Average Jane

Blog

  • Average Jane’s Monday Meme

    After my unexpectedly eventful Saturday night, the rest of my weekend was pretty mellow.  Thus, I’ve decided to snag the following meme from CJ and coast this morning:

    1. How tall are you barefoot? Almost 5’7"
    2. Have you ever been cheated on? Probably in the distant past (not by the hubby!)
    3. Do you own a gun? No.
    4. What do you think of hot dogs? Love ’em! You can keep your "lips and a-holes" comments to yourselves. Deeper knowledge about hot dogs does nothing to counter their deliciousness.
    5. What’s your favorite Christmas song? I don’t think I have a favorite, but I know a lot of them and I would love to go caroling sometime, just for the heck of it.
    6. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Jasmine-flavored green tea
    7. Do you do push-ups? Sometimes.
    8. Have you ever done ecstasy? No.
    9. Do you like Disney World? Eh. It’s okay.
    10. Do you like the rain? Yes.
    11. Do you own a knife? I have some very nice kitchen knives. I don’t carry one as a weapon, though, if that’s what this question is getting at.
    12.
    What do you smell like? Right now I smell like soap and hair products. I just got out of the shower.
    13. Do you have A.D.D.? Probably. I’ve taken several self-test quizzes in my sister’s ADD books and I can answer "yes" to the majority of the indicator questions.
    14. Full initials? A.J.D. (Average Jane Doe – here, anyway)
    15. Name 3
    thoughts at this exact moment. 1) I’m thirsty. 2) These sleeping cats all look comfortable. 3) I wish my hair would hurry up and dry.
    16.
    Name the last 3 things you have bought today (in this case, yesterday). A black hooded sweatshirt jacket, a can of Red Bull, and the ingredients to make pasta for dinner.
    17. Name five drinks you regularly drink. The green tea I have each morning, water, iced tea, Red Bull and coffee.
    18. What time did you wake up today?  6:15 a.m.
    19. Can you spell? Yes, I’m a good speller.
    20. Current worries? My poor, old cat with kidney disease.
    21. Current hate? Inattentive drivers. Someone actually ran me onto the shoulder of the highway last weekend, then gave me the "oh well" shrug, which made me see red.
    22. Favorite place to be? I love sitting on my front porch swing when it isn’t biting bug season.
    23. Least favorite place to be? The dentist’s chair.
    24. Where do you want to go? Someplace fun and relaxing.
    25. Do you own slippers? Yes, although I’m due for a new pair.
    26. Where do you think you will be in 10 years? Right here, I imagine. I don’t foresee any enormous changes in the next 10 years.
    27. Do you burn or tan? I used to tan lightly but burn easily. Now I just stay inside or use heavy-duty sunblock.
    28. Yellow or blue? Both mixed together to make green.
    29. Would you give up your current life to be a pirate? No, I prefer to remain scurvy-free.
    30. Last time your cell rang? Yesterday, right as I was getting ready to go into the theater to see Accepted.
    31. What songs do you sing in the shower? Oddly enough, I don’t sing in the shower. My living room has a nice echo, though.
    32.
    What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child? The monster under the bed was the main threat, but the monster in the closet ran a close second.
    33. How much cash do you have on you? About $11
    34. Last thing that made you laugh? See #30. The movie had some good chuckles.
    35. Best bed sheets you had as a child? Star Wars sheets.
    36.
    Worst injury you’ve ever had? It’s probably a tie between the broken knuckle I got trying to smash ice on the horse tank with a sledgehammer when I was in college, and the huge bruise I got on my hip falling down a flight of stairs of a house while we were shopping for the house we have now.
    37. Where have you been out of US? Jamaica and Mexico.
    38. Who is your loudest friend? I don’t know – when they all get together, the collective volume is pretty overwhelming, though!
    39. Who is your most silent friend? I might be the quietest of my social group.
    40. Does someone have a crush on you? Not that I know of.
    41. Do you wish on stars? No.
    42. What song did you last hear? I can’t remember.
    43.
    What song do you want played at your funeral? Wow, I have no idea. Play whatever you want – it won’t make any difference to me!
    44. What were you doing at 12:00 last night? Getting ready for bed after watching "Deadwood."
    45. First thought upon waking up this morning? Ooh, I can probably get to work early after all.

  • Average Jane and the Scramblers

    I know it sounds like a minor plot point in a low-budget comedy, but circumstances last night led me to spend the evening singing in the bar of a Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant, backed by a band that had never played together before.

    I’d spent the early afternoon at a blues festival watching my cousin and his band play.  After I got home, my husband and I had intended to go to a movie, but he got a call from one of my old guitarists.  His band had gotten a last-minute gig, but only his bass player was in town and available to play.  He needed my husband to play drums.

    My husband agreed to take the gig and I figured I might as well go with him since I didn’t have anything better to do.  Because the band only had one vocalist, I offered to sing some songs but waive any pay.

    When I arrived, I found that a second guitarist – another former bandmate of ours – had been recruited.  They were all happy to have me sing a bunch of the songs, so I circled all the ones I thought I’d heard enough times to be able to pull off (as long as I had the lyrics in front of me) and we headed to the restaurant to set up. 

    This is not a triumphant story.  Everyone in the makeshift band (which the guitarist dubbed, "The Scramblers" because it was thrown together at the last minute) was a good player, but without any practice and with limited familiarity with the songs, the end result was not good.  Also, the sound mix was awful, with loud vocals and drums carrying through the whole building while the guitars and bass were swallowed up by the palm-frond thatch over the bar.

    When we arrived, the place was still pretty full.  Once we started playing, people began exiting in droves.  By the second set, we were lucky if one person clapped politely after we ended a song.  By the last set, the few remaining patrons weren’t even bothering to do that anymore.

    I stayed on the tiny stage even when I wasn’t singing lead to try to offer some backup vocals and the occasional harmony.  There were some songs I ended up doing well ("Oh, Darlin’" by the Beatles) and some that were disastrous ("Don’t Dream It’s Over" by Crowded House, which is SO not my style, and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Pat Benatar, which I wrongly figured would have been right up my alley).  The positioning of the lights made it very hard to read the lyrics on the stand in front of me, so there were times when I was just making word-like sounds to the tune of whatever song we were doing and hoping nobody noticed.

    After the second set, I broke my usual "no drinking during gigs" rule and got a beer.  It clearly wasn’t going to make any difference.  At the end of the night, while the band leader was collecting the band’s pay, the bar manager expressed surprise that we’d never even practiced before the gig. Surely he was just being polite.

    So that was my Saturday evening. How was yours?

  • Average Jane’s Consumer Poll

    Okay, here’s the story:  while cleaning out the closet in our studio yesterday, I came across my wedding dress.  It was wadded into a corner, spilling out of its original Jones Store Co. garment bag from 1965 (when my mom originally bought it). 

    Since I’ve now been married for almost twelve years, I think it’s high time I took or shipped the dress somewhere to be "preserved."  That means they clean it, wrap it in acid-free paper and pack it neatly in a box.

    So how much is reasonable for this service?  I saw an online company that does it for $99, but even my unsentimental self is a little hesitant to just ship the dress off to an unknown company.  However, I inquired at my local cleaner and they charge almost $300 for the same service, so it is somewhat tempting.

    I can’t help but suspect that the online services probably use exactly the same vendors for the actual gown processing, minus the huge markup.  Still, I’d be a lot more comfortable with a recommendation.  Internets, what do you know about this?

  • Songs Average Jane Knows

    Because I’ve been rather poky about writing new songs lately, my vocal teacher has taken to having me sing other types of music at the end of my lessons.  A few weeks ago, we worked on "The Star-Spangled Banner."  She argued that any singer might someday be asked to sing it in public.  I think it’s unlikely that "any singer" really encompasses the heavy metal genre, but I suppose you never know.

    The main thing I learned about the national anthem is that it’s vitally important that the third note in the song be the absolute bottom of the singer’s comfortable range.  Otherwise, the high notes are impossible except for freaks of nature with multi-octave ranges.

    At my lesson yesterday, we continued in the patriotic vein with "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful," neither of which I had sung since elementary school.

    It’s amazing how many songs remain neatly filed away in my brain after all these years. I can still think of most of the lyrics and melodies of countless Christmas carols, hymns, nursery songs, folk songs and ’50s hits that were considered "oldies" when I was growing up.

    Of my parents, only my mom was music fan, so I grew up listening to her extremely random selection of favorites:  Elvis (of course), the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Julie Andrews (particularly the "Camelot" soundtrack), Julie London and Johnny Mathis. One of my mom’s majors was Spanish, so we also had a rousing selection of mariachi music. The folk songs I know all came from a worn album of Burl Ives 78 rpm records.

    It was my grandparents who introduced me to Tom Lehrer. They had all his albums and apparently didn’t find his sometimes twisted humor to be inappropriate for a kid. I think I can still sing any of the songs from "Songs by Tom Lehrer" and "More of Tom Lehrer."

    I distinctly remember how exciting it was to finally discover other types of music. My aunt gave me some of her old LPs, including The Beatles’ "Abbey Road," Mahavishnu Orchestra’s "Birds of Fire" and one of Bob Dylan’s early albums.  My sister and I listened to them eagerly, knowing that our parents did not like them.  After that, it wasn’t long before I had a whole stack of albums that made my mom yell, "Turn that crap down!"

  • Average Jane Catches Up

    I had some minor outpatient surgery on Friday morning, which ended up giving me most of the day to goof around online and watch TV.  Once I woke up from the anesthesia, I felt perfectly fine all day and never even needed to take a nap.

    As long as I was taking it easy, I got moving on a few long overdue projects.  The biggie:  starting a new Bloglines account and adding the feeds from my out-of-control blog lists.  Between personal, entertainment and business blogs (and other non-blog sites with RSS), I’m up to 179 feeds.  I can’t believe I waited so long when it’s so convenient to have the updates brought to me as soon as they’re posted.

    The next change I have in the works is switching back to Mac from PC.  All of the recent warnings about  imminent PC attacks, combined with that @#$%^ Windows Genuine Advantage notification popup that refuses to accept the legitimacy of my copy of Windows, have finally lured me back from what my husband refers to as "the dark side."  I’ve backed up all my files from the PC and I’ll probably complete the swap tonight.

    Speaking of things I’m not willing to put up with, I am SO glad that Blogher took place before the current airport insanity.  I’ve pretty much decided that there’s no destination so appealing right now that it’s worth flying to.  Any travel I undertake in the foreseeable future will have to be a road trip.  It’s lucky I drive a hybrid.

    I’m almost ready to start the new blog I thought of while I was at Blogher.  I’m going to plan out the first dozen or so posts, scan the recurring photos, and decide which posts will require new photography.  The biggest thing I need that I can’t do for myself:  template design.  If you or someone you know is a graphic designer who freelances and has time to build me a blog design for Typepad, let me know!  (I’ll hit up all the designers I know in real life, too, but they tend to be booked solid all the time.)

    The new blog has an important characteristic that differs from my other blogs:  it reveals my real name.  I’ve been thinking a lot about my online semi-anonymity over the past year or so and it seems less and less important that I truly remain anonymous.  As we’ve seen from the recent AOL debacle, online privacy is an illusion anyway.  My family, friends and co-workers already know that this is my blog; anyone else in my life who might stumble across it is unlikely to be offended or surprised by anything I’ve written. 

    That’s not to say I’m going to start regularly blurting out my real name here.  However, I have decided that I’ll announce and link to the new blog when it launches.  When my band is ready, I’ll also announce and link to our songs, probably on my personal MySpace page.

    I hope you all enjoy the new era of multifaceted Jane-ness.

  • Average Jane’s Fast Five

    Knowing that I’m always running late on Wednesdays, I’m going to cheat and pick up a meme I found at Mom, Ma’am, Me:

    1. Gum, mints, or Tic-Tacs?  And what flavor? Kinda none of the above, but I’ll occasionally go for original flavor Trident gum.
    2. What kind of shoes are you wearing? Black, laceless Converse All-Stars
    3. Suri Cruise: real or imaginary? Even though I was born in the Show-Me State, I’m going to have to go with "real," despite the fact that I’m pretty sure we won’t be seeing her anytime soon.
    4. What kind of entertainment do you listen to in the car — radio, CD, talk show, or none of the above? On the way to work, I listen to the morning show of a rock station.  The rest of the time, I flip around to find other rock songs, listen to a CD of songs for which I need to write lyrics, and occasionally listen to other bands’ CDs.
    5. Did you ever want to change your name as a kid?  If so, what was your favorite "new" name? My name is fairly unusual and, like all kids, I complained about it sometimes.  However, I don’t think I was ever serious about coming up with a new one.  Then again, as an adult I’ve written under many different pseudonyms and had a stage name, so clearly the impulse stayed lurking in my subconscious all along.

  • Average Jane Cooks with Meat

    The guitarist in my band doesn’t like vegetables. He reminds me of Me’s husband, who will only eat starchy vegetables like potatoes, corn and peas.

    We’ve been recording a lot lately, which means I feel obliged to try to fix veggie-optional meals during our breaks.

    At first, I grilled stuff.  That seemed like the easiest way to go.  I’d make hamburgers or hot dogs on the propane grill, steam some sweet corn, and perhaps pick up a bag of chips and some mustard potato salad to go with it.

    After a while, we all got tired of that, so I tried to think of other options that didn’t involve lots of pre-packaged ingredients.  I failed.  Since the weekend, we’ve had sloppy joes, spaghetti made from Ragu sauce (it’s the organic kind, but still…) and tacos. 

    Of those meals, the tacos were probably the least evil.  There’s a large Hispanic population in my area and our local grocery store makes awesome tortillas from scratch every day.  The only pre-packaged parts of the meal were some corn taco shells, Newman’s Own salsa, and pre-mixed taco spice from a jar.  I used my last tomato from the farmer’s market to great effect as a garnish, along with lettuce, sharp cheddar and sour cream.

    At this point, I’m running out of ideas again.  I guess there’s always tuna casserole, or maybe pizza from scratch.

    Anybody have any suggestions?

  • Average Jane Resumes Her Regular Life

    This weekend’s minor triumphs:

    • Cleaned out the refrigerator.  As I suspected, we have nothing to eat.
    • Did two loads of laundry.  Well, three, if you count the one I had to rewash after I let it sit in the washing machine too long.
    • Wrote the lyrics to a song.  One down, seven to go.
    • Got lots of sleep.

    Not yet crossed off the to-do list:

    • Recording vocals for two songs that could use another go.
    • Writing copy for a friend’s website.
    • Organizing content for two sites I need to work on.
    • Several phone calls (I HATE talking on the phone.  Why can’t everyone have e-mail?)
    • Cleaning off my messy, messy desk.

    We’ll see what I can accomplish in the evenings this week.

  • Average Jane at Blogher, Day 2

    On Saturday morning, I woke up a few minutes before 7 a.m. and decided there way no way I was in any shape to do yoga.  Thus, I dragged my mat and yoga clothing all the way to San Jose for nothing.

    I did get up in time to have breakfast and make it to that day’s opening session.  It started with a PowerPoint presentation about the conference and its participants, but for some reason the sound didn’t work.  That was okay, because the crowd launched into "All You Need is Love" and sang until the visuals ended.

    That day’s primary sponsor was Microsoft, plugging a remedial blogging product called Windows Live Spaces.  They launched into the most tone-deaf, off-base sales pitch I have ever witnessed.  Two "bloggers" from a home improvement site on Live Spaces came up on stage, and one look at their excessively teased hair, matching t-shirts and skinny jeans caused a look of extreme wariness to wash across every face in the audience.  The women did a chirpy, rehearsed spiel about how blogging and home improvement are, like, awesome, and not scary at all!

    Keep in mind that almost everyone in the audience already blogs and some have online writing and community experience dating back to Usenet.  The people at my table listened politely for about a minute, then resumed their conversations until it was over.

    Fortunately, the following segment featured great stories by real bloggers talking about how their blogs are changing their world.

    I attended a good session about using blogs to help commercial ventures, then spent most of the lunch break chatting with Jaime Minturn from Blog Talk Radio.  After that, it was on to the Business Blog Case Studies session, where I was one of the presenters on the "unpanel."  I’m looking forward to seeing the report that Susan Getgood is putting together from the results of the session.

    During the break, I had the chance to discuss parts of my presentation with Christopher Carfi and Tish Grier. 

    The final session I attended was Next Level Naked, which was a discussion about how much of yourself you reveal on your blog and when it’s necessary or appropriate to alter what you’re willing to discuss.  During this session, I learned that the tall guy in the Gaping Void t-shirt that I’d been seeing around the conference toting a video camera was Robert Scoble.  If his wife hadn’t been on the panel, I might never have known.

    The closing keynote was good, but I got there just as it was starting and was thus seated really far away from the speakers.  After that ended, I went to the cocktail party, had one round of appetizers before they ran out, and drank water all evening, foregoing the Yahootinis.

    I met lots of fascinating people, many of whom I didn’t manage to work into my narrative at the proper points.  Here are some of the stragglers:  Lisa Brewer Canter, Sarah of Sarah and the Goon Squad, Nancy from Mom Ma’am Me, Kalyn Denny, Kristin from Crib Ceiling, Jenn from Mommy Needs Coffee, Jenny from Three Kid Circus, Ken Kato, Grace Davis, Shawn from Imperfect Magic, and Debra from A Stitch in Time.  I also got a chance to chat with Lakshmi Pratury from Tamarind Grove twice on Saturday.

    At the end of the evening, as things were wrapping up, I talked briefly with all three Blogher founders.  Lisa Stone liked my new blog idea and urged me to join the Blogher Ad Network. She also remembered that my blog and quote were among those featured in the opening presentation for last year’s conference.  Heck, I barely remembered that!  Jory Des Jardins revealed that next year’s conference will be in Chicago, much to my delight.  I saw Elisa Camahort for just a moment, but had the chance to touch base about her Rockstar: Supernova recaps that I’m enjoying so much.

    All in all, it was a great experience and I’ll definitely plan to go to
    next year’s conference in Chicago (and possibly to the Blogher Business
    conference in New York).

    Okay, that’s enough name dropping and Blogher blather for this year.  As of Monday, I will resume the usual pedestrian descriptions of my non-work life.  Have a great weekend!

  • Average Jane’s First Day at Blogher ’06

    I woke up ridiculously early on Friday morning, so I found the conference center, got my badge and goodie bag, and hung around the food and drinks table until it was properly loaded with caffeine, pastries and fruit.  Once I was fortified with Starbucks and blueberry Danish, I went back to my room and dropped off about ten pounds of schwag so that the bag wouldn’t eventually kill me as I carried it around all day.

    Before the opening session, I ran into Liz Rizzo from Everyday Goddess, who happens to be the first person I met at Blogher last year.  She immediately had someone take a picture of us, which turned out to be the most flattering photo of me that I’ve seen from the whole conference.

    After the introduction, I stayed where I was for the Primp Your Blog workshop.  It wasn’t quite as technically detailed as I’d hoped (there were too many different blog platforms to cover), but it gave me a lot of good ideas for checking out Typepad and Blogger’s latest widgets and add-ons.

    By this time, I’d already started nurturing an idea for a new blog that came to me the previous day.  I’ll not share the details now, but suffice to say it involves food.  I was excited to hear about blog microformats at the end of the workshop and I’ll definitely be seeking out recipe microformat templates for the new project.

    After lunch, I test drove a Saturn Sky.  GM was a major sponsor of the conference and they really did a great job of making information about their cars available without being pushy.  Their gift bag contained a pair of Crabtree & Evelyn body products and they also gave away a thumb drive in the main goodie bag.  A Saturn test drive scored you an additional bag containing a leather CD holder, the latest Bon Jovi CD and a t-shirt.

    I started out in the Audience Building workshop, but stepped away when Rita from Surrender, Dorothy called to say that she’d arrived.  I ended up missing the next half of the workshop session, so I spent time checking out the other sponsors’ displays.

    I was particularly taken with Kaboodle, a bookmarking site that’s sort of a cross between del.icio.us and Flickr.  Below you’ll see the Kaboodle "badge" I made out of all my favorite t-shirt site links.  Click through it, hit "I like this page" on the upper right and you’ll be giving me a chance to win their Blogher giveway.

    Cool T-Shirts

    www.kaboodle.com

    After the break, I went to the Tagging, Tracking & Structured Blogging workshop.  In case you’re wondering how tag-compliant Blogher attendees are, just check the "Blogher06" tag on Flickr and Technorati.  I think we get it.

    After the last workshop, I met up with Rita, and Cagey from Rancid Raves.  Cagey brought her son, Arun, and her mom, and we all went to the hotel’s restaurant for dinner.  After that, it was on to the Blogher cocktail party by the pool, which prominently featured complimentary wine from Folie a Deux winery.

    It didn’t take long before everyone was in a festive mood.  My evening went like this:  drink wine, talk to people, repeat.  I suspected it was time to switch to soft drinks when I found myself chatting with Karl and cussing like a sailor for no particular reason.

    I didn’t cut back quite soon enough, though.  Later, I was sitting on the edge of the pool talking to Rita with my jeans rolled up and my feet in the water.  At some point, I decided there was no reason I shouldn’t just jump in.  Let me point out that I wasn’t being completely reckless:  I took off my conference badge and emptied my pockets first.  Then I dove in, jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt and all.

    The water was delightfully warm compared to the chilly evening air, so I stayed in the pool for quite some time while maintaining conversations with the many people poolside who declined to follow my lead.  Eventually, I climbed out and squish, squish, squished my way back to my room to go to sleep.