Vacation

Beginning 

a list of escape

plans - this is Monday

Night Fever.

Brooklyn. For $3000:

there's India. 

For $3000: 

there's first, last, 

security.

The cliche 

of lotus

blossoms.

Odysseus carried 

the ship's skeleton

every day on the beach;

an old man beginning

a list of escape

plans.

A is for...

See, I haven't totally forgotten, but life has sped up a bit and blogging isn't always the top priority. At least, not blogging for myself; blogging for my clients remains a pretty big deal.

Notice that? The plural on "clients" there? That's right; my tiny little freelance gig has blossomed into a company. I now have 3 clients - brands that have hired me to bring them into the social media space. Pretty neat.

Things are looking up, Economy 2.0. This tiny eek-by loose-change moonlighting stint might actually be the best choice I've ever made. Who knew? Maybe we all did.

After all, social media is an increasingly attractive alternative to traditional publicity or advertising. Brands that budgeted hundreds of thousands for traditional PR and advertising are wondering just what a fraction of the cost could get them on Twitter or Facebook.

Media impressions are one thing (and a good thing, don't get me wrong) - but media impressions don't compare with true brand engagement. It's like reading a book versus writing a paper on it; one gives you a blazing red A and some uptight dudes, another gives you Hester Prynne, the bastard Pearl, goody-goody Goodies, and some pretty damn modern thoughts on judgement, humanism and the steamrolling power (and spiritual irrelevance) of mass-minded morality. One you vaguely recall, the other you whole-heartedly remember.

Money well-spent, I suppose. And so now I cheat on my own blog with the blogs of others. Interesting. What was that about adultery? Where's my alphabet placard?

Tweet me a scarlet letter, then; at least I'm getting paid.

Empty Pockets, Bright Horizons

Well hello again! Clearly it's been a busy month. Basically, I've gone from tentatively freelancing to launching my own Social Media Consulting/Copywriting business. Yowzers.

How did all this happen? Who knows. But I'm excited as all get-out. Now comes the nitty-gritty of LLCing, choosing a brand color, designing a logo, ordering business cards, setting up quarterly taxes, and all that jazz. As a freelancer, I racked up a nice chuck of experience in social media, and as a small firm employee, I learned the soup to nuts of boutique business ownership. I feel prepared, but still breathless.

See those pockets? See that smile?

I feel like that.

Funion Gaga

Stress - you are ridiculous. Please leave me alone. I am happy and have everything I need to do well in this world. So, stress, you tell yourself and your buddies Guilt, Shame, Self-Doubt and Mad Crazy Pointless Worry to shush-yo-one-big-ugly-collective-face and get the hell outta town.

To spit in the eye of anxiety:

• "Mistakes are the portals of discovery," James Joyce.
• And for a nice ironic twist: the above quote may itself be a mistake, as Mr. Joyce is also quoted as saying: "A man's errors are his portals of discovery"
• And perhaps, irony-on-irony, both the above are incorrect, as there's also this: "A man of genius makes no mistakes; his errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery."

Either way, life is an onion. Better stop crying and start peeling. Like the carnivores say: once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger.

Exhibition Isms

Yet another reason to love this town: even our museum guards are exhibition-holding artists.

Hoping to Graduate From Guards to Gauguins, The New York Times

A group of Met guards... is stepping into the spotlight with a new art journal called Sw!pe Magazine: Guards’ Matter, and an accompanying art exhibit, which runs through Sunday at 25CPW, a gallery at 62nd Street and Central Park West... The drawings, paintings, comics, prints, poetry and photography by 35 guards give exposure to the largely unnoticed workers who protect some of the world’s greatest treasures, not to mention dispense information on the quickest route to Renaissance Italy or to the bathroom.

Really, does it get any sexier than tall, dark, handsome museum guards wielding easels? My mind is racing through Met-tastic hallways filled with brooding men and their walkie-talkies, every one recession-proof and self-editing, jacket-clad with paint-stained ties. To top it all off, they know the way to da Vinci and the ladies' room. Well, slap my Pollack and me Patron; Mr. Artist-Guard, I'm sold.

The Starting Gate Zen

[BANG] And they're off!

The past two days have been a little insane. Welcome back to having two clients, I suppose. It's been exciting, though, to say the least, and I'm having a pretty good time with it, occasional heart-rate spikes aside.

Things are looking up for the little Cait & Associates - and making ends meet is very validating. I am so incredibly grateful for my past sixty days of sober vegan living. Whether it's bunk or not to the world, making very conscious choices about what I ingest and imbibe has deeply affected my outlook, attitude and energy. And not being hungover - ever - is maybe the single most amazing discovery I've made over the course of my (debatably) adult life. Incredible.

Positivity, social consciousness, healthy choices, man... Groovy.

On Chaos and Stars

What an amazing time to be an artist.

Not to say I am one, but, regardless, I'm grateful to be surrounded by people who clearly, undebatably are. This past week, I've seen the upside of the recession - sure, there has been a mini-bounce in our economy (more  a slight lessening of job cuts than a full-on recovery), but even more silver-lining-y, there has been such an awesome surge of creativity in this city, as people have realized that the safe route is no longer so safe.

I've been rejected by quite a few MFA programs in the past couple of weeks, but I'm surprisingly okay with that. I see the bright side here - thousands of people are applying for 25 slots per school and that means thousands of people consider studying the arts and pursuing their creative dreams to be a viable alternative to slogging it out in an entry-level job or enduring the ridiculous rigamarole of over-saturated, interminable interview processes. And here I am holding two jobs that reward my writing interests while allowing me the time I need to, well, figure things out. So all you real 100% artists out there, you go on and do your thing - just, for God's sake, make the most of it. Make incredible art out of these crazy times. Make today's instability seem so beautiful we all become grateful in hindsight - as grateful as I'm feeling now.

As much as I would LOVE to be accepted by a grad school program, I would also, in some small and curious way, love not to. (And please note the difference in capitalization and italics.) Part of me loves this version of New York City, where the arts programs are completely flooded by willing disciples, where experimental theater is pouring out of every sidewalk crack, where art sprouts in repurposed spaces and makeshift performance dens. This New York City where I can spend the days tweeting for clients whose missions I actually believe in, and then the nights supporting the creative minds populating the boroughs around me, from the incredibly awesome Tax Deductible Theater to the recession-exalting Independent Art Forum.

Life on life's terms, world. And ain't this the life.