Best of 2009: Resolution you wish you’d stuck with

[I'm participating in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, in case you're all like, what's with the theme?]

Resolution you wish you’d stuck with. (You know, there’s always next year…)

Resolutions made on the eve of 2009 seem so small and forlorn, in retrospect. They were no match for a year of huge leaps and massive hustling. They had no idea what was about to knock their little world over and out.  So I don’t wish anything in particular about last year’s resolutions (though I think it’s kind of cute that I said I wanted to kick coffee. The hell?!).

But this upcoming year?Oh, it’s going to be sweet.

Sweet as, said my friend Marianne. Sho nuff. Look out.

[PS, A big shout-out to Gwen, without whom this month of posting would not have happened, not like this, not with these people and not every day. Girl, you've got it going on. Thank you for opening your heart to so many people.]

Happy New Year.

Best of 2009: Ad

[I'm participating in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, in case you're all like, what's with the theme?]

Ad. What advertisement made you think this year?

Look, I realize this sounds disingenuous, since so many of my other blog-challenge posts say something similar. But nearly every advertisement I see makes me think. Ads are an obsession. I analyze them ad nauseam (well, to the ad nauseam of others; I never actually tire of it–half the time I’m unaware that I’m doing it, to be honest); take them apart, process their individual components, imagine the conversations, even, between client and agency, leading to the end product.

It’s not a sickness, I say. It’s…I don’t know. Something else.  I can’t do it with all ads. Rather, I can, but I end up feeling unwell. These I try to avoid. They cause a reaction, a sort of unpleasant buzzing in me, that is very uncomfortable.

[This is part of the reason why I am so fanatical about the William Gibson book Pattern Recognition, and its protagonist Cayce Pollard:

...if you look closely you may see it suggested that she is a "sensitive" of some kind, a dowser in the world of global marketing. Though the truth...is closer to allergy, a morbid and sometimes violent reactivity to the semiotics of the marketplace.

I get that. That allergy, that sometimes-violent reactivity. And in spite of or because of it, it's something I can never leave alone or stop analyzing.]

All that said: the ad that made me stop and think more than any other in 2009 is this one.

The text translates as: By hiring a prostitute, you’re financing human trafficking.

At first glance, the ad seemed coarse and shrill to me. It smacked of the early 1990s in some ugly way; perhaps in its attempt to be outrageous. Then the obvious sank in: it’s spotlighting something outrageous that we either don’t think about, or only do so in vague, veiled ways.  This puts the concepts of human trafficking right up our noses in a way that makes our brains scramble to match up the images in the ad with the images in our internal databases. What better way to call attention to the systematic packaging and cheapening of human life?

Best of 2009: Belly laugh

[I'm participating in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, in case you're all like, what's with the theme?]

Laugh. What was your biggest belly laugh of the year?

I laugh a lot. My family is made up of a lot of very funny people, which I’m convinced is a large part of the reason why they happen to be tough survivors. Life is better when you can laugh at things. Sometimes the only thing you’ve got left is your laughter, and that can (as the cartoon my kid happens to be watching has rather fortuitously just trumpeted) “change the story and save the day.”

[Also, it helps when you're very easily amused and will go to any length for a joke. Witness this photo. I started peeling one of these gigantor oranges one night, saw a funny face in it, hunted down my googly-eye stash, stuck them on, photographed the whole thing, then removed the eyes and ate the orange.]

That said, the people in my life tend to be absurdly hilarious. I’m surrounded by wit, making it patently impossible to name one big belly laugh of the year. So, here are a few of the one-liners that made me laugh, snort and/or cry with laughter. Most of these are Tweets I’ve favorited.  On non-Tweets, names and details have been omitted both for privacy and, where applicable, out of necessity.

• “I had to have my lower legs cut off so Tom Cruise matched me when we body doubled.”
• “You know, ever since you fiendishly seduced Deepak into deleting his retweet of me, my skies are always grayish.”
• “Bruno made $30.4 million this weekend. It’s the biggest opening for a gay mockumentary since Top Gun.”
• “Yes, I use the other bathroom because I won’t use the toilet with the lever that snaps back all defiantly at when flushed. I mean fuck that.”
• “It’s not really a business. It’s like those doll head and shoulders we had as kids. You could practice styling hair and make-up. That’s what [company name] is.”
• “I’m working on my arts.” [The Lad, protesting an interruption]
• “You’d better exhale before you blow out your other ovary!”

Best of 2009: Stationery

[I'm participating in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, in case you're all like, what's with the theme?]

Stationery. When you touch the paper, your heart melts. The ink flows from the pen. What was your stationery find of the year?

Oh yeah, I’m gonna quote from a Sisters of Mercy song: First and last and always… it’s graph paper. Regular old graph paper, yes. I adore it. There’s something about its billions of tiny boxes, neat blue or green against white or off-white that is secretly thrilling. My best ideas, my most fun ideas, are created on graphed paper. My handwriting is better. My thoughts more organized. Everything looks so much more official, so much more efficient.

So you can keep your high-grade stuff. It’s gorgeous, I know, but it just can’t compare.

Best of 2009: Social web moment

[I'm participating in Gwen Bell's Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, in case you're all like, what's with the theme?]

photo by Hector R.

Social web moment. Did you meet someone you used to only know from her blog? Did you discover Twitter?

[UPDATE! This very day, I had to add one more bullet point. See bold text.] Not only was 2009 defined by its learning experiences; it was also defined by social web moments. Here, a partial list.

• Interviewing Daniel Pink on my previous blog. That was pretty cool.
• People I coerced guided into social media: Hector R., Tammy Izbicki, my mom, Bob Brasier.
• People I met via Twitter with whom I’ve since collaborated (or have plans to collaborate) on various projects: Kelly Sims, Tamara Komuniecki, Warwick Merry, Mark McGuinness, Sarah Bray, Michelle Ward, Randi Buckley, Daniel Thurston, Kay Ballard.
• People I met via Twitter, and then in real life, whose work I’d admired for a couple of years from afar: Cheryl Sorg
• People I met via Twitter who encourage unhealthy celebrity obsessions: Patti Digh [re: Craig Ferguson] and Fake Nick Cave [re: the real Nick Cave].
• Faux-siblings I’ve discovered via Twitter: Daniel Thurston and the great mastermind behind Fake Nick Cave
• That one time that Kevin Spacey addressed me on Twitter? That was a great fangirl moment.
• That other time that William Gibson re-Tweeted some smart-ass comment I made? Also a pretty good fangirl moment. And then today we exchanged a couple of Tweets. Right on, I say. (Sadly, I made a right idiot of myself, but it turned out okay.)
• People I met after having followed their blogs: Colleen Wainwright (again, technically 2008, but it kickstarted 2009 for me),Danielle LaPorte, Dyana Valentine, Marianne Elliot, Stacy de la Rosa, Christine Mason Miller, Pamela Slim.
• And let’s not forget the many, many other cool, kind and interesting people I’ve met and continue to meet.

All of which is why I love this social media thing. Love, love, love it. It’s absolutely changed my life for the better.