Archive for the ‘WORST PART OF LIVING IN CHICAGO’ Category
Thinking about how I might support Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I asked subscribers to my newsletter, Staging Diva Dispatch, if any of them were also breast cancer survivors who might want to share their personal stories about fighting this disease and going on to reinvent their futures..
My intention was to gather stories that would:
⢠empower others to strive to reach their dreams no matter what adversity is standing in their way
⢠increase awareness of breast cancer
⢠attract funding for breast cancer research
⢠celebrate the stories and successes of the women who shared their stories for others to benefit from
As the responses started coming in, I was afraid to read many of them.
They were filled with the awful medical realities of fighting this disease and fears of leaving children behind. In a week leading up to spending the day with my family to honor a cousin who recently died of cancer, I wondered why Iâd set myself up to have to read even more about cancer by actually requesting these stories from my readers.
Well the truth is, you canât catch cancer by reading about it and knowledge is power.
To say Iâm humbled by the stories Iâve received would be an understatement. I feel sad and inspired at the same time. One response came from Danielle who said she would love to share her story, but she has just undergone two surgeries and is going through chemo and didnât feel she could give a good enough response.
Gloria Salvetti writes that sheâs proud to be a survivor and pleased with the direction her new life has taken as she grows her Virginia-based company East Coast Stager.
Staging Diva Graduate Patty Osterhout of First Impressions Staging Services LLC started her home staging business with partner Tiffany Winkler about a year after being diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 46, âI tell people to stay as positive as you can. Donât forget to live and laugh. Surround yourself with good things. I had so many beautiful and inspiring cards from family and friends. I strung them all up on a wall in our house so I could see them every day, what a lift that gave me.â
Perhaps most tellingly, Patty adds, âI do not look at having breast cancer as the worst thing that ever happened to me. In a way it has made me a better person. It was just our âbumpâ in the road.â
Beverly Forte lost a mother and best friend to breast cancer, but she is 10 years past her own diagnosis. She writes, âI kept my life as normal as one could as I went through chemo and radiation. Here I am today after that crazy winding road and I found my path. I have a love for design and staging.â
Jamie Anne McClellen writes that her story âpales in comparison to so many othersâ, but sheâs a breast cancer survivor and I donât consider that any small feat.
Two years ago, at the age of 55, she was diagnosed after a routine mammogram. After surgery she continued working as a freelance photostylist during her radiation treatments.
Jamie Anne believes a special part of her experience was the fact that she never wavered from her conviction that everything would be okay. She remained positive the entire time and saw the entire ordeal as one âblip on the radar screenâ of her life. She believes if she had a negative mental outlook it would have lead to a different physical outcome.
This brave woman recently decided to pursue a career in home staging which was a natural transition from her 20+ year career as a photostylist and set designer. Her home staging business, Practical Magic Home Staging, is based in Chicago. Sheâs currently working on building a website.
The advice she offers women is to get regular mammograms which is what caught her cancer at its most treatable stage. She also advises women facing this disease to focus their energy on positive healing instead of negative worrying.
Another story came from Bay Chamberlain of Your Space/Their Space (New Orleans) who was also diagnosed at the age of 55. Like Jamie Anne, Bay believes keeping a positive attitude and drawing on the support of her family and friends helped her cope and resulted in a âvery rich experienceâ. Bay wrote of her husbandâs passing one year ago and described as a blessing the fact that they were able to experience âthe same wonderful love and support during his illness.â
Bay has returned to work to fill the time and fight the âtankingâ economy. With a fine arts degree, post graduate degree in interior design and several successful informal staging projects done for a real estate agent friend, she is working on building her home staging business.
When I read Linda Stoltz-Fosterâs story I was truly touched by the sense of humor she maintained through her experience or at least the telling of it.
Linda and her husband purchased a vacation resort in need of repair. They invested a lot of time and money into restoring the property and it paid off with lots of business and a great reputation. In less than a year (and despite a previously ânormalâ mammogram result), Linda discovered a lump that turned out to be breast cancer. Without insurance because of diabetes, she took only a week off during her surgery and treatments.
Linda said one reason they kept their business open during her treatments was that she isnât one to enjoy âa pity partyâ and with all of the major decisions about treatment being made for her, she felt the only thing she could control was her business.
Four years past her diagnosis, Lindaâs advice is to âtrust your instincts â you know your body better than any machine or highly trained individual. Take action â donât wait.â
Linda and her husband have since sold their resort and moved to Driggs Idaho where Linda started a staging and redesign business to compliment her real estate practice.
Like the others who wrote to share their cancer survival stories, Linda advises women remain as positive as possible.
Besides personal stories, there were a couple of resources sent to me. Ellen Dixie wanted everyone to know about Dr. Susan Loveâs armyofwomen.org. Dr. Love has taken a unique approach to eradicating breast cancer by encouraging healthy women to participate in studies to determine what causes cancer.
Another resource that was brought to my attention by Deborah Wickel is myleftbreast.ca. Started by a breast cancer survivor, the company provides post-mastectomy and carcinogen-free products.
Women to Women, founded by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP, Christiane Northrup, M.D. and others pioneered the combination of alternative and conventional medicine in womenâs health, bringing science and discipline to natural and preventative methods. They have an excellent discussion about breast cancer sent to me by Kim Johns.
Many thoughts and emotions ran through me standing in the cemetery this past Sunday seeing â1963 – 2008? on my cousinâs tombstone. It really made me think how short that dash between the year weâre born and the year we die is, and how none of us knows how long it will be.
If youâre not living your life to the fullest and doing what you love for as many days as you can, what are you waiting for?
Itâs my sincere hope that some of the tips from these heroes of home staging will help others seek prompt attention for any lumps they find, regardless of previous mammogram results. I also hope these inspirational stories help to empower women.
These survivors have demonstrated such courage. If they were able to come through cancer and start their own home staging businesses, imagine what someone not facing such an unthinkable challenge is capable of doing.
To donate towards finding a cure, in Canada visit the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. In the US, you might consider donating to Susan G. Komen For the Cure.
Debra Gould
The Six Elements of Picking Up Girls
This G Manifesto is extremely important. This data, up until now has been highly guarded information, and revealing it could probably get me in trouble. It’s not unlike when Chinese Martial Artists started to reveal the secrets of hand to hand combat and self-defense to westerners. A lot of them got paid visits from the heavies over there. So don’t take this data sheet lightly. And don’t worry about me…desert eag (and Rugers for minor maneuvers), plus I got The Garduna behind me…..So here are The Six Elements of Picking Up Girls:
Sizzle.
This is very important for the opening. You have approach girls with snap, swagger and energy. You need to have a purpose and pitch something that is exciting, fresh and unique. For instance, pitching 3 ringside seats to a Title Fight to a couple of exotic dancers in a Gentleman’s Club is going to have some Sizzle on it (make sure you sit Girl-Boy-Girl). But know your audience; pitching a girl on an afternoon in The Turf Club at the Racetrack might seem like a good pitch on a Hollywood actress girl, unless she volunteers for PETA during her off-time. The gear you wear helps a lot. A custom, light grey Paul Smith suit (with ticket pocket) with purple pinstripes, Lilac pocket square by Brioni and a light Resort Style Armani shirt with Crocodile loafers by A. Testoni will give you that added zip that you need. Focus helps give you Sizzle. When I am picking up on a girl it might seem extremely effortless to the untrained eye. In reality, I am incredibly focused. Sometimes I am so focused I am basically clairvoyant…..with extra sensory perception…..hell, some days I can move objects, like telekinesis when I am picking up girls. Important note: girls always talk about how the like “bad boys” (their language not mine). But you can cross the line; I remember hanging out with a girl in a café during the day and two hitters came after me. It escalated into a full-blown daylight street shootout. The girl, completely unharmed, (who always said she liked “bad boys”) disconnected her phone when I tried to call her a few days later. So the lesson is, don’t push the “bad boy” thing too far. (again, girls lingo not mine)
Control.
Like any good MC that has Mic Control you need to control what is happening. For instance, don’t follow a girl you are trying to swoop to some bar that has a crappy band playing that her ex-boyfriend is in. You have to call the shots. Otherwise you could very easily end up Behind Enemy Lines. You make all decisions on where you are going and who you are rolling with. You need to know what moves to make during all hours of the day and night. Know what restaurant is best. Where the underground spots are. You need to dictate the action. Remember, part of what a night is scored on is “effective aggressiveness” and “ring generalship”. Don’t be afraid to walk away from the whole deal either. The key to this is having plenty of girls in your Pipe. You don’t even have to ask to know that my Pipe stays full like Mark Twain and General Macarthur’s.
Rapport.
This one is tough. Let’s face it, G’s and most girls have very little in common. Most normal girls don’t like Boxing, hanging out with underworld figures, eating extremely fattening foods, listening to the sound of money being counted in a money counter, negotiating gem prices, drinking wine like we are about to start prohibition again, Swooping as many girls as possible, planning heists, living a life of leisure, and being an all around jet-setting international playboy. When a girl asks you “What do you like to do for fun?” You can’t really respond with “Picking up on Girls” as an answer. (Side note: Thru an unofficial study, I have found out that many Female G’s, yes they do exist, are Bi-sexual, and because of this, saying “Picking up on girls” can be an acceptable answer). You need to find some kind of common ground, hard as it may be at times. For instance, most white girls have some Irish blood in them, so if you’re Irish at all, Bingo, there you go. Know a little about Zodiac Signs as well. News just in, girls like talking about signs, especially exotic dancers. There is a reason fly cats in the 70’s worked the sign game. In the new millennium, however, you can’t really ask girls flat out “what’s your sign?” There guard is up on that stuff. It’s better to lead girls “down the canyon” on this. Simply put, tell a girl you just had your birthday, ask a girl when her birthday is, and within two minutes, she will be asking you what your sign is. Every time. Worst case scenario, ask a girl what her favorite animal is and say it’s yours also. Just find some something in common…….Skippy.
Trust.
Trust usually falls in line from Rapport. But still you have to work on it. Usually this is the part when you really have to put on your lying cap. For instance, if you were in a baseball bat fight with the Baseball Furies the night before, you probably want to leave it out of the conversation. Or if a girl asks you “how many girls you have slept with?” It goes without saying, that you don’t tell the truth. I remember a time when I was a young Prototype G and a girl I was swooping asked me, “how many girls you have slept with?”. I remember I responded “I don’t know, like fifty” thinking I would say a “low” number (in reality at that time it was probably about 3 to 4 times that). I remember her reaction and the funny look she had on face when I said, “fifty”. Incredibly and naively, I remember thinking that she gave me a weird look because it was such a low number (And in reality it is, if you go out a lot, you can swoop 50 fly girls in 2 months…) The next time I called her, her number was disconnected. It wasn’t until I ran into her a few months later, (at one of my Bases of Operations at the time), that I realized that she thought that number was extremely high. It wasn’t the first or the last time a girl has called me a “pig” (her lingo not mine). Skillfully, I talked my way out of it, on the fly, and ended up closing the account. A come-from-behind knockout a la Rocky Graziano. Side note: The best answer the dreaded question “how many girls you have slept with?” is, in the sincerest way possible “I have been with a few very important girls in my life…..” And leave it at that. Trust me.
Urgency.
You have to make things happen fast when you are picking up girls. Every moment that goes by after you have gotten a girls phone number or made a date with her is hurts your chances. It’s a similar concept to “time erosion” with options trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Or the Chicago Board of Trade, or CME for that matter. It’s like a depreciating asset. The chances of a girl “coming to” from the hypnotism of your game starts to wear off. Always make plans with girls that night or the next. Collapse time frames.
Greed.
One of the Seven Deadly Sins. Many theorists say it’s the most important of the deadly sins. “Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.”Gecko. And greed — you mark my words — will not only save the G’s, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA………The Rest is Up to You.
Side Note:
In addition to Resort Style. On the west coast, summer style is very casual (I am primarily referring to the southern part). Don’t fall for it. People might think you are excessive and wrong for wearing a $2700 custom Italian suit in summer. Keep in mind this is made by skilled Italian craftsmen (I would call the guys who work on my suits Artists) who put about 50 hours of labor into it. Yet these same people think that think you are being excessive and wrong for wearing it, are wearing a Logoed Surf T-Shirt that costs five cents to make my some kid with missing fingers in some child labor sweat shop in some far-flung Tin Pot Republic. And they pay like $80 for the stupid T-Shirt! And I am the one being excessive and wrong…….Go Figure…..
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
The Guide to Getting More out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
(Want to see something in The G Manifesto? Send suggestions to thegmanifesto@yahoo.com)
Michael Porfirio Mason
http://www.articlesbase.com/advice-articles/the-six-elements-of-picking-up-girls-79548.html