A girl's gotta eat.

I wish we lived in a society where lunchtime meetings didn’t exist. Where we could respect everyone’s need for nourishment and break during the appropriate hour. Where I didn't have to be the only one who’s growling stomach is so loud that people on the other side of the conference table are starting to stare.

See, I’m kind of a baby about this. Not like a “why don’t you go cry about it?” baby (okay, well, maybe a little), but like a “I really need to eat at regular intervals or I lose it” baby.

It gets to the point in a noon hour meeting when I can’t concentrate anymore. You start to lose me. I get all glassy-eyed and awful. Sure, I’m taking notes or throwing out half-baked ideas. But I’m really planning my escape strategy so I can get to the microwave before anyone else in the room. And I’m wondering how many minutes I can safely shave off the cooking time on my frozen meal so I can eat as soon as possible. Yes, there's always the chance I might get salmonella from an undercooked Lean Cuisine, but the salmonella gamble is one I'm willing to take.

I’m pretty sure I should have out grown this. I should be able to man up and make it until we break for lunch. But I can’t. That bowl of store brand mini wheats was a long time ago, and I have to eat.



And while we’re at it, let’s borrow the whole afternoon siesta thing that Europe’s got going on. I could totally get behind that.

Thank you.

(And by sports knowledge, I mean the basic understanding of how a motor vehicle operates.)

After admitting that I have no freaking clue how to work my car, I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support. Okay, that's an overstatement. I mean yeah, it doesn't really take a lot to get me overwhelmed. But it wasn't really an outpouring. "Overwhelmed by an outpouring" is just one of those phrases that sound so good, you can't help but use it.

Sorry. Nerdy writer moment. But I did want to thank those who walked me through the steps of unlatching the hood of my car. And those of you who Googled the owner's manual for an '05 Sentra. (It's actually a 2006, but wow, way to make a good guess of it.) I'd especially like to thank my roommate's boyfriend for refilling my washer fluid for me. I didn't even ask him to, I just asked where the hood release was on a Nissan. Whattaguy.

I think most of all, I'd like to thank all my friends who are girls who didn't have any words of advice to offer on this one. Makes me feel like I'm not the only slightly clueless one out there.

An addendum to the previous post.

(You're going to want to read the previous post at this point, otherwise what you're about to read is just going to seem like pointless babble. Well, babble that's even more pointless than usual.)

Sure, it can be disheartening to see the business you didn't win advertised all over the place. But it's a different story when you see the new ads for the client that left your old agency and, in turn, left you jobless.

You're just minding your own business, watching the USA v. Canada hockey game, wondering who let our goalie wear such a tacky, airbrushed helmet (A young, ripped Uncle Sam with a flaming hockey stick? Really?). Then they cut to commercial break and there's a new ad for the client who left you and got you laid off. (Again, how did they manage a media buy during primetime Olympic coverage?)

Then you have a couple of choices.

You can get all self-righteous, turn up your nose at said client's new commercial and say something like, "well, if that's the type of work they want, then we weren't a good fit anyway." It helps if you can make one of those scoffing noises in the back of your throat while you say that.

Or you can throw a little pity party. Dive headfirst into that box of Cheez-Its and remember the glory days when the client loved your work. When the client thought you could do no wrong. Back when the client brought the entire agency a cake and said they couldn't wait to work together.

So what am I going to do? Well, I don't think we have any Cheez-Its. (I know I said we did in the previous post, but I was lying. Let's not call it lying though, let's call it creative license.) And it wasn't a bad commercial; knowing the client, it's exactly what they would want. And hey, America is kicking some Canadian ass right now, so I'm just going to focus on that.

I'll do the whole self-righteous thing later. Obviously.

It's better to have pitched and lost than never to have pitched at all.*

Losing a new business pitch is kind of like breaking up with someone you only went out with a few times. Things weren’t that serious, and it was fun while it lasted. The late nights, the long hours, the agency-funded dinners. It was a good time. But in the end, it just wasn’t meant to be. You tell yourself it’s better for the both of you.

Then you start seeing that new business all over town with the work from its new agency. It’s on busses and banner ads, train wraps and taxi-toppers. You step onto an el and the entire interior is blanketed with ads for the new business you didn’t win.

Seriously, it’s everywhere. One minute you’re watching the Olympics, happily cheering on the U.S. curling team. Then it’s time for a word from our sponsors, and there’s a commercial for the client you convinced yourself you were better off without. How the heck did they afford a spot during the Olympic games?

And you can’t help but think to yourself, what’s so special about this new work? My work looked as good as this work. My work was just as smart. Heck, my work was way funnier than this work. WHY WASN’T MY WORK GOOD ENOUGH?

Next thing you know, you’re elbow deep in a box of Cheez-Its that may or may not belong to your roommate, lamenting over pitches loved and lost. You’ve got to get back out there, you tell yourself. You'll show them. You'll win an even bigger and better piece of business. Yeah. The next one. That'll be the one.


*When pitching new business, ad agencies generally prepare speculative campaigns to present to the client. This work is shown to highlight the agency's creative thinking and problem-solving abilities. Basically, when it's pitch time, we all just pretend like we already have the client and work our butts off to create campaigns and media plans and everything else we would do if the client were already ours. It's a lot of work. My mom never really understood what I meant when I said we were in a new business pitch, so I figured I'd explain it here just in case.

I'm, like, such a girl.

For the better part of two (maybe three) months, I’ve been driving my car with the washer fluid low light on. I can assure you I wasn't ignoring the little illuminated icon. It wasn’t flagrant disregard for the inner workings of the Nissan. And it's certainly not because I like rolling around in a dirty car.

I just can’t get the hood open. I have the washer fluid and everything, but I have no idea where the hood release is. And believe me, I’ve looked.

It’s not near the trunk release. It’s not near the gas cap release. It’s not anywhere logical. (I did, however, realize that my car has one of those built-in sunglass holders that pops down from the ceiling, so that’s neat.) I mean, I know it’s a Japanese car, but it’s like you have to be part ninja to get under the hood.

Now I’m completely out of washer fluid. The well is dry. Empty. And that little light on my dashboard is just mocking me.

Good one, cute little washer fluid icon. Because this salty, sludgy time of year is the perfect time to run out of washer fluid.

There are only so many times you can pull into a gas station to use the squeegee without filling up. (That’s kind of an ass move.) Also, putting a little Windex on a paper towel and thinking, “Eh, I’ll just wipe it off before I get in the car”? That’s a terrible idea. A terrible, streaky, turn-the-dirt-on-the-windshield-into-a-sticky-paste idea.

Someone suggested taking the car to an oil change place and just having them refill the washer fluid. Which I’m considering. But I’m pretty sure the second I do that, they're just going to look at me as one of those girls.


(The whole clip is great, but you really only need to watch from 1:16 on to get the point.)

Those girls who can't kill a bug with more than six legs. The kinds who turn down shots of Jameson. The girls in Ugg boots. The ones who can't figure out how to release the hood of the car they've been driving for the last two and a half years.

Eh, well. Here's to reinforcing stereotypes.

Hard drives never forget.

Today marks the three month anniversary of my layoff. In this industry and in this economy, it happens. Accounts come and go and then there’s just not enough work to go around.

I’ll spare you the details (except that the Pepper Canister on Wells serves great Bloody Marys and won’t judge if you order two and that’s all you have for lunch), but it’s been three months I packed up my belongings and said goodbye to the trusty laptop that saw me through my first real copywriting job.

If I hadn’t been so concerned with cleaning out my desk (seriously, who besides an 80-year-old woman needs 4 open bags of cough drops? And why did I feel the need to keep every single plastic bag I’d ever gotten from the 7-eleven downstairs?), I might have realized that I was leaving a much bigger mess on my laptop.

So without further ado, I bring you the list of things I wish I’d removed from my computer before I got canned.

- My browser history. If they see the number of times I Facebooked there toward the end…I don’t even want to think about it.

- A folder on my desktop entitled “INSPIRATION AND STUFF.” Inside was a collection of cheesy inspirational quotes and photos. I don’t even remember why I started that folder, but I sure know that I forgot to delete it.

- All my Turbo Tax info from last year. It was in another folder on the desktop, this one aptly called “Important Stuff.” It’s not that I think the technology guy is going to steal my identity (seriously, Charlie, please don’t steal my identity), but it’s time to do my taxes again and I’m not even sure I remember my Turbo Tax user ID.

- A bookmark tab on my browser that linked to blogs of people I don’t know. Hi, I’m Brenna and I’m a total creep.

- All my comedy sketches from my Second City class. They weren’t really that inappropriate or anything, but one of them was a satirical piece about female restroom etiquette. And the first rule of female restroom etiquette is don’t talk about female restroom etiquette. Just like Fight Club.

- A playlist entitled “Halloween 2k9!!!” When buried among the rest of your iTunes library, a collection of party-appropriate songs is acceptable. When featured on your iTunes as the one and only playlist, that party playlist is always a little shameful. It highlights the music you only listen to when you’re drinking out of red plastic cups or having a ‘90s themed dance party at 2 am. It’s a whole different story in the harsh fluorescent light of the workday.

- Speaking of iTunes, there was an embarrassing amount of Cake on there. And by embarrassing, I mean every album, single and exclusive Japanese tour edition ever. I’m not even a Cake fan, but my iTunes would beg to differ.

- Nine drafts of my maid of honor speech, including at least three versions that referenced how I came to be best friends with the bride after accidentally kissing her boyfriend freshman year of college.

But the real kicker—the pièce de résistance, if you will—is the slideshow I made for my best friend’s bachelorette party. Saved directly to the desktop in all its glory, it was twelve minutes and fifty seconds of embarrassing photos set to the musical stylings of Lady Gaga.

We’re talking pictures that should have been reserved for blackmailing purposes. Photos from birthdays and bar crawls and Unofficial college drinking holidays. Pictures featuring homemade dresses fashioned from garbage bags. Terrifying images harking back to the blonde highlight phase of my college career. Upwards of 57 photographs where at least one person's tongue is sticking out. All capped off with a montage of photos that truly showed off how uncute we are when we aren't smiling.

So there you have it. The legacy I left at my first job, neatly organized on that trusty MacBook. I hope whoever gets my old computer next really appreciates how awesome I am in electronic file form.

Snow day story time.

So my car got snowed in, which shouldn't be a surprise since it near-blizzard conditions blanketed the Chicagoland area for the entire day yesterday, but somehow it came as a shock to me this morning. “What? You mean I can’t get my compact car out of a parking spot that’s surrounded by a 26-inch snowdrift? Surely, you jest.”



Anyway, once I realized there was no getting the Nissan out of what I hope isn’t its snowy grave, I schlepped to my nearest el stop to wait for the train. Standing on the platform, firing off “Sorry I’ll be late! Please don’t hate me!” emails, I realized I haven’t taken the train very much lately. What was once a daily necessity is now a rare experience, but not working downtown will do that.

So a Purple Line pulls up and I get on and it’s a lot more crowded than one might expect for 9:20 am. [Sidebar: what do these people do? They can’t all be in advertising, rolling into work whenever.] And everyone’s all bundled up and it smells like wet snow pants and all of a sudden it’s like déjà vu.

I was in this exact same situation when the most embarrassing event of my adult life occurred.

I know what you’re thinking: 1.) Riding a crowded train on a snowy morning conjures up one unique memory? You live in Chicago. You ride the CTA. That situation has to happen, like, 5 months out of the year. 2.) Oh, great. An embarrassing story blog post. How original.

To that I say: 1.) Let me explain. 2.) Don’t judge. I’m dealing with some writer’s block and am at a loss for new material. Besides, who doesn’t love laughing at other's misfortune?

Alright. Back to the most embarrassing event of my adult life. It’s winter, 2007. Another cold, snowy morning in Chicago and I’m all bundled up on my way to my internship. Being the good little intern I was, I got to the office by 8:30 every day. That put my morning commute right in the middle of rush hour.

I pile onto a Brown Line train with probably 117 of my Northside neighbors. Somehow, I stake out a standing-room-only spot near the door, standing right in front of the priority seating. It’s crowded, but I’ve at least got a place where I can hold on to the pole.*

We’re riding along and the train lurches between the Sedgwick and Chicago stop. The train always lurches between Sedgwick and Chicago, yet I'm somehow caught off-guard. In a move that was part-stripper/part-Randy-from-A Christmas Story, I swing around the pole, landing smack dab in the lap of a seated passenger. And I can’t get my overly bundled self back up.

(Replace the snowbank with a young professional just trying to do the crossword in her Red Eye and you'll get the idea.)

I’m flailing on the lap of this poor woman for what feels like thirty solid seconds before I can get back on my feet. People are staring. Once I finally regain my composure and stand up, I try to tell the woman how sorry I am. But since my iPod is cranked up to drone out the CTA, I accidentally scream my apology at her. And you know what? After you’ve sat on a strangers lap and proceeded to yell at her, you want nothing more to get away. Know what else? There’s nowhere to go to get away on a crowded train. So there I stood for the rest of my commute, face burning with embarrassment, clinging to that stupid pole with both hands, right in front of the woman I accidentally violated.

And that’s my story of utter humiliation. After all that, it probably doesn’t sound all that humiliating. Sorry I just subjected you to 600 words of that, but congrats for seeing it through to the end. If nothing else, I hope you think of your footing the next time you’re on a crowded train. And holy crap, let’s all hope the writer’s block goes away soon.

*Zero points for creativity if you threw out a “that’s what she said.” I totally set that one up for you.

What goes around...

I get that fashion is cyclical. What was in style goes out and what was out of style comes back in. It was true when I was a 13-year-old dying for a pair of bell bottoms and my mom informed me that's what she wore in high school. And it's true now. The '80s are back and get this, the early '90s want in, too.

I'm not about to sit here, all high and mighty, and pretend like I don't follow the trends I once scoffed. There is more than one plaid shirt in my closet. My skinny jeans are tucked into my tall boots. I have bangs very similar to the ones I spent the majority of my youth awkwardly growing out. Even as I'm writing this in my pjs -- a pair of leggings and an oversized sweatshirt -- I look more like an extra from Flashdance than even I care to admit.

But seriously, I think we were all a lot better off before spandex worked its way back into the mainstream and onto the treadmill in front of me. Sure, bike shorts have their place (The Tour de France. Spin class. The privacy of your own home.), but spandex hot pants for fashion's sake just seem wrong. Some trends are better left in the past. And the day I see someone wearing a leotard over bike shorts with scrunchie socks stroll into kick boxing class, I'm boycotting fashion and the gym.