Source.

I had an interesting conversation with someone last night about being different.

This someone is a designer, who creates websites for, among others, photographers. Lots of photographers.

“And so they all say this,” my companion said. “They say they view photography as an art, and they want a site that reflects that. So we design something for them that is unique, right? Something artistic, something out of the box? Different?”

And then what happens? I asked.

“Well,” long sigh, “they’ll get the design. And then, they’ll come back and say, ‘yeah…actually, we just really want our site to look like X famous photographer’s site.’”

His gaze clouded.

“If we push back, explain why this design will help distinguish them and make them NOT look like all the rest, then suddenly a “branding expert” friend will appear and back up the client and say that, yeah, what the client really needs is a site that looks just like X famous photographer’s site.”

At this point, he put his head in his hands, and made the sound one makes after one too many frustrating clients.

+++

Twice by my high school peers, I was voted “Most Changed.” Once during my sophomore year, and again just a couple of years ago, at my high school reunion. Both times, it made me happy, then uncomfortable.

The first time, I had recently gone from a dork like everybody else, all elbows and Cole Haan loafers, to suddenly having boyfriends. It shocked everyone. Especially since said boyfriends weren’t my fellow dorky brethren, but jocky, cocky guys (who all dumped me, but that’s another story). If Rachel Leigh Cook had been a conservative Christian wearing tapered khakis from the Gap instead of being a shy, secretly cool/sexy artist, then you might say my story was a little like She’s All That.

The second time, well, ten years had passed since I saw all those people. And it was lovely! Seriously. But I had bright red hair and was wearing a loud outfit, and everyone I saw was like…whoa! What happened? Where are your Cole Haans? You live in Austin? Are you a liberal? I felt like a unicorn.

Then I was voted “Most Changed” again at the reunion, by my old peers, and couldn’t help but think: “I need to do a better job of communicating who I really am.”

Anyway, just like when I was fifteen, I also thought: “yay! Recognition!” (Isn’t that sad? Twenty freaking eight and still needing the popular kids to like you?) and then almost immediately I was like, “WAIT. You’re making fun of me, aren’t you! Fuck! I fell for it.”

Therein lies the rub: Needing approval ≠ being different.

The reason all those photographers want to look like their more famous peers even though they want to be seen as unique and interesting isn’t so surprising, when you think about it. They (like 15 year-old, 28 year-old, and most likely 76 year-old me) crave that pat on the back, that reassuring “YAY! You’re doing it right!” approval. But approval comes with a price.

I worry that the Internet is slowly making visual and textual automatons of us, or more specifically, me. Trends subconsciously enter my brain, and then my creative output is just like everybody else’s, and sometimes I think the only way to fight that is to forcibly prevent the Internet from getting into my computer, a la Jonathan Franzen.

So I started making this list, because things have been super writer’s blocky for me lately. This happens either when I start caring too much about what the recipient (my client, my editor, you) thinks, or when I experience the occasional wash of apathy that drains the color out of everything I do. So when I crave freshness, to create something different, what exactly do I mean by that? And how to accomplish it?

Here are some ideas I had.

8 Ways to Be Different:

1. WELCOME BOREDOM BACK INTO YOUR LIFE. Being the one person in a public space without a smart phone automatically makes you the most interesting one. I know a guy named Evan who works at the Natural Gardener, grows things, plays French horn, sings, plays ukulele, looks you in the eye when you talk to him…and doesn’t own a cell phone! Not, “doesn’t own a smart phone” – we’re talking NO cellular device of any kind.

I don’t know what Evan does when he’s bored, but whatever it is, it’s not happening on a phone. When he gets bored, he probably goes and does something awesome. Everybody loves Evan.

2. TAKE COMFORT IN BEING THE SAME. I subscribe to the Austin Kleon School that artists, all of them, steal things. Ideas, techniques, identities. By admitting that we’re all basically made of the same stuff, it forces you to focus instead on mastering skills. Which maybe anyone can do, but few have the patience for.

3. REMEMBER THE FEELING YOU HAD WHEN YOU SAW SOMETHING THAT BLEW YOUR MIND. For me, it was discovering Hyperbole and a Half all those years ago. I opened up the site and thought…whoa. I’ve never seen anything like this! Maybe there was a whole underworld of Paintbrush comics out there, but wherever they were, I hadn’t seen them.

So if, like my friend’s photographer clients above, being creatively different is a fear thing, think back to your personal creative paradigm shifters and the way they made you feel.

4. READ THIS BOOK.

5. GO OUTSIDE FOR LONG, EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME and don’t Tweet it. Let those memories be your secret stash. (Every writer needs a secret stash.) I totally violate this rule all the time. But I’m getting better.

6. ABSORB INFORMATION/ART IN SINGULAR WAYS. I.e., in ways that don’t allow you to get distracted, like the good ol’ newspaper. My designer friend with all those photographers cited a super interesting-sounding story about brain research, and the depth of knowledge that sinks in when you read things on paper vs. online. (If you are out there designer friend, send me the link to that!) From your deep knowledge comes richer output.

7. GET INSPIRED BY EVERYONE HERE.

8. KISS YOUR THOUGHTS GOOD-BYE. Easier said than done. But when I need to clear all the BS away, and start channeling the ghost of creativity, nothing works like a good mind-quieting meditation. And you all know my favorite place for that.

If all else fails, you could always cannonball on top of a manatee and most certainly achieve notoriety, if not creative freshness! (Though I’m not sure I’d recommend that.)

This beautiful thing:

…is my friend Katie.

Katie is an artist, an expert kale preparer, a jewelry designer, and possibly a life coach.

She and her shop, i was made — antiquey, gilded baubles of animal bones and old-timey illustrations — will be at Renegade Craft Fair this weekend.

THIS is her stuff:

Renegade Craft Fair is like offline Etsy: tables and tables and tables of delightfully handmade stuff, hawked by the artists themselves. It is also free, and goes on 11a-7p this Saturday + Sunday at Palmer Events Center.

If you are there, look for Katie! Look for Citygram too, one of the official event sponsors!

Hello, old sport!

(Bear with me, Reader. I haven’t even seen Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby yet, but as you can see, my inner English major is rearing its dorky head. Just like how people dress up as hobbits for Lord of the Rings screenings, what would you think of me going to see Great Gatsby dressed as Daisy Buchanan and speaking only in 1920s slang? I’m only halfway kidding about this.)

Courtesy of the very generous Simi Wines, Megan and I went to the Austin Food + Wine Fest a few weekends ago. Now, I’ll be honest with you. I have a hard time writing about stuff like this. Whenever I’m supposed to interview a chef or something, it’s like I figuratively curl up in their lap and say “tell me a story!” And then I write about their story, and that’s that.

Much more difficult, I find, to describe just the food itself in a way that isn’t immediately obvious. “This taco is meaty!” “This cake is sweet!” No joke, that is how I would write about all food, were it not for my trusty thesaurus.

Which is why I always loved Josh Ozersky when he and I were doing that food show last year. Remember that? He was always so descriptive with food, narrating each bite with a historian’s sensibility, and he could tell you for example which New York hamburgers’ meat patties were served exactly flush with their buns, and which were not. That, my friends, is some serious attention to detail.

Anyway, it’s also hard to write about Austin Food + Wine Fest because, let’s face it — it’s people eating and drinking all day. As I overheard one attendee say, “this seems like an event the Real Housewives would go to.” So true! And like a Real Housewife, it’s all too easy to get tipsy and not remember any of the specific, delicious samples that you tried, lost in a haze of Pinot Grigio. So let’s hold lacquered hands, and try to piece things together.

Exhibit A: Sampling champagne slushees.

Early on at the fest, we ran into my Citygram editor Chris Perez, there on the left. He was there with My Well Fed Life blogger and freelance food writer Veronica Meewes, who possesses an amazing tattoo.

Banksy!

So we joined forces, Megan, Chris, Veronica and I, and behaved like one does at these things:

“DID YOU SEE THAT PORK SLIDER WALK BY? I must have that pork slider.”

“No – the beet taco! Turn away from the slider! Get in this line with me and let’s eat a beet taco!!”

“F-k the beet taco, I’m eating this jalapeno-infused chocolate drizzled with a balsamic white wine reduction.”

“Wha?? Where did that come from?”

“Too late, let’s wash everything down with 18 wine samples.”

“Good idea.”

I’m serious, Reader – this is how people, people like myself, talk at these things. It’s overwhelming. But incredibly tasty.

Take, for example – the beet taco! Doesn’t that sound…odd? It was, in fact, our favorite sample of the day. Another surprise? It came from Hickory Street! I had no idea they were foodie-ish.

We swung by Simi’s booth, and chatted a bit with Chef Kolin Vazzoler, who has a terribly exciting last name. Don’t you get excited when you see double z’s? I do.

Kolin served us a fried chicken skin — a chip-like substance — topped with mushroom puree and dried cherry. He also handed us glasses of pinot noir to pair it with, prompting Megan and I to pretend like we were very knowledgeable oenophiles. “An excellent choice!” we cried. And we weren’t lying. It was excellent.

Now, given the choice between salty and sweet, I’ll take the former any day. I don’t have a sweet tooth; I’m like a horse with a salt lick. Which is why I breezed straight past all the cake balls/tiny pies/cookies on sticks/champagne slushees/etc. and made a beeline for anything covered in salami or cheese.

As you can see, I was successful:

Salami courtesy San Francisco-based Columbus, who I had to look up on the Internet because I was too busy stuffing my face to write their name down.

But for me, the main delight of the Austin Food + Wine Fest were wine demos by bad boy sommelier Mark Oldman, who got busted in Austin last year for jaywalking:

A warrant for Mark’s arrest, proudly displayed on his demo table.

Oh, I wish I had a good picture, or better yet a video Reader, of Mark Oldman! I went to his AF+W demo last year too, and it basically consists of every person drinking five glasses of wine each while Mark tells jokes and makes champagne bottles explode with a sword. He does educate you, too, pointing out various wine regions and why the price points of some wines are more or less than others, but I go because he is so damn entertaining, the anti-snob of the wine world. If he comes back next year – provided he isn’t in jail – you’ll love him.

I suppose that’s the reason I go to Austin Food + Wine Fest, because the people are interesting. To have such singular focus, on a type of food, a type of wine, and work at it for years. Don’t get me wrong: I go for the samples, too. But when your taste buds inevitably exhaust, you start looking around at all the people making it, and wonder: What brought you here? What piqued your interest in salami / wine / tiny pies? Do you ever tire of it? Are you in it for the artistry of food? Is there an artistry of food? Or is it just a lizard-brain type of thing, a pleasure response rather than an intellectual one? Are you in it for the service? The way people close their eyes and get dreamy when they bite your food? Is it weird when people grab your samples and jam it in their mouths without saying thanks? Or are you over that? Is the real joy in slicing a sharpened knife through a slab of cured meat, feeling the slices fall cleanly away?

Maybe it’s all of these things.

My yoga class is here!

Starting this coming Wednesday, I have a weekly class at Four Elements Austin, a jaw-droppingly gorgeous studio in downtown Austin (here’s a pic). Light-filled and perched two floors above street level, Four Elements is both a floor yoga and aerial yoga space! For now I’m just teaching floor, but possibly down the road, aerial yoga too.

My Wednesday night class is happy hour time, starting at 6:30p. It’s called Tech Detox Yoga, and is the kind of yoga class I always wanted someone to teach me: Poses, mantras, and breath work to flush out all those technology particles that build up during the day, and to work out any stiffness in your hips/butts/shoulders/wrists that come from sitting at your desk!  I know that whenever I’ve been working at a computer all day, or even just after a good plunge down the social media rabbit hole, I feel off, and so that’s what this class is designed to address. This is an all levels class, with modifications you can tailor to your own body, so bring a friend! Bring Grandma! (Never underestimate Grandma.)

Sign up here. 

**A NOTE ON PARKING**

If you work downtown and are in walking to distance to Four Elements, that’s ideal. If you don’t, it’s street parking on Congress, so give yourself plenty of time to find a spot. You’ll want to park near Manuel’s, between 3rd and 4th (or as close as you can get).

**STUDIO ENTRANCE**

Is right next door to Manuel’s – literally to the right if you’re outside facing the building. The door to Four Elements doesn’t face outward the street, but is tucked into the entryway, so just look for all the yoga-y looking stuff on our front window. Open door, walk up stairs to second floor, and there you are!

I’m so excited, you guys. It’s going to be like this! Not really, but how awesome is that little kid?

Ugh, as if!

Last night on Fresh Air, there was an interview that gave me a lot to think about.

In light of the pretty horrifying Bangladesh clothing factory collapse, Terry Gross spoke with Elizabeth Cline, author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion. They talked mostly about the human rights and environmental cost of living in a fast fashion culture, and how many of the industry’s problems echo similar problems the same ones food had — and the huge locavore / organic movement that sprang up in response.

I was riveted for the whole interview, and thought about the relationship I have with clothes. It’s not all that great.

Unlike food, I don’t really have any hard and fast clothing policies. Nothing’s off limits, and there are plenty of garments from China / Bangladesh / etc. hanging in my closet. Part of the reason for this is because we’ve really come to value clothes as a deeply-held expression of our individuality and artistry, so we shop more than we did a generation ago. We crave variety as a result: I eat up style blogs like the next person. I like it when I think my outfit is unique.

One thing Elizabeth said in the interview really struck me. She said that when she started the book, she owned 350 items of clothing. “Three hundred fifty!!” I sputtered. Then, I counted the clothing in my closet and drawers.

Turns out, I own 150 pieces of clothing.

Which BLEW my mind. I consider my closet on the smallish side, and I don’t shop all that frequently. But sifting through pieces, I also realized how much of my closet was filler. Clothes I’ve long stopped wearing; clothes I never should have bought in the first place.

I remember when my friend Indiana wrote a moving, heartfelt post on growing up poor and getting addicted to cheap clothing, which led to maxed out credit cards, rented storage to contain all of her garments, and a rock bottom moment of sorts that forced her to reassess her relationship to clothing.  It was one of the first times I had ever read a style blogger say, “hey, maybe all these outfits aren’t what they’re cracked up to be,” and I really admired her for that, because I think it’s an unpopular stance to have in the style blogging world. To call attention to all that consumption.

I’ve spent years trying to figure out “my style,” and I think it’s an ever-shifting thing with no center. But I’m attracted to the idea lately of just being a classic dresser, something I never thought I’d say, simply because it’s easier to invest in a few, ethically-made, quality pieces and be done with it. You know?

I’ll admit: fashion is fun, trying on different identities and pretending to be various people. Am I a hippie today? How about a 60s mod? Etc. But, I’ve always felt a little sheepish getting ridiculously cheap clothing, and now I know why. Elizabeth mentioned that the Bangladesh factory she went undercover in paid their workers $37/month. And then that factory collapsed on people, and that’s the real cost.

Which brings me to Austin. There are tons of places to eat ethically. But where can you shop ethically? It’s tough. Here’s a starter list:

-Noonday Collection (WOW)

-Good & Fair Clothing, who visited with Austin Eavesdropper last year

-ATown, which carries Raven + Lily, a conscious clothing brand

-Purse & Clutch

-Hill Country Hill Tribers

-Ten Thousand Villages

-Tons of Austin handmade shops on this Etsy Austin page

-And from Lauren Modery at Hipstercrite, a great case for shopping at American Apparel

(There’s also fabric to consider too, which seems to be the larger ethical challenge. We find our local clothing producers, but a local fabric-maker? THAT is a tall order. I’ve been Googling around, and haven’t found any in Austin. If you are aware of any, let me know.)

Here’s the last point I want to make about this. Like food, some people can only afford to buy cheap clothing. I get that. I grew up positively begging my mom to take me to GapKids, and my wish wasn’t granted until I was in 5th grade because we couldn’t afford it. Until then, Mom made a lot of my clothes, which I thought was super uncool then, but which I think is ridiculously cool now.

So there’s no need to demonize people on a tight budget. This is simply about shifting one’s relationship to clothing: to think the next time we swipe our card at Zara (gah, a store whose style I admittedly crave) or H&M, just like we started thinking about GMO’s and factory beef and things like that. I know we were all so jazzed to get H&M here last year so I feel like the preachy grandma for raining on our parade. Sorry!

But, I’m going to start putting a little more thought into this. I don’t put any thought into the ethics of my shopping now, so anything will be an improvement.

I’d also really love to know what you guys think about all this too. What’s your relationship to clothing?

PHOTO // Via Glamour

David, one of my husband’s music students, rockin’ out at 29th Street Ballroom.

Recently, I got an email from a reader, Meg, asking me how Ross went about starting a music school. It was so sweet that I thought I’d share part of it with you:

“…you talked about your husband Ross and how he is a musician and teaches kid’s music. I’ve searched your blog, so pardon me if you’ve already written on this topic, but I would love to hear more about Ross and how he made that work.”

You are right, Meg! I haven’t written on that topic!

The whole time Austin Eavesdropper has existed, Ross’s music school has been lurking in the background. First it was a dream, then it was a series of loan applications, and now it’s an actual studio in our backyard. So! Here is the story of how he started his very own School of Rock.

The first thing you need to know, is that my husband is a passionate musician.

Maybe “passionate” isn’t even the right word. “Asperger’s” might be closer. The man literally practices music, usually drums or guitar, for at least three hours every single day. He has played in several bands, including that of Black Joe Lewis, riiiight before Black Joe got big and famous. (Hi, Joe!)

But, being a passionate/obsessive musician won’t pay the bills in a town like Austin. So in 2002 he got a job bar tending, and one day, a customer struck up a conversation with him.

CUSTOMER: Hey. You play guitar, right?

ROSS: I sure do!

CUSTOMER: My son would like some guitar lessons. Could you come over and do that?

ROSS: I sure can!

CUSTOMER: Great. Just know that his school has a special teaching approach, so you might want to keep that in mind when you come.

When Ross got there, he took out his guitar, and his customer’s six year-old son proceeded to show him how to play it. Did he know that the neck was for drumming? He did not. Or that the best way to form a chord was to play all the strings, all at once? No he didn’t, but we was so happy to have that finally clarified!

Needless to say, they didn’t do a lot of hardcore guitar instruction that day. But, the family loved him.

So Ross applied to become a teacher at the kid’s school, a little progressive private place operated out of the Perry Mansion. Soon, he started a music program in one of the spare classrooms, and kept on bar tending at night to supplement his income. This was about the time I met him.

Proto-selfie! As you can see, I took this with a regular camera.

We got married in 2007, and lived in an old pile of limestone with our friend Caleb. This was in Hyde Park, my beloved Hyde Park, and our house — down the street from the school — was right next to a creek. Our buddy Jason lives there now, and Caleb does too, and every time I visit I make it a point to stand next to one of the windows just so I can listen to the creek the way I used to.

In 2011, we got the scary news that the school was going to close. Which brings me to the second thing you need to know about Ross: he is extremely resourceful.

“You want to buy a house?” he asked me, just after we found out.

“With what?” I said. “Haha, just kidding. I want to buy a house. Seriously though: with what?”

Nevermind a down payment: He was already busy scheming. We asked one of the parents from the school to be our realtor, and together, the three of us looked for a place with a big enough backyard to build a music studio. Which was an adventure, involving driveway aesthetics, a part-man/part-wolf creature, and overall tests of marital mettle, but we finally, joyously found one. We moved in on the day Kate and William got married, and I remember because Perez Hilton and Nene Leakes were on TV narrating the festivities. (What channel was that on?).

That left one more hurdle: Convincing a bank to give us a building loan.

For months after we moved into our new house, Ross made phone call after phone call to banks, getting rejected every time. We didn’t have enough collateral, our income history wasn’t impressive enough, the recession was still going and banks were cranky.

“Maybe you should just rent a studio space somewhere else?” I’d suggest gently.

But NO – he was going to make this happen.

And you know what? He did.

Ross willed his little studio into being, and it’s now almost two years old! The construction took two months, and the structure is a feat of soundproofing: We had to make the walls extra thick so that the music (which includes, to my extreme delight, ACDC performed by 8-year-olds) wouldn’t disturb the neighborhood. Here’s what it looks like on the inside:

His school is called We Love Music (we’re still finishing the website), and these days, Roos works with 27 students a week. At first, all of his students came from our old school — the one that shut down — but now, it’s about half those students, half new ones. They range in age from 5 to 17, and take guitar, drums, bass, keyboard, and ukulele lessons. The school acts a recording studio too; Ross turns their music into polished tracks.

This is my favorite part, though. Often, Ross will form his students into kid bands, and they give themselves awesome band names like The Electric Sock Things and The Face Melters.

Henry, drummer for The Face Melters

Twice a year, the students of We Love Music have a recital at 29th Street Ballroom, where they get to perform their music chops live. Several of them play covers — there are a lot of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Tom Petty fans at his school — but lots write their own music. You may recall, for example, the most adorable song in the world, written by Ross’s student Mabry (pictured just above), which ended up getting played on KOOP for Valentine’s Day.

So, this is what Ross does full-time! It’s hard to support yourself as a musician, but it IS possible.

Every time someone asks me what my husband does for a living, I feel so proud telling them. I know. It’s cheesy! You are so allowed to roll your eyes. But, I think the reason the school is successful is because Ross is a gifted teacher. He doesn’t have a rote set of curriculum that he makes every kid work through; rather, he finds out what THEY are interested in (song writing, guitar solos, playing along to The Ramones), and shapes their lessons around that. His students have gone on to front critically-acclaimed Austin bands, like this one, and also to play their own gigs around town before they graduate high school. That’s not the goal for all of them — some of them just want to play drum-banging games with Ross for an hour — but no matter who they are, they always walk out of our studio grinning, feeling like genuine rockstars.

And I’m happy to be married to someone who makes kids feel that way.

(Thank you, Meg, for inspiring this post.)

So, guess what? I’m writing for a new magazine! It is called Citygram, and was started by my dear friend, Chris Perez of Apartment Therapy.

I remember having a conversation about three years ago with another friend of mine, Andy Langer, about how tablets were going to save the magazine industry. Here’s how that conversation went:

ANDY: I think tablets are going to save the magazine industry.

ME: What’s a “tablet?”

ANDY: You know, it’s like an iPhone, but magazine-sized.

ME: Psshhh. Get out!

ANDY: No, really, Apple is about to release them.

ME: Haha…uh, ok Andy! Whatever you say! “Tablet.” HA.

This pretty much sums up why I am not a tech writer.

Anyway, turns out Andy was right, and tablets are saving the magazine industry. Citygram is one such tablet-based rag and has really neato features, like fashion editorials that move and restaurant recommendations with instant-reservations buttons, as well as good old-fashioned glossy photos and storytelling. You will recognize lots of contributors on its digital pages, such as Lauren Modery from Hipstercrite, Joanna Wilkinson from Keep Austin Stylish, Jess Simpson from Forgiving Martha, Amy Lynch from OneSmartPopTart, interior designer Sarah Stacey, artist Callen Thompson, Dr. Alex Carrasco, and designer Chris McCray, who designed the inside of beautiful Lenoir.

Our first issue features a cover story with hotelier/goddess Liz Lambert, as well as a story from Joy the Baker!

We are currently running a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the first issue (see the video above), and if you are an arts and culture geek like me, your contribution will be very well spent. Mostly because it comes with a make out session with the contributors. Kidding! That would be…a lot of making out.

Here is where to follow Citygram online:

-Website
-Facebook
-Twitter
-Instagram
-Pinterest

And, I’ll keep you posted on developments!

Pictures of beautiful Vuka, co-working space just off S. 1st. I shot these for my travel guide client, HUNT Guides.

Lately, it seems like everyone I know is quitting their day jobs.

You’ll recall that I did last October. Since then, three of my friends have too. Some of them have new work lined up. Some of them are inventing the work. With things like healthcare and 401K plans available over the Internet, we figured, why not?

According to this Forbes article someone forwarded me, “many women view corporations today as being fundamentally flawed and limiting in their value structures.” That sounds about right. I’ve actually never worked for a big corporation — the biggest entity I worked for was the University of California system — but I’ve got enough friends at Dell to know it’s not just a woman thing.

My first big girl job here in Austin was with a book publishing company that went bankrupt several years ago. There were wonderful people at that job, but my God, were our offices depressing. Located in an office park not far from the one where Office Space was filmed, we had this vast concrete lot with one small, sad grassy knoll poking out of the middle. Sometimes, usually around 3:00, I’d go outside and stand on that grassy knoll, just barely big enough to hold me, and gaze out over the Taco Bell and Texaco in the distance. “This is my life,” I’d sigh. “Somebody help me.”   

Later, when the company moved to a building nearby, a man flew a plane into the IRS building down the street. All I’m saying is, there was some weird energy in that area.

So when I got a job in the same field, book publicity, only working from home, my first thought was – “this is my life, and it’s about to be AMAZING.” And I was right! It was amazing.

But eventually I figured out that PR wasn’t for me, and despite the cushiness of sleeping in, not commuting, only getting marginally dressed and only then when I felt like it, I realized that my job was indeed cool, but freelancing (specifically, freelance writing) would be even cooler. And I was right about that too! I love my work life now.

However, there are drawbacks to freelancing. Here are four:

1. Not getting dressed. I’m convinced that 50% of being a successful anything involves getting up and putting on new clothes that you haven’t slept in.

2. Not being nice. By which I mean, not socializing. This is the other 50% of being successful: being a person others want to be around. And when you are around others, being nice, you usually get more opportunities.

3. Not having a schedule. This really scrambled my digits when I went freelance: not having a stucture. Because trust me, on your first day of non-corporate job freedom, you will wake up at around 9 or 10, have a leisurely breakfast, do an hour of work, have a leisurely lunch, then go directly to Barton Springs. Why? Because you CAN! Work freedom really is like crack. It’s hard not to binge during those first glorious days.

But then, that lack of structure starts to make you feel weird, because you’re all, “am I lazy?” and then you start obsessively checking your bank account to prove to yourself that you are not, in fact, lazy, but productive and solvent, and to prove it, you stay up until 1am working because you did wake up at 11am after all and hey, gotta make up for lost time. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything.

4. Not knowing whether you’re doing it right. I’ve talked about this before, this feeling of wondering if you are professionally awesome or professionally floundering, and everyone’s just too nice to tell you. I think that’s why money becomes so important to freelancers. Money’s important to everyone, but when you divorce yourself from a tidy system of promotions and raises and company accolades, money (and your own mushy, unreliable inner cues) becomes an even more important (-seeming) yardstick for measuring your competence.

So. If you are freelancing, but also experiencing one of the unfortunate states above, what are you to do?

Co-work.

Listen: co-working if freaking fabulous. “But why would I pay for an office when I just quit an office?” I hear you saying. Oh my God, it’s so not like your old office. Soooooo not like your old office.

I’ve gotten clients from my various co-working spots. That’s because networking there is easy, unlike most awkward networking events. Also, your co-workers aren’t your competitors or bosses or anything like that, so there’s no pressure to manically x out of your Facebook page when someone walks by. And, although I haven’t been to all of them, most co-working spaces are pretty cool-looking.

Austin is positively exploding in rad co-working spaces right now. I sometimes go to Link, near my house, and also Vuka, which has free co-working on Fridays and has the added benefit of being beautiful. Now, granted — I still work from home, I still work from coffee shops; sometimes I’ll start the day working from home but get so stir crazy that I drive to a coffee shop; sometimes the coffee shop is too social and I have to come home! But, if you are a lone contractor/freelancer/real estate agent/someone else who usually works by his or herself and is wondering whether it’s actually worth a few hundred dollars to pay a monthly co-working membership fee, I’m saying, it is.

Here is an Austin co-working space list, broken down by neighborhood:

NORTH/CENTRAL:

Link

Posh Coworking

Plug and Play (perk: on-site childcare)

EAST:

Brainstorm Coworking

Opportunity Space

Perch Coworking

Soma Vida

Conjunctured

Space 12

Chicon Collective

Center61

DOWNTOWN:

GoLab Austin

Capital Factory

SOUTH:

Vuka (featured in those pics above)

Hub Austin

Go forth and co-work, my fellow Austin freelance brethren! And if you know of a co-working space in town that hasn’t been added to this list, please do let me know about it in comments. I’ll keep it updated as I hear of more.

If you already co-work, what has your experience been like?

Cat Marnell. Source: Jezebel

While listening to Slate Double X Gabfest a few days ago, I made the discovery of writer Cat Marnell.

Cat’s half a million dollar book advance for her memoir has gone a little viral, so chances are, you’ve heard of Cat. If you haven’t, she is, in a nutshell:

-A former beauty writer/editor at Lucky and xoJane, as well as a former Vice columnist,

-A very public drug user,

-A writer whose main subject matter is her drug use,

-The daughter of a wealthy family from Bethesda, Maryland, a graduate of a boarding school in Massachusetts, and current resident of New York City.

We’ll come back to that last bullet in a minute.

Anyway, I dove right into the whole Cat story. I learned that she is my age, 30. I found out that my friend Sarah Hepola, a former editor of mine, wrote a piece about her for New York Times Magazine that was as worrisome as it was insightful and gorgeously vulnerable. And like Sarah, my immediate reaction to the Cat narrative was: Fuck. I’ve lived too boring a life.

No drug addiction, two parents who love me, a spouse who does too. Taxes paid on time. Catalogs from Pottery Barn.

And It’s funny. Because, writing this to you now, I can of course shake my head and go, wait, what? I love my life. I’m so, so, sososososo lucky to have my life.

So it’s not exactly Cat’s escapades on angel dust I crave. I feel…too old for that.

It’s her balls. And this is actually the thing I wanted to write about.

+++

The ballsiest piece of autobiographical writing I wrote for the Internet was this piece on a naked yoga class I took here in Austin, that Sarah edited it for me. After it went live, I freaked out. I was like — oh my God! My conservative Christian clients are going to read this, and I may get fired!!

But then, they didn’t. Or maybe they did, but didn’t care.

Either way, it lit me up for about a day and a half with anxiety. When that burned off I felt proud, because hey, it was a cool piece. And then I felt anxious again because I wondered what I would have to do next to get published in a national literary outlet.

It’s au courant to brand oneself, so after that piece, I thought, “should I get publicly naked again? Is this my…thing?”

It’s not my thing. Not because I’m squeamish about nudity, but because I care way too much about what people think to go and repeat something like that. It was a total on-a-whim kind of a deal, and when I thought about upping the ante by marching into a grocery store with no clothes on or something, I didn’t think, “that would be an amazing story.” I thought, “that sounds traumatizing.” Unless I bumped into somebody I knew, in which case, would be both traumatizing and an amazing story.

But when I read Cat’s writing, I can’t help but admire how much she lets it all hang out. Even if some of her tales aren’t quite true — she just doesn’t worry about the things I worry about.

Here is a list of all the things I have tried to write about on the Internet, then walked it back because I was scared of the consequences:

–Fights with my husband,

–Watching a friend roll off a cliff (a short cliff, but still), land in the Greenbelt waters, and get airlifted out,

–Drugs I tried in my 20s,

–My actual honest-to-God heartfelt feelings on, well, God (or Source or the universe or spirit or Goddess or whatever you want to call it)

–A friend from junior high whose dad hit her,

–Overdrafting my bank account (which gives me heart palpitations even if it’s, like, $20),

–A really amazing therapist I saw briefly in college,

–A boyfriend I cheated on from college, who passed away recently,

–How much I wish I could take that action back,

–But at the same time, how much I love my husband whom maybe I wouldn’t have gotten with if I stayed with that boyfriend, and how much I think about his family, his eight brothers and sisters, including the youngest one who used to draw on my hand with a pen and how one of my nephews does that exact same thing now and how isn’t life funny that way — sad, but comforting too.

Just making that list was terrifying.

+++

So, back to the bullet point from earlier, about Cat’s economic background.

The main reason I’ve always been scared to reveal too much about my life on the Internet (and while each item above will probably never see the light of day in article or story format) is because I’m scared no one will hire me if I do.

Having read up on Cat’s life, it sounds like her home life was not a happy one. And I feel so strange, being tempted to psychologize this person from the Internet that I don’t know. So, I won’t.

All I know is, I can’t imagine what it’s like to not have parents that love you and cheerlead you, and the more I go through life, the more I realize that I’m probably in the minority for having had that experience. If drugs are the way you fill up the hole left by that pain — well, who am I to judge?

And yet.

Are you freer to be free on the Internet when you come from means?

Can you share the darkest aspects of your life in a public forum, future employers be damned, if money isn’t an issue?

Please DO judge me for suggesting that. I welcome your feedback in the comments section.

But, gawking spectator that I am, I’m trying to tease out all of my feelings surrounding Cat and her career, and the most bizarre one I’ve felt so far isn’t jealousy. It’s resent. That privilege may, in fact, afford some writerly freedoms. My parents are 100% awesome and supportive and always will be, but, I still have to work.

Which is NOT to say that a life like Cat’s is preferable, or that it doesn’t warrant the natural human reaction of concern and sympathy I think most of us have when we see someone using drugs a lot, even if that someone is a stranger from the Internet. Given the choice between Cat’s glamorous but also troubling life, one where her writing career is inextricably linked with her self-destruction, one where her family seems to be somewhat estranged and one where her public brand relies on all those pills, and then, my calm sunshiney life in Austin, well then of course. I’m going with mine.

It’s just that in an age of transparency and ZOMGness, I question all the time if I should turn the writing lens on myself, ever, if I’m not willing to go there there. Sarah put it so perfectly in her piece:

“I worry about anyone who is lighting themselves on fire for our enjoyment. I worry about the bloggers and viral stars who have burned up so much of themselves for the prize of a few thousand followers. Our attention span is so short these days. One minute you’re a meteorite lighting up Google Trends, the next minute you fall back to earth, another piece of ugly, busted-up coal.”

She’s right. And yet, my fellow writers, aren’t you tempted to light the match sometimes?

I know I am. But I don’t, because I’m scared.

It’s so magical, right.

Bull Creek is this glorious little swimming hole and hiking trail near our house, and every time I go, there’s usually 10 other people, tops. There’s also a stretch along the trail that gets super Middle Earthy.

I stopped by last Friday, to snap some pictures for a place I’m writing for now. An arty little travel guide called The HUNT Guides. There were teenagers perched on a rock, making out; this dog, bounding through the river for his ball; and me, walking along the trail until the sun started going down. I wanted to wrap my arms around the whole thing.

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