Your Pal Mal

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Despite the w/e popularity of these topics, have never cared to post about a celebrity’s death or about women in the workplace. Have always thought places like Facebook or a personal tumblr make for a somewhat vain and futile soapbox, but guess I’m about to get vain and futile because this op ed by Joan Rivers just does it for me. Her unpolished account of being a woman trying to make it to the top of an industry is everything.

Our 1st grade class was assigned to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. The essays came back from aspiring doctors, ballerinas, presidents and rabbis (it was a jewish school, ok?). As a 10-year-old, I wrote my entire essay on wanting to be Joan Rivers. Not an actress, or a comedian, just Joan Rivers. I found her irresistibly entertaining, loved her bizarro honesty and outlandishness, and went out of my way to catch her bits on TV. 

I honestly don’t remember it being “cool” to like Joan Rivers, either. It was definitely “cool” to like George Carlin or Mitch Hedberg, but I always felt like my love for Joan was this solo endeavor amongst my peers, and in a way it became even more precious and sacred to me for that reason. 

Now, as an annoyingly ambitious adult, reading about how hard she fought to climb to the top and how many times her age & gender may have set her back, it’s completely reaffirmed what a goddamn hero the woman is (albeit for slightly more mature reasons than I may have had at age 10).

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Our spread in the @MarieClairemag September Issue hit stands today. (I’m actually 25 but still v cool cool.)

Our spread in the @MarieClairemag September Issue hit stands today. (I’m actually 25 but still v cool cool.)

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Thought this was a wedding invitation but turned out to be oculus rift 4 cats, my bad I am an idiot !!

Thought this was a wedding invitation but turned out to be oculus rift 4 cats, my bad I am an idiot !!

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Best gift ever: a plaque  commemorating my tweet, in emoticons and glitter. 
Thank you @twelveoclocke - yr contributions to my daily life will be missed.

Best gift ever: a plaque commemorating my tweet, in emoticons and glitter.
Thank you @twelveoclocke - yr contributions to my daily life will be missed.

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smallgirls:

Small Girls takes team bonding seriously, which is why instead of practicing your typical trust falls, we threw a slumber party! Complete with cocktails, s’mores, movies, massages, and a psychic. Wait, what? Here’s a recap of the #SGPRSlumberParty (you know you work in PR when your slumber party has an official hashtag)…

small girls pr

Did a company-wide lock in last weekend. Working with only my partner Bianca was cool for a year or two, but working with a dozen other crazy individuals alongside us… can’t beat it.

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Several years ago I was invited to speak at Utah State University about innovations in PR. I had a (self-appointed) student liaison who bought the entire audience props echoing @smallgirlspr campaigns to wear during my talk. I was impressed but even more so when she asked if she could drive me to the airport (getting in an extra 30 min of face time during which she told me about the cupcake shop’s social media she’d built from the ground up). It’s now the 2 year anniversary of convincing @anniegracej to hop on a plane to come work for us. We christened today “Annie Day” for the occasion, with Annie-themed office games, and had everyone in her life make her a card- cousins, friends, crushes and co-workers. Here’s a card one of our other employees made to celebrate. (at Small Girls PR HQ)

Several years ago I was invited to speak at Utah State University about innovations in PR. I had a (self-appointed) student liaison who bought the entire audience props echoing @smallgirlspr campaigns to wear during my talk. I was impressed but even more so when she asked if she could drive me to the airport (getting in an extra 30 min of face time during which she told me about the cupcake shop’s social media she’d built from the ground up). It’s now the 2 year anniversary of convincing @anniegracej to hop on a plane to come work for us. We christened today “Annie Day” for the occasion, with Annie-themed office games, and had everyone in her life make her a card- cousins, friends, crushes and co-workers. Here’s a card one of our other employees made to celebrate. (at Small Girls PR HQ)

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so hyped on day 1 at our new offices we’ve spent the past couple months building and loving into existence that I can’t rly sleep. We started 3 years ago with just two desks in a coworking space, and now have the first place that’s all our own, drenched in sunlight, complete with phone booth rooms, fur throws, candy jars, and filled with the 10 employees that make coming into work so god damned great in the first place. (at Small Girls PR HQ)

so hyped on day 1 at our new offices we’ve spent the past couple months building and loving into existence that I can’t rly sleep. We started 3 years ago with just two desks in a coworking space, and now have the first place that’s all our own, drenched in sunlight, complete with phone booth rooms, fur throws, candy jars, and filled with the 10 employees that make coming into work so god damned great in the first place. (at Small Girls PR HQ)

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I’m fascinated by the harem sweatpants trend. I think it cascaded nicely with the YOLO trend. Sweatpants to work are the sartorial expression of the YOLO generation.

Probably regrettably, Racked chose to interview me, along with some fashion notables, for their 2013 year in review. You can read the rest of my retail reflections throughout the series here.
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American Girl Magazine, 1997
My uncle is visiting my grandparents right now and stumbled upon this old American Girl Magazine I was featured in from the ‘90s.
When I was about seven years old, I started a letter writing campaign to the Empire State Building asking them to change the lighting scheme to honor Hanukkah. That particular year, Hanukkah was in the beginning of December, but the city landmark was already illuminated red & green in anticipation of Christmas several weeks away.
I thought that was nuts so when I got home I grabbed a gel pen and pitched the building to change it. A polite manager mailed back a response declining the request. Frustrated, I asked my parents who owned the building and wrote another letter, this time up the chain.
About a year later, the owner was caught evading community service for her prior stint evading taxes. She had already been evading my letter for a while, so neither of these pieces of news surprised me. Around that time, however (in what I now assume was an effort to rally positive public opinion), I got a response from a publicist who said the owner was touched and they’d be not only honoring my request that year, but each year forever after. I was even invited to flip the inaugural switch! Within days, news crews were in my living room, outside my school, and inviting me to appear on shows such as Rosie O'Donnell (remember that show?)
The story had transcended the typical news cycle and began trickling into pop culture: I was invited to the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards, Howard Stern poked fun at me on air (though I was never a guest), and at one point we got a message from a Seinfeld producer saying the story was under consideration to be included in the season’s story line. 
This is probably when I realized not only that there was such a thing as a publicist, but that these so-called publicists seemed to get shit done. 
Two decades later, I work as a publicist. (And true to the publicist’s word, the building has been lit for Hanukkah every year since).

American Girl Magazine, 1997

My uncle is visiting my grandparents right now and stumbled upon this old American Girl Magazine I was featured in from the ‘90s.

When I was about seven years old, I started a letter writing campaign to the Empire State Building asking them to change the lighting scheme to honor Hanukkah. That particular year, Hanukkah was in the beginning of December, but the city landmark was already illuminated red & green in anticipation of Christmas several weeks away.

I thought that was nuts so when I got home I grabbed a gel pen and pitched the building to change it. A polite manager mailed back a response declining the request. Frustrated, I asked my parents who owned the building and wrote another letter, this time up the chain.

About a year later, the owner was caught evading community service for her prior stint evading taxes. She had already been evading my letter for a while, so neither of these pieces of news surprised me. Around that time, however (in what I now assume was an effort to rally positive public opinion), I got a response from a publicist who said the owner was touched and they’d be not only honoring my request that year, but each year forever after. I was even invited to flip the inaugural switch! Within days, news crews were in my living room, outside my school, and inviting me to appear on shows such as Rosie O'Donnell (remember that show?)

The story had transcended the typical news cycle and began trickling into pop culture: I was invited to the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards, Howard Stern poked fun at me on air (though I was never a guest), and at one point we got a message from a Seinfeld producer saying the story was under consideration to be included in the season’s story line. 

This is probably when I realized not only that there was such a thing as a publicist, but that these so-called publicists seemed to get shit done. 

Two decades later, I work as a publicist. (And true to the publicist’s word, the building has been lit for Hanukkah every year since).