Hire your Neighbor

Friends, though it may seem that way, Pretty Lady has not been Slacking Off, no sirree. For the first time in this lifetime, we have Books! Quickbooks, to be exact. A 2012 edition of Quickbooks which now bears a roughly accurate correspondence to the state of her financial affairs.

This would not have happened if Sally the Bookkeeper had not providentially shown up at Women's Power Networking last Thursday. After over a year of fretting, Pretty Lady decided to take the advice of her business coach, and Delegate. She may have the brains to learn Quickbooks on her own, but circumstances suggest that inspiration is lacking. Sally the Bookkeeper charged a very reasonable hourly rate to hold Pretty Lady's hand while we set up several Accounts, and we have a meeting two weeks hence to set up several more. Easy does it.

After we were done, Sally the Bookkeeper casually mentioned the state of her own financial affairs, which, not to be indiscreet, were rather startlingly unfortunate. Friends, there are many, many persons who have been Hit Hard in this recession. Persons who, through no fault of their own, find themselves facing long-term unemployment, late in their careers.

Not too many of us, sadly, are capable of offering these people full-time jobs at decent salaries, with benefits. (Not at the moment, at least.) But those of us with any semi-disposable income at all are not doing anyone any favors by hoarding our cash.

So do yourself a favor; hire a bookkeeper. Hire a lady to clean your house, or to do your laundry, or give you a much-needed night out without children. The idea that it could be a 'waste of money' is illiberal thinking; money does not disappear when you spend it. To do any good in the world, money must be kept moving. At the moment, your indulgence might be groceries, transportation and the electric bill for someone who would not have them otherwise.

The Definition of "Freedom"

Darlings, it has been SO long! Pretty Lady has been a bit busy, what with founding an empire and raising her offspring. But Recent Events have gotten a bit out of hand; plus, this morning's client failed to materialize. Thus I shall seize the opportunity to set the minds of the populace at rest about a few things.

So. Contraception vs. Religious Freedom is the order of the day! Complete with Defamation of Character, Socialist Oppression, and a Universal Mandate to post porn videos of oneself! Gracious. I thought Pretty Lady was given to rhetorical excess, but this situation trumps her completely.

Overmatched as I am, I must perforce be blunt. Since when does "religious freedom" mean "the freedom to force others to comply with one's own beliefs"?

Religious freedom, let me remind you, means "the freedom to practice one's own religion, adhering to the strictures thereof, in one's own personal life." Nowhere does this imply that one has any right or obligation to control other people's habits, practices or decisions.

And to those of you who declare, "What a lady does in the privacy of her home is no concern of mine; I just don't want to pay for it," let me set your mind at rest. You are not paying for it. The insurance company pays for it. You may pay the insurance company, but once you have done so, the money is no longer yours to control.

Perhaps this offends you. You may certainly choose to be offended. But let me ask you; have you ever peed in the ocean? If so, it was terribly irresponsible of you to have caused that distressing tsunami in Japan last year. Please see that it doesn't happen again.

Now, if you will excuse me, there is potty-training going on.  

Pretty Lady for Hire

Yes, darlings, it is true. Pretty Lady sold her soul--or at least, her idiosyncratic Voice--for bargain-basement prices. Alas, one must live. Behold:

Extreme Window Shopping

Achieving A Timeless Style (on a Limited Budget)

The Ideal Cheap Date

Please to forgive the rather inane content, as well as the choppy editing. The commercial world has not yet caught up with Pretty Lady's more esoteric sensibilities.

As well, please do Pretty Lady the honor of ignoring the fact that this atrocity has her name upon it. I have been forever cured of the notion that having a professional editor actually improves one's readability.

The Return of Pretty Lady

Hello darlings!

Truthfully, I have been stalling. I have been unable to decide whether to make Pretty Lady an official archive, leaving her all perfect and unspoiled, or to forge ahead with current events, time permitting. Pretty Lady has therefore been in Limbo, although Time Out NY is now following her, much belatedly, on Twitter.

For motherhood has been the least of recent upheavals. We are living in Philadelphia, in the bleeding-edge community of East Kensington; I am a startup entrepreneur, much to my own surprise; and Joe is producing (and directing, and mopping up after) a heck of a new production for the Philly Fringe.


Since this is Joe's baby, and I've been wrapped up in learning how to grow a business (Inc. Magazine is now my favorite coffee break reading material, I kid you not), I haven't been directly involved in the process. But after reading the original script by Richard Kirkwood, I made the independent decision to get behind it one thousand percent, risking the possibility of embodying all kinds of horrific stereotypes in the process--Stage Wife and PR Harpy among them.

Because not only is it Noises Off-level hilarious, it's relevant. It's relevant to the bleakly absurd economic climate that's driven millions of people out of their jobs and their homes while the top .1% grow ever richer. It baldly displays the cant that pigs use to justify their actions, and the sophistry which makes asses of all of us. It's an extreme play for extreme times, and it deserves all the limelight it can get.

So, will Pretty Lady be writing again? Well, CBS Local in Philadelphia has hired her/me to do a little Primetime blogging, promoting a couple of shows called '2 Broke Girls' and 'How to Be a Gentleman'. Also I'll be working on an e-book entitled, tentatively, Pretty Lady's Guide to Harmonious Relationships. Also, there are about 10,000 things I'd like to say about startup entrepreneurship, which don't quite fit into the theme of my new blog. So that's probably a yes, darlings.  

New Blog

I'm writing about my healing practice, beautiful spaces and my gorgeous new neighborhood on my Practical Bodywork Blog. Come visit!

We Are the Dupes

There's a protest against censorship on the steps of the Met today, because of the Smithsonian banning of David Wojnarowicz' video, 'Fire in my Belly,' above.

I, for one, am disgusted.  I am disgusted because people are such goddamn dupes. 

You don't have to censor art to get rid of it.  All you have to do is ignore it.  'Censorship' was the best thing to happen to Wojnarowicz' work; tens of thousands of people have now watched this video who would otherwise never have heard of it.

We're still completely missing his message, however.

For those of you who are confused as to exactly why an ant-covered crucifix offends some people; it's because the message of Christ is that he was crucified and resurrected.  Ants imply the presence of rot; Christ, allegedly, didn't.  But we, the people, crucify each other every day and leave the corpses to rot.  That's the message.

David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS in 1992.  Today, there are saviors dying of hideous diseases all around us, but we're ignoring them on behalf of self-righteous protests, for and against 'censorship.'  We are allowing ourselves to be overtly manipulated by the forces which profit from people's deaths.

Because do you know what ELSE happened this week?  Republicans, on behalf of the wealthiest .1% of us, filibustered a bill that would have provided healthcare to 9/11 first responders who are dying of cancer. 

They did this because it is in the financial interests of the ruling class for the other 99.9% of us to be distracted and at each other's throats.  While we're blaming our neighbor for being bigoted, immoral, intolerant, depraved, degenerate, lazy, and generally a Bad Person, we're ignoring the ways in which ALL of us are being exploited by the plutocracy which is destroying this country.

Artists: Christians are not the enemy.  Christians: Artists are not the enemy.  I know that it is scary to realize that YOU could be the one abandoned by the system when you fall ill, lose a job, or help someone else at your own expense, but sticking your head in the sand doesn't change the reality.  Your neighbor is your natural ally, whether he be a starving artist, an offended Christian, an illegal immigrant, or a dying firefighter--as long as you look at who is REALLY pulling the strings, and refuse to be distracted by trivialities.

Wake up.

In Praise of Facebook

What's with all the Facebook bashing?  'Facebook users are narcissistic.'  'Yes, and also immature.'  Facebook 'friends' aren't real friends!  Get over it!  Move on!  The rest of us have. 

Well, I love Facebook, and I'm not ashamed to say it.  I love it because it satisfies two of my primary neuroses--wanting to know how people are, in perpetuity, and not wanting to pester them. 

I was beyond delighted, the first time I was 'friended' by someone from elementary school.  I had been looking for that girl for twenty-five years.  Just because we're not seven years old and living down the street from one another anymore doesn't mean that I stopped liking her; it's a real thrill to know that A. is doing just fine, is happily married with two kids, and living in Dallas.

Is this so strange?  Reading the comments in this letter, I get the feeling that there are a lot of people out there who can't understand it.  They regard Facebook as an onerous burden, or a popularity contest, or a haven for the self-involved.  But it seems to me that there's nothing less self-involved than being interested in other people, whether you see them every day or not.

The reason I love it is that it takes so little effort.  What's narcissistic, as well as time-consuming, is emailing a thousand people five times a week; Facebook is great because you can ignore it. You can share as much or as little as you like, and everybody out there is free to take it or leave it.

Also, it helps me to avoid one of my existential terrors--that of Calling At A Bad Time.  Thanks to Facebook, I will never run the risk of inviting someone to see the latest Harry Potter film when they're on the way to their mother's funeral.  I can limit my guest list to people who are not in labor.  I can send congratulations, condolences and silly jokes at the right moments, not the wrong ones.  How is this not a fabulous thing?

Of course my Facebook 'friends' aren't all my friends.  I'm not an idiot.  It's a good way of helping me decide who I want to get to know better, however.  If I 'friend' a new acquaintance and discover that she's a member of 'One Million Strong For Sarah Palin,' that saves me the price of a cup of coffee.  

 

I'm not going to 'defriend' her, though.  Since Facebook is such a minimal-impact medium, it perplexes me when people feel a need to purge their 'friend' lists for trivial reasons, such as 'I don't know who all these people even are,'  or 'We haven't spoken face to face in three months.'  The only things that will cause me to defriend you is: 1) I don't know you, and you keep sending me press releases for events in cities that I never visit; and 2) I know you very, very well, and you know what you did.