blog | evany

question sampler

Saturday, mar. 15, 2008 | 0 comments

One more time, so I don't get sued, these Q and As are re-printed here thanks to permission from MSN (who owns all this stuff now).

Q: Dear Dr.Net,

My partner and I are forming a new business and we want our company to have a web site. We do not have a lot of experience with the internet. We have the following questions about web site creation:

What is the best and easiest way to create a web site? How can we update our web site as our business grows? What is the best way to get our web site address out to businesses surfing the internet?

Thanks for your help Dr. Net.

A: The easiest way to create a web site is to hire someone else to do it. But, since you're just forming a new business, and that can be quite a money hemorrhage, you probably have some financial concerns. If there's only enough dough for some low-budge web design, then forget it -- unless there're bucks to burn on a big-league design firm, then you're better off, for your start-up purposes, doing it yourself. When you're company's a whopping success, and the dough's rising, THEN you can hire someone to do some fancy stuff, but in the mean time, spend whatever money's available on a good logo, maybe some minimal look and feel/company identity stuff, and get yourself some pithy, well-written copy. Plop these elements into some simple, strait forward HTML, which is the let's-build-a-web-page "programming language" (quotes used here to indicate a tease of sarcasm, as in "anything that's learnable in less than an afternoon has more in common with Shrinky Dinks than 'real programming'"), and you've got yourself a web site.

The key to building a site that's going to grow with your company is to establish an information hierarchy that's well-though-out and uber-organized. Do it right from the very beginning and any new content will already have a place to go, and the spastic, add-on-to-the-add-on, "where the hell am I?" site will be neatly avoided.

Do this by dividing all your site's information, even if it's only a few pages to start with, into as few general categories as possible: anything more than four is confusing and downright gauche (excessive multiple choice sites remind me of a college freshmen paper trying to look like more than it is by using big fonts and margins). Then organize the information in each category into groups and sub-groups (again, keeping the number of these down to a dull roar). If you find that these groups and sub-groups go on forever, and it takes a user 18 clicks to get to the meat of the matter, then take it as a good sign that you're cramming too much content onto your site. Always keep your web content short and honey-sweet, offering contact info and download-able files in lieu of oceans of "read all this on a monitor and you'll go blind" text.

Once you've got yourself an attractive, informative, and easy-to-navigate web site, then get the word out by registering it with as many search engines and directories as possible. Also, if there are existing sites that cater to your business's business, then you might also send them polite email informing them of you're new online offering, and maybe they'll link to you.

LINKS:

Q:Dear Dr. Net,

there's this guy i really like. But he sees me as a little sister. I am very much in love. How do I find out if he likes me without risking rejection?

--Chrissy

A:Well, you could wait it out, say, for six more months. And if, within that time, he doesn't stop seeing you as a little sister and start, well, seeing YOU, then it's time to take the deepest of breaths and move on to someone more deserving.

(I know it's cliché, but there are many fishies in the sea. There's also a bunch of other stuff out there: turtles (impenetrable types with soft, vulnerable underbellies), octupi (spineless, shifty characters with sharp, biting mouths), sharks (lady killers), and mermen (dream guys with one fatal flaw). If you carefully avoid rip tides and under-toe, you'll find someone who'll have you thinking your current heart-throb was a case of temporary insanity in no time.)

Can't wait six months? Me neither. It's riskier, but I've always been the type of gal to share my feelings and then let the cards fall where they may. Sometimes I get four aces, sometimes a pair of twos, but I'm always glad to at least know where I stand with someone I'm interested in. However, if you're feeling at all fragile right now -- you just got a not-so-flattering hair cut, your skin's acting up, you've started to stutter and break stuff -- then whatever you do, DON'T CONFRONT HIM. You're confidence is shot and you won't be hitting him with all you've got. Wait a week 'til you're feeling cuterrific once more, then let him have it.

But be warned: whatever he says, "Great, let's go out Friday" or "Gee, I'm flattered, but I really just think of you as a friend," you're still in for a lot of work.

Love stinks, love kills, love will tear us apart! But hey, it also makes the world go round.

Best of luck,
Net Worth

Q: A recent bout of voracious Raymond Chandler reading has left me with one very important question: what the hell's a "gimlet"?

A: Never one to do things half-way, I cruised to my local bar to get to the bottom of your problem.

I've always been a real bar geek, the kind of embarrassment who gets the bartender's attention via lots of ungainly bill waving, and then proceeds to waste their time with a barrage of questions because I can't keep my lagers straight from lemon drops. Flustered, I always end up with some syrupy chick drink with enough sugar and cheek-sucking tang to guarantee an instant hang-over.

But, to honor your question with authentically conducted research, I did my best to look like I knew what I was doing. In the finest of Philip Marlow traditions, with elbow casually propped on bar (a la Shields and Yarnell, only not miming it), I over-the-shoulder ordered, "a gimlet, please."

"vodka or gin?" [NOTE: additional research has revealed that this question was more the product of bartender ignorance vs. inexperienced ordering, but it still managed to shatter all my mustered cool.]

"uh...what do gimlet drinker's usually order?"

"Gin."

"Okay, gin it IS!"

I watched carefully as the 'tender dashed some Roses lime, well gin, and ice into a mixer, stirred it up and strained it into a chilled martini glass.

I paid, tipped and took a nose-wrinkled swig (the generous splash of Roses had me drinking hesitantly). And it was GOOD! The ingredients form a perfect symbiotic relationship: the lime syrup sands down the gin's innate sharp edge, the gin wards off the cloyingness of the Roses.

Tasty though it was, I'd still file it in the "chick drink" category, a gently sweet indulgence that's the last thing I'd imagine a hard-boiled dick to knock back. Perhaps Chandler felt his famous, 100% male character needed to be rounded out with a smidgen of femininity? Though that's a theory I find hard to reconcile with the one-dimensional, distinctly anti-feminist treatment dames receive in his books (an oversight that, as a fan, I tend to overlook).

Ah! Life IS a mystery!

(You were right, Madonna!)

Q: I have an 7 month old son and a dad that does not want to be a dad. He did not pay for him the first five months of his life and just started to and only sends 2 hundred which is not even half of what this child cost. And i am out of a job cause i can not afford a sitter they are all to expensive. His family wonders why i will not allow them or there son to see my child and want to take me to court. It is not fair and i am so confused i wish i had the money to pay for a lawyer to take him to court first. Please help?

A: This question was a realllll toughie since it's way, way out of my league (dedicated readers may recall that my "expertise" lies with internet matters, and I am NOT in any way-shape-form a licensed therapist nor physician).

That said, I felt this question was too important, too weighty and upsetting to be left unanswered in the "outside my abilities" pile. So, here goes.

Hey, Dawn,

I'm really sorry to hear that you're in such a sour, sour pickle of a situation. Even though I have no first-hand experience of what you're going through, I really feel for you. Observation, if not personal experience, has shown me that even with the benefit of financial, physical, and mental support of a mate, raising an infant is herculean business.

I wish I had a simple and clear-cut answer for you (but when it comes to life's bigger issues, easy answers are always seem mighty scarce). Instead, I'm going to direct you to a herd of online resources that will inform you of your rights, outline some affordable solutions, and, if nothing else, let you know that you are not alone.

I really and truly hope they help, and I'll be thinking good thoughts about you and your son.

Q: What's the best way to break up with someone? I'm dating this really nice boy, who's attractive, smart, funny, etc., but the spark's just not there. I don't want to hurt his feelings, and I'd even like to continue being his friend. Any advice?

A: If you've ever had the pleasure of dumping someone before, or been the dumpee, then you know that things are going to be a shade unpleasant for awhile. Unless you both share the same "let's just be friends" feelings at the exact same time (i.e., win the "it's over" lottery), there's no good way to break break-up news.

That understood, there are a few Dear John routes available to you:

CLICHE #1: "It's all me" (also know as "I'm Incapable of Love" or "I Have Issues"), which is always coupled with "You're Better Off Without Me"/"You Don't Deserve Me."
CLICHE #2: "There's Someone Else," or the more convoluted, more Oprah, "I'm Gay / Bi-curious," "I'm in Love with Your Best Friend / Father / Brother / Sister / Mother," "I'm Dying," or a combo of all the above.
THE TRUTH: or "Telling it Like it Is"

Since you've expressed a desire to remain friends (and you really mean it, and this bid for friendship isn't an ersatz, saccharine vs. sugar, methadone vs. heroin, bait-and-switch offering), then avoid the cliches and tell the truth. It keeps your integrity intact, it gives the person you're dumping an idea of what to change for the future, and it's much easier to keep track of. And if the truth IS a cliche, then at least try to find a unique way to express it.

Once you've settled on a method of extrication, you're going to have to decide how you're going to apply it. Are you a "pull the band-aide off suddenly" type, or a "one millimeter at a time" sort? (To give you the benefit of another metaphor, do you inch into icy water or do you plunge right on in?) "Making a clean break" and "gradually letting go" both have their pluses and minuses. You and you alone know which approach is best for your situation.

But no matter what and how you do it, there are a few basic rules that always apply: never, unless it just can't be helped (like you're on the space shuttle or something), dump someone over the phone (or, god, even worse, via email). Try to avoid dating someone new the very same week you issue your ex's walking papers (or, if you just can't wait, then at least don't flaunt it). Never just assume that someone'll get the picture if you stop calling/talking/having sex with them (that's just obscene). And finally, respect their wishes: if they don't want to talk to you, or they need to hate you for awhile, let them know they can contact you when they're ready, then leave them alone.

Hope the severing goes well and heals quickly.

dr. who?

Saturday, mar. 15, 2008 | 0 comments

hen I turned 26 back in '96, I officially started getting paid to write: MSN hired me (of all people) to dispense advice and write internet commentary. Exhausting (it meant a sudden and large amount of writing) and disconcerting (who the hell was I to tell anyone what to do?) though it may have been, it was sure was good for me because it opened the door to a wide world of writing and editing work.

Want to see some samples of my writing for the 'Soft? Well, here's a smattering (all re-printed here thanks to permission from Martha, my awesome and liberatingly simpatico editor at MSN).

evany does dolly
[articulating my amazement over the whole "YOU'RE paying ME to WRITE?" thing]

Won't you be my neighbor?
[an amazing example of beating 'round the bush to get to the point]

5-question sampler
[like these? good, 'cause I've got 145 more of them]

remember junior high?

Saturday, mar. 15, 2008 | 0 comments

he salad days when the year ended officially in June and started in September (leaving two months un-accounted for). When you saw every single one of your friends every single weekday...Hold on, I'm having a thought. OK...here it is: That's the reason why that era of mi vida was so freakishly different and potent. It's 'cause, NOW I have to meet friends over coffee, break-y, dinner parties. I never meet my friends to just stand there (without even a cigarette to do), like we did at recess. Nowadays there has to be a reason to clump. OK, thought two (electric bugaloo): You know those parties you go to now where, thru some freak set of circumstances, three of your exes are there, along with your current, plus your current sick crush. You usually get this mad fight-or-flight flutter (feel my pulse you guys, fuck, do I have an hyper thyroid?), get pit stains, end up drinking too much and thus telling everyone just EXACTLY how they make you feel, and then wake up under the piano (alone only if you're very lucky). Well, that's the way every day of juniour high felt like. Everyone's there. Passing you notes, calling you every night, throwing things at you.

Sixth grade was junior high in name only. It was exactly the same things as fifth grade. I weighed 85 pounds and was really into the Mayan Indian culture.

Seventh grade was the quintessential JH experience. It was the year that every one of my friends voted to not allow me to hang out with them. The year that I saw valley girl and got my first huge crush on a movie star/started "getting really into music" ("I'll stop the world and melt with you"/"who can it be knocking at my door"), plus had my first kiss (sans tongue).

But eighth grade was the year that my friends started having sex (which led me to start thinking that I was a late bloomer: WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?) Eyebrow raised? Well, jeez, in my day the summer between seventh and eight grade was the equivalent to 5 earth years (lord KNOWS what today's eighth graders are doing...now the summer probably=46 years and kids-these-days overshoot the sexual years entirely and just play golf and wear comfortable clothing). It was the year that I got drunk for the first time (yep...split a bottle of old crow, ate a handful of maryjane, and gobbled all these no-doz, went to a party at a POPULAR girls house, laydown on the couch next to Peter, my first exboyfriend, and promptly heave-hoed all over his lap and mine, "woke up" (i.e., came to) in different clothes, puked a grand total of 16 times over the next two days, and thereby gained a rep for being a party girl that lasted way into highschool, even though the whole experience left me a converted drug prude). I mean, it was the first year I even TOUCHED a base.

[JUST AS AN ASIDE my life just seems to be one aside after another I JUST GAVE FIVE DOLLARS TO SOME BORNAGAIN CHRISTIANS! what the fuck's gotten in to me? THEY CAUGHT ME TOTALLY OFF GUARD, AKNOCKING AT MY DOOR THE VERY SECOND I EXPECTED MY FINE FRIEND AMY TO ARRIVE. THIS LITTLE BOY IN A SUIT STARTED GIVING ME THE SHPEEL ABOUT LETTING GOD INTO MY HEART + HAVE I READ THE WATCHTOWER? AND I HAD THIS INSPIRATION THAT THIS TIME, INSTEAD OF TELLING THEM TO LEAVE ME BE, THAT I WAS GOING THRU MENOPAUSE AND COULDN'T TALK TO THEM NOW (WHICH IS SOMETHING THAT THIS WOMAN TOLD MY MOM WHEN SHE TRYING TO MAKE $ JUST OUTTA COLLEGE SELLING MAGAZINE SUBSCRIBPTIONS DOOR-TO-DOOR), I'D PRETEND TO ME SYMPATHETIC AND SEE WHAT HAPPENED AND THEY LIKE WANTED TO COME IN AND HAVE COFFEE AND CHAT! SO I GAVE THEM FIVE DOLLARS, SINCE I DIDN'T HAVE A ONE, WHICH IS WHAT I REALLY WANTED TO GIVE THEM, JUST SO THEY'D LEAVE. ohmygod! the enemy! I've just given funds to the enemy!]

OK, so my mom's been clearing out the attic, and much to my chagrin and delight, she unearthed all of my JH yearbooks, report cards, AND, most amazing of all, the box that contained every single note that had been passed to me during those years in the pokey. That's what got me athinking about all this. Most sordid was the junk circa de grade 8.

Check it OUT:

First of all, in my eighth grade yearbook, there's this pic of me ohmygod HACKING (as in sacking).

And then there're these aMAZing signatures...

Ev, I liked being bored with you in Social Studies [SOCIAL STUDIES? what does that even MEAN? How could they call a CLASS that?] and being your friend [this was at that age when it was really important that boys indicate early on in every communique that you were a FRIEND. actually, it's still this way, so, yeah, not really a timely observation, so never mind]. You're a very intelligent and fulfilling person to be with. [Ummmmm?] Well, be nice to little bunnies that hippidy hop [NOTE: the glorious non sequiter! one-year-old MTV was was already making an impact!] and my name is Sal and you're my Pal!

Paul Pickard [NOTE: the inclusion last name+his name's not Sal!]

Or this "INSERT YEARBOOK SIGNATURE HERE" one:

Ev,
See ya in Tam. Have a rad summer and stay cool.
David Petersen [ADDED BONUS: Even with the inclusion of the last name, I have no idea who this is]

Or this "BARMITSVAH THANK YOU LETTER" one:

Evany,
You are a very nice girl and I'm glad to have you as a friend. It has been fun being in your class and I want to continue our friendship at Tamalpais High School.

Love,
Jarid

It's all enough to make me happy to grow old, almost.

i am not erotic

Saturday, mar. 15, 2008 | 0 comments

I'm not sure if it's unilateral, end-of-a-millennium, one-step-beyond madness, or just that I'm a freak magnet. Either / or, the results are the same: every damn time I leave the house these days, the tourette's-plagued, drug-addled, and double-troubled pounce on me like cat on string, puncturing my space bubble, messing with my chi, fucking with my shit. But I'm not complaining (for once) -- ultimately, sane people are overrated.

he past weeks have been filled with run-ins with bat-shit-nuts people, encounters that have left me with the unpleasant job of questioning the overall balance of crazed-to-sane. [You got me working (working) day and night!]

First of all, I've been taking this afro-brazilian dance class (sporadically! don't worry card-carrying members of S.L.O.T.H.) that features live drumming (people who know me will be especially surprised and chagrined by this breach with phobia) and has prompted my feet to bleed, a la stigmata, on more than one occasion. Now this particular masochistic indulgence has me, due to exceedingly confining parking issues, riding the bus a lot. Which means my average exposure time to insanity has risen exponentially.

There was the freaky neck-brace wearing lady who launched this amazing tirade (using a flimsy "is that a new tote?" intro as a segue) regarding how senior citizens refuse to move from the plum Rosa Parks seats to make room for handicapped people like her who had no obvious proof of their disabled status (which got me thinking that the brace was a recently acquired prop to help her acquire her by-rights seat). She said when those spoiled elderly refused to move, she'd just go right ahead and sit on them. Considering her 200+ pounds, I'm sure it was an intensely convincing argument. In our remaining time together, she also held forth about her bone-breaking anti-rape kick, her desire to take low-impact aerobics (after her arthritis waned), and her love of the local flea market (with its pick-pocket and riff-raff preventing 50-cent entrance fee).

Then there was the chatty, recently laid-off man who pestered the driver the entire 30-minute ride about whether his (the unemployed guy with the incredible severence package and the RN girlfriend who has breast cancer, not the driver) four DUIs would stand in the way of getting a job as a bus driver.

Or the silent man who, upon seeing my use of my transfer as a bookmark, insisted on slipping his transfer in between the pages of my book as well and then went back to sleep. The entire gift-giving incident transpired in complete silence.

But it isn't just public transportation that has me questioning the coming of the apocalypse.

I recently went to see a friend from LA play her harpsichord at a local bar and there met this evany doppelganger (a blonde loudmouthed multimedia situation -- just like me! -- who it turns out lives right next door, as in we share a wall). On April 1, I decided to drive to dance class, thinking I'd take break from the bus nuttiness. As I got in my car, I noticed there was a note under my wiper. I had just started to read it, "...move this shit-heap or I'm going to call the cops..." when this multi-pierced goth chick came running out of her hiding spot in my doorway. I shrink-shrank-shrunk away from her, thinking she was the animosity-ridden soul who'd left me the missive. But when she started babbling in about how the cops were after her, how her old man was in jail, she needed a ride to anywhere, USA, etc., I realized that she was unrelated and just needed a little help. I scanned the rest of the note, found out it was an April Fools joke from my recently acquaintanced neighborly twinsie, felt relieved, and offered the be-dark-flowing-gowned girl a ride as far as my class. The following 5-minute drive was a surreal mix of my feeling aged and relieved at having grown out of her fragile age of sixteen, a rocky era when you're as likely as not to run away from home and start dating a DUI-laden thirty-year-olds and take up living in abandoned churches. The interlude ended when I gave her some spare change, offered her deaf ears a warning about the worthlessness of any thirty-year-old who would be comfortable dating a sweet sixteen-year-old, and sent her on her way.

I've saved the really weird incident for last, dessert like.

I was driving to GG Park, bedecked with a bottled coke and burrito that I'd planned on gorging in the sunshine. I was approaching a right turn at about fifty, and, even though I was blessed with a green right arrow, I slowed so I could make the turn in a vaguely safe manner. This precaution earned me a long angry honk from a truck who was proctologizing me about two feet off my rear bumper. The turn made, said angry driver (this crazy, crazy woman) passed me on the left, screaming as she did, "You stupid fucking bitch!" She pulled in front of me, slowed way down, and turned on her left signal. I stopped behind her, waiting for her to make her move. As the on-coming traffic cleared, she started turning. We both started to move forward, but as we did so, we made eye contact in her side-view mirror. And as she was still mouthing epitaphs in my direction, I stuck my tongue out at her.

And she slammed on her brakes.

And I my left front bumper clipped her right rear.

Thus triggering an hour of brain-boggling insanity.

She pulled into the street that she had been signaling for and jumped out of her car, and I followed her, easing my car into a parking space as she splayed herself on the hood of my car, screaming, "Stop! Stop! Don't even TRY to hit and run on me, you fucking bitch!"

Oh boy!

I got out of the car and instantly her wagging finger was in my face. "WHY DID YOU RAM ME!!!"

"Why did you lay on your brakes?"

"YOU WERE DISTRACTING ME WITH YOUR TONGUE!"

"Well, if you're so easily distracted by a tongue, then maybe you shouldn't be on the road."

"LISTEN YOU MOTHERFUCKER, [I'm paraphrasing here...her exact upbraiding lost in a sea of astonishment and fight-or-flight adrenaline] YOU TRIED TO MURDER ME BACK THERE BY SLAMMING ON YOU BRAKES AT A GREEN LIGHT, THEN YOU TRIED TO RAM ME! I'M GOING TO FIND A WITNESS WHO SAW HOW YOU TRIED TO KILL ME!!!"

And then she went off to knock on the doors of the all the houses on the street, and I stayed behind to write down her license plate number with a bloppy, sun-seared pen fished from my glove box.

She stomped back about ten minutes later, "NOBODY SAW WHAT YOU DID TO ME, SO I GUESS YOU'RE GOING TO TRY TO GET OUT OF THIS. I ALREADY PAY $250 A MONTH INSURANCE, BUT EVEN IF I HAVE TO PAY DOUBLE THAT, I'M GOING TO TAKE YOUR ASS TO COURT AND MAKE YOU PAY!!!"

"Listen," I said in my very calmest voice, "you're behaving erratically, and I don't want to talk to you one second longer than I have to, so let's just exchange info and let our insurance companies deal with this."

"I AM NNNNOOOOTTT EROTIC!!!!"

Which is when I lost it, giggling, alone, with this crazy person, blue ink all over my fingers, burrito cooling on my passenger's seat.

"THIS ISN'T FUNNY! I AM A GOOD PERSON! I DON'T DESERVE THIS! I HAVE A GOOD JOB! I WORK WITH PEOPLE WITH AIDS! DO YOU SEE THIS! [she pulls down her shirt to reveal her scar-less collar bone area] THIS IS FROM THE LAST TIME SOMEONE HIT-AND-RUNNED ME AND I HAD TO HAVE MY CERVIX REMOVED! [ohmygod!] I'M UNEMPLOYED! I CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY FOR THIS ... AND DON'T PRETEND THAT YOU DIDN'T HAVE DENTS ON YOU CAR BEFORE! I'M NOT GOING TO PAY FOR THOSE!"

Jesus. "I know there were dents there already. My car is a complete beater and I have no intention of fixing this dent or any other dent. As a matter of fact, I've learned a valuable lesson today: since your Ford has nary a scratch, and my Honda is blessed with a huge dent, I'm buying American from now on."

"You're not going to try and get it fixed?"

"Nope."

"Well...do you want to just forget the whole thing? I'm usually not like this, especially with a sister."

God. "Sounds good to me!"

So we shook hands and parted.

And THAT'S why I'm holed up here at home, rat-a-tatting on my computer, avoiding all non-virtual contact, and living off the burger place I recently discovered delivers.

mrs. c

Saturday, mar. 15, 2008 | 0 comments

y very first LA star-sighting was that woman who played Richie's mom on "Happy Days." She was being mobbed, clothes this close to being torn off, by a huge crowd of people. Uhhhmmm. Perhaps she had a made-for-tv movie coming out. Or maybe that whole retro thing has finally spiraled out of control.