Today I picked up four pieces of trash and felt like a basic goddam hero. Four whole pieces! Never mind the 45 or so I walked right past. Los Angeles has something of a litter problem. Twelve-year-old me is jumping up and down with my hand raised, absolutely convinced I can solve this with some community building and impassioned speech giving, but thirty-two-year-old me is in control of the meatsack and has bills to pay. Still, it didn't hurt to pick up a little trash.

A scene from an episode of Mad Men is stuck in my craw:

Hilton: I think you know I'm in a bit of a crisis tonight.
Draper: I didn't know that.
Hilton: I think about my business day and night. And I'm a harsh critic, especially of myself. And sometimes it collects, and I feel bad. And then I realize maybe that's the reason I'm so lonesome.
Draper: You might be working too much.
Hilton: I'm not working enough.

Hernán Cortés brought both chocolate and vanilla to the Old World, and let me say it up front: Vanilla wins.

The first time I truly loved vanilla was when I was 9 years old, on vacation in Mexico, where I probably got ice cream made with Mexican vanilla, which is so far still my favorite. I have no recollections of any other food from that entire trip, but that ice cream has lingered for over 20 years.

Earlier today I wanted to write about how grateful I am. Mostly as a tonic for the anxiety that surrounds my business life right now--I'm writing a business plan. I saw a woman sitting in her car when I went into the grocery store, and when I came back, she had tipped the seat back and was sleeping. For all I know she was waiting for someone, killing time, whatever, but I was flooded with gratitude at all this SPACE in my apartment, even if it is expensive and I have to keep it clean. I felt the seat of my own car and thought, "You know, even if it did get worse, I'd be alright.

A few years ago I learned that you balance from your feet.

There were two separate incidents:

1) A class I took in which the teacher explained that you can actually visualize your center of gravity rolling around inside of your feet, like the axle of a wheel, just a half inch above the ground. It's very difficult to fall a half inch above the ground (though I managed it in spectacular fashion at age four). It changed my dancing to feel my feet under me that way. It changed the way I connected the ground, to my feet, to my ankles, to my legs, to my core.

Okay, here is a problem I'm trying to solve:

A new prospect sends me into a very, very confusing decision tree, pictured above. That's pretty unfortunate because new prospects > clients > money.

I want a client intake process that is as elegant and functional as the sites I build. Okay, maybe even a little MORE elegant and functional.

You've probably seen this checklist (maybe in PDF format) before. It's called Everything is Awful and I'm Not Okay.

I used to have lots of everything-is-awful-and-im-not-okay days. Lots and lots and lots of them. Some times I'd have, like, a whole month of them strung together. Sometimes it was everything I could do to get home at 6 pm and crawl into bed. (Wheeeeee.)

You guys! I ran a BoF at DrupalCon! I've made it! Next....the world!

Okay, maybe that's not next. But it was exciting to be driving the conversation at this big convention, not just soaking it up. I was worried no one would come. I had to review my session description to remind myself of what we might cover. But we had a group of about ten people and a great discussion.

I'm still in a bit of a New Orleans induced haze; wishing I could still be eating chargrilled oysters and drinking sazeracs. Feeling like something in life was a little fuller, a little darker, a little more romantic (not in the Paris way, in the vampires way).

I'm trying now to figure out what it is I miss and what of that I can bring into my life here. Because, as sometimes happen, I go on vacation and decide I really ought to move. It hasn't happened in a while, but it happened in New Orleans.

Mentoring