New Year's Date

New Year's has always been a bad date night for me. In high school I didn't "put out" so I was the night's FIRST DATE, home by one. I learned this later from my former dates at my high school reunions. What is it about getting older that made those guys think I would like to find out stuff like that?

In college my New Year's dates were usually our last dates. For some reason I broke up with everybody I was dating on December 31st. Right about midnight. Clearly I did not have good New Year's Eve karma.

But I was young and continued to have romantic notions of expensive, candlelight dinners, dancing, and late night smooching, you know the drill.

After college I met a guy I wanted to spend New Year's Eve with for the rest of my life. This was back in the day, when young women did things like keep scrapbooks for their dream weddings, complete with pictures of their silver, china, first home,and fairy tale bridal dress -- before there was even a guy to make plans with. They still do that, but usually in secret because let's face it, it's weird.

I didn't do the bridal scrapbook thingy, but I always dreamed of the perfect New Year's Date. In fact, I had started dating the target of my obsession a couple of months before the big day. I was crazy about him and just assumed he felt the same way, because, well, he was going out with ME.

I should have known I wasn't going to be number one on his dance card when he didn't invite me to his family's house in Aspen over the holidays. He did say he would be back for New Year's, which was as good as asking me out as far as I was concerned. However, he didn't actually ask me out by saying anything that resembled, "Would you like to go out on New Year's Eve?"

So I simply decided to wait for his return. Because I was worth returning for. No one could dissuade me. He and I were going to spend that magicial evening together.

Not that I didn't have other opportunities. I think it's relevant to note that I turned down a total of five offers to go out on that particular NewYear's Eve.

But noooooo, I turned them all down. Mr. Perfect Date was going to be back from his trip so WE could have that time for OUR special evening.

Needless to say his original return date came and went. I got this information from his friends who were in touch with him. The fact that he wasn't in touch with me never crossed my radar.

Denial was at DEAF-con 4. When the big day came and he still wasn't back from Aspen, I turned down offers four and five for the evening, because I just knew he would show up around dinnertime and give me a call. I imagined him racing to a pay phone at the airport after getting off the plane. He would be so pleased that I had waited for him, only him. Then he would take me to a romantic restaurant, after bringing me flowers and a small gift from his trip. And we would find outselves in a quiet spot when the clock struck twelve and have one of those Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr moments. Did I mention he was as goodlooking as Cary Grant? On the other hand, I thought I looked better than Ms. Kerr.

He never came back for New Year's. No suspense there. He stayed in Aspen, smitten by a beautiful young woman from Europe who was the houseguest of friends, something I learned later. I stayed home, dazed and confused.

[Being dazed and confused continued after my marriage to someone else a few years later, when I once celebrated New Year's Eve watching the ball drop in New York on TV, only to discover that I had celebrated the midnight moment at eleven my time. My husband was watching a Notre Dame game, so we didn't even kiss. Happy New Year babe, I'm going to bed.]

A few weeks after the New Year's Eve that wasn't, I waited again for the original Mr. Romance to ask me to a big dance that everyone was going to. As I write this I am beginning to understand the reason I am alone today, but I digress.

The weeks passed. Someone else asked me to the dance first and I accepted -- I wasn't going to miss this event. About a week beforehand, after the movies or something, my dream man said, "Well, I guess you get the nod." Has there ever been a less enthusiastic invitation?

If I hadn't been so crazy [blind, an idiot, etc.] about him, I could have said, "You waited too long, I already have a date." But, no, I accepted and told my other date the truth -- that the guy I really wanted to go out with had just asked me and I couldn't be at the same party unless I was with him.

We dated for four years [go figure] until it FINALLY became clear that I wasn't THE ONE.

There were times we talked about THAT NEW YEAR'S EVE when I waited forhim to come back like he said he would, but didn't. Those conversations usually started out with me saying, "Remember when you stood me up for New Year's?"

Despite everything, we're still friends. He had a few redeeming features. Luckily, after forty some years, I am no longer waiting forhim. I do think he still carries a torch for the cool blond from Europe who kept him out of town way past his due date that New Year's in Aspen. [Even after four kids and an ex-wife later.]

These days I look more like Cary Grant than he does. As for whatever her name was -- his Aspen fling -- I think it's ironic that she was Deborah Kerr's assistant.

Whaddya Mean Weird?

I'mdriving along and all of a sudden I see the flashing lights of a policecar in my rear view mirror. The guy's right on my rear bumper. I'dbetter get over quick or he's gonna run me off the road. So I pull overto the curb to let the officer pass me and he pulls in behind my car.Oh, geez, what have I done? Nothing. I've done nothing. I wasn'tspeeding. I didn't forget my turn signal. My stickers are allcurrent. WTF? The officer gets out and I can see in my rear viewmirror that there's someone else in his patrol car. Someone elsevery short is sitting in the passenger seat. Did he bring his kid onpatrol? Is that allowed? Kids riding in the front seat of a cop carduring a traffic stop? I roll down my window to hand him my driver'slicense and I hear, "You've been tagged Mrs. L."

Oh,it's you, Remo. Hey, what's that in the passenger seat of yourpatrol car? A doll? I mean, it looks like Chuckie. Is itChuckie? Do you drive around with a Chuckie doll sitting next toyou? You do. That's weird you know. Oh, you know.

Here are the rules; the first player of this game starts with the topic. Five weird habits of yourself and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly.In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don’t forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says “You are tagged” (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.

Mrs.Linklater is a certified weird person. However, she spends her life trying to appear normal. Admitting her weirdnesses in public is not easy. So to maintain the appearance of just being slightly skewed, she'll stick to the more benign weird stuff.

1. I like hollandaise sauce on anything, anytime. I will eat it on sandwiches. I will eat it with a spoon, plain like pudding. I will make a special trip to the store to buy asparagus or broccoli just to have something to pour hollandaise sauce over. Then I add sugar to the leftover egg whites, along with chocolate chips and make meringue shell cookies -- or as we call them at my house,SPACE COOKIES -- for their melt in your mouth yet styrofoam-looking texture.

2. My house is messy. My closets are neat.

3.If I'm writing you a note I print in block letters. If I'm taking notes in a class or writing a note to myself, I write cursively,because it's faster, slanting to the right, in a bastardized Palmer method style. If I'm signing my name, my signature is half printing,half writing and straight up and down, but mostly illegible. I've received letters to Mrs. UNKLATES and Mrs. FRIHINKENLATER because of my handwriting.

4.My favorite breakfast is an Ovaltine shake -- lots of chocolate Ovaltine, milk, and a raw egg, whipped to a froth in the blender. I like living on the edge -- not knowing if the uncooked egg is going to poison me with salmonella. I haven't
had a shake in awhile, because it's easier to just eat yogurt in the car. Hmmm, maybe this morning.

5. I only buy used cars. The last new car I had was a 1978 Buick LeSabre. I had it for fourteen years and sold it for a dollar. I told the guy he would probably get his money back looking through the seats. He did.

A client once paid me with a used Audi in perfect condition and I put 100,000 miles on it. I got a second used car at the same time, a 1983 Black Pontiac Firebird muscle car that I adored. It drove like a dream on the highway. And made no sense for a woman of my age to own. I bought my current wheels, a Jeep, from my younger daughter when she moved out of the country. Got it for a great price.

I'll be tagging some folks soon. The rest of you are expected to tag yourselves.

THIS IS MARY
http://journals.aol.com/thisismary/ViewFromAFarmHouseWindow/

SATURDAY'S CHILD
http://journals.aol.com/ksquester/SaturdaysChild/

DATING TIPS FOR PSYCHOPATHS
http://journals.aol.com/bosoxblue6993w/DATINGTIPSFORPSYCHOPATHS/

DRIBBLE BY CHUCK FERRIS
http://journals.aol.com/chasferris/DribblebyChuckFerris/

More British-isms From A Yank Friend

This email arrived from an ex boyfriend with distant cousins across the pond, after he read what I wrote about London. I thought it was entertaining enough to post. He starts by suggesting that my contention about no Costcos over there may not be correct.

I think that England has Costco because a lot of the food at [my cousins's] cold and drafty “castle” was Kirkland, the Costco house brand.

I have always liked the English thing about using a lot of extra words for something we have one word for: in Berwick-upon-Tweed I found myself hesitating before a sign which read “Gents Wash and Brush Up.” When I ventured inside I was relieved, in more ways than one, to find the usual assortment of useful porcelain fixtures.

Also moving companies are called rather ominously “removers.”

An English lady [my ex] and I met in Tucson at the B&B we were staying at asked whether our son was in “a residence hall.” I had to actually go from there to “dormitory” and then just to “dorm” before comprehension struck me.
 
When I went to England the first time on my own, I stayed at [my cousin's] cousin’s family’s country house outside of London. It was close enough so that the children remember looking out the windows at fires from bombs in London. Their father was one of the British rowers who conducted a failed raid on the coast of Africa in an attempt to kill Rommel. It opens the famous movie, Rommel, made with James Mason. The raid, as shown in the movie and in real life, failed, the team was caught, and he spent the rest of the war in a German prison camp.

For my benefit I guess the family had gathered a bunch of local jeunesse, all Oxford and Cambridge types for me to meet. I was just off of nine hours of drinking and flying on a student charter flight, and just sat there in that large room, with great French doors opening out onto lawn, seated in an enormous overstuffed sofa covered in chintz, a pattern of huge flowers, and with every table top containing a vase with more flowers in it than I had ever believed could have come from a single garden.

The young men talked, and I felt very stupid. They seemed glittering in their facile use of words and long arching sentences, all the pronouns right, and often with a wonderful cadence in the ear. After Exeter and Harvard and a year at Michigan Law, I felt totally uneducated, a mere rube, someone from the colonies with a mediocre education.
 
I thought about it for a long time that summer, playing the tape of the afternoon in my mind. Somewhere during the course of the summer, about half way, I figured out that these young men really were not more educated than I was, but boy, could they say what they knew better!

It was a hard lesson for someone who thought of himself as glib.
 
I also found understanding most people quite hard. [My cousins's] mother, Helen, a lovely, lively and funny lady, had a voice which sounded like a British phone. She didn’t talk as much as she sounded like the phone, brrrr-uppp, burr-upp, in a very high tone.
 
Also the slang is totally different and often very class oriented. “NOKD,” for example, which is “not our kind, dear.” It ‘s the dear that makes it funny and useable. I remember [my cousin's] sister telling me that on the lists for young men eligible for invitations to deb parties were codes such as “TPF” for “tiny prying fingers” and “NSIT” for “not safe in taxis.”

Designer Christmas Tree

My girlfriend has a knack for the new and unusual.  This avant garde Christmas tree is just an example. I don't know about you, but I love it. In an homage to an ancient Mexican ruler kind of way.

Eggy Bread and Figgy Pudding

London is in a country that speaks a language similar to ours, except if you're talking about lorries, loos, lifts, petrol, and gloveboxes, just to name a few of the myriad words they use for the everyday things we call something else.

Despite what we seem to have in common from here, life is quite foreign in actual practice over there. From the money to the different spellings we use for the same words. 

Offence and defence v. offense and defense, for  example. They use a "c." We use an "s." Since we're talking sports, we both have the same word, football, for two different games. 

On the other hand, when they use an "s" we use a "z." Organisation v. organization. If we use an "o", they up the ante to "ou."  Color vs. colour. Their computer keyboards are different too. Quotations marks are switched with the @ for starters.

Pronunciation also takes getting used to. Encephalitis, if you ever have a need to use it corrrectly in a sentence over there, has a hard "c."  Aluminum is pronounced al-U-min-I-um.

The British drive on the other side of the road, something most of us know. But you may not know it can kill you. For instance, you will probably die if you step off curbside [they spell it kerbside, by the way] without first looking right, instead of left. The odds of your demise increase exponentially when you're driving.

The innumerable English/Welsh/Scottish/Irish accents which change from neighborhood to neighborhood and town to town are delightful to listen to but almost impossible to decipher at times. Meanwhile, the English do a rather passable imitation of New Yawkers and claim they like to visit Chicago.

Have I mentioned using the phone? Instead of the number ONE in front of their numbers, there's a ZERO. That wouldn't be so bad except that we do our numbers in a three-three-four sequence, leaving the one by itself. Theirs is a four-four-three sequence beginning with the zero. Think it doesn't matter? Just having the first set of digits in a group of four makes it impossible to remember the rest of the number.

There are shops in the UK that sell only one thing -- nothing but meat, nothing but fish, nothing but wine, nothing but gloves, nothing but cheese, for example. Unlike here, the butcher, the baker, and the candlestickmaker still have their own establishments. The term fishmonger is still used when you're going to buy fish from the guy that sells gilled creatures. It's not just a word in a Dickens novel. 

There are no Wal-Marts. No Costcos, Sam's Clubs, K-Marts, Targets, etc. While Marshall Field's, Hudson's and the like have become homogenized or extinct in just a hundred years or so here in the U.S., there will always be Harrod's and Selfridges over there. Count on it. 

There are no strip malls as we know them. Just charming little shops, one after another, lining both sides of the thousand-year-old roads in that two-thousand-year-old city.

How can I express my happiness that London exists?

One morning I made French toast for breakfast. My daughter provided me with a wonderful loaf of thin sliced English white bread, perfect for the task. Like everything else, the bread was different. It had a homemade, not polymer texture, with the ample girth of sandwich bread. I made a batter of eggs, milk, a little sugar, and lots of vanilla. After soaking the bread I shook a bit of cinnamon on each side as it cooked. We ate it with real maple syrup from English sugar maples, along with servings of thick, smoked bacon, sliced by the butcher, which he then wrapped in white paper. Bacon as we know it in the U.S. is called striped bacon for that strip of tasty fat that travels down its length. Nothing I've tasted in the U.S. has ever been so good. Traditional English bacon on the other hand, looks more like Canadian bacon with a skirt. We had some of that, too.

While we're at it, yogurt tastes like it's supposed to -- made with whole milk so it's rich and sour creamy, not sweet like Jello pudding.

The evening after we had had French toast for breakfast, one of my daughter's friends said he preferred his eggy bread with catsup folded up in asandwich. Being an American who can appreciate the cultural differences between our countries, I said, "EWWWWW!! What's eggy bread?"

Thank goodness it turns out that the batter for eggy bread doesn't include anything like vanilla or sugar. Just eggs and milk. So the catsup doesn't sound quite so disharmonious. Or inedible. Apparently while visiting the U.S. for some cycling event in Utah, there was French toast being offered to the competitors and hot dogs to the spectators. So my new eggy bread aficionado friend took some of the American French toast and walked over to the hot dog stand to slather catsup all over it to make himself a reasonable fac simile of his English hometown favorite.

As for figgy pudding? This traditional English Christmas dessert is made with figs for starters. Nothing mysterious there. You can find any number of olde tyme family recipes for it, using a new fangled modern invention: Google. That's what I did -- centuries of information kept in a wooden box in a countryside farmhouse have been distilled into a click of a mouse on the internet. What's old is new. 

The Real McCoy

This is the aforementioned Christmas pudding to which I was referring in the previous entry. You can't see the brandy flaming blue on top, nor can you taste the delightful, heartstopping toppings of custard sauce, brandy sauce or my personal favorite, brandy butter, which we were encouraged to spread or pour liberally over our delicious, fruity servings. 

All the ingredients in the pudding, which included suet, were added by hand, after being lovingly chopped and measured, following an olde familie receipt. It bears almost no resemblance to the Christmas pudding I'm familiar with in the U.S., which appears as if by magic when one opens a can and shakes it out with a plop onto a serving dish. 

Once the ingredients were assembled, everything was steamed in a mysterious, old fashioned way and served at the table on a large plate, like a small, yet perfectly formed, German bunker. 

Everything in London always seems to come back to THE WAR. The lovely brick row house we gathered in for dinner was Victorian in age if not actual design. By some stroke of luck, considering its location, it survived the war bombs. The house next door had more of a story to tell. Apparently the area of London we were in was vulnerable to Nazi warplanes dumping the last of their bombs on their way out of town, in a futile attempt to blow up a factory a block away that made fuses for English ordnance. 

Like so many factories that survived THE WAR, it is now filled with charming businesses and fancy flats [apartments in American]. Unfortunately the home that had stood next to the rowhouse for well over a hundred years became a casualty of one of those bombing raids and was blown to bits. It was replaced by a fifties dwelling that was not nearly so charming. The British do 1850 a lot better than 1950 in my opinion.

There is a pond across the street from the rowhouse in the middle of this village-like section of London. There are a pair of swans, a brace of colorful English ducks I can't identify, and several Canada geese, along with many other aquatic fowl. A gang of rascally mourning dove-like pigeons resides in the low hanging branches of the trees which line the water, waiting for any sign of bread crumbs, so they can swoop down and challenge their swimming brethren for the spoils. 

There is also an unexploded German bomb rumored to be at the bottom of the pond. I'll bet the fuse is pretty damp by now.

More later.

 

London is for Lovers and Their Mothers

This is the start of a longer entry. Or perhaps several short ones. I've got jet lag and work to do, so it may take a few days to get it all out. Meanwhile, here are a couple of pictures for you of my younger daughter and her fiance who were the reason I traveled across the pond for the holiday. Still to come -- the homemade, genuine English Christmas pudding. The lubricated toasts and liberally overserved guests at the lively holiday dinner. With an homage to the dessert that was five limes and a cup of sugar short of a pie.

I don't think my daughter stopped smiling during my entire visit. Neither did her fiance for that matter. They are so excited about getting married. And you're all invited.  Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. 

Ta.

 

 

Not One But Two Entries at Blogspot

Mrs. Linklater gives advice to the advice columnists. Has there ever been anyone so helpful?

http://askmrslinklater.blogspot.com/

A Christmas Story

Several years ago I had a huge assignment due right around Christmas. In fact, every year that seems to happen. No matter what my plans may be, they also include WORK. This year is no different.

Since I am my own boss and nobody gets paid unless I get paid, we [the collective version] do what it takes to keep the refrigerator stocked with frozen entrees and fat free cherry yogurt -- we work.

The assignment was to design new bottles, trucks, uniforms, stationery, ads, and whatever else might be needed for a huge supplier of a certain type of refreshment people drink to excess in this country. I had illustrators, designers, computer geeks and myself working like Santa's elves to finish the project. 

But some of the people did not have the same sense of urgency that I did.  One in particular drove my American Work Ethic to distraction -- in case you're from out of town, the American Work Ethic = work 24/7 and eat at your desk.

He was from the former Yugoslavia, which used to be just across a pond from "I work to live, I do not live to work" Italy, whose influence might explain why he stopped working at noon each day and actually went out for his lunch. He even went home for dinner because his wife had prepared it and he was expected to come home to eat it.

To make matters worse, he would invite me to join them. I did once, but it just annoyed me that people could be so damn civilized in the midst of a shitstorm of deadlines, so I didn't do it again.

The night everything had to be FedExed to headquarters for a presentation the following day, he left for dinner, while I commandeered an entire Kinko's staff and ALL their equipment to insure that everything was copied and bound and whatever else needed to be done. Except for his stuff. He still wasn't finished with his stuff.

I waited and waited for him to return from his meal. I called it his last supper. He returned from his leisurely repast with his lovely wife and daughter -- pot roast Croatian style as I recall, accompanied by a fine bottle of cabernet -- to find me still waiting for his stuff, which he then fine tuned again and again until I begged him to stop and give it to me because the FedEx office was about to close and I had to leave.

Yes, you guessed it, FedEx was CLOSED by the time I got there. Two minutes late and they wouldn't open the door.

I had one other option. I could go to the airport where they were still open for another hour. But I would have to find their stealth location and I was a good thirty minutes away.

At this point I was standing outside the local FedEx office with my arms full of presentation materials. With weeks of stress causing me to finally meltdown. In tears. 

Yes, I was crying. Sobbing like a little kid who'd lost her puppy.

A woman who managed to FedEx her stuff out on time had just left the parking lot. I watched as she made a U-turn and came back around. She got out of her car and asked if there was anything she could do to help.

I said yes, take this stuff to the FedEx office at the airport so it can be sent to the president of a company in another city over a thousand miles away, because he is making a presentation to his vice presidents in the morning.

I was kidding.   

She said, "Sure, I would be glad to."  And took everything from me and went on her way.

She wouldn't take any money. She did mention that she was doing this for me because it was Christmastime. I didn't know this woman. I had never seen her before. I have never seen her since, for that matter.

Then she hopped into her little red car and she was gone. The irony of her red car is not lost on me.

For all I knew she drove around the corner and threw everything into a snowdrift. Luckily, for my sanity, I didn't think about that until later.

I was too stunned by the gesture to ask for her name or even check the license plate on her car, just in case she too was kidding.

I didn't have to. All the materials arrived the next day right on time. I still shake my head when I think about it. 

A random act of kindness at Christmas. Who knew?

 

 

How Do You Like New York Now, Smarty-Pants Boy?

NY Times

Today the entire borough of Manhattan was standing in line for a cab, since nothing else was moving, thanks to the transit strike. Apparently the NY Times thought this was exciting news to share with the entire world, so photographers were dispatched to take lots of pictures of the cold and put out commuters waiting and waiting for cabs to come. After hearing my east coast friends complain about how terrible the cold weather is here in Chicago, it warmed the cockles of my heart to hear that the cabbies had the chutzpah to charge prices even New Yawkers couldn't believe.

You people gotta problem with entrepreneurship?

Among the many photos of the distress that this transit strike has caused was the one above on the front page of the Times, which features someone I know. He's the guy with the man purse. And the frozen hair. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa. He could be in Florida at golf school trying to make the pro tour, complaining about the heat. He could be in California doing anything people in California do and complaining about the earthquakes, mudslides, and fires. He could be in grad school, still enjoying the perks of eating cold pizza and complaining about how much he has to study. But no, he decided to be gainfully employed in the Big Apple, commuting three hours a day most days. Except today, of course, which took a little bit longer. It's New York. He's still waiting for a cab.

Maybe you shouldn't have complained about how cold and windy Chicago is, whiner boy. How you could never live here. Ever. Maybe we decided to get even with you. It could happen. 

By the way, nice purse. That IS a purse. That is NOT a briefcase, no matter what the sales girl with the big hooters told you when you bought it.

A Mysterious Christmas Card

The envelope had my name on it, but I wasn't familiar with the return address. I took out the Christmas card and I didn't recognize the toddler twins pictured in their Santa caps. Or their names for that matter. When I read the greeting, it was from Carol and Jim. I didn't recall knowing any couple named Carol and Jim. 

Finally there was a photo of a bride and groom standing next to a couple who looked like parents. I had no clue who any of these people were.

But, there had been a wedding, some children had been born, and people I didn't seem to know apparently wanted to tell me all about it.

After going through the other cards from yesterday I took a look at the mysterious card again, this time with my reading glasses on. While staring at the pictures for a time, I realized that the first name of the bride was vaguely familiar. A very unusual moniker, it was the same as my older daughter's best friend in first grade.  It WAS my older daughter's former friend. Her two front teeth had grown in quite nicely.

Then I looked at the parents. Wait a minute, that's her mother with a different husband. Or the old one had grown a foot. She had been MY friend. But that friendship waned many years ago following a strange holiday party with several other female friends.

A group of us decided to get to gether to exchange presents a couple of days before Christmas. Everyone else received smelly soaps, scarves and other girly things, but I was presented with gifts more suitable for an armed and dangerous feminist. For some reason they all thought I would like receiving bizarre anti male slogans, meticulously handpainted on driftwood, suitable for hanging in the bathroom. Of what?  A lesbian stronghold?

This was the late seventies, a breeding ground for many empowerment groups, none of which I had ever had an interest in joining.But all these other women espoused them. Maybe they assumed my confidence came from consciousness raising. As if it couldn't come from someplace else. Clearly they had the misguided thought that I felt men were the enemy.    

Were the odd "feminist" presents because I was newly divorced and about to return to work? Was it because I already talked the talk and walked the walk of women who had fought sexual harassment and deserved equal pay for equal work, blah blah blah?

It was clear to me that they had confused my politics with who I was. 

I thought I was tall, beautiful and athletic. Since I was dating attractive persons of the male persuasion, the men thought so too. WTF were these babes thinking? That my stand on equality precluded anything feminine?  My only thought was that those women didn't know me. My feelings were hurt and I withdrew from their company almost overnight.

A few years later when my ex wanted to go through annulment proceedings -- the Catholic's church's homage to divorce -- I went to the archdiocese for an interview.  This was an option I didn't have to exercise, but I was curious. 

After a battery of personality tests and a strange series of questions from a priest who made several sexist inquiries I wouldn't answer, I finished up the day having a long conversation with a young, empathetic male psychologist. 

As our conversation wound down he made reference to several feminist writings, which he just assumed I was familiar with. I think he was proud of his ability to make a connection with a woman emerging from the ancient beliefs of an old system into the revolution that was currently underway.

I told him I had heardof a few of the books he referenced, but never read any of them. He looked at me, quite puzzled, since he had just assumed from our discussion that I had taken women's studies in college or done extensive reading in the area of feminist teachings.  I was having a flashback to the perceptions of my former friends.

"No,"  I answered.  "I didn't have to read about any of that stuff. I lived it."

My politics aren't me. Nor are the sports I played. Most recently a guy I know, who is gay, which may or may not be relevant, said he just assumed I was a lesbian when he heard I had played softball. Now that he knows me, he just laughed at his assumption and felt comfortable telling me about it. Nevertheless, my feelings were still a little hurt. Too often perception about me has become somebody's reality. 

All this reflection because of a Christmas card from someone I haven't spoken to in decades. Now I can reflect on why they decided that this year was the time to reconnect. 

The holidays can do that to you.

  

Merrily We Pimp Along

UPDATE:
10/29/06
http://lessonsfromlou.blogspot.com/
A beautiful, lasting tribute to a loving husband from his wife, started near the end of their eighteen month journey fighting the brain tumor that took his life. Her thoughts and feelings are pure poetry.

UPDATE:
3/9/06 Waiter Rant -- stories from a restaurant
http://www.waiterrant.net/

UPDATE:
3/8/06 Heck of a Guy -- outside blog, amusing doctor
http://heckofaguy.com/blog/?p=41

UPDATE:      
3/6/06 The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind -- wry Wisconsin guy
http://journals.aol.com/dpoem/TheWisdomofaDistractedMind/

Usually I don't get excited about the Guest Editor or the Guest Editor's Picks.  Either I already know him or her or I'm familiar with most of the journals they've chosen to pimp.

On the other hand if I don't know them or their picks I'm usually just disappointed after a quick read.

Until this week. When I discovered the wild and wacky world of DEAD INVESTIGATIONS  the journal written by the SWAT cop who is this week's Guest Ed.

Can't link? Here's the URL:
http://journals.aol.com/krisndave83/DeadInvestigations/

He hasn't written a whole lot yet, but what's there is very entertaining, considering the subjects he's writing about -- dead bodies, transporting criminals, chasing bad guys, and trade secrets like learning how to pick up hookers. 

Ever since I started writing on AOL, and now Blogger, the most interesting and entertaining journals, in my opinion, have been the ones written by law enforcement, firefighters or paramedics. No one has better subject material or more riveting stories. No one writes better comedy, as black as it is. No one laughs at themselves more or makes me laugh harder. 

I think you'll like Dead Investigations.

For now, I will use this entry to add any more journals I think are worth reading, since my Other Journals sidebar is almost maxed out.  You can link here via New Journal Discoveries to see what I've discovered. 

BOYS' NAPTIME AT MY BROTHER'S

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

I wondered in the comment section of someone's journal whether it was a good thing that I hadn't yet been tagged for Ten Things.

And got tagged.

TEN THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY:

1. Sunday morning in bed -- no place to be, no errands to run, nobody to steal the covers
2. Flying -- coming in for a landing at Meigs Field in a small plane at sundown in front of a glorious view of the Chicago skyline. Unfortunately Meigs is closed. So I would settle for a trip down the California coast from San Francisco to Mexico or a sundown cruise on a sailboat on Lake Michigan.
3. Driving -- there is nothing like the freedom of being able to get in my car and drive wherever I want, sunroof open, hair blowing, music cranked. There was also nothing like the glorious feeling of speeding around the track at Road America in an Acura NSX. Maybe next time they'll let me drive. Or racing down the road hanging on to a really goodlooking guy on the back of his motorcycle.
4. My journal -- I thought it might be a place to bare my soul, until I realized I wasn't going to use this place as a confessional. So it has become a place where I can sharpen the fork in my tongue. And unload my spew or uplift my soul or just have a nice whine.
5. The smell of crisp mountain air and a view looking out across a creek flowing through a pasture surrounded by mountains.
6. My daughters
7. The look of recognition on a toddler's face when they get the joke you just played on them and they do it back.
8. Gobs of money
9. Chocolate malt and fries. They say it's fat that makes things tasty. If that's the case, then those two food groups are the tastiest in the world. Between the ice cream, malt and chocolate coupled with the fat delivery system known as French fries, I can achieve Nirvana in a single taste. Of course, these days one taste is pretty much my limit. I can't believe I ever finished a whole malt in one sitting, let alone ate the fries with it, accompanied by plenty of catsup squeezed liberally out of one of those red, plastic bottles. Even now it only takes the sip of a malt to send me back to high school and those halcyon days of yesteryear when my only concerms were finishing my homework and cleaning my room.
10. Thanksgiving.  The daylong anticipation of my favorite meal is better than Christmas for me.

Do You Want To Live To 100?

I just opened a Christmas card from a good friend.  She enclosed the following update on her life:

The years are flying by faster and faster. I am on my same schedule except that I have finally had to quit playing volleyball. My spine trouble seems to bother my legs with volleyball. But, I still don't have any trouble biking, playing badminton and going to the gym three times a week to lift weights. 

Sounds like a lot of people in middle age. Except she is 87 years old. She also holds national age group championships in 65+ volleyball and 75+ badminton. Her one daughter was a two time Olympian, the other, an elite diver and volleyball player.

She finished her greeting by saying she plans to live to 100. I just want to make it to 70.

Anybody Want To Buy A Healthclub?

Yesterday, after twenty-five years in business, my healthclub hung up its jockstrap. They're closing at the end of December. The thirty-first is their last day. ACK. Every one is stunned. Sure, we'll miss all the equipment and the classes, but my social life was there too. Now I'll only have the grocery store. And Walgreen's.

Last January, I took some pictures of the main floor, from my seat in the restaurant on the upper level of the club. No special reason, I just felt like it. I didn't shoot pictures of the tennis courts, racketball courts, kids' room, swimming pool, sauna, steam rooms, hot tubs, volleyball court, aerobic studio, weight room, Pilates studio, basketball court where the Bulls used to practice, and the Spa where I had a staff of massage therapists, nail, hair and facial people at my beck and call. I didn't get this beautiful standing around, you know.

I'm going to miss the industrial strength showers and the big screen tv in the lounge. I'm going to miss baked sweet potatoes and veggie omelettes. I'm going to miss seeing the latest breast implants walking around the locker room, since I'm comparison shopping these days. I'm even going to miss the guys who don't wipe the sweat off the machine after they're done. Haaa.

Until a few months ago there was also a clothing boutique where I used to buy most of my slacks and tops, also bathing suits, cross trainers, sports bras, scrunchies, knee highs, Thor-Los, and even a couple of things with sequins. 

With my one stop shopping, working out, and beautifying place out of business, that means I'm actually going to have to shower, dress and eat at home after the first of the year. I better check to see if I have any towels.

Our membership will be good at one of three other clubs, which I may or may not consider. Since I'm such a junkie, I already have a membership to another club. In fact, my town could be Jock City, USA. For a place that only has around 30,000 people, there's another healthclub, a YMCA, two tennis clubs, and a huge multi-purpose club within two miles of me. Not to mention all the private country clubs and park district swim, skating, and golf centers. No wonder I have so many sports related injuries.  

You know I've always wanted to own my own club. Or at least to do the marketing. The one here that's for sale is about 100,000 square feet. A few million ought to buy it.

I wonder if they'll take a check?

Nice Voice, Mrs. Linklater

We Have Only Begun To Fight

A friend of mine drew this when Armand was fighting AOL about his TOS conviction. Works for me now too. 

Twas the Night Before I Fell Down the Stairs on My Ass

Everybody is sharing heartwarming stories of Christmases and Hannukahs past. Not me. I'd rather tell about the time I fell down my basement stairs.

If I'm lucky there will be a moral to this story. If not, maybe you'll get a giggle or two at my expense.

I think it should be pointed out that most people who fall down a flight of stairs are drunk. And it is quite possible to break one's neck during an execution of this maneuver, drunk or sober.

The day, more than a decade ago, began inauspiciously enough. Get up, get my younger daughter up, make her lunch, drive her to school, go to work, work all day, come home. I don't know where the kids were when I got home, but they weren't around for some reason. Wait a minute, one of them was in college I think, and the other was playing a sport or working.

Before checking the mail, I put down my purse and took a basket of clothes down to the laundry room after almost tripping over it. In retrospect, it would have been smarter to change clothes first, but the basket bugged me.

Going downstairs, I noticed that the light on the way to the basement was out. It is located about four steps from the top and about a foot above a stair.

Still in my work clothes, which included a skirt and patent leather heels, I decided to change the burnt out bulb. I got a new one, and, while hunkering down, holding the new light in one hand, I started unscrewing the cover over the fixture.

Somehow, some way, my foot suddenly slid out from under me. Propelled by the slippery surface of the shoe, the next thing I knew my whole body was suddenly turned upside down and heading for the basement floor.

As my backside hit each one of the stairs with a resounding ker-thunk, ker-thunk, ker-thunk, I remembered stories of other people who had fallen this way. All dead. Usually the survivors didn't make the news. "You can die from this," I thought, unable to stop the momentum, lightbulb still in hand. I couldn't reach the railing. There was nothing to grab to stop my headlong rush to the bottom. I was a passenger on a train with no brakes.

The back of my head hit the basement floor pretty hard. The tile softened the blow, but I'm not sure how much. For some reason it didn't hurt, but it did sound funny. I still don't know if I was knocked out or not. I do know when I opened my eyes I was looking into the laundry room and I could have sworn I had landed facing the other way. The lightbulb was shattered. Hmm. Note to self: You are not dead. Or paralyzed. And don't wear those shoes to change lightbulbs any more.

My neck didn't hurt. My butt sure did, though.

On reflection, I must have been unconscious because I was having a hard time getting my bearings. I wasn't dizzy, but I was out of it. I knew I had to get upstairs, but when I got to my feet, they didn't seem attached to my body. My vision was iffy at best. I remember squinting while I tried to focus.

I held on to the railing with my right hand and braced myself with my left. Slowly i began to drag myself up the stairs stiff-legged like a robot. I don't know why, but it just seemed easier to move that way.

When I got to the phone in the kitchen I leaned against the wall with my rear end against the refrigerator and didn't have a clue what to dial. We didn't have 911 service yet. So, I called the operator. "O." How hard could that be? Well, it rang and rang, but no one answered. Hmmmm. I stared at the wall again, trying to think, which wasn't happening very easily.

Somehow I noticed a piece of adhesive tape with EMERGENCY NUMBER POLICE/FIRE written on it. I'd left it there for babysitters years before and never removed it. I had to dial it more than a few times because I kept transposing the numbers.

When i finally got through, which seemed to take forever, I told the operator that I had fallen down the stairs and needed some help. I tried to talk normally, but I couldn't. My speech was slow and slurred; I must have sounded drunk or stupid.  "I fell down my stairs and I think I hurt myself."  There was some blood, but at least it wasn't gushing.

I told the operator I would meet the paramedics outside.
"Stay where you are, we'll come to you." 

Nope. "My house is a mess, I'll meet you outside."  Typical female. I even changed into fresh clothes. But I felt like I was in slow motion, like someone with a serious neurological disorder. I WAS a person with a serious neurological disorder.

When the paramedics got there, I was sitting on the front step like a little kid waiting for the bus. They stabilized my neck and one by one they started asking me questions about two inches from my face. I thought it was because Iwas talking so softly, slowly and hesitantly. That was part of the reason, I guess. But talking funny made them think I'd been drinking so everybody was trying to get a whiff of alcohol on my breath. As I recall, it was more Cheetos than cabernet.

At the hospital they began picking glass out of my head, my arms, my hands, and my neck. They did a CAT scan of my head, gave me a tetanus shot, and presented me to the attending physician for release. He checked out my head one more time and said they missed a spot, so I got several stitches, too.

My daughter came to take me home.

Two days later a pair of headlight-shaped bright yellow, green and purple bruises showed up on each of my butt cheeks. I should have had a picture taken.

Three days later I was still talking funny, like I was under water, but gradually I was able to speak normally again.

Two weeks later I went back to have the stitches taken out. I was running a low grade fever for some reason and they didn't know why.

Two days after that I began to have symptoms of the flu. My joints ached. I was running a temperature of 101 or 102. I did notice that there was an inflamed area on my pinky finger where some glass had been removed. 

Another day passed. Jim Henson was on the cover of People Magazine. He had just died of a strep inflection that he ignored, thinking it was the flu. The flu I had was getting worse. Then I suddenly remembered, wait a minute, I don't get the flu. Even when it knocked out half my high school twice, I never got it. [Knock on wood.]

Here's where the second of the two most important courses I ever took in school kicked in. The first most important was high school typing. The second was microbiology in college.

I suddenly realized that my inflamed finger was probably an infection caused by some glass that hadn't been removed and it was festering under the skin, pumping out evil toxins and the like from staph or strep bugs coursing through my body. Untreated, death was an option. Second note to self: Next time make sure they remove all the broken glass and clean the wound.

I remember calling my doctor who agreed I didn't have the flu, but probably some kind of systemic infection coming from the inflamed finger.

He put me on a powerful antibiotic that was first used to treat a drug resistent strain of gonnorhea in soldiers returning from Vietnam. That may explain why the pharmacist asked me whatI was taking it for when I went to pick it up. No, I haven't been "working" in Vietnam.

The infection cleared up very quickly. The bruise on my butt took a little longer.

The moral of this story is when you're heading for a fall, don't let your ass hit the floor on your way down. 

Nevermind.

CHAPTER TWO

The dust has begun to settle on the AD BANNER FIASCO. As far as AOL and its editors are concerned, it's forgotten.

As far as the AOL journalers are concerned, we will never forget. A new chapter begins. But the last one is still being written.

The cataclysm has passed, but the aftershocks won't be over for a long time.

Upper management would like us to think we were hallucinating when we say we were told that our paid journals would be ad-free. But we weren't.

FROM THE LOVE TRAIN's journal: John Scalzi announced the AIM blogs and stated in his May 5, 2005 entry:

"The cat's out of the bag: AOL is announcing today... (the real difference is that AIM Blogs, being a free service, have an ad at the top, whereas AOL Journals, as part of your paid AOL account, are ad-free.)"


Thus, the Exodus, led by the outrage of community leaders like Armand, Judith, Viv, and Patrick has continued for several weeks as over two hundred other journalers have packed up and left.

AOL would have the world believe there are 600,000 active journals here. Those numbers are more inflated than Pamela Anderson's implants.

That way they can make you think that losing two hundred journals [and it may be as high as 500] wouldn't make a blip. But even if you double the number listed in our Journals Directory, you're only talking about two thousand blogs. The actual count of known blogs is 995.

Whether it's a tenth, a fifth, or as much as a third or even half of the AOL journals community saying hasta la bye bye, one thing is for sure, the leaders are gone.

Some people moved out so quickly there was food still cooking on the stove. Others left the lights on for the rest of us with maps to their new locations. Some made plans to stay away until the ad banners cease. One very high profille person, Patrick, shockingly moved everything entirely out of the community and deleted all evidence that he was ever here. One of our most patient, conciliatory constituents, he stunned us with his final declaration of disgust at AOL's arrogance and lack of compromise.

For the time being the number of those leaving seems to be slowing down. Not that it's over. For various reasons, some of us need more time to get out of Dodge, so we have one foot in AOL and another someplace else, as we ease on down the road. Others are staying, but their heart strings are attached to those who've left. 

After theinitial sense of loss and disconnection, certainly on my part, concerted efforts are being made to keep us together no matter where we are. The community lives.  Long live the community.

New URL's are being sent around. Email lists are being compiled by the new "bloggers" to keep friends posted on recent entires. Tutorials on navigating the slippery slopes of HTML code are popping up. We're all still standing and starting to seek each other out again. The community remains as strong as ever.

At first I was feeling anxious and sad because of the turmoil. After the battle was lost, the Exodus felt like a precipitous decision. Not that it was wrong. But it occurred to me we could have made it work for us a little better.  Perhaps planning it so that we all dumped our journals on the same day at the same time, with an announcement to the press to precede the event. And refreshments. Haaa.

Now, at least, there's time to manage our anger in new, perhaps even more creative ways. We got mad. Now we can get even. As they say, revenge is best served cold.

There are too many competent, clever people in our J-Land community to allow it to fall apart.  And too many good writers to let AOL off the hook with their corporate greed. 

Death by a thousand cuts takes longer, but the result can still be the same.

Correcting Something Incorrect

I haven't posted a new entry at my blogspot place, but you might want to make note of the URL, because I've noticed that a lot of the links from other journals are incorrect.

Patrick of Patrick's Place has it right.  It's listed under Ask Mrs. Linklater.

http://askmrslinklater.blogspot.com/

When in doubt you can link from my Other Journals.  It's down there at the bottom.

And I've tried to update most of the journals over there that have moved.

Children and More Sensitive Readers May Want To Skip This Entry

Some people get flu. Some people get colds. I get food poisoning.  

Why? Because I eat out a lot. As a result I don't have any control over how things are being prepared for me, except to ask for no mayonnaise, or may I have it grilled instead of fried, or please put the dressing on the side, that kind of stuff.

For all I know my salmon filet has been picked up off the floor and the lettuce in my salad was dried by wiping it on someone's dirty jeans.

Having found an inch worm making its way across my arugula at a very fancy eatery, I do not have high expectations about where my food has been or what has been done to it. As long as whatever is on the plate looks, smells, and tastes close to what I was expecting, I plunge right in.  

So I am a frequent candidate for food poisoning, usually the 24- hour type, except for this bout, which I have been recovering from since Wednesday.

I don't know which of the prior five or six meals was the one that got to me, but I was in my car, about fifteen minutes after a ladies lunch that was served with a gorgeous, panoramic view of a snowcapped golf course, when the contractions began. I am not pregnant. But a delivery was imminent. [I just know there's a UPS joke in there.]

So I called someone who lived nearby and asked if i could use one of their bathrooms for the rest of the day. After two hours I was flushed with relief and felt it was safe enough to head home. That day gave new meaning to being an evacuee.

Last time I got food poisoning this bad, twenty years ago, [passing blood] I went to the hospital for almost a week, but not this time.

I wasn't throwing up, so I could get fluids down. No need for IV's. And my crackers, rice, 7-UP, tea, chicken broth, jello, bananas [thanks for the reminder], and applesauce menu is better than anything at the hospital. Cheaper too.

Next time I get sick I'm checking into a hotel. So I can have someone clean my room and make my bed fresh every day. So I can make a phone call and people will bring my food to me. So there won't be any doctors telling me things I already know.  "Soft foods, plenty of fluids. . ."

My biggest complaint is that I have had to miss two parties I was really looking forward to. My timing sucks when it comes to my social life. "Coulda woulda shoulda" will be my epitaph.

Meanwhile, every hour or so I start having unpleasant contractions, okay, cramping, but it all feels the same, in case you've never experienced childbirth. Yes, I did some Lamaze breathing to get through it. You never think that stuff is going to come in handy again. Who knew?

Don't get me started on the alternate uses for Kegels.

Anyway, I'm sure my neighbors think I'm out of town, since my car is buried up to the hubcaps in snow. I haven't even been out to get the mail. I better do something or they're going to think I'm dead. What if they send the cops to do a wellness check? I'm at that age where it could happen.

Geez. That just means I should probably get up and get dressed even though I don't want to, because they'll break down the door when I decide not to answer it, since I'm not clothed for company.  This could get ugly. 

I just looked in the mirror.  It already is.

Stuff I Learned Lying in Bed with Food Poisoning

Tea, rice, jello, applesauce, chicken broth, 7-Up and the remote -- my recipe for surviving food poisoning.  To make it more interesting there's almost a foot of snow outside that needs to be dealt with, but I'm sticking near the porcelain throne today.

The Southwest Airlines 737 mishap at Midway Airport here in Chicago yesterday occurred exactly 33 years to the day that a United crash at the same airport took 45 lives. 

The six year old boy who was in a car that was crushed by the plane was the first Southwest fatality since they began operation. And he wasn't even on the plane.

By the way, have you noticed that AOL is calling our journals blogs? Also that Joe of Smoke and Mirrors seems to be stepping into Scalzi's territory with some of his posts? Or am I just getting paranoid?   

Chita Rivera is 73. She is singing and dancing on Broadway even as I write this. She is proof that being a lifelong dancer is smarter than playing sports. And don't point to the septugenarians who run marathons.  It's not like they're doing more than a shuffle.  Ms. Rivera is performing in a one woman show every night with matinees on Wednesday and Sunday. Anne Miller danced until she was embalmed.

Does it bother you that Dr. Phil's son Jay is engaged to a former Playmate or Penthose Pet who posed naked for everybody?  Not that posing naked is a bad thing. It's just that it makes me wonder about his priorities.The guy is a law school grad with a number one best seller to name just two things.  Is she like a stripper who's working her way through med school?  And they met by accident in the produce section of a health food store?  Or is he just the poster boy for his dad's new book about getting the relationship you want?  Maybe he's just being real. Lots of smart guys say they want a woman with a good heart, good sense of humor, and a good mind. But a good set of hooters never hurt.  I wonder if Dr. Phil included a chapter on cheap plastic surgery for women over sixty? Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

I better post this before my new mouse eats it.

NOTE to Oprah -- quit shilling for your new musical, The Color Purple, on your show.  Oh no, she just gave the entire audience tickets. 

Today I am determined to learn something useful watching TV. We'll see.

I'm Sick

Just so you know. I got a new mouse that has more bells and whistles than Dennis Rodman's face. Since I got it, I've tried to write two entries. 

One about falling down my basement stairs. One about getting food poisoning yesterday
.
Bet you're sorry you missed them. That's two hours I won't get back.

Somehow, every time I go to click on SAVE I'm clicking the F**k U button instead and the entry vaporizes. [Did anybody notice the F**k typo I made before I fixed it? Haaaa.]

Anyway I'm recovering from something I ate.

So, I'll be back later.

Five Minutes Old

 

I'm an auntie grandma again. This is my brand new fresh born nephew. He arrived this morning. If you think he looks big for a newborn, you would be right. In fact, I think he's already spiking his hair. This ain't no girly boy fer sure.   

All the Warmth and Fuzziness of a Lizard

Following my reply in the previous entry to the now infamous Dollar Bill letter [thank you ber144 for that apt nickname], I received this email from someone who is rooting for us.  I'm printing it with permission.

Greetings Mrs. L,  

. . .This is the same Bill who almost exactly a year ago to the day held a phone conference and fired the entire remote staff of AOL.  These are the people who managed community (see the common thread?)  He was just as condescending and asinine then. He also had the poor judgement to email all employees (including the 700+ he just canned) after the conference with  "We've dropped the dead weight and it will be smooth sailing from here." Of course we were all placated with "the lawyers told him exactly what to say, someone messed up, you weren't supposed to get that email..."  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  

AOL no longer cares about community.  Community was not paying the bills. Ads pay the bills.   

Jaded Former AOL employee

Once upon a time in her checkered career, Mrs. Linklater was a vice president at one of the largest ad agencies in the world. She has seen the likes of the Bill Schreiner types up close and personal, both inside the agency and working with clients.

There are two kinds of people in his position:

The ones who make you think you are capable of achieving the impossible and give the you freedom to soar.

The others who only trust themselves, treat you like you're incompetent, and have to control everything.

You become what your boss says you are. First as an individual. Then as a company.  

I think AOL's problems only appear to be financial; in reality, they're more likely a failure of leadership.

Unfortunately most companies confuse leadership with finance. But when a company takes care of its people, the money takes care of itself.

Also a good healthplan, maybe daycare, job sharing, one of those nice baskets during the holidays -- these also help.


NOTE:  You can link to my new blog over there at the bottom of my Other Journals list.  Or try this link:

http://askmrslinklater.blogspot.com/

ALSO check out Separation Anxiety's new place and his take on the Bill Schreiner letter [yesterday's post]: 

http://redsneakz.blogspot.com/

"We're From Headquarters and We're Here To Help"

The following letter from AOL VP Bill Schreiner, was printed with a photo [not included here] over at Editor Joe's journal.  See my Other Journals for a link. I will reply to it shortly, one line at a time, here in this space, but you may want to copy and paste it into your journal so you can do the same. 

Here's a bio from a conference he attended:

Bill Schreiner

VP and GM of AOL Community Programming, AOL

As Vice President and General Manager of Community Programming for America Online, Bill Schreiner spearheads new programming experiences for such core AOL products as journals (blogs), chats, message boards, social networking, groups, home pages and more.

Schreiner began his career at AOL in 1996 as "CEO of Love" for his work on Love@AOL, which he developed into the largest romance and personals site on the web. With the acquisition of MapQuest in 2000, he became Vice President of Product and Programming for MapQuest and led the redesign and growth of the MapQuest.com site, expanding traffic from 8 million to more than 16 million unique visitors per month. More recently, Schreiner served as head of Product Strategy for AOL Entertainment while overseeing the creation and launch of AOL TICKETS.

Folks,
 
FOLKS? How patronizing. Let's have some respect. "Dear Members of the AOL Journals Community."

Joe has told you that the senior executives here at AOL have been listening to your opinions and comments about the addition of ads on AOL Journals. 

Are you going to start saying things like, "We feel your pain"?

I'm stopping by Magic Smoke to let you know he's been straight with you on that point.

You mean he was lying about other stuff?

I'm not here to report that we're changing our strategy on the ads.

You're here to put lipstick on this pig.

The ads are staying for the foreseeable future.

Na na na na na.

Advertising is an important part of how we make money, and we're not ashamed of that.

Translation: Paid AOL memberships used to be the way we made money, but we've lost over 600,000 members in the last three months and we're kind of ashamed of that. So now we think the ad banners can save our ass. And we don't care who gets in our way.

I'll admit we'd all love a “do-over” when it comes to how this was communicated.

Where is "do-over" located in the MBA handbook of marketing communication? 

On that score, the best we can do now is to work harder at making sure big changes don't occur again without proper communication.

The problem is that AOL is so out of touch with us, you wouldn't know a BIG CHANGE if it bit you on the butt. You didn't think we'd notice the ads, did you? It never occurred to you that they might annoy us. You probably didn't even realize that adding them to our journals would be considered a BIG CHANGE. Now, after missing this BIG CHANGE, how do you plan to recognize the next BIG CHANGE so you can be sure you properly communicate the exact way you're going to be messing with us?

We've learned a lot in the last two weeks... so thank you for your comments here and in email. We've heard loud and clear that you are passionate about what you write about in your blogs.

We are passionate about getting rid of the ad banners. Have any AOL exec types actually read any of the AOL journals?  Or do you have people who do that for you?

Some of you are convinced that the addition of ads destroys that experience.  I am less certain of that. 

Can you say CA-CHING?

I can't reconcile it with the fact that we have wonderful, passionate communities thriving in ad-supported pages in message boards, Groups, Chat, Hometown, Email, AIM... really across the entire network both inside the paid serviceand out.

Whoa. Hold it, AOL Love-Boy. You're talking apples and oranges. Comparing those places with AOL Journals is like comparing a dank, urine drenched waiting room of a bus station filled with an odd mix of people to a well-appointed living room in a private home.

You expect ads all over the grimy walls of a Greyhound terminal. You do not expect neon signs blinking in the privacy of your home when friends stop by.

Just like you, we don't all see eye-to-eye on this internally. That's understandable.

You just rammed the ad banners down everyone's throats?

Since AOL Journals had no ads for so long, I can understand why some believed that they never would.

There are those among us who feel this was a promise that was verbalized. Actually, logic would dictate a no ad policy. But this is AOL, so logic has nothing to do with policy.

Some of you have moved on because of this and that's understandable too. We're sorry this change has affected the way you feel about us. We thank you for the contribution you made while you were here. We will miss your words. We will miss your passion.  If you've moved on to another blog provider, we hope you'll maintain the relationships you've made here. You'll always be welcome in J-Land no matter where you choose to blog.

Gag me.  This is so smarmy I have to take a shower.

We've also learned how important the J-Land community is to the majority of you who have elected to stay.

The AOL journals community is arguably more important to those who left. Their passion, to use your word, is in direct proportion to their love of what we have created here versus what you have done to denigrate it. Some of us have one foot out the door, but are staying to continue the fight. Of course, you'll find a way to make us want to leave for good, too. This letter is a nice start.

You are important to this community and to us, and we appreciate the understanding and support that you've shown.

How are you going to show it?

A special thanks to all the folks who have thrown a virtual hug around Joe here at Magic Smoke and in email.

Haaaaaaaaaa. Does anyone else find this amusing? I feel sorry for the guy. But no hugging, please. He was sent by upper management with bailing wire and pliers to deal with growing journal issues. Thanks to you he now has an insurgency that threatens to sink his little boat. Even though he's made you show your face to take the heat off, he's still a corporate lackey.

Thank you for putting this bump in the road in your rearview mirror. We're excited about moving on as well.

YOU have put this behind you. YOU are moving on.
Careful, that bump has spikes. 

I've asked the team to double down and speed up the delivery of some new features you've requested.

Power corrupts.  Absolute power makes for long weekends.

They are eager to get to it. 

Or else.

Some of my favorites that are coming before the end of the year:

Oh good, more bizarro features to screw up our journals. I see none of the ones we've been asking for, repeatedly, made the list. Spellcheck anyone?

Buddy List Rostering: instantly set your Buddy List as the "roster" for your private Journal - changes to your Buddy List will update the roster automatically.
Blog This: a new feature that allows easycreation of new journals and blog entries that link back to other posts.
Partner Ping: makes it easier for 3rd party indexers such as Feedster, Technorati, BlogPulse, PubSub, Google and others to receive updates to your Journals. This will make your blog easier to find.

Early in 2006, we're working on mobile blogging, online presence, skinning, shared journals and other features that you've mentioned in the past. We would love tohear from you about which of these features you think you'd use the mostand why.

Mobile blogging, online presence, skinning -- these sound like features your techs want. Have you checked the demographics of the typical journaler?

Thanks,  For what? Being powerless to remove you?

Bill Schreiner, VP AOL Community Programming.
Email me at: CommProgramming@aol.com

Don't Poke The Sleeping Bear

One of the things I learned from sports and music is that both are great equalizers. No matter what your background in "real life" might be, how you play a sport or sing a song is the only currency you carry when you're on a team or performing.

Captains of industry, high powered lawyers, doctors, and Masters of the Universe can find common ground with janitors, mechanics, tradesmen, and Larry in the mailroom.

The same with blogging or journaling in public.

To other members of the community you're only as good as the last entry you wrote. Your job/career may make an interesting subject, but the quality of your writing is what levels the playing field.

However as an AOL member the rules are always changing and the field has never been level.

The quality of your education doesn't matter.
The quality of your career doesn't matter.
The quality of your journal writing doesn't matter,

And, as we've learned, even the quality of your AOL membership doesn't matter either. Those of us who pay are no better than the people who use AOL for free.

It's a corpporate philosophy that gives new meaning to "Your money is no good here."

But AOL made a mistake. When they offered a journals service, an important invisible barrier between customer and provider came down. We got a chance to look behind the curtain.

We saw the face of  OZ.

At first he seemed harmless. John Scalzi was introduced to us as our benign, benevolent journals guide, providing entertainment and information like an amiable docent on a bus tour.

As more technological issues arose, Editor Joe was trotted out to mollify us. Needless to say, with the escalating tech problems, he has become a troubled troubleshooter. He was the first to step from behind the safety desk of AOL anonymity, so we started taking potshots at him from the get go.

Now there's Susan, the AOL Product  Manager [sorry link doesn't work but URL does go figure] http://journals.aol.com/blogsinsider/intheknow/entries/763

Talk about shark bait. Okay bear bait. The timing of her recent, stupid journal entry in the wake of the ad banners couldn't be worse. She's up her neck in lizard sheet and sinking fast. Mostly because of her own doing.

Clearly AOL has no respect for its paying customers. Not when they're sending underqualified people to deal with us.

Of course, if we're dumb enough in the first place to pay for the same service other people [AIM] are getting for free, AOL can go ahead and try to get away with anything. Like the, uh, ad banners for instance.

But that last poke in the eye finally woke up the sleeping bear. And it's not nice to poke the bear.