Post about nothing.

I intended to write a lovely long post this evening about, oh, who knows what. Instead, you're getting pure pith, a post about nothing. Anyone who doesn't know that reference probably doesn't need to waste their time reading anymore of my stuff. I'll pause here for you to close the tab.

*pause*

Anyway, instead of writing, I spent my evening cleaning uncooked quinoa off the kitchen floor and countertops. This is a particularly tedious project, regardless of the strength and capabilities of your vacuum cleaner. I don't know how familiar you are with quinoa, but it's fair to say that it is about the smallest food particle known to man outside of the dust-like particles grouping. It is just the tiniest amount larger than sugar. One-third cup of quinoa partially spilled, apparently, is roughly ten million quinoas. An enormous mess.

This glamorous life snapshot brought to you courtesy of Claymerica Industries. I am Running the Ship, so to speak, while Sir is in Miami on business.

Photo credit: Clay Parker Jones

One thing that happened to me when I moved here was that, unbeknownst to me at the time, I moved in with a Business Traveler. If he had been a regular roommate, I would probably have been thrilled to discover this fact. Unfortunately, he's my romantical life partner, so oftentimes I find myself a bit lonely, jealous and swimming in mediocrity and protein-rich grains while he globe-trots, beaching it along the way.

It's more noticeable in the winter, I think, because our little dwelling gets so chilly in his absence. Sir is a heater - not only is he an incredibly warm and charming young man, but he actually radiates an enormous amount of physical heat, just by existing in a room. This happens to the extent that I actually paused for a moment when I got to the part in the Twilight books where they are explaining how the werewolves, in their human forms, run at a higher temperature than their human friends.

Lucky for me, Sir's mom made me a pair of beautiful wool socks that I have taken to wearing to bed. After 26 years of not being able to sleep in socks, now I can't sleep without them when he's gone. I probably won't be able to explain this phenomenon until I have my own children, but to me this was a glaringly obvious occurrence of 'Moms always know.' Between the socks and turning the thermostat up four degrees, I'm somewhat able to make up for his absence, at least from a temperature standpoint. Even so, life is always a little more mundane when he's gone.

Please hurry home, Sir. Your photos are ridiculous, my life without you is chilly and average and there is quinoa everywhere.

I do realize that this post isn't entirely about nothing, just the nothing that exists when your everything is jet-setting without you.

Shiver for me, girl.

The last bit I wrote on here was about the October snow, and it hasn't snowed since.

Somewhere between my delight in that freak blizzard and the way the breath caught in my throat last week when my LaGuardia-to-O'Hare flight dipped beneath the clouds to unveil the frozen city on the lake, silvery-pale and glittering in the icy-thin sunlight, is where I unearthed a very tiny, very insignificant but altogether real nugget of wisdom about myself.

I like the cold.

I just knew, right there at the airport. No matter how many times I've denied it, it's been there the whole time, trapped under my skin like a speck of sand, like a pea under the umpteenth mattress. It had worried itself into a pearl, a Great Truth that I never knew existed prior to that very moment. I stepped through that revolving door, luggage in hand, felt the wind pierce my wimpy jacket and I just KNEW, as easy as breathing.

I like the cold.

I like the winter and the snow. I do! I'm going to say it like an affirmation, because I'm excited to know myself a little bit better. I like the cold!

I like it to the extent that I experienced a very defined sinking feeling in my chest this morning when the weatherman said it was to be "back up in the mid-forties by mid-day."

New York never feels clean to me, except in wintertime. It's the smell that the clear, dry cold brings, the way it stings your nostrils and punches you in the gut as you suck it deep into your whimpering, shriveling lungs in slow, controlled breaths. It doesn't smell like garbage, urine, or burnt halal, it smells like crisp, clean, perfect snow and silence. And it makes me forget about all the resentment I harbor for the city when it roils, putrid, in the unwavering heat and suffocating humidity of summer.

I don't know what this bit of enlightenment means for me, Sir and the locations of our future, but I know that right in this very minute, it means I'm growing all the more impatient for a real winter and some goddamn snow.

When will it snow, New York? Why do you torment me with weird mild winter weather and lingering humidity? WHY?

Christmas is over, but Santa, if you could please bring winter to NYC, I'll be waiting for you. I'll be the one with all the scarves.

Big games, big branding.

I spent much of the long weekend Snuggie'd on the couch, cider in paw, immersed in moguls, short track, biathlon and all the other wonderfully weird spandexy sports that make up the winter Olympics. How very cultured and seasonal of me, no? In other news, I have decided that I am interested in giving ski jumping a whirl, seeing as my knees are already shot. Is this something I can try out for funsies at Devil's Head? I think there's a future for me as a gold medalist here. And, I think I'll move to/jump for Australia, since you seem to be able to move around and join whatever team you like, and per my count, they tend to have the slickest outfits. And I would like to hang out with Dale Begg-Smith. Just saying.

In discussing the Super Bowl, I mentioned the question of big branding messaging as opposed to promotional or call-to-action. Beautiful stuff for the Olympics thus far, but it seems that the majority of the Olympic ad spend has been of a similar vein. Abstract big branding with no promotional element, no call to action.

Striking work for GE, who seem to have pumped tons of cash into creative as well as TRPs. Panasonic Toughbook, Procter and Gamble, even car companies. It's refreshing to see the spend, but kind of strange to see the execution, no? In the case of GE and Toughbook, are these even consumer-facing products or objectives? And P&G with no product push makes me toss and turn at night. So, so very strange. As with the Super Bowl, the Olympics are a really fantastic stage to test some consumer interaction and blow it up creatively. I'm kind of surprised that I've yet to see it. Perhaps I'm jaded from working on CPG for too long, but I'm curious as to how these companies are measuring Olympic success. Sales seem too far-removed.

I have yet to find a channel holding all the Olympic spots - in fact, I'm having a heck of a time finding a lot of these spots in general, so I apologize for the lack of links/examples. Please let me know if you know where they're hiding. PS, that's another fail on the part of these advertisers. If you're going to be interesting, help me help you spread your content. Sigh.

Must go, the snowboard-cross people are going four at a time and taking each other out left and right. Must. Watch. I'll leave you with my favorite spot thus far: The Human Chain, another standard yet awesome product of Nike W+K. Happy Olympics, and happy big branding to you!