DEBORAH NEEDS GOOGLE (AND A PINK BUS)
A friend of mine sent me an email the other day telling me to Google “[your first name] needs” (including the quotes) and write down the first ten coherent results that came up.
I’m not a big fan of stuff like this. I need new ways to waste time on the Internet about as much as I need new ways to eat Oreos—I already know more than I should. On the other hand, I did have three minutes until I had to put on lipstick, find my shoes, and grab my keys before dashing out the door. Three minutes that may have changed my life forever.
Courtney Martin, over at Crucial Minutiae, put me onto a terrific new blog called Overrated List.The List was inspired by a typically surly and provocative Christopher Hitchens quote in The New Yorker a few years back, in which he declared lobster, champagne, picnics and, um, anal sex “the four most overrated things in life.”
It’s an inspired idea. Unlike Facebook’s “25 Things About Me,”—an exercise in viral narcissism more aptly titled “25 Things We All Wish You’d Kept to Yourself”—your Overrated List opens a revealing window into your world view.
“The great question that I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul, is, What does a woman want?” —Sigmund Freud
A century has passed and Freud’s famous query still echoes. Honestly, so much ado over such a simple thing! It will take me 10 seconds to explain it all. Are you ready?
THE VIXEN GUIDE TO CORPORATE LIFE
Vixenosity is not the most congenial fit with the Corporate Universe. Like the mating of porcupines, such a union should be attempted only occasionally and with a minimum of actual interaction.
There is, however, an appalling lack of truly useful guidelines for this situation. So in the spirit of delivering on this column’s promise to “explain it all,” I’ve compiled my Top Five Vixen Tips to Surviving—And Thriving In—Corporate Life.
MONDAY MORNING MAXIMS: "HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS"
Starting off your workweek with a bit of humor, here are four edifying corporate lessons complete with memorable epigrams. I didn’t write these—they’ve been floating around for so long that I have no idea whom to attribute them to. Happy Monday!
CREATIVITY & DOBBY THE HOUSE ELF: ELIZABETH GILBERT AT TED
In her funny and thought-provoking talk at the February TED conference in Santa Barbara, Gilbert takes us back to the ancient Greek and Roman idea of the artist’s muse—his “genius”—as something external to the artist himself. She explains, “They believed that a genius was a sort of magical divine entity who literally lived in the walls of an artist’s studio—kind of like Dobby the house elf—who would come out and sort of invisibly assist the artist with their work and would shape the outcome of that work.”
BREAKING UP IS (NOT SO) HARD TO DO
For serial monogamists, graceful breakups are part of the required social skill set, and you can take pride in doing it well. Of course, the “I don’t want to be with you anymore” conversation is difficult whether you’re the breakup-er or the breakup-ee.
No matter which side of the table you’re sitting on, breaking up means having a face-to-face conversation with your soon-to-be ex and being honest about your feelings. Here are the top 3 worst ways to end a relationship, plus 5 breakup reasons you should always believe.
IS IT BETTER TO BE MARRIED OR SINGLE?
You’d think it was the first time anyone’s ever gotten a divorce.
Sandra Tsing Loh’s recent admission in The Atlantic that she’s divorcing her husband after 20 years (following her own extramarital affair) has ignited a firestorm of high-minded controversy debating the pros and cons of marriage. Citing “all the abject and swallowed misery” she observes in modern marriage, she wonders, “Why do we still insist on marriage?”
Choosing to remain single in a coupled world is sometimes a lonely gig, never more so than when all of your close friends are smugly cocooned in their couple-bubbles. It can make you feel like the last single person on Earth.
As once-single friends morph into couples, it often becomes irritatingly apparent that they no longer understand the challenges or perspectives of singledom. You sometimes feel like hitting them over the head, yet you still love them and yearn for common ground to maintain your friendships. This painful conflict is played out to hilarious effect in the engaging Web series Imaginary Bitches.
REALITY TV IDEA #1: "I COMPLETE ME"
By Lisa & Christina
Christina and I have decided to pitch our own Reality TV show, called I Complete Me. We don’t have any illusions that anyone will actually take us up on the offer, but just for kicks, here’s what we propose:
I Complete Me (alternate title: A Shot at Independence)
SUMMARY: Instead of forcing (supposedly inept) single people into the world of coupling, (overly dependent and unhealthily) coupled people are forced to navigate the world as singles for a full month. Both members of a pair are ranked and judged against other pairs according to how well they handle the single life.
Published August 2009 by " Onely: Single and Happy," a blog that offers fresh perspectives on living solo.
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