Always Something to Celebrate

Just ask any of my close friends or immediate family members; I am one painfully, obsessively, ridiculously fanatical guy when it comes to celebrating (or at least recognizing with great fanfare and proclamation) any and all milestones. Be it birthdays (yes, even our dogs’), anniversaries of any kind, new jobs begun, old goals reached, pounds lost, memorabilia found, first steps or last graduations. My poor unfortunate family members will often pretend to be as excited as I am about any given commemorative occasion. More often than not, however, I’m met with exasperated sighs and rolled eyes whenever I ask, “Do you know what today is?!?”

For example, each October 24^th for the past 15 years, I’ve made it a point to take my dear wife out to dinner in recognition of another year of my self-employment. Granted, some years we’ve had a whole lot more to celebrate than recently. But nevertheless – not having to deal with combat driving to and from an office in the mid-Wilshire district and waste hours of every day in meetings listening to some self-impressed marketing monkey with an MBA and a penchant PowerPoint decks – is reason enough, I think, for an annual dinner out to mark the occasion.

One of my favorite annual rituals is to sit at a table on New Year’s day with a drawer-full of various colored Sharpie and highlighter pens, last year’s calendar, and three new, unwritten-upon calendars in front of me – one to hang in our kitchen for our primary family use, one that will live all year under the wireless keyboard on my office desk and one small, day-planner type that I carry with me to client meetings. I spend hours the first day of every January transferring each of the birthdays, anniversaries, school dates, work dates, planned trips and outings, and anything else that I feel deserves recognition during the upcoming year.

Depending on its perceived significance (in my mind, at least) each event listed will either get a simple underline, a colored underline, “stars” drawn next to it, a colored highlighter frame, multiple colored, concentric highlighter frames, lovingly drawn red hearts of various sizes (for wedding anniversaries and Valentine’s day, of course), cartoon fireworks, streamers, balloons, confetti and well, as I said – I’m a tad bit obsessive about this stuff.

Over the years, it’s always been fun to surprise a good friend or business associate by remembering their birthday or anniversary. I’ve lost track of how many people have – upon receiving a card or email from me on their special date – said something like, “How in the world did you remember that? My own husband/wife/kids/parents didn’t even remember!” Of course, with all the calendar/reminder apps now in use on everyone’s smart phones and lap tops, and with Facebook automatically sending daily reminders of friends’ birthdays, it’s taken a lot of the fun and uniqueness out of my habit. To surprise anyone today takes the mailing of an actual greeting card to their residence. Talk about your old school tactics.   

Okay, so having explained my passion for celebrating milestones of almost every and any kind, you’ll understand why I can’t let this, my 200^th official “My Thoughts, Exactly” column, pass without at least a mention. So, ta-da! Consider it mentioned and duly celebrated. I have now had the joy and privilege of writing two hundred weekly columns for editor, Robin Goldsworthy.

Some readers may remember that my first seventy-some-odd columns were published when Robin was editor of the now-defunct Crescenta Valley Sun, whose parent company was the Los Angeles Times. When the above-mentioned dysfunctional parent unceremoniously killed its offspring in 2009, Robin recognized the resulting void in community coverage, held her breath, said a whole bunch of fervent prayers and boldly launched the Crescenta Valley Weekly on her own dime. (Many locals have celebrated her efforts ever since, I might add.)

So what’s next on my calendar of celebrations? Since you asked, tomorrow just happens to be “Near Miss Day” to commemorate that fateful event in 1989 when a mountain-sized asteroid passed within 500,000 miles of earth. Whew, that was close. Then, Saturday marks the birthday of legendary magician and escape-artist Harry Houdini, although it’s probably too late to make reservations at the Magic Castle. Next, break out the ouzo because Sunday is Greece Independence Day. (Already? Wow, time flies.) Monday is actor Leonard Nimoy’s birthday, may he live long and prosper. And next Tuesday marks the annual Blessing of the Horses, Tractors and Cars in Osweiler, Luxembourg. Just because I won’t be attending in person, doesn’t mean I can’t raise a glass to the occasion.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This post is a longer version of my column first published yesterday, 3.22.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper.

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

Home Is Where the Office Is

Last week I “celebrated” 15 years of self-employment. That word is in quotes because, frankly, the economic freefall of the past few years has hit my industry even harder than most. In the ad biz, it’s common knowledge that when the economy goes south, advertising budgets are the first to get cut and the last to be reinstated. And today’s U.S. economy is further south than a penguin’s patootie in Antarctica.

For the last few years, at least, there hasn’t been too very much to celebrate. My friendly neighborhood bankers no longer bother to make happy talk with me when I come in for my regular juggling of rapidly diminishing funds. They know better. Like too many other folks, we’re holding on by our financial fingernails. (Or circling the debt drain, is probably the more appropriate alliteration.)

As a money manager I spoke with recently told me, “If you have a job, you’re okay. If you’re out of work or underemployed (that would be me), you’re hurting big time.” To which I can only say, ouch.

That said, I also have much for which I am grateful. Not the least of which is that – for 15 years now – I have not had to make the daily commute to the mid-Wilshire area where I was on the creative staff at various large ad agencies. I used to have drive from our La Crescenta home through an hour-long gauntlet of traffic jams, stop lights and side-street detours five or six days a week. The ride home (usually well past sundown) was even longer, by as much as 30 or 40 minutes more. My dear, long-suffering wife used to worry endlessly (and often silently I found out later) about the immense stress that my morning and evening commute would add to an already demanding day. After all, the ad world is fueled by stress even in the best of times. One well-known agency with headquarters in Santa Monica used to tout their company slogan that warned employees, “if you don’t come to work on Saturday, don’t bother showing up on Sunday.” Nice, right?

By working from my hillside home office here in Southern California’s Crescenta Valley, however, my daily commute was reduced to a whopping 10 or 15 seconds, from either my bedroom or the kitchen. Traffic consists of stepping over a sleeping dog or two. That’s it. “Honey, I’m home!”

Needless to say, my stress levels are much lower – at least from the commuting portion of any given day. Yes, my work still piles on the pressure of ridiculous deadlines, difficult and demanding clients who often don’t know what they want until after they’ve seen days worth of work that turns out isn’t quite what they didn’t know they didn’t want and now they remember some important details they probably should have told me in the first place and oh by the way the due date for this project has been pushed up by a few days! (Deep breaths, Jim. Look out your balcony office window at the Verdugo mountains and relax. Thanks, that’s better.)

Having your office only steps away from your living room, bedroom or kitchen also means you’re never really not working. No matter where in the house I am, if my office phone rings, I hear it and make an NFL-worthy blitz to answer the thing before it goes to voicemail. (That’s another downside to self-employment; never, ever, under any circumstances, let a job or client get away from you. Ever.) There are no starting or stopping times in a self-employed person’s day. No paid sick days, vacations or holidays. I don’t work, I don’t make money. Period. End of funds.

That said, the biggest, most priceless benefit of fifteen years of self-employment has been the ability to simply be here as “Dad” – present and accounted for – 24 hours a day (mostly) as my kids grew from crumb crunchers, house monkeys and curtain climbers into the amazing young adults they are today. While actually working more hours during any given week (because you’re never really NOT working when your office is at home), I’ve been able to shift time as needed to late into the evening. working all night if need be – or long before the morning sun comes up – in order to have spent precious, irretrievable time at school events, field trips, ceremonies, helping with homework and other important times in our kids’ lives.

Frankly, I wouldn’t have traded those opportunities for any title on a business card, corner office, regular paycheck or benefits package. I don’t care if building security knows my name. My kids know me and I know them. I am well-compensated.  

Now, if only I could figure out a way to deposit some of that karmic-currency into my checking account.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a longer version of a column first published yesterday, 11.3.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.