Sasha Is a Monster

I’m back in Seattle, where it’s freezing and windy and raining cats and dogs. Spending a week in the Arizona sun was the best thing to happen to me in a long time. I’d just been so incredibly overwhelmed with work and obligations this past couple of months, it felt like I was gasping for every breath. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t relaxing, and I wasn’t taking care of myself. It was wonderful just to spend time with family. And by “spend time with family” I mean I laid in bed all day and, when I got hungry, I called the house line from my cell phone to tell my mom what to bring me. And she actually did it! When I was a teenager she would have just told me to get it my damn self, but she’s actually become way better at being a mom as I’ve gotten older. For years after I moved out, I didn’t even want to stay at her house when I visited — I’d get a hotel room or stay with my dad — because I felt like she would always nag and never actually nurture. When I come home to visit at this stage in my life, I don’t want someone to criticize the way I packed my suitcase; I want nachos. She promised me she’d work on it, and, to her credit, she was an absolute delight this visit. It’s like a completely different mother from the one I had as a teenager. She was so … helpful. I think the fundamental problem has always been that my idea of what a mother can do to be helpful is vastly different from her idea of what a mother can do to be helpful. After twenty-odd years of me explaining to her that an unending, unsolicited barrage of “helpful suggestions” is not, in actuality, helpful, she listened. And it was wonderful. I was really able to unwind and feel taken care of for the first time in a while.

This is probably why statistics show that successful men don’t marry successful women, but rather marry the secretary. I would probably marry the secretary, too, if I were a man. I really, really want a good wife. I want to have someone at home who brings me food, does my laundry, rubs my feet, and picks out my clothes. I would not want this person to be distracted by a career. That might cause a delay in the time I ask for the nachos and the time the nachos are actually brought to me. It is all perfectly reasonable, and it is clear why I am not married. I would be the crappiest wife ever. I don’t even really know how to do laundry. (I do know how to make nachos.)

Annnnnyway, my sister and I went to our friend Roxanne’s wedding in Tucson — the entire purpose of the trip — and it was beautiful and fantastic and probably the best time I’ve had at a wedding, like, ever. Her husband’s family and friends were so awesome, and they gelled really well with Roxanne’s group of friends, which doesn’t always happen at a wedding. I’ll post pictures once my sister sends them to me. We also got to spend time with my grandpa and his wife, which is always a blessing. My grandpa saves interesting news clippings — about Lady Gaga, Sarah Silverman, and Chatroulette, to name a few — and gives them to me. It’s amazing. He’s like the only person I know who still reads print news, and he has an eerily accurate radar for what I’ll find engaging. I love him so much.

Tonight I attended the Seattle 2.0 Awards, which are put on by — duh — Seattle 2.0 (where I’m the newest columnist — check it out!). As you guys have probably noticed, I’ve gotten really involved in the Seattle tech startup community in recent months, and I love it. I’ve met so many amazing people, and it’s helped me to grow so much as a person and as a businesswoman. There are a lot of really smart people out there in the world, and it’s both humbling and energizing to spend time with them. I’ve felt really blessed to have this new community to learn from. If I could give advice to anyone looking to make a career change or start a company of their own, it’s network, network, network. Find out what kind of organizations and communities exist in your area that can help support you in your goals, and get out there and make friends with them. It’s been amazingly helpful.

I’m in Arizona. Where it’s over 90 degrees in May and the type of man I find irresistibly attractive wanders the streets in packs. They’re unavoidable. They are tall and bright-eyed, broad-jawed and casually muscular; they carry their bodies — with muscles in places I didn’t realize there could be muscles — with a level of ennui. Like they didn’t have to work too hard to look like that. Like it’s just there. Like the way I carry a purse. They carry their arms the way I carry a purse. Like it’s just draped there. It’s so casual.

My arms are so perfect. What?

Why do I love men like this?

And why do they not exist in Seattle?

I love everything about Seattle except the type of single man there. It’s the wrong species. I don’t mate with the Seattle species of man. I mate with the Scottsdale species, which is an off-shoot of the Los Angeles species, and an Armani-suit variant of them exists in San Francisco, but the whole thing never quite made its way up through Oregon and into the Pacific Northwest.

This city is entirely devoid of the men I find attractive. And I notice it the most when I go to places that have the men I find attractive, and suddenly I see men I’d like to sleep with everywhere, like it’s a goddamn cafeteria and the hot entree is MEN, and I remember that in Seattle I spot a rare one every several lunar cycles, and so it is not a cafeteria it is the vending machine at the end of the hall and it only has one item left and it won’t take your dollar so you go to Starbucks instead and you stare at skinny men with dreadlocks and tattoos as they check their Facebook accounts from their iMacs as you pay $7 for a latte.

Why are there no hot men in Seattle? Why don’t they come or why do they leave? Please come to Seattle, hot men. I will host your housewarming party. It will be you and me in your house. I will bring two gifts. One will be whip cream. You will understand how to use it after you unwrap your second gift. And I promise your house will stay warm.

You guuuuuuuuys!

I just started a new gig as a weekly columnist for Seattle 2.0, a tech entrepreneurship blog popular around these parts of the country. I am incredibly grateful to the editor, Jennifer Cabala, for this opportunity, and also incredibly nervous!

My first post, titled “Why I Owe Paris Hilton an Apology, and Other Mistakes I Made Starting My Company,” went up today. It’s here. You guys should read it — you might learn something about me you didn’t know. (I swear, there are things about me I haven’t put anywhere on a blog yet.) Also, if you like the piece or learned something useful from it, it would be wonderful if you could leave a comment on their site! Convince them that hiring me wasn’t an enormous mistake. ;)

Hi guys. Sorry I haven’t been around in awhile. I’ve been in hell. Server hell. The servers on Evil Beet (and SIAM, and Zelda Lily) have been crashing left and right, and the host, Choopa, is trying to convince me that it is somehow my fault. Even funnier? Right now, their sites are down. Choopa.com is down. But they’re still running this racket that it’s something I am doing wrong. Unreal. I’m changing hosting companies. I’ve been with them since the start. I like to be loyal. But this has gotten out of control. It happens every three months or so, and then it consumes my life until it “magically” gets resolved, and no one tells me what, exactly, I did wrong (because, you know, I didn’t do anything wrong). I do not have time in my life for this shit right now.

Also, I hurt my toe. You can see my sad toe in this picture.

I took sad toe to the gym, because I have just been in a stress-induced panic mode the past couple weeks (much to the credit of the new medicine, it has not launched into a full-blown manic episode — I ::heart:: the new medicine), and I knew if I kicked my own ass for an hour I would feel much steadier emotionally. And I did. But sad toe left the gym in way worse shape than it entered. (”If it wasn’t broke when I walked in here, it is now,” I told the trainer.) But I was pretty calm and centered for like an hour afterward, until all my websites crashed again and I had to spend four hours begging Choopa to fix it and getting responses like “Loads fine for me” and “Is it better now?” despite the fact that all my messages to them were like, “Can someone please explain to me, in detail, what exactly is wrong here? Do I need to hire someone to come in to fix this? I am losing a lot of money in ad sales right now. This is important. What do I have to do to get this problem addressed?” The response? “Is the site loading okay now?”

UN FUCKING REAL.

IT’S NOT LIKE I HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO, GUYS. THIS IS AWESOME, THIS EMAILING IN CIRCLES WITH YOU AND THE NOT FIXING OF THE PROBLEM. I WOULD EVEN GO SO FAR AS TO CALL IT DELIGHTFUL. WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING SATURDAY? CAN WE DO THIS AGAIN THEN? OKAY I WILL PUT IT ON MY CALENDAR. LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.

fml

So. I spent this afternoon meeting with my friend Natacha to plan Trisha’s baby shower (OMG YOU GUYS IT’S GOING TO BE SO CUTE. I can’t give away any details though in case she’s reading this). Then I scheduled a fitting for my bridesmaid dress for another friend’s wedding. And in a couple weeks I’m flying back to Arizona for yet ANOTHER friend’s wedding. And that friend is pregnant. So, you guys, I’m officially at THAT age. It happens at different times in different circles of friends. For me and for my circle of friends, now is kind of becoming that time. Everyone is getting hitched and having babies. For the next few years, I’ll probably have multiple weddings to attend every summer, which comes along with bachelorette parties and baby showers. I was kind of dreading being at “that age,” but, now that it’s happening, I’m loving it. I am so excited for each and every one of my friends, and for these events. I love planning baby showers and bachelorette parties! I love being a bridesmaid! I love being part of the sisterhood — the womanhood of all of it.

Growing up, I never felt like I was very good at being a girl. I wasn’t a tomboy, really, but I wasn’t especially girlie. I just didn’t feel like I spoke the language — that of purses and hair rollers and empire waists and casseroles. I still don’t, really. But as I walk through all this with my friends, I realize there is something much deeper about being a woman, about nurturing and supporting and loving one another through the process of marriage and childbirth, that I take to rather naturally. I still wouldn’t trust me to be the one to actually make the casserole for the baby shower (Natacha said I could come over and be a helper while she makes it), but I can definitely show up and be a strong, reliable support system for my girlfriends. Every time I learn how to do it a little bit better. And I love it. I’m good at loving people. And I realize that, despite always kind of sucking at being a girl, I sure do have a shitload of girlie girlfriends who love the hell out of me, so I must be doing something right.

You know what else? I am TOTALLY not jealous of any of this. I don’t wish I were the one getting married, and I don’t wish I were the one pregnant. I’m not panicked because everyone else is getting married and I’m not. Sometimes the thought will pop into my head out of nowhere, and I can let it go just as easily. Somewhere along the way, I let go of that fear. I’m just fine. I’m not alone, and I’ll get married when it’s right for me, and not a minute earlier. And, hell, I don’t ever really want to be pregnant, so if I end up adopting when I’m 45, that’s cool with me, too. I’ve just let go of all the fear and I’ve found myself more able to focus on the love. It’s pretty awesome.