I started dancing when I was 2 1/2. As many people know, dancers often shove their feet into ridiculously small, painful shoes (toe shoes, “character” shoes or tap shoes), so we’re used to pain. REAL dancers – those in a corps or at least those who spend many, many days a week dancing – wrap their toes in sheep’s wool to help protect them when they’re balancing all of their weight on the tip of their toes. Point of this rambling is that I used to dance; therefore, I am no stranger to painful feet.

Why, then, am I completely incapable of walking in  high heels as an adult? Just watching Carrie Bradshaw teetering in her Manolos makes me cringe, knowing that I’d make it a half of a block, take off my shoes, and say a silent prayer that I didn’t step on a hyperdermic needle. I don’t know if I’ve ever made it through a wedding – or hell, an entire evening – in high heels…even in college you could often find me, pizza slice in one hand, shoes in the other, wandering down Franklin Street after a big night on the town.

Take today. I got up early (to watch the Today Show wedding, my yearly guilty pleasure even if Cody’s hair really was a travesty-in-the-making), showered, and spent a leisurely morning getting ready at my own pace. Put off running until later this evening or – at the worst, tomorrow – because damn. It’s Friday. And sometimes I like moving slowly in the mornings. I dressed with care (note that I’ve been attempting to be a bit more businesslike in my attire; that, and my favorite jeans are presently a WEE bit too tight, so black pants have been donned on more than one occasion this week) and even curled my hair. Yes, you read that correctly. I. CURLED. MY. HAIR. Anyway, I chose my new pair of black heels – a steal from Target, which is good since I hate buying shoes – and strode out my front door only a few minutes late to catch the bus.

Except “striding” soon turned to “wobbling” and after a few blocks, that evolved into “hobbling”. At this point, I should have promptly turned around, gone home, and put on my one pair of cute low-ish heels, also from Target lest you think my cheap shoe purchase is correlated to my inability to walk in them. Nope – not the case. But, since I humored myself by watching a few extra minutes of The Today Show, I didn’t want to be late and figured that I’d rest my tootsies in my bunny slippers that I keep at work for this exact purpose. Only by the time I walked the block and a half from the train to my office, I could barely move my feet were in such pain.

9am and we have a problem.

So, at lunchtime, I stopped at this awesome store, “Jeremy’s”, that sells designer clothing and shoes at a fraction of the price. There wasn’t a huge selection in the “Size 8″s but alas, I found a pair of Charles David footie boots and regardless of the price, they were a relief to my feet when I stepped in them so decided to make the purchase. $18 later (note that these boots retailed for well over $100 – I love a deal) I was walking to lunch with friends when I realized that I could barely walk in THOSE EITHER. Seriously. What is my problem? Is my future confined to ballet flats forevermore?

Those boots might be made for walkin’, but if they have a heel, they weren’t made for me. 

Originally posted on aubs.vox.com

I often talk about the Power of the Internets (not to be confused with the Power of Greyskull, natch) and how things like Twitter and especially Facebook find us reconnecting with those from our past. (In a somewhat related manner, I’m about THIS CLOSE to deleting my MySpace page because really, it’s lame, I check it like once every four months, and NO, Mr. Random Guido Bodybuilder, I DO NOT want to get to know you better. Really.) What I’ve found, though, as while Facebook is the social  network du jour here in Silicon Valley, I had a hard time explaining it to my friends whose lives don’t revolve around the Interweb. (Bless their hearts, I’m kind of jealous.) They’ve HEARD of it, mind you, but it was difficult trying to explain what it did. "You can add applications [note: at this point, they told me they thought I was talking about job applications, which makes sense if you’re not ensconced in the geekland like I am] and leave comments on people’s sites and see who’s married and who’s dating…" I trailed off then because not only did I do Facebook such injustice to describe it that way, but really, I sounded like a voyeur. This coming from someone who’s put her entire existence on the ‘net for 8 years now.

So while I’m adding friends on Facebook as far back as middle school on a semi-routine basis and finding out where they live and what they’re doing and mentally getting irrationally angry that we didn’t have this when I planned my 10-year high school reunion 2 years ago, I’m simultaneously discovering that LinkedIn is the more prevalent of these social networking apps, if the fact that Daisy’s Mom and MY OWN DAD are both on it. What? Ed Sabala on LinkedIn? What has this world come to!? And why, preytell, didn’t he ADD ME? Thanks, Dad.

Also, though LinkedIn only provides you with minimal details (read: No, you can’t find out if that dude you smooched once in the Sig Ep basement is still single, though if he lives in the South and is still that hot methinks the answer is probably ‘no’), you can see that your friend who used to run through the streets of Chapel Hill butt naked screaming "Look at  my wienie!" is, in fact, a lawyer.

LinkedIn: Proving that it’s a good thing that YouTube wasn’t around when we went to college.

When one owns a home, one expects that things will break. That’s what warranties and handymen are for, after all. Yet one doesn’t always expect them all to break AT ONCE. Add insult to injury when you own TWO houses and don’t live in either of them, so while you’re importantly ensuring that your renters have important things like hot water and frozen food, it just doesn’t have that same sense of satisfaction that comes with repair. It’s like sending money into the abyss.

Lately, it’s been a breakin’ type of season. Two weeks ago, the renter of my townhouse alerted me to the fact that the washer was leaking. Lovely. That’s out of warranty. (The fridge was doing the same a few months back, and the garage door also stopped working. Awesome). Then, the renters of my house told me that the Atlanta Gas & Light people had come out but refused to re-light the pilot lights since the water heaters weren’t apparently installed to code. Two and a half years after my closing – and this was part of the house purchase – those things are posing a health hazard for the lovely family that lives there. Which, of course, is totally unacceptable, and the former owner or the contractor should pay for this. Only we can’t track down who that was since it wasn’t written in the settlement statement. And all the emails that I had sent years ago to the former owner to get the sewer line working correctly (don’t ask) seem to have vanished. ARGH.

I love owning my houses, I do. I think that eventually, after this whole hullabaloo with the interest rates dies down (thank the dear lord for my long mortgages) I’ll make money on both of these places. In the meantime, I’m building equity and credit and being a good landlord while I spend more on my rented apartment here in SF than I do on my mortgages (both of which I’m losing money on, btw, due to low rents and higher mortgages. Still, I shouldn’t complain. I was able to own a home at age 25 and 5  years later, am glad that I do so.

It’s just a bit hard when in a week’s time, a washer hose springs a leak, you need to replace your water heaters and then the fridge stops working. Please, God of Home Appliances, can’t ya cut a gal any slack?

I honestly don’t understand how this happens EVERY YEAR. I consider myself a creative person but lo and behold, October comes and I find myself without a Halloween Costume. EVERY. YEAR. I’ve been Marilyn Monroe (a few times). Naughty Nurse? Check. I was even one half of "Blondes Have More Fun" (which, once separated, nobody understood). I am really open to anything, as long as it follows these three rules:

1. No face/body paint
2. No being intentionally ugly
3. Nothing scary

Given that the collective is smarter than the individual (and the Internets make EVERYTHING better), I ask: What should I be this year for Halloween? Bonus points for creativity…

Another tasty tidbit from Fred Wilson’s blog (which is quickly becoming one of my favorites):

Facebook is unlike anything we have seen to date because its the
first megatech company built by the generation that used the web before
they had sex

I’m now dying to know who said that, b/c they’re SO spot-on.

Saw this cartoon on Fred Wilson’s VC Blog, and found it bitingly true. Not sure who "ohugh" is but I like him/her.  Many thanks to Felix, who directed me to Hugh’s site, GapingVoid.com, of which I am now also a huge fan. He draws cartoons on the back of business cards. That’s awesome.

This weekend I found myself pledging my love and endless adoration to my Swiffer WetJet. If you don’t yet  have this magical device, put everything else down, and run – walk, scooter, drive, fly, skip, crawl, hitchhike, whatever – to your nearest hardware store or Target and procure one right now. It will change your life. And I mean that with every drop of sincerity in my body.

Anyway, while Swiffer WetJetting my very needy floors I decided to give myself a little cleaning music. Inundated by commercials these days as I continue my obsession with the new tv premiere season (LOVE Chuck. LOVE Journeyman. LOVE LOVE LOVE, and unapologetically so, Gossip Girl) I’ve naturally had Feist’s "1234" stuck in my head. I say "Naturally" because every other commercial is one for the fugly new iPod nano, and clearly someone wisely decided that the only way to sell this unattractive little nugget was to couple it with a catchy song. Not sure how sales are going for Nano Fugly-point-oh but I do know that "1234" is leeching space in my already overwhelmed brain.

In light of this, I share with you an awesome rendition of this song as she performed it on Davide Letterman with backup from members of my other fave bands (Broken Social Scene, Mates of State, The New Pornographers, The National, and Grizzly Bear.) Feel free to listen to it while Swiffering YOUR floors, or, as I did, treat yourself to watching the whole video (repeatedly) from the comfort of your now-spotless house.

As usual, I agree with Billy Madison. He’s a wise, wise man beyond his years. In the same vein, I’ve been doing a TON of learning here, and may I please brag for a second? (You said yes, didn’t you?)

Just today, I made this page. And also this.  And that snazzy little "News" section in the bottom right of the home page? Yep, did that too. I hand-coded it, designed it (information architecturally, that is), added the content, the logos and even learned markdown language. I didn’t know there was such a thing. I’ts nearly 6pm, my hands hurt, my eyes hurt, and my brain hurts.

Oh, but it hurts so good.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, author and my imagined new best friend (he’s not imaginary, mind you, I’ve just never met him) published an article today announcing our new round of funding and saying we’re the coolest company in Silicon Valley (that you may not have heard of). I think it’s time to change all that, so Hi! We’re Mashery! We have a fantastic service that will make your world easier, increase your business, and help you grow your traffic and user base. (I could get far more technical and tell you that we allow for on-demand API management and deployment, but that may lose some of y’all. More detailed post on what EXACTLY it is we do in layman’s terms coming soon).  Anyway, check out the article. I’m bursting with pride, all four-days in, and happen to agree. We ARE cool.

So today – Day Three of New Awesome Job – holds not only that moniker but also the title of The First Time I’ve Ever Had To Blog…For Work. I’m putting this in all-caps to emphasize the ridiculousity that this is, that after EIGHT YEARS of writing on this website (not blog), I’ve never, not once, been asked to write for a corporate blog. (Ok, that’s a lie. I wrote this, but it’s not really blog-like and I had been given the topic so I don’t really count it.)  But today, the heavens opened up and the angels began to sing and hell started getting some snowflakes and oh my! Is that a pig flying? Methinks it is. So yes. I get to write a blog post, one of many forthcoming and I’m just sitting here hoping that Typekey changes my profile name correctly and it doesn’t come from "Aubs".

Exciting, right?

Yep. Except I don’t really know where to begin. I’ve been here just three days (two and a half, if you’re being specific) and while I know what we’re doing and what I’m supposed to be writing about, I think I’m working myself up into a nervous tizzy about a blog post. I mean, if this involved math, nervous tizzy justified. But this is writing – nay, BLOGGING – something I consider myself a quasi-expert on. I mean, if there were a GRE section on blogging, I’m SURE I wouldn’t have gotten halfway through and just started putting down "B" for every answer. Like, um, I did for the math section.  (Whatever. Georgetown AND George Washington University still thought I was fabulous with my less-than-stellar math percentile. And you should too. But I digress…)

So with a hectic morning behind me and it being an "eat-at-my-desk" sorta day, I figured I’d take 20 minutes to pump myself up and do a bit of practice by reading some of my favorite blogs, catching up on the news of the day, and writing here.

I honestly never thought I’d see the day where I had to PRACTICE blogging, but hell, that pig WAS flying outside, wasn’t it?