what are they saying?

i was at a design nerd judging for a very secret design nerd society all weekend long. i had to wake up at 630 am on saturday and sunday... haven't done such a horrible thing, with the intention of being productive all day long, since (i kid you not) high school. it totally fucked with my sleeping schedule, and after just waking up from a nap, i feel all cloudy, like i just got off of a plane from somewhere.

anyways, this design nerd judging got me thinking about something. do you ever wonder what people say about you when youre not around, yet easily identifiable? this weekend really made me wonder. so many conversations that i had started with things like:

"you see the guy in the grey sweater.... thats ____ _______ he's the design director at _______, and he's pretty cool"

or

"that's ____ ______, and i've heard things about her. i interviewed with her once, and she never got back to me. but i also heard that she abuses her assistants by making them sell her personal shit on ebay, so i really don't think i'd want to work for her anyway"

well, yesterday i intentionally wore a bright red dress. i woke up at the ass crack of dawn and threw it on. i totally did it on purpose. a bright, fire engine red, christmas-looking, sweater dress. and why? i did admit to doing it, in hopes of being noticed. and i totally was. an old man security gaurd caught me this morning and said "were you the one wearing that red dress yesterday?... today you look like a pretty school girl, and yesterday you looked like a woman, which are you?" ...because, today, after being hungover and tired, i wasn't trying to throw on another dress, and instead wore a contrasting outfit consisting of a black shirt, black scarf, black jeans, and converse. i can see why he was puzzled. i'm sure i looked like a totally different person.

i also knew i took a risk, because i could have stood out so much and reminded someone that i sucked when i worked for them, and then i'd be easy(-er) to point out...or i could have been easy(-er) to be pointed out as "that's elliette, she worked with us a few months... shes very talented"... or whatever nice things people say about others in little gossip sessions.

anywhoo... i'm saying all of this to say, it just really makes me wonder what people say about me when i'm not around. even amongst my friends. how am i really viewed? people tell me i'm funny, and nice, and that i have a great sense of style... with my obnoxiously bright clothes. but what do they say behind my back? within my circle of friends, i often wonder if i have some weird personality quirk that everyone sees but me. and within the design-nerd world, i wonder what all of my bosses ever REALLY thought of me--when they tell me to my face "you'll end up somewhere great... you have a great book". but what do they REALLY think? what secrets do they share amongst themselves, that they would never tell me to my face, that i would never know about, and therefore never be able to change?

no one wants to admit it, but its just human nature to gossip, even about the people in our lives that we love and charish the most. when i went home for christmas for instance, my brother was acting weird...and truth be told, he HAS changed, a LOT since he's gotten married, and in some ways not for the better. and my mother, not really knowing what to do about something that happened over the holiday simply told me "your bother is just a changed man after he got married..." in this tone... and of course, she would never tell him that to his face. she told me. but it's something that i'm sure he's not aware of. a quirk, that everyone see's but him. because i saw it, and then it was confirmed when my mother finally just put it out there.

what do people say about you, that they think first, and then finally come out and say to each other once they've compared notes? even if they are nice things. or mean things. even something that you may have never noticed about yourself... like, there was this woman i used to work with that had this weird snort/laugh thing that she did after EVERYTHING that she said. it was kind of like she had tourettes. but it was also a thing where, did she realize that she was known around the office, and easy to point out as "you know.... mary... the girl that does the weird laugh thing".........."OH RIGHT, HEEEEEEER".

i bet she doesn't even know that that's how people know how to direct other people in to her office.

i often wonder what am i known as? (i admit to wondering, but i dont really want to know, because it would just hurt my feelings)

i'm going to continue to wear my red dresses though. at least that will buffer the initial blow of what people say about me first.

******UPDATE: oprah says that you start not giving a shit what people think about you when you turn 40. janet jackson agreed when she was on the show. so. i guess i will stop caring about what other human beings think, or say about me in around 14 years.

Clothing Swap: Sunday January 28th

I don't have much to write today. But I just wanted to let everyone know how very excited I am for the clothing swap that will be taking place in my apartment building on Sunday, January 28 2007. I am hosting it with my neighbor rebecca who I have the hugest girl crush on. I hope that so many girls come, that there will be a cute cat fight. Nothing is hotter than two girls fighting over a cardigan.

Well, I don't REALLY hope for a fight. But I do hope that everyone comes like they say that they will, and that everyone leaves with kick ass threads.

fart *before* class, not *during*

i quit smoking (with the exception of the 4-5 drags i had of an american spirit that i split with angelina last weekend) around 4 weeks ago.

with that abrupt decision, came the print outs of the weekly schedules from two very accessible new york sports clubs that i can hit up on my way to, during, or on my way home from work.

on tuesday, i did my very first class. listed as... >NEW 06:30PM POWER DANCE
w000t!!! sounded like fun to me. time for me to let loose and release my inner fly girl and channel j-lo and those other broads from in living color. i got to the class to find that about 10 out of the 13 of us that were there already knew one another and were BFFs with the instructor, who then proceeded to bust out in the routine that they had all been doing for the past however many weeks. teacher didn't even ask if newbies were in the class... didn't go over the box moves, arm movements, or fancy foot work more than twice. and when the fergie, or whatever bullshit fast dance song came on, it was all over. i felt like i was on some strange drug failing miserably at trying to follow the steps from the hot, had-on-a-sports-bra-wearing-wash-board-abs sporting caublanasian girl whirling around in front of me. she was my only source of guidance... and at one point she stepped off to get some water, and i stopped too. well. at the end of class, i decided that i would not subject myself to that again. i'll save my flygirl moves for when i'm home swiffering.

oh thursday, i did my second class. listed as...07:30 PILATES-BASED MAT
this was way more up my alley. when i first walked in, a girl asked me if i needed a mat and handed me one! then i copied everyone else and took off my shoes and socks... and in walks our teacher. he proceeded to catch everyones towels and mats on fire upon entering the dance studio from the trail of flames that emerged off of his flexi-boy body. he was extremely thorough, and patient, and made little jokes, and i felt comfortable from the moment that he walked in. i felt even more at ease when at one point, we were all on our backs about to go in to a bicycle-like position, and some girl straight ripped a fart that ignited more flames that were already burning from our teacher. everyone giggled... including our teacher, and he just laughed it off saying that it was completely natural, and that everyone should fart at one point, because it just means youre relaxed.

i will be back at 07:30 PILATES-BASED MAT next thursday, but i'm gonna make sure that i don't have any broccoli, or milk, or anything like that at least 12 hours before... because i am gonna make sure that i get all of my farts out before class, not during.

Hello There

One very late night after a friend of a friends holiday party, I met a decent looking man at a bar. It was kind of like out of a movie... I was dancing, and all of a sudden, this dude walks in and begins twirling me around... we were spinning, and laughing, and I had no clue who he was. After that, we exchanged number or whatevs... and then my friend and i, and him ended up at a 24 hour diner. He paid for both of us. And he offered to even pay for our car service home... but we declined. I didn't mind him paying for my food though.

According to the dodgeball december 2006 stats email that i just received, I met this young man on december 17th.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we exhanged some rather bland emails.

------
hi xxx

it was really nice meeting you last night. thank you again for dinner
(or was it breakfast at that point,considering the hour?).

anywhoo, i'd love to hang out with you again sometime. this week will
be hectic for me, since i havent bought one xmas present yet, and i
have some holiday parties to attend... but let me know if youd like to
get brunch, or a drink or something soon.

e.d.

------

we wrote one another back one or two word sentence emails, and then he dropped off the face of the earth until i received this one:

Hi,
How are you? How are things going?
Are you in town?

I just wanted to say hello

Bye

------

"I just wanted to say hello...Bye?" Wtf is that. Okay, so then a few more days pass by. Im sitting on my couch, and my phone buzzes "Hello There" it says from a mysterious number. I reply back politely asking who it is, and he says it's him.

We proceeded to text back and forth that evening... it didn't really bother me, because it was kind of cute and flirty, but at the same time I'm wondering... why is he asking me what my interests are over texts... why not just call? if you're too shy to call, why not text asking if i can meet on a certain day at a certain time? i haven't been out on a date in... well, going on a year. So, I was eating up this teeny tiny bit of male attention that I was getting.

The last text that I got from him that night said that he'd "give me a ring this week". i was like whatever... cool. But im not holding my breath over it.

Last night towards the end of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (which is my new favorite movie, btw... it has the most amazing tits EVER, and cute boys and girls bouncing everywhere) my phone buzzes with a "hello there". It's him. We had another retarded conversation via texting, where he proceeded to tell me that he was parking and texting me at the same time.

WHAT
THE
FUCK

And this happened to another friend of mine. Why get someones phone number, say youre gonna call? and then text...? Why waste my time, and your time, if you're not going to make plans...? I would much rather he not call at all, than send me retarded messages of his where abouts. It would be one thing is we had gone out, and we kept in touch via texting after a date or something, but I met this guy once at 5am... going on a month ago. I can't even remember how tall he is, or what he looks like really. Maybe it was in fact the language barrier... he was speaking french with my friend most of the time... but is this what guys do? Text?

My last reply to him was "Hope you find a spot! Later" and he replied "I'm just going to park in a lot. LOL" and that was it.

mmmmmmeh. whatever. This is my first blog entry... and I hope that everything that I write is more interesting than this.