#off-brief

[off-brief]

On Phobias - By Brad

I'm the shadows. The eight-legged web-slinger and 1000 ft cliff you plummet from in your nightmares. I'm the reason you can't go outside, sleep and eat peanut butter. I make you panic. You can't out run me, hide from me or block me out of your memory. I'm everywhere and nowhere all at once. I'm what makes your girlfriend scream louder than you can and the reason you scream with her. I'm lurking in the back of your head. I'm your phobia. Completely real to you and utterly insane to everyone else.

[off-brief]

On Boxing - By Margo

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”- Mike Tyson   You do the work. The training. You learn where to be and when. When to step up, step back, or get the hell out of the way. When to keep your guard up (always) and when to relax (always). Because everything hurts more when you’re tensed up. You learn just how long 3 minutes can be and how it can take everything out of you. More than you thought you had. Not just your energy, sweat, patience, and strength, but who you think you are, what you think you can do.  And despite all the hours, taking it out on inanimate objects that never hit back, working your feet, working the legs, working, working, working, you’re never totally ready for what comes next. Because suddenly and without warning, you’re on the receiving end of something you’d never counted on and nothing will ever be the same.

[off-brief]

On Boxing - By Josslyn

Everything I need to know about advertising I learned by fighting.   No one’s going to just hand you a good fight. Or a good brief.   If you don’t think you have to prove yourself, you’re in the wrong place. You’re going to have to put your time inside a lot of crummy rings before you make it to the nice ones.   Listen to your corner. And your CD.   You corner sees it all from a different angle and with years of wisdom behind it. If you think you’re better than that, you deserve the failure that comes from such disrespect.   Be in the right place at the right time.   The more you keep working, the more opportunity will appear out of thin air. Don’t get distracted by what doesn’t matter and you’ll be surprised by how clear the path becomes.   One bad seed can take down a whole team.   This is a team sport. You can’t do it alone and everyone must first be invited. Build your team carefully. Play nice. Always be out to win.

[off-brief]

On Schadenfreude - By Josslyn

When someone makes plans to be with you the whole day and then suddenly ditches you in the middle of a bookstore in the Haight at 4pm to go cook wings with his roommate. Burnt,dry, scabby wings.

[off-brief]

On Schadenfreude - By Brian

Schadenfreude: An exercise in patience.   It’s taken me the better part of the morning to get this far. Knowing all I needed to do was tap into Google to figure it out; to have that wave of knowledge, familiarity, confidence wash over me. To be in on the joke. To be on the other side of the pointing fingers. To laugh at, not with. To sidestep the embarrassment.   I’d come real close to getting it over with, then opt not to. Still trying to figure it all out on my own. It sounded familiar enough, but it could be confused with anything. A type of mustard. Possibly a mental disorder. An unfortunately named pet. BUT WHICH ONE WAS IT?   A few trips around the Internet (other than the one obvious stop) and it still didn’t click. Still no closer to figuring out what it all meant. Trying to ignore it, but the nagging persistent as ever. Maybe I’ll just fake it. That’s what I do every other day. Why not today?   Because I caved. Eventually. Initially I didn’t know what Schadenfreude meant. But now I do. Which makes this entry all the more fitting. 

[off-brief]

On Schadenfreude - By Margo

My mother was going to get the mail, and it had rained recently, and she was in heels, and we live on an incline and, well, you can see where this is going.   When she fell, I laughed. A lot. I didn’t know this wasn’t the appropriate response. But she let me know. Before I knew it, she was up and yelling at me, “You do NOT laugh at someone who falls down. You make sure they’re ok, you help them up, but you do NOT LAUGH.”   Not only did this seem not fair to me, this didn’t seem possible. The laugh came so quickly, so strongly that it just seemed like a natural response. And I wasn’t entirely to blame, as hours of slapstick humor and perfectly violent cartoons had engrained the ‘falling is funny’ construct.   So now I try. I try really hard. When someone slips or trips, hits their head or walks into a wall, I take a moment. I actively relax my face, breathe through my mouth and try to utter, ‘are you ok?’ before I give in. It’s quite literally the least I can do. 

[off-brief]

On Regrets - By Katherine

No regrets. Oh… wait Mario said I can't say that. Guess I regret saying that. Well… … … this is awkward.

[off-brief]

On Regret - By Josslyn

Dear Regret,   If I could, I would totally go Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on you.   Don’t meet me in Montak, Josslyn