I’m coining a new term: “Happy Bookmark.” I’m going to use it for really good real-life events that happen to me that I want to blog and remember. The act of blogging good things will henceforth be known as “Happy Bookmarking”. You heard it here first!

So Feb. 16 gets a big “happy bookmark”. Wow, the day has been awesome.

Okay, so first of all, S was here for like 10 days and left this morning (just pretend it’s still the 16th because I haven’t gone to bed yet.) He’s now in San Diego until Sunday, which is a relief. S, hon, I know you are reading this and I totally love ya in that best-friend kinda way, but you are also a stress ball. And I’m a stress ball. Put two stress balls together and force them to share a house and a car for 10 days and you get… IMPLOSION. Which is kinda what happened on the 13th. I just broke down and started crying at one point. On the 14th I didn’t get out of bed until sometime in the afternoon, when Andrew asked me out to what became lunch even though it was like 4PM. (Thank you, thank you, thank you.) I got to rant about everything that had happened in the last two weeks with Andrew and that improved my mood considerably.

Things have gotten better since, and today’s the best day I’ve had in a while. Today definitely deserves a happy bookmark. I had 3 major events happen, but I’m too tired right now to type it all out, so I’ll just mention the last one. I headed up to SF to check out Geek Entertainment TV Turns 1000. It turned out to be a really fun party. I was expecting to know more people there, but I only knew like 4 people, so at one point early on I went downstairs to the bar, and while waiting for a Sprite from the bartender (I haven’t had alcohol in several months and plan to continue that), I set a goal that I’ve never set before. I decided that, since I was feeling confident, I would go up to every single cute guy in attendance and introduce myself.

Now you gotta know something about me before you read any further. The fact is that I’m a complete wallflower at most parties. Or, as Andrew described it the other day, “When you talk about Simpli, you’re all “blah blah blah!” [and happy gestures], but when someone asks you about your personal life, you clam up.” Which is entirely 100% accurate. I’ve had a lot of shitty things happen in my personal life, so I tend to just not talk about it. This makes it difficult for me to break the ice at parties (that and a complete lack of knowing how to ask questions to get other people to open up.)

So now you have the premise. I’m an introvert. I generally consider it “good” if I meet 2 or 3 new people at a party. But here was my crazy self, presenting me with a challenge that on any other (normal) day, I would have just rolled my eyes and shrugged off. But today I was feeling confident, so I thought “What the hell.”

And I DID. I went up to every cute guy (and, okay, some of the normal-looking guys there too, and even a girl or two!) and introduced myself, asked what they did, etc. And then I started asking questions based on what they said. It didn’t hurt that this was a techie party and so I knew what they meant if they said “I work with Ruby and AJAX.” The odds were in my favor that I’d “click” with these guys. And boy, did I! Wow. It was totally great. Okay, so I didn’t get any dates out of it (yet…tee hee), but I did boost my self-confidence by about a mile. Hey, I can go up to random people at a party, introduce myself, and carry on AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION for a while! I know this may not seem like a lot to those of you (*cough*N*cough*) to whom this is second nature, but for me, this is a huge step. It felt really good to be able to break myself out of my shell. And hey, I did this. Not anyone else. ME!

Happy bookmark; February 16, 2006: The first day I was comfortable at a party.

It’s been a little over two months since I wrote my last real blog entry, “It just doesn’t feel quite right…”

Where did I disappear to in those two months? Let’s just say I took an emotional hiatus. Yep, I put up a big ol’ wall, just like I had as far back as when I was 13 years old. As you read in my blog, I resolved not to think about those things any more. In fact, I resolved to just not think about anything emotional for a while. After all, I knew my company could function better when I worked like a machine (and worked my butt off) than when I was an emotional mess. So I said “Fuck this” and put up a wall.

Simpli did really well in those two months. We met our revenue goals for 2005. We completed a datacenter move. The datacenter move was complete hell, but Russ and I pulled through with little to no sleep for 5 days and pulled it off. It was good that we got it finished.

I went to NYC in November, to LA (for IBI Dec. 5th-12th), and to Miami for New Years. I met S in NYC, who is definitely the person most like me in this world. I don’t think I’ll ever meet someone more like me. It’s crazy to know how someone will react even before they say anything, but S and I are like that. This makes us great friends, but also likely to drive each other crazy on a regular basis. 🙂 We talk every day. I told him I didn’t want a relationship because we’d end up killing each other. I think we both know this and this is part of what helps us be such close friends…that we know we have that boundary there where we can walk away at any time and take some time for ourselves without suffocating each other. It is pretty cool to know someone who is the opposite-sex version of you. I guess I always wondered what I would turn out like as a guy. Well, now I know I’d probably turn out like S. Which is not at all bad. In fact, he’s a pretty cool guy! But I suppose I have a biased opinion, being that we are nearly identical in our thought patterns.

S and I spent New Years together in Miami, too. No, I don’t have any pictures, mostly because I had this gross eye infection that made me look kinda crazy. (Google image search for “sty” if you want to see what I had. Yuck!)

I did post pictures of NYC on Flickr, but none of me and S. Sorry. Neither of us are photogenic.

Back to the wall. I had a lot of fun in the past couple months, but unfortunately it didn’t solve the nagging feeling I had. I successfully kept the wall up until last weekend, when I saw R for the first time in 2 months. Within an hour of seeing him again I felt the wall come crashing down and I was crying.

You see, for the past couple months I have ignored the gnawing feeling. I distanced myself emotionally from everyone. I did this all because, deep down inside, I have a huge fear. That is the fear that something about me makes me inherently unlovable.

I don’t mean unlovable as a friend. I have lots of friends who love me, and I know my family loves me. But I feel that there’s something that makes me unable to have a long-term relationship with anyone. I have some idea of what it is — that I’m a real perfectionist and I don’t think anyone, including me, lives up to my standards. But I can’t seem to let this go long enough to enjoy a relationship. It’s like a compulsion — whenever someone lets me down, I don’t deal well with it. I get angry. I yell, I scream, and I distance myself from that person. A lot of times, the distance is permanent. Other times, like with R, my feelings are too strong to make it a permanent distance, and I reach out again, only to inevitably be disappointed and hurt again.

R is particularly frustrating because there are so few personality clashes there, and a lot of things I really like about him. (Okay, love. I’ll say love.) He and I get along really well. I know I’ve said that before, but there’s something in my heart that doesn’t want to let him go, because he actually makes me really happy when we’re together. It’s when we’re not together that the nightmares kick in and I constantly worry that I’m not good enough for him or that he’ll find someone else who fulfills all of his needs. And the fact is that he probably will. He probably will, and then I’ll be left to look through the window just like I do now with FG, and see how happy he is and wonder what it is about my personality that forbids me from finding this happiness with another person.

I admit it. You have it in writing now…I have such a perfectionist trait that I break out in physical symptoms, like itching, when people don’t meet my expectations, which are set so ridiculously high that no one can meet them 100% of the time…not even me. And yet I don’t know how to stop it. I see the devastation it wreaks when I demand so much of people. I’ve watched people break down in front of me because they can’t meet my expectations. And yet I can’t seem to control this, this thing that runs my life, that makes me so hugely successful but at the same time is slowly killing me. The drive and the passion that I have for succeeding come from this, or (in my perspective) are enhanced by it. But it’s also crippled me; it makes me constantly worry that Simpli will fail, or that I will run out of money, or that I’m in debt. And it runs my interactions with other people, to the point where people don’t want to be around me because I can’t stop being driven. I can’t relax.

It’s out of control and I need help. I don’t know what kind of help I need. I’m not really into the whole medication thing. But I know that I need to learn how to relax, and I know that I really love people who can help me relax, like FG and R. But I also know I drive those people away with my perfectionism. I need to figure this out, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what to do. This drive may make me really rich (it looks like I’ll be an official millionaire before the end of the year), but it doesn’t make me happy… and happy is what I need more than anything else right now.

Haha! D and I kicked Wario Ware’s butt today. Finally, at 1AM, I conquered the final stage to beat the entire (GBA version) of the game. Also up for some butt-kicking earlier today was Katamari Damacy’s damn cow stage. God, I hate that level. “Cow statue (small)” my ass!

Do you ever look at the clock and realize you have been playing video games for more than 13 hours straight, with only 1 break to eat? Yeeaaahh. I think I had things I was actually supposed to get done today, but oh well. 😉

(This blog’s for you, Andrew!) 😀

Woooooooo!!!

*Erica stops running around the room long enough to type a blog*

Most of you know that I designed the Simpli website years ago (in 2002, to be precise.) It has since not really changed. While it desperately needs a facelift, I don’t have the time for it and I can’t really afford to hire a designer (even though we have some great ones hosting with us at Simpli!)

So when I saw a contest for web hosts where the prize was a free website redesign, I submitted Simpli.

The field was narrowed to 20 contestants last week and I was asked to submit answers to several questions about why we wanted a website redesign. Since I’m best with essays, I turned it into an essay… and even attached some pictures of our staff! Here is the first part of my essay:

Last month, I received a phone call from a potential customer. “We’ve used your service before and you guys were fantastic,” he said. “We’re interested in a dedicated server for a new project, and I was wondering if you could answer a few questions.”

“Sure!” I said.

“We looked at your website, but we can’t figure out what we need from it,” he said. “Honestly, we really love you guys, but if we would have stumbled on this website without having used your service, we would have not ordered from you.”

“Oh?” I asked. “Why is that?”

“It looks unprofessional and I can’t find the answers to my questions on it,” he replied. “That’s why I called you.”

This customer went on to place a $1,690.00 order with us for a year upfront of a dedicated server on October 21, 2005. That’s $1,690.00 that we undeniably would have lost due to our website design had he not worked with us previously and known our service and level of professionalism.

My conversation with that customer is what made me apply for ReInvention.

We are looking for a website that really showcases our commitment to our customers and our personal service. We want a completely unique website that we can be proud of. One thing that I really want to get rid of are those stock photos of “happy telemarketers” that are on so many websites. Our current website has some, too. I have attached two pictures that are the “real” Simpli — one is of one of our employees, Ben, building a server, and the other one is of me cheesin’ with some RAM and processors that we recently ordered for a customer. These are the kinds of things I want to put on our website. I really want to give off the vibe that we are REAL people who care about our customers, and that customers can always reach us when they have a problem or concern. That’s what has garnered us hundreds of satisfied customers so far, and our current website shows none of that. I also want to post some in-depth testimonials from current customers — we can furnish audio and customer pictures, which I think would be a unique way to do a testimonial.

The winner was announced today — and guess what…it was Simpli! 😀 Simpli has won a $5000 website redesign courtesy of Template Monster. With the redesign contest comes lots of free publicity, too, since this is like a reality TV show for the web where they go in-depth explaining every piece of the redesign and why they made the decisions they made.

I’ll keep posting with the results as we get them, but expect a complete facelift of www.simpli.biz in a few months. It certainly deserves it. I can’t wait to see what we come up with!

P.S. James of TemplateMonster explains why they chose Simpli.
Edit 8/15/2008: Since this link is now dead, I pulled James’s post from archive.org to save for posterity here:

I received 13 briefs we (David (CEO of Template Monster), Paul, and me) had to choose from.

Now we are ready to announce the winner of the contest. It is… www.simpli.biz!
Our congratulations to Erica Douglass!
We really like her brief and the company of course but not the website as it really needs some help on design.

I now quote Paul on the reasons why we have chosen simpli.biz:

Quote:
1. She is the most open to changes and new direction when it comes to
her company image.

2. She can readily identify why her current site isn’t working, not just
whether she likes or dislikes it, but how her business is directly
impacted by the design and engineering of it.

3. Her needs are manageable. Her site is sizable, but not overwhelming
for a first-time Reinvention project.

4. She expresses herself better than any other candidate. She will be
easy to work with when it comes to keeping the project moving and
working with her content.

5. From a visual design perspective, she needs help about as badly as
anyone, worse than most 🙂

We would like to thank all the applicants who took the time to send us their briefs.
Most of the sites submitted need some design help but we are limited with our resources and cannot help each applicant. We are really sorry about it. But we hope that you will stick to ReInvention so you could learn how to produce good design.