Missing you.

Ever since visiting the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago - I became appalled at how much I had allowed my weight to slip over the winter. We often forget that the cupcake leads to the chocolate leads to the pot roast leads to the stuffing...and it all adds up. But we're still the same person inside. Which is why, I love this. So much...

What I miss from 35 Lbs Ago - Pt. 3

Maybe because I was painfully aware of my size, I cultivated an awareness of all of my life. A deep knowing. A way of sensing and trusting and believing that others won’t, or can’t, know as well. Maybe I feel deeper. More purely and intensely.

Maybe when I learned to, finally, love just being alone with myself, I fell harder in love than others ever will.

Maybe my present is more precious.

Maybe because my heart has ripped, and lost pieces, and still has visible stretch marks and sewn seams, my character will be ultimately more resilient.

The thing is, it’s easy to find the bad. I’m cynical. Pessimistic and realistic, too weathered to seem breezy. I can, and do, look at situations in pros and cons. But what I’ve come to know as true, in the last twenty-six years is that I am everything I’ve ever been.

Detail Oriented does not equal Anal Retentive

Today has started as a clusterfuck, and it's only 5 to 11am.

Which is why, you guys should start reading Unclutterer!

Especially, THIS ARTICLE.

I'll need it soon...

Pin it to me.

Holy crap...this many uses for dryer sheets? I'm getting some more STAT! Esp. cleaning the soap scum off of shower doors? Does this just mean that the Mr. Clean miracle sponges are compressed dryer sheets?

Thanks ApartmentTherapy!

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I've spent a lot of 2012 clicking on things in Pinterest. And I've definitely noticed that the women on these boards

a) spend a ton of time fantasizing and they all fall into about 6-7 categories

about what you ask?

1) Gloriously fatty foods. Cheese heavy casseroles, bacon laden dishes, bread, cookies, pies, cakes - all so temptingly delicious with about a million calories each

2) Conversely: model thin clothing and outfits

3) Confusingly: work out photos and healthy recipes for weight loss, some bordering on anorexic

4) WEDDINGS - unrealistic, expensive dresses, overdecorated table settings, just picture poofy, white and antique looking (like everything got passed through an Instagram app)

5) BABIES - chubby, adorable, gap mouthed, wide eyed babies. Nobody is posting pictures of colicky ones, ones throwing up or ones crying til 4am. Somehow those aren't getting in there.

6) HOUSES - huge ones, with oversized light fixtures, incomprehensible color schemes (white couches!), exposed beam ceilings...mortgage payments til 3012!

7) Vacations: mostly with water involved. Women really love beaches and water for some reason. There just aren't many vacation photos involving deserts or mountains.

The things that Pinterest is great for:

1) Cleaning/Household tips - I love the one about the 20 uses for dryer sheets or showing you how to fill a bucket from an indoor sink using a dustpan. Good stuff!

2) Crafty ideas - just like IkeaHackers - I love how Pinterest shows how people can be such clever and creative entities all the time.

A couple of months ago, The Dude's brother was on the phone and sarcastically asked why women were so into Pinterest. At the time, I hadn't even gotten an invite and applied twice. I was bitter, and at the same time, completely jealous. But I gave him this response:

Women are traditionally, genetically geared towards being gatherers. Pinterest creates a forum for us to have access to a lot of different graphics all at once; and for us to create collections. It's in our nature to want to gather.

It was like I had cured cancer.

So the next time you use Pinterest, remember, it's all about your genetics.

It's a helluva town!

I am, quite honestly, one of the luckiest girls on the face of the planet.

And I love my town

Bourdain on SF

Be ok with being wrong

10 New Year's Resolutions for Designers

or creative people

or everyone.

Take your pick. My favorite is the one that people have been posting up all over Tumblr

Blow a deadline? Miss a requirement? It happens. Raise your hand. Let everyone know it’s your fault. The sooner you take responsibility for something the sooner you can start fixing it. Excuses help no one. Everyone respects the person who can admit their mistakes. No one respects the weasel trying to pin the blame on their teammates.

This year, everything will be your fault. It’ll feel good.

Back of the line, front of the mind.

So yesterday, we talked about how to reach your employees/ie manage your team of volunteers that is honest and secure. Using REAL TALK or being as honest and upfront with people as possible in a way that creates constructive results is often times the best management style.

Today, we talk about WHY it's important to manage your audience in a way that is totally different than your staff.

Audiences are mainly using shows as forms of pleasurable entertainment. And the more pleasurable the experience, the more likely they are to return. In order to maintain that sensation of effortless entertainment, your team needs to flow correctly. Think of it this way, your House Manager can't provide a sustainable response to someone needing an extra ticket or directions to the nearest bathroom, if they're worried about something else.

Real talk is just a tool in order to get to FLOW. Real Talk bridges the gap between the House Manager telling the Box Office Manager that printing out lists or taking up additional space can hinder mob management. Audience members can feel when there is tension among staff, or if they are moving as a cohesive, communicative unit that most importantly, likes one another.

In other words, your employees need to be given the right amount of space, time, objectives and incentives to serve your real customer; the AUDIENCE MEMBER.

Your Frontline Employees ARE Your Brand

“You can worry about the reach and frequency of your ad dollars, but they will never rival your employees as the most pervasive and valuable asset for your brand. Or the single greatest liability.”

By the way, keep on reading FastCoDesign, for amazing new products and information available on the web. It's a great site.

Real Talk

Christina Tosi:
In our kitchen, REAL TALK, means we break it down for you. Good bye niceties; just cold, hard truths is what real talk is all about. When one of us is not doing the right thing, copping a bad attitude, feeling sorry for him- or herself, being lazy or underperforming (we're all human), we all know what's needed to get each other back on track. Real talk.

I recently described my favorite flow moment when I'm running a show. It's when I can look over at one of my fellow producers or managers and nod to a customer, and not only do they know exactly what the issue is (the customer is drunk, about to sit on an expensive glass table, can't find their ass end from their top, is hitting on another cast member, needs the bathroom) but they also handle the issue with ease and competence. Yeah, it's a little Jedi Master, but that's what a team is and should be. We should be in each other's shit so much that we can read eye and hand signals like they're our own.

We should be able to tell when someone walks in the room that they're having a bad day. Or had a great night. When someone asks a question, we should know who the best person is to answer it. We should be able to tell someone they're full of shit - for them to receive in the best way possible.

This is a lot of "shoulds"

In the past I have not been a big fan of the word "should" - but I also recently read somewhere that the least effective managers do not raise nor outline expectations. Because to do so, would be taking a hard stance on the results that one anticipates. But a good manager, gets to know their people and therefore knows what he or she can expect. And a good manager needs to lead by example. So if you work hard, others around you know what attitude they're going to be adopting. When you treat customers with respect, humility and graciousness - they're going to remember it. When you are efficient at your job and still take the time out to appreciate the small things; people will notice.

Real Talk also applies to your actions. If your piss and wind don't match your actions, check yourself at the door and see if you're not living up to some unrealistic ideal, or if you're just being lazy. Do you want people to fear you or respect you? Real talk means you lead by example.

Children will listen. Adults will follow.

Tomorrow: The importance of empowerment or If Your Customers are Unhappy, Take a Look at Your Staff.

A little bivalve inspiration...

Recently received this as a gift, and I am so pleased with a ton of the material - and not just the delicious looking pictures or intricate recipes. There are hundreds of books out there that try to make the restaurant experience repeatable for the home kitchen. And to be frank, it's not and it won't ever be.

You can try to sous vide all you want in your homemade vacumn sealed ziploc bag in a warm water bath. But unless you have a cool machine, you'll either spend hours of time or kill yourself trying. It's the same reason you probably shouldn't have surgery done by your next door neighbor - even if they're REALLY REALLY good at sutures, and they've studied ALL the books. The last thing you need to be is Frankeneighbor. (just made that up, copyrighted 2012)

So I respect the fact that right at the front of the book, Christina Tosi has about 20 pages of honest, candid and a frank mix of hilarious/inspirational advice for using the Momfuku Milk Bar book. She also tells you how to really closely recreate the recipes using pretty commonly found items and unabashedly tells you to use amazon.com. How many hoity toity chefs are gonna tell you THAT secret up front? That some dude doesn't come to the Milk Bar back door with a box packed with rice and white truffles, but that you walk your ass down to the corner bodega and get you some butter when you are OUT of butter.

Tosi lays it out her book writing philosophy the best in her interview:

But writing in terms of the home cook is — when you work in the industry for a while — you sort of lose touch with what the home cook does or does not have, or what the right way to direct them is. We use a lot of weird, funny terms in our kitchen so I'd be writing recipes and think, "Nobody's going to know what that means." I think the recipe writing part of it was real challenging for me, which I really didn't think about how much work goes into the directional part of it. Not the recipe part of it, like this many grams of butter. But the directional part was the hardest part because, you know, it's meant to be a cookbook that you have at home that you bake from, so really making sure that it translates as that takes a lot of time.

SEGUE!

I've been thinking a lot about how to manage a team. Specifically, my team for this year in producing two musicals. About what I want and need to do better. How desperate (yes, I'm using the word desperate to describe myself, keep your panties on) I am to prove that I'm not a fluke. That I AM a leader. But by no means, should I ever think that I know what I'm doing. I keep thinking of all the people who came before me and how different as leaders they are. Tosi is a leader, but she didn't start that way. She's a savant, a maverick and a rebel - who was admired and championed by another rebel who knew that she would do her own thing build her own team and keep out of HIS way (David Chang).

Tosi says about building the kitchen at Milk Bar:

I certainly didn't plan on having my own kitchen. It sort of just happened. I do think that in working in a bunch of different kitchens, outside of the city and in the city, I always just tried to do enough reflection — not like "Dear Diary" reflection — but enough reflection on "What I really loved about working here was this" or "What I really love about working for this person was that." Or "The one thing I really didn't like was this."

I think when happenstance put me in a place where I had my own kitchen, it was like oh, PS, you get to hire people. You don't have to do it all yourself. You need help, it's time to hire people. I think I naturally tried to take my time in each kitchen and working for each chef and go, well, how did I grow the most there? How can I put that into my own terms and my own environment? Then it becomes, you know, I've never had a kitchen where this happened, or a kitchen where that happened.

It's incredible the people that you build around you when you're doing what you love. I think that's the real reason coaches and gurus tell you to do what you love. Because when you do what you love, you're the best version of yourself that you know how to be. And you naturally attract the people that are drawn to who you are. So why not attract the people who love you and connect to you at your best? Makes sense right?

Reading Tosi's book is one of those revelations you have. Where you realize, that it doesn't matter what ANYONE is talking about. If you can interpret people's experiences and apply them to yours - the world is yours. For the next week, I'll be featuring famous words from others and how to apply them to your oyster. (bivalves = oysters, get it?)

Refrigerate after opening.

So yesterday was lists. And how awesome lists are. Budgets on the other hand? Are inherently depressing.

Because they fineline exactly how badly you're doing. And in very definite terms, not only succinctly outline the mountain you need to climb, but also lay out for you the piddly daily or incremental break-even terms you need to meet in order to get up the damn mountain.

And it makes you super annoyed/depressed when you don't meet those nightly numbers.

It can be horrible for people whose livelihoods, the future of their children, hell the very roofs over their heads depends on nightly break even amounts. SCARY. Because essentially, YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO PREDICT THE FUTURE.

Tonight I had to run numbers for the two shows I'm producing for the Summer. And these are pretty important in the sophomore slump aspect of things. I can only ask for miracles so many times before they....well, before they don't show up anymore.

Where are the statistics on weathermen? How they're only right like 17.5% of the time? Probably should be the same for financial analysts. Sorry to be depressing; but I've also started to light a fire under my ass/issued an ultimatum that any time I feel like writing, I SHOULD WRITE.

But that means, I'm fighting the urge to get to sleep at 12:30am, instead, I'm rambling - coherently I think - but rambling nevertheless.

Moratoriums and budgets suck. I think that's what I'm trying to say.

Tomorrow: I shoot the shit out of my fellow producers.

Human evolution = old German dude building Parisian streets

Let's talk about lists.

Lists are phenomenal, but they are also such human creations. And what I mean by that is, have you noticed that Nature does not create lists? Nope, Nature creates whatever the heck it wants. Organically. Nature is a city like Rome or Old Paris - where streets go where people wanted to go and develop AROUND natural features, like the Seine, things that with early technology we could not control. But lists...lists help us make that entrophy manageable. It turns Old Paris into New Paris ala Baron von Haussman.

Lists create order. Lists are useful things, but lists like anything can become instruments of terror or rigidity if you're not willing to derivate from them. Maybe it's best to take a page out of good old Captain Barbossa's book:

First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner .

Regardless, here are some good guides for 2012 from your pal, the Dalai Lama

http://www.spiritualnow.com/articles/25/1/20-Ways-to-Get-Good-Karma/Page1.html

The Dude asked me over udon on Saturday night, what my goals were for the year. When my face started to contort into shapes only seen in wind tunnels, he laughed and changed it to, "Ok, top 3."

Top THREE? Please, I have like Top FORTY. And you're asking me to have a Top Chef Chopped Session? Over tempura udon? Ok....

Sometimes, we have a hard time setting our goals for our year going forward and the sections of our life. If we have a simple mantra that keeps us focused on what our intentions are, it can assist us through the times when we are confused, scared or just plain don't know what to do. This is what Franklin Covey spit out for me.

Via Gala Darling: try your 2012 Personal Mission Statement Generator!

I am at my best when I am thinking and creating.
I will try to prevent times when I am interrupted or insulted.
I will enjoy my work by finding employment where I can solve puzzles, create solutions.
I will find enjoyment in my personal life through singing, learning, spending time with loved ones.
I will find opportunities to use my natural talents and gifts such as empathy, reading people, humor, keeping friends, finding clarity.
I can do anything I set my mind to. I will create something lasting and life changing that inspires people to be better.
My life's journey is always interesting and a challenge to face my fears .
I will be a person who can do anything and is loved. And is loving .
My most important future contribution to others will be their security, wisdom and insight to care about others than themselves.
I will stop procrastinating and start working on:

• I should have a better relationship with mom.
• I should reach out to others in a way that is less selfish.
• I should learn more skills that are useful or money making

I will strive to incorporate the following attributes into my life:

• Optimism
• Ambition
• Insight

I will constantly renew myself by focusing on the four dimensions of my life:

• Maintain, don't ignore
• Create time for spirituality, for it is equally important.
• Don't procrastinate or avoid.
• Forgive, give the benefit of the doubt.

It's a LEEETLE long, so here are the key words I pulled out of this to create a personal manifesto/haiku:

Optimism. Ambition. Insight
Forgive, give the benefit of the doubt
Create time for spirituality, for it is equally important.
I can do anything I set my mind to.
I will create something lasting and life changing that inspires people to be better.
My life's journey is always interesting and a challenge to face my fears.
I will be a person who can do anything and is loved. And is loving.

Ok, 2012...here we go...

Ready. Steady. Go!

hey team.

new resolution for 2012. blog every day, for 364 days.

do-able? we'll see.

part of the reason I stopped blogging a while ago, because I generally ran out of things to say. And the more I started to explore the internet, the more I found that the things I wanted to say were being much better said by other people around me.

and I found other places like: Polyvore, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter that would satisfy my need to express daily ponders.

and I found it slightly disturbing that friends I hadn't seen in a while were actually using my blog to keep up with my life. and would reference it during dinner or a party.

so I stopped, because life caught up. I think I'm ready to do this again.
So let's go blog. LET'S GO!