welcome to munchkinland

i've already told several friends this one and, in the process, taken enough verbal abuse to stiffen the tin man for a year with all his tears. so i might as well stand up tall and come out, come out with it.

you see, a few months back i had a disturbing dream. only i didn't think it was disturbing until i woke up. all during my slumber i was quite surprised to learn just how much fun having sex with a midget could be. i mean, the way they're built, they're just so...accommodating. i could toss him, turn him and spin him any which way that took my fancy. and now my boyfriend (who used to think it was so cute that we are the exact same height) has developed an anti-napoleon complex. sometimes i catch him going barefoot while i'm still wearing shoes just so he can capitalize on the one to two inches he loses.

since then, i have had no less than FOUR midget sightings in the past few weeks. now i don't know about you, but before then i'd probably only seen one or two real-life little people in my nearly 29 years. am i now pyscho-kinetically connected to them? i'm not sure if it's all the beach sand in my brain or if it's god playing a little carnie prank on me.

to the best of my knowledge i don't think i have a midget fetish. but if i do, it's probably best left dealt with by my unconscious self. after all, this ain't no lollipop guild. but flying monkeys, now there's something interesting...

5 to 9

Tick-work, tick-work, tick-work. The time can seem to go by in billable minutes when you're not looking. We spend 60-70% of our lives working and it's always amazed me to realize how many people I know are unhappy in their jobs. I mean, it's your LIFE. In my opinion, it's absolutely critical to love what you do.

The past couple of weeks have been incredibly hectic for me. Late night business pitches, red-eye flights, between-meeting costume changes, brilliance on command....at times I feel like nothing more than a dancing monkey. But then, I'm a fantastic dancer and I've always loved monkeys.

I despise karaoke, but the one time a friend did manage to trick me onstage, I paid homage (not that I have the voice to back up that word choice) to Dolly Parton's "9 to 5". At the time I was busy working with a team of young advertising rockstars on an outside project competition. Needless to say, we won the competition and my celebratory spirit misguided me into thinking I could sing in front of an audience just as well as I could present a communications plan. Sure, I had the dancing and stage presence down, but I was horrified at the warbling voice that reverberated back at me through the speakers. Certainly it was a joke? My echoed bathroom and roaring road trip voices are much more representative of my singing ability.

But I was singing for the freedom of it. Because I had put in more work than necessary in order to win. My ambition, though flighty, has always surprised me.

I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit I recently read the guilty pleasure, The Devil Wears Prada. It's the story of a bright, but achingly dedicated girl completely and utterly dominated by a tyrannical bitch. The whole time I read it, I counted each blessed angel in my career. I've heard gruesome stories from friends, but I've always managed to have the most inspirational mentors. They taught me the worth and fun of a career. And I've realized how much this has affected me and what my future will be. No matter what happens, what path my career takes, I will never, ever settle for anything less than what makes me happy.

In the words of the indomitably inhuman Miranda Priestly: "That's all."

Smoke & Mirrors

I'm not sure when I officially became a smoker...when the addiction really took hold. I can recall a strong feeling of knowing that I could still quit - but I lost it somewhere along the way between being the person asking "hey, can I bum a smoke?" and the one irritably relenting, "sure, have one of mine." I made it to the point of lamenting an emptied box after an all-night outing, but not to the point of actually buying cartons (thank God).

I remember watching those first few episodes of "Sex and the City." Carrie made smoking look so fabulous. A long, lighted cigarette was the perfect accessory to any outfit, the final touch to each devastatingly poignant scene. I worshiped the ending to each show with her at her laptop, cigarette hanging out of the corner of her lips, concluding some wonderfully profound thought.

But it wasn't just the look of it. It's what it represented: smoking makes you cooler. You look like you've got something significant to do, completely indifferent to those around you because you're just too cool. But for me, it began to run deeper than that. Because I started to smoke in my Jeep when no one was around to even appreciate how damn cool I looked. "Sweet Home Alabama" or Lenny Kravitz's "Lady" would come on the radio and I would feel I had no choice but to immediately grab for the pack and struggle with the lighter in the wind for a few minutes before deeply inhaling and then shouting out the lyrics on the exhale. It was exhilarating. It was breaking the rules. It was James Dean and Colin Farrell and Thelma & Louise.

My grandmama smoked for years until an emphysema threat finally scared her off. My mom drew deeply on her Virginia Super Slims underneath a sun hat by the pool until her high blood pressure and incessant coughing stole the fun from it.


It's been almost three weeks since I've had a cigarette now. I took five minutes off my jogging time. I look in the mirror and see whiter teeth, healthier skin. I don't see Carrie the fabulous smoker anymore, but I do see Carrie the writer I so wanted to be. Because in the end I realized something: you can take the cigarette out of your hand and the smug look off your face...and the person looking back at you in the mirror will be cooler than ever.