"Don't screw it up."

My old boss knew how to motivate me.

Right after every assignment he'd give me, he'd always say, "Don't fuck it up," or "Don't screw this one up," as I walked out the door.

He'd always deliver the line in the most jovial way, too. And it never failed to make me smile and, most importantly, give a shit.

Because I always wanted to hear him say, "Thanks for not fucking this up." Or even, "Nice job."

And you know what? Most of the time, I did.

You have to find out how to work with others, and discover how to make them work. It's key for your success, their success, and overall contentment in the workplace.

I respond well to a) being told directly what to do with b) a smirk and c) cursing.

My boss knew that.

And to this day, no matter who I'm working for at the moment, before I ever type a single word, I always tell myself, "Don't fuck this up."

And I don't.

Takeover ads suck balls.

Study after study shows that people are very impatient when they're using the Internet.

We click the first link we see. We leave a page if it takes more than three seconds to load. And we have no tolerance for ads that cover up the stuff we're looking for.

As a person who works in advertising, I love a good ad. And if it's awesome enough, I might not mind it taking up a valuable fives seconds of my day. The problem is most ads are terrible, boring, and don't reward me for my patience.

Like this piece of shit, which unveils itself without my permission.

This yogurt ad takes up my entire freaking window. In fact, I had to expand my window to find the close button, which is tiny and slammed as far into the top right corner as it could possibly be. Piece of shit ad is right justified, too, making it even harder to click.

Urgh.

Then it plays a boring ass commercial. BORING BORING BORING. I know it's yogurt, but yogurt can be fun. If only the marketing directors at Yoplait has let the ad agency do something fun. Like throw yogurt on the page. Or put yogurt mustaches on every photo. Or something that would have made me smile and given me a positive experience, instead of pissing me off and making me want to eat cereal.

At least the sound was off. Otherwise, my laptop might have ended up on the floor.

iMiss Steve Jobs, even though iNever met him.

iAm not a brand-loyal person.
iBuy a different toothpaste every time.
iCould care less about who made my TV.
iCouldn't tell you what company produced the shoes on my feet.

But my way of keeping in touch with the whole world? iCan tell you exactly who's responsible that.

Today, iFeel sadness for a man I've never met, but who has aided my creativity and career for so many years.

Thank you, Steve, for bringing us all into the future.

Designers can be real dicks.

I'm an advertising copywriter, which means I work with tons of designers and art directors.

And they all have their quirks. Most of them have very unique qualities. Many of them fall into stereotypes.

And many of them are assholes about other designers.

Being a freelancer, I oftentimes will work with several designers on the same account. And I'll never understand why they'll view a piece I've worked on, and then knock it in front of me. But in particular, the designer that worked on it.

"Ugh. That looks like shit. That tiny little spec right there. I would have magicked that out and used Pantone whatever. That color right there is so cliche. Any why is it on paper? I would have used leather."

I always want to scream at them.

"Dude, that's my fucking work, too!"

"Hey, asshole, I didn't ask for your opinion."

"You should see what this guy said about your piece!"

There are many times when I see shitty writing, and although I bitch about it a lot, I probably only express my opinion half of the time. Because I know how bogged-down-depressing being a professional creative can be at times—always having your work under an electron microscope by people that constantly profess "I know I'm not creative, but ..."

... but lick my ass.

So I would think that designers, knowing damn well what other designers go through, would be a little nicer. At least to my face seeing as I know the guy they're insulting and I probably like that guy, too.

Although, most of the time, it's the inferior designer bitching about the better designer. At least in my opinion. I mean, I'm not a designer, but ...

Burts Bees lip balm is no joke.

After my usual morning makeup routine, I opted for the honey-scented/flavored Burt's Bees lip balm instead of whatever it is I normally use.

There's no reason why I chose honey over mint. Except maybe to attract bees. Because that's what the freaking lip balm did.

Not fifteen minutes later, I was pumping gas into my car when I noticed a bee buzzing around. Usually, I don't bug out when there's a flying insect because my Daddy Lou always told me that bees won't bother you if you don't bother them.

This bee, however, was different. This bee kept coming right at me.

As I slowly backed away, the bee circled and came closer, then further, then closer, then further. By this time, others at the gas station had noticed my strange behavior, but I'm confident they couldn't see the bee.

I must've looked like I was about to have a seizure.

I backed away from the pump and the bee. It seemed to work. The bee took off and was out of site.

Then, it swooped in from behind me, darting between my calves and bumping one as it circled me again.

I didn't swat at it, but I might have jumped and spun in a circle. And I might have said, "Fuck." I always say, "Fuck."

A this point, it was obvious people were watching me now. What wasn't obvious was why I was stiff-armed, moving in a serpentine pattern, and spewing four-letter words.

That's when the bee decided to go for my face. He got so close, my eyes crossed.

It hit me then ... an idea, not the bee. That bee can smell my lip balm.

I quickly tucked my lips in and covered my mouth with my hand. After four seconds, the bee flew away. (After about thirty seconds, my face started sweating it's over 105 degrees here today.)

My crazy idea had worked. Sure, I looked nuts covering my face while pumping gas. But at least I wasn't dancing around screeching, as I was two minutes prior.

I'm doing it myself.

So now that the King of Awesome and I are homeowners, we're tackling a few projects without the (direct) help of experts.

Because I'm cheap and able.

Hopefully able.

Regardless, while we're taping corners and drilling holes and unscrewing pipes, we keep noticing little spots where previous workers just said, "Fuck it." Like with the paint on the inset windows. The beautiful wall retexturing that's been done throughout the entire house is shoddy at best in the parts of the window you don't see unless you're leaning against the wall and uncomfortably looking back at it.

Yeah, exactly. You have to get in strange, Twister positions to even notice. But still, there's evidence of someone else who was probably an exhausted five-hours in just saying, "Fuck it."

And I feel their pain, because I feel like saying, "Fuck it," when I'm in the same spots. Like the itsy bitsy spots of paint that were missed. Sure, we say we'll get them later, but will we really?

Fuck it.

Or the switch plates that are an ugly color so we painted them and stuck them up temporarily. At least we painted them. But will we really replace them?

Fuck it.

Or that teeny bit of blue paint that's now on the ceiling in the corner that you can't see unless you're standing on the toilet. Are we going to fix that? Hopefully, but in reality? Fuck it.

At least we're doing the quirks ourselves, though, instead of paying some other folks hourly to say, "Fuck it," when we're not looking.

9946 Parkford Dr. in Dallas, Texas, has black mold.

9946 Parkford Dr. Dallas, TX

That's the house my husband and I were days away from owning when our lender told us to get a mold inspection.

That's the house that ended up having black mold in the walls.

That's the house owned by the out-of-country people who kept saying they couldn't afford to keep it and tried to get us to pay their mortgage when the closing was delayed.

That's the house that they kept telling us would go into foreclosure.

And it's also the house which I saw is back on the market.

I don't like to post things like addresses here. Or bad mouth anyone specific. Or ruin stuff for others. Or put up such blatant real-word stuff from my life.

But I have a feeling that whoever is in charge of 9946 Parkford Dr. in Dallas, Texas, won't disclose that the house has black mold.

So all I can do is post the address, 9946 Parkford Dr. in Dallas, Texas, enough to make the house climb in the Google searches. And then hope someone searches for the address. And then save that person thousands and thousands of dollars and heartache.

9946 Parkford Dr. in Dallas, Texas, has black mold. And I have the extremely expensive reports to prove it. It also has a slow water leak which caused the mold and is destroying the structural integrity of the kitchen. That's not the only leaky thing, also.

We were planning on putting a lot of money into that house to get it up to par. But the discovery of black mold made us realize we were going to spend way more than we anticipated. That and the bank wouldn't give us the money after discovering the 9946 Parkford's little, spore-spreading skeleton.

If you're interested in that house and you found this blog, I'll be honest and forthcoming about the Parkford house's history. I'll tell you everything, including how it broke my heart.