I often feel like I’m a slave to my email. When my inbox looks a bit barren, I tend to get a bit antsy, hitting “Send/Receive” like a madwoman and checking the status bar on Outlook, lest it appear that our email server is down. Outlook defaults to check for new mail every 15 minutes; I’ve changed this so it checks every 2. I’ll admit it, I’m a bit obsessed.

Perhaps it’s because the majority of my day is dictated by my inbox. A client emails with questions or concerns, and VOILA! Like magic, a phone call or meeting is instantly created. We often have last-minute mandatory conference calls, and as of late, I have a recurring Google News search on my company’s name to keep abreast to the influx of news stories about us (since apparently reporters seem to spend most of their time speculating about possible IPO’s and how that will affect everything from the economy to politics.) Because of my dependence on it, you can understand why I find Gmail to be the best thing that’s hit the Internet since – well – Google!

I’ve been beta testing this program for about a month, now, and let me tell you – it’s fabulous. It’s lightning fast. It’s intuitive. It self-refreshes so I can just keep the window open on my deskbar and occasionally glance at it to see that – YAY! A darling boy has written me about his daily boredom and WAHOO! People are coming to my cookout! Instant gratification, and totally caters to my impatience and tendency to plan things far in advance. You see, now I don’t have to wait to decide that I’m going to the Braves game on Tuesday instead of Wednesday (as to not coincide with Cinco de Mayo, of course) – I can see that people would prefer that in seconds. Better yet – it stores all emails as conversations, not individual lines of text, which allows me to keep track of all the people that are coming over to drink Mint Juleps with me on Saturday and the ones that refuse to come to what they deem as a “girly” event.

As for those privacy concerns that people are talking about, did you know that both Yahoo and MSN require you to enter your name, email, address, as well as sundry other items that they store to profile you going forward? Gmail only asks for your name & current email account. And as for the controversy surrounding the serving of ads, there will NEVER be a person reading – nor storing – your emails. A computer scans emails for content & keywords so it can serve you targeted ads. This is the same technology that works as a spam filter or even a spell checker! In the past month, I’ve probably gotten 10 or so ads on ALL of my emails, and I even used one to buy a product that was being advertised.

Trust me, my friends, Gmail is fantastic. What did we ever do without it?

How ’bout YOU answer that question? I’ve got some Gmail addresses available to give out…as Sarah said, convince me you deserve one. (I prefer tulips to roses, in case you’re wondering.)

It’s a beautiful day outside – one of those spring days that start out a bit brisk (too cold even for this seat-heater obsessed gal to drive with the top down) but by 1pm, you know it’s going to be gorgeous. At 1pm, however, instead of enjoying the day, I will be in a conference call. Because my Mondays and Tuesdays are usually comprised of hours upon hours of conference calls. Which, while they serve a point, annoy me nearly as much as people calling my cell phone while at work (which I’m trying very hard to get over.)

I’m in a bad mood. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a bad mood – things have been going quite swimmingly in my life as of late, so my moods have basically varied between happy, jubilant, excited and giddy. And now, for no apparent reason, I’m sort of in a funk.

It’s not PMS, so don’t go there. Nothing bad has happened; quite the contrary. The weather is nice, my job (despite aforementioned conference calls of irkdom) is going well, and my personal life is also on the upswing. Yet, like unattributed anxiety, I’ve got unattributed funk-dom.

And it pisses me off.

A vicious cycle, in fact. I want to be in a good mood, to enjoy the day, to look forward to my run this evening and the weekend ahead and the summer months to come. (Not that this funk will be lasting that long, mind you, but I think ahead.) And yet I can’t seem to just talk myself into a good mood, and not knowing WHY I’m all fidgety and sour and glum is really annoying. Thus, being pissed and sour and glum and annoyed and trying to find a cause to these emotions basically starts a feedback loop of dourness.

To quote Lloyd Dobler, seer of all things wise and witty and poignant, “How hard is it to decide to be in a good mood and be in a good mood once in a while?”

Like his sister said, “Gee, it’s easy.”

I think I need some cheering up.

I’ve lived with My Darling Roommate for 8 months now. I know his habits, the number of times he eats in one day (9-10), the fact that spinach goes in the green Tupperware bowl and that he keeps a plate, bowl, spoon, fork, knife, cup, pot & pan all in his cabinet alongside his beans, brown rice, oatmeal and pineapple. He goes to the gym after work, likes buying things on eBay, and can figure out the percentage saved per year using his Publix coupons in a snap. (Whereas I can’t do a fraction to save my life.) He’s a creature of habit, and – surprisingly – it’s somewhat soothing.

You see, despite my Type-A tendencies and the fact that my closets are somewhat color-coded and that I’m obsessed with “Alias” and as of late have been TiVo-ing “The Sopranos” (2 minutes early and 2 minutes late, lest I miss the theme song that a certain fabulous boy likes so much), I’m not overly habitual. Granted, most weeks are similar in the fact that on Mondays I end up sending out more emails than necessary about fun goings-on during the week (such as a Steeplechase and an Improv in the Park) and that I try most days to go to the gym during lunch, only to get pulled into one meeting or the next, but in terms of true “rhythm of life” habits – nope. Every day is a new adventure or – to quote a cheeze-ass song just for the fun of it – Every day is a winding road.

I love this. I love that I can get up on a Sunday and go for a run if I want to, or I can lay in bed until the cats finally knock everything off of my dresser as a way to alert me that their diets aren’t working and they’re still hungry, damnit. I love that some days I leave work at 6:15 (an early evening, you see) whereas on many others, my ass has a “Harmon Kardon” imprint as I’ve not left it until far past 8pm. (Ok, I love leaving at 6ish. I get hostile past 7, and turn into a real bitch past 8.) But whatever – you get my point. Variety is the spice of MY life, at least.

Yet lately, not everything is so clear. The Aubrey who used to be most comfortable flying by the seat of her figurative (likely overpriced but nevertheless adorable) pants now is liking the pseudo-stability that I’ve been experiencing as of late. I like knowing that I’ll come home to the smell of pork chops on a Tuesday if MDR has eaten salmon the night before. I like knowing that I never, ever get to park in my garage. (Though I like parking in the garage even more, though it won’t happen until I get the aforementioned wish of leaving the office at a reasonable hour.) And, after years of my fickle crushes here and there, always looking for the next best thing, I like liking the same person.

Maybe I’m more habitual than I thought.

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I feel like a celebrity.

You can’t blame me, really. Whether you’re shooting a movie or a commercial or – in my case, a catalog – there’s something inherently fabulous about being the center of attention and having a group of people cater to your hair, your makeup, even the direction in which you’re looking.

Yes, today, Aubrey officially entered the world of modeling.

Before you get too jealous (not that you would), it wasn’t really that glamorous. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun, mind you, but I doubt that Vendela or Elle McPherson wear most of their own clothing when they go for a shoot, nor do they end up wandering the streets looking for the crew. And despite it all, despite the fact that my photos will only appear in a catalog instead of on the cover of any glossy magazine, I’m still feeling a bit star-struck.

An only child – which should be evident by now – I’ve always loved the camera. Hell, just look at the sheer number of photos I have on this site and you’ll see that’s true. My dad was a freelance photographer for a time, so I’d bet that there are more baby pictures of me than a typical family of 5 has of their children. So it goes without saying that I’m pretty comfortable in front of a camera.

While standing still, that is.

I’m a harsh critic on the photos of myself. Double chin? Re-take. Weird angle? Nix it. That’s the beauty of digital cameras – you can erase anything that makes you look less than cute and re-do anything you’re not happy with for one neurotic reason or another. Yet when the choice is out of your hands; well, let’s just say that I’m 99% sure I’m going to end up looking like a hippopotamus who is auditioning for the distinctive title of “most double, triple, quadruple chins” at one period. The fact that my shoots involved me running and then – no lie – skipping with my purse in hand only increases the chance that I’ll look a bit ridiculous.

And yet, despite it all, I loved it. I loved the wardrobe try-on, the light meters, the fact that people across the street were standing and staring while I skipped down the street and tried (at least once without avail) to not run into a light pole while skipping forwards and looking backwards in the “over-the-shoulder” lighthearted smile. (Note that this pose was me trying to mimic one done by Portia de Rossi in another photo taken by the same photographer. And don’t think for a second that I wasn’t thinking “I’m Portia de Rossi!!!” the entire time while I was skipping. No wonder I ran into the light pole.)

Perhaps I’ve got a future in catalog modeling! Just think – I could be the “Real People Model of the Year!” (Do they even have that? And yes, note that they did ask for a “Real People” model. And yes, note that I’m pretending that prefix didn’t exist on the request.)

(Sigh.) Today, the Segway catalog. Tomorrow, the world!

It comes in cycles – I’ve decided that this is true about all aspects of life. From work to love to money – well, I’m either riding high or struggling to stay afloat. And it’s the inconsistency that gets ya.

“They” say that good (and bad) things happen in threes. I don’t know how much I agree with this; but then again, “They” also say that “When it Rains, it Pours.” Most of us can attest to emerging from a relationship-free drought to find a few willing suitors actively seeking your attention, and in the same light, my workload, my bank account, even (to some extent) my outlook in life tends to cycle between manageable, tolerable and optimistic (respectively) to overwhelming, underwhelming (in terms of funds) and a bit down in the dumps. Yet for the first time, the pattern of “Good” vs “Not-so Good” doesn’t seem to be holding true across all groups. Which both surprises and excites me.

Think about it. When your job is going poorly, when you’re broke as can be, and – to add insult to injury – the only men in your life are named “Ben” and “Jerry” – well, it’s easy to develop a negative take on everything. Using the somewhat metaphysical theory that you actually create your own reality (that your positive thoughts bring about positive actions, and vice versa), this could explain why your car breaks down when you can’t afford it and when you need it the most or that the dry spell seemingly turns into an arid desert. Conversely, when even one of these arenas is going well, it seems to put a spring in your step, and suddenly your dwindling finances and over-worked nature really don’t seem to matter that much anymore.

So even at the end of a long day, when your email has been down and people have been bugging you to finish something that you really, really are trying to do as fast as you can and you can imagine your banker just looking at your account, shaking his/her head in misery over your recent irresponsible purchases and you don’t get home until after 8pm and realize that the only thing you have for dinner is some yellow rice, an unexpected delivery of Jewelry* and a call from a cute boy can make it all better.

Though – to be honest – the boy, more than the jewelry.

* No, I’m not engaged. Yes, it’s a wedding-esque ring, but it’s from my Great Aunt and while I LOVE it, it won’t be taking permanent residence on the fourth finger of my left hand anytime soon. But, Oh! How fun it is to wear….

I used to hate Starbucks. It represented the mass marketing and commercialization of America, I thought, and the fact that you could find one on every corner both annoyed and almost sickened me. It was chains like this that were putting Mom & Pop stores out of businesses all over the country, and I, for one, prefer a Mom & Pop store.

So you’ll understand the antipathy I feel about the fact that Starbucks has to be my saviour today.

I’m in New York. Minus an hour-long taxi from the airport (in which I was doing quiet lamaze-esque breathing as not to throw up from car-sickness), it’s a pretty day, and I arrived unscathed in the Big Apple. Because of some logistical difficulties that I don’t care to go into at this time, I couldn’t work from our fabulous Times Square office; and yet I had to get work done. Oh, the quandary.

Starbucks then became the solution, much to my dismay. Their T-Mobile HotSpot Wireless Network offered me the invaluable resource I needed to accomplish all I need to. Damnit.

To add insult to injury, I forgot my coat – the only warm item of clothing that I had planned to bring – in the car. The car that is now sitting in the now-$9-a-day rip-off Park-n-Ride. In Atlanta.

Damnit Damnit Damnit. I’m not only gonna be a vagabond, I’m gonna be a COLD vagabond at that.

So now, not only do I have to find a cheap place to buy a coat or other warm poncho-like item, but I have to find a place CLOSE to a Starbucks, CLOSE to the place where I’m meeting my friend at 5, being as I have my luggage with me.

I consider myself a pretty damn good packer. Since I traveled more weekends than I was in Atlanta last year (!!), I can get 10-days worth of clothes for two climates AND a ball gown all in one airplane regulation-sized carry-on. I pack light. So for this trip – knowing that I was going to have some walking ahead of me – I upped the ante and took what I usually consider an overnight bag for the entire weekend, complete with two cocktail dresses, two pairs of heels, and sundry other items. And yet, it’s an interesting phenomenon: no matter how lightly you pack, after walking 5 blocks, back and forth to find a Gap, a Starbucks & our meeting place (amazingly all w/in a 4 block radius), “light” packing becomes “Oh my dear Lord my arm is going to fall off and this luggage-induced crick in my neck is going to require chiropractic care” packing which – trust me on this one – is not fun.

It must be karma – I worked at a Starbucks in Chapel Hill for four days (I had the 5am shift…I think 4 days is pretty commendable!) and now, when I needed one, I couldn’t find a Starbucks to save my life. 56th and 6th? THAT WOULD MEAN IT IS ON THE CORNER! Apparently not. I walked all three WRONG directions until I hit 5th, 57th, 55th and – after resting in the doorway of The American Cancer Society (I figured they help people with cancer and thus wouldn’t likely arrest me for loitering while I tried to call to find said Starbucks) – I tried the last direction. 1/2 way down 56th, there it was. The Starbucks. Where I’m currently sitting.

Amid a cacophony of emotion coming from the Russian girl in front of me – who alternates between screaming in her native tongue, crying, and banging her computer on the table – and the foam machine, it’s actually pretty calm in here. Charming even.

While it’s no Mom & Pop, I think I’ll reconsider about the evils of Starbucks. After all, they make one mean Chai Tea Soy-Milk Latte.

Adjusting to life in the South took some time. Though I considered myself somewhat en vogue at the time, I didn’t wear a ton of makeup nor did I really care what I wore to go work out, to wear to the cafeteria, or to even check the mail. So if my attire was composed of a sweater, plaid PJ pants and clogs – well, so be it. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.

This did NOT sit well with my roommates. An intervention was imminent.

I remember one night, my crush from my psychology class (who earned the creative moniker of “Psychology Hottie”) called me to study. It was a Thursday, nearing midnight. I doubt that the “studying” he had in mind would actually include academic pursuits, but who knows. Being that he woke me from my sleep (why I wasn’t out on a Thursday night is beyond me, but we’ll let that go for now, shall we?) I had no intention of getting dolled up; in fact, my preparation included brushing my hair and teeth. (That’s just a given.) After all, he knew he had woken me up, so why primp & over-prettify when he’d immediately know that I had changed, put on makeup, and the like?

The reaction I received from my roommates was similar to telling a southerner that “y’all” had been removed from Webster’s dictionary. They were NOT HAPPY. Within a minute, I had one girl going through my closet, throwing shirts and skirts and jeans and sweaters on my bed, trying to decide what I should wear. The other was throwing my contact case & solution at me with the military-style order that I was to take OFF my glasses & put the contacts in IMMEDIATELY. Then came the makeup & hair – I was attacked with a brush while another roommate simultaneously was telling me to be steady – you see, she was trying to put on mascara and BLUE eyeliner.

Like a deer in headlights, I allowed them to give me a makeover in record time that would usually be seen on one of those “rags to riches” shows. Hell, if HE was Southern, and THEY were Southern – well, they knew what they were doing, right?

I drew the line at perfume. I could MAYBE get away with wearing jeans. Perhaps I didn’t take my makeup off before I went to bed! But perfume – no way. He’d know that I’d put it on just for him, and that was embarrassing.

“No, that’s the point. He WILL know you put it on just for him,” drawled the roommates.

Perfume was applied. I was officially broken down, and in the years that followed, though I still would wear a mishmash of outfits to the cafeteria nor did I ever put on makeup BEFORE working out, I learned the power of pre-date prepping along with a touch of lipstick.

So, 9 years later, I find it hilarious that one of my co-workers just took one look at my outfit and deemed it unsuitable to wear to my current squeeze’s house.

“I’ve seen you look much cuter. Hit the mall – stop at Sephora! You need some makeup! – and buy a pair of jeans. Or a skirt. Or something. Please…”

Apparently, some things never change.

Yesterday, I wrote a post in response to a negative comment I received on my site entitled “The Kindness of Strangers.” This reader found me annoying and self-centered, so – as I’m apt to do – I took it in stride and wrote a tongue-in-cheek response to her.

Since then, I’ve received emails & comments saying that I shouldn’t have taken the time to even address the issue; instead, I should have just deleted the comment and moved on. Though I try to never delete comments (save for the occasional spam ones urging my readers to try Viagra), I may have to agree with them. It really wasn’t the best use of my time, and while I found it to be somewhat amusing, I probably shouldn’t have dedicated an entire post to it, nor should I have entitled it “The Kindness of Strangers.”

Because, you see, I’ve felt the TRUE kindness of strangers in my life, and I’d hate to tarnish those experiences by likening them in any way or form to a mean-spirited comment. I’ve had people I’ve only emailed but never met invite me into their homes, take me around for the weekend and make me homemade waffles with the most amazing maple syrup I’ve ever had. I’ve formed friendships near and far from having a website; many of these are dear, true friends that I talk to on a daily basis, and knowing that I would never have met them without this site pains me to no end. The fact that these kindred spirits have somehow considered me their friend makes me delight in the community-building that the internet can bring.

So when I hear someone criticizing my site – which of course is inevitable, as everyone is welcome to their opinion – it saddens me, not only because of the insulting comments made, but the fact that they are assuming that this site – despite its eponymous nature – is just a place for me to drabble on about my “loser” life and pointless existence or that I think that my whole purpose is to be as “self-centered” as I can be. Yes, AubreySabala.com IS about me, my life, my thoughts, but in the past three years, I’ve gotten so much more from it.

Hell, I’ve even got a place to stay in NYC as a result of it. So it can’t be ALL bad, now, can it?

Sarah Hatter is my friend.

She’s my good friend, in fact, a girl who I can laugh with over the silliest things which reminds me how fun and true girl friends are and how much we need them in our lives.

Since she’s my friend, we discuss just about everything; I know that she’s spending time with this darling guy who she (amazingly enough) met on the street corner and who thus far hasn’t shown himself to be anything but a gentleman. It’s those types of stories that you read on her website that sound too good to be true, the type of stories that wonder if she’s taking some journalistic liberties to delight her readers. I can say, however, that these types of stories DO actually happen to her, that she DOES meet men on street corners that woo her and take her to fancy dinners and she DOES have the type of life that we all think only happens in fairy tales. Sarah Hatter is real.

And despite the fact that I talk with her every day and she – more than most people, save for possibly My Darling Roommate and a few other close friends – knows what is going on in my life and what I’m thinking but not saying and what I’m saying and not meaning, still has the ability to surprise me and make me sit here, on my couch, nodding, because yet again, she’s hit the nail on the head.

Friends are often at different places in their respective lives…I’ve never really been in the “newly dating” phase when someone else is, which makes you inherently want to hold back, lest you sound that you’re gloating. The last thing you want your friend to think is that you’re doing the proverbial “Nyah, Nyah, Look what I have and you don’t” when all you actually are doing is being excited about your new crush. I’m usually on the flip side of the matter; at this point, most of my friends have a long-term boyfriend or husband or significant other, so trust me when I say I’ve been through it before. We – the significant other-less – are truly happy for our friends when they describe their fledgling relationships with a glow that only a person in the first few stages of “like” can have. And yet, despite that excitement, the devil on our shoulder is whispering “When is it going to be us?” in our ear, making our smile a bit more pained than it should be.

Yet every now and again, the world aligns your relationship excitement with that of your friend’s; they’ve recently met someone that gives them the butterflies, and so have you. And while you’re trying to figure out what to say and what to do and how to act and how not to act, so are they. They’re going through the cautious tightrope walk of propriety themselves, and can empathize with that time you mistakenly mentioned the word “marriage” in front of said crush, mentally berating yourself for your stupidity and wondering if you’ve screwed it up yet again.

So when I read this, I’m glad I’ve got a comrade in crushes to muddle through these “relationship” questions together. Because, you know, Sarah Hatter knows that the last thing I’d ever do is say “Nyah Nyah” when I’m happy.