Echo

Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur. There’s no loyalty anymore.

I just got back from a business trip to New Orleans. First things first, I got interviewed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXNtjtIvLJ8&

Stock is rising. Our company name is out there. 2012 is going to be a breakout year. Which is good because I promised we would be a $300 million company by 2014. We have $200 million to go.

New Orleans is okay. I’m not a big drinker, so any place where people are out of their minds sloppy drunk, that’s dirty and smells bad is usually not high on  my list. The food is good, the culture is interesting so it’s definitely worth visiting, but I can’t say that I would make it a voluntary destination of mine. However, I highly recommend the BBQ shrimp at Deannie’s.

We were there for a convention for one of our biggest partners. On one hand, I like the meet and greet type scenarios because it’s where I really shine and can help get our name out there and perpetuate the brand. On the other hand, I hate skeezy men. Brian told me about the phrase, “Wheels Up, Rings Off.” Seriously, the number of men who start out with wedding bands on the first day greatly diminishes by the last day. What’s up with that?

Last month, I’d met up with a company trying to partner with us, and their sales guy was bragging about how he used to have a girlfriend in every city while he was married, until his wife caught him with another woman on TV (at a baseball game). He ended up marrying the woman he was caught with, and he said he’s never cheated on her…until he met me.

Yeah right.

He even said that if he ever did mess around on his wife, he’d hope it’s an “Asian experience.” That really pissed me off. I’m not a fucking ride at Disneyland.

The next day, I told his boss I didn’t want him to be our contact anymore, citing unprofessionalism. However, when I showed up in New Orleans, I was chagrined to find that one of our close partners had invited this guy along.

Meanwhile, I got to meet a lot of people and being in New Orleans, we were obligated to go out every night. One of the nights, one of the guys who’s married with two young kids, got off the elevator with me and propositioned me. I don’t know…he seemed sober but it was the same old story…never met anyone like me, there was something about me…but it’s the same old story. I told him I didn’t want to be a part of bad decision-making and he shouldn’t put me in that position.

I asked him if he’d ever cheated on his wife before and he said once, right after his first kid was born. I asked him how he felt after and he said, “Bad.” I said, “How do you think you’ll feel tomorrow morning?” “Bad,” he said. “I get it, you’re right.”

He still tried to use my bathroom and I told him he could go down to the lobby.

I ended up seeing him the next night, the closing night. He came up to me and hugged me and whispered, “Thanks.”

It’s kind of scary to see these guys behave like this. Probably because I’m scared one day I’ll be married and have no idea what my husband hides from me. But then there are a few good ones, when everyone is drunk and wild around them, and they’re just not getting into it, and I think, there are good guys out there. But how can you tell? How do you know?

He’s pulling away. It turns out, I’m the anchor in this story.

The retrograde hit and things just went quiet.

Careful kids. Walk gingerly and carry a stealthy stick.

Here comes the past.

Take me to your best friend’s house, I loved you then and I love you now…

This guy with a triangulate Flow-Be cut tells me I look like some chick on TV, this girl on NCIS that dated the Italian guy but was trying to kill him.

Now that’s called a black widow syndrome, he said.

Later, he came up to me and said, She tried to kill her husband. That’s not very common. He looked deep into my eyes.

I feel scared just looking at you. But maybe because you’re drop-dead gorgeous, he said.

Tonight, I have won the triangle-head vote.

I said no to everything.

I remember. I said, if it could be him, I would be open to it.

Weed doesn’t make people paranoid. It’s the fear of being arrested that makes people paranoid.

I’ve been sleeping with a nightlight. My brother put it there when he was in a really accommodating mood and so I’ve been sleeping with a nightlight.

The last few months have been like hell. November, December and January felt like it was a fight for survival–I didn’t know if I was fighting not to be eaten or to prevent myself from eating someone. Meanwhile, I was filled with fears and doubts about if I was going in the right direction, but I had to keep moving even though some nights my insides were frozen with terror. Then something opened up the last two weeks, it felt like my time had come and fruit started falling from the tree.

I know something changed inside me since Jerry’s wedding. I feel like I went through a doorway and came out a different person. Maybe I just don’t give a fuck anymore. Like I told my coworker, 2012 we’re going balls to the walls and we’re not stopping until our pants are on the floor. In the last two weeks, I feel like so many things have come to a head and I’ve been called to step up, and I have stepped up, roaring, stomping, owning everything and everyone in my path. In fact, I just listed poning as one of my skills on Linked In. I feel massive. I feel like the energy running through me could light the night sky. I just don’t give a shit anymore and I’m not holding back.

Synchronicities lately too. Haven’t been many in a while so I feel like something’s coming in, plus the Leap Day. First, I had a meeting with a guy who told me his birthday was May 14th. I told him, good birthday. The next day, I run into my neighbor and she’s pregnant. I ask her when she’s due, and she says May 14th. Good birthday, I say for the second time in two days. Same meeting, the guy’s partner tells me to check out this YouTube clip of this guy with Tourette’s singing Crash Test Dummimies, Mmmm Mmmmm Mmmm. So the day I watch it, I end up driving around after work and decide I want to find a place with a jukebox. Turns out the place had a live blues band with a full line of beers on tap and the guy at the front waived my cover. Despite growing up in Fremont, I’d never known of this place’s existence but it turned out to be a hidden gem. So the band goes on break and someone puts on music over the speaker system. It’s Crash Test Dummies, Mmmm Mmmmm Mmmmm. It felt like the song was following me.

The last big one was how I was feeling this week, like Godzilla with a belly full of fire. The day after Leap Day, I get an email from a guy I went to college with whom I haven’t spoken to in over 10 years. He says he had a dream about me and is wondering how I’m doing. I told him it’s strange for him to be writing me now because I’m in the midst of being in a place I’ve never been before. I ask him what he’d dreamed and he said I was hosting a party at my place in LA and a bunch of people he knows were there. And I was drinking a drink that was fluorescent, like it was made out of light. I told him that’s uncanny because that’s exactly how I feel lately. I’m a ball of fire right now and he managed to see me all the way from Pittsburgh with a 10 year difference.

Speaking of dreams, if I dream I had sex with someone and it was good, and that makes me act nicer to that person in real life, deep down, is there a part of them that knows I’m being nicer because in a dream, we had sex?

Through directing films, I realized I was better at and more interested in directing life.

Oh, you mean his “I’m not gonna help you and by the way I just stole from you” email? Yeah, I remember it.

The tiger is making defensive moves. It has caught the attention of the panther.

Stealing someone’s ideas is like eating their dreams.

I just don’t like seeing people gleefully keep secrets from the ones they supposedly love.

If any of my team acted the way they did that night, I would pull them into a tiny room to have a one-on-one with me.

I’ll still work with your company, but I’ll never do business with you again.

You know how the fear in allowing gays into the military was that it would be a distraction if they tried seducing their fellow soldiers?

That’s what it’s like trying to work with a guy who wants to fuck everything and thinks of no as a challenge.

I am a floor general. I’m fighting in the trenches, leading an army. I can’t do my job if I have to worry about someone trying to fuck me when I’m not looking.

They’ve been trying to treat us like we work for them. It’s time they remember they work for us.

I need someone to help program the analytics programs on top of Hadoop. We can run a social experiment with resulting program something we can productize.