My Cat Is Green

My cat, Jack, has turned garbage into toys - the envelopes that tea bags come in, the rings from milk jugs and straws. My furry little environmentalist;-)

I Finally Understand

For many years, my dad refused to vote in presidential elections. He had voted for Richard Nixon and was appalled that he could have been duped so badly by a politician. He questioned his own judgment.

I now understand how he felt.

I was rooting for John Edwards to win the 2008 election. That thought is almost physically sickening to me now. The idea that someone as conniving, ruthless and just plain slimy could be the leader of our country is the single most frightening idea I have ever come across.

The sad part is - they are probably people just as conniving, ruthless and slimy, if not more so, in office already.

What is it about politics? Does it bring out the worst in people? Or are the worst people running for office?

The Big Bang Theory Cracks Me Up

(Note: I am talking about the television show, not the actual big bang theory. Got it? K.)

For those of you who haven't watched, The Big Bang Theory is a sitcom about three lovable nerds and one kinda lovable nerd who work together at a university. Two of them are roommates and live across the hall from the totally not nerdy Penny.

BBT cracks me up because I am, albeit to a much lesser extreme, Sheldon Cooper.

I'm a bit of a nerd (he's full on).

I'm particular about certain things and sometimes have weird reasons for them. (See Sheldon's explanation about where he sits)

I've been told that people enjoy how I react to gifts. (See Sheldon's reaction to Penny's Christmas gift)

Like Sheldon, I sometimes don't get come-ons from the opposite sex.

I hold grudges against celebrities (Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, etc.) Sheldon's grudge is against Wil Wheaton.

Beyond my similarities to Sheldon, the show is wittily written and all of the characters make me laugh.

{And no, no one paid me to write this post;-)}

What I Love About Reading

This is a hard post for me to start because I love so many things about reading. It makes me sad when someone says they hate reading; books can offer so much.

I love that reading is an escape from my technology saturated days - computer, cell phone, digital camera, video camera, and television are all off when I read. It feels like a return to a simpler time and I cherish the silence.

I love that I can go anywhere I wish without leaving the comfort of my couch. I can go to New York, Middle Earth, the Dominican Republic, Hogwarts, medieval Europe, Japan...anywhere.

I love that I can meet so many different people, some that I would want to meet in real life and some that I would not.

I love how different authors play with language, and I love to explore the different worlds and characters they create.

I love how reading can lift my spirits if I'm stressed, angry, sad or lonely, and I love how reading inspires my own creativity.

I love how reading is a one-to-one connection between the author and the reader. Unlike most other forms of entertainment, when you hold a book in your hands, you are holding the creation of one mind. That is amazing to me. I like to imagine where different authors might have written their works.

I love that reading connects me with my parents. When I was growing up, my parents always read to me, told me stories, bought me books and took me to the library. It wasn't uncommon for the three of us to be in our living room, one of us watching a TV show and the other two reading...but all together in the same room. These days we pass books back and forth and talk about them over weekly dinners.

Do you love reading? What do you love about it?

Five Random Things I Would Change if I Was in Charge

1. Mid-season breaks in television shows would not be allowed (ahem...Lost, Flash Forward, V)

2. Email addresses would be portable from one service provider to another, like cell phone numbers

3. Political candidates would not be allowed to spend money on advertising

4. Barry Melrose would do color for the NHL on NBC

5. I would re-do the series finale of Will & Grace

Dating vs. Hanging Out

This evening, I was involved in some happy hour chatter about dating vs. hanging out. Here is what I have decided...if you are a man over the age of 30 and you use the term "hanging out" instead of dating, it should be required for you to have "not marriage material" tattooed on your forehead.

Seriously.

What a Communications Manager Does for a Living

I am writing this post mainly for my family. I love them dearly, but I am tired of trying to explain what I do for a living. Like other people who work in an office, I attend many meetings, but I do so much more than that.

To start, I am the communications manager for a large performing arts organization. I am a member of the marketing department, which has 10 total employees and two interns. My areas of focus are our educational and fundraising programs...and other duties as assigned. My title is communications manager, but what I do can also be described as public relations and marketing.

I maintain the media list
A tedious, but important, part of public relations is maintaining a good list of media contacts. I maintain the list for our entire department, which is comprised of contacts at print publications, at radio stations, at television stations, bloggers and online outlets. I update our list with new email addresses for current contacts, add new contacts and delete those that, for one reason or another, no longer belong on our list.

I cultivate and maintain relationships with members of the media
It is much easier to obtain coverage for something when you have good relationships with the media. I meet with key contacts occasionally to determine their interests and update them on what I have coming up.

I write, distribute and track press releases
Press releases are documents that have all the pertinent information relating to an event, program, award or other type of announcement for which we want to obtain media coverage. The first thing I do when getting ready to issue a release is schedule it. I work with seven other people who issue press releases. As a rule, we allow only one to go out from our organization each day. After I have my release scheduled, I write it and distribute it internally as appropriate for fact-checking. Then I email it to our media list. I call or email key media contacts to make sure they've received it and to suggest ("pitch") ideas ("angles") for stories or interviews. Through Google Alerts and our clipping service, I check to see where we received media coverage.

I schedule media appearances and interviews
As a public relations professional, my job is not to get on the news. My job is to get our key spokespeople on the news. So, I will make arrangements for our key people to be interviewed on camera, on the radio or by a reporter for a print publication when appropriate. If that interview is to take place at a radio or television studio, I will accompany that person to the studio. Occasionally, one of our key people is not available and in those instances, I may do the interview myself as I did here: http://www.wkyc.com/life/programming/shows/goodcompany/gc_article.aspx?storyid=110107.

I write copy
Copy, NOT text or verbiage. I write copy for ads, brochures, catalogs, email blasts, signs, newsletters, playbills, postcards, websites, and probably other things that I can't think of right now.

I art direct
I work with graphic artists and our web manager to create the visual look of ads, collateral materials (brochures, catalogs, etc.) and signs. Everything I create has to align with our organization's brand standards.

This post is already getting quite lengthy, and I still have more to say! I'll save it for another post though. For now, I'll close by saying that, as you can see, there's never a dull moment in my job. Every day is different, and I love just about every minute of it!