Danielle LaPorte knows a lil’ something about the publishing racket.




Want a book deal? Think your magnetic, compelling, ninja talent for the written word is all it takes?

Think again.

Now, says author/blogger/truth-telling goddess Danielle LaPorte, “two-thirds of a publisher’s decision is based on your platform”.

In other words, your blog. How famous are you? How big does your audience and ‘platform’ need to be?

“Pretty fucking huge, apparently…” continues LaPorte, whom I interviewed in September 2009 after she returned from New York where she was shilling her latest book proposal to agents and publishers, “because I just got told I’m not famous enough.”

———

Hold up. Whaaaaaa? Didn’t Danielle LaPorte announce a mega-mega-mega book deal (like, a quarter of a million bucks?!) earlier this year?

Yup.

So what’s this “not famous enough/no book deal” business?

The past, baby. The past. That snippet above is from an interview I did with Danielle in 2009. Then, she’d just returned from New York…and although she was already a published author of a hawt book (Style Statement) with lots of media mentions and the creatrix of the searingly smart WhiteHotTruth, she came back without a book deal.

A year and some change later, she had a 4-book, $250K book deal.

Which is why, if YOU want a book deal (and oh honey, I want a book deal, too), you NEED Danielle LaPorte’s newest book/program/detailed insider plan to change yer life/publish yer masterpieces already, dammit.

(I’m lecturing both of us, pumpkin. ‘Cuz we really need to get on this.)

Because she knows of what she speaks. Danielle’s landed literary agents. She’s written query letters and book proposals, published a book, had a book proposal rejected, self-published, wrote another book proposal…

…and that one landed her that six-figure, four-book deal.

So chicka has written books. She’s promoted books. She’s self-published. She’s published. She’s written book proposals that failed and books proposals that succeeded wildly (as in $250,000!) which means  that when it comes to getting a book deal Danielle LaPorte knows – from intimate, incandescent experience - what works and what doesn’t work.

In short, Danielle LaPorte knows the book biz.

And now she’s telling you what she knows.

I wanna know what she knows.

————-

In a former life, Danielle LaPorte was freelance book publicist for publishing houses like Simon and Schuster and Harper Collins. Now she has a juju personal development site called White Hot Truth, a rockin’ inspirational speaking career, a published book (Style Statement with co-author Carrie McCarthy, which they sold to prestigious Little Brown and Company for a $150,000 advance), and soon-to-be published book (The Firestarter Sessions) that’s part of a whopper of a book deal with Random House (four books, a quarter of a million bucks, am I repeating myself?).

And back when she sold her very first book, she didn’t even have a blog. True story.

But she did have moxy. And a big love for Malcolm Gladwell (yes! Malcolm Gladwell! Poet-wooing, point-tipping, intellectual whodunit-spinning, best-selling, Malcolm Gladwell!), which is how she found her first agent.

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell “profusely, adoringly thanked his agent” whom, he argued, should be the “next president of the United States or at the very least the CEO of Microsoft.”

Danielle read that and thought, “she’ll do”.

And then Danielle e-mailed Malcolm Gladwell.

(Duh! Who wouldn’t?)

She put on her charming pants and danced. She wrote, “I’m Canadian. You’re Canadian. You’re from Etobicoke. I know how to pronounce Eh-toe-bih-ko. You’re half-black. I have dreadlocks. Here’s my concept. Help me get to your agent.”

Malcolm Gladwell replied within two days, writing, “You’re so charming. How could I refuse?”

To recap: kissing best-selling Gladwell ass can land you an agent. If that fails, your blog is your baseball/cornfield and if you build it they will come. If that fails, try calling around, knocking on doors, writing query letters (and maybe even reading books!) and asking for one directly.

But by all means and by whatever means necessary, get an agent, and a good one, and one you like (even love), because a good agent will help you write and sell a great proposal…and because, as Danielle explains, “it is a potentially life-changing relationship. Your agent will be your greatest advocate. They will want to get you the most money, because, you know, they’re getting 10-15% of it, so they will want to get you the exposure.”  Not only that, but “the right agent will actually work with you to craft that book. They could be hugely influential in the finished product. They will go to the mat to you in the end on everything from price point to pub date to cover design. It is really important.”

And the writer/agent chemistry doesn’t have to be interpersonal-clicky-butterflies love. It can be professional luuuuv. “It may sound contradictory,” admits Danielle, “but you and your agent don’t need to see eye-to-eye on the material. You need to have free reign with your voice. An agent can be philosophical opposition and still go get you a good deal and help bolster your career.”

———-

Did you know this? Of course you probably knew this. Every writer knows they need to get an agent to get published.

What we don’t necessarily know is how to get an agent (either through conventional or unconventional channels like the aforementioned Gladwell ass-kissing, and I WOULD TOTALLY DO THAT, no strings attached, Malcolm, CALL ME).

Or how to write a book proposal.

Or what successful book proposals – from published authors, like Tim Ferris (The 4 Hour Body), Michael Ellsberg (The Malaria Book), and Rachel Resnick (Love Junkie) - ACTUALLY look like and contain. ‘Cuz what is IN a book proposal, anyway? (And what was in theirs?)

Let me tell you (and guess where and from whom I learned this?): a book proposal contains a map of the book (the table of contents), your bio, market research (ie where does this fit? Who will read it?), marketing (how will you and the publisher sell the pants off it?) and oh yes, some sample chapters to show that you really can write more than a proposal. Also: the exact weight of your platform. Who are you? How big are you? Who is talking about you? How do you talk back? How much does the world – in the form of Alexa and Google and Facebook and Twitter and your blog traffic and  your list of subscribers and e-mail open and click-thru rates – love you?

———

When she was writing her book proposals – including The Whopper 4-Book/Lotsa Cash Deal - Danielle LaPorte worked with proposal guru Linda Siverston (not coincidentally co-authors Big Beautiful Book Plan with her) and then “when it felt right to go out of the box, I did. I am not Times New Roman. I am not double-spaced”.

———

And so if you are not double-spaced Times New Roman, either, AND you want a book deal, too…

…then you know what to do.

(Same thing Imma gonna do. Follow the advice. Rrrrawk the whitehawt, Big Beautiful Book plan. And get thee – and me – a book deal in 2012.)

 


Honour Up




1993. Sharon Stone. Sliver. A disconcerting, schlocky movie ‘about’ privacy and voyeurism. Watching it, I was appalled and repelled by the character placing his neighbours under surveillance.

And entranced.

Because I’m human. I like to wonder, invent their backstories, know things about them and about humankind.

(Writers, I suspect, are both unrepentant voyeurs and compulsive oversharers.)

I like to watch people. I like to watch.

Which is exactly why the whole tedious film was redeemed by Sharon Stone’s last line:

You like to watch, don’t you?

Yes. I do. Even when it’s a very bad idea.

Especially then.

It’s the same with conversation and secrets.

One of my friends has the most delightful conversational technique. She invites people beyond small talk. Someone – a stranger on a train, an acquaintance passing the time with chit-chat – will ask her a question, something seemingly innocuous, and she’ll reply:

Do you want the polite answer or do you want the real answer?

And because we hairless apes are voyeurs, we always want the real answer.  And that leads to real conversation and connection and maybe even truth.

But, referring (sloppily) to yet another cheesy 90s flick, Can you handle the truth?

Sometimes, I can’t handle the truth. Lots of times, in fact. Or, maybe I can handle the truth from a stranger on a train who tells me about his tragically empty marriage; maybe I can handle sex confessions from bloggers; maybe I can read truth in the lines and lyrics of ballads and ballers and bestsellers.

There’s distance there. There’s no danger. The secrets – and secret lives – of strangers and sages are safe.

And then there’s this, from a friend or a family member:

Can I tell you a secret?

Do you want to hear a secret?

This kind of secret is sacred. This kind of secret is not safe.

Most of us say, yes, we want to hear the secret; we can and will keep that secret; your secret is safe with me.

But it’s not. On average, we keep secrets for 47 hours and 15 minutes.

Not because we’re ‘gossips’ or weak of character or women (don’t EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THAT). But because we’re human.

We need to watch each other, talk about each other, understand each other. And our desires, the way we truly live, our secrets, reveal us. To ourselves and each other. To the world. Our secrets make the world: when we camouflage events and behaviours and desires, we bow to the rules. Truly we bow to the rules. We prostrate ourselves to the demigods of society. We offer them propriety. We sacrifice our individual reality at the altar of respectability.

Sometimes rightly. Sometimes we are wrong. And so we lie. We keep secrets. We live multiple realities, none of them real, all of them real.

We keep secrets. And then we summon the desperation or the courage to share a soul-secret…and it won’t be kept.

Which brings me to the other side of us, the other side of secrets. To the hearing of a secret.

As much as I want to hear the secret, I don’t want to hear the secret. The voyeur in me wants to see, hear, know. The communal monkey in me wants to be invited in. But if I can’t keep the secret, honour the secret, then I can’t allow myself to hear it.

Because it’s not about the secret. It’s about the space for the secret. It’s about the person trusting me with the secret. It’s about honouring up.

Imma gonna honour up. I’m either going to keep the secret or deny myself the vivid, vicarious pleasure of the secret, entirely.

The Two Orgasm a Day Diet




I want you to get off. More.

In your bedroom. In the living room. In the boardroom. In all the rooms of your life.

This can be a metaphor - seek pleasure, find fulfillment, it’s the only sustainable way to work, nurture, and live – or it can be literal:

Have More Orgasms.

Women Are Hungry

Nicole Daedone thinks women are hungry. We’re not satisfied. We’re craving. We’re studying and working and mothering (our kids or the world) and continually operating with a pleasure deficit.

It’s true. We are.

But I don’t think it’s only women. I think The Pleasure Deficit explains unsatisfying consumerism and mindless materialism and even the outlines of our macro-economic woes. I think that most of us don’t know how to take care of ourselves and we’re attempting self-care with false luxury rather than conscious satisfaction and intentional indulgence.

In the last few months, I’ve peeked through a window into a manly-man world where men work intensely physical jobs far away from home for long periods of time. They live in camps or out of generic hotels, and when they’re not working they indulge in steak dinners, drinks, women, toys, trucks. In old-boy speak, they work hard and play hard. And while most of them get into it with the idea that they’ll do it for one or two or three years and then get out with a nest egg or capital to do That Thing They’re Dreaming Of…

…many are still working in the camps nine, ten, twenty-five years later.

With no money in the bank.

Because when they get out of the camp they blow the money on hookers and blow, and, if they’re one of the lucky ones, child support for kids they adore from afar.

It’s easy to gaze at this from a distance and say, well that’s just dumb and undisciplined. But I think that cycle is an attempt at self-care. It’s the dark side of self-care. These men put out all day long, seven days a week, for months at a time without a break, without having anything enriching coming in to balance the expenditure. They’re away from friends, family, and community, and the very nature and logistics of the industry shears off those attachments – and sources of care. They can’t pursue hobbies or artistic endeavours because they’re working-eating-sleeping. Work camps are not designed for other-care (and the opportunity for other-care is important because it’s an antidote to depletion, depression, and electric, predatory needor self-care.

And so when the project ends, they emerge from the camps like bears blinking in the spring sunlight. They’re hungry. Summer will be short. And they can buy some pleasure.

Collect ye berries where ye may. (To the virgins: make much of time.)

And so the consumptive habits and indulgences and cycles of work-camp-life are an attempt at self-care, an attempt to replenish depleted reserves, provide pleasure to an exhausted, emaciated, unsatisfied soul.

They’re hungry. We’re hungry.

So that’s soul-stifling life in an oilfield, mineral exploration, or a work camp.

But how much of ‘regular’ life and feminine experience is set up like a work camp? We produce and produce and produce: babies, books, spotless kitchens, spot-on meetings, spotty marriages.

Nicole Daedone is right. Women are hungry. We all are. Our whole world contains a whole lot of hungry ghosts. And when she – we – say “hungry”, we don’t (only) mean for food. We’re constantly craving creation, sustenance, pleasure, fulfillment, meaning. We want to feel good in our skins, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our classrooms, in our bedrooms, in our camps, in our communities, in our world.

That doesn’t mean we want (only) to be stroked. We want to stroke. To contribute. To create. To connect. To care. To please and be pleased. To ameliorate the pleasure deficit.

But. Gratification isn’t entirely the answer. Quick-fixes and instant gratification can lure you into a spiral of compulsion and remediation wherein you’re constantly compensating for the enduring lack in your life.

(You know this is your life if you’re living for the weekends, vacations, the 5′oclock glass of wine, NBC, chocolate, hook-ups, daydreaming about decorating the imaginary condo you’ll live in when you finally summon the courage to leave his ass.)

When the bright spots in your life sunless life are exhaustible resources, consumed then finished, it’s time to seek meaning and invest in sustainable self-care.

BUT. Instant gratification gets a bad rap. When you’re pursuing a goal where the pay-off is distant – like building that nest egg, publishing that book, realizing that dream – daily or at least regular doses of reward are essential. Pleasure pay-offs wed you to your divine purpose.

Sustenance is the answer. Sustainability is the answer. Orgasms are the answer: you can always have more, with a partner if you’re so blessed and choose, or with yourself.

Masturbation is more effective than medication. (My sweetie would have me introduce a caveat here: sometimes the effects of depression prevent you from getting off, in which case, my two-orgasms-per-day prescription won’t work, so please do see a doctor.) I swear vigourous and frequent self-pleasure was how I survived this summer’s long and dark depressive episode.

And it’s not just a coping mechanism in times of trouble. Orgasms in gorgeous times have gorgeous results, too.

Get on The Two Orgasm a Day Diet. Please.

But the Two Orgasm a Day Diet is not a program of deprivation calculated to starve your body into size-two submission. Instead, I’m using ’diet’ as a way of being, what you feed yourself, in all senses of the word. And I’m using ‘orgasm’ to represent gratification, bliss, blossoming, fulfillment.

Because that’s what has happened for me. Two and a half years ago I wrote a mortifying first blog post:

This blog is a personal and social experiment. What happens when an overweight, broke, semi-lost but pretty smart single mom decides to rewrite her life in 18 months or less?

In short, my plan is to write, reflect and act my way into a life of purpose and passion. I’d love it if you would join me on the journey.

And then, after I set it down, I set about doing IT every day. Writing -

- about sex, money and meaning.

Trying to get more of all of ‘em. Trying to write and and love my way into my dream life.

And I did it. Because I did it every day. I wrote. I published. I asked. I lived. I made mistakes. I stopped collecting mistakes. I took risks. I experimented. I admitted my desires – an impassioned life and sex life, a writing career conducted from the comfort of my living room, a man, a baby, adoration – and I indulged them.

I followed the tracks laid by my unrelenting desires. Desire is powerful. It won’t be denied.

And so it is sustainable. Feed it.

This is why I write about sex and why I say sex is my yoga. Ecstatic, authentic sexuality is a place of transcendental learning, indulgence, communion, commitment.

And that’s powerful. That’s power. That’s the mofo fountain of life, baby.

And so, to really step into your glory in every aspect of your life, feed yourself some delight. Every day. At least twice a day. Get on the Two Orgasm a Day Diet.

You can do it metaphorically (‘delight’) or graphically (get thee many cataclysmic orgasms). Either way gratifies me. Deeply.

Just please send me your stories to include in this new series.

Try The Two Orgasm a Day Diet for a week, two weeks, a month, a lifetime. Then tell me – no, tell all of us - how you fucked and loved and cared and created and came your way into a life that satisfies rather than satisfices.

deference is icky. And temporary. Get rid of it.




I was the worst waitress ever. Fortunately, I was equipped with two traits that universally guarantee good tips: great tits and even greater gift for gab. I once dropped an entire bottle of Corona down the shirt of a customer…the same customer who’d had to ask for that beer four times before I fetched it. He ought to have spoke to me sternly. Instead he tipped me $20.

I forgot side orders, substitutions, wine, how to properly pour wine. I forgot my place.

And I was always rewarded – and remembered – for it.

*******

My friend Heather and I remember a bag boy from our grocery store. I remember him because he’s a cousin of my daughters…and because he pissed Heather off. Heather is an enviable creature who can birth a baby on Monday and on Tuesday look like a taut nineteen year old goddess. (She’ll deny this and blame it on the Spanx, but whatever. I’ve seen her in a bikini. It’s a treat.) A week or so after a c-section, she was shopping. Cousin E was bagging groceries and Heather asked for a lil’ over-and-above customer service.

Heather: “Can you help me out to the car with my groceries? I’ve just had surgery.”

Cousin E, surveying her lithe, lean, luscious frame and manner, skeptically inquired: “On your arms?”

We both remember this story. And E. He didn’t bag groceries for long.

The barista at my local Starbucks won’t make coffee for long, either, which is unfortunate for me because he is a delight. I once asked him how he was doing. In response, he made an extravagant show of smoothing his hair and his smock and said, “Oh you know, just living the dream.”

Another time, when I hemmed and hawed about how I’d like my cappuccino – and changed my order twice, oh god, I’m that woman – he said, “You’ve made an excellent decision today, ma’am.”

My point? Station and occupation are bullshit. I despise deference. You don’t have to be obnoxious (E, Imma talkin’ to you) but don’t kowtow to me just because you made my coffee. I’ve slung more than a few cups, myself.  And when I made the leap from a job to self-employment, I held onto something another aspiring – and now established – writer told me. When she was leaping into the fray, she told herself, “I can always sling beer.”

That’s what I thought then and thought now: I can always sling beer. (Even down their shirts.)

And so deference icks me out. So does self-deprecation. Don’t disparage yourself and your abilities, especially when you’re just starting out. You know your talents and offer better than anyone else so don’t obscure them. (Exception: admit when you’re a crap server; compensate with your gifts, such as charm and cleavage; and then get another gig.) The only person who can rock humility is Richard Branson.

And I’d think less of him for it.

Uncertainty, Ambivalence, Innovation, Creation, Generation. Generation Us.




No man wants to be sand.

I looked at him and I saw him. I saw us. Clearly. Then I sighed and said, “I’ve been building my castle on sand.”

And even though he didn’t want to be my rock – twelve years after that life and love ended, he’d call and tell me that he had loved me but hadn’t been ready for me – he was wounded. Offended. Because  no man wants to be sand. Sand is shifty. Sand is uncertain. Sand isn’t manly.

Then, this long, sandy summer, I was uncertain – not about loving each other, but about the ‘forever’ bit – about a different man. Ambivalent.

Ambivalence, I’m comfortable with. I’m drawn to emotional tension and mixed emotions. It’s why I studied pluralism, feminism,  intersectional politics. It’s why I decorate in black and white. It’s why I like sweet ‘n spicy dishes. It’s why I like cocky but funny men; vulnerable, powerful women; and disconcertingly sentimental gangsta rap. It’s why I like dirty, fraught, flawed love letters (and lovers). Cleavage isn’t only creamy curves, it’s the dark shadow between them. It’s the lines that shape us. It’s why I quote William Butler Yeats over and over again:

It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.

Ambivalence – mixed emotions – is like change. Inevitable. A fact of life.

And fertile ground for growth, imagination, art.

Ambivalence: I accept it. I embrace it. I see it. I seek it.

But uncertainty…

I seek security so I can take risks. So uncertainty – sand beneath my feet when I’m craving concrete – unmoors me. Makes me shaky.

I was ambivalent about this pregnancy. Happy, sad, reluctant, excited. That was hard, but I understood it. I knew it was a tunnel I’d get through. I could even see the light, and I knew that when I emerged into it, life – and my new baby – would be golden.

But I wondered if I was standing on sand. Our commitment to each other only preceded our unexpected pregnancy by mere months. Sometimes it felt like minutes. It definitely didn’t feel like we were ready.

(And this was what I was working through – and my way to - when I wrote “Not Ready but Willing“.)

Which is why this summer I was obsessed with sand and castles. It didn’t help that when I thought about my loverloverman/babydaddy, I thought about one of his favourite songs: Castles in the Air.

And so I thought about airy dreams and sandy illusions and the shaky ground beneath my feet and in front of me. I thought about it all summer. I thought about relationships, love, commitment, castles, marriage, security. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that security is always an illusion.

(When a security-seeker seeks comfort in the notion that security doesn’t exist, you know you’re in existentially-trying times.)

I thought about the average length of a marriage: 10 years. I thought about all the women I’ve comforted at kitchen tables as the foundations of their lives and their futures dissolved in the acid of discovery…of secrets. Infidelity. Betrayal. I thought about all the ways I’ve tried to extract pledges of security while knowing such promises held no promise.

And I thought about all the people I know who profess absolute faith in their relationships and in their partners and even as I envied them, I knew that no relationship starts that way. Every history starts in the present. Every relationship starts out with wondering: is she into me? Does he want me? Does she still want me? Will he want me tomorrow?

Uncertainty. It’s the beginning. It doesn’t have to mean anything except that we’re still new. It doesn’t have to be an indicator of a sandy future or a shifty character.

Shift.

In thinking. Jonathan Fields and Danielle LaPorte see uncertainty as a necessary precondition of innovation. When you’re doing something no one’s ever done before, you don’t know how it will turn out. You’re uncertain and that’s gorgeously uncomfortable. It means you’re doing something incredible.

The way they see uncertainty is how I see ambivalence: as rich and rewarding. A source of generation and creation.

Ambivalence, uncertainty, innovation, generation, creation. It’s almost linear. It’s certainly relational.

Which is why I’m entranced by their thinking about uncertainty (Jonathan has a brand-new book about it)…and by two newly launched projects by coaches Tanya Geisler and Randi Buckley.

Tanya’s thing is the question, What’s My Thing? and Randi’s work is an answer: Maybe, Baby.

And both are processes designed to reveal your possibilities. Your values. Your truth. Because your truth is your compass.

I know that’s true because in the last two years I’ve decided my direction. I’m living My Thing. I’m making a living at writing. And I just lived through Maybe, Baby.

Except the answer isn’t ‘maybe’. It’s yes, yes, YES.

To my lovechild and my loverloverman and all of our castles wherever we build them.

Close Encounters of the Country Kind + My New Cultural Attache




Sunday dinner. Roast beef, mashed potatoes, my parents. (My parents are not in fact on the menu.) My children are ecstatic. POTATOES, people! We don’t ever eat potatoes at home because they’re a nutrition-free, tasteless waste of time and calories. Also, I just don’t like ‘em so I don’t cook ‘em. In short, in the deprived eyes (and stomachs) of my kidlets: mashed-potato-making Grandma is the bomb.

So Grandma handles the dinner and Grandpa, the dinner music. I hear a lot of the old standards – The Beatles, Santana, Van Morrison - and then I catch something new.  Surprised, I ask, “Is this Maroon 5? When did you start listening to Maroon 5?”. A few minutes later there’s more surprise. Distinctive twanging. Country.

Country?!

“Why are we listening to country?” Now I’m surprised and concerned.

“It’s your dad’s new favourite song,” explains my mother.

I gaze at him with great worry.

“Just listen to the lyrics,” he says. “Wisdom.”

And here’s some sagacity in the form of a chorus:

God is great. Beer is good. People are crazy.

———-

Next week, two more surprises.

1. The doorbell rings at midnight and although burglars and mass murderers probably select other modes of late-night entry, I’m terrified. I peek through the blinds and can’t quite grasp what I’m seeing. My loverloverman, who should be working 2,700 gazillion million miles away in the Yukon, is not in the Yukon. He’s at the door.

I can’t even describe to you my reaction because it’s a blur. And the next few days are a gorgeous haze, too.

But there are some moments that are crystalline in their clarity. He finds songs for me – us – to listen to. They all have messages. A Paul Anka tune he starts singing in the shower and then plays for me when he gets out makes me cry.

God bless Youtube and towel-clad sentimental men.

2. Later, he plays me…some country. My R&B, soul-loving, house-listening, city-loving Trinidadian listens to country music? Since when? I’m having a tower-made-of-mashed-potatoes moment. Clearly he’s been body-snatched.

“The guys up there listen to a lot of country. This one’s pretty good. Listen to the lyrics,” he tells me.

But I’m occupied by the video. “There’s a black man in a country video! OMG, there’s TWO BLACK MEN! And ONE IS RAPPING! What kind of country music is this?!”

It’s Colt Ford featuring Nappy Roots (I couldn’t make this stuff up) and Nic Cowan and it’s not too bad. The lyrics are in fact pretty sweet. And if we ever live on a beach, we’re absolutely building a slide rather than a dock. If you build it, they will come.

———

Two is a coincidence, three is a trend, yes? This week I posted some Shania Twain on Facebook. ‘Cuz that’s how drunk in love I am. We’re having close encounters of the country kind.

——————

And this disconcerting trend towards country means I feel the need to round out my playlist and cultural influences. For that, I turn to my good friend Stephen Kelly. Ten years ago Mr. Kelly made my acquaintance by mercilessly harassing the DJ at The Nepal in Hsin-Chu, Taiwan into playing and dedicating “Oops I Did It Again” to me.

Obviously he has impeccable taste, recognized my essence and as such we were meant to be forever friends. Even more obviously, I’ve dubbed him my Culture/Entertainment Stylist. Here are his recent recommendations:

TV

Gavin and Stacey. I especially appreciate Nessa who takes up baby-wearing because it’s “easier for me to smoke“.

If You’re in The Neighbourhood…

The London production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Breakfast at John’s Place in Victoria, BC. Stephen ate there every day he was in Victoria. (But really, this was my pick. It was my fave joint when I lived in that hood. I’d rather go to John’s for breakfast than anywhere for dinner. They have warmed cream cheese syrup.)

Film

Atom Egoyan’s Adoration. Mr. Kelly was knocked out by Scott Speedman, whom I only know from Felicity. That being said, I personally highly recommend Exotica, also by Atom Egoyan.

Books

All things Bill Brysom but most recently, Home.

Music

Paloma Faith. Whoa. Her album is called Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful and my answer is YES. Her voice, her aesthetic, her vibe, the car in Desire (oh god, I want it), the song New York, her live performances, her duet with Cee Lo…ADORE. I now have an overwhelming urge to wear strapless cocktail dresses during the day. Grocery shopping. Bowling. Everywhere.

It will happen. Trust.

And, finally, my favourite, Teenage Dirtbag as covered by The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain.  I dare you not to love it. IMPOSSIBLE.

darling, get thee an authentically canned speech (or a whole set of ‘em)




Practiced isn’t false. Rehearsed isn’t inauthentic. Preparation is a peace-building gift to yourself and to others.

(And so is style. A friend of mine, remarking upon a mutual acquaintance who is sartorially splendid – her undeniably modern yet dandy-inspired ensembles are detailed and dapper - said: “Her style makes you feel special. Like, all of that is for me?!”)

That’s why canned speeches are like canned peaches: delicious.

Except no one needs canned peaches.

But we all need canned speeches. For business, elevators, interviews, first impressions, cocktail parties, first dates…

…and even predictably and potentially awkward conversations with intimates.

And having a practiced patter doesn’t mean you’re inauthentic. Instead, it means you’re ready to give good convo. It means you’re able to turn potentially fraught interactions into amusing and often surprising connections. It means you invite connection.

To wit, an example. A deeply personal one.

After a failed attempt to see The Help (sold out, alas) my generous mama mediated my disappointment by treating me, my house-guest and my sister for drinks. They ordered margaritas while I pondered my pregnancy-induced deprivation. I wanted alcohol. I wanted something festive adorned with a tiny paper umbrella and a sense of occasion. I may have said so (I don’t ponder deprivation with a lot of discretion) whilst resentfully muttering  “I’ll probably have to have a Shirley Temple.”

And so, when the waitress took our order, I asked for her advice. I said, “I can’t have any alcohol, but I want a fancy-schmancy fun and frivolous drink. What do you recommend?”

She paused, then offered, hesitantly, “Maybe a Shirley Temple?”

I had a Shirley Temple.

There was no little stick with a cherry, no umbrella, no bedazzled orange peels. It was loudly disappointing. Or maybe that was me being loudly disappointed.

I digress.

Confession 1: I have a raw spot about being pregnant and unmarried. Not because it conflicts with my moral values or I’m disappointed that my loverloverman hasn’t offered up an entirely unromantic shotgun wedding, but because I’m continually anticipating judgement.

Confession 2: I have an even rawer spot about the imminent prospect of having three children with two different men. The unmarried thing compounds it. I feel quite exposed.

So, my darlings, do you sense a potential flashpoint?

Back to drinks. We’re talking about my girls, the baby, baby names. My sister noted that the children will have to go to different schools because, based on their paternity, my girls have a Charter right to an education in French and therefore attend a Francophone school. The new baby’s papa is not Francophone so he’ll not be allowed to attend the same school.

I hadn’t thought about that. My sister was right. She was observing reality. She was utterly inoffensive in intent and delivery, and I wasn’t put out at all. But my raw spots tingled – not from injury. From contact. As the kids these days say, that’s my shit.

And then my mom, in an equally utterly inoffensive way, noted that all of my children will have different last names. Again true, and by choice – my first two daughters have the  same daddy and we deliberately chose to give them similar but different surnames. But when you add baby #3 with a third surname fathered by a different man to whom I am not married…

…and…

Raw spot. Contact. Ouch.

Confession #3: In my younger, more tempestuous days, like last month, I would have taken this observation as not a slight but a grievous injury complete with malicious intent. And I would have reared up like a wounded bear and used my fearsome claws, which is to say my words, to carve something  irreversibly damaging into the psyche of my mother who intended and offered no harm.

But.

I recently read a Salon piece about a married couple, Cecilia Jethe and Christopher Ryan, who co-authored Sex at Dawn, a book examining monogamy via anthropology – and reframing some evolutionary theories of sexuality along the way, hallelujah [1] - and was struck by their sensibility. Clearly, once the book was published, they’d be doing media interviews. Obviously, since they are married and writing about monogamy, they would be asked about their own marriage. It only made sense to be prepared. So they prepared an answer that was both informative and unsalacious: “Our relationship is informed by our research.”

Brilliant. Boundary-setting. Marriage is sacred and the details of their intimate lives are theirs to share, if they care to. Or care not to.

Imagine though, if they hadn’t prepared an answer and just hoped no one would articulate the question we’re all thinking and wondering. They would have been unsurprisingly surprised and perhaps even rawly offended when the question inevitably came up, over and over again. The interviews would have been a trial. The answers would have been worse. They could have come off as prickly and reactive.

Possibly I know a lil’ sumthin’ sumthin’ about prickly and reactive and raw.

But, because I had read that piece – and because I regularly preach to my Red Shoe Blogger peeps the importance of an elevator speech – I didn’t go grizzly when people brushed by my invisible scrapes.

Instead, I quipped, “I like to err on the side of trashy.” And I laughed, for real.

And so did everyone else.

And no fragile egos were flayed in the making of a delightful evening.

———-

1. Yo, God Bless Darwin. Yay, evolution. However evolutionary psychology, in my extravagant opinion, is more often used to justify contemporary and hind-sightedly hierarchical gender relations than explain anything and can kiss my fat ‘n fabulous ass.

2. You don’t have to be promoting a book or a business to prepare artful, amusing and invitational responses to predictable inquiries. Having ready answers doesn’t mean you’re a great, big phony. It means you’re prepared not to be a skinless aggressor/defender who attacks and alienates the people you love.

3. Elevator Speech tip #1: Get one. You’re not self-aggrandizing, you’re giving people an opportunity to understand you. And, done heartfully and artfully, you’re also creating an invitation to meaningful conversation. You’re givomg someone an opportunity to ask questions and really connect.

4. Elevator Speech tip#2: Thanks to a tip from my magnificent friend Astarte Sands I regularly recommend the Wow, How, Now approach to my Red Shoe Bloggers. Watch it and work it – because it does work. Beautifully.

5. Elevator Speech tip #3: It’s critical. It’s how you present yourself in the world. It’s more important than a business card (I don’t even have a business card). And so it’s worth investing in. And so if you’re struggling to define and practice your magnetic, compelling, follow-up and meaning-inducing pitch, you must work with Dyana Valentine. Her Pitch Perfect (she has a wildly useful self-guided program as well as a catalytic one-on-one pitch-perfecting phone session and an intensive workshop that produces not one but several multi-purpose speeches) is, well, purrrrfect. I regularly, wholeheartedly and enthusiastically recommend her to my peeps.

And to you.

These Boots are Made for Walking…All Over Smithers, BC




In the airport, a beautiful man eyeballs me. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, blonde, with a weathered, tanned visage. The sharp planes of his face are softened by dimples. Everything about him suggests he has mischievious eyes. I’d know if I made eye contact.

If this was a Harlequin moment, I’d be the shy city girl entranced by his rugged, rural masculinity. But this is not a scene from a romance novel and no one would ever accuse me of being shy. Still, I’m avoiding his eyes.

He’s wearing what appears to be an Ed Hardy t-shirt, tucked in (!) to jeans belted high and tight by an oversized, ornate, mixed-metal belt buckle screaming “rodeo champ”. The two-tone silver and gold echoes the metallic tattoo print on his honey-coloured shirt which in turn matches his caramel-coloured cowboy boots.

I sift through the sands of memory for the last time I saw a man in cowboy boots with surprise realize it’s an annual occurence. Each year there’s a rodeo weekend near my home and although the event has a history of real wrangling, now it’s mainly an excuse for suburban hoochies to publicly parade in daisy dukes, bikinis, and pristine pink cowboy boots. There are real cowboy and cowgirls, though, with boots made for more than walking the walk of shame. I think. Maybe. I don’t know for certain because I rarely go to rodeo weekend.

And so although this man is handsome, all I can think is, I can’t even talk to you with that belt and those boots.

***

I’m not wearing boots. I’m wearing a wide-skirted, small-waisted dress and four-inch espradilles with ribbons that tie around my ankles. I’m looking pretty because I’m on my way to see my sweetie, who’s making a drastic and dramatic career change. He’s in Smithers, a northern mountain town, training his scissor hands – for twenty years, he’s been a hair stylist – to drill. I’m writing travel pieces. So I’m travelling. To Smithers, BC. To see him.

He called me the moment he arrived. From the tarmac. “It’s incredible,” he tells me. “The mountain is right here and it’s amazing. Beautiful. You won’t believe it,” he says. “There’s snow on the mountain but the sun is shining.”

It’s April and officially spring. “The snow is gone,” my man later promises. He’s been walking around in a t-shirt and hoodie and so yes, dresses and heels will be just fine. And so I’m on my way, to see my man and this mountain and this mountain town.

***

In the surprisingly long security line, a warm-eyed Aboriginal man turns around. He smiles at me. “Can you believe this?” he asks. He’s wearing cowboy boots. My western wear count has gone from an annual to a bi-hourly event. He’s going to Smithers. So am I. “Maybe we’ll be sitting together,” he says with another smile.

We do not sit together. Instead, I sit beside Sharon. Her hair is the exact shade that my hairstylist aka my city-man-turned-mountain-man was planning to colour mine: a very dark red-brown with a platinum peekaboo streak. Sharon’s 38. I’m 38. She has two girls. So do I. She’s passionate about art, music, culture. And Smithers. A long-time resident, she knows it and its people well. She even knows that the pilot and co-pilot of our plane are father and son. Although Air Canada, a larger commercial airline, also flies into Smithers, Sharon tells me she prefers Hawkair because its pilots are experienced locals who’ve been flying into this airport – which has mountains between 5400-9500 feet high within five nautical miles of the landing strip, making for exceptionally tricky night landings – for years and years.

Sharon landed in Smithers more than a decade ago. After university, she followed her then-fiance/future-husband here and although they’ve since separated, she wouldn’t be anywhere else. She plays bass, and there’s a vibrant music scene, and kids can safely walk to school. Her kids can safely walk anywhere. And as we’re about to (safely) walk off the plane, she tells me she’d be happy to drive me to my hotel. No taxi necessary.

I get off the plane and am stunned. Contrary to my man’s mythologizing, there’s no mountain – or, if Hudson Bay Mountain does exist, it’s cloaked in the thick cloud and snowstorm choking the tarmac and the valley. So although I’m not sure there’s a mountain, I am sure there’s no coat. That dude – my dude – with the misleading weather report will have to surrender his jacket.

And I might have to buy boots.

***

In the meantime, I wear running shoes, let down the hem of my artfully-cuffed capris, and filch a pair of socks from my man. This will have to do as spring-masquerading-as-winter wear.

I walk to the coffee shop and on the way stop at a work-wear shop. I’m shocked. The rubber boots are cute. Not cute enough to buy, and not as cute as my lonely and staggeringly high shoes cooling their heels at the hotel, but cute.

Later, I’m at the hospital. I’d like to blame the sneakers although of course the problem lies more with the operator than the equipment. For four hours I sit in a waiting room the size of a hot tub. I can’t bear to look at the faces of people around me. We’re too close to each other. We’re all in too much pain. Eye contact seems an unwelcome intimacy when we’re all craving anonymity…and to be elsewhere. I don’t imagine anyone in any community aims to spend a day or a night here.

A woman sits beside me and her two kids climb onto her lap. They’re wearing fleece pants and candy-coloured gumboots. She’s wearing inky jeans over pointed boots that are almost but not quite cowboy boots. Maybe they’re Frye boots. They’re beat up all to hell. They look heavenly.

The doctor who treats me is wearing battered boots, too. She’s got a tight grey sweater, dark jeans and grey boots. Round-toes. Scratched, scuffed, fabulous.

A nurse asks me why I’m here, and grins approvingly when I tell her I’m writing about Smithers. She’s been here for two months and she loves it. There’s so much to do that she hasn’t had a chance to do most of it.

As I listen to her extol the virtues of her new-found home, I realize that Smithers isn’t a town, it’s a religion. Its people (even those new to the faith) are evangelists.

What Sharon lovingly preached on the plane is echoed by my newfound medical team and soon to be passionately repeated by almost everyone I talk to – both those born into it and converts, alike.

***

Caroline Marko, I’m told by more than one person, is a “colourful character”. She’s tiny in stature but huge in presence. Her wild red curls and logging-camp language charmingly cluttered with curse words contrasts with her vaguely European accent and the classic couture training she received from her family in Sweden. She comes from a line of tailors, she explains, and that’s what brought about her boutique, Salt. (“Why Salt?” I ask. “Because I’m not sweet,” she replies.) Obviously yet inexplicably, Salt is stocked with gourmet sea salts, a custom bicycle…and a collection of unique, finely-crafted clothes and jewelry that seems more curated than sourced.

But business is not what brought her to Smithers. That she blames on alcohol, Mexico, a man, and her mother’s ultimatum.

And an “appalling” outfit: a boob tube, platform sneakers – “it was the back in Spice Girls days” – and way-too-big men’s shorts she bought at a street market while backpacking around Cabo San Lucas. “I was wearing jeans,” she explains, “but it was way too hot and I was way too drunk. And so I bought and wore those shorts.”

It was in this still cringe-inducing ensemble that she met “a really hot Canadian guy”. After spending only a day together, they said goodbye and returned to their repective countries…only to say hello over and over again with more than $800 worth of long distance calls. When her mother got the bill, she told Caroline: “You have two options. You’re either going to pay this bill or you’re going to use that money to go to Canada and see this man.”

Fourteen years, two kids and one business later, Caroline reports that her husband “still owes my mother a thank-you gift.” It’s a delightful, wild ride of a love-story, but that’s fitting: Caroline is a roller-coaster, personified. She gives me this interview while simultaneously making time for a few words with fellow local business owner (C.O.B.’s Dave Percy, the builder of the bike in Salt’s window and who, along with Caroline, has me thinking that Smither’s stock of business-owners is disproportionately young, fit, and fine), charming clients, and having a stern yet sweet talk with an employee who inadvertently allowed a heavily made-up friend to stain a delicate silk dress.

And regretting her current outfit: a fitted, white cotton t-shirt, even more fitted olive green cargo pants, and glossy, knee-high, equestrian-style boots I instantly covet. “I look a mess,” she says. “You don’t look a mess,” I answer. “You look magnificent.”

She is magnificent. And so is the next dynamic young entrepreneur I meet.

***

Along with his wife, Joscelyn (“in all honesty, she runs the store”, he confesses) Jason Krauskopf owns Rayz Boardshop, a seasonal boat rental/waterskiing company, and a recently-completed rental guest house called Stonesthrow. When I meet up with him there, he’s sitting on the leather sofa in his sock-feet.

Jason grew up in Smithers and went to university in Prince George. While he was there, he decided he wanted to create a particular lifestyle – built around outdoor pursuits like snowboarding, skateboarding, water-skiing, and fishing – and knew Smithers was the place to do it. But in order to do that, he also knew he’d need to invent an occupation. And so, before he’d even graduated, he was negotiating to fund and buy Rayz Boardshop. His plan was to design a business around the life he wanted to live in small-town Smithers.

And that, he explains, “is not uncommon”. Jason knows several people his age with similar stories. While most small towns in northern BC are battling “brain drain” with more young people exiting than entering, Smithers is gaining newcomers and retaining its younger generation. It’s such a significant and counterintuitive phenomena that the Smithers District Chamber of Commerce and the Town of Smithers Economic Development Committee chronicled it with a book project called “The Kids Came Back”.

So Smithers retained Jason Krauskopf and gained his friend Mark Gillis. Jason and Mark met at university in Prince George, and after graduating and travelling the world, Mark moved to Smithers with his wife. He worked in forestry while starting a hobby brewery that rapidly became more than a hobby. Plan B Brewing now a full-time business. And, Jason testifies, it’s really good beer. Jason shows me an empty bottle – the label art is terrific – and tells me that I really should talk to Mark. And then he drives me right to him.

***

The Plan B brewery isn’t open for business today, but a peek through the artfully crafted window bars reveals there’s business being done, and so, emboldened by Jason’s prodding and presence, I walk right in. There’s a polished concrete bar, leather sofa, fabulous art, fridges full of beer, an open “kitchen” consisting of stainless steel barrels and gleaming tubes and taps, and Mark Gillis in the middle of it all in an apron and rubber rain boots. It’s Tuesday. He’s brewing.

Like Jason, Mark grew up locally (he’s originally from Vanderhoof). Like Sharon, Caroline and Jason, Mark tells me he made a conscious choice to live in Smithers and now that he does, he can’t imagine raising his children anywhere else. And so he’s an enthusiastic champion of local talent, from the guy who cast his concrete counters, to the welder who created the hop-vine window bars I spied through, to Facundo Gastiazoro, the artist whose paintings hang in the entrance of the brewery and illustrations adorn the labels of all the brewery’s beers, which in turn are named for local legends. It’s a passion-fueled enterprise in a passion-fueled economy: like Mark, people here are passionate about their town and its history…and so, in order to stay, they build businesses around their particular passions. Entrepreneurial excellence is everywhere.

And so is generosity. When I try to call a taxi, Mark insists on driving me back to my hotel. This just keeps happening. Everyone I meet gives me gifts, from lifts to town to bags of gourmet salt, introductions, and even an offer of a free night’s accomodation. I think about this, and about the parallels in all the stories I’ve heard – outdoor living, love, art, family, free-range kids, entrepreneurship, community – and realize that the personal histories shared by Sharon, Caroline, Jason and Mark are sideways lessons in the land, culture and economy of Smithers.

It’s delicious and I want more, so I arrange to spend some time with David deWit.

***

David deWit is the Natural Resources Department Manager for the Office of the Wet’suwet’en and when we meet, I’m so smitten by his soft-spoken, soulful “Wet’suwet’en 101″ that I don’t even check out his soles. David walks me through the clan structure, culture and politics of his peoples from long, long, time ago to today, and his thoughtful tutelage triggers a come-to-Jesus moment in me. There’s a shift in my thinking. As a recovering political science junkie (seven long years of undergrad and graduate study), I realize that my understanding of contemporary Aboriginal peoples and politics has been exclusively, inappropriately Machiavellian: all about machination, treaties, positioning, protest, reparations and reaction. My “knowledge” is a headline, news-report reel. This band protests X development. That tribe blocks Y pipeline. But David shows me that what The Office of the Wet’suwet’en and the Wet’suwet’en people want is not to have to react to announcements of development in their traditional territories. Instead, they’ve set up proactive processes to work with corporations and governments to jointly plan economically and socially sustainable development.

As an example of a project that went awry when it could have gone right, I ask him about a past plan for coalbed methane drilling in the headwaters of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers. The “sacred headwaters” is the birthplace for all three regional rivers feeding the lakes, fish stocks, sport-fishing industry…and families of many community members. A methane leak or spill in the headwaters could pollute all three rivers downstream, compromising or even destroying ecosystems, economies, livelihoods and food security throughout the region. And so the plan was met with protest – and not only from members of the Aboriginal community.

But. It wasn’t mining, drilling or development that the Wet’suwet’en and other community groups opposed. It was the place. The headwaters. You simply shouldn’t risk drilling there. And so, David explains, if companies come to them with proposals rather than announcements, the Wet’suwet’en can offer practical advice (like: drill here, not there, because it’s less of a socio-environmental risk, which means community groups probably won’t freak and block your project) based on their long, wide and deep knowledge of the region’s social and eco-systems. The Wet’suwet’en, David explains, welcome opportunities to contribute their local, historical expertise to developing sustainable, profitable ventures more likely to be embraced than protested by the region’s communities.

In a traditional business sense, they’re preaching the win-win-win. In an even more traditional sense, the Wet’suwet’en are practicing Yintah. It’s a word, David explains, describing both the Wet’suwet’en territory and philosophy. Yintah is an all-encompassing concept describing the interconnectedness of everything in a territory - from the soil, air, trees, water, and weather to the animals and people – and as a philosophy and practice Yintah acknowledges the relationships, responsibilities and interdependencies existing between all of these elements. And by “people”, David continues, Yintah includes all the people inhabiting Wet’suwet’en lands, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike. If you are here, from dust motes to deer mice to deer to people of all ethnicities, you are to be considered in every action and happening in this territory. You are part of Yintah.

And in some form, that’s exactly what everyone I’ve met has been trying to articulate to me. Some tell me they came (or stay) for the outdoors, arts-and-culture, business opportunities, or people…but what they all return to – in life and conversation – is the fact that Smithers is all of these things. The land, the animals, the people, the economies, the cultures are all inextricably linked with each other. It’s Yintah. It’s interconnection. It’s communion.

It’s a community. They are a community. Their boots are made for walking and working together. They’re keeping the faith.

***

10am. Sunday. Church bells. For real. Where have I ever heard church bells before? Oh yes, first in Venice and then in Rome. And now in Smithers.

Although they ring through the whole town, I suspect these bells toll for me. It’s only a few days in and already I’m convinced. I’m converting. While I’m not (yet!) moved to move, I am ready for a pair of beautiful, battered-to-Smithereens boots. Still, given my penchant for fifties silhouettes and pencil skirts, I’m not sure what I’ll wear them with.

Maybe just a smile.

And, possibly, another return ticket.

——————–

How to get there: Hawkair specializes in flights to major northern towns in BC (Terrace, Kitimat, Smithers, Houston and Prince Rupert); has three-times daily service to Smithers from Vancouver’s main terminal; great prices (economy fares start at $235 CDN each way); tasty snacks sourced from local bakeries and caterers; and incredibly friendly service.

Where to stay: If you’re looking for out-of-town charm, Stonesthrow Guesthouse or Logpile Lodge serve up privacy in the midst of very pretty natural settings. The Logpile is a tech-free retreat – no phones, TVs or wireless – while Stonesthrow comes equipped with a large flat screen, stereo, DVD player, printer, and internet connection.

In town, there are lots of economical options, from The Florence and The Fireweed at the lower end of the price range to The Sandman and The Sunshine Inn at higher (but still exceptionally affordable) price points. In most of the hotels and motels, décors are pretty standard – but so are the prices, which range from $59 to $199 CDN per night plus taxes.

Where to snack: Chatters Pizzaria & Bistro is habit-forming: though I’m not usually a fan of potatoes of any kind or in any form, I visited daily for a dose of seasoned yam fries with chipotle. Even more addictive is Schimmel’s Fine Pastries, an Austrian bakery with great coffee, good ambience and very fine pastries indeed.

Where to dine: If you ask around, two restaurant recommendations will come up over and over again: The Trackside Cantina and The Logpile Lodge Dining Room. The Trackside Cantina is a casual southwestern/Mexican kitchen with hearty servings and service while The Logpile is eclectic and elegant with a prix fixe menu that changes daily (but call ahead: it’s only open a few nights a week).

What to drink: Plan B Beer. It’s available at Luftikus, Chatters, The Riverhouse Restaurant and Lounge at The Aspen Inn and direct from the brewery on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Who to Talk To: Everyone – but especially Gladys Atrill at Tourism Smithers, who introduced me to nearly all the people and places on this list.

What to wear: Boots.

Pffffft to Good Intentions and Don’t Even Get Me Started on Patience




There are a few qualities I abstractly covet but don’t get. Or have. Actually there’s a long list of admirable qualities I lack, but those I comprehend and am therefore comfortable with my virtuous incompetence. These ones, however, have long mystified me:

  • Patience.
  • Good intentions.

Patience

When I think about patience, I think of long-suffering, indomnitable, admirable women. Ang San Suu Kyi, Mother Theresa [1]. They will not be moved. They will not be removed from their missions. They suffer indignities, confront darkness, and voluntarily, necessarily live circumscribed lives in shadows and hospices and homes-cum-jails. They sacrifice luxuries, freedom, their lives. They wait. They wait it out. They wait out their oppressors - disease, dictators - even though they themselves may not witness the curve they bent in the long arc of justice. They endure – even after death. They patiently coexist with and outwit despair.

And so I despair: despite my elaborate ideals, I will never be a good advocate of anything except The Good Life.

Because I like to get laid, eat bon-bons (that’s a lie, candy does nothing for me, I’m trying to convince you of my frivolity), sleep late, write lots, buy pretty things. And I need to do it all right now.

And so, until recently, I didn’t get patience and thought I would never get to patience. Patience was another country. Patience was for big causes, practiced by women bigger and better than me.

And then maybe I had an epiphany.  I say maybe because it was a while ago so I forget exactly what triggered it but it’s likely I was mentally reviewing my surprisingly epic history of patience with my man. It’s not consistent with my customary romantic practices or inherent inclinations. Usually with relationships, I end them. I throw my hands in the air and a lot of curse words into the ring and then I demonize him to my friends and several thousand followers. You do this too, yes?

(Pssssst…don’t do this: “hands in the air, “in the ring”. Those are cliched descriptions/dying metaphors and I specifically teach people NOT to allow these things to slip past their editing eyes. ‘Tis lazy phrasing.)

So. My fledgling patience. It’s so noticeably new and disconcertingly enduring that my man admiringly refers to me as his “persistent bitch”. I tingle with pride. I dig the possessive and I am a persistent bitch. I’ve never given up on us even though we regularly experience defining moments when I’m ready and he’s only, barely, soon-to-be willing. And that shit tears me up sometimes. This patience gig isn’t easy.

And that’s it.

I always thought patience must be easy. Mother Theresa and other smug saints and martyrs were blessed with a natural, apparently effortless patience they beatifically oozed everywhere.

What I was aiming for wasn’t patience but ease and fucked if there’s no short-cut to character.

Because, yo, patience is hard. It requires faith, mostly in your own resilience. But you can do it.

Even I’m doing it. True story.

Good Intentions

Good intentions are a rule of thumb and like that zombie expression (it’s dead but won’t die, dammit), it’s so oft-repeated it’s forgettable, unexaminable. What does rule of thumb even mean? What are good intentions, anyway, other than a platitude and an excuse you offer when you fuck up? “I had good intentions” is an adult version of a seven year old’s “I didn’t mean to.”

Yet people I respect, adore, admire – gurus, women of experience – write and say and insist  that intention is everything.

Which, despite my good intentions (ahem), I don’t get. Because the good idea fairy doesn’t pay jack [2]. Neither do good intentions, or, for that matter, potential. Potential is alluring and seductive but realization is climax and communion.

So intentions, even good ones, mean nothing to me.

However, intentionality, a term that my friend and insistent truth-teller Ronna Detrick bandies about with great intensity and purpose, is the shiz.

Intentionality is conscious design, purpose, and realization. It’s craft. It’s the way I (usually) approach writing and it’s the method I teach. It’s editing. You can edit your art and your life. It’s the same damn thing.

Here’s what I mean. When I write, it’s easy. I sit down and it flows. It’s usually pretty good. Sometimes I can get away with publishing the raw goods.

But I don’t do that often. Most often, I re-examine my prose with two levels of intentionality.

  1. The story I just told: what is it that I’m trying to say?
  2. How can I say it with more art, invention, surprise?

And then, to serve my theme, I mercilessly expunge the lazy phrasing, dead metaphors and cliched descriptions. I find inventive, inverted, perverted ways to express sometimes standard ideas. I extend metaphors with surprising word choice. It’s an exacting, microscopic process. The result can be luminous.

Lots of people are potentially good writers. Lots of people are naturally good writers. Lots of people loosely intend to write good stuff. But great writers are meticulous, intentional editors. They realize their potential and then speed past it to park at actualization.

———

1. Although, I must admit, like Christopher Hitchens and absolutely because of Christopher Hitchens, I have heartily mixed feelings about Mother Theresa.
 
2. According to Google Analytics, ”the good idea fairy doesn’t pay jack” is an actual search term that led someone to my site. I smell a t-shirt slogan.

2.1 These footnotes are a tribute to my new imaginary boyfriend Peter Orner and seven long years of undergraduate and graduate political science training, all of which is to say, I adore footnotes. It’s another way to squeak in musings, asides, and direct reader addresses. Like young girls in shabby dresses, parentheses and dashes, they do get weary.

2.2. And bloggers, therefore, especially ze Queens of intimate address and direct conversation, could and should use footnotes more often. Arwyn’s doin’ it…and hot damn did I just footnote my footnotes?

2.3. If you wanna use footnotes in WordPress – and darling, you do, and I’ll tell you why in three seconds, approximately the length of time it will take you to finish this sentence – try the FD Footnotes plugin.

2.4. If your friends are whispering in the next room, do you stop what you’re doing and listen harder? Do you find the longer you talk to someone, the more you reveal – even when you don’t mean to? Used semi-unconventionally (look at how Peter Orner uses them), that’s the gotta-hear-this tone footnotes can convey in writing. And blogging.

2.5. Semi-relatedly, studies of effective sales letters and newsletters reveal that the most-often and closely read line is the “P.S.”. (Stephen Elliott is a promiscuously effective post scripter. Sign up for his newsletter and you’ll see.) Why? Because it’s like a whisper…and it’s the last line. Eavesdroppers (aka “humans”) and skimmmers pay attention.

2.6. And that’s why you should use footnotes and postscripts in your blog posts, sales copy and newsletters. Also it’s just wacky. I’m a big fan of all things wackadoo.

2.7. Like The Rumpus, it’s newsletter, content, contributors and ever-refreshing, rotating tagline. Delish.

How to Be the Sexiest Woman in the World, Volume II




Marilyn Monroe. I know her. I know I’m not alone.

That’s why Mad Men could wrap an entire episode around the question: Are you a Marilyn or a Jackie?

(During which, one mad man pointed out that office manager Joan Holloway is a Marilyn…but then caught himself: ”Actually, Marilyn is a Joan.”)

Yesterday I was Joan. Or Marilyn. Or both.

——–

One day while watching Turner Classic Movies, I heard a true story about Marilyn Monroe. She was strolling down a New York avenue with a friend, wearing an unremarkable dress with an ordinary scarf tied around her head. She went completely unnoticed.

Suddenly, the starlet turned to her companion and asked, “Would you like to see Marilyn now?”

It took her mere seconds to transform into a cinematic sex kitten. A subtle lifting of her shoulders, an alluring elongation of her back, the coy tilting of her head, and a suggestive swing of the hips and va-voom! Immediately, people noticed. Our legendary bombshell was quickly surrounded by frantic admirers. She didn’t have to duck into a phone booth and change into a sequinned gown…

No one on that Manhattan street cast an eye in Marilyn’s direction until she made the conscious decision to strut her stuff.

- Kim Brittingham, Read My Hips: How I Learned to Love My Body, Ditch Dieting and Live Large

————–

I am five months pregnant. Yesterday I slipped into a fitted, Joan-style dress, turned sideways and realized my belly is bigger than my boobs.

This is saying something.

I wore the dress anyway.  I piled my hair into an updo, wore a knuckle-to-knuckle cocktail ring, painted my lips scarlet-letter red, and sashayed off into the world.

First I went to buy water. I’m naughty like that. The cashier said, “I have to tell you…you look amazing.” I gushed gratitude, and she said, “Oh come on. You look like a woman who knows she looks fabulous.”

Then I went to a medical office for an ultrasound. It was right after lunch. The waiting room was empty: fourteen seats and one ass (mine).

Despite the embarassment of chairs, a twenty-something, possibly professional-sport-playing hottie sits beside me. “I’m here about my knee.”

I smile. I’m a bit stunned by the choice of chair and opening line. “Oh,” I say.

“What are you here for?”

Are you kidding me? My belly is bigger than my cleavage – and a grown man could get lost in there.

It’s happened.

I explain the obvious. “I’m pregnant. I’m here for an ultrasound.”

He looks at my huge black cocktail ring that’s the antithesis of a discreet gold wedding band. “Are you married?”

“No.”

“I like kids,” he says, holding my gaze.

Again: are you kidding me?! I scan the room for Ashton Kutcher’s hiding place.

After the ultrasound, I visit my friend Heather, who tells me I’m the hottest pregnant woman EVER.

At home, the nanny for the neighbour’s family sees me and squeals over my dress.

I’m loving the love. But it’s not the dress. (Or: it’s not all the dress.)

It’s my mood. It’s competence and confidence. This morning, along with my red+purple partner Amanda Farough, I helped Tanya Geisler launch her new site and its premiere event, on online party complete with a jaw-dropping, drool-inducing loot bag. It’s gorgeous. It’s celebratory. Tanya is radiant…and radiating gratitude and generosity to all corners of the online (and offline) world. Including mine.

And because of that – because I’ve done well, and made my client/friend happy – I’m radiant and radiating, too. I’m joyous. I’m celebrating. I’m proud of what we did. I’m confident we did it well.

It’s like the time when I first fell in love with my man. At the height of newly-smitten, I spoke at a women’s bible study meeting and another woman couldn’t remember my name. Instead of “Kelly”, she referred to me as  ”the young woman who’s beaming.”

Radiance is sexy. It might even be sexier than conventionally prescribed hip-waist ratios of “attractiveness”. Just ask me. Even when I’m not pregnant, I’m height-weight proportionate: I’m as round as I am tall.

And I’m rocking it. Strutting it. Beaming it. Radiating.

Just like Marilyn.

And Joan.

And Kim Brittingham.

———–

If you’d like to win my copy of Kim Brittingham’s Read My Hips (which she graciously gave me to review), let me know in the comments below. I’ll draw and announce a winner on Friday, July 15, 2011.

As Tanya mentioned, Amanda was still putting a “spit-shine” on Tanya’s virtual baby while in labour with her own real baby. Congratulations Amanda and Mike Farough on the birth of Gabriel. xoxo

Much love to Leah Shaver who leapt in with last-minute wordpress wizardry and support.

And…in case you’re interested, here’s How to Be Sexy, volume I.