My Life According To Twitter

Don't you hate it when you get all jazzed up to watch a rerun episode of an old show you love, like the Fresh Prince of Bell Air or Saved By The Bell, only to discover that its one of those stupid flashback episodes where everyone trips out into a dream sequence, remembering an incident that happened in a previous episode? Doesn't it just seem lazy, like they couldn't come up with fresh story line, so they just pulled the cast together for an hour and shot them reminiscing so they could just cut in old footage?
Well that's exactly what I've done here, but with a modern twist. Here are some Twitter highlights from the last couple months since I've been back from Chicago. They are in no particular order other than reverse order, so feel free to read top to bottom or bottom to top. I know it's lame, but try to enjoy.

TWEETS:

Something feels good about this morning. Something feels empowering about this morning. Something feels...oh, its already 1:30pm.

How have I waited 5 years to watch the heart-felt, bubble gum pop masterpiece 13 Going On 30? My giggling tears of joy will not cease!


I am officially retiring from peeing standing up. Too much responsibility involved.

My beard-dandruff is sending me a message: take a friggin' shower.

I'm looking forward to the small successes of the day. I even plan on getting dressed for the day in about a half hour. (It was 4:30 in the afternoon when I tweeted this.)

It's the Nyquil induced coma that keeps me going.

Oh so THIS is what they were talking about when they said having a newborn was rough.  

I was sitting here in the hospital trying to fall asleep and the urgent thought crossed my mind, "I wonder what Christopher Lloyd is up to?

Today was epic. Absolutely biblical. How can anyone fully process the act of childbirth? My mind is thoroughly and completely blown.

Ok, 10+ hours in the hospital. This baby really needs to get a move on.

I wish I could call the Hannah Montana Sunday marathon a compromise in viewing interests, but my wife isn't even in the room anymore.

If Kylie Minogue and Amy Winehouse had a baby (dont question the logistics) her name would be Lady Gaga.

Not bad New Moon, not bad. But I'm totally Team Jacob.

My friend used to hide cookies in the elevator of our apt building in Chicago. For no reason.

Somehow its Sunday. Wasn't it just Tuesday? Well it was, but not so recently I gather.

My non-facebook savvy wife just discovered her profile said "interested in women" and has been set as such since day 1.

Where The Wld Things Are is a sucky, stupid, boring way to waste a Wednesday matinee and a pack of Maverick chicken bites and honey mustard.

Google it. Its true.

Perpetual exhaustion. I miss my Swedish inflatable mattress from Chicago. I'm not cut out for real beds.

The girl sitting next to me at the airport smells let wet, sour, peeled, but uncooked potatos.             

LARPing Like My Life Depends On It

I just googled, "How to make your own wax stamp." With the results came the realization that I am painfully strange as a person.
Sure, on the outside I put my best foot forward and try to project the coolest, hippest, most in-the-know vibe I possibly can while in public. But if you've known me for very long, you've seen that facade flicker and my true awkwardness shine through.
I admit, if it were more accessible, I'd probably get into super strange, uber-nerdy things like LARPing, Dungeons and Dragons and taxidermy. What's LARPing you ask? Well literally defined it is Live Action Role Playing. But really, it is so much more.

You've heard of the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) fantasy game World of Warcraft right? Well imagine if that magical and enchanting world of make believe came to life!!! You gasping at the sheer prospect, I know.
Well make believe becomes reality with LARPing. It's exactly as it sounds: the real life execution of a role playing action game....LARPing.

This is what World of Warcraft game play looks like. WARNING: Some Foul Language



And this little gem of a clip is LARPing based on Warcraft. It's gloriously funny.


So long story short, I am SO not hip. I don't follow the cool trends, I don't dress cool, I don't own an Apple computer nor an iPhone. I watch Disney Channel, Travel Channel and HGTV. I shop at Ross, Target and Burlington Coat Factory. I buy my books off Amazon or from local used book stores and I love to collect computer parts "just in case."
Is it too late to be cool?
Does it matter?
Would I want to sacrifice everything I am and know to be just a little bit more hip?
Am I damning myself further by continually using the word hip since it's surely no longer en vogue?
Either way, I need to finish my research into the world of making my own wax stamp, so I best be off.
Happy LARPing.

Trapped In Hibernation

It's amazing how mesmerizing a dark, cold basement can be. It's like falling into a dark, cold lake and sinking to the bottom; the deeper and darker you sink, they less will and energy you have to claw your way out. Now imagine if that lake bottom had a computer, WIFI, XBOX360, a bed, food and a space heater. YOU'D NEVER LEAVE!

I am currently suffocating in the icy depth of my parents basement. My to-do list is as long as it is wide and I'm running out of Exedrin Tension Headache. I look up to all my smart, successful and driven friends on the internet. Friends who've accomplished fantastic feats not only in general, but in this disastrous economy of ours.
I'm proud of them.
I'm jealous.
I'm hating them just  tiny bit.

I've got a few cases of pop left and a huge stash of Crystal Light single serving packs. I certainly won't die down here, but I miss the smell of the outdoors and the warmth of the sun on my skin during a cold winters day.
Invite me to lunch.
Invite me to breakfast.
I'll hate you just a tiny bit less.

See you tomorrow.

The Game of Life

So it's December 4, 2009. No, I get it. Don't worry, I've been getting your emails alerting me to the fact that it's been a bit of a while. I'm sorry. But I spend a lot of time apologizing for myself on this blog, so we'll just assume that as a given and skip it for now. I'm sorry, I'll do better, BLA, BLA, BLA.


FORWARD
Life has been happening and moving forward whether I like it or not and independent of how hard I try to stop it or slow it down. Now more than ever I'm realizing this reality. Days fly by, weeks topple over into months and before you know it, you're in a whole different place in life and you can't sit by idly and let it happen without you.

PART 1
Chicago ended. It was phenomenal. What an amazing city and what an amazing opportunity for me. Being home in Utah and jumping in and out of the car all the time makes me miss more than ever the laborious and glorious task of walking. Living in the Gold Coast, we were only a short 30min walk from the epicenter of downtown and the walk was no yawner either. High end boutiques, electronics shops, clothing stores, malls, exotic car dealerships and fine dining lined the path to and from how every which way you walked. I miss it. I miss getting sore feet and hopping on the L-train for some podiatric relief. I miss the smell of pee in dark corners and in the under ground. I miss the literally breathtaking scent of it emanating from the drunk and homeless. I miss walking home at midnight from work, meandering the glitz and glam of the closed and gated shops that line Michigan Ave. I miss exploring new routes during my urban trekking, turning back only when streetlights became to successively dark. I miss Chicago a lot. I even miss missing my wife while I lived in Chicago. What a wonderful city.

PART 2
Home again. This is when the fairytale ended. The momentum, excitement and habits I had accrued during my time in Chicago ground to a halt like a locked up locomotive wheel. I was just happy to be back with my wife, sit on the couch and enjoy some good old fashioned TV; some things I had learned to live without in Chicago. Bad habits die hard and before long, I was back to my lazy self. I tried hard to work and keep things in motion so that my brain wouldn't atrophy and die, but I am indeed my own worst enemy. It was a losing battle.


PART 3
Not a gas bubble. Despite my suspicions, that huge stomach of my wife's was in fact a baby. A real life baby. Human even. And on Nov. 25 at 5:52pm, after 12+ of labor and 2 hours of active labor, that baby decided to show his face.
Childbirth is traumatizing. Anyone who tells you it's a miracle isn't lying, but they are omitting the fact that you may not be able to hold food down for a few days after witnessing it. Sell your stock in the stork theory, because I can attest to the fact that 8+lb babies do come out from down there. It may be a miracle, but it's something crazy to witness. You get what I'm telling you? It's like seeing someone get hit by a car. You can't pull your eyes away but its frightening and you look both ways before crossing the street for the rest of your life.


PART 3- Secton 2
Olin Tanner is here. There was a heated debate raging over whether he should be named Olin or Ohlin, with the added H. I liked the H and preferred it without question to the sans H spelling, but ultimately conceded not to my wife, but to mass public opinion. Kristen was game for whatever but in my bitterness, I let her have her Olin without the H. I'll prove my point by mocking the spelling of his name by mispronouncing it for the rest of his life.
But he's good so far. Sleeps 2-3 hours in between feeding and really doesn't cry much. Due in great part to my lack of breast milk, I've been spared having to wake up and help him drink away his problems every few hours. My wife is doll and handles this new addition to our lives like she's done this many times before. What a saint. It's great to see her fit into this role like a perfectly hewn puzzle piece. It's my new reality. It's my new life and I think I just might be OK with it. In fact, I just might love it.


AFTERWARD
So that's my life. I'm trying to break through the glass ceiling I've constructed for myself and really get going on making some good stuff happen for myself. I've got the creativity, I've got the excitement and I've got the desire to be successful, I just need to reach down deep and find the urgency. You'd think unemployment, a newborn baby and no current prospects would surround me with impending doom and conjure up that urgency, but somehow, I'm a master of distraction and keep myself aloof. I'm like a kitten with a laser pointer strapped to its paw. Ridiculous.

Woah...

Woah...I just realized I have to find a job. It hit me like a wave of nausea that spins into a vortex of fear trying to shoot out my hind parts. Yikes. I just got the shivers saying "yikes."

The Cramer Krasselt Halloween Party is about to begin and no matter how much I want to see the assortment of Balloon Boy costumes that I know are about to drift by, I somehow just don't care. I feel deflated (a pun). I want to curl up under my desk and pull a couple office chairs up and a roller file cabinet to block the entrance so I fell safe and hidden. Sigh. I just choked on that "sigh."

I'm a copywriter. I love to write. I love to come up with fun ideas. When I was a kid, I used to sit on the toilet in the bathroom for hours and pitch faux commercials to an audience of towels and toothbrushes. I'd explain how when you combined our product, symbolized by handsoap, with a square of toilet paper, magical things could happen. Stains would disappear, unsightly scars and moles would vanish and that little spot of emptiness in your soul would be filled with overflowing joy.

But those days have escaped me. I play games on my phone or iPod Touch on the toilet now. Hand soap and toilet paper are used only for their prescribed purposes. My stains, scars and moles remain and that little patch of empty inside of me is not overflowing. In fact, that little patch of empty feels rather vacuous right about now. It's consuming me slowly.

"Buckle down, put your nose to the grindstone, get to it and just do it" are phrases I throw at myself, hoping they'll stick like bologne slices to a white board. Bologne to a white board they are not though. They hit and slide down, falling to the floor to be forgotten until garbage day. I have Lou Gehrig's of the soul.

I'll Show You

Hey look! It's me Logan and I'm blogging before lunch. Awesome. Today must be a good day. You wanna know how I start my day about, oh, 75% of the week? I watch this video to get me jazzed up:

I watch that in the morning and it makes me realize what life could be like if only I could get my act together and become a hispanic pro skater or an epically famous black rapper. Even more so, this ad speaks to the perfection that is southern California. Idillic. Relaxed. Fun. Paul Rodriguez could have been shot by Ice Cube for a blunder like that, but because it was in the peacful hoods of So Cali, everything was alright; it was a good day.

So when I leave my apartment here in Chicago, deadbolt the door, walk down four flights of stairs, brush past the crazy person on the sidewalk, step over his pool of cold urine and high step all the Dunkin Donuts cups in the stairwell down to the L train where I'll wait to pack myself in next to a suit and slut on my ride downtown, I just remember that I need to move to California, buy a skateboard and get marginally famous for something that I might be good at.
But what am I good at?
I'm still trying to figure that out.

Lame Duck

"*sigh* 11 days without an update..."   --Anonymous

This is what I've reduced my friends, family and distant acquaintances to, annonymous postings on my blog, bemoaning my complete and utter inability to follow through on loosely worded promises.

Because really, that's how I operate. I always am sure to pen in a qualifier as my safety net. Not one for solid commitements made to self or fellow man, I can only succeed to impress by setting my standards low and by framing in a literary back door for me to back out of, tail between the legs, if necessary.

So here we are Anonymous, staring each other in the face; Me refusing to admit guilt because I'm too prideful for that, and you, stony faced and cocksure because...we'll, because you've got me pinned on this one. Not even the most ambiguously worded escape route could write me out of the sheer fact that yes, I cannot seem to get my blog on.

There has got to be a pill for this. Something to pop every day to get me writing and feeling inspired. Some would argue that I should see a physician if the affects lasted more than four hours, but imagine all the blogging and tweeting I could potentially whip up in 4+ hours! A blessing indeed.

So, let's get one thing perfectly clear: I'm probably going to try to put some effort into blogging on a fairly regular basis from this day forth. At least more than once a month most likely. I give you my solemn word that I won't let you down as soon as I have time to start writing regularly. Starting today, and from here on out, I will open up my computer everyday, create a new post, and do everything in my power to get it posted as soon as something comes to my head and I can get it posted up. I promise on my great grandmother's grave.

Do you trust me now? Was that unequivical enough? I mean those were some pretty explicit promises I made there. How could I possibly fall through on what basically amounts to a legally binding pact of unambiguous clarity?

A Slow And Painful Death

Have you ever neglected to check your crops for a long period of time in Farmville on facebook, only to return later and find that everything has withered and died? Or have you ever forgotten to go in and check the status of your crime racquet's in Mafia Wars and when you do finally return, they've all been busted by the cops? Well the same principle applies to blogging and from the looks of things, I've let this blog wither and die.

The picture you see above is a visual representation of visits to my blog since late September. It spans to yesterday. As you can see, in less than a month, my bloggless waste of space here on the internet saw a massive drop in readership. You see that Everest-esque peak on the left of the graphic? That represents seventy-six visits in one single day. Now follow the line to the right. See the low point? One. One visit. That's 75 less people from that spike less than a month ago. It's funny because I can totally envision visitors in my head: they check the blog a couple times on the first day, then again the second day. After three or four days, they only check once a day. After a week they finally give up, assuming I've died or floated off across rural Colorado in a silver helium balloon shaped like a UFO. I must no longer be on earth, they figure.

Well as you can imagine, I'm ashamed; tormented even as I lay in bed thinking about what really matters in life: readership. So, let's see if we can't give this blog a shot of adrenaline and get some content back up on this baby. The struggle for me the writer is coming up with original content. I could easily cover something else, copy/paste or just throw up pictures of my time here in Chicago. But who wants to see that? So I'll dig a little deep and stay up a little longer soze we might get us some more excitement up in here.

(p.s. if you want to see pictures and video of my sightseeing in Chicago, hit me up, because that I do have plenty of. I might let you peep it.)


sincerely,
Logan

Good Week To You

Living in a big city filled with a broad spectrum of race, nationality and religion, I have come to discover that there is an incredibly large assortment of religious holidays that a large portion of us are missing out on. What am I getting at?
Befriend a Jew.
Not only are these some of the kindest, friendliest people I have ever met, but they have myriad religious holidays that stand to liven up the lives of many in this boring and often empty feeling world in which we live.

Yom Kippur is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. It falls on the 10th day of the Jewish New Year and is a day of absolute fasting and declaration of repentance. It means "Day of Covering" (i.e. sins are covered) but is usually translated as "Day of Atonement".

The "10th day of the Jewish New Year" is on the 28th of this month; that's Monday of next week. So if you missed Rosh Hashanah last Saturday then you've got the weekend to gear up for Yom Kippur. Now, admittedly the words "absolute fasting" and "declaration of repentance" are big scary words for some of us out there. But who of us couldn't use some absolution of sin?
So check it out. Jewish culture and religion goes way back and is deeply seeded in the history of this world of ours. But if somehow that's not intriguing enough for you, fire of some of these probably not-so-appropriate ecards to make you feel included in this large and exciting Jewish holiday. Or better still, check out Matisyahu's new song, One Day. If this Hasidic Jew/hip hop reggae star doesn't give you chills that chatter your teeth, then you have no soul.
So just do it. Cause really, what else have you got going this weekend?

International Speak Like A Pirate Day

International Speak Like A Pirate Day was this weekend--another one of those awesome and entertaining holidays that passes me by with nothing more than a simple wink and a nod. As a non-consumer of alcohol and one not typically associated with the plundering and ravaging of easy, drunken women, I found myself at home watching a movie to celebrate this scallywag of a holiday.

From my crows-nest perch on the 4th floor, I had a stellar "land ahoy" view of the bar scene down below and the debauchery that goes with all things pirate. Drunkenness, vomiting, getting kicked out of bars, falling in the street, falling out of a cab into the street, hugging strangers, getting groped on the butt by the stranger you are hugging, flashing some serious leg to get a cab and then some more vomiting for good-pirate measure.

It was a celebration if I ever saw one. Strangely enough though, no one was dressed up as a pirate.

Death As A Metaphor

I saw a dead pigeon today, laying on its back in the middle of Michigan Ave. in downtown Chicago. It was on the crosswalk of Michigan Avenue's major intersection with Lake Street. Hundreds, nay thousands, must have walked by that dying bird wondering what happened.
As I briskly walked past, trying to keep up with Olympic-caliber walking speed of my fellow Chicagoans, I saw his one protruding leg kick out a few times in essence saying, "FML, why me?"
I wanted to kick him to safety but quickly decided against it, figuring others would misinterpret my actions as some kind of belated abuse for some deep, painful hatred I have toward birds. There are people like that out there. Sick people. So rather than doing the right thing, the seemingly humane thing of clearing his body off of a 6 lane highway intersection, I just walked by. I walked on with the pathetic memory of his one, probably unbroken leg, kicking in vain as he slipped into birdy hell.

Hell you ask? Why sure, it's a pigeon. Pigeons are Satan's birthed step-children here on earth. If Satan roamed the earth, surely he too would eat garbage and crap on people. Both a friend and an enemy to human kind, his pigeons play charismatically in Marry Poppins and as the puppets of sick destruction in Hitchcock's The Birds. It's that duality that makes pigeons so beautiful and yet so terribly disgusting.

So Mr. Pigeon, if I meet you in hell, I beg ye forgive me. The consideration was there and I did want to help you. But because you eat garbage and I didn't want to be jailed on gross animal cruelty charges, I left you were you lied. I hope the next taxi that hit you, who surely ran you over and crushed you after the light turned green, was going fast and made the job quick and dirty. Farewell my friend and good luck.

Blame It On The Cheese

I was invited to a private short film screening last night, followed by an offering of some of the finest snack foods I have ever laid my mouth on. From what I understand, it was a short film shot in conjunction with a campaign that Leo Burnett is doing. The fact that the fifteen-minute film is about a boy who [DELETED FOR POTENTIALLY NEGATIVE LEGAL REPROCUSSIONS I CERTAINLY CANNOT AFFORD] (long story, and not as twisted as you think) is irrelevant. What is relevant is the consortium of fine cheeses, meats, crackers, hummus and fresh fruit I dashed out of the theatre for.

Do you remember back in grade school when the lunch bell would ring and everyone would come flying out of their classrooms and make a mad dash for the lunchroom in hopes of beating the long lines and getting first dibs on the selection of items that tended to run out fast? Yeah well this was nothing like that. If you haven't noticed, I'm an adult now. A big, big adult. With a grownup style beard. So I mozied my way in there, pretending not to care about how beautiful and delicious the food looked. I must have looked like a lion in a meat locker though. You just cant hide the primal hunger of a fat person. It's our nature. But no one got hurt. There was plenty of food to go around. And besides, everyone who was anyone that was thin enough and cool enough to walk around in skinny jeans (male or female) was hitting up the wellspring of free wine and beer. And it was all classy-like, meaning the servers poured your wine for you and everything was on ice. Tres chic mon frere. Tres chic.

So that was pretty hip for me. I felt like I was on an episode of The Hills. Very hip indeed. After the short, snack-filled evening of rubbing shoulders with fellow advertising socialites of greater importance than me, there was really only one thing left to do: go home and watch over three hours of Flight of The Conchords while laying in bed before falling asleep for an hour at 11 and then waking up to realize you've missed three calls from your pregnant and recently unemployed wife who lives in your parents basement back in Utah.
And in that strangerly awkward wrap up to my evening...I wrapped up my evening. I walked out in the hall to chat with the Mrs. who was just leaving work at 11pm Utah time and told her how much I love and miss her. You never quite realize how good of a team you make until you're forced to be away for a bit. Kristen, you're the bomb (you kids still say that right? The bomb?)

If You Don't Have Friends, Pretend

My first project at my internship is complete. I toiled and pondered and scratched heads with the best of them here at Cramer Krasselt, and in the end, our efforts ended up looking pretty dang sexy if you ask me.
Thanks to Lauren Fontinel for channeling Warhol in this eye catching colorfest and tolerating my constant and unwelcomed cubicle pop-ins to ask questions.
Props to Emily Sander for steering use in the right direction with design and copy. I was feeling pretty good about my copy until I remembered it had been your idea all along. That was a sad moment. But you are the pro.
And one final shout out to Ari who kindly chose not to respond when I asked rhetorically if we were friends.
Today, it was a good day.

Me And The Chicago

The "corn cob" apartment buildings.

View from Leo Burnett offices down the river.

Michigan Ave. walking back to the train.

My office and red-canopy entrance.

So you're probably like, "Man, I come into work/school/my office every single day and wonder what is going on with Logan M. Tanner, but he never blogs anymore. This is what the world must have felt like when Shakespeare died; empty and alone."

I get it. I really do. I'm like that corner shop you used to go to every day to get a donut/coffee/candy bar/penny candy; you can live without me, but you're used to me. You might not like it, but I'm convenient. Like the store, I was the only thing around when the day got long, a meeting ran short, or you had wireless on your phone in the bathroom and a bad case of post-Thai diarrhea. Sometimes, when there was nothing else around, you directed your browser to me.

Well things have changed. Me wife is pregs. 6+ months in fact. I'm hundreds of miles away living in Chicago with a couple of Mexicans (their words not mine.) We have almost no wireless connectivity, for SURE no A/C and a splendid fourth floor view of the Walgreen's rooftop and a stereophonic soundtrack of the street activity below.

I'm hot. I'm sweaty. I'm not sleeping well. I miss my wife and I'm in a foreign city. My CTA travel card is the most valuable possession I own; my iPod Nano and Touch are my new best friends (sorry Mexicans) and my feet have corns on them so big, I refer to them as "cobs".

But its not all doom an gloom. In fact, not at all. When I'm not outside or in my apartment or talking to a senior employee, I'm not sweating... as much. That's a plus. I'm in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, living with two great guys in a posh part of town just over a mile from work. My work is downtown-charlie-brown if there ever was; right on Michigan Ave. by Millennium Park and a couple blocks from the lake front. My job is awesome. The people are really cool and friendly. And when I'm not getting lost looking for the bathroom or the exit, I'm actually having a really great time! I'm drinking lots of water, watching no TV and eating about half as much food as I ever have in my whole life. Being manorexic has never been so easy.

Tonight, I'll walk home down the Magnificent Mile until I get to the lake, cut down past Oprah's house, cruise into the CVS or Walgreen's for some deodorant and then hit the inflatable sack...my air mattress.

Life is good in Chicago. Life is good.