"G" Day

Positive vibes. I'm picking up my glasses at 11:00 o'clock this morning.

Groovy

One of my lovely and tender-hearted colleagues is married to a great guy.

When he was born, his parents named him Alistair, after some long-dead relative. Pretty stuffy name for a little chap. Not exactly the sort of thing you want to advertise on key rings or little plaques over your bedroom door.

When Alistair started school, his friends took matters into their own hands. They immediately re-christened him "Groovy".

The name has stuck.

His friends call him Groovy. His new wife calls him Groovy. Now even his parents call him Grovvy.

I love this story.

It's worth remembering that no matter what you're dealt, changing how you look at it can make a real difference.

Have a groovy day.

Ferosh is the new Fierce

My BFF, who is my barometer of all things cool, tells me that "Ferosh" is the new "Fierce".

Picture this at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Announcer: Ferosh

Speller: Could you repeat the word please?

Announcer: Fe-rosh

Speller: Can you use it in a sentence?

Announcer: You look ferosh in those D & G pants.

Speller: May I please have the definition?

Announcer: Meaning: an abbreviation of ferocious. A look or event so completely extraordinary that it takes on an intensity of its own.

Student: Origin?

Announcer: First articulated by Christian, the winner of Project Runway.

Anyway, hope you have a ferosh day.

***

Thank you, dear responders, to my rant of yesterday. I would happily walk away EXCEPT I have already left a sizable deposit. Not willing to give that up...yet.

Oooh oooh, oooh oooh oooh...you got a bad attitude

The silicone chip inside my head has switched to overload.

I'm feeling nasty and venomous toward the people where I bought my new eyeglasses.

You may recall my post of more than a month ago. I was really excited to pick up my new glasses.

I turned up for the fitting and it turned out that they'd done the measurement incorrectly.

When I picked up the plasticized sheet to read it, it looked like the left side of the paper was much longer than the right. This happens some time -- apparently -- when someone has an astigmitism. I have two...because I'm special.

Anyway, I went through two dispensing opticians that day until I landed on the owner who assured me that he would put a rush on a replacement set of lenses.

About a week and a half later I get a call.

The lenses have arrived. They are scratched! They are going to re-order the lenses. They are going to put a rush on these, too.

Ahhhhhh!

So, a week passes and I call again. The lenses have not arrived. The woman I speak to says she can insert the scratched lenses into my frames for me if I like. I say no thanks.

So I call again yesterday. It is nearly a week later. The glasses are still not ready. I am assured they will be ready this week. Because of problems the first go-round, the owner has asked me to ensure that he do the fitting.

You guessed it, owner will be away for most of this week. Woman says, "Someone else can do the fitting." I say, I would prefer the owner because, in my head, I'm imagining everything that CAN go wrong because of everything that has gone wrong.

Negative thinking, watch me spin.

Anyway....

I tell the woman I am speaking to -- turns out that she is the co-owner -- that this has been an unpleasant experience. She clearly does not know the whole situation, nor does she subscribe to the theory that the customer is always right. She infers that the change in my prescription is what has caused this gong show.

This last part hit the cap c button on crazy for me.

Now I'm livid. Livid and short-sighted...in so many ways!

My re-re-appointment is on Saturday morning.

Strength. Perspective. Serenity.

3 persons, living or dead

We're in the midst of the annual kitten-herding exercise known as intern interviewers.

A course requirement of graduation with a post-doc certificate in copywriting from a local college, is a period of unpaid work placement.

Agencies love unpaid work placements. It makes them feel all powerful and gooey inside.

This year, the best part of our unpaid work placement is that we've actually budgeted to keep the successful candidate on once the unpaid term ends. So we're not just interviewing for a freebie, we're looking for a kitten we can keep.

We met two candidates yesterday. Both talented in their own way.

Then we came to the part of the interview where I ask my hypothetical questions. This is always my favourite part of the process. Often the only genuine moment of true personality in the whole structured and stressful process.

If you could invite 3 persons to dinner -- living or dead -- who would they be?

Interestingly, both candidates included Sigmund Freud as one of their three people.

Freud!

Weird.

I've gone years with everyone from Mama Theresa to Tiffany Amber Thiessen and I get 2 Freuds in a day!

In case you're wondering, my three are:

JD Salinger
Siddhartha
A true toss up between Spalding Gray and David Sedaris (for neurotic levity)

Anyway, wondering who you, dear readers, would choose as your three persons of choice? I will not hold you to these choices should the opportunity to resurrect your dead dinner companions come to pass.

Biting the Big Apple

I'm feeling a little discombobulated from my late arrival from New York last night, but wanted to share a few things.

1) Fly Porter Airlines. From the free cappucino bar and treats in the departure line, to the boxed breakfast on board the aircraft, to the beautifully designed uniforms sported by the flight attendants, every aspect of travel with Porter was top notch. They've managed to recapture the glory days of air travel. I would definitely fly them again -- and we KNOW how much I love my Aeroplan Points.

2) Eat at 'inoteca. This Lower East Side Italian restaurant serves tapas style portions that are perfect for sharing, even though you'll want to hoard them all to yourself. The location, on Rivington Street, is a great spot for people watching.

3) Eat at 44 & X. We stumbled on this Hell's Kitchen restaurant for Sunday brunch. It only employs phenomenally good looking men who are, of course, only hot for each other. We were hot for a spectacular breakfast extravaganza. They're famous for a fresh take on comfort food. Bring your heart meds and try the macaroni and cheese. It looks incredible.

4) Take a tour of the Tenament Museum. These fascinating tours fill up early. You can book a time online before you go. This was my second time visiting the museum, but I'll probably go again the next time I'm in New York.

5) Buy Christian Loubtoutin shoes. If you don't know Christian Louboutin, you probably don't care that the Sex in the City movie is coming out this weekend. One of my friends paid over $700 for a pair of these shoes. Not what I'd spend my money on, but I really had to admire the toe cleavage. They're gorgeous, and they have a characteristic red sole.

Unwired

I'll be unwired for a few days.

Tomorrow I'm at an all-day Creative Fusion session, where they bring in numerous creative teams, give us all the same brief, and send us off to brainstorm and come up with ideas within a strict time limit.

The best (and only) Fusion I've ever participated in was with my great friend and best-partner-ever, Barb.

It took place off the coast of the Netherlands, on the tiny and picturesque island of Texel. In a shootout with teams from around the world, we actually won. Not only Gold...but Gold and Silver.

We were floored.

They made a video of the process, and Barb and I have the shocked look of having just returned from Alien base camp.

It was one of my proudest and happiest moments. The fact that we were able to produce work at all -- given that this Creative Fusion took place little more than a week after my Dad died -- is testament to some Providential guidance.

But winning wasn't even the best thing to come out of that exercise. It was seeing what the other teams came up with. It was watching how individual personalities interpreted the same brief.

We so rarely get the opportunity to see that, in this business.

It's usually one team, as many ideas as they generate, and go. Creative Fusion is a real exercise in relativity. If you're used to thinking that everyone should and does think like you, Creative Fusion will knock you on your ass.

The Creative Fusion session runs from 8:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. -- a real killer.

Then, the next morning, I'm off to NYC for some fun and frivolity with friends.

One time at Cat Camp

My cat, Buddy Benson, has gone to stay with my BFF, and his Gay Dad, for a couple of days.

It's not only Cat Camp, it's cat heaven.

Instead of spending his days lounging on 20-year old wicker chairs from Pier One, Buddy can now recline on my BFF's Hermann Miller chair, while gazing lovingly at his collection of coffee table books. My BFF has a spectacular flat screen TV and surround sound to keep Budlet entertained, and his furriness will probably come home knowing Madonna's new album better than I do.

Even though he's been gone for less than twenty four hours, I really miss him. Despite the fact that he's prone to shedding an entire other cat every day, the place seems cavernous without him.

C'mon get happy

Okay, I've got another guilty pleasure for you. I'm beginning to worry about myself.

What to do

What a glorious feeling it is to wake up, on a week day, and know you have an entire day at your work-free disposal.

My To-Do list for this weekend has 18 items on it. Happily, two of these are "get a pedicure" and "get a massage". I'm doing both this morning. Some of the other items are less self indulgent, but are all designed to give me a sense of accomplishment when the weekend is through.

Crossing items off the list -- any list -- just makes me feel better.

I've been in a bit of a pink cloud of gratitude these past few days.

Blindsided by bliss

"I'm a kind of paranoic in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy," JD Salinger wrote.

That's how I felt this morning when I was blindsided by bliss.

One of my good Australian friends emailed me out of the blue. He's scheduled to attend a meeting in Ottawa and wondered if he should do so via Toronto so we could have a visit and catch up.

YES!

What a lovely start to the weekend that will include more catching up with more friends, including my beautiful Polish friend whose name I always struggle to spell correctly, since it includes about 15 different consonants all strung together.

KD is turning 40, which must be rough for an avowed Bohemian like himself. Probably not, though, since he's always marched to the beat of his own drummer. A talented MAC Artist, he has also worked as a bike courier and a decorative ceiling installer in the ten years I've known him. In recent years he's traded in his mohawk for a shiny bald head. He's a beautiful guy.

Happy weekend, everyone.

The five hour meeting

I'm at home now, preparing myself for a five hour client meeting.

While I love this client, and I know a lot of the people who will be at the meeting -- thereby reducing any stress -- I generally start looking and acting like a crack addict about hour three of these things.

I'd like to think I'm not the only one, but it appears to me that the corporate world thrives on meetings. In fact, having meetings seems to be a job unto itself.

What do you do?

I meet.

What do you meet about?

Planning more meetings.

I may need to pull out the look. You know the one. You probably have one of your own. Chin resting on thumb and forefinger. Head slightly cocked to the right. Eyes fixed on the speaker. The odd smile and nod.

It's the look that says "I'm interested," while the mind is saying "Don't you think you should really spring for a new toilet brush?"

Meet you there.

Legislating common sense

Is it just me, or have you noticed an unusually high number of people riding bicycles without helmets?

Are they crazy?

It's a rhetorical question.

An open letter to the Universe

Dear Universe,

Hi. How are you? I am fine.

Thanks for everything you did finding me my house. I still love it a lot, even though I haven't hung my pictures yet. I'm planning to do that this weekend, along with a dozen other jobs I've been putting off.

But that's not why I'm writing to you.

I was wondering if you wouldn't mind looking in your little bag of love interests and choosing someone just for me.

Because it worked so well in the past, I'll give you my wish list, but feel free to surprise me.

I'm looking for someone who is: kind, funny, smart, quirky, positive, self-supporting, independent, trustworthy, well-travelled, and monogamous.

While you're at it, it would be great if you sent someone who I get, and who gets me. I can be a handful, Universe, as you know.

Depressive personalities and addictive tendencies need not apply.

It would be great if it was easy, too -- an instant connection that just gets better with time. My day job takes a lot of work, I'd like the easy bit to be after hours.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Your Friend,

Franny Glass

P.S. I realize after reading the above that you might be tempted to send me a puppy. This is not the surprise I am after.

FG
XX00

And now, a word from our spiritual leader

No matter which side of the spiritual fence you come down on, unless you're a member of a Chinese junta, you have to admire the Dalai Lama.

Who else, except maybe for Gandhi, Mama Theresa and Paula Abdul, have been so consistently positive in the face of incredible adversity?

For you, this Friday morning:

We can never make peace in our outer world, until we make peace with ourselves.


Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.


If you can, help others; If you cannot, at least do not harm them.


If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Boys don't make passes

My new eyeglasses are ready. I'm picking them up tonight.

I don't even want to tell you how much they're costing me.

My prescription alone, with the requisite progressive lenses signalling my impending decrepitude, costs more than a sizable plot of land in a South American dictatorship.

Still, I'm pretty excited about them.

When you consider that I can barely get to the bathroom in the middle of the night without putting on my glasses, they're an investment worth making. Plus, I'm hoping they'll help me on the spring fever front.

Walking the talk

I ordinarily walk to work. It takes me about 35 minutes, at a good clip.

My route takes me over the Bloor Viaduct, so I get the quintessential Toronto experience -- a view of the Don Valley and the CN Tower (which I've yet to go up, despite taking every visitor from out of town I've ever had to its mighty base, to experience the grandeur).

It's such a pleasant way to start the day.

That thirty five minutes of heart-pumping exercise helps me march out the cobwebs and allows me to arrive at work without the all-too-familiar shoulders above the ears feeling that accompanies multiple deadlines.

Last week, because of a variety of early morning meetings, I either TTCed it or drove.

Toward the end of last week, I noticed that while my problems were the same, my reaction to them was different. I had a harder time prioritizing. I had a harder time sleeping. There was no outlet for my excess energy.

Yesterday and today, I had the good fortune to walk. I even walked home last night. What a difference exercise makes to my stress level.

Idea Graveyard

Nearly every creative person I know has a story about the idea the client didn't buy.

I used to have one such example in my book.

It was for a Chapters Online campaign meant to run in gay pubs during the week long Pride festivities. The offer was a $5 off all books purchased online. The visual was of a hand perched on top of a mouse. The headline read: 5 bucks for a hand job.

I recorded four radio spots for Stratford yesterday.

Here's one of the ones they didn't pick:

(SFX: Sound of newspaper ruffling)
(Woman’s Voice)
Babe, I think we should see a musical at Stratford this summer?

(Man’s Voice)
Why don’t you just kill me now?

(Woman)
I think you’ll like this one.

(Man)
Like I liked “27 Dresses”? No thanks. I still feel emasculated.

(Woman)
No seriously. Cabaret has sex, politics and intrigue….

(Man – chimes in enthusiastically)
…sounds like Hookergate!...

(Woman)
…unforgettable songs, great dance numbers…and nudity.

(Man)
Sold!

(Narrator)
The 2008 Festival season has begun.

Have you got your tickets?

Call 1-800-567-1600 or visit Stratford Shakespeare Festival dot com.

See, the early bird really does catch the worm

Lucky, lucky me. Some people working on a big project at work were looking for someone to fly to Nova Scotia this weekend. The task: to drive around the province, visit retailers, and observe the client's product in a real retail setting.

Are you kidding me?

You'll pay me to fly somewhere, rent a car, stay in a fancy hotel, and go shopping? I'm the luckiest girl on the planet.

So that's how I spent my weekend.

I'm still reeling from Digby scallops and salt cod mashed potatoes I had for dinner at the Five Fishermen in Halifax on Saturday night. That, and the sight of Team Latvia, with their faces painted blue, in town for the World Hockey Championship.

I don't care what anyone says. Maritimers really are nicer than the rest of us.

I got up especially early on Sunday morning to drive to Peggy's Cove, where I ate breakfast overlooking the Atlantic. I had to put my hand on the lighthouse to remind myself that this was really happening. It was.

Wow. Great weekend.

What just happened?

Do you ever really know someone?

You're going along in your relationship and suddenly, seemingly out of left field, something completely out of character happens. You're absolutely blind-sided.

This was the hot topic during my haircut last evening.

My beloved hairdresser (who is also my new neighbour, if you remember previous posts) was a week into a recent break-up with his partner of more than two years.

The partner came over one night (they weren't officially living together), had dinner, they watched a bit of Family Guy on TV, went to bed, had sex (we share the deets, my hairdresser and I) and, when my hairdresser was leaving for work the next morning, his partner announced that he'd bought himself a condo. A week ago.

Whump! You what?

I think we've all been on the receiving end of these kinds of revelations.

One minute you're on steady ground and the next you're flat on your back and looking up at the aurora borealis.

In my hairdresser's head, the future was joyful co-habitation and Kermit and Miss Piggy running through a field of daisies.

But the story is never as simple as it first appears. They never are.

When something like this happens, you tend to examine the past with the greatest of care. And you realize that there were signs along the way. Plenty of them.

But sometimes the desire for daisies suppresses all reality.

God do I know that drill.

My hairdresser said that his partner had never once told him he loved him in the last year and a half that they were together. No amount of pleading, cajoling or pouting brought the desired result.

But rather than leave, he did back flips to try to make him happy. He did more, bought him more dinners, and took him on more trips -- all even though my hairdresser makes considerably less than his more affluent partner. He swallowed his own needs as he poured every ounce of energy into fixing the unfixable.

But this is the sad truth. No matter how hard you try, sometimes we love someone who has no love to give.

They broke up last Friday night after a conversation that lasted for more than two and a half hours. It was, my hairdresser admits, the longest period of unbroken conversation they'd had in a long, long while.

And when he was leaving, the now ex-partner turned to my hairdresser and said (you guessed it), "I love you very much, you know."

Whump squared.

Mini Me

This morning I'm interviewing someone at 7:30 -- a time that generally makes creative people squirm or fart and roll over. She graduated from the same university as me (albeit 15 years later). And, like me, she spent a year in Australia. So I asked her what she took in her Starbucks, so I'd have it ready for her when she arrived. You guessed it...same order as me.

Did anyone see Fight Club? I think I might be interviewing myself.