The other night I was over at my mom's house hanging out and doing laundry and such and when she came up to me with a mysterious pair of pants.

"Here honey," she said, handing them to me. "These are too long to be your father's, so they must be yours."

I took the pants in my hands. My memory is well-known as faulty, but I even I could not remember ever owning a pair of jeans from the Gap.

"Are you sure these are mine?" I asked.

"Who else could they belong to?"

"Wait," I said, looking at the size tag. "These are six long... six long is a girl's size. Mom, these are women's jeans."

I started to hand the pants back to my mother, but then I realized something: These jeans looked like they would fit. And not just fit, but fit like a glove! (Or, more accurately, like tight, skinny jeans.)

I snatched them back and tried them on. My butt looked fantastic! There was no way I was going to be parted from these bad boys. Er... girls.

* * *

Today in an email, my friend Carolyn said this to me:

I realized — those jeans you got from your Mom's are MAGICAL... Just like in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants!!!! I mean, who knows where they came from? Who knows whose they were? And the odds that you would just put them on and they'd fit like a dream??!! Maybe they fit EVERYONE who tries them on?!! Uh huh &mdash magical.

So now I am a proud member of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

If you read my Association of Alternative Newsweeklies profile, you will see that my "iconoclastic marketing philosophy is centered around the belief that a brand's meaning cannot be quantified and that management decisions must be instinctive and intuitive."

This is not the way most companies operate, even a company like NUVO. Case in point: a week or two ago, I joined forces with Charlie Clark to put together a series of ads that are, in my opinion, quite brilliant — not to mention edgy, mildly confusing, possibly offensive, and absolutely hilarious. I'll let you be the judge.

Now, upon showing these ads to management, instead of being heralded as a marketing savant or even given the go-ahead, I was told the ads "might make us look bad" and that I should convene a focus group to get some data.

Naturally, I set aside my "iconoclastic marketing philosophy", shelved the campaign, and put "convene focus group" on my ever-growing to-do list. But today I was reading a piece in Ad Age on how to lead a company using innovative marketing strategies.

From the article:

The first step: Invite intuition into the innovation process. Cultures of "show me the data" have resulted in companies' perpetually chasing trends and numbers instead of great ideas. If your team is spending time and resources chasing data, it's really chasing perfection, a much bigger risk in the innovation process; in the end, you might never find what you need.

Earlier this week, my dearly-departed (for Philadelphia!) friend Logan sent me the following message:

From: Logan
To: Ray
Subject: Why cinema should exist

Have you seen "Once" yet? If not, do so immediately. It is, without question, one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. If it is not playing in Indianapolis go to Chicago. Seriously.

Luckily, I only had to go as far as Bloomington. There I was able to catch the second-to-last showing at the Kerasotes East. (And take in a custom eel roll made by the delicate hands of professional sushi chef Yoosuk Choi... plus see one of the most spectacularly hilarious incidents of vehicular ineptitude this side of me and my family, but that's another blog post.)

In short, Logan was right. There was a sparse crowd at the theater, but one that was clearly passionate about this film. There was one point at which the tears were literally streaming down my face, just from music and pictures. And I'm used to applause at the end of big event movies on opening night, but not small independent gems on closing night.

Without giving too much away, the plot of the film centers around the heartfelt music that comes from blossoming artists drawing on a lifetime of pain and wisdom. And, like the best self-produced albums and demos, it retains a rough and real feeling throughout. (Incidentally, I ran right out and bought the soundtrack, which has been on constant repeat since.)

I don't do this too often, but this is one case where it's definitely warranted. See this film.

Here's a cool quote from a Zen Habits post on living a life of gratitude:

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.