Wanted: One Psychic PA, Lousy Pay
Once again, I’m late for the party. (This is why I don’t throw parties. Not only am I antisocial, but I’d be late for my own.) I need a home business PA who can alert me to these things before they happen. Not that I’ll tell them what they’re supposed to alert me to. They just have to, like, know.
Word on the street is was that Gary Vaynerchuk made April 3rd “Good People Day” on the Intertoobs. We were supposed to select the good people people in our lives and talk their shit up. When did I hear about this? 12:15 a.m. on April 4th. Whatever, it’s still April 3rd in California. I heard about this because Sonia Simone, definitively one of my favorite people, made me one of hers. (Do you have a Google alert on your name yet? Yeah, get on that or you won’t hear about cool stuff like this.)
OK, here are my 5 + 2. Is it supposed to be 5? I don’t know, I didn’t watch the video because I’m already late enough, thankyouverymuch. Sonia did 5 so I’m doing 5 plus more because I couldn’t stop there and let’s face it, it’s not like I had time to edit this, did I?
1. James Chartrand. I love James. I know the truth behind him. He’s not an ass, he just plays one on his blog. The dude can come on here — or any other unsuspecting comment section — and totally unleash, yet he works from home so he can spend time with his kids and he knits. How can you be a single guy in your thirties who knits and doesn’t live with his mother and not be insanely nice? (Yes, I have it on good authority that he does not live with his mother, and no, I did not read that on Wikipedia.)
2. Brett Legree. Where do I start with this dude? He’s a Canadian nuclear engineer with two blogs, a set of triplets, an additional daughter, and he cites playing “road” with his kids as his primary recreational activity. (“Road”, for those of you who don’t know, is where you lay on the floor — with spouse or without — and have your children roll toy cars over you with little to no regard about where the cars are going or how hard they’re vrooming. Best played in groups of two or more.)
3. Darren Rowse. When I was pregnant with The Loudest Business Partner, I was put on bedrest. Instead of eating candy all day — that would have involved eating, which was totally unacceptable — I read ProBlogger. Like, all of ProBlogger. Including comments. In the very scary days when I didn’t know how on God’s earth we were going to survive with another mouth to feed, Darren Rowse gave me hope and for that I will always be grateful.
4. Seth Godin. Everybody and their mama links to Seth Godin, and the cool kids — and sometimes the kids who aren’t cool at all — call him by his first name. I will take this opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and say that Seth Godin’s books changed my life. I got into marketing because of Seth Godin and now my family hangs out and feeds each other Cheerios out of sippy cup lids at noon on a Wednesday because I can make money doing what I love from my house. There is, quite simply, nothing cooler than that, and I have him to thank.
5. Maman. My mother is the only person other than Jamie who truly and completely didn’t give a shit what I did with my life, as long as I was happy. She was never a member of my rah-rah-you-can-do-it team because I honestly don’t think it ever crossed her mind that I would need it. She just knew I would be successful and that was the end of it. In her mind, my success and happiness were foregone conclusions and could we get to talking about something more interesting like beige walking sandals, please?
In response to my phone calls — the ones that came in the middle of the night for her in England — weeping that I would never succeed, she put on her Sensible Mother voice and said, ‘But honey, of course you’re going to succeed. You couldn’t fail if you wanted to.’ Sometimes that’s just what you need.
6. My husband. You know when you say “I love you” to someone so much that you worry it might lose meaning? And then you kind of wish there was something you could say when you mean it even more than you usually do? This is the unenviable situation in which I find myself with Jamie. After we decided to get married, it kind of pissed me off that I couldn’t decide to get married again. I was mad that I couldn’t turn to him and say, “Will you marry me?” because the response I would get would be a questioning look at my wedding ring and a “Do you think maybe you’ve had too much to drink, honey?”
Those of you who have been paying attention will know that there have been parts of the last year that have been a total fucking train wreck. He has been here for the “whoopsy daisy, looks like you have a mental illness” moments and the “shit, apparently you’re not pregnant anymore” moments and the “how the hell am I supposed to run a business like this?” moments and handled them with aplomb and grace and strength.
This blog, this business, those kids, and this person whose words you so kindly read are all here because of Jamie. I seriously wish I could duplicate him and sell him on eBay. I would make a goddamn fortune.
BONUS: Sonia. Duh. Sonia is the person whose blog I read when I think marketing is full of liars and bullshit. It’s a funny industry, marketing. Awesome for 90% of the time, and the other 10% you feel dirty like a Thai prison toilet. Sonia’s blog is the place to go for the Thai prison toilet moments. (Stay tuned for the next stupid search terms article. I’m sure that’ll get some doozies.)
So, even though it might be late, if you feel like doing this yourself, it could be cool. If not, you can just read about the cool people in my life and be jealous. Whatever.
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Yup, it’s 10:30pm, April 3rd, here in California.
What you wrote about your husband. So sweet. I am here in front of my computer and he is already upstairs getting ready for bed. I think I will go join him now. Thank you. :)
Ittybiz sure is fun and awesome but a word to the readers ” It’s not fat free. ” Look at the size of that post, it takes a while to read and gotta grab some snack. But the posts are so much fun and engaging that I wouldn’t mind piling up a lil’ ;-)
I loved reading what you wrote about each of your “good people”. :) Those who I know, I agree with how good they are. Those I don’t… you make me want to meet them.
Timing, schmiming! By the grace of God, I utterly relate to your mum’s confidence in you & your honey’s support of you. I embraced this ‘itty’ holiday from a desire to say “Hey, Thanx!” or, moreso, “WOW, you read me!?” but I’m equally enjoying the discovery of others’ Good People. Your descriptions were so phenomenal, I suspect I may have taken the easy way out but here’s my GPD08 (Good People Day 2008) offering.. ^_^
http://coffeesister.net/2008/04/03/gpd08.aspx
|_|) “How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.” ~ Albert Einstein
Oh this really makes me want to start a blog so I can post my cool people. I’ve actually got everything set up for a blog but I haven’t put it online because I’m scared I won’t have anything interesting to say, and there’s nothing worse than a designer who’s blog only gets two hits total and even those from people who searched for David Bowie’s greatest hits and got me instead. Except maybe a designer who’s blog gets hacked and flooded with naughty links on the day potential employers look at his site. Not that that’s ever happened to me, cos I don’t have a blog, but it would be horrible if it did.
Anyway, my point was, you’d be one of my cool people, Naomi.
Don’t feel bad. I won’t be able to get to this little hugs and warm fuzzies exercise for probably another week or so.
But I will. By god, I will.
To you, personally, I’ll say thank you for being there on the days when I really needed a break and you magically called. The distraction, the laughs, hanging out over phone lines, smoking cigarettes together (while telling each other we really should quit but who gives a fuck), sighing over low blood alcohol levels, talking Internet business shit because few people around me understand what the hell I’m saying…
You mean a lot to me. If Jamie hadn’t married you, then I’d probably marry you. Except in Quebec, we don’t marry. We shack up. Then I could charge you rent. Or make you babysit my kids for free :)
I’m very inspired by your love for your husband. That was beautiful. Thanks!
Big sloppy kiss for you, babe. I like your list a lot, and not just because I am on it. (I am a BONUS. Yay, how special I am!)
I would really like to make “The place to go when your marketing feels like a Thai prison toilet” a tagline.
Naomi,
I’d be the first bidder if an unattached man worthy of those words showed up on ebay. And the last bidder. A really fine dude is priceless.
A nice list all together. You do sentimental as well as you do snarky!
Regards,
Kelly
@ Vered — Awww. I’m glad you liked it!
@ Ritu — Hmm. Good point. Will change taglines. :-)
@ Allison — They ARE nice, aren’t they?
@ Dorian — Check out your typeface! Cute… takes balls. I like it.
@ Jimmy — Weird. I always thought digital spaceboy was a blog. Very cool name for one anyway. The key to finding something to say is to write short posts. (You’ll notice this is not exactly advice I follow.) Thanks for putting me in your 5+.
@ James Chartrand — I will think about it, but only when your kids have moved out. Well, the older one at least. That’s pretty reasonable, I think.
@ Mark — Thank you. I’m a total sap. The sarcasm and snark is just to recreate balance in the universe.
@ Sonia — And James Chartrand says I can’t write taglines. ‘Ha!’ I say. ‘Ha!’
@ Kelly — Thanks, dude. I kind of want to call you ‘Kel’. Is that ok? Do we know each other well enough for that yet?
You can’t. You stink at them lol. I love you to death, but you have hidden arTEESTe tendencies. I’m trying to break you of them. That’s why you have to shack up and care for my kids. They can break anyone!
@ JC - We are SO breaking up.
Naomi,
The bad news is, when people know me well enough, they know there’s nothing I hate worse than Kel.
The good news is, you know me well enough to know that now.
;)