The Girls of Summer

Hello sweet sweet summertime! It feels great to be back in SoCal and I'm really excited for my job interview on Tuesday (fingers crossed times a million I get it...it gets a post of its own if I do!)

Summertime calls for good tunes to put on your iPod shuffle and as I flick through mine, I see summer songs from high school, my junior college, and university flip past me. When I listen to them, I remember something different each time, be it that car ride to see Pineapple Express, blowing fireworks off in the backyard and getting the neighbors to yell at you (oops...), riding the bus to take summer classes in order to graduate from college early, and sticky hot summer days outside with a melting Popsicle.

Three of my favorite ladies have seriously excellent summer songs out. I recommend each and every one!



Kylie Minogue- All the Lovers (WaWa & MMB Edit)

Kylie has long been one of my favorites to listen to during the summer (though every time is good Kylie time in my opinion). When I listen to this song, it feels like a song you'd hear on a starry night when you meet the perfect someone for the first time.






Sophie Ellis-Bextor- Bittersweet

I'm hopelessly in love with Sophie's voice and have been listening to her avidly for years. I'm loving the '80s throwback feel on this song. Fun fact: I listen to '80s music WAAY too much. I love the synthesizers and the attitude from that decade.





Katy Perry- California Gurls

This is definitely the song of the summer. I'd be remiss for not including it. It will make you want to drive a Jeep and live on the beach underneath the palm trees for sure.



Love to you all,
Heather

Decision Summer 2010: Calabasas v. San Francisco

Today was the day I decided where I'm going to spend the next year, if not more, of my life.

It was extremely difficult to do and definitely NOT easy. Virtually every night of this week, I've been tossing and turning with a list of pros and cons running nonstop in my head and the cable cars creaking outside with some random guy constantly shouting, "Yo, where's my cell phone?" paired with a very uncomfortable mattress...ugh.

If you guys have been following this tale, basically when I graduated from college, I threw my life into 5 suitcases and headed to SF, with the promise of only 2 job interviews guiding my way. As always, I believed that I would get one of these two, and for some reason, my head always envisions things to involve people grinning at me, doors opening in terms of both employment and residential space, and being able to run around everywhere dressed nicely and getting an arsenal of compliments as well as attractive young men to run up to me and ask who this young woman was who was poised to take on the world.

Yeah. Nope.

Maybe not in this city, at least.

I consulted a large group of friends regarding what to do. I also spoke to my parents (we're getting along again, slowly). But it was a phone call to my former professor Don that really changed everything for me. Once he gave me sound advice, I knew what to do. He's kind of one of my big heroes :)



The movie 500 Days of Summer's sequence with Expectations/Reality is the perfect example of how NONE of my expectations met my reality in SF.

Expectation: Landing that perfect job.

Reality: Job #1 did not choose me. This was Lush and I must say, I'm rather grateful for it. Retail and I would not get along. I paid my dues of 4 years in the sandwich artist/barista business and those 4 years I actually wound up really loving because I was in high school and met some of my best friends there. However, as a college graduate, it would do me no good to go back to working for minimum wage. Lush bothered me because the entire staff was very nice in the artificial sense. Fake enthusiasm and too much pep to sell ocean salt hand scrub. I've become a much more optimistic and cheerful person over the years, but let me stress that it does take years and a good environment with great people to change a person and their mindset. The moment I walked into Lush, I felt my happiness literally tumble down and my old pessimistic persona rolling her eyes and huffing was back. This did not bode well when as part of my interview, I had to give one of the employees a hand treatment with cuticle cleanser, salt scrub, and hand lotion. You could tell I just wasn't into it. I was nervous on how they would judge me, sleep-deprived, trying to be upbeat without being in your face about it, but almost to the verge of taking the bath bombs and shouting, "They're just bubbles people! And how many of you really want a bathtub filled with confetti when you're trying to scrub the day off?" while laughing manically and hurling the bath bombs into the street.

I can't help it if my first response to these sort of issues is to be sarcastic and get a mocking attitude about it, but if you look at my family and the years I spent working at Subway you'd get it. Good lord, the stories from Subway alone could be in a book. Now that was a coming-of-age tale!

As for Job #2, more details coming...



Expectation: The perfect apartment is perfectly affordable and comes with all utilities.

Reality: If you want to live somewhere relatively safe and close to your job, get ready to spend anywhere from $1100 on up. A month if you choose to live solo. Which, in most of these super small living spaces, is all the room there is. This doesn't include all of your utilities either. Some places pay for all of them, but most don't. And cable/DSL/phone line. Those don't count either. And let's not forget the deposit, 1 and a half times the initial rent. Bye bye savings!



Expectation: In SoCal, I dressed the way I liked, wore heels and red lipstick everywhere and got compliments from girls and eyeballs from cute guys.

Reality: In SF, climbing the hills in heels hurts. The only eyeballs I got from my outfits were from homeless guys. No. Thank you. My beloved red lipstick sat unused in my purse because I felt, oh man I hate writing this, I felt like why bother? It would get the wrong attention anyway. I think this is one of the more horrific paragraphs I had to write because I really believe in dressing up and looking special. What has become of Heather Taylor, the former writer behind The Fashion Plate, when she feels like not wearing her red lipstick?! The sky is falling.

Expectation: Despite everything, you will stick it out. You are strong and brave and will make lots of new friends and see the old ones once or so a year and tell them stories of how fabulous life is and they will see this life surrounding you in your pretty home, with your great job and new pals and that Golden Gate Bridge in the distance winking down on you...

Reality: I was very lonely. Lonely to the point where it hurt. And it was only 2 weeks.



On Sunday, I began to analyze my life again. I got my professor Don's number from one of my friends and called him, close to tears, worrying about my future. He only had half an hour to talk before he left the country (talk about good timing) and started off by asking me where I saw myself in 5 years? Was it in SF or Calabasas?

"Uh, neither?" I chirped back and he laughed, "Oh boy."

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Well, it would be easier if you chose one of the two because then I could direct you to one of them." Don said, "But you didn't, so..."

We talked about the job prospect in SF that was currently troubling my head. The one with the 3 months of interning without pay that would lead into full-time. Don did not like it at all and sternly advised me not to take the job without getting in writing that I would be full-time employed afterward. His argument was that I was a college grad and did not need another internship because I had all of the classes I needed and had done the experience already necessary.

I agreed the more we talked and vowed that next morning to discuss it with the woman in charge of the internship.



In the meantime, I decided that if she said yes, that they could pay me and I would go directly into full-time, I would stay in SF. If they couldn't, then I would move directly back to Calabasas to live with my girlfriends in their rad apartment and work out there.

I ran the 20 minute walk to the view of the Golden Gate Bridge where I looked at this bridge and stared at it, wishing, hoping, needing a sign. I needed to see this bridge as not a bridge, but my future. My place in the world.

This is what happened the next morning (today):

I woke up from dreaming of being with my friends and laughing to being alone.
I went to the internship and talked it over with the boss. She was nice.
But she said no.
The Golden Gate Bridge remained a bridge and not a sign.
I went back to the hotel and wondered what came next.
I got the call from a job in LA that wanted me to come in for an interview.
A job I really want.
I called my parents.
And my friend Sara.
And texted lots of friends to tell them...



...I'm moving to Calabasas!

Oh SF, you'll always be there. But Calabasas and SoCal miss me and I need them back in my life in order to be myself again.



Back to the palm trees, the hot sun, the Vons and Ralphs and Whole Foods and Golden Spoon and Bank of America (well, my bank has a cute teller so that's why I'm referring to it here). Back to the 101 and the 405 and 23 freeways. Back to my old diet of Ramen noodles and Vault soda (holy crap, do I miss Vault). Back to Mad Men and True Blood Sundays. Back to the many, many cute boys I left behind. Back to my best friends. Back to my network of people I love and miss. Back to Hollywood and TO and Simi Valley and Camarillo and Santa Monica and Santa Barbara. Back to the flowers and gardens and pools and that little happy feeling in my tummy I get when it's dusk out?

Oh that feeling.

Back to home.

See ya this Thursday.

Love to you all,
Heather

High School Crush Deja Vu

Initially this post was going to be heavier in content because lately life has turned into a fork in the road with me wondering which side to choose. But I'm getting a bit tired of writing about my twenty-something panic attacks over decision-making moments, especially since I've been having these moments for almost 10 years now (The first one was when I was 13 and had one of the biggest identity crisis's you can imagine in which I did not know anything about myself anymore and had to start fresh. Plus, I was incredibly angry at just about everything and everyone and entering my Goth phase. Yep, gotta love puberty.)

Onward to a lighthearted post!
We'll call this one: "The Sudden Realization That I Dated a Guy Who Looked Like My Old TV Crush."



When I was 16, getting home by 4:30 in the afternoon was critical for me. This was before I had two jobs and did way too many extracurricular activities. A simpler time where I was just a girl who enjoyed having a stack of Oreos and settling into the couch to watch one of my favorite programs, The Tribe.

The Tribe, a New Zealand TV series that aired on a network called Wam!, was about a post-apocalyptic society ruled by teenagers. A few years prior, a deadly virus spread through the city, wiping out most of the adult population who sent their children away to a virus-free place to live. It sounds like a lame premise for a show, and in the wrong hands, it could have very well turned into something starring camera-friendly almost 30 year olds attempting to portray 16-19 year olds, in designer threads. However, it stayed very much realistic to the idea of what this sort of future would look like. The biggest concerns were getting water, food, and electricity. Survival was key and outside "tribes" threatened this way of life. You knew which tribe was which by the way each group dressed and decorated their faces. And you know, there were relationship issues tossed in there too to liven it up. It was fairly normal to lose boyfriends and girlfriends and become attracted to others and get pregnant and occasionally, someone would die which is true to life.

The series had been on the air for 4 years and at the time I started watching it, it was heading into its 5th and final season. Of course, my real motivation for watching this show had nothing to do with the plot. I was in it for the enormous surplus of attractive guys littering this show.

The nice thing about The Tribe was that it contained a TON of characters with new ones added every season. There were about 8 or more revolving plot lines at any given moment, most of which featured guys with Kiwi accents. And you wonder why I literally ran to my house after school was over to watch this show.

Current state of dress at 16: black, black, some red, and more black.
Current state of mind at 16: scowling, angry, living in this idea that I knew more than most people, particularly my parents.

Naturally, I was only going to be attracted to a character that embodied these traits...



Ahh, my crush on Ram, the leader of the Technos tribe. He was brilliant, but ruthless, germaphobic, and a manipulative asshole all rolled into one dictator package. Oh, and a polygamist with 3 wives. Gotta love the little red hair horn spikes too.



Ram was fairly divorced from reality. He spent the majority of his time tucked away into a little virtual universe he created for himself online which was made to fit his taste in everything he liked. Of course, throughout the series, this virtual world falls apart and Ram learns how to make friends, and become a better person.



So I had a big crush on him. On the actor Tom Hern who played Ram to be specific. I'm what you might call "special" when it comes to liking guys. For every Ralph Fiennes or Robert Downey Jr. I wind up getting hearts in my eyes over, there's a Mickey Rourke right behind them. This is why I have an enormously difficult time describing my "type" to people. Namely because I don't think I really have one. When I like a guy, there's no telling just what I will like in them. No way of knowing really. *shrugs shoulders*

Come to think of it, I made some collages of Ram/Tom Hern back in the day. Basically, when I was younger and liked celebrities I made collages of them and taped them on the back of my bedroom door (or ceiling...). I still make collages today, but they're mostly of clothing with the majority of these images finding their way to my Tumblr.

The Tribe ends its run and I forget about Tom Hern until one Saturday morning 2 years later when I pretty much spit out my cereal during the Power Rangers opening credits. His name was in it! Wonderful 30 minute watching ensued for the next couple of Saturdays.

By the way, let's have that image sink in. I'm 18, watching Power Rangers for a hot guy, and eating Peanut Butter Cap 'n Crunch on Saturday morning while the majority of people in my senior year high school class are still hungover from the previous evening. I'm regressing back to childhood each day it seems.

4 years pass and I'd more or less forgotten about Mr. Hern in favor of other men. For whatever reason, I looked the show up on YouTube after graduating and was delighted to find every episode on it! Huzzah! I settle in and begin watching.



...

It dawns on me midway through that Tom Hern looks very familiar to a guy I knew. I wrack my mind trying to place the faces. Who? Who is it?

Oh dear God. He looks just like "S", a guy I briefly dated in December.

"S" was this guy I wound up picking up at the club Sunset. He was nice. The trouble was that he was very handsome if you had been hitting the bottle (or martini glass) for awhile. Once that wore off, he was...alright looking. Cute(ish), but I preferred the cute(r) version my drunken brain cells had of him.

Naturally, this went south before any relationship had the time to take place. I was still hung-up over "R" (the infamous ex), and not motivated to be anyone's girlfriend which to his credit, "S" respected and didn't push me to be with him.

I can't believe it took me that long to realize that "S" and Tom Hern looked alarmingly similar. Some girls dream of dating or being with guys that look like their TV crushes. When it actually happens, it's strange. Nothing plays out the way you envisioned it would in your head.

This led me to vow never to date my fictional TV character's real-life doppelganger.

Unless it's a Don Draper/Jon Hamm lookalike. Then that reasoning and logic doesn't matter.

Love to you all,
Heather

Breathe Me

I graduated on Saturday from college with some of the loveliest people on the planet. After the ceremony, I went out to lunch with my roommate and her boyfriend, visited my professors one last time, and hung out with some of my besties for one last time.

It was the loneliest feeling, being alone in the dorm. All of my world packed into 5 suitcases. Some of that world I had mailed home including sentimental pieces like my birthday tiara and some copies of The Word that had my story published in it. There was no furniture to surround me, no other people in the room, no warm light from little desk lamps, or collages made placed in the room.

How could I have stopped the tears from flooding my face? I sat in the bathroom and wept as quietly as I could, because this is the end of these moments. This is the beginning of something else, somewhere that wasn't that campus, someones who would be new to me, and somewhat everything I imagined falling into place.

I wonder about the people we will become.

Who we will we be. Who will we see. How will we look in a year or so.

There is no doubt in my mind that my friends will go on to the greatest of things.
My roommates and some of my other junior friends will continue to be at the university for another year and in one year's time, I'll be sitting there in the bleachers watching them graduate, excited and ready to take piles of pictures.



A picture at a party of my very closest girlfriends...Randi, me, Sara, and Stacy.

These three I'm going to miss more than anything. They're just such remarkable girls and we've all been through so much together.

Sometimes when I look at them, I get the briefest flash of what their futures look like in my head. I see each of them smiling, laughing, being beautiful, and fulfilled forever.

Whenever I feel lonely, I listen to music that reminds me of my friends. One song in particular that always makes my heart thoughtful is Sia's Breathe Me. If you ever watched Six Feet Under, it's the song that plays during the montage in the series finale. The finale that every time I watch it, I burst into tears in. It's a gorgeous song that says so much. I think you should listen to it...



Love to you all,
Heather

Travellin' Girl

Does anyone else have a difficult time packing up their lives? I don't understand it. I mailed 4 boxes of stuff home, donated lots of clothes, and STILL I'm packed to the brim with no breathing room in my luggage.

*le sigh*

It's been a busy week what with finals and trying to get my life on track. Luckily, the life track includes a job interview on Sunday afternoon, the day I arrive in SF at Lush, with 3 apartment viewings on Monday morning (ahhh!).

And just in case things fall apart there (you can never be too careful), I can move back to Calabasas to live with two good friends of mine and work out there. Having a plan B is pretty swell.

Not much else to say. Need to pack some more today, write a paper, go to dinner with my friends, mail a letter, etc. My life just keeps staying busy :)

Love to you all,
Heather

The Absent Parents

It is my last week of college before I graduate this Saturday. After graduating, my route is going slightly more differently than that of a typical person's. I'm getting on the plane on Sunday morning to San Francisco where I will begin the next chapter of my life. There will be no parties, no family events to celebrate this moment of my life.

It is because my parents will not be attending my graduation.

I really hate to write this on here because I feel like I've talked the death out of it too much already, but it must be said. I can't even begin to say just how hurt I am by them. Them, as a pair, both my Dad and Mom.

True, I am aware that there are some financial problems at home. The trouble with saying this is that while I know about it, financial issues have plagued my family since I was born. It's a fairly easy excuse to fall back on for them. Plus, they don't necessarily use the best judgment in purchases either. Case in point, a hundred dollars to fly out to see me graduate or to spend on Yankee Candles.

That's right. The Yankee Candles won over their only daughter.

I hate candles by the way. Never liked them to begin with.



They've spent this week and last week criticizing me for my decision to attend this school, for being in any school in general instead of the military where they both went, and for my choice to move to SF when I graduate instead of going home.

Another fun moment is that they believe I'm driving a wedge in our relationship. That I want to get further away from them and don't care about how it affects us.

And the best one? They're not happy that I tell people that my parents won't be at my graduation. What do they expect me to say to my friends and bosses at work? Do they want me to lie for them? Everyone asks and I can't say something else!

Naturally, the responses from my friends and former bosses has been very sympathetic. Most of them are amazed that I'm not more upset. Nobody is happy with the decision that my parents made and of course, now that Dad and Mom know this, they're even more livid at me because now they look like bad people. They hate that there is an audience to my life and that they can't spin the story so I look like selfish, spoiled, bitch daughter that they love to paint me as.



Fine. I didn't even want to write it, but here goes:

I've never been more hurt by two people in my entire life than their decision to not attend my graduation or be a part of my post-grad life. My entire life, they've always told me "blood is thicker than water" which is certainly not the case. They don't practice what they preach. And the idea that their referring to my friendships as being "water-based" makes me want to throw up. These are the same two people who told me not to make any friends when I was at my JC because I'd leave them and not to have any long-term relationships with boys because eventually, they'd end.

Proximity shouldn't be the issue at hand either because my Dad didn't even attend my high school graduation and that was a fifteen minute drive from our house....It's just the classic Taylor case of if it doesn't cater to what they like exclusively, they see no need to show up for it.

And considering that they had four kids, that's a pretty shitty philosophy to have.



Yesterday I had a thought about my Dad and his lack of involvement in my life as well as my brothers' lives. The thought was about how he used to take me to the bookstore as a little girl which I loved. What I thought was father-daughter time back then I suddenly realize wasn't. Think about it. I sat upstairs in the children's department reading while my Dad was downstairs. Most of the time, when I was done I had to go and find him myself and even then, he looked irritated that I had bothered him. Then I would go back upstairs alone, fervently wishing that whatever book I'd read next would take me away from my reality. Which it always did.

So strange. My brother Earl and I once discussed our childhoods with each other and he said, "Most of the time I just repress most of it."

Maybe I've been doing the same thing unconsciously. Or maybe I've been seeing the past in a better light than what it was.



The damage has been done. My roommate and her boyfriend will be taking the empty seats instead of my parents. I almost burst into tears when they told me they'd go. So amazing.

So now I know what I want. I don't want to talk to my parents for a long time. I want space between us, miles and oceans, but more than geography, I need time. Time to erase my pain, time to run from the memories. Days to stretch onto months and years.



And then maybe, just maybe, they'll understand just how hurt I feel. Maybe they'll realize just how wrong they were and how this moment in life is one they'll regret not being at.

Love to you all,
Heather

The Fashion Plate

As promised, I'm going to start posting some of my articles from my column in our school newspaper on here. This is The Fashion Plate, the title of which is inspired by a nickname my 4th grade teacher was awfully fond of referring to me as.

It's meant to inform individuals about dressing well, as well as be humorous and, you know, NOT BORING TO READ. It's difficult enough to get college students to read the news so the least the writer can do is spice it up. From what I've been told and complimented on, this column is very well regarded at my school.

I'll let you guys check it out. Enjoy!



As I rode home with one my closest friends last night, our conversation slipped quickly into the world of fashion.

Like me, she was deeply concerned for the generation surrounding us, the one with the denim cut-off miniskirts, fur-lined Uggs and “Jersey Shore” Snooki hair-poofs becoming the norm.

“I feel like people aren’t dressing for themselves anymore,”she said. “I feel like they’re dressing to be trendy. I don’t want to be a part of that, and I like the clothes from eras like the 1940s, but I really don’t think I can pull off that look.”

A sense of quiet sadness filled me when she said this.
I know I’m not alone when I say I wish I had been born during a different decade or another century.

When I was in third grade, I was fascinated with the look of the early 1900s Victorian society.

My hero was Samantha Parkington of the “American Girl” series. I read all of her books and studied the fashion notes background section in the back of the novels. The starter kit included little white gloves, lace parasols, corsets and hoop skirts.

In grade school, we were told to make an outline of what we believed our future would be like. My future, I happily informed my teacher, would have me dressed in petticoats in my day to day life.

She tore my paper a part for writing that. It was impractical to dream of being Mary Lennox from “The Secret Garden” and unrealistic to expect that I could dress like that.



Though I was deeply crushed to read such a remark, it burned a fire inside of me. I would not be told if I could or could not wear something ever again. I’d take impracticality over ordinary any day of the week.

If forced to conform to ordinary (i.e. school uniforms), I would spin it so that my sense of self shined through.

I’ve been through a series of clothing phases ever since. My closet back home is a testament to this fact.

There was a period of time in which I didn’t dress for myself. Luckily, this period of time was one with Dooney & Bourke handbags and Le Tigre polo shirts, the way most of my high school looked on a casual uniform-less Friday.

This was before the time where dressing with leggings as a substitute for pants and Ed Hardy apparel became the unfortunate trend to don in public. This time was very much the same as now in the sense that I forgot about dressing for myself and got lost in the trend of being like everyone else.



I went back to finding myself, with some assistance along the way. I made collages of looks I liked and placed them on a bulletin board in my room. I paid attention to details and carefully noted what I looked for in a complete ensemble.

I also watched movies, listened to various songwriters and stared at photos to better figure out what I liked and the common theme behind these outfits.

Throughout this experience I’ve discovered if you want to look or dress in a certain way inspired by another era or a person, you need to do it. You can do it!

Naturally, you’ll get people who don’t want you to or like what you’re doing. If you happen to be reaching into the discount bin for an unflattering blouse just because it is on sale, I’d listen to them. Don’t do it.

If you see somebody wearing an interesting pair of shoes and think ‘I’d like to try that,’ but are surrounded by others who say that you can’t pull off such a look, defend yourself and try out that pair of shoes. The confidence you get wearing them is just as key as the fit.
There will always be someone who doesn’t agree with your chosen aesthetic. This is normal. However, you should never surround yourself with individuals who constantly critique how you dress or put down that style.

There will be haters to the left, but a true friend will accept you for who you are, no matter how you’re styled.



In a shortened version of the above mentioned paragraphs, this is what I told my friend in the car last night. She’s already a really fantastic dresser, in my opinion, but everyone deserves to be encouraged with what they want to wear and how they would like to dress.
Consider me your personal cheerleader in this sense. I may not know you personally, but I’ll support you in whatever clothing phase you choose. All except for the “Jersey Shore” stuff.

Just back away now, and no one gets hurt.

Love to you all,
Heather

Awe

On Friday morning, I received the most unexpected and without a doubt, one of the nicest emails I have ever received. I'm still awfully smiley and incredibly happy to have received it.

Because it is not every day that you get a letter praising your writing and recommending you highly from the former CEO of Leo Burnett, Mr. Geeting. This is the advertising agency behind all of those wonderful food mascots like the Jolly Green Giant, Toucan Sam, Tony the Tiger, and my darling, most favorite, the Pillsbury Doughboy.



Backtracking briefly, Mr. Geeting, along with his wife, was a guest speaker for my advertising class who worked for Leo Burnett. Copywriting in the world of advertising was always a more subdued interest of mine. Subdued in the sense that I knew I would be good at it, but for some reason never gave it much thought. It's funny though because as far as my major, journalism, goes I never enjoyed writing a hard news lead or story that strictly relied on facts. At my community college, I wrote film reviews that were fairly popular and at my university, I have a fashion column that is equally popular, but I had to lobby hard to be allowed to write.

Anyway, they told our class about their lives working at Leo Burnett, and how working there was very similar to the show Mad Men. It all seemed very jet set to me, discussing how one would fly off to London at a moment's notice and then spend 50 grand on a dinner with famous celebrities at the table. Being a girl who is constantly envisioning stories in her head, all I could think of when I heard this was "Imagine the stories behind this time!"

I asked them questions and got to speak with both privately afterward which was lovely, but I didn't think anything of it because most afternoons after advertising, I do my internship work immediately (10 minutes) after I get out of class.



A few weeks later, our class was assigned to present our sustainability campaign in front of a panel of judges. This assignment had made me miserable for weeks because my group had some kinks in the armor (read: didn't communicate well) and everything came together last minute, which I try to avoid having happen because I like to be prepared. Usually.

In any case, when we gave our presentation, I did not want the judging panel of my professor, boss at my current job, and several prominent members of marketing companies including the Geetings to know that the day before this presentation I had felt like crying and throwing in the towel. If there was nothing I could do, it was to dress well and be well-versed in what I would say.

I wore my best suit (pinstriped with a pencil skirt), stockings, heels, and my ever-present red lipstick and memorized what I would say without using the cue cards. Speaking in front of crowds never scares me, which is a blessing. I know lots of people who are terrified of doing it. When I get up in front of a crowd, I tend to move around a lot, use my hands to gesture, and smile and try to get the room to laugh. Once they smile at you, you get them comfortable and things are all gravy from there!



This presentation was fair, at best, but hey, I did what I could. At the end, Mr. Geeting mentioned briefly, "I do like your fashion column, Heather."

"Thank you!" I blushed and stared at my heels.

"Though, of course, that won't be taken into final consideration on the judging process." He teased and I nodded in agreement. Of course it wouldn't!

Long story short, my advertising team and I faired average in the end and our campaign did not win to go on to the implementation phase. This was fine with me. I knew it wouldn't win and besides, I would have much rather have seen another team's take top honors. The Geeting's went on their separate ways and I didn't think I'd hear from them again.

Friday morning arrived, the last Friday of the month. I decided to check my school email account. 22 new emails. This was only after 2 days of not checking (a lot for a school address).

Among the group was an email from my editor at the school newspaper from Mr. Geeting addressed to me. She forwarded it along to me and the letter was tremendously nice.



I can't mention most of what was in it because of confidentiality reasons, but I can mention the following:

1) I have a very strong future in the world of advertising
2) Moving to San Francisco is a good choice, but eventually I need to put New York into my travel plans.
3) Many, many references to Mad Men, even describing me as a potential "Mad Woman" (the BEST compliment ever!)
4) More praise for the column (eventually I'll start putting old articles I've written on my blog because I'd like you guys to read it!)

I was on cloud nine. Fully and utterly.

I still am. Ahhhhh, this is so brilliantly amazing!



Like I said before, copywriting and I were not always on the same page. How strange that is. I think this is something I should move to pursue.

I greatly like the idea of being a "Mad Woman."

Love to you all,
Heather