It’s 2:59 am and I am crafting this post from my desk at Washington Life with hours of work ahead of me. This happens one day a month when we send the magazine to the printer. It totally sucks. I even bring pajamas and enough food for a family of sumo wrestlers. As we speak, Kelly is uploading pages, Amie is designing a last minute piece, and Michael is writing cover copy. All past midnight. You would think we were unearthing the decade’s greatest scandal. But we’re not. We are producing a magazine about the best of luxury living. Except that I currently feel like I have body lice and smell like a butcher.
I would be close to sawing my own hand off with a plastic fork so I no longer had the ability to type if it were not for the wonderful phone call I just received. Trina, our awesome head of accounting at Washington Life mag, just called us along with her mother to give us a morale boost and tell us we’re in her thoughts. I’ve never met Trina’s mother, but I know she is the matriarch of a really big family and was nice enough to call strangers and wish them luck burning the midnight oil. Well, like mother like daughter.
Trina also gave me great advice on how to get rid of the folks who are making your life less than perfect. It’s an old New Orleans trick. You just write their names on pieces of paper, fold them really small, put them in a box with a pin in them and some sealing wax for good measure and seal the box up for good. Then these folks will leave you alone. How wonderful! That’s Trina, always looking out for her friends. Kelly Fisher and I will be doing this next week, stay tuned for the ridiculous photos of us in witch hats.
Trina and I in front of our ritzy supply cabinet. Oh the glamour!
I don’t know what it is about the lifestyle magazine racket, but the industry is teeming with chicks and gay to gayish men. My libido is so utterly bored at the office from the lack of available testosterone-filled Tarzans that I actually get work done.
Luckily, to arrive at any lunch destination in the environs of my office, I have to walk past a sex shop called The Pleasure Place. They sell some really interesting things like “the vagina bomb,” and “the peeping penis pouch of power,” or so I hear. Across the street is the Church of Scientology, above is a reputable man of medicine, two doors down is a Russian bar where the laws of our land don’t apply, and just south is a members club for WASPy captains of industry. But who cares about all that. At the Pleasure Place you can buy crotchless underwear on your lunch hour!
This is pretty much what I see everyday walking to Potbellys or Starbucks. Lunchtime really is as good a time as any to sport rubber skivvies and explore your inner Marquis de Sade.
I’ll always remember meeting Karin and being super impressed with her. It was one of my first days of working at Bisnow on Business — DC’s (almost) never boring news source –and our boss, a jovial and eccentric media entrepreneur set on “global domination,” was having the team to lunch at his house for a brainstorming session.
The meeting consisted of us watching our boss’ pet ferret and fluffy white Bichon Frisé pup swim lap races in his backyard pool. Without knowing much about the company (and not yet understanding the head honcho’s zany sense of humor), I thought, “Where am I? I left my old job for ferret swim team!? Uh oohh.”
Just then I glanced up and made eye contact with Karin from across the pool and I could tell she thought the situation was as disturbing (yet simultaneously hilarious) as I did. My apprehension vanished and I rationalized, “This place can’t be all that insane if she’s here!”
Low and behold, taking the position at Bisnow proved to be one of the best choices I’ve made; not only was it a great job, but it introduced me to Karin — a win-win!
It was probably when Stacey told me the story of our former colleague asking her if she did kegel exercises while pregnant that I knew we were going to get along just fine.
We first met when we worked together at an online publication that strived to save the world from ignorance one e-blast at a time. Stacey and I were all part of the plan and we bonded over getting to do neat things like watch the adept advertising team pull up to our office in Jaguars while we peddled over on rusty 10-speeds.
Stacey’s sidesplitting sense of humor and really good haircut made our already great jobs fantastic. It was inspiring to work with her and wonderful just to know her. We always talked about putting our minds together for good, but I always thought it would be an endeavor where we were arrested or sued for slander. There’s always time!
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