the last dispatch from 2011

For Christmas, Santa brought me three long naps, a new digital camera and at least two six-hour-streaks of not thinking about work, even a little, not at all.

On Friday, I'm going to try to one-up him. Well, not on the napping part. Let's not kid ourselves, that much uninterrupted daytime sleeping may never happen again in my lifetime. But on the consecutive-hours-spent-not-thinking-about-work front, I think I might have a chance. I hope? I PRAY.

You see, on Friday morning at (once again) a time so ungodly early that I am prohibited to discuss it here by Federal Communications Commission regulations, I will get on a plane bound for southern California. And while this trip will be about 40 percent pleasure and 60 percent business, that precious 40 percent is happening on the front end, and I could not be happier for it.

I'll be meeting Emily at LAX on Friday afternoon -- you remember Emily, of the late-October-frenaissance -- and we'll head from there straight for San Diego, to meet up with my brother and (OF COURSE) hit The Hash House the next morning to send off 2011 like true Americans: painfully full and in a borderline diabetic coma.

We've got New Year's Eve plans to see some bands at a club recommended by a friend we made at CMJ, and then I think our tentative plans for the first few days of 2012 involve eating brunches, sitting on beaches, drinking in the middle of the day and reading (and discussing the contents of/falling asleep over) trashy magazines.

Emily leaves me mid-afternoon on January 3, and that's when the vacation will be over for me, as well. I've got a gaggle of meetings scheduled for the next four days -- people to meet, brains to pick. And of course, I'll be reconnecting with some old friends who live in the area, as well.

So I guess I'll see y'all on the flipside -- quite literally, in 2012 -- with plenty of stories and adventures and various and assorted shenanigans from my travels.

And at some point I'm probably going to have to write one of those year-end wrap-up posts I always threaten to write. Because something tells me that in so many, many ways, this year has been the first year of the rest of my life. I need to send it off in style.

cheers,

elizabeth

on the order of allegiances

You may know that I love basketball.

You more likely know that, specifically, I love Memphis basketball, and that I'm incapable of joking about it with non-fans, not even a little bit, and that on more than one occasion people have been assaulted for lesser offenses.

You may also know that on Sunday, Memphis played my alma mater, Murray State, at home at the FedEx Forum. And I was there, along with Cristin (who also went to Murray), both of us decked out head-to-toe in Memphis gear (earrings included, CLEARLY).

Yes, I went to Murray State, and yes, I was pulling for Memphis. Many people have a hard time understanding this, especially given that I absolutely loved my college experience. I loved Murray, and the university and my sorority and any and all things Racers. I marched in the Racer Band, I edited The Murray State News, I WON AT COLLEGE. Every single year in October I will travel back to Murray and catch up with my sisters and go to a football game and cheer for the blue and gold and buy heaps of paraphernalia in the book store to announce to everyone who cares to know that I am a proud alumna of Murray State University.

But Sunday wasn't about that. The thing is, I was born a Tiger. Arguably, I was born because of the Tigers. I can't turn that off. I can't love something more than that. It's for life. In fact, the very idea of pulling for someone else against the Tigers makes me feel so uncomfortable that I'm not even going to entertain it any further here, for fear that even IMAGINING the possibility would inflict some type of Bambino-level curse on my boys and then they REALLY might never make a free throw again.

And all of that is why Sunday's game was just about the worst two-and-a-half hours I have ever passed inside the FedEx Forum. We played like rented rats. We showed up during the last 60 seconds of the game. The passing game was ugly, the ball handling was uglier and overall we were so sloppy that I was pretty certain my dad was finally right, and the Little Sisters of the Blind truly had shown up to play this game for us.

I spent almost the entirety of the second half (save the last 60 seconds, when they showed up large) slumped back in my seat. I didn't stand. I didn't yell. There wasn't any point. They deserved every terrible thing that happened because they played like idiots.

And unfortunately as the buzzer sounded and those last 60 seconds of unbelievable plays were (SHOCKING) just not enough to make up for 39 minutes of abysmal basketball, I knew that I would hate this loss far more than any other. Because I knew that for at least a good week I would get to field some variation of this question: "Don't you feel just a little bit proud since it was Murray State?"

Much like the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff's parents, YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND. I hate this conversation. I hated that game. I hated the loss. I do not hate Murray. I love Murray. But I hate that we embarrassed ourselves and I hate that this is probably an indication of what the rest of this season may be like.

And then, when whoever it is that asked this question is still very interested in learning why or how I can love Memphis more than Murray, my brain is already gone. To Saturday. And our next game. Against Louisville.

And my official, professional opinion on the matter is: FUCKBALLS.

cheers,

elizabeth

the lady bits

On Thursday, I got to listen to the first read-through of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, as performed by the talented 2012 cast of the V-Day Memphis production benefiting Planned Parenthood. It was vag-tastic.

But seriously, y'all. I can't wait to see these women on stage in February. They're going to tear the roof off the mother. And it's a good thing, because this year we've got some big things happening and some big new challenges that I'm excited about conquering. We'll be at Circuit Playhouse for the first time -- more than double the capacity of our previous space -- and we're trying to raise $10,000 in honor of (or perhaps in retribution for?) Planned Parenthood's loss this year of Title X funding.

And so, with Thursday night's first rehearsal, begins the three to four months of each year that I spend all wrapped up in lady bits. My own lady bits, the cast's lady bits, abused women's lady bits, international lady bits, YOUR lady bits and especially all the lady bits of the women who benefit from the services of PPGMR.

Which, incidentally, also includes my lady bits.

Trying to raise $10,000 sort of seems crazy, yet I totally believe that we can do it. Of course, I usually totally believe that I can do anything. And sometimes that bites me in the ass. But on Thursday, and today, I feel especially thankful for it.

So here's to lady bits! Stay tuned here for show details and ticketing information in January. But before we go, why not up my search engine results just a little bit? Pussies Unite!

That oughta do it.

cheers,

elizabeth

defining abject terror

At such point in time as I actually manage to live through this whole starting-a-business thing, I think I'm going to write a book. And that book is going to be called: You Can't Tell Me What to Do (The Slightly Embellished but Mostly True Story of How I Got Laid Off, Got Angry & Started a Business that Probably Should've Never Worked, Ever).

That'll fit on The Times' best-seller list, right?

In one of the chapters in that book -- maybe the first chapter? -- I'm going to talk about abject terror. Many people might feel that describing just about anything as "abject terror" leans a tad on the side of hyperbole. I submit to you that these people have never started a business.

For those of us who have, abject terror is as common as a Tuesday afternoon. Or a Wednesday morning. Or maybe both! Today, as I was running some errands in the middle of a ridiculous day that was situated right in the middle of an even MORE ridiculous week, I decided I was going to write this book because of this very thing: ABJECT TERROR.

Because when you decide to do something like this, no one tells you that between once and 700,578 times each week you will experience (wait for it) abject terror that you have, in fact, made just about the stupidest decison in the history, even, of stupid decisions. Even compared to, say, sticking a paper clip in an electrical socket -- which a classmate of mine did in the eighth grade because he "wanted to see what would happen" -- this decision still seems completely, painfully obviously DUMB.

And then you wake up the next morning and (usually) find it in your heart to go a little easier on yourself. Until the next time.

This is what I will talk about, in my book. I will say, entrepreneurs! Abject terror is real. You will feel it. For some of you, it will feel like you are at the top of the Sears Tower on one of those tight-rope-walking thing-a-ma-jigs. For some of you it will sort of feel like overtime in a Tigers game. PERMANENTLY. And some of you will probably just be constipated for six months.

But however it manifests itself -- and this is the sentence I'm predicting/hoping/praying will be included in this chapter, though I can't know yet for sure -- it does eventually go away.

You will live through it.

Allegedly.

cheers,

elizabeth