Everyday Goddess

There's a big ol' hole that's gone right through the sole of this old shoe.

In my first four years in Los Angeles, I gained about 25 pounds, and I took to wearing cheap shoes.

I don't actually have any idea when my feet started hurting in the morning.  They just did, and I knew it was the shoes plus the weight gain, but I never seemed to make any progress on either front.  Even $20/$30 for a pair of shoes seemed more than I wanted to spend, and the weight gain - well, that's another post entirely.

Being me, I ignored my foot pain.  It always went away.

Until a bit ago, when I noticed that my aching feet had turned into my aching right heel in a very localized, very painful way.  Rather like a giant nail in my heel more than anything else.  It was so bad, so fast, that I did a buying habits 360 and decided immediately that the days of cheap shoes were absolutely and completely OVER.  At the Off Broadway Shoe Warehouse on Sunset, I found my new shoe love - Lifestride.  Holy crap are these shoes comfortable, and every single size 7 1/2 pair I try on fits perfectly.  I also lowered my heel height to like 2 1/2" and under - trying to anyway.

You'd think "having" to buy new shoes would be fun, but it was more an excercise in releasing the guilt.  I kept checking my foot - yes, I am actually in extreme pain and must buy these shoes before I collapse.  Yes, it's really OK to buy these shoes.  Holy crap, buy the damn shoes already, my foot HURTS!

And, of course, I can hardly replace all my shoes.  I bought a couple basic pairs, but it's already occurred to me I don't have black close-toed dress shoes, since I bought taylored black shoes to go with pants instead.  And I already had new black boots on my list for this fall, so I still need to get those.  Having this come up in between seasons is kinda annoying, but I supposed I'll catch up again at some point.  I'm honestly not a shoe fiend, but a girl needs black and brown, and open-toed and closed-toed, etc.  I honestly never buy impractical shoes just because they're cute or fun - well, unless they're $7 a pair.  Which I can't do anymore.  Sob!  Putting all my cheap little shoes and cheap chunky high-heeled boots into a box for the thrift store was totally heart-breaking.

But.  Once in my new shoes, my foot began to get better.  (Arch support: Who knew?)  First, the lower heel height seemed to shake the whole situation up.  The pain seemed to stretch into my whole foot and sometimes would send sensations up my leg.  It was crackley, too. Joyful.  But, after a few days in my new shoes, I truly seemed to be on the mend.

I honestly thought it would be fine to walk twenty minutes back and forth to the movies on Sunday night, I really did.  The shoes I was wearing weren't athletic, but they were low heels and super comfy.

BIG MISTAKE.  BIG, BIG, BIG MISTAKE. 

From the minute I stood up after the movie, I realized I had made a serious error.  And when I woke up the next day, my foot... there are NO WORDS for such pain.  I could never have imagined such excruciating internal pain could come from my foot. I couldn't get into my bathtub because it requires weight on the right foot at one point or another, and I don't even know how I got to the bathroom in the first place.  Oh, that's right, I hopped.

(Funny aside, I just now realized I had a dream last night that I suddenly discovered that I could coast like ten feet at a time if I hopped on one leg, so in the dream I was gliding about, leaving everyone else in the dust.)

Anyway, it was at the point of excruciating pain that I realized I was going to have to give in and go to the doctor of my own volition.  (My general rule about any doctor's visit that isn't the OB-GYN is: If I'm unconcious, you can take me to the doctor's.)  I have an appointment with my primary physician in two weeks.  Can't go to the podiatrist until I see the general, who by the way, I've never met.  Brilliant.

Meantime, the better shoes have helped again after two days of painfully slow limping.  Clearly, it's plantar fasciitis, although I suspect I'll get an ex-ray to check for a heel spur.  So, it's really all about stretching, taking it easy and better shoes, doctor's visit or no.  (But, I'm still going, I promise.  The pain was That Bad.)  I've decided no walks this weekend and taking it easy for the two weeks on either side should do it.  And I'll have to get new athletic shoes for walking - yeah, I haven't really bought any decent shoes except my football cleats and basic dance shoes since I moved to L.A.  So sad.

Painful feet are so unacceptable.

Learning What It Means To Live The Dream

This post is cross-posted at BlogHer as part of Arianna Huffington's Virtual Book Tour for her new book, "On Becoming Fearless...In Love, Work and Life."

I was 28 years old when I made the decision to empty my small retirement savings to attend Florida State Graduate Film School.  After 10 years of uncertainty and trying this and exploring that, I had found my passion:  filmmaking.

Two years later, savings and credit cards completely tapped, I moved across the country to Los Angeles with three months rent paid in advance with a loan from my parents and about 1 month’s worth of living expenses.  Friends have called me brave, but I refer to this as “the fine line between brave and stupid.”  Fortunately, I had a day job in under a month, and I crash-landed in the La La safely.  At this point, I had written and directed three student film shorts, including my award-winning short, “Every Little Girl’s Dream.”  (Thank you, Philafilm!)

I have been here four years, and in that time I have maintained my full-time day-job while writing and directing a Women in Film public service announcement and a new 5-minute film short I’m making for my submission to a reality show called “On the Lot.”  Also, I was chosen to receive a directing mentor through Women in Film and shadowed him on a television show for three weeks.  This was a big deal for me because 1. I really want to direct 1-hour episodic and I learned a lot and 2. Getting three weeks off from my day-job without having to quit was quite a trick and 3. Taking eight unpaid days (after my vacation days ran out) took months to recover from and really illuminated the tenuous nature of my financial situation.

Now, this is not about whether or not to continue to pursue a career as a professional director.  On the contrary, I know that I am here for the long haul, no matter how my financial situation limits what I can accomplish each year.  I do feel my age (35), however, I honestly believe I have until I’m 55 or 60 to make something happen, barring illness or injury.  Directing, storytelling, collaborating, creating, motivating, working, focusing, decision-making, problem-solving, and learning to make the puzzle come together better each time:  It is my undeniable passion.

No, this is an essay about sacrifice and risk.  In the past year, I have become painfully aware of what I have truly chosen.  Because the hard truth is, I may never break in.  People like to tell you that hard work will pay off, but I’ve not even knocked on the door.  I don’t feel tried and tested; I feel completely stymied.  I don’t have the time I need, the money I need, or the connections I need.  It might just prove to have been impossible in the end.

I want to advance in my day-job to fund and accelerate my excruciatingly slow progress on my debt, because my debt is absolutely the number one thing holding me back as a director and threatening my long-term well-being.  But I fear that I can’t move forward in my day-job because I didn’t get an MBNA or stay on a single, clear career path from a young age.  I’m good at market analysis, but I don’t have the training.  I’m interested in web design, but I don’t have the training.  Meanwhile, I can’t afford to take an entry-level position anywhere for anything, which is frustrating because those are the positions I would most enjoy and which would be most related to what I ultimately want to do.

So I wonder, does it make sense to spend time and energy and money pursuing another career?  Yet, I would like a successful career at something, be able to work hard and be rewarded at something.  I feel I may be trapped in this struggle, and I may die having never excelled at either endeavor.  Sometimes I wonder if everyone’s career feels like this when you’re in your 30s and stuck in the middle of the career ladder.

I want a successful career.  I want to support a family.  But how can I, when I still struggle with nothing to show?  It’s funny; I’ve told many people in my life that waiting to be “set” to get married is silly – your spouse is there to walk the road with you.  But it’s hard to see how I can hold on to the role I want without the power of an established (or at least actually started) career.  I don’t see how I can justify having a baby when I can’t support my family and my career goal remains just a dream shared by so many in this city.  Can I continue to justify the amount of time I spend working in addition to my day-job when my home life isn’t just about me?  Can I have a life without my elusive dream slipping completely away?

The truth is, if I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sacrifice of everything else would get me a career in directing, I would make that choice.  But life doesn’t work that way, and I believe that that total sacrifice would actually have a negative effect on my story-telling and my heart and soul.  So I try to balance it all.  Try to make the best decisions at each moment while staying true to myself and my path.  Try to have faith that love and career and family and security will eventually manifest if I just keep on striving and making the best decisions I can.

It is difficult to envision how my life might progress to the place where I have a career and a family and a positive net worth, but I can easily see how I could end up with none of these things.  This is my growing fear.  That I may end up with nothing and no one.  And so I try to balance making progress on my debt with doing things to somehow take another baby step forward as a director, while meanwhile, the clock ticks and the time flies by.

And I continue to work and to navigate and to dream.

Liz Rizzo as Carrie Bradshaw.

When BlogHer was first creating the current site, Lisa Stone was looking for contributing editors.  I knew I wanted to do it right away, but I couldn't decide if I wanted to throw my name in the hat for the "personal" category or the "sex & relationships" category.  Two of my good friends gave one vote to each, but ultimately, I choose the "personal" category, because as much as I do write about sex & relationships on this blog, and indeed started it largely because of dealing with a relationship issue and wanting/needing to share, I also blog about the journey and a million other things.  This is an eclectic personal blog about me, not a topic blog.

So I threw my name in as someone interested in the personal category.  Whereupon, Lisa sent me an email and asked me if I would do sex & relationships.  My eclectic ass was to be specifified.

One thing that surprised me when I started blogging on this blog was how much of a challenge it was to create hopefully interesting and well-written regular content.  Writing for BlogHer has taken that challenge and kicked it up a notch.  I didn't realize how accustomed I'd become to being my own editor.  I didn't realize how much of a challenge it would be to focus on one topic.  And I found myself nervous about my writing style and writing on a blog with so many incredible bloggers covering all sorts of topics.

As someone who likes to be constantly challenged, Blogher is a great place to be, and writing for the site is very personally and professionally rewarding for me.

Recently, I also joined The SexySmart Blog for Elexa condoms.  My reasons for taking the gig were similar as for the rest of my blogging.  I value the opportunity to share my experiences with others in the hopes that they will be entertained, or sometimes educated, or find a similar or dissimilar voice that speaks to them or makes them think.  I also think that people don't give enough thought to safe sex these days and had been thinking about how you reach people of all ages with sex education and also how to create conversation about sexual options.  It's one of the (many) things I wish I could be more involved in.

So I've taken on a new challenge.  I blog on Elexa twice a week, Mondays and Fridays.  I am allowed to repurpose previous material, however, I do try to create original content there more often than not.  Sometimes, personal blogging reads better fresh.

It's been a time challenge and a topic challenge.  I now write about sex & relationships A LOT, and I sometimes wonder how I'm ever going to have enough to say.  But I just keep my eye on what needs to be done by when, and my mind on what's going on around me and in my own head, and so far, I'm keeping up with it OK.  It's a new blog with a diverse group of bloggers, but I think we're getting our legs pretty quickly.

So.  Today I got a little pat on the back for my work on Elexa.  I was announced as a Women Who Rock the Blogosphere semi-finalist on BlogTalkRadio on August 20th, and today I was listed as a finalist!  I am on a short-list with some fabulous female bloggers and hey, that's just cool.

Finally, the title of this post is not because I think of myself as Carrie Bradshaw - in fact, I've only ever seen a few episodes of Sex in the City.  But it is often what people say to me:  "You're a Carrie Bradshaw!"  And when I hear that, what I really hear is, "You're a writer!" and that fits just fine.

It's a mystery to me.

Do you have any memory mysteries from your childhood?

For example, for the longest, longest time I had the memory of attending a film with my parents when I was a small child.  All I could remember was that the main character would watch television and mimic what he saw on the screen.  For years, I would ask people if they knew what I was talking about with just that little bit I remembered.

It was my boss at KFC who finally knew what it was:  Being There from 1979.  What a relief to finally know exactly where that memory finally came from!

But I have another one, and it's a board game, and it's been bugging me for far longer.  It was like Clue, but it wasn't Clue.  It had cards for all the major fictional detectives: Charlie Chan, Sherlock Holmes, etc.  And it had cards called "It's a Mystery to Me" cards.  I believe the board was a house with rooms, like Clue, but it was a vertical picture rather than a floorplan.  I believe the game dynamic was different - no weapons, no guessing who did it where, but I can't remember what the game dynamic actually was.  I think there was a graveyard on the board.  If I had to guess a decade, I'd say maybe 40s or possibly 50s, since it belonged to one of my parents when they were growing up.

And, as was the case with my opening example, my parents have no idea.

So I throw it to The Internets.  Anyone have a clue?

The Quiet Relationship

This post is cross-posted at BlogHer.

It was May Day, and I’d just started dating a guy who was really good friends with an ex-girlfriend. No big deal to me. I’ve got lots of ex-boyfriend friends.

Guy asked if we could be cool, no public displays of affection, etc. at the party we were attending. He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. He said she still had feelings that he didn’t share. At the time, I really liked and respected her, and I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable either. It seemed like a reasonable request to respect her feelings. I admired their commitment to their friendship. I was so innocent then.

So I spent the day “being cool.” And frequently uncomfortable. Because as the day went on the occasional snuck kiss (not initiated by me; I was following his lead) became a drop of pretense and she was anything but cool. The party ended with her screaming and crying at him at the top of her very drunk lungs on the back porch while I sat shocked and miserable in the kitchen.

“It’s not about you,” one of his friends said.

Yeah, that’s what you want to hear at the beginning of a new relationship: It’s not about you.

Ultimately, that particular incident would be but one of so many bizarre episodes that peppered 5 ½ months of more hell than a girl should reasonably stand, but I am convinced it was the foundation of the dysfunction to come. I definitely feel in retrospect (ah, hindsight!) that I should have walked away from the situation right then.

I’ll tell you one thing for sure: I will never enter a “quiet” relationship again. I think it’s negative and unhealthy and that I deserve better.

It’s tricky because surely there are many understandable reasons to keep a new relationship on the down-low: office romance, pending divorce, children. We all have to make judgment calls for ourselves about what works and what doesn’t for us. And surely some of us are against public displays of affection to such a degree as to make it moot.

But here’s how it works for me: I think a relationship needs support and nurturing, and that support is both internal – between the two partners – and external – within the community of family and friends that surround the couple. The couple has to find out how (and if) they fit with each other and within their communities. A relationship that is out in the open facilitates relationship growth and discovery in both areas at once. A couple dating quiet may not discover their public dynamic until after they are completely entangled internally – making it harder to separate should a problem arise.

More importantly, someone asking you to date quiet is asking you to subvert yourself and your emotions. Asking you not to celebrate publicly the new relationship and not paying you the respect of doing the same. For me, that’s a negative energy I won’t abide again.

And then there’s the why of it. Why are you being asked to date quiet? In my case, I believe it was because he was lying to me (and to her and to all his friends) about the specifics of his situation with both of us. At the very least, it was an indication that he was not free and clear of her emotionally.

I believe the request to keep a new relationship quiet is absolutely a red flag. So while there are understandable reasons why you might enter a quiet relationship, I have to ask: Are the reasons to date quiet actually reasons not to date at all?

Got my motor runnin' for a wild weekend.

OK, don't tell anyone, but last weekend, I did not one lick of work.  Not One Lick. 

I played all weekend.  I went to a movie on Friday night, played board games all day Saturday, and then on Sunday, when I was home with all the best intentions of working on my film short, my editor asked if we could push, and I said yes.

I was staring at my computer screen, not blogging, when The Boyfriend called and asked if I wanted to come over for more board games.  I said yes and kissed my work goodbye.

Geez, is this how normal people live?  Having fun on the weekends?  'Cause WOW - was I rested for Monday, and it had a marked effect on my productivity and focus.

Which I've now blown to hell by getting up Monday before work to work on my personal computer, and working through my lunch break, and working at home until 12:30am Monday night.  Well, and I did my MASSIVELY OVERDUE GINORMOUS AMOUNT of laundry.  Ug.

But, dude, it was amazing to just have fun for a change.  For an entire weekend.  And, wow, don't tell anyone, but I'm doing it again next weekend.

Seriously, where do I get off?  No work on the weekends???  That's crazy talk!

Can't make it a habit, but it's fun while it lasts.

Six o'clock already, I was just in the middle of a dream.

Friday mornings shouldn't feel icky, but this one finds me on the wrong side of the bed and under the gun.

Tell you what, you check out the Carnival of the Mundane over at The Random Yak, and I'll try to shake it off.  Snakes on a Plane tonight!

BRING BACK KZLA

OK, the HUGE country music station in Los Angeles, KZLA, is not on the air.  Seriously, I am stunned and beyond miserable.  Not only do I love country music and KZLA was my favorite radio station, but more than that, KZLA was a KICK-ASS country radio station.  I used to brag to my friends in other states that Los Angeles had the best country station, better than anywhere else.

There isn't another country station in Los Angeles, as far as I know.  I mean, surely the market will create one to fill the hole, but what about RIGHT NOW???  Honestly, I just keep thinking this must be a prank because it seems so absurd.  But it's not.

The culprits are Emmis Communications, and you can e-mail them @ IR@emmis.com.

Please feel free to copy my letter, just sent:

Words can not express how very much the decision to ditch KZLA - the best country station in the country - totally and completely SUCKS. 

I can honestly say that I flat out hate every single person involved in that decision. You totally suck.  You had *the* country station in L.A. and yes, a responsibility to country music lovers in L.A.  You had a kick-ass and powerful station.  A great station. 

Fuck you.

Man, I am sorry to be so harsh, but there are no other words to express the total suckage of your hateful decision.

Liz Rizzo

Now, I know that some of you reading don't like country music.  But I am seriously upset and if you rip on country music in my comments, I will delete it.  Do NOT fuck with me.  Imagine if you couldn't get pop music on the radio or rock music on the radio.  My number one station was KZLA, it was the only country station, it was a huge country station, and it was a great radio station.

It is a sad, sad day in Los Angeles for country music fans, and I only wish that the assholes at Emmis could telepathically feel my intense wrath at their evil, loser, jerk-ass decision.  Fuckheads.

Asshats probably thought all the country music fans would just pray for them.  NOT BLOODY LIKELY, DUMBASSES.

More information on Franklin Avenue.

The format change was sudden, and quite jarring to listeners. KZLA simply played the Keith Urban song "Tonight I Wanna Cry" at 10:18 a.m., followed by the Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started" at 10:25 a.m.

Industry discussion here.

Blogging.LA gave a mention as well.

And here's the KZLA info from the Emmis website.  Bastards sound so proud, don't they?

93.9, KZLA-FM Country Market:  Los Angeles, CA Market Rank:  1 Market Revenue:  $1,038.6 Million Station Manager:  Val Maki www.kzla.com info@kzla.com

For 25 years, County 93.9 KZLA has provided Los Angeles and Orange County with great country music, exciting personalities, and fun contests. KZLA continues to be the exclusive country music radio station in Los Angeles. KZLA is home to the annual KZLA Country BASH bringing the hottest country artists to Los Angeles for one full day of music, food and fun. Over a dozen artists perform and the event benefits various local charities. KZLA serves the community in many ways including City of Hope, Aids Project L.A., and it main beneficiary, Los Angeles Family Housing through its Tilden’s Children Charity. KZLA is the most listened-to Country Music station in America with over 700,000 listeners per week.

700,000 listeners who just got fucked by Emmis Communications.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

This post is cross-posted at BlogHer.

Nine years ago, when I was 26 and engaged and afraid and unsure and scared, I sent an e-mail to a total stranger and asked for advice.  She was a pagan, and she had a website about animal totems.  I sent my query feeling stupid and embarrassed and worried about what she would reply and if she would reply, but I was so sick of talking to the same people about the same things and going over and over everything I was thinking and feeling again and again to no resolution, that in my desperation, I reached out.

I don't remember what she said, and I don't have her reply anymore, but I remember it was comforting and sympathetic and intelligent and strong.  Oh, we got so much less e-mail back in the day.

Since my blogging on the topic of sex & relationships has become more frequent and more widespread in the blogosphere, I have started to receive letters asking for relationship advice, insight, further sharing of my own situations, actions, etc.  And as a blogger, and indeed just as part of being who I am and always have been, I am an extremely open person, willing to share my own personal experiences and insights if someone else might find them useful or gain solace or inspiration or find a new perspective or even a similiar way of being.

But I am wary of giving specific advice via e-mail.  I also, honestly, don't have the time to reply to such e-mails right now with the care I would choose to take.

I prefer instead to relate my own experiences and observations about myself and my life through blogging, and would ask that you take what speaks to you and disregard the rest.  I respect what you know as your truth, and I am always open to hear that as well.

In fact, I would say that finding your own truth and your own voice and learning to hear it and respect it is the single most important thing when it comes to deciding about break ups.  I took months to anguish about my engagement, but the absolute truth was that the truth was there long before I accepted it.

In fact, if you are so anguished, so unsure, so unhappy... then I would tend to think that not only should you take a serious look at your current relationship, but you should also consider taking a look at yourself - who you are, where you are, who you want to be, and where you want to be.

I'm going to be dead honest here.  I love being in a relationship. I prefer it over being single, and I do hope to be married someday. But not only is single better than a bad relationship, but single is a gift, and it's the gift of yourself.  Those nights you cry alone, and then wake up the next morning having survived, they give you strength. They lead to days of blissful freedom and happy self-expression and knowledge and strength you would never find if you didn't allow yourself to experience the gift of singleness.  I am a better person today, and a much wiser person, for having been there and having been there for quite a while.

It has also been my own personal observation and practice to not accept behavior that no one would ever have to expect from me.  We each make our own decisions about what is important to us and what isn't, and surely there are times to compromise, but for example, and from a letter I received, I would ask myself:  Would my boyfriend ever be in the place of asking me why I was exchanging love letters with someone in another country?  No, he wouldn't.  You don't have to live with behavior that you yourself would not engage in. 

Giant internet porn addiction not your thing?  You don't have to be with that person.

Further, if you have been cheated on and are in the position of being vulnerable, there are people who will prey on your insecurity about being perceived as obsessed or damaged, etc.  The truth is, if you feel uncomfortable asking a reasonable question, or if your partner makes you feel bad about asking a simple question, this is a GIANT RED FLAG.  If every relationship discussion somehow turns around to you and your "issues," this is a GIANT RED FLAG.  If you find yourself drawn to behavior that you yourself don't approve of or aren't comfortable with, this is a GIANT RED FLAG.

The right person makes you feel comfortable, safe, happy, respected, and cherished.  Another trick is, would I allow a friend to treat me this way, or would I allow a friend to act this way towards me?  Your significant other should treat you better than your friends. Period.  If he (or she) isn't, then get yourself single and learn to treat yourself the way you damn well deserve to be treated.

Now, of course, in many situations, the first thing you likely want to do is address issues with your significant other and see if there can be resolution.  But if that is clearly futile, it is OK to simply walk away, no matter how much it hurts your heart, because of strong things that your mind and your gut are screaming at you.  Listen.  You have a voice inside trying to tell you the answers you seek.

Something else that got me through was this thought:  It doesn't have to be this hard.  Sure, relationships are difficult.  Marriage can be a challenge, sometimes a big one, sometimes over significant amounts of time.  But if you are scared and fearful and uncomfortable and subjected to things that you would never subject someone else to, if it is your truth, you can simply walk away.

Why?  Because it's not only OK to be single, it's a good thing. Don't stay on the defensive, letting yourself be jerked around and all your buttons pushed.  Be on offense for yourself and your needs.  Stand up strong for yourself.  Bonus score: that's more attractive anyway.

One reader asked me recently, how did I call off my wedding.  The truth is, I tried to talk to him, reason with him, talk to myself, reason with myself, figure out what I was doing, figure out what we were doing - oh, the angst went on and on and on, until one day I had a panic attack, I left work, I went to my beach, and I sat in the sand, and I allowed myself to know what I already knew.  When he came home, I was sitting in the living room, and I said, "I don't want to get married, and I want to break up."

There was aftermath and more tearing apart, but basically, you can just walk away.  If there's practical reasons why not, fix them.  But how do you break up with someone?  You say, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to be with you anymore."  And you walk.

Did you ever seem to have one of those days when everyone seemed to be on your case?

There is a room in hell that is the ladies single bathroom at my work. 

The original evil of this bathroom lies in the lighting.  No matter how good you look in your home mirror in the morning - best hair day of your life - the first time you look at yourself in the bathroom mirror at my work:  Ass.

Ass lit in green flourescent reflection, sickening your skin tone, highlighting every inperfection, beaming on every gray hair.  Looking at yourself in this mirror is enough to make a girl quit her job just to escape the ugly self that comes with the paycheck.  After all, is it the lighting really, or does the morning commute through the L.A. smog somehow remove all makeup, all hair shine, all warmth, all life?

I'm convinced the bathroom in the celebrity doctors office on our floor is lit by Janusz Kaminski, while ours is pure horror show in a late night video store.

Then the light got a new trick.  A motion-sensitive timer.  Set on Jet-Stream-Piss.  Piss like the wind!  Or you will be sitting in darkness when the light turns off after 20 secs.

I apparently don't move much while going to the bathroom - who knew?  I thought briefly about flapping one arm the entire time I'm in there, but decided instead on merely sighing like Eeyore as I sit in the dark.  After all, there's some sort of poetic justice when it goes off while you're looking at yourself in the mirror.

But the final injury, the most painful feature of the ladies single bathroom at my work, is the sign that stares directly at you while you're sitting on the throne:

Sure, the message is obvious, the punctuation painful.  But more than that, oh, so, so much more than that, how *clearly* should this read, "Make sure you flush away, before you rush away"???

Seriously.  It is the bathroom of pain.