happyblog: so long, steve!

it makes sense that it was the end, for him, because otherwise he would never have retired. but i am sorry to see that we will not have the benefit of Steve Jobs's vision as an eminence gris - he is one of the few who have seen the future as we will want to live it.

i know no better way to pay tribute to his unwavering:

i am now working on my fourth Mac - this one's an Air, and i don't even miss not having a slot for my collection of dvds

i have slept with every Apple i've owned

i've taken my Mac to school, to work, and on vacation

sometimes, in the coffee shops where i work, there are only Apples in the room

i read an amazing book about the history of Apple called...i don't remember and can't find it now...but i remember how sure the Steves were about what they were doing. i'm convinced that is what innovation requires: absolute certainty.

i want more from you, Apple, especially now. i want an ipad the size of a paperback book, that fits in the back pocket of my jeans. and i want an ipad the size of a tabloid sheet of paper, that i can mount on a wall, or use as a table-sized touch screen. and a wireless silicone keyboard that i can roll up and stick in the other pocket. and i want a slightly smaller iphone to link and remotely control them all. and i want all my data stored in a virtual hard drive, so i can replicate any content on any screen at any time. and a bunch of stuff i haven't thought of, but i'm sure i will want/need when you make it.

happy trails through the undiscovered country, sir. your dreams will, perchance, make more sense in the sleep of death than they do here in our waking life.

so, now you know i'm an Apple gal. (phoebe brand update!?!)

xop

happyblog: open your heart

i'm really afraid of getting lost in this.

i mentioned in my first post that establishing (refining? refreshing? flexing?) my professional identity was happening simultaneously with falling in love. (well, i suspect that's what this is.) i mention it because they're related, and i think today i figured out how.

finding myself professionally is like hatching. pushing and kicking and scratching a space for myself in the world. violently struggling for substance in the ether. you feel me. right? and after 33 years of getting to know myself a little bit, i finally feel like i've got a grasp on what it is to be myself...so all the time gestating isn't wasted so much as it is servicing a greater existence. and i've gotten really good at fighting for myself. though i'll admit i've spent a lot of that energy fighting against myself, or against someone or something else. (ah, it's a vicious circle!)

so now i've got the battle skills, and i think i've identified the battlefield correctly. finally. maybe.

but here i am in a circumstance that demands a surrender. not unequivocal. not i-give-everything-you-give-nothing surrender, but i-give-everything-to-get-everything surrender. an opening. but i have this innate fear of getting lost in 1950s housewifery - the kind that inevitably drives women to disappear inside something or someone else...their superstar kids, their prototypical husband, their organic pickling...

i live in absolute terror of that sublimation. even though i'd like to be a domestic goddess, i'd rather make piles of cash and hire a nanny, a cook, a tutor, a personal shopper, a tailor, a driver, and a maid. because i don't want those jobs. i want to be a loving and devoted wife and mother, but i don't see all these roles coinciding in the way that ideal has been promulgated. if we're picking goddess archetypes, i'd take Artemis (Athena, even) over Hera every day!

and he wants me to be more myself at the same time as making lots of room for him. it's stretching in both directions. or maybe it's not stretching, so much as becoming fluid. gosh, even that sounds intimidatingly self-less. but i guess if i think of this like an element...and i feel myself elementally...

for the past couple days, i've been saying to myself "no one else can make you do something you don't want to." but i realize it's not someone else making me do things i don't want to...it's wanting to do things for this person that i don't want to do for anyone else (even myself)!

the point here is that i'm putting more of myself out there right now than i thought i could. i won't run out of any of this power, will i?

wow, this is related to everything.

xop

happyblog: open your head

i mentioned in my first post that i am working to hone my creative identity, and this is the first time i've ever thought about this as a conscious process.

in the past, i have been focused on ideas - having them, discarding them, investing in them, representing them. but it has become clear to me as i experiment with this whole freelance writing/designing/producing thing that people--clients--want something more than that. they want an identity. they want me - but not just me, they want a version of me that is consistent with the ideas i present, and with their impression of me. and also consistent with how they see themselves and their project(s).

this isn't a bad thing, but it is a challenge. the challenge, of course, is in crafting a role for myself that is both authentic and aspirational.

so here's what i'm working on: this blog (which is "just me" but more thoughtful and certainly thoroughly edited), reworking my website (which is, of course, a curated version of my identity as a writer/designer/producer), and developing an (aspirational) portfolio of work that represents both who i am, and what i want to do.

i think for many of my friends and collaborators, they find it unbelievably frustrating that i haven't already figured this out. so to you, dear friends, i say this: i may be slow, but i am quick to act when i do get it. and thanks for believing in me the whole time.

xop

happyblog: girl effect on the world bank

The World Bank and Nike are pushing girls: The Girl Effect

clube de spamo

according to my stretchtastic yoga amiga--code name Sarcastica--who just got back from Hawaii, a lot of SPAM eating goes on there. right there in the middle of paradise, where the mangoes actually grow on trees instead of shelves. maybe meat doesn't keep well there?

From: Clube do Ricardo

Subject: Clube do Ricardo

Date: October 23, 2011 8:20:17 PM EDT

To: Phoebe Elefante

Olá Galera! 


A Ricardo Eletro está com uma promoção de tudo 90% de desconto...


Basta se cadastrar!


Não é virus!!!


Entre no site e participe...




https://www.clubedoricardo.com.br/Home/Index/417451

happyblog: first post

[a word or two of introduction: i've been exploring the idea of starting another blog. primarily at the request of the extremely strong urgings of the guy i refer to below. it's been interesting to come face to face with the reality that i want to please him. and then i completely reject that idea in favor of continuing to be myself. but this log is mine, even if it is angry. and it's been part of my life for too long to abandon just because he thinks so! so...no more moving around. instead, i've decided to create a second blog--not to replace this one--that is so essentially me it's hilarious! check it out: twentydollarversace]

two big things are happening right now: i'm working to hone my creative identity, and i'm pretty sure i'm falling in love.

it's oddly personal to say that out loud, don't you think? either one, really, is admitting - confessing - something in public that probably ought to be hidden. so i can appear...what?...more confident? more credible? more professional? but what can we learn from that?

the truth is that sometimes you need someone else to see yourself clearly. so that's why these things are happening at the same time, and why this blog exists. sometimes you need help to close one door and open another. he's right, calling what i wrote in the past "the angry blog." and i'm still angry about a lot of things, but so are you, and there's no purpose belaboring the point. it's about getting past that.

xop