Apparently coming out of the closet after you've become famous affords you the right to get the most horrid haircut in history. Maybe the editors of Rosie magazine aren't all that far off base. I'd imagine that her if "vision and ideas" have anything to do with aesthetics, it might be just as well that they part ways.

posted by paula 11:49 PM

I’m not one to sit still for quite some time so I look to magazines, short articles, etc. for my literature. I read other’s blogs for inspiration, in part because they make me think. Yesterday I was reading Layne’s post about men being the ‘less complicated sex’ and the women who claim that it’s easier to be friends with men than women and it got me to thinking. While I believe that Layne probably has her points, I have to respectfully disagree with them.

Maybe it’s because I was part tomboy growing up. My only sister is ten years older than me and we’re quite close now but I had to look to my older brother for entertainment in my younger years. I owned Barbies, but spent most of my time playing hide-n-seek with my brother and his friends or playing with his miniature cars in the sandbox outside, which eventually became mine. I have always been better friends with men than women, growing tired of female friends that drain me with whining, endless depressing phone calls, over-analyzing the opposite gender and are just plain moody and choose to take it out on men. To this day, I feel like my life is a little unbalanced and wonder whether I should actively seek out more women friends to ‘bond’ with. But I’m happy with the few female friends I have and should another come along that I can tolerate for long periods of time, I think we’ll no doubt form a friendship.

It’s not that I believe that women have some unearthly complexities about them that men lack. It’s that I believe women are more complicated because they make themselves that way and so I choose to surround myself with people who don't engage in stereotypical, otherwise ‘catty’ female behavior. Believe it or not, even my gay male friends don’t flame that much.

If you want to reduce relationships to a science by examining them in terms of numbers or a series of X and Y chromosomes, let’s look at this way: For our friends that come seeking relationship advice with a long line of suitors that were questionable in nature, I advise: The only thing consistent about your failed relationships is you. Science is a matter of consistencies, which in turn form probabilities. If you’re going to look at it from a purely scientific point of view, you have to admit that you are the only consistent element in each of your failed relationships. Sounds like tough love? Perhaps. But I’m giving you a dose of Dr. Phil when I say that you may not be dysfunctional just because you leave a trail of psychotic, misogynistic men behind you. It may simply be that you lack good judgment. Or on a deeper note, you have some subconscious thought telling you that you’re not worthy of a good relationship, so consciously you set yourself up for failure. Whatever it is, I’m tired of hearing women say things like “I can’t trust men,” or “I have a hard time trusting people,” or “I seem to attract weirdos.” Scientifically, people are not magnets like we think they are. We are millions of cells, filled with energy and we go around looking to put that energy into something, whether it be positive or negative. When energy leaves a space, that space needs to be filled. It can either be filled with positively or negatively charged energy and believe it or not, it’s your choice which one it is. It’s no coincidence that your hopeless, depressed friend meets failure or doom at every turn, seemingly in some sort of trouble every time you talk. Conversely, it’s no coincidence that the most successful person you know has a wonderful career and a long line of healthy relationships surrounding him or her. Think about it for a while.

posted by paula 1:01 PM

I think I’m going to stop banking with NLCB bank. After I received a statement in the mail regarding “my” wire transaction, I decided that enough was enough and with statement in hand, I moseyed into my local branch and asked to speak with a personal banker. One of the three ladies at the front desk offered to help investigate the transfer.
Before I continue, there’s a little something that needs to be explained: When you walk into the branch of my bank, there is a large ‘front desk’ to the left, that’s in an L shape. Three women sit there, all at computers, two facing me and one with her back to me. That said, let’s get back to the story.
The woman who volunteered her services was kind enough to ask for an ID to go along with my wire statement to verify that I was indeed who I said I was. She made a few phone calls to the ‘wire division,’ wherever that may be and found out that the money was never intended for me. It was intended for some company named International Team Incentives. She also mentioned that it wasn’t a clerical error that the money ended up in my account. You see, when NLCB bank buys out other conglomerates (which they’ve been doing quite frequently as of late) they don’t bother to change any account or routing numbers through out the mergers. It turns out that International Team Incentives and I just happen to have the same account number. As do several others as well. She explained that when you wire money, if the names on the accounts don’t match, the wire shouldn’t go through. In this case, it did.
What’s even better is that from the time that the teller was making phone calls to the time that she was thanking me for my honesty, I noticed that the teller with her back to me was steadily working on her computer – updating accounts. The account names, numbers and balances were all well within my line of sight and very legible. An older couple came in to speak with her; she looked up their account and then actually stepped away from the computer, leaving their account numbers and balances for everyone to see. They have a credit card, a money market and a checking account – I’ll leave it at that. And this is all from a bank that refuses to insure theft on your debit card, so they put a $500/day spending limit on it, in case of theft.
Of course, being an honest John I contemplate emailing or writing a letter to let them know of their error, but I question whether it would do any good. Why should I sit down, spend my time drafting a reasonably professional letter to inform them of their mistakes, after I’ve already spent an hour of my time clearing up the first one that was made? So instead, I might leave. That’s the beauty of capitalism.

posted by paula 2:49 PM

I have very little to say today, aside from three things:
1. I played a little prank on someone and I'm not sure how to interpret her reaction. Apparently I am outdated and old. Poo. Never fear, she got revenge on me by posting rather unflattering pictures of me on her website, to which I will refrain from linking.
2. I am still an Eleven Thousandaire. We're investigating the matter.
3. Nice redesign on the site, Lynsey. Damn you for having access to such professional graphics, while the rest of us have to make due with our own personal photos!

posted by paula 12:54 PM

A day in the life of an eleven thousandaire.
Had I known that today might be like today, I wouldn’t have dreaded today so much yesterday. With the expectancy to pay bills sometime today, I sat down at my desk to double check the balance in my checking account. I bank with One of the Nation’s Largest Conglomerate Banks, which we’ll call NLCB for short. I logged in online and there it was. Just sitting there. A large deposit in the amount of $11,000. Eleven thousand, one hundred seventy seven dollars and twenty five cents, to be exact. Obviously, one would expect a transfer of this type and would be looking for it immediately, but my surprise deposit was made on the not-so-lucky Friday the 13th. Thinking that this is sometimes a botch job that happens online, I called the automated teller at NLCB to verify its existence. Yep. It’s there all right. It had been wired from a bank in Singapore late last week.

For a split second, I imagined that the money might actually be intended for me and that I should keep it, but then envisioned waking one morning to the FBI at my door, wondering what my ties were to a local Asian terrorist cell in Minnesota. You know, should the Asian terrorist cells one day actually outnumber the Iraqi ones. After a long, hard swallow or two I called to speak with a friendly teller at NLCB. She verified once again that the money was indeed meant for my account, although I assured her that it was not. “What a nice gift!” she countered nonchalantly. She assured me that it was not a clerical error as I thought but if I wanted to file a discrepancy report I would need to jump through a few hoops to do so, which required entering a local division of NLCB with a picture ID in hand, drafting and filing paperwork and other assorted duties. Amazed, I hung up the phone, wondering “Does our society really make it this difficult to be honest?”

I suspect that the intended recipient will notice that his money has gone missing and it will be properly debited from my account any hour now, as well as the $11 service charge that I paid for said transaction.
And while I’m sure banking errors happen on quite a daily basis, I doubt they happen on this large of a scale. When dealing with that amount of money, I would think that one would double check the account number. That is, unless I have a long lost Asian cousin that has passed away and willed me a sum of money. Regardless, for a few short hours I was an eleven thousandaire.

posted by paula 2:47 PM

Dreaded Sundays. No matter who you are or what Monday brings (school or work or nothing) chances are that Sundays cause a little knot of dread in the pit of your stomach. While I don’t think that it may be because you hate your job or school, I prefer to look Sundays as the relishing of a ‘well-done weekend’ and the hello to ‘wiping the slate clean’.

So it’s Sunday and I’m looking back at the weekend to see if there’s anything of note to publicly yap about. It’s sunny and seventy degrees – a wonderful fall day. The trees lend their leaves to make patches of shade in the yard, which Friday moves into when he’s decided that he’s too hot to take the sun anymore. There’s a murmur of a football announcer in the living room, while I know that Ry’s probably falling asleep as I type. The usual drone of cars that buzz down Normandale have fallen silent, their drivers probably not enticed enough by the road to be drawn out of their yards. This is fall in Minnesota. And nothing could be better.

Fall is perhaps my favorite season. At first I thought it might have something to do with the fact that finally, just finally the northern states have something to hold over the rest of the nation – our fall trees. Sure the rest of the states experience fall colors to some degree, but not like here. From the time that the first leaf changes to a shock red and the final one falls, our trees are awash with nature’s brightest primary colors, almost as if they’re the last big blast of fireworks lit off before the evening falls dark. I’ve always thought that Wisconsin, primarily my hometown, has the best and brightest colors but Minnesota is a very close second. Our new Georgian neighbor moved in here this spring and hasn’t seen our fall and winter yet. I suspect he’ll be surprised in both respects.

The best part about fall (and spring, for that matter) is that it’s not quite like the other seasons. It’s a season of change. And change is what I do best. Dormancy gets old and boring. Habit is monotonous. Change brings a twinge of excitement and expectation. Ideally, I’ve always wanted to pursue a career in this area: aiding people through change. Change Management. But do people really look for other people to help them through change? Most people are resistant to it, so I’d imagine business would be slow when people don’t want to have to use your product.

Friday night we spent a night with our Irish friend (and wife) at Lucia’s in uptown. A quiet evening, we walked from their apartment there and spent a few hours drinking wine and laughing. I’d imagine that a night like that often goes down in one’s memory book. Good friends. Good wine. Good food.

Saturday was dinner out with the Georgian neighbor and girlfriend, then off to Nate and Eric’s for their new house warming party.* Today, it’s quite evident what we’re doing: nothing.

I did cook. I made my first official ‘hot dish.’ For those of you non-Midwesterners, ‘hot dish’ is what the rest of the world calls casserole. Hot dish varies by family, but just about every family has a recipe. Although a bill hasn’t been drafted, word is that they’re considering making it necessary, by law, to have at least one recipe in order to be considered for residency in the tri-state area. Its premise is this: to use out whatever perishable goods might be in danger of expiration within the near future. Commonly used ingredients are: ground beef, onions, corn, pasta, tomato or cream based sauce of any sort, cheese, and potatoes in the form of tater tots. I say nay to tater tots but to each his own. Precook ingredients as necessary, throw into a large Dutch oven or baking dish, warm in oven and voila! You have yourself a little bit of Minnesota goodness. Should any of you need a good recipe I’d be more than happy to pass mine on – it’s my maternal grandmother’s, which I’m told she named “Italian Delight.” That’s funny. We’re not Italian.
Nevertheless, I went to www.hotdish.com, in hopes to find a plethora of hot dish recipes only to find that it’s a portal to porn. Go figure.

*I would post pictures, but the great majority of them are of five people, which would make it seem like we were the only ones at the party.

posted by paula 5:26 PM