Hasta La Gadget!

Uber is making it simpler for businesses to offer transportation for their customers by offering UberCENTRAL, a new dashboard that allows businesses to request, manage and pay for Uber rides for their patrons.

I always know that an article that I have written is doing well and being widely shared when I open up my messages to find cruel remarks inside. It is simply a fact of writing on our modern-day internet. The internet is full of trolls that seem to thrill at sitting in anonymity behind the glow of their computer screen and writing cruel things to others.

The past few months have been a time when I chose to dig deep, pushing past societal stigmas and come forward with really painful things in my life. It has not been easy for me, even though I feel that if I helped even a single person that it was worth it.

When my article about being a suicide attempt survivor went live, I received messages saying that they wish I “would’ve been successful” at killing myself, that I was a “loser and an embarrassment to their country” and that I will be going to hell. This was my first article to go viral and was my first experience with how ugly people can be. I sat vigil through the night that first night, reading the messages and weeping. Very few times in my life have I felt as alone as I did that night.

When my article about being a rape survivor went live, I received messages stating that I am “so ugly that I should be grateful that I was raped”, that I should’ve “relaxed and enjoyed it” and a few pornographic pictures mixed in. (Hey, boys, unsolicited naked pics are never cool, man. Keep your pants on.) I was not prepared both for the vulnerability that I felt in the days after that piece first hit the internet (and still feel to some degree today), for the few friends that turned away from me and made me feel shame and for the onslaught of feedback, mostly wonderful, but with some powerfully hateful things missed in. I became physically ill and I truly believe that my body could not handle the immediate and overwhelming emotions that I was not in any way ready for. I went to bed for days and when I finally was able to emerge from my self-imposed isolation, I can tell you that I was not the same person than I was when I went into my cocoon — in ways both wonderful and awful.

Recently, when an article that I wrote to bring awareness to CMV (a virus) went live I received messages stating that I’m a “fear mongering bitch” and again that I’m going to hell. (What is it with internet trolls and hell?) This time, I was rather shocked by the hate even after growing a thicker skin through these past months. I was simply trying to help others to not suffer in the way that my friend and her family has. I still can’t wrap my mind around why someone can find fault with that.

Other comments or private messages that I have received are that I should put a bullet in my head, that I am an ugly bitch, etc. It is also not abnormal for me to receive emails and messages full of crude pictures. It seems that no bit of writing, no matter how harmless it seems, does not receive wrath if it does well enough to reach a wide audience.

My core belief since childhood has been that I am not worthy, a belief that many of us struggle with. These comments play on that fear, strumming the tight strings of my misery and giving evidence to that belief that I’ve tried so hard in my life to eradicate. It always amazes me how we seek and gather evidence to support any of our beliefs, even the ones that we wish we didn’t have. It is so painful.

I can receive dozens of lovely messages but it is the harsh and awful comments that pluck at my heart and leave me feeling stuck. I find myself on a roller coaster of emotion as I swing from the highs of having a successful article and the lows of reading through the name-calling, criticism, and general ickiness of cruel messages and emails.

Years ago, these comments would have made me take a break from writing — out of fear, out of that place of unworthiness, out of pure shame. I would have believed each and every unkind word, too mired in shame to refuse to acknowledge the cruelty.

However, today — even after shedding a few tears — I am celebrating my response to these comments as a win. Why? Because instead of choosing not to write, I’m going write more and write harder in spite of the naysayers and in honor of myself. In the words and advice of the great Cheryl Strayed, today I’m gonna “write like a motherf*cker.”

Write on criticizers of my work — I will use your hate to fuel my flame. I am truly sorry for whatever circumstances of your life have led you to such a low place that this is the way that you choose to spend your days. I refuse to concede to your cruelty and criticism. You may think of me as your nemesis — wherever you choose to bring darkness, I will bring the light threefold.

The war has begun. The light will win.

This post was originally on The Zen RN.

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As Hillary Clinton makes history, we’re hearing a lot about women breaking through the glass ceiling. Less is said about what awaits on the other side. It’s not always pretty.

Erin Callan knows.

An ambitious Harvard grad born in Queens, Callan started out as a tax attorney for elite law firm Simpson Thacher, before jumping to Lehman Brothers and working her way to chief financial officer in 2007, becoming the first woman ever to sit on the investment bank’s executive committee.

Before her steep fall from grace, she was considered perhaps the most powerful woman on Wall Street, dubbed an “alpha female” by at least one investing magazine. 

Callan’s trip to the top serves as a cautionary tale as more women move into the male-dominated corridors of power. 

Callan spent years putting in extreme work hours, always prioritizing her career over her personal life, sacrificing boyfriends, time with family, her marriage. And, crucially, not thinking much about the fact that she was pulling ahead in an industry notoriously hostile toward, and devoid of, women.

The now 50-year-old former banker recounts all this with regret in a book released this spring, Full Circle: A memoir of leaning in too far and the journey back. 

“I could’ve achieved comparable success without being so maniacal about it,” she told The Huffington Post recently.

The book also offers a remarkably candid window into what it’s like for the very few women who ascend to the top in banking.

When Callan got there, she found herself caught in a male-dominated labyrinth, constantly reminded she was “different,” she said. She was told she asked too many questions in meetings ― remember she was the chief financial officer. The impeccably stylish executive was told that her outfits were “distracting” to her (adult) male colleagues on the executive committee. Portfolio magazine wanted to do a photo shoot in a hotel room with Callan in an evening gown. There was a lot of talk about her shoes.

Of course of all this was soon eclipsed by the financial crisis. Callan’s downfall was widely reported in the business press. Here’s a 2008 CNBC interview with Callan as her firm was melting down: 

When the mortgage meltdown hit Lehman, Callan was sent out to represent her firm. Meanwhile the guys in charge ― especially former Lehman chairman and CEO Dick Fuld ― laid low, essentially throwing her over the glass cliff in what sure looked like an attempt to save himself.

Many years later, Callan writes in her new book, Fuld apologized for this. Callan even gave him a heads-up two days before her book published so he wouldn’t be “surprised,” she told HuffPost. When he finally read it, Fuld called to compliment her. “He said I did a great job,” she said.

Callan resigned in 2008, essentially taking the fall for the firm’s decline. That didn’t work. Lehman went under. The economy cratered.

Without the career that she had devoted her life to, Callan went under, too. A new job at Credit Suisse fell apart quickly after she couldn’t bring herself to work anymore. She overdosed on sleeping pills. Landed in a hospital room. Recovered. Found love. Remarried. Resolved to change her ways. She and her husband went through several rounds of fertility treatments and had a baby.

These days Callan is retired. She splits her time between homes in Shelter Island, New York, and Florida. She and her husband, Anthony Montella, a retired New York City firefighter, are raising a daughter. 

Callan, now Callan Montella, was 15 minutes late to our interview, not because of a client meeting, but because she was adjusting to her 17-month-old daughter’s changing nap schedule. Maggie’s making the move from two naps a day to one.

HuffPost talked to Callan about her personal experiences at Lehman, the painful lessons she learned and what it’s like to retire from Wall Street in your 40s to devote yourself to your husband and baby. (Those looking for an accounting of the financial crisis and Lehman’s role in it should stop reading.)

Early on you didn’t give much thought to how you were one of the few women in the room. When did you start to realize how potent your gender had become?

As I started my career, right away it became apparent to me that women weren’t equal at the highest level. My [law firm starting] class was 50-50 men and women, but when you looked at partner population there was only a handful of women. I was cognizant of that, [but] I didn’t want gender to be part of anything. That was unrealistic. I tried to separate out an aspect of my identity. And trying to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist isn’t a healthy way to operate.

When I got to Lehman, I started to see it was a positive. Ninety-nine percent of the people in the room were men, so I felt it was an advantage to be a woman because the clients didn’t forget me.

Once I was in the C-suite, I wasn’t just some woman running a business. Now it became something a lot of other people kept pointing out. I can’t say I was a big fan of that. I think the people around me focused on it. 

When you were CFO, Lehman’s then-President Joe Gregory pulled you aside and told you the way you dressed was too provocative. That seems incredible to me.

Things like that would really blindside me. It was not in my nature to think about those differences. I was a very competent, talented banker. I’m in the room and I got questions to ask. I was really thrown by that. I didn’t even consider those kinds of things. I was too much the other way. But if it’s the reality, it’s the reality. Somehow it was having an impact. I said, ‘I don’t want to have that impact,’ as opposed to saying, ‘Screw you, are you kidding me?’  

Meanwhile, you were being photographed for The Wall Street Journal and other places wearing all these great outfits.  

I know. I did have nice clothes. To me it was a perk of working so hard and making a lot of money. I do take responsibility for the media stuff where I was really left on my own. I wish I had controlled it. I wasn’t wise about those types of things.

Do you think your work-life balance got pulled out of whack, in part, because the work piece was in so many ways easier?

Real life is a lot messier than work. Everyone has their work dramas. But on the whole, I think the incentives and rewards are clearer. Nobody does a 360 review with you in your relationship or gives you a compensation speech. 

I started to see, I know I can work very well and when I do there’s a lot of positive feedback and rewards, that feels like a good place to put my energy. In my personal life, every ounce I put, the less rewarding it got.

That works when everything goes great. Eventually something will happen … you can see what happened with me. I had nothing else.

Do you think men in finance were making the same choices ― avoiding family, putting everything into work, that you were making? Do you think the fallout for them is similar?

Absolutely. I can’t say every single person. Certainly a majority of the more senior people. There definitely was a culture of working as much as possible. That was a key part of my success. Culturally being in the office, working constantly were all considered very good things. Nothing unique about that to anyone’s gender.

Do you have any advice for young women today?

Pay attention to the little things you’re doing that might be undermining what’s important to you. I didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘I don’t want a baby or I don’t want to have a great marriage.’

It doesn’t seem like a big deal to work an extra hour but over time it becomes your new normal and it becomes acceptable. It’s a slow erosion of your priorities.

These are things that seep in over time without you noticing. You do these little things that eat away at the other important things. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Late last week, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gave a dark and fearful speech that was less “morning in America” and closer to “a minute to midnight on the Doomsday clock.”

As ominous as Trump’s speech was, it tapped into a certain mood that has prevailed throughout 2016 — a year studded (at a seemingly biweekly rate) with deadly terror attacks, mass shootings, killings of unarmed civilians by police and ambush attacks on officers themselves.  

Those events did not let up even into the warmer months, standing last week in especially stark contrast to the modern tradition of the summer music festival. At the mid-July Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park, considered to be among the more easygoing of summer gatherings, rapid-fire text messages with friends about which band to see next commingled with push alerts about the deadly coup in Turkey.

It’s enough to make anyone — and particularly tragic-news-weary journalists who can’t responsibly tune it out — grow cynical about something as seemingly frothy as a music fest. Is it appropriate to indulge in a weekend of frolicking from stage to stage while elsewhere people are losing their lives? Is it even worth it to go?

The answer is all but certainly “yes.” 

Sure, there’s a lot of science behind the fact that listening to music carries with it all sorts of health benefits — improving mood, reducing anxiety and depression and even lessening pain. But, generalities aside, there were many moments from the Pitchfork, now in its 11th year, that served as evidence for the very specific ways that live music settings can help us cope with the seemingly endless onslaught of bad news. 

As hard as it is to reconcile heavy events with light ones, the latter can serve as unifying response to the former.  

Each performance provided a different antidote.

Canadian pop princess Carly Rae Jepsen’s Friday night set became a much-needed burst of joy. You’re probably grimacing at the thought of Jepsen’s once-ubiquitous “Call Me Maybe” hit, but, in light of recent headlines, dancing and singing along to slice after slice of pop perfection felt downright therapeutic.

Saturday brought catharsis in a different form thanks to London post-punks Savages, who tore through an exhilarating set amid blazing afternoon sun. Songs like the set-ending “Fuckers” ― which centers on lead singer Jehnny Beth’s repeated refrain “Don’t let the fuckers get you down” ― were the perfect vehicle for channeling some anger and a nod to keep your head up. 

Other moments in the weekend spoke more to feelings of vulnerability. These came via British artist Blood Orange’s, aka Dev Hynes, emotionally raw Saturday evening set, which largely showcased songs off Hynes’ latest release, “Freetown Sound.”

Hynes has described the album as being written “for everyone told they’re not black enough, too black, too queer, not queer the right way, the underappreciated,” and that sentiment could not be more timely. Songs like his duet “Better Than Me,” sung with Jepsen, effortlessly spun feelings of fear and uncertainty into something both comforting and affirming.

Eventually, in any grieving process, there comes the period of acceptance. At Pitchfork on Sunday, Chicago’s own Chance the Rapper made a surprise appearance during his friend and collaborator Jeremih’s mid-afternoon set.

As soon as the crowd knew what was happening, hundreds of people ran toward the stage so they could get a closer look at their city’s rising star. As Chance sang highlights from “No Problem” and “Angels,” the pure euphoria was, again, palpable. 

The rapper’s appearance was particularly significant given his status as a hometown-kid-made-good who uses his fame to draw attention ― and action ― to some of the city’s most dire problems, like gun violence, and support of the young black community. 

But perhaps no moment over the weekend captured the conflict of getting into a party mood among the gloom and doom than R&B star Miguel’s Sunday performance. After a thrilling start, the energetic singer, clad all in white, halted his dance-laden, energetic set to silence. He then addressed the recent killings directly, saying he was “tired of human lives turned into hashtags” and calling for action, not just prayers, before he launched into the powerful protest song “How Many.”

Before returning to form, he urged festivalgoers to raise their fists in the air in solidarity as a promise to do better. Together, the crowd raised their fists in a silent pledge to do just that.

It was another reminder that attending an event like a festival serves an important function of getting oneself out into the world. Whether you’re reading about the latest tragedy or writing about it, gathering in a public place that’s underpinned by a certain sense of community is a crucial counterbalance. 

For one of us, the Pitchfork experience came just days after returning from an anguished week in St. Paul, where the community was grieving the death of Philando Castile, a man killed by police in a traffic stop.

The week before, protesters shut down I-94 for hours amid angry and anguished protests. To cut the tension and lift the mood, a pickup truck carrying loudspeakers amplified music from Marvin Gaye, Kendrick Lamar and Prince. 

A dancer from an indigenous Mexican tribe joined the crowd on the freeway to drum and offer a “fire dance.” 

Asked why the group opted to dance and sing for a crowd calling for an end to police brutality, the dancer said, “We need to keep feeding the passion, the motion. Especially when we’re feeling hopeless and [feeling] despair.”

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My husband is a huge fan of Star Wars, and when our daughter was born, he was so excited to share his love of Star Wars with her that he talked to her about it all the time. And now, I can honestly say that my 2 year old daughter has become a Star Wars fan in her own right. Ask her about any of the movies, and she’ll be able to tell you who all of the characters are: From Darth Vader to Yoda to BB8 to Rey to Boba Fett. She can tell you what the Death Star is, and identify all of the ships (Millennium Falcon vs. X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter anyone?) on her own. She even knows the tagline “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” by heart.

And actually, after seeing the newest movie and reading my daughter the books about the original movies, I have to say I’m a pretty big Star Wars fan myself.

We’re a Star Wars family.

So when my daughter started becoming interested in going pee on the potty, we immediately thought of getting her Star Wars themed underwear – since we figured the reminder “Keep Yoda Dry” would help motivate her to go on the toilet instead of in her diaper.

I thought that would be easy to accomplish through a simple search on Amazon, right?

Wrong.

Do a search for “Star Wars Toddler Underwear” on Amazon, and all you get are boys underwear.

Do a search for “Star Wars Girls Toddler Underwear” on Amazon, and you get no results.

Do a search for “Star Wars Girls Toddler Underwear” on GOOGLE, and across all merchants there is just one option for older girls (not toddlers) where the primary colors are pink and purple. So basically, when clothing manufacturers finally provided a Star Wars underwear option for girls, they made Star Wars pink and purple because, of course, girls will only like light sabers and Darth Vader if they are pink??

I was shocked that clothing manufacturers somehow decided that only boys would enjoy having their favorite Star Wars characters on their underwear. That only boys would be interested in sci-fi and space. That only boys would like underwear that’s multicolored instead of primarily blue (vs. girls, who of course would only prefer underwear that’s pink and purple). That only boys should have access to the identities and themes in Star Wars: that of intelligence, engineering, problem solving, space exploration, adventure, strength.

And then again, I shouldn’t have been too surprised because of the recent #wheresrey debacle – where toy manufacturers failed to create a Rey doll for Star Wars, despite the fact that she’s the HERO and the MAIN CHARACTER.

My daughter is a girl who loves Star Wars. We talk about space at home. She enjoys learning about planets, pretending she’s an astronaut, and pretending to “fly” around our house. She likes all colors, not just the color pink. She also enjoys skirts and dresses, and especially enjoys wearing those skirts over her favorite blue Star Wars pajamas.

My daughter can’t be put into a “girl” box, just because she happens to be a girl.

So, when we started potty training and my daughter asked for Star Wars underwear, we ended up just buying her boys underwear. Because 1) who cares about that little flap in the front, she won’t know the difference and 2) she deserves to have access to the same interests and identities that boys her age do.

Clothing manufacturers, get on board. Girls like Star Wars too.

#makestarwarsunderwearforgirls

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