Whaaaaat?

damnit. i was starting to believe.

Who owns who, here?

I'm reading Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. It's a quick, entertaining read and I'm excited to watch Choke with Mary Beth sometime soon...now that I'm on this brief trip of loving Portland authors.
My favorite quote from the book thus far:
"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug.
Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."
I love it.
It reminds me of my resistance to permanence.
I would like to think that I can walk away from all my possessions tomorrow if need be. I won't be "that lady" on the lifeboat, clutching armfuls of photographs, clothes, jewelry, etc. Nope.
I'm not sure I'm proud of this, but it simply exists in my brain and it might be a good thing to investigate.
So I did. I noticed a theme. All my life I've been preparing for some inevitable apocalypse:
- I won't get glasses. What if my plane crashes in the Rockies, I lose my eyewear, and can't lead the survivors to safety?
- I won't fix my front teeth, which I broke learning how to ride a bike in First Grade. They would have to file them down to pegs and then cap them. What if the caps fall off? OMG.
- I won't buy new housewares. Something akin to imprisonment comes out of it. Suddenly I'm working my big fancy job just to pay for the shiny new crap I bought at Ikea. Hence my love of Palahniuk's quote.
- I want to build a self-sustaining house completely of re-used and biodegradable materials. Satisfying thought to leave it to the earthworms, beetles, and varmints when I'm gone.
Hmm...What apocalypse is coming...?

And why do I want this chandelier for my stairwell so badly?

Hey there!

It's me, Mandy. Remember? We used to hang out.
I would pollute the ether with musings on B-School, cycling, ranch life, my pragmatic-hippie thoughts, and obsession with shoes. You tolerated me and indulged me via the Darden Admissions page.
Now I spend my days on Planet Frito, changing the world one chip at a time.
It's a really, really amazing experience and I am truly grateful that Scott Davies found me at Darden and brought me here. I am in over my head some days, but in true pro athlete style, I turn that into a challenge and wrestle the situation to the ground. Occasionally it hits me first and I get a black eye. But most of the time that summbitch is hogtied and I move on, a little wiser.
If you stalk my blog occasionally for updates, here are some. Long overdue:
- Logged first anniversary as a full-time Frito Lay employee. July 13. Yay!
- Celebrated first anniversary of living on Reiger Avenue
- Got a new kitteh. Renamed her "Zip Zip Zoom" (thanks, K.T. Rose!). Zipper, for short.
- Brutus got even more fat as a result of aforementioned kitteh. Tubby boy demands wet food mixed in with his kibble because his princess sister gets it. Who owns who here?
- Traveled to Jackson, Mississippi. Eye-opening and a really really good time since I got to go with my good friend Mary Beth. Frito has some fantastic people in the Jackson Zone and they were very generous with their time. The depressing part was that MS is in the bottom few states in terms of education quality, income per capita, and BMI (in this case, bottom of the list means big bottoms). Makes for interesting market dynamics and human interactions. Hm...
- Stay up way too late but seem to lack the gene that requires sleep. WTF?
- Discovered Dexter courtesy of Boy Wonder summer roommate Dave. OMG OMG OMG OMG. It's nearly as good as Arrested Development!
- Got re-addicted to Icanhascheezburger and failblog!!!!
- Saw my beloved Gina two times in 4 weeks! Yay! Texas!!!!
That's it for now. Will try to write more. In the meantime...here is a pic of me on my 33rd birthday. Time flies when you have amazing hair!
xo

Sweet!

DENVER, Colo. - A sweeping federal court verdict invalidating California's ban on same-sex marriages "moves America closer to its ideals of respecting individual freedom and treating all citizens equally under the law," Matthew Shepard Foundation board president Judy
Shepard said Wednesday.

Shepard, the mother of 1998 Wyoming anti-gay hate crime victim Matthew Shepard, serves on the advisory board of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which filed the legal challenge to the ban in May on behalf of citizens denied marriages by the 2008 law narrowly approved by voters.

"These plaintiffs are law-abiding, family-oriented, tax-paying citizens whose privacy was invaded, and whose dignity was affronted, by a misguided and unconstitutional law," Shepard continued.

"Their victory at trial shows that our courts still play a vital role in safeguarding the rights of minorities from majorities who misunderstand them. But more importantly, it proves the power of personal stories. Equal marriage rights are ultimately about people's families, and during the trial, their personal need for legal recognition of their relationships came through loud and clear," she added.

"After Matt came out to me, he once asked me if I thought gay couples would ever be allowed to get married," Shepard recalled. "I told
him I didn't think it would happen in my lifetime, but it probably would in his. It's so sad, and ironic, that it turned out the other way. But this case warms my heart, to think that his dream is still coming true."

Judy Shepard and her husband Dennis established the Matthew Shepard Foundation in 1998 after their son's murder in Laramie, Wyoming, to honor him in a manner appropriate to his reams, beliefs and aspirations. The Foundation seeks to "Replace Hate with Understanding, Compassion and Acceptance" through its educational, outreach and advocacy programs and by continuing to tell Matthew's story.

Anything goes in Australia

...because they let my nephew drive.

Kids mature early these days.

Now that I have electricity again...

I can use the internet. And find heartwarming videos like this:

Not to be outdone, Darden's David Shepro ("Shep", Class of 2010) created this:

Awwwwww...falling in love with the place all over again!

Deprivation study

I’m participating in a test at work where we go without using paper for one week.
No printing. No notetaking by hand. No agendas handed out at meetings. No pre-read decks.
Corporate psychologists warn that some might see you as “unprepared’ for not having an information binder at the ready. Credibility can easily be established and torn down by simple visual cues such as a notepad or a binder.
So that’s out the door…
This change is hard!
It may be more difficult for me than others, for I find great joy in the tactile presence of paper. Of lists to myself of tasks to complete, all laddering up to a mightier cause. It’s a Kanban system of the mind, one that enables me to keep track of my priorities and feel my way through projects. I rearrange pieces of paper that symbolize subsequent tasks to form a timeline. I ingest the critical path like it’s my lunch, and therefore can recite it backwards and forward to anybody who asks. Sounds hippy dippy and ridiculous, but trust me: I make it work! I’ve accomplished some pretty Herculean things with my methods, and the important thing is that they work for my brain chemistry.
The artist in me appreciates and loves the symmetry of lists. The satisfaction of a square box with a tidy checkmark trapped inside. The look of my handwriting flowing over the page (I write like Thomas Jefferson; not Jessica Wakefield). I enjoy the substantial feel of a well-made deck that sings to me with its colorful, strategically-placed graphics. I like the nearly-imperceptible scratch of my pen on paper, streaming my thoughts as I work toward whatever ambitious goals lay before me.
Occasionally, I even doodle in the margins. Study after study will tell you that doodling actually unlocks the creative, problem-solving mind. So don’t slap that little kid’s wrist who insists on filling his margins with shapes.
Call me silly.
Another deprivation study is going on in our house.
I walked out the door today and nearly tripped over the gigantic half of a tree that had fallen in our yard. Narrowly missing our roof and my shiny new Acura, it did a number on our power line. I left for the day, figuring that it would get worked out by the curly-haired ruffian boy who was still sleeping upstairs.
And it did…though it’s not over yet.
To the tune of $1,300 we now have a better electrical conduit on the side of our house and one less rotten tree in our yard.
The electrical company, of course, has no interest in reconnecting our power, so we are forced to wait until some city inspector visits our street and decides our improvements are up to code, enters our information into a system, which then feeds the electric company 24 hours later. The lengths to which all parties involved (except Jonny, the arborists, and the electrician) go to NOT do their jobs inspire awe. If I put that much effort into DOING my job, I’d be CEO in, like, 25 months.
Someone once told me “Mandy, you’re too motivated for government work.”
Watch out, Al Carey.
While I bide my time and wait for Al to figure out that I’m next in line, I enjoy the quiet of my front porch, free from a light or sound except crickets. No whir of the air conditioning. No internet streaming on my laptop. Just me and my leftover emails from 6 o’clock.
If the battery dies I’m not concerned. I’m going in at 5 tomorrow anyway to catch up on the world that I missed by not being on the internet for 12 hours. It disgusts me at the same time I accept that it is the parameters of a life I chose.
But for the moment, I’m pretty analog.
I ate my dinner by candlelight and now stroke my kitty’s coat on a street that has too small a tax base to afford streetlights. All I see is the grey-rose glow of the Metromess above the trees.
The power may be on by Wednesday…but knowing the ambitions of certain city/utility employees to avoid doing any work…I’ll give it ‘till Thursday.
In the meantime we are trying not to open the fridge and are periodically borrowing power from the neighbors to keep the farmshare cold. The hot water doesn't work, but since I hate showering and we don’t do dishes every night, it’s no big deal.
I feel strangely disconnected from the world; yet tuned in at the same time. Perhaps because I just finished Dean Koontz’s The Taking, I am reminded that we are only a few clicks removed from a civilization without all the trappings of…well…civilization. This is what my parents feel nearly every night as they watch the moon rise over the pasture and enjoy their late dinner (“the rich eat late,” Mom used to joke). Given that they only come inside when the sun goes down, my parents have a martini around 10 and dine around 11, tucking into bed shortly thereafter. The Europeans usually enjoy a walk after dinner to settle their meal, but Mom and Dad eat light, and couple that with the monumental list of tasks one needs to check off to keep a ranch running; they would rather head to bed to greet the next day’s work.
Thus it goes on, day after day. So focused are they on maintaining the ranch that sometimes world events have passed them by. On September 12, 2001, Mom and Dad got a telephone call from a neighbor (we use the term loosely for anyone within a 20 mile radius), inquiring if they’d heard what happened on the East Coast. Their radio had gone out a few days prior, and they had simply carried on with their week, unaware of the watering eyes the world had turned to New York City, DC, and Pennsylvania.
While some might argue it irresponsible, ignorant, or just plain strange; I think that it’s rather fortunate of them. By choosing to partake in the modern media diet, they seldom miss out on anything substantial, and miss instead a whole lot of fluff.
Hell, someone will call if they need to.
PS: It’s amazing how easily we both transitioned to this darkened existence. Jonny just leaned over and said “It boggles the mind that this is how we both grew up. It’s normal to us. But to some people it would be absolutely catastrophic. I’m playing solitaire on my phone, and twenty years ago I would have been playing with a real deck of cards. That’s the only difference. And my Mom and Dad would have been drinking Buckhorn Beer on the porch.”