Posts Tagged: lady tip

Lady Tip: You’re Never Going to Wish You Did Something Less

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I’m very excited to have a guest post for you guys today. Even better, this post is from one of my very own brothers! I’m so happy that Alex wrote a Lady Tip for me, although I’m slightly worried that you guys will like him better than me and make his blog your new Welcome to Ladyville. He rarely (if ever!) posts photos of Dolly Parton, so be prepared. If you like this post, be sure to check out Ghost Court, especially this post, which is one of my favorites. And this one! Ugh, they’re all hilarious! Also, you may noticed that my brother is, in fact, not a lady. Lady Tips are for all of us! Ladies and fellas! Take it away, broseph!

The title’s not entirely accurate. Truthfully, it’s just wrong and a little grammatically confusing. There are plenty of things that, if you spent a great deal of time doing, you would regret. Hanging out in a sleepy opium den, for example. Even if you weren’t doing opium, that’s just a waste of time. Get out of that opium den and embrace the day!

Drinking, gambling, smoking, snorting almost anything, and hate-reading Quentin Tarantino interviews are more exceptions. Look, I may have just come up with that title because it sounded good.

Titles are hard. Giving advice is harder.

There is so much advice out there. At this point, I think it’s safe to say all the advice is out there. Unfortunately, advice is useless without context, and you need to provide the context. Several times, I’ve thought I made a real personal breakthrough, like, write-it-on-a-post-it-note-and-stick-it-to-your-monitor breakthrough, and then realized all of my seemingly complex thought are summarized by a cliched adage that’s been superimposed over countless photos of fields, beaches, and vintage bicycles on Pinterest.

What I’m about to say though is something that’s taken me 23 years to realize, and it’s a little sad, but it’s also true and kind of great.

In my experience, goodbyes are always disappointing.

Parties peter out. Hugs are short and awkward, with stilted, overlapping sentences. Sometimes, peoples’ hands are full. And a goodbye in public? With strangers shuffling past, getting a soda out of a machine, or reading their Kindle on a bench? Nothing is more tragic.

You graduate, planes take off, friends move away, and even though something ended, it doesn’t feel like you’ve moved on to the next level, because there are no cuts. There are no loading screens. There is no click, indicating you’re in the right position. You walk out the door, and there you are, still walking.

You can make a goodbye tolerable, but it’s hard to make it great, so don’t save it for the goodbye. Sometimes, there won’t even be a goodbye. Don’t wait. The good moments happen while they’re happening. Make sure you take advantage of that.

Scratch your dog behind his ears, because I guarantee you’re going to miss that. Get dinner with your friends and eat it slowly, then afterwards get drinks. Put down your work and go on an evening walk with your partner. And any compliment you think to give someone? Give it to them. Don’t wait for the goodbye.

The more you do this, the less power the goodbye has. You realize a goodbye is just a formality; a comma we hope doesn’t turn into a period. And ultimately, no one really cares about punctuation.

That is my lady tip. All of which can be found here, here, and here.

 

Thanks again to Alex for this great Lady Tip! If you’d like to write a guest Lady Tip, please shoot me an email at welcometoladyville@gmail.com.

Image via Flickr.

Lady Tip: Don’t Settle For “Good Enough”

I have a terrible habit of making do. In my last apartment, when the pull chain broke off of the light above my mirror, I didn’t fix it. Instead, I did my makeup by the light of the overhead fixture, which was on the other side of a half-wall. I did my makeup in shadow for the better part of a year.

When a drawer broke, instead of fixing it, I just stopped using it.

When my doorknob kept falling off, I found the one way I could turn it so that it would stay on instead of finding a screw driver and fixing it.

If it sounds like I lived in a perpetually broken apartment, well, yeah. But that’s not the point. The point is, that’s what I was doing with everything in my life at that point. Everything was broken and I was just adjusting my life to fit around it, because there was nothing really wrong with it.

I didn’t like my job, but it wasn’t terrible and it paid me money, so I stayed. Living where I was made me miserable, but it wasn’t like it was awful and there were things I liked about it, so I just dealt with it. I was too scared to try writing, so I tried to find lots of other interests to fill my time. It was a life full of “good enough” and “not terrible” and “I have money and a place to live, so I shouldn’t complain.”

I hope you already know that you shouldn’t put up with things that don’t make you happy just because they don’t make you miserable. But I sure didn’t. Over the past couple of years, I’ve moved to a city I love, gotten a new job, and started writing for real. And you can probably guess how much better life got when I stopped settling for “good enough.”

This might not be a revelation, but its something I have to remind myself all the time. You can always change anything that’s bothering you. Like, right now I’m stressed out because I have too much stuff. Instead of boxing it up in the basement, I could get rid of it. Get rid of all the clothes I don’t wear, all the books I’m never going to read again, all the magazines I inexplicably held onto. I’m feeling gross because I haven’t had time to workout, but I can make time to work out. I want to spend more time writing. Well, you know what I should do. These are things that can be changed.

Don’t just live your life around the broken stuff. Start fixing it and move on.

Lady Tip: Don’t Take Advice From 1950s Bridal Magazines

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Guys! Today we’re lucky enough to have a guest post from one of my favorite ladies, Jayne! She’s a great writer and one of the most hilarious people I know. Enjoy her post, leave some comments, and check out her blog. I only wish she blogged every day.

I recently attended a dinner party with some good friends of mine from high school. Heather is getting married this September to her high school sweetheart and I am absolutely thrilled for her. After dinner we retired to the living room, to which I was delighted to find bridal magazines on the coffee table. I don’t know a single female who doesn’t love flipping through a bridal magazine. The glamorous dresses, expensive proposals for table design, elaborate honeymoon ideas: all seem so fascinating! As I reached for the latest issue, Brian (the groom-to-be) threw a bridal magazine from 1954 at me. The cover screamed tips for being the best hostess, pleasing your man, and how to raise children properly. WHO WOULDN’T WANT TIPS ON THAT?

Flipping through the magazine I stumbled across helpful tips such as:
• Keep a mirror, powder and lipstick handy in the kitchen so you always look your best- EVEN WHEN COOKING!

About halfway through I found this gem. I’m not saying I’m a feminist (I’M A HUGE FEMINIST) but I found this article laughable. I cut straight to the best part of the article. I now present the Masculine Bill of Rights, with my added man commentary.

Masculine Bill of Rights

There is a long list of things men feel they have a right to have in their own homes. Here are some of the chief ones:

A man has a right to man-sized chairs placed where the man of the house finds it most convenient to use them. And to practical covers for chairs, sofas and beds: leather, dark upholstery or a washable fabric. He should never have to feel self-conscious about siting down on a chair or even a bed if he wants to.
“A WOMAN-sized chair for a man? And covered in pink lace? Are you mad, woman?”

A man has a right to well-built furniture, even if there are not so many pieces of it. He hates flimsy pieces that fall apart easily. He feels that the investment was bad, that he is going to have to go to a lot of trouble to do the mending.
“You insisted on buying this kindling and now you want me to fix it? Get in the kitchen and cook me a pot roast!”

A man has a right to expect to find a book or magazine he was reading near his chair where he left it rather than put away among a whole shelf full of books or lost among other magazines.
“I don’t have time to look through your Jane Austen and Good Housekeeping! Where is my damn book on how to build model planes?”

A man has a right to use the bathroom without walking through a maze of drying stockings and brassieres. He has a right to space in the bathroom cabinet for his toilet things and personal medicines unmixed with bobby pins, face powder or hair curlers.
“It’s like walking into a damn spiderweb in here! And I can’t tell my toothbrush from a tube of mascara! Get in the kitchen and cook me a pot roast!”

A man has a right to find his mail and telephone messages in a specific place every day.
“Did Jensen call from the office? DID JENSEN CALL FROM THE OFFICE?”

A man has a right to find his tools where they belong and in good condition. If you fancy yourself a master carpenter, get a set of tools of your own.
“Oh, so you want to build a birdhouse? THEN BUY YOUR OWN DAMN TOOLS! I don’t need you getting glitter and lipstick all over my Craftsman!”

A man has a right to understand the paintings which hang in his own house. If you are a Picasso fan and he has never gotten beyond the Angelus, expose him to modern paintings, until he shares some of your enthusiasm.
“I don’t… I don’t understand this painting. This gypsy is sleeping? Next to a lion? I just don’t get it!”

A man has a right to help choose the colors that are used in his home. Even a firm masculine conviction that only blue and brown are safe can be worked into some fetching color schemes with one of the thousand tricks to be with color (see PLANNING COLOR SCHEMES).
“Firm masculine conviction is the name of my fist and if you so much as think about adding any other color than brown or blue to this den then you will get to meet firm masculine conviction!”

A man has a right to some luxury of his own kind. Such as big spongy bath towels, a good light for reading in bed if that is what he likes, a convenient place for keeping liquor and mixing drinks.
“Anything other than Egyptian cotton and I will throw this bourbon right in your face! Get in the kitchen and cook me a pot roast!”

I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did. Men in the ‘50s sound like demanding dicks. Men do NOT have the right to anything in the household besides… besides… hmmm… not sure what men should have a right to. Thoughts?

Let’s all wish Kerry a happy wedding day and a wonderful marriage to H! I’m excited to be a part of their wedding day. Fingers crossed that H doesn’t mind walking through Kerry’s maze of brassieres in the bathroom.

Image via Etsy

Lady Tip: Only Hang Out With Hard Workers

You know how it’s kind of a thing for newspaper trend pieces to talk about how 20 somethings are so lazy? And how they rely on their parents and are really entitled and blah blah blah Girls or something? I’m getting pretty tired of those articles, because seriously, I realized recently that all of my close friends are incredibly hard workers.

As you probably know, my BFF is in vet school, which is pretty damn difficult last time I checked. Another one of my close friends is a freelancer who’s always working. Other friends of mine have one or two jobs while they’re in grad school, or they have two jobs while being a single mom, or they have a job while spending all their free time pursuing a creative passion on the side.

In my opinion (because what is this blog about, if not my opinions?), those are the best kind of friends to have. The people who are always working themselves to the bone to do what they love. Most of my friends aren’t writers, and some of them have careers I can’t even begin to understand (again, vet school! There’s a lot of science involved!), but it really doesn’t matter. Just the act of being around people who are passionate, driven, and hard working is the best thing you can do for your own work ethic. When I go home after an evening of talking to my friends, I always feel inspired, energized, and ready to work.

I’m not saying you should ditch a friend if his or her only hobby is watching TV. I mean, I love TV, too! I’m about to dive into this week’s New Girl while I go to town on a plate of chicken strips. But the more time you spend with people who can’t stop talking about how excited they are to do what they do, the better your own work will be.

Lady Tip #18: Reach Out

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Today’s Lady Tip is going to sound weird if you’re not used to doing it, but it’s really not that strange. If I, one of the most socially awkward people you’ll never meet, can do this, then I promise you can do it too. Today’s Lady Tip is all about reaching out to other people.

The next time you read an article that makes you nod in agreement or laugh out loud, or the next time you read a book that becomes a part of you, or the next time you hear of someone doing something you admire, why don’t you let that person know?

Send an e-mail, a tweet, whatever, and let the person know you appreciate what she’s doing. Tell her that she made you laugh or cry or think. Tell her that what she’s doing inspires you.

I started doing this awhile ago, and the results have been surprising and great. I’m an incredibly awkward, shy, socially-challenged lady in person, but even I can send out an email. So I do. Nothing long or fawning…just a quick note, an “I love what you do!” Sometimes, if a person has a career I want to emulate, I even ask her for advice.

And you know what? People almost always write back.

To be fair, the writers I’m emailing aren’t Joyce Carol Oates or Joan Didion. I don’t think they have the time or the inclination to answer their fan emails. The writers I email are normal people with normal lives. But sometimes, if you’re like me anyway, it’s easy to assume that everyone else you see working on the internet is some untouchable person who has it all figured out. Really, they’re just people. And the advice (and book recommendations) I’ve received from sending out emails is invaluable to me.

There’s another, less-selfish reason to send out emails like this: they make people feel good. As someone who writes on the internet, I can tell you that it makes my day/week/month to get an email from someone who likes my blog or HelloGiggles column or anything else I’ve written. I could make a joke here about how I’m just an egotistical maniac who loves attention, and I guess that’s probably true, but the bigger truth is that when I write something, I want it to reach someone else. I want someone else to enjoy it and laugh or feel better or maybe just pick up the book I recommended. Connecting with other people, communicating with them, helping them–that’s why I write. And I’m not alone. That’s why a lot of people write. And just hearing from someone who says you’ve reached them can make all the difference when you feel like you’re slogging along and not making any difference at all. Many people I write to say something like “You made my day!” I understand that, because I know the feeling.

Reach out to somebody today, you guys! I promise that person is not going to write back and say, “I hate you. Shut up.” But I mean, if they do, then what sort of person are you writing to, really? That one’s kind of on you.

Image via Rebelle Society