Challenge accepted.

OBAMA! my Bama! swiftly lay your plans;
T’was ne’er a foe so cunning as the sly Republicans;
Your health care’s passed, and now at last we plunge into the fray,
All fists a-swing as Fox News sings, “He wasn’t born here anyway”;
    But O POTUS! POTUS! POTUS!
      You must avert your eyes;
        For cable news is full of dreck,
          And everybody lies.

Obama! my bama! our nation writhes in pain;
We do not love our neighbors, we do not know our names;
We cast stones with impunity, the blood we spill our own,
And stare with eyes unseeing through the glass walls of our homes;
    Obama! Where are you?
      Our leaders are not wise,
        And every day is more bad news
          Of how everybody lies.

Obama! my bama! we yearn to change our fate;
The future now is yesterday, the hour’s ever growing late;
Yet still we must not be downcast, our hopes must stay alive;
We long to see the world you dreamed, where evil does not thrive;
    America! Awake and see!
      We are our own demise!
        How can we stand to watch the news
          When everybody lies?

With profound apologies to Walt Whitman.

Once, several years ago, I was sitting on the toilet at work. I had a job I didn’t enjoy very much – my job was to proofread Subway restaurants coupons and get told by the company CEO that anyone could do my job – and so I used to spend as much time as possible hiding in the bathroom, fantasizing about leaving graffiti on the wall or fiddling with my Brand! New! iPhone! which was pretty much useless because in 2008 no one knew about Twitter. Sometimes, because I couldn’t help it, I would quietly sing, “Five. Five dollar. Five dollar footlooooooong.” Then I’d scoff and say to my iPhone, “Yeah, I got your five dollar footlong right here.”

Hug your proofreader. She’s lonely and insane.

So I was sitting on the toilet one day when I squeezed out an epic turd. I mean, a real doozy of a dookie. A doozkie. Right out my butt. Plop. So satisfying.

I have this fascination with the things my body makes. Doesn’t matter what color or texture. If it has exited me, it must be examined. Sometimes smelled. The day they pulled my cyst-eaten right ovary from my body was one of my greatest triumphs. My hands in the wintertime are constantly cracking because I am so diligent about washing them after dangling tampons in front of my nose like I’m about to chum the toilet for sharks. Don’t look at me like that, I said I wash my hands. I’ll probably never have children. Let me have my meaty tampons.

NO, PLUCKY. DON’T LOOK. DON’T LOOK AT THE TOILET PAPER
GO DOWN THE HOLE.

So I was admiring my doozkie and after a moment or two, I – still sitting – reached back and flushed the can. And looked down, one last time, fondly, between my legs.

The toilet splashed refreshing cold poo water directly into my corneas.

There were questions. Questions like “Why me?” and “What do I do about this?” and “How will I explain to my coworkers that I got pinkeye from a toilet with the accuracy of a dolphin?” I ran to the sink and – assiduously sterilizing my hands – pried open my eyes. I don’t know what I was looking for. Shit flakes? (The worst cereal.) There was nothing in my eyes that I could see. But I knew. I knew the poo was there. Lurking.

I began to rinse my eyeballs. In hindsight, I think I just got backsplash in my right eye, but whatever, at that moment I would have thrust my face into Zach Galifianakis’ sweet Cackalacky armpits if I’d thought for even a second that it would spare me the indignity of being the office’s Poopeye. Oh my god, I thought, plunging my face into the sink, they’re going to call me Poopeye. Or Stinkeye. I don’t want to be Stinkeye. I just want to move to Montana.

I realized I was going to have to make a phone call. But to whom? Who the fuck do you call when you’ve shat your own face? I tried to be rational about this. My general practitioner was more likely to have experience with feces, but my ophthalmologist would be the expert on foreign substances in eyeballs. I don’t have a proctologist – who, in any case, would know tons about butt butter but little to nothing about eyemergencies. I tried not to bite my nails, or really touch anything at all.

I decided to call my ophthalmologist. I lamented that I would probably have to burn my phone later.

It was years ago, like I said, but after I went through the 50-level phone tree, I think the conversation with the woman who answered the phone probably went like this:

Woman: This is Raleigh Eye People, where every eye is an eye five! How can I help you?
Me: Hi. Um. I’m—Charlotte and I’m a patient of record, but this isn’t about an exam or anything.
Woman: Okay…
Me: I just have a question. Um. Well, more like a situation.
Woman: Uh huh.
Me: I need help. It’s kind of TMI and maybe you’re not even the people to call but I wasn’t really sure what else to do.
Woman [now invested in this like a murder mystery she thinks she may be the star of]: I’ll do my best.
Me: So I—well, I was going to the bathroom and I, you know, I had to go, and, you know, I didn’t touch anything, but when I flushed I was kiiiind of looking and… it, you know, it splashed. Into my eye.
Woman: [makes a strange sound]
Me: And I just… should I be worried? About the poo that now lives forever in my eye?
Woman [mustering her courage]: Was it—I mean, did you get a lot in your eye?
Me: No no, it was like. It was like one really good drop. But I mean, it went right up in there. No mistake. There is poo water in my eye.
Woman: I think if you wash it really well and keep an eye on it (REALLY, lady?), you’ll be fine. If you show any odd symptoms after a day or two, give us a call back.
Me: So you don’t think I’ll get pinkeye or my eye will liquefy and fall out or that I’ll be a pariah in a Shirley Jackson story about the evils of senseless violence?
Woman: What?
Me: I said I’ll just get some cream or something, thanks!

The moral of the story: …I honestly don’t know what the moral is. I didn’t learn anything from this experience. I haven’t changed any of my habits, except that maybe I’ll wear goggles after eating a lot of fiber, and that I’ll stand up to watch my water logs sail down the porcelain flume.* Geronimo!

*I don’t mean that I stand up to shit. I just stand up to watch as I FLUSH my shit.**

**This sentence was less ludicrous in my head.

And deeply, deeply disturbed.

Friend: I almost told someone to “lick my soppy wet cunt lips” today.

[EXCUSE ME MISS I DON'T THINK I HEARD YOU CORRECTLY.]

Friend: Not out of anger or anything, just as a joke. And when I think of saying things like that, I’m always reminded of the mouth on you. (There’s a lesbian pun on there that I’m just gonna leave.)
Me: YES. <3 <3
Friend: And then I think you may somehow be proud or amused by these ways I’m reminded of you. All fondly of course.
Me: I love it when people tell me shit like this.
Friend: Yes! Who you are (all balls-out and what-not) is one of my favorite things of anyone I know.
Me: And I love your good-natured sweetness because I know it’s as genuine as the rebellious humor that lies not too far beneath the surface. COMPLICATED WOMEN GO!
Friend: I recognized the same good-natured sweetness in YOU long ago not too far beneath the sailor-mouth surface. WOMAN POWER.
Me: You complete me. <3
Friend: Right?? Love-fest complete.
Me: My cunt lips are so soppy right now.
Friend: And now I sit laughing out loud all by myself at this cafe.
Me: That’s called “laughsturbation” and it’s perfectly natural.
Friend: Laughsturbating even harder. So hard.
Me: It’s obscene in public. Slut.
—

I am the Ellis Island of shy people. Give me your farts, your kegels, your wet queefs yearning to breathe free.

(That’s what SHE said.)

The other morning I was in the office kitchen, innocently scalding a ceramic otter with coffee, when my boss breezed in. “Hey there, Chew Toy.”

Caffeinated otter torture vanished from my priority list. I stared at my boss. CHEW TOY?

I tried to kill him with my eyes. It wasn’t working because he was already walking away from me and eye murder only works on faces. I decided to draw him back with something subtle.

“I am looking at you disapprovingly and shaking my head,” I called out to his disappearing back, “but you’re not appreciating it because you’re not looking.”

He came back into the kitchen. I am a master tactician.

“What?”
“I said I’m looking at you disapprovingly.”
“Oh. You don’t like Chew Toy?”
“No. I like Chewy but Chew Toy, not so much.”

A nearby coworker, amused and confused by this exchange, looked back and forth between us. “Chewy?” My boss grinned a rakish grin. I focused on my eye murder.

“Yeah, you know. Charlotte, Charleston, Charleston Chew, Chewy. Chew Toy.” This delighted my coworker. I scowled.

“The more you fight it,” my boss said, “the more it’s going to stick.”

I followed him back to his desk, which is actually not that creepy because his desk is all of three feet away from mine. At that point my body was apparently taken over by the ghost of Larry David, which is especially impressive when you consider that Larry David is still alive.

“I draw the line at Chew Toy.”
“You can’t draw the line.”
“I can. I am drawing it. See this?” My foot drew an invisible line on the floor. “This is the line. Right here.”
“Nope. Your line-drawing privileges have been revoked.”
“Obviously they haven’t because the line has been drawn.”
“I’m taking your line-drawing pen. You can’t draw the line without a pen.”
I held up a pen. I’m a writer. I have a lot of pens. “This looks like a pen to me.”
“Your pen is useless.”
“This isn’t over.”

AND IT WASN’T. Hours passed. Lunch came and went. I knew all I had to do was bide my time, waiting for an opportunity to present itself.

Eventually I heard a sneeze from my boss’s desk, followed by a polite, “Excuse me.” SHOWTIME.

I glared at him and shook my head. His eyebrows raised.

“I’m not excused?”
“You’ll be excused when I get my pen back.”
“…your pen?”
“My line-drawing pen. To draw the line.”
“Oh!” He paused thoughtfully. “No. You don’t get the pen back.”
“Then you are not excused.“

BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE.

And that’s the thoroughly riveting story of how I am more clever than my boss.*

*The story of how he completely ignored my retort and went back to doing way more important shit than whatever I was doing, and also the story of how all of my friends will probably call me Chew Toy from now until the day I am buried.**

**Unless I kill them all with eye murder first.

The biggest one seems to be, “I’m tired of being bombarded with crap that isn’t enriching me.” Errr, it’s… I mean, why are you reading crap? Can’t you just unsubscribe from the crap and read the interesting things? Is the crap creeping in your window at night and into bed with you and putting its really cold feet on your legs?

“YOUR WHOLE FEED IS JUST SHIT YOU LIKED ON PINTEREST. STOP MAKING ME PRETEND TO CARE ABOUT YOUR NEWFOUND LOVE OF PIPE CLEANERS.”

To me, this is like waltzing into a library and declaring, “EXCUSE ME.” (SHHHH, it’s a library.) “EXCUSE ME. MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION.” (No, shut up, it’s a library.) “I WOULD LIKE EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT I WILL NOW BE LEAVING THE LIBRARY FOREVER.” (Good.) “IF ANYONE CARES–” (we don’t) “–IT’S BECAUSE I CAN NO LONGER TOLERATE READING NICHOLAS SPARKS NOVELS.” (Well, honestly, who can?) “I CANNOT CONDONE A SYSTEM THAT FORCES ME TO READ NICHOLAS SPARKS. SOCIETY IS ADRIFT ON A SEA OF ITS OWN MAKING.” (What?) “I TAKE MY LEAVE WITH MY HEAD HELD HIGH.” (Fine, whatever, just go.) “BITCHES.” (Well, that seems unnecessary.)

No one’s making you read anything you think is lame. If Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr aren’t doing it for you, there are mute buttons and unfollow buttons and general options for unsubscription that should satisfy your every disgruntled need. But, okay, fine, you’re fed up with being connected to everyone all the time and you want the voices to go away for a while and I guess it’s our fault that you don’t know when to shut your own damn phone or computer off when you’ve had enough for the day. You’ll probably be back in a month anyway. Enjoy your badger hole.

This is where I do a Google image search for “badger anus” and then feel too ashamed to post my findings. Here are some baby bat burritos instead.

Here’s what I really, really don’t understand: people who do not want to be mentioned on the internet. At all. No real names. No hilarious anecdotes. Definitely no pictures.

Remember 1997, when we were all still kind of figuring out the internet and Oprah was doing all those specials about why you can be kidnapped and raped if you looked at Compuserv sideways? And that’s because, in 1997, you could. The internet was still pretty much anonymous, and widely monopolized by technologically savvy shut-ins who could prey on the less informed, the less wary.

But we’re all using it now, many of us with our real names and faces. And while a lot of cowards and douchebags still hide behind their handles and pseudonyms, most of the time those things offer pretty flimsy protection when you’ve been a dickhole. Yes, by the same token, your identity can be pretty easy to uncover. But the point is that, in 2013, the internet is humanity’s public square — its literal forum, in the classic Roman sense. We’re all here. We can pretty much all see each other. And in broad daylight, there’s really not that much to worry about if you keep your wits about you.

If you are one of these skittish people, here is my question to you: do you wear a disguise every time you leave the house? Have you had your car’s windows tinted to law-flaunting levels of darkness? Do you make your kids wear glittery animal masks when you take them shoe shopping? I guess what I’m asking is, are you Michael Jackson?

Yeah, I’m “Michael Jackson.” I have not been “dead for over three years.” A-HEE-hee!

Probably you aren’t. Probably you are not the King of Pop. And that being the case, you don’t worry too much about strangers out in the world seeing your face, the kind of car you drive, etc. Because we do see you. We can all see you. Just out and about. Walking your dog. Checking your mail. Ducking into the home décor aisle at Target to covertly pluck out your wedgie. That doesn’t bother you at all. Why is Facebook different? At least with Facebook, you can control your audience — can and should, that being the literal, actual reason Facebook was founded. Stop howling about how some stranger might see that you exist. Strangers constantly see that you exist. Maybe some of them wish you didn’t. Maybe they’re the victims here. Did you ever think of that?

This is the most baffling manifestation of these paranoid histrionics:

Friend: …and then she smushed her breasts together and said, “These manatees aren’t scared of a little motorboating.”
Me: WHAT?
Friend: I know.
Me: Isn’t she the head of your entire department?
Friend: Yes. She’s also apparently the head of Jello shots and Irish Car Bombs.
Me: This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard.
Friend: Yes but DON’T PUT THAT ON TWITTER, CHARLOTTE.

Really? Listen, just because I have no compunctions about describing my menstrual cycles or digestive quirks or wet coital farts doesn’t mean I just naturally assume the same rules apply to everyone else. I’m not the Perez Hilton of my friends’ private lives. And by the way, if you’re so afraid of Blabbermouth LaChance over here, why are you confiding in me at all? Do you honestly think my desire to share your hilarious Cards Against Humanity answer last Tuesday — which I didn’t, because your mother-in-law is on Facebook and she’s really traditional and if she saw that you were engaging in questionable card games like a fucking adult, god forbid, she’d throw a temper tantrum and it would just make your whole Thanksgiving dinner really awkward — is the same thing as a pressing need to reveal you feel your boss is a whore or your wife has cancer or you think you might be gay? Give me a little credit.

I appreciate the complexities of this issue and realize my diatribe is unlikely to change any minds here. I ask only that people acknowledge their own absurdity. Because this shit is cray. And god, I really wish I hadn’t Googled “badger anus.”

So I’ve done some trimming and shuffling and lubricating and now I give you The Irritable Vowel: Shocker Edition!

Two in the pink, all in the sink full of soapy hot water immediately after we’re done and NO DON’T TOUCH THE SHEETS damn it now I have to burn them.

The Vowel will now serve the dual purpose of personal and copywriting blog. I imagine entries for the former will quickly overtake the latter, not only because most of my life — BRACE YOURSELF — has very little to do with the work of copywriting, but because recently that work became a lot easier — and thus less hilarious. Writing for people who don’t suck means I have less to gripe about. More fun for me, not as much fun for you.

But don’t despair. You salivating, excitable marketing dicks out there can just think of this as a CONTENT EVOLUTION. I’m leveraging existing assets into the framework of more expansive ideation! I’m encapsulating multiple thoughtifications into a “back pocket” package of transportable purpose! Is this good? Am I doing it right? I’m three knuckles deep in wet hot content, oh yeah!

I don’t like to think of what writing that paragraph made me do as “vomiting.” I like to think of it as a stomachgasm.

Because I’m lazy as hell I’m not changing the template much, but I’ve tried to make it work to suit its new role. I’m also not going to explain those changes to you (owing largely to the aforementioned laziness), but hopefully you’re not so stupid that you can’t navigate a website in 2013. Also probably you don’t especially care. Good on you. Good on you.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to a brand new year of making things — some awesome, some pretty okay, some butt-tighteningly impressive failures — and, in the course of documenting them, getting some laughs along the way. I’m no Bloggess, but the Vowel has been surprisingly good to me in this last regard. It seems that the harder I try to be a miserable, cantankerous old man, the more people see through my ruse. (But I really am a miserable, cantankerous old man. If you don’t believe me, ask my colon, HEYO!)

I’m pretty much 90% technique, 10% style.

Happy 2013! Now go kiss your mother with that mouth. I know I sure will.

Yes, Queen Rania. She’s beautiful AND SHE WANTS YOUR DAUGHTER TO READ MORE.
You know what that makes her queen of? My pants.

The short version, for the troglodytes among you: Felicia Day is a writer, actress, and musician who first showed up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and co-starred with Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Not too long after that, she started her own (very successful) web series, The Guild; this eventually became a cornerstone of the YouTube channel Geek & Sundry, which Felicia — with her own lady friends — launched in April of this year.

The very VERY short version is that she’s the Queen of the Nerds. And I don’t want to say, necessarily, that we were separated at birth, because that might be a violation of my restraining order. But there are clearly similarities. SEXY ones? I leave that to you. (There are. There are sexy similarities between me and Felicia Day.)

Examples: I, too, am a translucent redhead (coughnotnaturallycough) who enjoys the dorkier things in life. I, too, carry tunes not in buckets, but in those purse-friendly tampon sizes (compact AND absorbent!). I like to be a source of comedic Schadenfreude. We both look pretty rad in elf ears.

It’s Us Weekly‘s “Who Wore it Better: Lord of the Rings Edition”!

But the thing I appreciate most about Felicia is that she’s self-possessed, diversely talented, and makes a lot of her own shit — with help from a dedicated group of very creative friends. She’s not a Hollywood Barbie doll fresh off the assembly line. She spends as much time in front of a keyboard as she does in front of a camera. And with nearly two million Twitter followers, hers is a big and important voice.

Right. So what the fuck does this have to do with copywriting, Charlotte? I hear you. Slow your roll, Sassy Sally.

This afternoon, as I was on my way to my favorite cafe to muddle my way through a growing pile of freelance, I put on the song “(I’m the One That’s) Cool” from The Guild‘s latest music video. An anthem for nerds everywhere, the lyrics crow about geekdom’s tightening hold on popular culture, and gets up in the faces of every “asshat jock who beat me up in school.” It’s liberating and it’s catchy as hell. But it also struck me as timely.

Riding with me is exactly like this.

I’m coming up on one year as a freelancer. It has been exactly as tough and nerve-wracking as everyone says it is, but it has also been immensely rewarding. I’m not tied to a desk five days out of the week. I get to juggle some technical work with lighter, more creative fare (my bread and butter. My heroin and dirty needle, really). And, most importantly, I’ve had time to make shit for myself.

Nothing I’ve made is going to win any awards. My one real success — and a drop in the bucket by internet standards — is months behind me. One project I felt very strongly about never saw the light of day. And a third project that I had great hopes for, and worked very hard on, was — if I’m being honest with myself — disappointing. Okay, fine, it flopped. It looked great. It just never reached the niche I wrote it for. C’est la vie. This is how we learn.

I’ve also taken some risks with my professional life. Not unprotected-sex-with-Lindsay-Lohan risks, but risks that made me nervous in my strongest moments and had me questioning my sanity in the weak ones. This very blog constitutes a formidable risk, and while I don’t hide it outright, I try not to mention it to employers unless I’m asked directly. You know. Like a cold sore.

And yet, this blog has occasionally earned me work; as I see it, it weeds out the weaklings and leaves me with the good-natured folks worth writing for.

Subj: Want to write for us?/Interest in side work…

“Hey Charlotte.

As you may or may not know, we have an active blog, and are always interested in our contractors being contributors.We thought about the idea of you contributing to a “series” for us.

I checked out your site and was welcomed by Ms. Spread Eagle. :-)

Caught me off guard for a second, that’s all.

You’re a great writer by the way.”

–Literally the greatest email ever written

Then there are the risks I took in pursuit of being a better creative writer. I submitted a story to Clarion West, for example, in the hopes I’d get to spend six weeks getting protips from George R.R. Martin and Chuck Palahniuk. I didn’t make the cut. Yet, in applying, I finished something of significance. I proved to myself that I can. And that’ll be good to know if I ever get around to applying for grad school. I haven’t yet decided if I hate myself that much.

I was also asked to contribute an essay to a memorial book for Anne McCaffrey — the day it’s printed will mark the day I am a real, published writer. I’m confident that my part will be complete garbage. But I wrote it anyway. It felt awesome.

I also got my first tattoo. It hurt less than writing the essay.

In the last year I’ve had opportunities to apply for, or to take outright, jobs that made my soul curdle. Technical manuals. Pretentious social media doublethink. I didn’t take them. I probably should have. But I’d rather be broke (and believe me, I am broke) and well-slept than slightly-less-broke with both wrists draining. In fact, I’d rather dance the Gangnam Style horse dance while singing “Call Me Maybe” OH HEY I DID THAT ALREADY.

So much of being a writer is fighting tooth and claw for tiny inches of ground. And when that’s all you ever do, it feels like you never get anywhere. Turning down jobs a two-dollar whore would thumb her filthy poop-encrusted nose at leaves my brain free to ruminate or rest as necessary — and when I do have to go to bat for an idea I think is worth defending, I feel less crushed when I lose the battle. By picking my battles before they’re even fought — by passing on jobs I know are wrong for me — I spend a lot less time feeling demoralized on the whole. So who gives a fuck if some suit didn’t like my headline? I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Other jobs to do.

Finally, I think the dumbest and most rewarding thing I’ve done lately is to straight-up ask for work.

Recently, I got turned down for a job I thought I was perfectly qualified for, one I was really excited about (which was, in hindsight, my biggest and dumbest error. The universe never gives you shit you think you actually deserve, or else how would you ever get in over your head?). I woke up on a Monday morning with a “Thanks but no thanks” email sitting in my inbox, exactly as terse and unsympathetic as you dread those emails will be. After crying for a few minutes and dragging myself, mopey and bare-assed, from the bed to the downstairs couch, I decided to quit being such a goddamn pantywaist and move on to something else. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I have to earn a living somehow.

I mean, at least it wasn’t THIS bad.

So I shot a tweet off to a guy I figured would laugh in my face. And what do you know — he replied almost right away, and a few weeks later, I had some work to do. Really, really fun work. Work that I’d probably be pissed off and jaded about after a few months or years, but work that, for now, tastes all the sweeter for my having gone after it myself. I’m like the anti-Charlie Sheen!

And all that’s to say that lately, I feel like I’m coming into my own as the cool kid. Paradoxically, I feel the most confident when the popular kids are hanging me up by my underpants — after all, nothing clears the mind like the icy burn of cotton biting into your anus. I think the Buddha said that.

I hope that someday I’ll have the kind of career Felicia Day built, something I hammered out with skill and stubbornness and my baddest badass friends, equally stupid in their unwillingness to take advice from people who supposedly know better. And then I shall be the feisty ginger leader of the nerds, but without all that talented violin playing and with much, much less sex appeal.

Shut up. It could happen.

My head. Jesus. Look at it.

Tagged: felicia day, fighting the good fight, people who do things I want to do, professional nerds, risk-taking, role models ]]> http://theirritablevowel.com/2012/11/12/im-the-one-thats-cool/feed/ 2 Me. I'm the one. irritablevowel Queen Rania Al Abdullah WHICH IS THE REAL ARWEN?! Riding with me is exactly like this. Tramp stamps go on the shoulder, right? >:( This is something that happened. http://theirritablevowel.com/2012/10/05/hyperbole-isnt-just-my-stripper-name/ http://theirritablevowel.com/2012/10/05/hyperbole-isnt-just-my-stripper-name/#comments Fri, 05 Oct 2012 18:08:03 +0000 Charlotte A. Cavatica http://theirritablevowel.com/?p=355 ]]> A week or two ago, I found – I can’t recall how now – an article asking whether Amnesty International’s latest print ad crossed a line in the name of its cause. Here’s the image:

Click to embiggen.

The image, of course, evokes the slow-motion, oppressive horror of the Japanese tsunami. And the question the author poses is, in essence: “Too soon?”

Personally? I don’t think so. And I’m not completely convinced the question here is really even relevant.

Imagine a copywriter and designer having this conversation:

THAT would be exploitative. Like, really fucked up. But who would actually do that (I mean, other than PETA)?

No one would have this conversation. A writer may think, “This event is relevant and impactful, and there are elements of it that we could use to convey a strong message,” but she’s not likely to be fiendishly rubbing her hands together at the same time.

“It’s not that it’s maliciously exploitative,” I hear you saying. “But it IS insensitive at best.” Is it? Is it really insensitive to acknowledge the horror of a tsunami, an earthquake, a terrorist attack? What’s so wrong about pointing to a picture and saying, “Dear God, wasn’t that awful? Let’s not do THAT again.” Or do we just object because money is involved?

I’ve written for megacorporations and small businesses alike. And it seems that no matter who the client is, they have each uttered some permutation of the phrase, “We want something different.” They don’t. Never believe a client who tells you this. They want exactly the same shit they’ve been selling for 20 years. They just want it in orange instead of teal.

But we — writers, marketers, businesses, people in general — often like to think of ourselves as “edgy,” as risk-takers. We’re genetically predisposed to want to be the prettiest peacock in the menagerie, and of course that carries over to our professional, corporate identities. And we’ve gotten really, really good at convincing ourselves that being earnest is the same thing as being interesting. How many times a week do you read, “This blog entry changed my LIFE,” or “This commercial I watched was the greatest thing I’ve EVER SEEN,” or “This agency’s latest campaign is EPIC.” It didn’t, it wasn’t, and it isn’t. They’re looking you straight in the eye, maybe, but that’s ALL they’re doing.

Well, if it’s an AMAZING content marketing infographic, I’d better prime my diddlefinger and prepare for a hot wet datasplosion!

So we tell ourselves we’re changing the world, we’re fighting the good fight, we’re representing a cause. We want to stand for something. We want to be charitable and do good works. That’s noble. But is it honest?

Think about the agency you work for. Think about the clients you take on. What are you writing about most of the time? Virtualization, probably. Ergonomic patio chairs. Full-tang knife handles. Mulch. You can probably kick around “ROI” like a Thursday stoner with a hacky sack. Maybe those clients are taking their profits and re-investing them in good causes, but that’s not what they were built to do. They were built to sell more shit. Our job is to help them do that effectively and without a lot of questions. That’s fine. It’s a (pretty) honest living. But let’s not have any illusions about what it is.

Thus, it strikes me as disingenuous when my writerly fellows try to convince me of their connectedness, their relevance, their cultural sensitivity… and then go completely silent when something legitimately important lands in their laps. The way some writers go on, you’d think my Twitter feed would be a glut of charities, nonprofits, and political activism. It isn’t. The actors, authors, and scientists I follow have an endless well of opinions and insights. The marketers and social media folk? The people whose JOB it purportedly is to shape our discourse? Silent. Crickets. They love to sell bullshit, but they appear to be dumbfounded by substance. Where’s the outrage, people? You retweet Mashable like it’s manna from Heaven, but our latest mission to Mars just doesn’t do it for you?

Copywriting and/or marketing writing and/or social media writing have become an ouroboros of self-congratulation. Every other press release, tweet, and LinkedIn status update is, “Look how WELL we’re doing! Look at all of the great THINGS we’re making! By golly, we’re changing the WORLD with our enthusiasm!” It doesn’t matter what they’re selling — a product, an idea, or themselves. Just keep it positive. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t crack that manic rictus.

So when I encounter skepticism over a piece of writing or imagery that is actually powerful, that was carefully, specifically crafted to be uncomfortable, you know what my response is?

Fuck you. Let’s see YOU do better, you fucking dipshit tools. You empty suits. You crazed, yippy little shitforbrains.

We NEED to be unsettled. We NEED to be uncomfortable. No, of course it doesn’t feel good to be offended. It doesn’t feel good to be reminded of the things that keep us up at night — or the things that should and don’t. So what? How is feeling disquieted any different than feeling happy or sad or pensive or horny? Disquietude can spur us to action. It can catalyze self-examination more effectively than any other emotion if we are brave enough to look past our own bullshit. The next time something offends you, ask yourself whether you’re offended for the right reasons. Ask yourself whether there’s something you should be paying attention to. And if there is, ask yourself just what the hell you’re going to do about it.

I leave you with this image by Norman Rockwell. It’s called “The Problem We All Live With.”

I saw this picture for the first time when Norman Rockwell’s work came to the North Carolina Museum of Art in 2010. It completely blew my mind.

It depicts, of course, the day 6-year-old Ruby Bridges was integrated into William Frantz Elementary School in 1960 New Orleans, escorted by four U.S. Deputy Marshals. It’s a simple concept elegantly executed. And it’s fucking awful. The first time I saw it, it gave me chills.

To be effective, Rockwell NEEDED to stir the audience’s sense of disgust. By putting us at Ruby’s height, by contrasting her white-clad, straight-backed proud innocence with the vicious chaos of the wall behind her, he absolutely, deliberately manipulates us into feeling repelled. Was he capitalizing on this event to make a point? Yes. Completely. But to do anything less would be to miss the point entirely.

Obviously there is a time and a place for grandstanding. And the line between “frank” and “shrill” is a fine one indeed. Don’t stir shit just to stir it; don’t be “controversial” as just another two-bit marketing tactic. But let’s not kid ourselves about our priorities. We’re copywriters. We’re paid to manipulate people. And if you ever get the chance to write for a cause you believe in, remember: you can be popular or you can be right.

And, P.S.? The arms trade IS a tidal wave of destruction. We should probably look into that.

This is a hard letter to write.

I think most people believe that I speak without a filter, that honesty is something I wield without reservations or fear of consequences. Nothing could be further from the truth. I speak when I am most fearful. I gamble with my reputation because I dread insincerity more than I do censure. And I know I can’t demand of others that which I am unwilling to give.

So this is probably stupid. But here we go.

I am not a good employee. I know that.

I wasn’t a good student, either. It’s sort of always been this way. I don’t work any harder than I have to. I am easily distracted. I am abrasive. I have difficulty waking up in the morning and getting where I need to be on time. I daydream. I resent the authority of those I perceive to be less intelligent and more disingenuous than I am. In procrastinating, I often create more work for others.

I’m sorry for all of this. It’s not you. It’s not your business. It’s not the system. It’s me.

I’m especially sorry because I love to write. I love to be paid to write. I am a good writer. I take so long to write anything because I cherry-pick my parts of speech. I vacillate over comma placement. I begin to research your project and end up half a dozen Wikipedia articles deep into the wheres and whys of the thing that makes your project go, because the gears that drive the machine are so much more nuanced and interesting than their sum. I love to read. I love to learn. I am the only one in your office who knows how a semicolon works.

I don’t want to be a word robot. And I know. I know. This is the real world. Deadlines don’t wait for artists and prima donnas. Sometimes you need a word robot. You need someone who can produce great language and do it fast. I can’t. I don’t want to. And I’m so sorry, because I’m not going to change.

The prevailing wisdom seems to be that it is not good enough to merely excel at a skill. This makes perfect sense to me. Economies aren’t driven by earnestness and good intentions. Nature tends towards chaos and entropy – it is only through a concerted effort of Sisyphean will that anyone succeeds at anything at all. In cellular biology, this is called active transport: a substance that, through impulsion or propulsion, penetrates a cellular membrane into an area of high pressure – a little like shoving your way past a bouncer into a packed club. It’s the same sensation I experience every time I have to interrupt a lucid dream to wake up and make it in for a 9 a.m. meeting. I realize this is not your fault, either – what must be done must be done. But I am not good at doing it.

So I admire the single-minded gumption necessary to make a business thrive. It is not in me to navigate the niceties of commerce; I simply do not have the energy. The prospect of being a creative director, or a “senior” anything, makes me feel tired and anxious. Even my low-level peers seem to have a knack for doggedness that eludes me entirely. I just can’t put my head down and work all day. I don’t know how anyone else does.

But I am a good person and a better writer. I am intelligent. I take chances. I am insightful. At times I have been known to be pretty goddamn funny.

I don’t want to be stigmatized as a lazy know-it-all who doesn’t pull her weight. Okay, fine, it’s true. But I am so much more than that. I just need a little help.

Please don’t leave me to twist in the wind. Please help me understand what you need me to do. I want to have a job. I want to be an asset. I know that I’m a pain.

But when you say to me, “You’re a brilliant writer, but we’re just not feeling it” when I am feeling it; when you say, “You’re not happy here” when once I was happy, and could be again if you’d just take me off the fucking demos and let me write something brave and weird and new; when you presume to tell me what I should be instead of letting me be what I am – fierce and curious and funny and pedantic – then you do damage to me. You obliterate my trust in you. And you teach me not to strive for more.

You cannot make me what I’m not. But you can help me be a better version of what I am.

I am angry with myself for not working harder. I am angry with myself for not having more patience. I am angry with myself for my crappy time management. I am angry with myself for not being able to see the writing on the wall, time after time after time after time.

But I am angry with you for telling me to make bricks without straw. I am angry with you for withholding critical tools like information and empathy. I am angry with you for cutting me loose with phrases like “I’m sorry” and “This is hard for me, too.” I am angry with you for misrepresenting your faith in my abilities. I am angry with you for enticing me with a future you never meant for me to reach.

I am a shitty employee. But you are a shitty manager. We both could have tried harder. We both should have done better. I hope you have the wherewithal to ask yourself whether you did everything you were supposed to.

And yet, for all of that, I still really want you to like me. And I want to like you, too. We are not bad people.

I want to be the kind of person who can own her foibles – who can try to make the most of her shortcomings by turning them into something positive; or who, failing that, can at least exist without regret. Perhaps this is a deluded, unrealistic expectation. Perhaps I’m just gilding my albatross.

But for all of my failings, my optimism persists: I can survive as a creative writer in the right environment. I will probably arrive at 9:15 instead of 8:59 (and I will be proud of myself for not arriving at 9:30). I will use every last minute of my allotted deadline time (and I will want three days more).

But here are some things I can promise:

• I promise to write my heart out for anyone who can get used to the sound of “I’m sorry.”
• I promise never to give you words that I don’t believe in; I will agonize over them. They will pour out of me in a fever the last thirty minutes of Friday afternoon.
• I promise to argue over my adjectives with any tight-assed, perfectly manicured project managers who think they know the first damn thing about writing—and I will gladly do so to the detriment of my reputation, because all that matters is the words, all that matters is being right about the fucking words.
• I promise to make your clients say, “I never would have thought to phrase it that way.” I promise to hate you if you let your clients do my writing for me.
• I promise not to take criticism personally if you can provide thoughtful and reasoned criticism. “Just because” or “I don’t like it” are not reasons.
• I will go to battle for my words. I will go to war. Just tell me what to do, and then step back and let me do it.

I am weird and unpredictable and crass and forgetful. I am incorrigible. I am insufferable.

I am at your mercy. Let me write for you.

-Charlotte,
who should probably start practicing wrapping trout in old newspapers (whatever those are)

The diamond in my mind? Oh my god, is it malignant?

It Starts With The Diamond In Your Mind.

You were chosen to perform an inimitable role… to be The Best Man. An immensely considered decision. There are no do-overs here. Do this well and everyone is lifted. How will you rise to the call, how will you surpass expectations? Summon your character, speak from your heart… and trust the diamond in your mind.

Can anyone — literally anyone – tell me what in Christ’s cinnamon grundle this means?

A friend and former coworker shared this with me a week or so ago on the grounds that it is among the weirdest, most impenetrable writing ever and thus deserved systematic dismemberment. The problem was that I didn’t have the first clue where to start. The bizarre vocabulary? The inappropriate overuse of initial caps? The fact that there is no link to any page that may clarify even a smidgeon more context? What does being the best man have to do with diamonds? Why? WHY?

It’s like someone gave a thesaurus ipecac. And it is the surest sign that this was written by either a) someone with a marketing degree and a self-published book of poems no one will buy, or b) a freelance writer who wrote this under duress because the 15th of the month was coming and no, no, NO, they CAN’T make me write it, I WON’T write it, but damn it, damn it, damnitall that scotch won’t buy itself, FINE I’LL WRITE IT but I will NEVER put my name on it oh god how did it come to this.

Or maybe it was one of those guys who’s been in the country almost long enough to sound American.

(I know. Two Family Guy references in two blog posts. I don’t care for your judging eyes.)

Let’s start with the vocabulary. Apparently being The Best Man is an “inimitable role.” I don’t know what the shit this is meant to mean. “Inimitable” means “not capable of being imitated.” This is stupid. The only criteria for being a best man are a Y-chromosome and a pulse. You’re basically the guy the groom calls “bro” more than all the other guys.

Yes, “inimitable” is a very pretty word. And I get (I think) what BN was going for here: “You, sir, are one of a kind.” Fine. So then just say “You are one of a kind.” It’s concise. It’s self-evident. It appeals directly to the reader’s ego.

Here’s a litmus test for Big Fancy Words: replace the word with a less-fancy synonym and see if it still holds up. “Inimitable” means “matchless.” So what the hell is a “matchless role”? What about being the best man is matchless? The guy’s personality? The job itself? What does this have to do with diamonds? It sounds very pretty and it is completely meaningless.

And then there’s “An immensely considered decision.” This is the best-worst line in all of the catastrofuckery that is this piece of copy. “Immense” means huge, significant, vast. What does it mean to “immensely consider” something? Is it a thought process with the mass of a neutron star?

I think the word they were looking for here was “meticulous.” Or “careful.” Or “deliberate.” Let’s envision some scenarios in which any of these words are synonymous with “really really big.”

• I love my interior decorator. He’s enormous.
• We earned a Michelin star by selecting only the most humongous chefs.
• My girlfriend is so ample, she’s impossible to please.
• I have an incredibly selective penis.

…that last one actually kind of works. But you get the idea.

You can’t make words mean whatever the fuck you want them to mean. That’s why we have different words to encapsulate different ideas — and even synonyms aren’t perfectly interchangeable most of the time.

The payoff — “It starts with the diamond in your mind” — is its own special kind of bizarre. I get it, it’s a metaphor. Except metaphors only work when they’re actually analogous to something.

In his essay “Nature,” American writer and founding Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

“Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite spaces, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

Of course. It’s all so clear now.

Nearly two centuries of elbow-padded, smoke-wreathed scholars have not yet been able to puzzle out exactly what it means to “become a transparent eyeball.” Does it mean the internalization of the external? Some form of proprioceptive awareness relative to nature? The natural and divine working in concert to act upon the self?

I think it means Emerson was tripping on more than transparent eyeballs. And Blue Nile, while you make real shiny carbon, you are no Ralph Waldo Emerson. Non sequiturs are terrific in poetry, but they make for really crappy marketing. Your call to action should probably actually include a call to action; save the New Agey jargon for all the horoscopes I won’t be reading.

The worst part is that Blue Nile is a perfectly respectable brand with a product whose quality speaks for itself. They don’t need gimmicky shit like this, especially when the gimmick doesn’t even make sense. Don’t settle for douchey writing just because you think you can. You can’t. And you shouldn’t.

Unfortunately, ad copywriting does not always facilitate the pursuit of High Art. In fact, at its most clever and elegant, advertising is deceptively simple and broadly accessible — which is a far more stimulating and challenging exercise. Just ask the Old Spice Guy. Now there’s a man who knows a thing or two about diamonds.