This is what it looks like to have a hard time making a change
Some days I look through old posts, reminding myself of posts that I’ve written that I like and that I should link to. Often, this process serves to let me procrastinate writing while pretending to be engaged in writing. If I were a body builder, this would be me looking in the mirror instead of lifting weights.
Yesterday I was trolling for posts, and I remembered this one, about hiring a babysitter. I never link to it because I can’t read it. I get physically ill. It was a short, stinging moment during an absolutely terrible time in my life. But a part of me likes that sting. I’m the kind of girl that picks scabs off just to feel like I’m alive.
So you can imagine that a blog post about how to sell is not rocking my world. It’s true that I’ve been thinking a lot about creating more stability in my life. But it’s also true that in the recent post about what I learned from sales guys, I should have told you that when I met one of those sales guys on a plane, I went to a hotel and had sex with him. I had never had a one-night stand and I thought I should know what it’s like. And it was terrible. I like picking scabs, but it’s very controlled. It’s hard to control a one-night stand, and it was, actually, very scary and not fun at all.
I want this blog to be somewhere in between a one-night stand with a sales guy and a five-point list of sales tips. In fact, I want my life to be that way as well.
A few days ago I flew to LA to get my haircut. I know that sounds crazy, but remember that I live in the middle of Wisconsin. Also, my best friend, Sharon, is in LA, and she owns a hair salon, and she’s been cutting my hair for 15 years. Before I was her free-haircut-friend, a cut and color with her was about $300. So I feel like the plane ticket, together with the free haircut, is somehow still a bargain.
I go there on a day the salon is closed, and we do my hair and then spend the day hanging out in Santa Monica talking.
At lunch, outside, with cars driving by, I tell Sharon I need a break. I need a vacation. I have been working absolutely insane hours for the last five years. I traveled so much that when I get on a plane now, I have panic attacks.
She said, “What would you do on vacation?”
Me: “I’d probably wake up, take the kids to school, go to the gym, write a blog post, and then work on whatever company I was percolating. And then pick the kids up at school.”
So I don’t really want a vacation. I want breathing room. But not a vacation. To be honest, I still work at night. I am not sure why. I think because I’m interested in what people are doing. In what I’m doing. I don’t want to miss anything because everything is still fun.
I think working at night is like picking scabs. It feels lively to solve some problems before I go to bed. Or create some. (Same way with pulling a scab, right?)
After lunch, Sharon and I drove to Culver City, to get my eyebrows done. I usually go to NYC for eyebrows. But I don’t want to travel anymore, so I don’t want to have a hair person in LA and an eyebrow person in NY. So, as a step toward simplifying my life, I did my eyebrows in LA.
I liked the place immediately because there was a whole display of gray nail polish and I know gray is the it-color for fall, and I know no one is wearing it yet in Madison, so I had high hopes for my eyebrows.
But they are uneven. Sharon tried to tell me they were okay, but good friends, really, don’t do that. So in the end, she didn’t. And I’m going back to NY next time.
I know you’ll say, “Just find someone else in LA.” It’s not bad advice. In fact, this is what Sharon said.
But I’m upset about the eyebrows, about how it turned out. It’s hard to make changes, even if the changes could make my life more calm. It’s so easy to convince ourselves that the change is too difficult to make. For eyebrows, for a blog, for a career.
after i finish with my university stuff.. i will spend more time to read your older post currently i just have enough time to read your latest post.
sometime when you not update i do read one-two your older post.. and i almost like all :)
Holy what the what? I have no idea what you’re trying to say in this post, but it’s entertaining! The whole one night stand thing was a riot. As was the eyebrow story. Come on! Everyone knows that if you want your brows done right, you have to go to NY! Thanks for the post! -A.
Change is stressful even good changes. One of the reasons why I think work-life balance is a fallacy. Soon as we get a sense of balance we shake things up. When things are unstable we want things to settle again. But that’s not very exciting and we don’t like that….I think a holiday is a step off the roller coaster. It feels so refreshing to stop lurching around for a while and it gives you a sense of the bigger picture. Of course then you get back on and start all over again.
Change… I’m doing some of that right now, and I know the feeling. I think I’m trying to swallow a whole elephant at once, instead of one piece at a time, and it only makes things worse.
Interesting post about eyebrows! I like how you started it like one of those sitcom episodes with 90% flashbacks :-) You have an extensive archive to draw from so well done.
Except eyebrows are important, and rogue hair management is key. Changing the reliable sources for this kind of maintenance is no small task.
The type of sales people you admire are everywhere. I am afraid of the hard sell. I don’t know if my husband is more worried for me or the salesperson when he sees the hard sale coming. Usually, it overwhelms me, and I run away as quickly as possible, but sometimes I lash out in anger. (Please do not try your psychological kung fu on me.)
Last weekend, I was letting the lady go at one of those mall kiosks go on because I liked the psychology of it all. It was like having a copy of Cialdini’s book, Influence, right there. I didn’t get too anxious because mentally I was flipping back and forth through the chapters to see what method the salesperson was trying. I let her go on and on, and I walked away with two manicure sets for slightly too much money. But we all have to give in to curiosity some time, no?
“I want this blog to be somewhere in between a one-night stand with a sales guy and a five-point list of sales tips. In fact, I want my life to be that way as well.”
I’m not sure what that means, but I like it.
I really like that you’re posting so much more frequently now because reading about how you’re succeeding but sometimes struggling has a calming effect on me. Often, I feel like too many of the blogs I read are telling me what to do, how I can be happy like the author. But what about how hard things can be? I like that you write about when things are hard and frustrating.
I also thought there was something wrong with me because I always pick and pull of scabs. Glad to hear that’s not quite so weird a habit.
Vinita’s for eyebrows in LA. Threading (which makes my eyebrows look awesome and doesn’t irritate my skin like waxing) for $10, and if you go during a weekday there’s usually not a long wait. All of the ladies are good, Jen is the best. On Westwood Blvd. just south of Wilshire. Maybe you don’t have to go to NY after all?
I’m in NE WI and am actually doing the gray thing today. But you’re right… it takes time for trends to get here.
I also travel for cut/color/eye brows. But it’s only a 45 minute drive. I found a girl that I LOVE and don’t trust anyone else now.
I bet you could find someone much closer to Madison and have much more breathing room. Next time you see someone with a great haircut/color or fab eyebrows, ask her where she gets her hair done.
If you’re anywhere near Sheboygan, I’d appreciate the name of a good stylist.
Nope, sorry… I go to Appleton.
A Quote:
“I’m the kind of girl that picks scabs off just to feel like I’m alive.” I would like to say that the best girlfriend I ever had, out a total of 6, was a reformed cutter. I miss her. Nyla, where art thou?
Also, your natural and unsullied beauty can’t be marred by a mere imbalance in the eye brows. Asymmetry can be compelling.
Finally, I am not a natural sales person, however, in my current contract, I have to get on the phone and get past the gates, and seduce developers to play with our tools, and the CTO’s to sign for our services.
I have been noticing whereas sales pros thrive on this hunt, and do it day after day, it completely exhausts me in a week or so, and any amount of success in closing deals does not negate my need to take long breaks – a week sometimes.
That is not the profile of a professional technology marketer.
But I have something the sales pro’s don’t have….P_Lope Here ME:
Remember the Wizard when he says to each of Dorothy’s troupe “men of great thoughts blah blah, but what do they have that you do not?” the Wizard asks the scarecrow. “A Diploma”.
Well, I have my failures and my suffering, my hard won Gurdjieffian training, and my broad experience as a freelance analyst. I know more that sales pro’s, I can do more where knowledge counts in the most strategic accounts.
What so they have that you don’t have? Everything that the mass of humanity it seems, deemed useless on my CV, one key client saw as essential, and entrusted his small, lucrative, bootstrapped company’s future (and new product path) to me.
Pick them scabs baby, they are yours to pick.
I totally get this but I don’t think you need to extrapolate too much from this particular challenge. Change can be overwhelming and you undertake it with energy and in the end, when you’re weary, it’s easy to wonder “Why can’t I just find a decent place to get a haircut?!”
But step back, and remember how much you’ve already adapted to. It’s the simple things you took for granted, that you maybe didn’t think mattered all that much, that surprise you when they seem so difficult. What *is* the fastest way to the grocery store? What is the most convenient place to get my morning coffee? To get the oil changed? Where can I buy goggles for swim lessons? Where should I sign up for swim lessons?? These are the ones that trip me up then I move to a new city but it just takes time. It took you time to find the best ones that you are already comfortable with and in time, you’ll find what you need where you need it.
Give yourself a break, you’re doing a really good job at adapting at your own pace!
I think hands down the most admirable quality of your blogging efforts is the level of authenticity you put into everything. You don’t hold back at all.
You don’t have to go to LA for hair and NY for brows. That is completely and utterly ridiculous, excessive and wasteful.
There are plenty of talented people in Madison, WI.
“A few days ago I flew to LA to get my haircut. I know that sounds crazy, but remember that I live in the middle of Wisconsin.”
That’s pretty insulting. You’re just not trying hard enough, frankly. I’m not saying its easy to find someone for these types of tasks, but you don’t have to fly across the country to get your hair cut. This seems to me to be a vulgar display of wealth and a waste of resources. Try some of the trendier places in Madison. I’d be happy to recommend some… Oh wait, no, I must be a WI hick with no idea about fashion, style or trends.
I think the point of this blog item was to brag about having enough money to go to L.A. just for hair and N.Y. just for eyebrows. And then complain about spending too much time on a plane. Money can’t fix stupid, I guess.
Agreed to both of the above comments. It boggles my mind. Unless you’ve got some craziness or major unibrow action going on, no one is going to notice if your eyebrows are EVEN or not. I go every 2 weeks to get my eyebrows done at a place 4 blocks from my house. $8. Inbetween waxes, if I need to, I tweeze.
Must be nice living in your ultra-plush world, Penelope.
For eyebrow waxing in L.A. go to Marina at Smile Skin Care:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/smile-skin-care-salon-los-angeles
Most people who have known me a long time (and who know me well enough to tell me) say I have the same haircut I had in 8th grade. I like to use that to point out what a trendsetter I was in 8th grade, but I don’t think that is their point.
I notice, though, that in other areas of my life, I am constantly evolving. And obviously you are, as well. Maybe the energy everyone has for change is both variable and finite and we all use it just a little bit differently.
Entertaining, as usual. I’m just wondering, though: Many of your posts are about your sex life, and, from what you’ve written about banging some dude while you were still married to someone else, having one-night stands, having multiple unwanted pregnancies and abortions, you sound like a pretty big ho. Is this intentional?
Infidelity, casual sex and unwanted pregnancies are all very common, and I take exception to the fact that any one of these things makes you “a ho.” There are plenty of good people who do one or all of these things and just don’t say anything about it. People make bad choices, accidents happen, and there’s nothing wrong with casual sex. Penelope is human, not a ho.
Clarifying: neither my ex husband nor I cheated. That’s important to me.
Another clarifier. I think your fantasies are more interesting than what you are reading on my blog. If you had been reading my column/blog since 1999 you would have read about me having sex with five men. You might ask yourself why you translate this in your head to be excessive.
Maybe if you had more women in your life talking about their sex life in a frank way, you would not find this sort of talk so jarring.
Penelope
“Maybe if you had more women in your life talking about their sex life in a frank way, you would not find this sort of talk so jarring.”
I know I criticized you earlier for dissing Madison, I totally agree with this. The idea that a women who is sexual or otherwise bold is somehow a “Ho” is ridiculous.
-Mike
The most interesting part about this post is you have a best friend named Sharon and I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned her. I’ve always wondered where your friends were (especially female friends) during the times in a person’s life when friends are usually there.
Oh you are so cute. I know I’m supposed to comment about the subject of your post, and add value to discussions of career, but what if the answer just turns out to be that you succeed when people find you endearing? That and because they think that if monsters came you could fight them?
Change hurts. A lot. Other than a few demented souls most people hate change. Whether it be little changes or big changes you’re bound to complain about it. Begrudge it.
The silly part is that embracing the pain means more freedom. I’ve made many changes professionally and personally which I put off for years. All because I was afraid. Didn’t want to deal with the discomfort. I finally decided to live a different life. I released some old friend, angered some family members, and have experienced some *interesting* financial situations. But I feel as free as I’ve ever been.
I moved to San Diego a couple a months ago, from Minneapolis, and since I was visiting Mpls in Oct, rather than find a new salon right away, I went to the woman I aways go to in Mpls for my regularly scheduled highlighting. So, I understand, change IS hard. I hate the idea of trusting a new person with my hair, but really I need to find a place in CA.
However, please don’t condescend to the Midwest. It makes you sound coastal-elitist, and only helps to alienate anyone who reads this blog – and isn’t located in NY/LA! I’m willing to bet there are some chic, trendy places in Madison, but if you are truly worried that a Wisconsinite can’t get them right, what about Chicago?
Other than that, I’ve never commented before, so I might as well say that for the record, I love this blog. I find it entertaining, and thought-provoking; it’s one of my favorite reads.
I understand about the brows and the hair. That kind of thing has to be right because it affects how you’re perceived by others. I have a coworker who pays attention to neither and it truly reinforces the impression that she’s a sloppy worker. (She is a sloppy worker, but it’s interesting how that dovetails with her mangy brows, out-of-control hair, and personal hygiene issues.) And yeah, it is hard to find a person you like and even harder to find a new person even when you can see the benefit of making the change.
If you do have the patience to try another person in LA, I use Jacki at Chroma Makeup Studio in Beverly Hills (323-939-8969–tweezing only, $35). FWIW, I used to get compliments on my eyes; now I get them on my brows.
I am one of those people who thrive off of new environments and experiences, at least I think I am. I grew up in a small town in Montana, went across the country for college, lived in three different big cities, and then decided to live in two different foreign countries…all before I was 23. Now, about to turn 23 and forced to face the reality of joining the career world, I just relocated to a city I’ll probably be for at least a few years. I have a stable job, don’t know anyone yet, and feel content in the new working girl “part” I’m playing. The permanent nature of my new life has made me realize what a high I got from constantly throwing myself into the unknown, but also that it’s nice to be familiar with places and people. Moving around so much makes me miss out on getting to be surrounded by my close friends and family- something I’m experiencing all over again in my new, “steady” life. I think some change is healthy, but having those close friends and family around (along with familiar Doctors, hair solons, and that favorite coffee shop where everyone knows you by your first name)is also an important thing to remember when making a new life decision. I guess it just depends on your priorities in life, or what you think gives you the best quality of life. I’m not sure where I stand on that yet.
PS: I also fly to LA just to get my hair done- hey, when you know what you want, you know what you want :)
Did this Sharon go to the hair stylist’s equivalent of Le Cordon Bleu? Or just the local cosmetology school like everyone else?
Women’s haircuts are one of the few area where a 3% difference in outcome costs 300% more.
I now know why I keep reading your blog. Your ability to connect with the pain through every day life experiences, but still show the beauty behind it all. I’m a huge fan of Charles Bukowski’s poetry. He made his life feel so raw that I would wince.
When I wince once I want to keep reading. You made me wince 3 times while reading this post. I’ve tried to write this way, but it’s so much harder than it looks. It takes guts and a lot of self knowledge.
Wow, Penelope, apparently you don’t run in my circles in Madison. At least four of the women I’m friends with have grey nails, and so do I. Oh, but I forgot: you are just SO MUCH MORE WITH IT than the rest of Madisonians, and Wisconsin in general…
Seriously, is it me or does this whole post seem ridiculously out-of-touch with how the vast majority of normal people do things? It IS crazy to fly to LA for a haircut, and then to NY just to get your nails done! Forget environmentally responsible behaviour, it’s just…too much!
Seriously, just get an assistant or someone to find a good place where you live!
Totally tangentially related — do you have Sharon’s contact info? New to LA and need a haircut in the worst way.
Forme Salon. In Santa Monica.
Thank you for blogging. Every post teaches me something new. You are so good that stopped looking at books for career advice and instead started searching for posts with topics in your website. I don’t like brazencareerist that much, but I like your blog posts.
A ho?
That’s VERY funny.
:)
I haven’t heard the term “ho” since high school. That comment also got a laugh from me. Imagining someone logging on to their school’s library computer and reading this blog.
No one has mentioned the babysitter story! That is so scary. I wonder what I would have done. Language issue, riight.
Re the babysitter story: English is my second language, and frankly, if you tell me:
“If …you want to go…go when the baby is asleep so the baby doesn’t see me and start crying for me”
I would have interpreted the same way as the Puertorrican guy. If the baby was sleeping, wouldn’t the trip to the coffeshop awake him (her)? Why would anybody wanted to bring a sleeping baby to a coffee shop? It’s just weird; I really didn’t understand the drama. Anybody care to explain it? Thanks,
Far and away the most interesting part of this post: the link to your old post on hiring a babysitter. Not because that post was so interesting, but because there is a noticeable difference in your writing style from then and now (to me, anyhow). And I like what you’re doing now better. Oh, and of course the “ho” comments are hysterical, that goes without saying.
You could just drive to Chicago to get your hair and brows done if you don’t like doing it in Madison. We have all the options here: threading, waxing, etc. and are only a few hours away. LA and NY seem an awfully long way to go for such things. (Prink on Milwaukee Ave is great for haircuts; no brow recommendations here as I am OK with wielding the old-fashioned tweezers myself.)
Sticking with the same stylist for the past 15 years is great, but when you’ve moved to a new region in the country, it’s well past time to make a change!
As for the one night stand…too bad you had an unpleasant experience. They can be fun, but now that you’re getting married to the farmer I think you’re not likely to want to try again. Or I certainly hope not!
Oh good lord. I have never understood all the fuss about eyebrows. I came of age prior to the current depilatory frenzy, I suppose.
Go to minneapolis to get your eyebrows done. Take your kids and hang out with them at the Park at MOA afterwards…it’ll be a family outing where you can focus on work and not have to spend a ton of money on a plane.
Seriously though…in a recession you’re blogging about having to travel to either ends of the country for beauty maintenance. Most people don’t travel that far for medical procedures.
It makes me wonder how ‘down to earth’ and realistic your life is if you can’t get your hair done in the same state you live in.
Try living on $2000 a month. Then you will know what so many other people in the country live like..
Something in this bugs me. I get it, change is hard, you try something new, it maybe doesn’t work, and then you have to change still further to un-do or re-do the first change. And the irritaion of knowing you could have just had the other thing to begin with. I get it. OK.
But this idea that it’s all the same thing, a continuum, one type of circumstance and our response to it – bothers me. Eyebrow plucker change vs. life/career/love change – it isn’t the same. The risks aren’t the same, the consequences aren’t the same, the rewards aren’t the same. Therefore our approach and response shouldn’t be the same. This is like leaving scope and scale out of the picture if you are a project manager.
Sleeping with someone just to experience a one night stand – I mean OK, I won’t judge you but that is logic you use for new ice cream choices not sharing your body – in my opinion.
I’m just saying…
I love your writing. Seeing how you have made it through money problems, change, taking care of your children, and all just makes me feel better about my own efforts. And I totally agree about the vacation. I don’t think I’ll ever stop having some degree of chaos. I hope you always continue to be this real.
Why don’t you ask Sharon where she does her brows? It’s so hard to find someone who can do your brows well. Also, I went back and read the babysitter story. *hug*
You need to go to the Damone Roberts salon in Beverly Hills. See Kristina. She has been doing my brows for six years and they are perfect.
Sounds like an opportunity for someone amazing eyebrow/hair person to set up shop in Madison.
A lot of people’s actions can best be summarized as an unstated belief that “change is scary and should not happen”. I like to say that quote out loud anytime I have to get used to a change, in an “acknowledge and move on” sort of way.
Not sure why, but I really liked this post.
Change… yeah… change.
First off… I’m a guy. I drive across the city to pay twice as much as the average male to get my hair cut. I do this because she’s been cutting my hair since I was three years old.
I have no idea what I’m going to do when she retires… and I worry about this because I’m 27 now… so it’s gotta be coming soon right?
I am from Wisconsin (Green Bay to be precise) and I can count Minneapolis, France, and Seattle among the places I’ve lived. I am proud of my state and my city (go Packers!), but I’m totally with you when it comes to places to go for the removal of hair. I don’t wish to be condescending and I don’t agree with others who accuse you of being as such, but I do want to acknowledge your need for quality and appropriate technique (and maybe familiarity, too).
Perhaps this does not make me an expert on eyebrows or hair removal in general or Wisconsin for that matter (it doesn’t), but I DO understand the DESPERATION for appropriate trimmings in all places. Once you go expensive and coastal, you NEVER go back. I can surely attest to that.
I got confused by hearing that changing your makeup habit is so hard for you because it sounded that you are focusing on small issues, while you have been through larger changes in life (professional beach volleyball player, serial entrepreneur, etc.) than most of us.
But it is just my fixed idea on what stuff should be considered “important”… is there a chance for you to share with us what your priorities (things that are hard to change) are, in a way that we can understand easily?
Here’s a question: the one night stand with the salesman- was he married? That would open up a new topic and direction. I ask this for a reason….I recently met a sales guy on a plane when I was traveling a lot. I had a one night stand with him, and he’s married. I hope never to do that again, but I think that some of these guys(salesmen) do make a habit of it and there’s a correlation between the sales job and the behavior(cheating). Any thoughts? And no, I’m not a “ho” either, in case anyone gets the wrong idea.
I think the change you are afraid of is marriage. Not eyebrows, that’s dumb. You want the life you know you can’t possible be happy with… even though in all aspects you should be, why wouldn’t you be, it would be perfect. The perfect story, like a movie. You know as hard as you try it won’t work. He is a simple content man and you are a complicated, high maintenance woman. How will that work? Anyone who flies that far for eyebrows is not happy or crazy scared. You are making excuses to get the hell out of dodge. Using work as an excuse…please – you don’t fool me, people who love work don’t run from it, it’s the fuel that makes them who they are. Real contentment comes from inside and once you feel it you won’t need to have eyebrows done at all since you’ll be happy with who you are altogether. Find that place inside yourself and you could live in Alaska it wouldn’t matter. The thing is people with that kind of contentment rarely have the fight to start companies over and over again. They are perfectly happy in life without having made any marks at all. If you want to be that person you would have to let go, let go of eyebrows, of LA hair, of control. Just live, and make due with what is around you, you would be surprised.
I get the point of hanging on to safe ways that yank you clear across the country, even though the environmentalist and rationalist in me cringes. There is a block in Asperger minds against change. To Aspies, change means that a piece of your life falls out of the place where it’s holding everything else together. And then who knows what else will fall apart as a result?
I see this all the time in our house. I wish there were such a thing as change with training wheels.
But getting haircuts and eyebrows done in cities far across the country means that you haven’t yet moved to Wisconsin. It’s kind of like dieters who are on a diet but you can see that they are just doing it without embracing it. Because deep down they know that to change what you eat and how you live changes who you are.
There’s surrender in change that’s a bit like free-fall – or conversion.
This post suggests that you haven’t converted yet to Wisconsin.
You’ve gotten lots of advice on hair and eyebrows, but nothing on one-night stands.
They’re not always so horrible. In fact, they can be kinda awesome. A couple of my best friends in life are guys who were once strangers I had one-night stands with. I say get back on that horse and don’t be so hasty….
By the way, what’s this ho shit? Find me somebody who doesn’t agree that a good boot-knocking — however it falls from the sky and finds us — is a great thing. I’d say that person probably needs to get laid.
Penelope, I love your blog because it almost always helps me understand myself more. Thank you for that. It’s an interesting commentary, I think, on autism, actually, that “small” changes (I’m not calling them small, some of your commentators are) such as eyebrows and hair are so difficult, while “large” changes, such as career and living situations are more easily navigated. I’m going to do some thinking on this, while I continue to mourn the loss of my hair stylist who I can no longer see since I moved to a new state.
Penelope,
Am enjoying my Brazen Careerist experience. I live in Culver City, which eye brow waxing place did you go to so I CAN AVOID IT? lol
No. Seriously.
me