the Diva Platform

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I realized that the last day of the year would be a good time to make one final post here.

One final post?!

Yes, I’ve decided to stop posting here at the Diva Platform.  Why?  Well, it’s time for a little change.  Blogs have evolved over the last few years, and I think the more successful blogs focus on some sort of topic–whether it’s cakes or beer or being a mom or secrets.  Unless you’re famous or were an early blogger who managed to gain a large readership just because you were first, it’s hard to find an audience when you’re just a random person writing about random things.

I, being a writer, want to find an audience.  I’ve been throwing random blogs at the interwebs for a few years now, and yet, my readership isn’t quite where I’d like it to be (”quite” being an understatement).  I’d like to shake things up and try something different and see if that doesn’t help my work find a new audience.

Therefore, I’ve decided to start a new blog, and although it will still be partly random and partly ranting, it will be in the form of letters.  Two of the categories on this blog that I love writing are the “Letters” and “Postcards from…”, so I’ve created a new blog called “Your Pal, Jill,” that launches tomorrow.  It will exclusively be letters and postcards.  If I write them to an actual person (say, Mariah Carey, whose letter will be forthcoming), I’ll send them out and see if I get any response.  If I do, I’ll post it.

It’ll be a fun, new project, and I’ll see where it takes me.  I still hope to publish five days a week, but be patient with me.  It may take me a little while to get into a groove.  If you have any tips that you think might be up my alley, feel free to send them to me.  If I get riled up enough, I’ll send out a letter!  E-mail, as always, is jilljaracz AT yahoo DOT com.

So what will happen to this site, especially since I have my resume on it?  Well, it will stay up for a while (read your archives while you can), and I’ll revamp it to be a little more professional.

Thanks for reading the Diva Platform for the last few years.  I hope you’ll join me at the new site!

Today we’re headed to Florida for the holidays.  Since we bought plane tickets while the Boy was still unemployed, we focused on price.  Not surprisingly, flights to Florida during Christmas and New Year’s can get a little expensive, so we spread our dates out pretty far in order to save money.  We’ll be there for three weeks, which will be our longest stint yet.  We figured we had plenty of time to spare–and we could freelance from there.  Well, the Boy has to work at his new job, but since he’s telecommuting, he can do it from Florida just as well.

Hopefully the in-laws won’t get sick of me, lounging around on the couch, watching loads of cable reality TV (must watch “Hoarders“), and heading off to the fitness trail to work out.  I’m looking forward to a restful three weeks–even though I’ll be working as well–because I’m sure when we get back and our East Coast relocation starts in earnest, life will be a might busy.

While I’m gone, I think the blogging may be a little spotty.  I’d like to refuel and recharge a little bit more–even that week I took off, I didn’t really get a chance to take care of my to do list (for instance, my website still needs to be upgraded).  I’d like to experience life a little and come up with a nice little list of bloggable topics.  Oh, I won’t take the whole three weeks off–I’m sure there will be plenty of Floridian idiosyncracies to write about.  I just am going to hang loose a little when it comes to keeping a set blogging schedule.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at the Accenture meeting, when company representatives decided that Tiger Woods wasn’t an appropriate spokesperson for their company.  You know, after they had the tag line, “Go on, be a Tiger.”

To be fair, hindsight makes this situation ironic, so you can’t fault Accenture or say they made a big mistake in hiring Tiger Woods in the first place.

The really funny times are when companies make huge blunders and say the dumbest things.  You’d think corporate leaders would be bright enough to keep their traps shut sometimes, but apparently the stupid button gets pushed by even the best of them.  Marketers don’t often do any better….ah, some good laughs in those links for you!

Last Sunday was the Windy City Rollers annual Black & Blue Ball, which celebrates the end of the year’s home and travel team seasons.  I didn’t know what the heck to expect–after all, the dress code was “formal, whatever that means to you.”  So few rules left me hanging, but people came wearing t-shirts, people wore a lot of sequins, Scorey Feldman put on blue face, and one skater even wore her wedding dress (I WILL wear it again!  I’ll show you!).  Thanks to H&M, I got a blue shirt with black sequins, so I felt a little sparkly and appropriate.

At any rate, it was a little food, a little booze, a few awards, and a talent show.  An awesome talent show.  Talents that ranged from a skater standing on her head to show underwear with “shark” written on the butt, another skater who ripped apples apart with her bare hands, some guitar playing, some burlesque, and the officials, who did a little dance to show off all the referee penalty signals.  It was awesome (of course).  I’m down in front with a couple other stats folks, doing my sexy stopwatch twirling.

Check out the video, but prepare to have your mind “officially blown” (or, if you don’t know derby penalty codes, play along at home).

Whew!  I’m done with a really stressful writing assignment!  Done done.  Not “turned in, but there might be rewrites.” Done.

I’ve started writing for HowStuffWorks.com, which an old colleague of mine turned me onto.  I’m terribly happy to have the gig–not only is it a good move career-wise, the work is also pretty interesting and right up my alley.  Random stuff to learn?  Figuring out how stuff works?  Sign me up!

So far I’ve written three articles–I’m not sure if any of them have actually published yet though (you’ll hear about it when they do).  The most recent was on a specific type of skin lotion called a mattifying lotion.  Basically, these are lotions that help with oil control and give your skin a matte finish.

One would think writing about cosmetics might be fun, but it’s really about chemistry.  Let me tell you, I certainly struggled with this, seeing as how it’s been ages since my high school chemistry class, and my memories of chemistry class involve spending a lot of time at the teacher’s desk trying to get him to explain the material to me.

Back when I was a researcher, if I had to search a topic I knew nothing about, I’d figure out the keywords and eventually find what would help answer the question.  Now, I actually have to read said material and comprehend it–or at least comprehend it enough to write about it.  I’m on the flip side, and sometimes it’s a bear.

For this assignment, it meant stressing out over not finding much information about mattifiers.  I’d find that they were products, but I’d rarely find out about their chemical makeup.  This was incredibly frustrating and stressful, and all I can say is thank goodness for some Dow Corning white paper I found that went through some skin care chemistry.  After reading it about ten times, I understood a smidgen more and was able to locate other information to help me pound out this article.  A field trip to Ulta also saved my ass.  This great guy who worked at the Benefit counter took me all around the skin care section and showed me different mattifying lotions–which included putting some oil on my hand, then adding a bit of mattifier and seeing how the lotion soaked up the oil.  So cool!

Still, the article took me way more time than I’d planned on, and now that I’m finished with the article, my brain has already reclaimed that space where I put all the chemistry information I learned.  I could tell the second I read the e-mail from my editor saying the article passed muster.  She went on to say something about viscosity and methyls and polymers and some other big chemical-y words, and at that point my brain barely registered them as being in English.

Sigh.  Sometimes it’s tough to admit I just don’t get something, and I don’t think I’ll get much when it comes to chemistry.  Still, I’m relieved to know that I’m able to understand enough about it to be able to communicate it to someone.  For that skill alone, I’m glad to have struggled through this assignment.

We’ve been a little stressed out over the past couple of weeks, and I haven’t wanted to talk about it until we made a final decision.

The Boy’s been offered a job outside of Boston.

Yesterday we decided to take it.

It’s not just the fact that he’s been unemployed for 11 months, but this job is a good way for him to switch careers, something he’s been trying to do.  Me?  I can pick up and move anywhere, which is nice.

We’ve spent the last couple of days in the area, checking it out, making sure we could handle living here.  I think we can make it work.  The area is really pretty and charming.  We’d have to get used to driving everywhere–and the roads here are like Ireland’s:  Narrow, lots of stone walls bordering them, and horrible street signage (if the streets are even marked).

Over the next few months we’ll be in transition–even though the Boy starts right away, we get some time to pack up and relocate.  I’ve never done a full-on relocation like this, so it will be interesting, needless to say.

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving week!  The parade was a ton of fun–even given the crummy weather we had.  It was cold and rainy, but that didn’t stop our parade!

Although we had to wait around for a couple of hours while our balloon inflated and we got in line, the parade itself flew by.  I was on Maisy’s left arm (which apparently got me on TV), and couldn’t help but smile the entire time.  Sure, it was a little tricky to do the stop light and L track limbo with our balloon, but we managed to get her around all the obstacles and mosey up State Street.

Overall, I had a great time–Macy’s parade, you’re next!

Maisy Mouse--inflated and ready to walk!

I'm ready to go (bundled up to the max)!

Some of the other balloons: Bullwinkle, Hello Kitty, and Strawberry Shortcake

Underdog!

Curious George!

I’ve decided to take this week off of the blog for a number of reasons:

1. I need a little R&R.
2. I’ve got a good amount of work to crank out.
3. Do you really want to read a traditional, “What are you thankful for” post?
4. My website software desperately needs to be updated, and I’d like to block out the writing time to do that.
5. I’m getting up at the buttcrack of dawn on Thanksgiving day to carry a balloon in the McDonald’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Yes, that’s right, this year my connections got me a balloon handling gig, which I couldn’t be more excited about, even though I never get up and watch the parade on my own accord.  I’m assigned to the Maisy Mouse balloon, so tune into WGN (or WGN America) for the Chicago parade and maybe you’ll catch me!

I’ll be back next Monday with a fresh batch of fun.  Have a great week, everyone!

We’re heading into Thanksgiving week here in the US, which means time to think about what we’re thankful for.  Ladies, are you thankful you can buy your bras?  Amazingly, not everyone can afford to.

I read this story by Dawn Reiss and was kind of amazed–this Chicago artist did a project with a bunch of bras, then ended up with them in his closet.  A prodding by an old girlfriend to do something with them, and now this man has a non-profit on his hands, collecting new and gently used bras to be donated to women’s shelters or teen programs.

It makes total sense, when you think about it.  Bras can be expensive, and you’ve got to cash out a good amount to get a full supply of them.  You don’t have the money, you’re wearing the same bra over and over again.  How does that feel?  This organization, called Support 1000, can help women in such a small, yet really important way, so if you’ve got some extra bras lying around, think about sending them this organization’s way.

Are you one of those people who has a list of certain things they want to accomplish in their lives?  Yesterday, I was reminded of another dream:  Be a serious bidder at a real (i.e.–Sotheby’s or Christie’s) auction.  Why did I think of it?  Oh, it was my annual auction crack:  The City of Chicago Banner Auction.

I know I’ve talked about the auction before–each year the city sells some banners that hang on the street poles, and the money goes to the Mayor’s “Sharing It” fund, which provides food and gifts for poor people and children during the holidays.

I’ve attended the auction a good number of times, and I have to say I have a hard time NOT bidding.  I like the idea of owning a piece of Chicago lore….whether or not I can display it.  We have a ton of banners in our closet (amazingly, we have tall ceilings in our apartment, so technically we could hang these suckers; there’s just not enough wallspace to do so).  I have a set from the Film Festival, a Harry Carey tribute banner, a 1994 World Cup sign (that served as my desk for a long time), and more.  I’ve bought banners for others, like I’m a dealer in these things.  It’s addictive behavior.

Yesterday was no different.  What was up for auction?  Banners for the failed Chicago 2016 Olympics bid.  One of the aspects of the bid I did like was the graphics, so I wanted bring home a banner.  I missed the first one up for sale by a minute or so, but then next….the boxing double banner…I snapped that bad boy up, like I’m earning money with all my freelance writing or something.  I managed to stave off buying any other Olympic banners, though I was tempted.  Still….it’s another banner in my house.

It’s hard to resist the auction though.  The feeling that you’ve won something.  Hell, “Congratulations President Obama” banners were also up:  One went for $1200.  Another went for almost a thousand.  My Olympic banners didn’t cost that much, for good reason, but it was so tempting to hop into the Obama fight.  Hence the reason I’d someday like to have enough money that a $1200 bid doesn’t frighten me at all.  $75 million for that painting?  Sure, I can do that!  Boy, that would be something to say!