Sway's Weekend Music Pick: "Down By The Water" by The Drums

New Terminology To Impress Your Magazine Industry Friends With

The past few weeks have been a blur of holiday gift guides and New Year's resolutions compilations.

Around this time every year, the whole magazine industry compresses. Publications that put out 12 issues a year have to do all the work they normally complete in four weeks in just three, and they have to do it two months back to back, in November and December. The December issue has to be on newsstands -- or at least off to the presses -- before Thanksgiving break, and the December issue has to be done before the holidays hit. I'll let you in on a secret: the technical term for this time of year is known in the industry as a "$#!^storm."

Needless to say, stress levels run high and sometimes it all gets to be a little too much. Maybe this explains why I've had a particularly rough month with a few of my clients. But then, I would argue that maybe you haven't really become a full-fledged, full-time freelancer until someone screams at you in all caps over e-mail for something that is ultimately determined to have not been your fault in the first place. Good times.

And admittedly, I have been no peach these past several days, either. I haven't screamed at anyone in all capital letters via e-mail ... My breakdowns have been more of the tearful, blubbering, sleep-deprived sort. On the up side, this has been my most (financially) successful freelance month since I began halfway through May. On the down side, it's taught me that working around the clock and being tethered to my iPhone during every daily activity is really no way to live. I think I've finally discovered that magical "threshold" I was looking for, the one where I have enough clients/projects on my plate and it's time to stop trying to acquire more unless I want to run myself into the ground.

I'm strongly considering trading in my credit card reward points for a "no one ask anything of me" kind of vacation over next summer. And if my boyfriend forgives me for blubbering at the most random things this past month, maybe he can even come, too. I'm thinking an island. Where there's no Wi-Fi signal and no cell phone reception. But not this island. That wouldn't help anything.

In the meantime, I think I need to finally stop saying "yes" to everything and learn when to say "no."

No.

See, there, I just did it.

No.

This will be easier than I thought.

Cissie

Last weekend was fashion week here. Technically, it's only three days long, rather than a legitimate week, but they pack a lot into those three days.

One of the PR companies I work with a lot in town actually reps Ted Baker London locally and one of the PR girls contacted me to ask if I wanted to wear something from the TBL winter collection to fashion week Saturday night. Umm ... yeah!

So I got to go to the store the day before and try on a number of really fun, really cute dresses, but in the end, I chose this one:

It's called "Cissie." I loved that it was bright red (my favorite color), and that it was kind of corseted and even had pockets. I paired it with some black patent pumps from Target and some sparkly jewelry, and I was good to go. The shows I got to see that night included Neiman Marcus, Tory Burch, Ted Baker London (of course) and Betsey Johnson. It was fun, and my boyfriend didn't even mind (too much) being dragged along and having to wear a suit.

And I would have had some video from the runway shows to post, but the mini video cam I ordered got delayed and wasn't delivered until two days later, on Monday. Ah well. Best laid plans, right? Hopefully I'll get video at something other interesting event so I can try out the cam.

Sway's Weekend Music Pick: "Chasing Pirates" by Norah Jones

DIY: Dry Erase Calendar

A week or two ago, I was writing some upcoming due dates and events in my planner and I found myself really wishing I could roll the whole thing out, unfold it and stretch it so that I could see everything I have coming up all at once.

I presented this wish to my boyfriend. Casually. While he was playing video games.

"They have those, you know," he said whilst blasting a zombie to smithereens. "Those big calendars you can put on the wall and write on and tear off the sheets one month at a time."

"Yes," I said, "but that seems so wasteful. What I really want is a dry erase board with a calendar on it."

"They make those, too."

"Yes," I said, "but there's a major problem with all of them. They're ugly."

I mean, aren't they? They all have cheap wood or plastic or metal framing them and just look so sterile and middle school math class-ish. No, if I was going to have a dry erase calendar that made me walk into my office each morning just burning to get started marking all over it, I was going to have to make one myself.

And so that's just what I did.

I used this tutorial here. And I used some of the leftover fabric I had from the DIY jewelry board project here. And I went to Michael's and bought a nice frame that was 50% off. (Is it just me, or are all the frames at Michael's always 50% off? What is going on over there?)

Do ya wanna see the end result? Do ya?

Ta-da!

The low quality of the photo is intentional. I can't have anyone unearthing the details of my deep dark secretive plan for freelance writers to take over the world someday, otherwise what would be the point of all my plotting? That's what we writers do, you know -- we plot. Ah ha. Ah ha. Ahem. Sorry ...

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the finished product. I've organized it so that it's revolving, too, meaning as soon as a week passes, I erase that week and incorporate it into the calendar for next month. For example, in this photo, October is only represented by the last row and back up at the top begins November. Even though, yes, it says October at the very top. Look, I have my own system, all right? Lay off.

Total cost for the project, since I already had the fabric, permanent markers and dry erase markers, ended up being for only the frame. And since I knew I already had all the other supplies, I splurged a little -- maybe $20-$25 (on sale!). I'm sure you could find a great one for much cheaper, though. Or perhaps you even already have one lying around? One that's not holding a photo? One that you're getting really tired of moving from closet to closet in your house?

If you make your own, let me know how it goes! (And wear GLOVES. Glass cuts. And it hurts.)

The Miraculous Turkey

I have a few photos from one of my recent writing assignment photo shoots concerning the perils of deep-frying a turkey. (Don't do it! It's not worth it!)

My editor and I, plus a photographer, headed to the fire department's training facility so that the training captain could help us blow up a turkey. Well, we arranged it all ahead of time, of course. I don't know that you can knock on the fire department's front door and just ask that sort of thing.

Anyway, here are a few photos.

Meet our bird. This is the poor sucker all wrapped up pre-deep-frying incident. Notice the weight. It says 18 pounds. 18!!! Turns out my editor had a really difficult time finding a turkey around town in the firs place. (Maybe all the grocery stores are getting ready for Thanksgiving by clearing out all the "old" turkeys? Who knows.) So this was the only turkey he could find. Therefore, this was the smallest turkey he could find. Personally, I felt a little guilty. There are people who struggle to put food on their tables all the time, and here we were, about to drop an 18-pound fowl into a vat of hot peanut oil just for the photo opp. Sad face. At least the magazine will be distributing food to people for the holiday. That makes me feel a little better.

And this is the poor dear all unwrapped and exposed. Oh, also -- frozen. Because that's one of the big mistakes people make when they try to deep-fry a turkey. Please, for the love of all known safety precautions, THAW the bird COMPLETELY beforehand. Or just don't deep-fry your turkey, that would be better.

This is the fire captain about to hack into the turkey with the sledgehammer he's holding in his right hand. It had to be done in order to wedge some metal into the bird in order to suspend the thing from a rope in order to hang it over a rafter in order to safely lower the thing into the pot in which it would eventually be cooked.

This is the turkey being dropped into the pot. I didn't get the big splash of hot oil (400 degrees, I think it was), but here you can see that some of the oil spilled over the edge of the pot and is burning over the heat source underneath. Pay no attention to my editor's elbow. He was trying to take photos with a digital SLR. I only had my iPhone on-hand. This also explains the poor quality of my photo.

After about 30 seconds, the fire captain raised the turkey from the pot. Notice how it already looks all golden and delicious. This is him inspecting the turkey and the equipment to make sure everything's OK for us to dunk the turkey one more time. And so it continued, more of the dunking and hot oil flying everywhere and the bird sizzling.

If you plan on deep-frying a turkey (you're crazy!), it's imperative you follow the safety precautions found here. Do NOT use an 18-pound turkey (use 12 pounds or less). Do NOT use a frozen turkey. Do NOT fill the pot almost to the top with oil (like we did here to get a splash). DO have a fire extinguisher present. Or, you know, a fire captain. Who has a fire extinguisher with him. Did I mention you should follow the safety precautions found here?

All (poor-quality) photos by Sway Sovay

Sway's Weekend Music Pick: "With Rainy Eyes" by Emancipator

I'm kind of obsessed with Emancipator's stuff right now. It's perfectly chill and good to work or study by. Great for autumn somehow, too. You can hear more at emancipatormusic.com.

Cuddle With Me

This week has been sickly. Wait, no, I meant me. I've been sickly. Not actually sick, mind you, just feeling sick. Sick of being awake.

It started with Monday. I spent probably 10 hours that day working on a feature article for a client who wanted to submit something to the ever glamorous publication Soft Drinks International. I spent most of the weekend and Monday thinking and reading way more about plastic than I've ever wanted to, let's just say that. I filed the article with my client at 1:30 a.m. and went to bed.

Now, I don't know how old you are, whoever you are, but I am 26, and according to my genetic aging process, have long passed the age during which I can still pull an all-nighter -- even a quarter-of-a-nighter -- and still manage to fully function. No, I'm already an old geezer when it comes to staying up past my bedtime (9:30 p.m.) and I was thus 100% USELESS the next day. Although, in my defense, it's not like I got to sleep in or anything. I still woke up at 5:30 a.m. to be sure I was "in the office" at the usual time (7 a.m. Phoenix time) for my East Coast clients, plus I knew I was going to need to make myself available in the event the plastics article needed revisions.

Worked until roughly noon, until my workload came to a reasonable stopping point, then I set an alarm on my phone and shut my eyes on the couch for just a few minutes ...

One hour later, I woke up and got right back to work, but I swear, being that tired and trying to form cohesive sentences and type with accuracy is pretty darn near impossible. You end up typing things like "... but the real issue with PLA plastics isn't their durability, it's that their kittens are so cuddle with me ..." I know you know this to be true.

The next thing I knew, my boyfriend was arriving home from work already. I thought, "Good. I can stop working. We'll eat dinner. We'll watch a sitcom. We'll go to bed. And I'll get my usual eight hours of sleep and feel a whole lot better in the morning.

No.

"Well," my boyfriend said, "I have to go in to work early tomorrow morning, so we'd better just eat and then go to bed."
"What? How? How early?" I managed to stammer.
"I have to be there at 5," he said. "I'll set our alarm for 3:30."
Nooooooooooooo.

By the time all was said and done, what with defrosting the chicken and boiling the pasta and grilling said chicken to perfection and then eating said chicken with creamy alfredo sauce (Seriously, it was either that or just yogurt and beer. Note to self: buy frozen pizzas and/or TV dinners during next grocery trip), we didn't make it to bed any earlier than usual. In fact, we actually made it to bed later, so I only ended getting about six or six and a half hours of sleep. Funny how after you've had the same schedule for years those one or two hours can make such a huge difference right?

As a result, on Wednesday I was "in the office" by 5 a.m. I worked until 12:15 p.m., at which point I had to drive to Downtown Scottsdale, more specifically, to the fire department, to meet my editor and a photographer there for a story I've been assigned. Long story short, even though we had an appointment, there was a gross mis-communication prior to our arrival, and the trip turned out to be a bust. So I drove home, worked, then my boyfriend came home from work early since he'd started early, he played some Modern Warfare and then went to water polo practice. (Yes, a couple months ago it was rowing, now it's water polo -- I know, I can't keep up either.) I kept working.

Boyfriend came home at 10:00 from practice, there was some semblance of a dinner, then there was sleep. But not much, because going to bed at 11:00 and getting up at 5:30 means you're going to spend at least the first 30 minutes just thinking about the fact that you're going to bed at 11 and getting up at 5:30. It's the sick law of dreading what's coming.

So today -- exhausted. Today -- still behind on work for the week. Today -- had to interview a rambler over the phone. Today -- forgot to eat lunch. Today -- exhausted.

Today ... Tonight ... have to somehow clean up the house, because the in-laws arrive tomorrow morning.

Yes, that's right, in a fantastic twist of fate known as The Worst Timing Ever, they will be arriving from Oklahoma in the morning and I will somehow have to make sure they have decent living quarters and a refrigerator stocked with something more than just yogurt and beer.

Don't worry, I've pulled it off before.

And then after they leave on Sunday, so help me, I am going to sleep. For days.

Don't Forget To Park Your Cow

Los Angeles to New York City

This cool time-lapse video is kind of mesmerizing, and it definitely makes me want to go on a roadtrip. Bad.