My true-love-always-and-forever-and-ever peeps

A weekend with Simone de Beauvoir

I spend most of my weekend with my books. I read ZAG, by Marty Neumeier, which I highly recommend if you're in the design industry. I also bought "The Second Sex" by Simone de Beauvoir, and I am absolutely in love with her. The book is huge and fantastic.

*****

In the spirit of a very "gender-aware" weekend, I also watched the Visible Vote 08, sponsored by HRC and Logo. The best part is the conversation with Congressman Dennis Kunicich, who is more lucid than any other candidate I have seen in the past few years. Just compare how comfortable he is in that room compared to Bill Richardson, who just couldn't relate. The poor man couldn't hide. I love how he says "GAY AND LESBIAN" like he's saying "HIPPOPOTAMUS".

You can watch the forum here.

******

Here's some Simone de Beauvoir:

“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.”


"Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen."

lesson of the day

"and then she told me that when life gets you lemons you have to make lemonade. i've always wanted to know who came up with that expression. and not because i ever thought it sounded cool. but she said this about life and i thought, you know what, fuck that. just because life gives you lemons, doesn't mean you have to accept the lemons. it doesn't mean you have to take them. and you sure as hell don't have to make lemonade just because everyone else is making lemonade. i thought, if life really gave me lemons, i'd throw them back and say, keep your fucking lemons. and then i'd go find me some oranges."

Awesome. That's why I love -5.

know

Sometimes I wish we all were born fluent in all languages. I don't ever wish there was just one language, though, because I think all of them have their way of being breathtakingly beautiful and poetic and make me want to cry.

I love the fact that I am fluent in different languages. That has always been a passion of mine. I speak English and Portuguese fluently, my Spanish is pretty damn ok, and I know some French just to get by.

There's this singer/songwriter in Brazil called Adriana Calcanhoto, and she's by far one of my favorite lyricists ever. She's fresh, contemporary, and if you could design music, that's what she would be. A music designer. Her words come with images, with smells, and flow through history, art and philosophy so subtly that makes you sing the words like they just came out of a kid's lullaby. And in this case, they kinda did. Last year, she released an album called "Partimpim", and she went on a tour around the country where at least 60% of her crowds were children of all ages. My favorite song of the CD is called "Saiba", which means "Know" in English. It reminds me of the old LPs my parents would play for my sister and I when we were kids. I wish there were more of these.

--

Know (Adriana Calcanhoto)

Know: everybody's been a baby
Einstein, Freud and Plato too
Hitler, Bush and Saddam Hussein
Those who have dough and those who don't

Know: everybody's had a childhood
Mohammed was also a kid
Archimedes, Buddha, Galileo
just like you and I.

Know: everybody's been afraid
Even if it was a secret
Nietzsche and Simone de Beauvoir
Fernandinho Beira-Mar

Know: everybody will die
President, general or king
Anglo-Saxons or muslims
Each and every human being

Know: everybody's had a father
Those who have passed and those who will
Lao Tse, Moses, Ramsés, Pelé
Gandhi, Mike Tyson, Salome

Know: everybody's had a mother
Indians, africans and germans,
Nero, Che Guevara, Pinochet
just like you and I.

Henry Ford

"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."

type everywhere

Spell with flickr

today's newsmap

"Want to stay up to date with current events and news? There's a really neat site called Newsmap that posts headlines from world news sources throughout the day in a colorful mosaic of information. You can click on global news or choose a specific country and select from various categories like business, technology, sports, entertainment and health. By clicking on the headline, you are instantly directed to the corresponding news page. The best part is everything is color coded so you know exactly what story goes with what topic. Even if you miss a day, you can click on the bottom for daily archives and check out past stories! It's like painting by numbers with news."

Awesome. And beautiful. And useful. And I fucking wish I had come up with it.

-- via GeekSugar

visitors

So I know I mentioned a while ago that one of my BESTEST EVER FRIEND was coming to visit me. He did, we had a great time, we drank lots of beer, we went to Chicago, we had a picnic in the canal downtown, than we drank some more, laughed some more, then cracked ourselves up. We also made up dances and slangs, we cooked, hung out, and I miss them terribly already. (by them I mean him and Marcela, his friend who's also my friend now.) Love them!

go burn a bra. NOW.

breaking news

via Chris Brown

"Sonia, say www.youtube.com"

ponto = dot :: www(ponto)youtube(ponto)com

murder plots and colored books

Update from yesterday: The hairdresser emailed-me himself and tried to apologize in his own obnoxious disgusting manner, by not saying he was sorry but by telling me he could appreciate why I felt disrespected. I didn't expect anything beyond that, beside seeing his ass on the street covered in shit holding a sign that reads "will work for food".

---

Update for yesterday no.2: I just received an email from one of the owners. Here's a small part:
"Hi Ana, My name is N. and I just wanted to let you know that I am sorry that I was unable to take you for your appt. I have a firm policy that a client can not be more than 12 min. late for an appt so that all stays on time. I do that so everyones schedules are as close to the time scheduled as possible only in emergencies do I make exceptions. I did need to leave the salon at 1pm and had a schedule for my afternoon. I felt that you needed to hear this from me so that I would extent my courtesy to you. Please feel free to reschedule if wanted.
Sincerely
N."

---

Besides spending my whole day and night plotting ways to kill the mother fucker, I took some time to organize my books by color. My goal was to make them look like this:



I would just like to say it here that THERE IS NO WAY THAT PHOTO WAS NOT PHOTOSHOPED OR THAT WHOEVER DID THAT THING DID NOT HAND-PAINTED HIS BOOKS. IMPOSSIBLE!! I dare anyone to try to, send me a picture and prove me wrong. Please. Thanks.

the day a hairdresser almost made me choke the bitch out of him

Bad customer service has a new meaning to me. I have officially seen the worst. And I have seen some real fucked up ones...

This is an email I just sent to the owner of the hair salon where I had an appointment today. I was completely verbally assaulted by a very flamboyant and orange hair stylist who did nothing short of rolling his eyes and neck at me. He made me see red for about an hour. Maybe three. Now my mission is just to get him fired:

(note that I'm not posting their names here. In case they don't reply to me within a day, I will post their link. Then you're all welcome to send them hate mail for me. Thanks in advance.)

"Dear XXXXXXX Hair Designs owners,

I'm taking time out of a busy day to write you this email after experiencing the worst, most disrespectful and humiliating customer service I have ever seen. It happened earlier today, at 12:45am, after I arrived late to one of my appointments at your salon.

I would like to open a parenthesis here and explain that I am a designer/branding professional who works on a daily basis on helping companies create a positive perception with the public, and what I experienced in your salon was nothing short ofappalling. I was very impressed with the organization of the website and the online booking alternative, and I was looking forward to seeing how my experience in your business would be. Evidently, it wasn't the best.

I schedule an appointment online for 12:30pm with N., who I believe is also one of the owners. Sometime before 9am this morning (Tuesday, July 17) somebody called me and asked me if it was ok to re-schedule my appointment with N. at 11:30am instead. Because I wouldn't be able to make, we rescheduled with another girl, still at 12:30pm. I was still very glad with the treatment I was given; the person who called me was extremely polite and made sure I was contacted early enough in case I had to change plans.

On my way to my appointment, I was running late. At 12:35pm I called the salon from my car, while I was stranded in traffic, and told the receptionist that I would be there in about 5 minutes. I apologized for being late and nothing was said about the inability of the hairstylist of making the appointment. When I got to the salon, at almost 12:45pm, I was told that the person I had schedule with had left because she had to pick up her child. I understood that I was late, and if the person had to go, I couldn't blame her, but I thought it was pertinent to bring up the question about an appointment being made at 12:30 when the stylist has to be gone by 12:45. Sounds awfully quick to me, but I didn't mean to challenge the the competence of the salon or the employee. It was a logical question, asked respectfully, not ONCE getting personal with any of the people involved.

So I asked "why was the appointment made at 12:30 if she had to be out by 12:45"? The question was made to the girl sitting in the reception area.

That's when J.B. (I see his photo on the website, that's why I know his name) stepped in and quickly responded "Why are you late"? I explained to him that I had called about running late. I also said that I was referred to the salon by a friend who really likes the salon, and that's why I was there, and that I couldn't understand why he was being so rude to me. He then when on a rampage, telling me "no to tell them how to book", "maybe my friend likes it because she's on time", "he didn't care what I thought", and ended by telling me "I was shocked because he was calling me out, and apparently I'm not used to it." All of that in a VERY standoffish and offensive tone.

I was ABSOLUTELY speechless. All I could say was that I was shocked, that he was completed over-reacting, that I would just call and re-schedule and that that was terrible customer service. I left and walked to my car oblivious, knowing that I would make the owners aware of the incident.

I'm writing you as a person who was extremely impressed with the service offered to me before I entered that place, and was looking forward to becoming a regular customer, since I live nearby. What your employee did to me was despicable, and he made SURE I NEVER, EVER STEP INTO THAT PLACE AGAIN. Not because the hairstylist wasn't there - I could live with that, because I know was late. But because I absolutely refuse to be a customer of a place that will let an employee greet a guest like Jeremy Brown did. This is not an attack at your salon. This is to make you aware of the treatment given to me by one of your associates, while other employees stood around watching him flat out personally disrespect me and my character.

I will make sure my friends who are already your customers don't ever return to that salon. I will also make this incident known to fellow PR colleagues who are a very tight community in this town. My goal is not to hurt your business, but it is to make a statement against this kind of behavior, which I'm sure directly affects the image of your salon.

I hope you take this email into consideration and somehow use it to your benefit. I wish you all luck and hope you realize that at the end of the day, those who work for or with you represent what you and your business stand for.
Hopefully that was just a REALLY bad first impression."

Hopefully the bitch is gone by now.

hospital and stuff

The past two days have been filled with running around to and from the hospital, making sure my friend is ok. I'm tired, but it's good to feel useful.

Here are four things I'm looking forward to:
1. Laying by the pool for at least half of my day tomorrow.
2. Getting the new prints I just got from Etsy framed and hung on my newly painted walls.
3. Seeing my best friend from Brazil next weekend/week. Ah! I can't wait.
4. Going to NY! (I think on the 27th. Not sure. But Yay for that anyway!)

Want to hear something great? I installed the "Honesty Box" application on my Facebook profile. Here's their quick description of it:

"Honesty Box lets you find out what your friends really think about you, your haircut, your body, your friends etc, by putting a box on your profile that people can use to send you anonymous messages. You can even reply to your anonymous messages!"

So far I got one. Check this out:



Ah! Isn't this great? I love that application. I'm just hoping someone else will write me and actually tell me something new. I replied to that first one, of course: "I know... I try to work on it, I really do, but when I realize, I already said it! Sorry! Hope I haven't ever been rude to you. I'm not a mean person, I just don't have great manners..."

Ok, big deal. Somebody told me I'm rude. What a shocker; I haven't heard that one before. But really, I don't see myself as a rude person. I'm just very honest, and I'm very good at voicing my opinion at all times. I don't mean to hurt anybody's feelings, I don't want to be evil. For real, I don't. Seriously. Get over it, people. Grow some balls or something. And please send me more comments.

I'm super tired. Good night, peeps.

open heart

This morning one of my closest friends here in Indianapolis had open heart surgery. I was his "person" in the hospital, the one they would come to and give updates throughout the process. The one who had to go and have a consult with the doctor after the procedure, to make sure I understood what was happening, and to know how to update his family of his condition (my friend is also from Brazil, and his whole family lives there. So yeah, I am his person.)

He's ok for now and I think be ok overall. He has to. It's just a weird feeling of being unsure and hoping to God that I don't have to be the one to ever deliver bad news. Or to have to lose a close friend.

I wrote about this the other day, but more and more I feel it around me. And surround me almost like a hug. I have an amazing family I was born into, and I have a family here too, and I didn't know what true, real, commited friendship was like until I moved thousands and thousands of miles from home . Until I got to a place where we were all alone, and we all had to rely on one another. To trust each other as we would trust a brother or a sister. It's a very good feeling, and it takes leaving your comfort zone to figure it out. I'm glad I did.

I know that if it was me there, I wouldn't be alone.

----

Update: I just got a call and he's off the respirator and asked where he was. Yay!

Poor Blitzo!

This is an awesome "monologue" between Michael Moore and Wolf Blitzer. It's just so sad how Wolf keeps trying to defend Dr. Gupta and can't get one word across. Worth watching every second of it.

you do what you gotta do

FROM PULITZER TO PARIS HILTON.
"He received a Pulitzer Prize for a memorable Vietnam War photograph. Now, Nick Ut has again snapped an image that says a lot about the times."

Dude. Seriously.

a-ok

I was reading some posts from a while ago and all of a sudden I missed writing. I mean, ACTUALLY WRITING, so that months from now I can come back here and see how I was feeling at 5:37, on July 5th, 2007. I'm at work, and my dog is here with me. That's how it is pretty much every day. I wake up around 8am, take a shower, put on something comfortable, usually with flip-flops, get Puppy and head out to work. The environment here is pretty laid back, and I get to work with some people who I actually like. Then I leave, maybe grab something to eat on my way home, walk my dog for a while, talk on the phone with a couple of friends, then maybe someone comes by, or we'll go out to dinner, and then I watch really bad TV.

Some people would say this is the most boring life in the world (including me sometimes), but the fact is that I am in a good place. I have an apartment I love, a job that even though doesn't really challenge me too much (or at all most of the time) but allows me to have a pretty stress-free life and doesn't require me to wear shoes or leave my dog alone at home. I have also been taking better care of myself and keeping my anxiety under control, and that is a huge deal to me. Last year being just normal was my main goal. Most of all, I have few but REAL friends. I look back, about 3 years ago, I knew so many people! I was always around strangers, a constant hang-out with people whose last name I didn't even know.

Now I have the real deal. It's like I have sorted trough everybody and kept the ones who I can really call if I get stranded on the highway. And they would actually come. Or those who would stay with me until 3 o'clock in the morning if I ever felt like I didn't want to be alone. Or those who call to check on me at least twice a week. I might not even see them that often, but I know they are there. I am happy with them. And I'm happy with things in general.

My best guy-friend from Brazil is coming to visit this month, and I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE HIM. I've been looking forward to that, and I've been looking forward to other things I can't quite mention now. So I'm finally ok.

And I'm finally getting comfortable with the fact that it's ok to just to be ok. This might be the Lexapro talking, but really - am I wrong?

past two days

haircut

Victoria Beckam, William Sledd, and Maggie.