Awards & Cage Matches

Yesterday was a banner day. Not because it was a Monday. They suck balls mostly. But, because I finally got the details on the bigass award my brand just got. Yes, I refer to it as my brand. No, it was not really the brand. It was the packaging that we (this frickin amazing team I got to work with) whipped up together in record time.

The last ten months have been a massive labor of not so much love. We were more like brand bodyguards. People like to break brands. It's a big trend around these parts. It's like the thing to do. All these idiotic men running even more idiotic companies that deliver idiotic products to a generally unsuspecting public... they like to break their brands. I've watched them make big brand messes and then had to go in and fix it later for twice as much as it cost them to break it. I like that part, until I remember that I live and work here and more than half of these cheapass bitches (the men are the bitches) will drag out the payment for six or eight months because they are too busy spending the money that they do have trying to sell their products in Iceland where the economy just flushed itself right down the toilet or in places like Vietnam where the median annual income is less than the pair of shoes I bought on sale at Nordstrom last week.

Today, though, I'm not sweating all the bad business drama. Instead I'm celebrating an amazing accomplishment for my creative team. We were awarded best packaging by ID Magazine. A little perspective - last year Coke and Johnson & Johnson were two of the winners in this category. It's rare that a little player with a little budget gets a nod. This was a full blown miracle given the circumstances we've endured the last ten months or so.

Want to know the kicker in all of this? The company, that will remain unnamed for now, is discontinuing this very set of packaging because they are spending too much on it. The reason that they are spending too much on it is that they are ordering very small quantities. A little planning ahead is a foreign concept to them. So, not only have they not done any forecasting EVER, but they order days before they need something, pay huge rush charges, and are constantly out of stock. So, this beautiful, award winning packaging has seen it's final days and when this award is run in the magazine later and featured on their website later this year, the customers of said company will scratch their heads and wonder why  they're getting this shitty shrink wrap. It's a sad thing. But, the award is still kickass!

Here's a question for you? First I'll set it up. A couple of weeks ago one of the guys from said company announced my medical condition to a several hundred people at an event where they were celebrating the official launch of the company. I was not present and questions about my attendance were plentiful. So, he chose to share that I have been very ill with all of these people to explain why I wasn't there. Is it crazy that I wanted to have a little cage match with him when I heard what he'd done? I'm scrappy. He's way taller and stronger, but I'd just kick him where it counts and be done with it. Where and when is this kind of shit OK?

I explained how I felt, but without violence. So, perhaps I was a smidge of a candyass there, but the award trumps the lack of a smackdown. So, I'm all good today.

Cancer is the biggest bitch I ever met.

I've neglected posting for a while. I have a good excuse, but I am a little over talking about it. I'm pretty sure this is the only time I'll ever post about it. So savor it.

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I swear my cancer is a girl and she's a mean one. The kind that talks about you behind your back and then is sticky sweet to your face. The kind that hurts you simply because she can. She takes pleasure in all of these things. She's a bully. I hate her. We're not friends.  (Plus she wears skanky clothes and her hair is super greasy.)

What is so frustrating about being sick is all the people that come out of the woodwork feeling sorry for you or feeling bad that they were a shitty friend and then trying to overcompensate for that by trying to be your best friend. Instead of being what you need, they end up working very hard at trying to be the kind of person they want you, and everyone else, to think they are when really they're just being posers for a moment while they try to gain a little favor from your misfortune.

You know what is so messed up about most of these "old" friends. They get upset if I don't acknowledge their cards or phone calls or whatever it is that they try to do. And, all I can say to them is that IT'S NOT ABOUT THEM. Half the time I don't even think it's about me. What I don't get is why they need validation for trying to be the friend they should have been all along. The friends I keep closest to me are the ones who do things for no reason and never out of a feeling of pity or obligation. My closest friends also know that I don't really let anyone do anything for me. They know that the way they show up for me is through a simple text or a call or a fun hour at lunch every week.

Tay, my bff (yes I'm 35 and I totally have a bff),  knows all of this quite well. I don't let her do anything. But, I think she knows that I love her more for letting me just get through this and for not trying to do the things that make me crazy. Like bring me dinner. People who bring dinner to my house drive me nuts. Unless it's my mother or my sister, or that one neighbor who makes the best penne vodka ever. They get a pass. Everyone else has to keep their meals to themselves.

This one time (I love saying that) a girl from our neighborhood brought dinner over after I'd had Sam. And, it became the biggest joke in our house. She brought canned peas. I know, gasp! The gagging and dry heaving that came from my girls was funny enough to capture on video. It looked like Sam's diaper. It smelled worse. And, since then my girls have always giggled when they see this poor girl.

I'm grateful for the kindness of neighbors and strangers. I don't want to sound ungrateful. But, sometimes it ends in a pretty good laugh in my house. And, honestly, I'm thankful for that.

I have good friends. I have the best kinds of friends. I'm not talking about the ones who show up when they think they should. They are posers and it actually makes me want to say "thanks but my dance ticket is full".  I'm talking about the ones that show up all the time, whenever they want, and when they must. They never think they should. They just do.

Last week I got a call from someone I've been working with. If you've read earlier posts... he's referred to as an asshat. He started the conversation by asking if I was mad at him because I had been acting upset all week. My initial reaction was that he was totally and completely pathetic. He is a grown-ass man. GROW A PAIR. I wasn't angry. I was sick. I've been sick. I hated to deflate his gigantic ego (actually I loved it) but I had to remind him that this cancer thing, and the chemo thing, and all this shit that is making me sick is and has never been about him. And, at that moment I remember thinking... No, HE is the biggest bitch I ever met... cancer is A OK when I compare it to him. 

Last week I was pretty much NOT a candyass. He cornered the market on that one.