Eep!

This week - like any other event week - has just flown by. I thought I posted Wednesday, but I just saw that it had been Monday.

Pardon the absence.

I have to speak at the event I am putting on Tuesday. I have no problem with public speaking but I am not usually comfortable with the spotlight on me. At the events I am in charge of, I make everyone else get up and speak while I run around like a hamster spinning the wheels to make sure everything gets done.

This time around, I realized that we didn't have anyone to speak about their own mental health experiences or what the organization meant to them ... or anyone to ask people for money.

Somehow I have managed to sandwich that into five minutes. (And no, I am not going to use the word "Fuck" in my speech. I save that kind of talk for the office.)

Now I worry about falling on the way up to the podium, spilling coffee...etc.

Cross your fingers for me. I'll be much more relaxed (hopefully) after Tuesday.

Also, thanks so very much to everyone who has sent me well wishes and donations for this cause. If you missed that post and still want to contribute a buck or two, visit here.

PS I stole this awesome LOLcat from my long-lost sister twin at Rainbows and Unicorns. 
Check out her blog, she is fantastic!

PPS This is post #700. Wow. I had no idea I had that much to say.

No, it's not spam.

A colleague called me at work today.

"I'm sending you an e-mail, but it's not spam. The subject line makes it look like spam," she said.

Me: "What's in the subject line?"
She: "Sex toys."
Me: "WTF?!"
She: "No, really, it's legitimate! It's a gender equity forum at (a local university.)"

So she forwarded me an e-mail about a forum on sex toys and how they are supposed to be good for self-esteem and body image.

She is on a list serve at a local university that is putting on this workshop.

I can only imagine how many professionals saw the subject line and thought this professor's e-mail had been hacked.

The caveat: the sex toy workshop is being held on the same day/time as my upcoming event for work.

Mr. RK says, "I think you will have some attendance problems."

Wordless Wednesday

(I found this on Claire's blog. Happy hump day!)

Spring, where the F art thou?

Around this time of year, certain things happen to provide evidence that spring is on the way. Among them: Girl Scout cookies (nom), Cadbury eggs (also nom), cherry and plum blossoms.

Indeed, Tuesday is officially the first day of spring.

And yet...there was FUCKING SNOW last week. Yes, this looks pretty for about a minute, until I get on the freeway and no one can drive in it and my half-hour commute turns into a 90-minute commute. And both of my colleagues live 5 minutes away.

And it is supposed to fucking snow today. And yes, I feel very entitled using the word fuck because, well, what the fuck?!

What the hell? My relatives in Illinois tell me it is IN THE 80s!

I don't need it to be in the 80s. I just want a little compromise here.

I mean, the Easter bunny is going to skip town at this rate.

I'm going on strike. I officially refuse to recognize the weather until it behaves.

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way, because yesterday (which got up to a balmy 45 degrees) I saw people wearing shorts. Many people. It made me cold just looking at them.

I'm not going that far. I'll just be here doing a warm weather dance.

Lovely!

The amazingly witty Nellie Vaughn gave me this lovely award, which I totally don't deserve. The meme associated with this is that I share seven dull things about myself and tag other people.

I can't keep up with how many people have this award, so please consider yourself tagged if you would like to post. You should go read her seven things, because they're actually anything but dull.

1. My first celebrity crush was Bob from Sesame Street. What can I say, I was five. I've always had a thing for older men. I think he's probably pushing 70 now.

2. I like to write notes.

3. If I could never eat another cheese enchilada, I would drown in my own tears. Really.

4. I just sent a Fashion Dream Ken doll to a colleague as a thank-you present.

5. I have a lot of dreams that take place in the same locations, but they are places I haven't been in real life.

6. I took a semester of Hebrew in college but forgot how to say anything except, "Shut up!"

7. Sometimes I make lolrelatives. This one was created after one brother was complaining about the other brother hogging the space in his iphone by taking pictures for eBay.

TILT

I just realized driving home tonight that Things I Like Thursday, which I heard about from the lovely Claire, can be shortened to TILT. Clearly I have been working in nonprofit stuff for too long. Not only do I now know the acronyms, I am coming up w/my own!

So here is my TILT for the day - and mind you, I almost did not post because it's been kind of a crap week. I reactivated an injury, and still fighting a bug, lost a major sponsor for an event at work because they are cutting donations, etc. etc.

BUT! I did manage to find some things I like. I was thinking about this because I went to a dinner tonight for another nonprofit that we work with - they focus on substance abuse prevention and treatment and suicide prevention. Heavy stuff. But there I sat, in a room of several hundred people who cared enough to come out on a Thursday night to help support this group.

Which made me think...things I like:

1. I like my little black dress. As many of you know, I live near and work in Portland, which is in a state whose Governor wears jeans. Even when he met the President, he wore jeans. Tonight, people actually dressed up, and I have to say, I looked good.

2. I also have not worn this dress since the late 1990s (don't worry, it's a classic) because for awhile it did not fit. Now it does. Hurray! Sorry to go all girly on you, but I just had to. I did not, however, wear heels, or this would have happened:

3. I like working for a nonprofit. After several years of being a reporter and not really enjoying it, I did a brief stint in public relations/ad copy writing/marketing. Even though we had mostly nonprofit clients, I hated every minute of it. It was like that part in The Muppets Take Manhattan where Kermit the Frog has a concussion and goes to work in an ad agency and calls himself Phil Phillip. (Translation: I fit in about as well in that industry as a frog in a suit.)

And while we are on that note, someone asked me tonight how I "got into this field," the field being mental health advocacy. It's an odd story, but comes down to destiny. It is one of the best things that has ever happened in my life. Even when I have a difficult day, it's better than my best day in PR.

Coming to work at our organization, I don't feel like a defective person because I live with depression and anxiety. On a daily basis, I get to help connect people with resources that they have described as "life-saving" and "life-changing." And we offer all of our programs free of charge.

And that is why I want to kick ass fundraising this year for our upcoming walk.

The goal:

In years past, many of you have been kind and generous enough to support me in this effort (indeed, a few of you already have this year - thank you!) If you are able to do so again, I will take any bucks that come my way.

We never sell your info to anyone. We never add you to mailing lists. And 90% of your money stays right in my organization (10% goes to our national organization, which helps us by giving us a web site and other administrative help.)

If you would like to find out more, please visit here. If you're unable to donate, please wish me luck!

I will eat them on a boat, on a plane, on a train...

Brownie points if you catch that reference.

I've been debating what to write about, as several issues of national importance have been occupying my mind, and then I thought, fuck it. I am going to write about Girl Scout cookies.

Yes, cookies.

These ingenius little marketers have caught me and my cash three times in the past two weeks. (How many cookies are left? I take the Fifth.)

A couple of years ago, some self-righteous columnist in our local rag wrote about 500 words of filth, chastising the Girl Scouts for selling something as unhealthy as said cookies for a fundraiser. It's not healthy, she said, so they shouldn't do it.

Cookies aren't healthy? No way! Stop the presses! I can't believe it!

That is why, in the words of the idiots who neutered Cookie Monster, "Cookies are a sometimes food." (Hello, he is a Cookie MONSTER, you fools. But that is a debate for another time, and one I have probably had on this blog before.)

So I told the parents of the Girl Scouts who sold me the cookies that the column just made me want to go out and buy more cookies.

And so I have, every spring. Rant over. Nom nom.