Paige Worthy

Hi. Hello.
Just thought you should know that if you’re reading this on a mobile browser or in an RSS feed, you’re missing out. A lot.
Go ahead. Click through to the full website and feast your eyes, friends.

Matt Cheuvront of Proof Branding and Life Without Pants (yes, that’s really a thing) has done an amazing thing: Ta-daaaaaaaaaaaaa! It’s my redesigned website.

I know. I’m excited, too.
Except that it’s prettier, not much has changed. Fewer categories — many of which still don’t have much content because I’m hoping to make myself a Fancy Editorial Calendar — and a simpler design, mostly. But above all things, I also hope it’s more clear now that I am, most decidedly, FOR HIRE. (That means you give me money and I write things in exchange for said money.)

Speaking of money? Expect a post very soon about a 200-mile charity bike ride I’m training for. (SPOILER ALERT: There’s fundraising involved.)

Really, that’s all. Oh. No it’s not.
Did you notice that today’s Google doodle is a big black square? Or find that you can’t access any of the content on Wikipedia? Or laugh particularly hard (if a bit darkly) at The Oatmeal‘s latest cartoon? If not, you live under a rock. Go educate yourself about the twin shitstorms that are SOPA and PIPA, then do something about it.

Okay. Back to the pretty. And shiny. Hooray, Matt! Go over there and give him a compliment on a job very well done.

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“All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”

— Jorge Luis Borges

I saw this quote in a newsletter from Jenny Blake, a wonderfully inspirational woman I met at last year’s 20SB Summit. As I start this week — a bit late and already behind on some things that need to get done — I’m trying to remind myself that every misstep is just an excuse to leave the well-traveled road and find a better way back to where I’m supposed to be.

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I finally woke up at 12:30 today, tangled in my bed linens, my oversized T-shirt stuck to my back with sweat.
My head was pounding.

The last time I looked at my clock before I fell asleep was around 3 a.m. I’d collapsed in a heap on my stairs, sobbing, too exhausted to get in the door and take off my coat before I lost it completely. My mascara had left my lashes entirely and streamed in tiny black rivers down my cheeks to the tip of my chin.

I. Hate. New Year’s Eve.

I tried so hard to make the most of it this year: I bought a bar package to spend the evening with Tim and some new friends. I spent the day physically preparing, drinking water and making a healthy dinner before I left the house. I spent a full five minutes just on my eyeshadow. I was wearing a sequined top, for God’s sake.

I was so game. Mostly. (My Facebook statuses and tweets from the day might suggest otherwise.)

Oh, hell; I was doomed from the start. New Year’s Eve and I just have never gotten along. Maybe it’s the expense. Maybe it’s the always-dashed expectations. Maybe it’s the universal shitshow. …Maybe it’s Dick Clark.

My fondest memory of New Year’s is from high school. (Most of my fondest memories are from high school.) My group of friends spent every big night together in the basement of Eric’s parents’ massive house in Overland Park. That was our place. We all brought snacks and sodas. There was a pool table, a sectional that snaked around the entire room, and a huge TV equipped with every video game system. (My one-button attack on Rival Schools for Playstation was unstoppable.) There was a hot tub outside, and we were always invited to bring our swimsuits.

We chased each other around the room. We told bad jokes. We ate too many Doritos and Soft Batch chocolate-chip cookies. Gabe drank cans of Heee Haw and lost his mind on those sugar highs.

We never really did anything… But even the tamest nights at Eric’s were wonderful.

Kyle was my best friend all through high school, and every New Year’s, he slipped upstairs and out the front door just after midnight. He was never gone long. Then, one year, he asked me to come with him. And we walked. That’s all. He left just after midnight every year to take a walk.

We talked a little, but mostly, we just wandered together through that maze of McMansions, our breath suspended in the cold, fluorescent air. Just reflecting. And it was the best.

Last night wasn’t terrible.
For a lot of reasons, it just…wasn’t right. Few New Year’s celebrations have been since then. (Most, actually, have been just plain wrong.)

But for everything that wasn’t right, the person who grabbed me at midnight certainly was. With noisemakers in one hand and champagne flutes in the other — with three and a half months behind us and, well, a lifetime in front of us — Tim and I kissed like the world was ending.

“No matter what happens this year, I want to be there for you,” he told me after our kiss. “I know there will be challenges, but I’ll be your rock.” That perfect midnight moment hangs in my mind tonight, long after my past-noon wakeup and a day spent brunching in Bridgeport and pajama lounging with Kung Fu Panda 2 on TV.

And if the whole point of a New Year’s Eve celebration is to welcome the next 365 days with optimism and hope, then I guess last night actually was a success. Despite the raccoon eyes, too-strong drinks, bad karaoke and this morning’s emotional hangover.

Because 24 hours later, as I reflect — though that high school walk in the suburban dark has been replaced by a quiet, ordinary Chicago Sunday with my cat — I feel a peaceful invincibility. Happy New Year.

Yep…that's my rock.

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I’ve tried to be more aware about where I’m putting my money in the past few months. A few weeks ago, I moved all my funds to a local bank, and though I’m still a sucker for a Starbucks latte and buy most of my clothes from Gap and Banana Republic — girls like me need to shop where the long sleeves and 36-inch inseams are — whenever I can, I’m passing my plastic’s well-worn magnetic strip through an independent shop’s machine.

Long before this year’s Small Business Saturday, I had resolved to do all my Christmas shopping at local or independent businesses. And with the exception of a few last-minute gifts bought in a Kansas City panic, I did it. And it felt good.

So, without further ado…BE LIKE ME! Here’s my after-the-fact Christmas gift guide, inspired a little bit by Helena of Bye Bye Bitters, who is much better at blogging than I am.

For Tim…

A set of Cards Against Humanity, described to me as Apples to Apples for terrible people. It’s not that Tim is a terrible person. But Tim’s idea of a good time is taking jokes far beyond their point of propriety; mine is apparently spending hours cutting out tiny cardstock squares with vulgar phrases on them.

A Muppets tee from Threadless. ‘Nuff said.

An autographed copy of Dan Sinker’s The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel — Twitter + politics = high comedy — from the Book Cellar, the best little bookshop in the world (unless it’s tied with Rainy Day Books in Fairway, Kan.).

House keys. Copied at Andersonville Hardware.

For Holly…

Kitty cuteness galore, to celebrate the arrival of her newly adopted cat, Hazel.

An ornament and little book from Foursided, her favorite shop in Chicago. Conveniently located in the same block as the salon where I get my eyebrows threaded, it’s wall-to-wall trees come holiday season, packed with ornaments and other Christmas kitsch.

Zuke’s Naturals Purrz treats (Emaline’s favorite) from Sam & Willy’s, an adorable, narrow shop underneath the Paulina Brown Line stop. I could have spent a fortune there.

I felt a little silly going all Crazy Cat Lady until I saw Holly with Hazel yesterday. We stopped in Des Moines on our way home from Kansas City, and she is absolutely smitten. Nothing will replace the amazing laser pointer she bought herself at the pet store — Hazel makes the strangest chirping sound when she chases the red light — but that girl loves her cat. I’m happy to encourage that.

For my father…

A gift set of flavored olive oils from Old Town Oil. (Inspiration: This story on NPR and our ensuing email conversation afterward.

A hand-picked collection of cigars — to add to the ones in his grandfather-clock humidor — from Up Down Cigar, just up the street from Old Town Oil. Some of my fondest memories of my dad while my parents were still married involve him smoking cigars in the hot tub, steam and smoke swirling together and suspended in the winter air. (THE fondest: Him jumping out of the hot tub, rolling around in the snow, and hopping back in with a whoop.)

Holly gave him bacon from Nueske’s.

We’re fat.

For my mother…

A framed photo of Tim and me. I…stole the frame from my bedroom upstairs just before I wrapped it. Because I’m classy. (AND HYPERLOCAL.)

A gift certificate for a massage with Hope at Bijin, her favorite spa in Prairie Village. She made appointments for Holly and me while we were home; we were in heaven for an hour each, and it didn’t seem right for her to miss out on that bliss — especially the 15-minute aromatherapy steam shower afterward. So we treated her.

A bottle of Death’s Door vodka — made with grain grown on Washington Island in Door County) from City Provisions and bloody Mary mix bought on the peninsula. (The day I graduated from KU, we skipped the commencement speeches and shoved off to drink $2 bloodies garnished with pickles at Louise’s West, and we’ve been in search of more weekend cocktail perfection ever since.)

So, yeah. It was a challenge, but I did it.

Yes, avoiding chains and corporations can be pricier and more time consuming — I forgot what it was like to shop for almost everything in brick-and-mortar shops — but it’s worth it to find those perfectly special things that suit the people you’re gifting.

The funny part? (I mean, kind of?)

When I opened my gifts, it was a mess of corporate whoredom all over the place. I’m pretty sure all my books came from Amazon. The clothes were all full-on chain bought. There was certainly free shipping involved.

And that was actually fine with me.

Because my new iPad is shiny and bright, my cast-iron Dutch oven from Williams-Sonoma is luxuriously hefty, this massive Pendleton grandpa sweater from Anthropologie will wrap me in warmth for the whole winter, and my Tory Burch flats are heavenly clouds under my feet.

Old habits die hard.

…Baby steps, right?

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