. And, in this later meeting she teared up again and said to me, "When I think about everything I've given up to make this company work (sniff, sniff)."

I was disgusted by this whole pity me routine.

She chose to move to our small town and start this company (and let's face it, it's a lot easier being a big fish in a small pond), she chose to work weekends, she chose to sacrifice her social life . . . no one asked her to do it.

In my mind, I dismissed her at that point because I really didn't care to work harder for her. If I cranked out more jobs it meant more money to the company and more money for our paychecks is what we were told. But, uh . . . no. If I worked harder it meant I improved her bottom line and would only see a tiny cut of that. We didn't even have 401ks.

So, I started to care less and less, my work suffered, she let it be known and eventually I got to feeling like I couldn't do anything right and she let me know I was always disappointing her.

I left because I started to feel like a talentless joke.

So, I went back to corporate training because it was something that didn't require me to be creative. I at least learned this about myself: working 40 hours a week at a desk job is not for me.

You know what makes me feel better about having felt like such a loser? Everyone that has worked for her and quit feels the same way.

It's not that we are talentless. It's that she sets the bar so high that most of us keep banging our heads into it.

I am talented, just not in the way she wanted/needed me to be.

I was just not talented enough for her.

So, here I am a year later, working at a job that I love where people appreciate my skills.

A job that makes me feel good about myself and I wouldn't trade that for anything.