On a surface level, it’s workable. Basic information like address, phone number, and what the client does are present. There’s a clear navigation up top. But it looked dated. The colors were jarring and the layout resembled a Word document more than a website.

The client felt outdated and rapidly outpaced  by competition hosting bright, dynamic websites—and given the client’s field, it makes sense that a company that deals with technology would want to have a streamlined contemporary site. The client’s company is also on a budget. So they hired me. Here’s the redesign of the home page (the rest of the site is still under construction, but the homepage is finished and works to illustrate some of the  major differences at hand).

Now, I did not do the logo work (for the client or their own clients)—but the layout is much more dynamic (without being cloying). The client images rotate every two seconds and the slider up top rotates between seven great photographs of the client’s locale and equipment. Social media is present, without dominating.

It’s not perfect, of course. But for a client on a budget, this certainly reflects a more contemporary image than the previous site. Let me know what you think.

I read somewhere that mood rings don’t work anymore because of global warming.
The stones formed when the ph balance of the world was strong enough for a man,
But now that we’re gentle enough for a woman, the whole thing’s pretty much useless.

This makes me sad. I liked mood rings. It was nice to have something telling me
Exactly how I felt. Ah, blue. I’m in a good mood. Yay! Red? I’m angry. ROOAR.
That doesn’t work with animate objects. You can’t say hey, Pet, what mood am I in?
Because your pet will say “feed me love me walk me leave me alone” in whatever your pet’s language is,
And none of that is an answer to how you feel, unless you how you feel is
“feed me love walk me leave me alone.” Which, good job, Pet, of figuring that out.
Human beings will always tell you look nice in that dress. Unless they’re honest.
Which either makes you love them more or hate them more, which alters your mood
And defeats the whole purpose of the inquiry to begin with.

I’m sad our planet cooked moon rings to death. Of course, that might not be true at all.
Mood rings may have never worked. Which is something a heretic nonbeliever would say.

The idea of having a child-doll instead of a child, or even in addition to, does not strike me as odd or strange. This is the Auntie Mame in me¹. I cannot deny that I am the kind of person who occasionally gives in to eccentricity. The kind of person who has birthday parties for her dog. Of course, there’s always the understanding that the birthday party for the dog is really just an excuse for a party, but I still go through and beyond the motions (party dress, doggie cake, other puppy guests and all).

So I’m committed when I want to be. The theme of these posts is to-do listing and, in someways, even my eccentricity needs streamlining. I have notebooks full of ideas. Thousands of bookmarked pages with little pieces of ephemera that warrant comment. Like Digby.

2- Write About Digby

This one is good. I’ve had this one on my running to-do list since March (when the story of Digby first broke). By virtue of placing it here, it’s done. So it’s really more like:

2- Write About Digby

But in many ways, “write about Digby” is also “write more.” So much of what little I’ve written is about how I’m going to increment my writing². But the truth of it, outside of furtive edits on my book³, I’m not putting time aside to write.

A good friend of mine once told me about a cross-country road-trip that she made with another writer. More than anything, she was astounded that her fellow road-warrior did not put anything down on the page. Nothing at all. No laptop, notebook, scribble. How, my friend asked, could a writer not write? For her it is compulsion. For her friend, maybe something else entirely. Or maybe it manifests differently (an epic write-down months from now, perhaps?), and yet there’s a part of me that agrees: how can a writer not be writing all the time? Especially nonfiction writers. We, on a basic level, report.

I’m not consistent at editing my thoughts, but I am a Moleskine person⁴. I have a whole row of thin, black notebooks on a shelf in my office wherein I chronicle conversations, outfits, calories consumed, ideas for stories, slam poetry scores, books to buy, notes from meetings and seminars, conference doodles and phone numbers, as well as email addresses for people whose names I’ll never remember.

But I’m terrible at sitting down and getting it done. Once it’s down, though, I don’t think it’s ever too bad.

I used to be like this with freelance work. But I’ve learned over time to streamline that process. Other people don’t have time like I do. So I get contracts signed, ask for specific deadlines, and work efficiently. I’m just not when the client is me.

Maybe Digby will hire me to fix my own life. Or maybe my dog should get prepared for the matching outfits I’ll force upon her when I get a little older, a little richer, and little more consistent.

In the meantime, I’ve written down the idea. So I can look back and find it later.

1. That may be unfair to Auntie Mame
2. Diagram that sentence!
3. That To-Do List Item is coming soon
4. Isn’t it a little gross/problematic that I keep saying “I’m a [such-and-such] kind of person,” as if definition is all that matters?

He is/was also asking people to submit their own to-do lists and do their best to get them done. In fact, the whole point of getting guests on the podcast is to catch up with them in the future and see how they’re progressing on their to-dos, while Jamie and Keith accomplish their own to-dos.

Blah, blah, blah, I got inspired and decided to share mine in segments with you. Here’s my annotated to-do list for you, item one.

1- Work for Dad
I’m currently “working” for my father’s wholesale replacement diesel engine part business. Okay, not really. So far I’ve reorganized my inbox and worked on a logo for someone else while sitting at a desk in his offices. But years ago, I promised my father that at some point in my life, I would come work for him (just for a little bit). Well, I needed to get out of town due to some stress at home in Pittsburgh (I fled so fast, I didn’t even pack socks for a month-long vacation), so I figured why not combine the two and make that happen.

I’m here. At the office. And that counts for something, right? The thing is, Dad wants me to make cold calls to prospective clients. Which, you’d think, I’d be good at. As I’m all chatty-chatty and extroverted. But I’m so nervous at calling strangers on the phone. It’s not what I do. Sure, I talk, but mostly face-to-face. I hate the phone. So much. People can’t see me smile on the phone. And talking to strangers, even if I’m selling them something they want and need, might be too daunting for me. I have no problem calling people that I’m going to buy things from. Or calling people to arrange their services. But calling people so that they’ll give me money? Yikes. I’m working on overcoming that. And I’m here till June 3, so I guess I have to do something. I can only read dlisted and file my email so much before even that gets boring.

It’s good to be back in the Valley. I have such a love-hate relationship with the place. I love the Mexican food, the four-lane roads, the cheap margaritas, Roosevelt’s, Alhambra, my good friends Luis and Angel, the proximity to the beach, and the bright-bright sun. I love the golf, and how men open doors and no one ever expects me to drive. I even like dressing up more than I ever do in Pittsburgh, just to go to a bar.

But this city, in so many ways, is a city of my past. Which is ironic, given how McAllen and Pittsburgh compare in terms of history and a brutal sense of nostalgia for what might have been. McAllen is a city on the rise. Economic development, new shopping centers, more night-life than a city this size deserves to have. But it remains the city of my past, no matter how shiny and new it really is.

Last night, at Alhambra, I smoked a hookah with Luis, and ran into some girls I knew in high school. It was really nice to see them, all grown up and business-minded. This morning, as I walked the puppy (who, by the way, loves it here as she has my parents’ dog to play with constantly), I thought about what disconnected me so much from this place, why I felt out-of-place at the lounge, why I’ll never full fit-in here, why people pause when I tell them I teach creative writing (“I always thought you’d end up doing something artsy,” they usually say) and that pause makes me more uncomfortable than proud, like I’m admitting that I think I’m superior or that I have chlamydia (neither of which are true, obviously). Perhaps it’s that I associate this place with business, with fast-deals and fat women, with old and true friends, with the border, with high school, with my parents, with Mexico, with guns, with violence, with Border Patrol, with citrus. But never with me. Or at least not now-me. Maybe just high-school-me.

I don’t think of myself as being from here anymore. Although, I really couldn’t be from anywhere else. And maybe, just maybe, nothing represents this more than working for my dad. Because here I am, sitting at this white desk, spreadsheets printed out before me, thinking about how I worked so hard and ran so far to never end up just here. And the truth of it, is that I don’t really know why I’ve spent so much energy leaving. Well, no. That’s a lie. I know why I left: I was miserable. I just don’t understand why I was so miserable.

One of my McAllen friends is thinking about buying a Porsche today. And another is going to finally learn to drive stick so he can use the Mustang Rouge (he currently drives a new beemer because it’s automatic) parked in his garage. No one says anything about my falling apart Jeepo (almost sixteen years old), but they don’t have to: I know what I don’t have. I don’t talk about how much I stress about money, it’s rude, and yet I find myself having elaborate conversations about how I have chosen to be poor, how I’m succeeding, how I’m not a failure because I’m not rich. I forget how much money people have here. How much they’ve always had. How much money I could have here. How much money I could make, on commission, at this desk. If only I applied myself. If only to please the old man. If only to get him to stop complaining about how I’m poor and an artist and not a rich business woman at all.

But I’m just staring at this screen, trying to figure out what it is I can do to pass the time. Without working, that is.