LBD at the DB

Yesterday my friend and I went on a shopping mission. This mission, which we chose to accept, was to find a dress for her to wear to a special work function. We drug our slightly-hungover-from-the-night-before butts to the mall, powered up with food court lunch and caffeine, and started the hunt. After no success at the Banana (sniff), better success at Ann Taylor, and resisting the pull of DSW (another day, I will be back for you my shoe loves), we found ourselves walking by Dress Barn. We immediately turned up our noses and scoffed. Scoffed I tell you!

Who the hell was in charge of marketing this store in the first place?? You named it Dress Barn? Really? Could you have a more unappealing name? The connotations of country, frumpy, and big-as-a-barn go on an on. I guarantee that many people have refused to ever shop there purely based on the name - my friend and I included.

However.
Despite ourselves we spotted a super cute Little Black Dress in the window. Out of desperation for the mission, and also dehydration that was making us delirious, we raised our eyebrows and slinked towards the doorway. Wellll, lets just look at that one dress. Yes there were ugly dresses. Yes there were dresses that did indeed belong at a hoe-down at the barn off Rural Route 8. But, surprisingly, there were several decent finds that left us yelling to each other across the store. "Hey! This is actually CUTE. Yea, look - this one. In between this crap here." (sorry Dress Barn employees)

After seeing several possibilities we decided that we judged too harshly. However we also decided to rename the store so that our perception of it changes. Dress Barn you have hereby been renamed Dress Cabana. Now doesn't that feel better?

Advertising is Grrrrreat!

I recently read that the Top 3 Most Recognized American Advertising Icons were the Marlboro Man, Ronald McDonald, and the Jolly Green Giant. Ahh, sit down to a Big Mac, green beans, and have a cigarette why don't cha. Who/What do you think of when you picture your favorite products growing up? Of course you know I'm going to say - where is Tony the Tiger in that list? :)

Who were/are the creepy product mascots that did the exact opposite of their job (made you never want to go near that product)? I have one word for you: Mucinex. I don't need to see shiny, blobby, animated mucus-people with clothing to understand that your product clears the nose.

Who were/are the most effective product mascots? I am a sucker for the Coca-Cola polar bears and seals. Always makes me think of an icy cold Coke.

Tell me the ones from the past you remember, and the current ones you like/dislike!

Ocean

One thing I am beginning to understand is that my concept of time has disappeared. I can’t tell a minute from an hour, an hour from a day. At times I think that I must have just woken up from a sleep because I can feel that heavy, laden and groggy veil on my mind that one feels when first waking up. I then feel like I should yawn, but of course, my mouth does not move. My sense of hearing is all I can rely on and never before have I listened so hard for anything. Sometimes I can hear soft voices from what I presume is a nurses station. I often hear the faint ringing of a phone, papers being shuffled, and the occasional laughter in conversation. I have surmised that this is when the door to my room is open. When all else is quiet I cling to these voices as a sign that things are still the same. It’s when there is total silence that I start to wonder if something has changed, if I have gone somewhere else. Yes, death has crossed my mind. I am a logical person and realize the peril of being in a comatose state. I realize that I might just slip away at any moment and float somewhere else in this darkness. I don’t mind saying that the thought of that scares the hell out of me, especially if I were to stay in this darkness. I don’t pretend to know what happens when we die, I only know what I hope happens. And I hope being able to see – something – is part of it. So when it is completely quiet all around me I begin to wonder if I have slipped off my life raft in this ocean and am sinking towards the sea floor. I strain my ears for a voice, a squeaky wheel on a gurney being pushed, soft tennis shoe footsteps on the vinyl floor. But all I get is the steady, soft beep of the machine close to me, which I have become so accustomed to that I barely notice it anymore. And as the silence presses in, becoming almost an oxymoronic roar, I struggle not to panic and lose my mind. Instead I try to focus and revisit past events of my life in order to calm myself.  

Me Kaiya. I make face like vampire bat.

Here's Kaiya while on a walk in the woods on Easter. We went over this big rock but she wasn't so sure about it when we tried to coax her to jump up and over.

Gym Etiquette with Matthew McConaughey

When it comes to landing pages and calls to action, 24 Hour Fitness is doin' it right. I went to their site to check out prices for a gym membership (never, ever thought I would be considering this, have always hated the idea of gyms, but I have learned to never say never). Anyway, I was pleased to see you can become a member online. And their membership process couldn't have been simpler. Their clean landing page design, obvious calls to action, and conditional formatting made for a quick and easy submittal. (Is it bad that I shop so much online that I have my credit card info. memorized?) If only all B2C websites could be like this! I'd say the only thing that could have made it better would be random photos and/or videos of a shirtless Matthew McConaughey winking and saying "Join Today Cutie".

Now, since I'll be entering the gym for the first time I need some pointers on gym etiquette. I don't know the unspoken rules and faux pas. Okay, well I know you wipe your sweat off a machine, and I know to wear flip flops in the locker room (yuck), but what else do I need to know? Can anyone pass on some tips? (24 Hour Fitness: This would be another good video spot featuring Matthew. Just sayin'.)

Also - please take the poll at the bottom right! I know it's hard to see. I would like to get more votes so I can have my new dog breed for the book! :) 

Push

Jesus, God, Lord of Mercy, please help me PUSH OUT OF THIS and be okay.

Ahh, suddenly I’m a religious man. Never have been before, but this seems like the prime time to start talking to God. Forget the positive thinking, let’s go straight to the big kahuna. But will God know I’m a fraud? I guess so since I haven’t spoken to God since I was probably 13, praying that I would pitch a no hitter in the championship game, and when that didn’t happen I started to question where God was. My lessening of faith didn’t occur because someone close to me had died, or because I saw the suffering of hundreds of people in another country on TV, no, it came when God failed to help me pitch a no-hitter. Granted, my parents never really did instill religious teachings in me, in fact the first time I saw a family say grace before dinner was when I was nine years old and at a friend’s house. I watched their bowed heads as they articulated a lovely thanks over a meat loaf. I remember thinking that it was weird, but also strangely comforting. However, now I doubted that God would forget that I gave him up over a baseball game and be willing to let me just jump back on the bandwagon in my time of crisis. But just in case God was listening, and maybe was forgetful, I prayed. I reached down into the depth and formed a prayer. It came out of my mind in fragments and pieces, sentences rushed together that didn’t really make sense, but somehow I couldn’t stop the flow. I started the prayer with shyness, hesitation and embarrassment. I moved into a serious and near pleading tone as the words came faster and faster. And by the end I could feel emotion welling up and flooding me and I my voice was the voice of desperation inside my head, uttering a plea so tangible I thought I could taste my sincerity inside my mouth.