“How much did they pay you to give up on your dreams?”

Over the holidays, I went to see 'Up in the Air', thanks to the local radio station (shout-out Mix 94.7!) contest that allowed me to cash in on celebrity knowledge and deft Googling skills. My prize was two tickets to the movie, a copy of the novel it is based on, and a cap and tee from the film.

As a side note, I just finished reading the novel, and it's nothing like the movie. Sure, Clooney's character still fires people and obsesses over his frequent flier miles, but everything else is a twisted take on that foundation. There are fairly important characters who are not even in the book, and some who bare no resemblance to their ink and paper counterpart. In an odd twist, I think the movie is better, but maybe the book just isn't my style.

But moving swiftly on to the point of this post. The above title is the quote which stuck with me months after viewing. It's part of a monologue Clooney delivers to J.K Simmons, who plays Bob, one of the many employees Clooney must steer through being downsized. Clooney asks Bob about attending culinary school, and his dreams of being a chef (or perhaps owning a bakery. It's been a while, and though I remember the essence of the lesson, the details and sketchy). Soon after graduating, Bob took a job with this faceless firm in order to make ends meet, pay bills and feed the family. And somehow the years passed to find him sitting across the table from Clooney, losing a job he didn't particularly like and breaking down because of it.

How much is doing what you love worth? How much is paying the bills worth? The problem is that the credit card companies react quickly when you choose to forego money, and so that need seems most important. The ramifications of taking a job you hate for menial but regular pay are less obvious and take longer to surface. But that doesn't mean that they aren't just as scary, or just as important to avoid.

Being on the job hunt, I often face the dilemma of applying to a job I could probably do, but wouldn't really want. Usually I still apply, and so far the job market has kept me from having to choose whether or not to take it, because I never hear anything from them (blessing or curse, I'm not sure). I long for stability and security, but there is always that nagging part of my brain that pushes me to aim for something more, something I love. I know that no one's first job is their last, and that I can't expect to love everything I do. But I also know the slippery slope between taking a job just until something better comes along. It's the slippery slope that ends with Bob.

This week, I've been having some crazy ideas enter my head about projects and things I could do. We'll see how many come to fruition, but I think it's a sign of my thinking of this time less as a failure to be fully employed and more as an opportunity to try some new things.

Taking the Shame Out of Guilty Pleasures

Why are there some things we have to apologize for liking? Songs, bands, movies, television shows, books; it seems there is a whole category of pop culture based around making those who consume it feel ashamed of it. Guilty pleasures. I'm sure everyone reading this has one. I'm sure I have more than my fair share. But lately I'm just wondering: what's the point of feeling guilty?

Maybe it's because of my newly mature 23-year-old mind, but I'm starting to think that wasting time worrying about how the world feels about my taste in music, movies and literature is pointless. It seems ironic now that there seems to be just as much power pushing us to like the Top 40 pop singles as there is shaming us if we do. There is precious little middle ground of popular artists who have enough "cred" to be considered worthy of your iPod. I wonder what gets VH1 more ratings: the insane celebrity love shows, or the talking head shows which mock them? There's really no winning. Either you become part of the millions who like the popular, derided as lemmings, or you become the cynic with taste that isn't really allowed to like anything.

And when it comes down to it, what are we ashamed of? Food is the only arena of the guilty pleasure where the base act is necessary to life. We must eat. And so eating a HoHo instead of an apple can rightly bring on some shame just because you could have taken in nutrients that weren't invented in a laboratory (but if it's not a daily habit, there's no need to obsess). But when it comes to the food for our eyes and ears, it's all kind of superfluous. No one starves when they don't read, watch television or listen to music. And so whether you read Jane Austen or Danielle Steel, there's no quantitative difference, and there's nothing physically unhealthy about it. At least you're reading! Sure, PBS documentaries can give your brain synapses a work out, especially when compared to Survivor, but it's still you sitting down and watching television. There are levels of something being a "waste of time," but they aren't hard and fast and they don't lend you a heck of a lot of moral superiority. We're all still lazy, selfish no-good bums when compared to Mother Teresa and wonderful human beings when compared to Adolf Hitler. Everything in between is mostly grandstanding.

The bottom line is this: we all need something to take our minds off of things. We all deserve to indulge in the entertainment of our choice. And no one deserves to feel bad about it.

Hello, 23!

So this week I turned 23. Still not sure how I feel about that. The actual birthday was good. Presents galore (as usual, more than I deserve!) and tasty, tasty cake. And there's something really nice about getting Facebook birthday wishes from around the world.

But actually being 23 is starting to sink in, and it's a little weird. I mean, at this point, there's nothing really special about turning another year older. Except being older. Milestones of decades are ahead of me, but there aren't really any formal advantages to reaching them. The only thing I can think to look forward to is renting a car at 25 without massive fees. But that's not really on the same level as driving, voting and drinking. No one goes Hertz-hopping.

So as birthdays are supposed to get a little less exciting, I'm having to resign myself to adulthood. But I'm fighting maturity tooth and claw! That's right, I have every intention of using some of my birthday gift card money to purchase toys based on Disney films, as well as DVDs of the cartoons I watched when I was a kid. I still maintain that the 90s was the golden age of Nickelodeon and I think I could start up a popular daycare/babysitting business in which we show the kids "real" shows like Ahh! Real Monsters and Doug (and, you know, do other things that don't involve plonking kinds in front of the TV).

So while I know that I have turned 23, I haven't really accepted it yet.

A Cocktail Reunion

Everyone understands homesickness: it's when you're away from home and longing to return. But I'm entering a phase which seems greatly under-documented: schoolsickness. Maybe this is an illness only known to weirdos like me, but I am genuinely in mourning for my loss of Sarah Lawrence.

Over the summer, it was alright. I had gone this long without school before. It was a break from the papers and the reading, a happy homecoming and the beginning of the job search. As summer turned to fall, I read the Facebook updates of friends with years left in their education and waxed nostalgic on the registration process (as my blog readers well know). But I still appreciated my working-from-home freedom and enjoyed the extension of summer I had not experienced since I was five.

Recently, however, I have missed school to a terrifying degree. I have dreams about seminar debates, and daydreams about conference topics I wish I had explored. I watched a documentary on PBS about teenage girls today, and when one girl was about the graduate high school and was receiving her college acceptance letters, I actually cried in longing for that time. I found a jacket in my closet from my senior year of high school, clearly last worn during a 'Spirit Week', on a day when seniors were meant to advertise the college they would be attending. Not having a baseball cap or t-shirt of SLC, I made a badge of honor out of shoebox cardboard adorned with glitter and ribbons. Again, the nostalgia for the days when I had four years of Bronxville ahead of me.

Anyway, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with the title of this post-A Cocktail Reunion. Well, just in time to either cure or worsen my schoolsickness, I attended a happy hour gathering brought together by the Office of Alumnae/i Relations. A happy hour for SLC grads in Austin.

Seeing as it has taken me a few days to get around to finishing this post, I'll skip an excess of details and just say that it was nice to meet fellow weirdos like myself, and see how life after SLC has been going for them. And though there were semi-depressing moments (like when one alum mentioned that she was a former freelancer who gave it up because of publisher's shrinking budgets), overall it was one step closer to thinking of myself as an adult who went to college instead of a college student who has been flung into the real world.

I still miss it, though. I still wish I was being forced into reading 3 books a week and analyzing a single paragraph in five pages due the next day. I miss conferences and Pub dinners, I miss it all. My father tells me I'm lucky that given the opportunity, I would do four more years of college. He could not express the same sentiments about his own university days. And in a way, this is the first instance of, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." I would rather miss midnight breakfast than never have gone and made the friends that I did.

The Employment Countdown

Just wanted to give an update and catalogue all my current jobs. Partly to inform the blogosphere, partly to show myself that I'm doing something (and then a third partly: to make sure I remember them all!). So, here's what's up:

1. My retail job, which was meant to be seasonal, has kept me on for part-time year round. Which means a shift or two every week. It was such good news because not only does it mean that I can make a little cash, it means that one of my jobs actually involves human interaction! I love freelancing and getting to work from home, but I'm not gonna lie, spending day after day in my living room was giving me cabin fever. Plus, making new friends is one of those intangible job benefits that I appreciate.

2. Still writing for Examiner.com in Literature and Knitting for Austin. Loving the structure of writing an article every day, and it's all stuff I'm really interested in, which is a major bonus. If anyone is interested in writing for Examiner, I totally encourage it for the experience, as well as for giving you an easy way to provide writing samples for anything else you apply for. Plus, it does pay at least a little something. If you're in the US or Canada (where Examiner is) and really want to give it a shot, leave a comment here or contact me and I'll walk you through it and you can add me as having referred you.

3. Also still going strong with Moogi, cataloguing the ins and outs of every Project Runway episode and the products it features. I'm a little burnt out on the second show I edit, just because it involves a certain amount of time and menial mind labor. But I love television and I think the site is going to be awesome when we get bigger and bigger. Also, the guys who run it are amazing. Seriously, I e-mail a question, and I get an answer within an hour 85% of the time, plus random e-mails that have extra info for me that they found.

4. Freelancing for the local paper is still on. My first article was published in January (Maybe I'll post a pic soon!), and I'm working with the editor to figure out my next assignments. There's something about seeing your work published in a true publication (i.e. not run by a school) and on paper, not just a screen. It feels so legit.

5. Just started a new blog writing position contributing weekly for the Food Culture Blog. My first post isn't up yet, but it's another gig that let's me put my writing out there and tackle a subject I love (fooooooood!). Without conferences to write for SLC, I've been missing the opportunity to delve into a subject and do some research. Getting to do this lets me think of mini-conference topics every week. Plus, I'm going to be trying out some awesome new recipes for it as well. Yum!

And.....I think that's it! Isn't it enough? Well, no. Still looking for more, and as always, looking for benefits. I heard Obama wants to make it possible for students who graduate to be covered by their parent's plan up to age 24. Hoping that not only this is true, but that it will be applied retroactively because COBRA is kind of a scam.

Why did it have to be Australia?

We're nearing the end of the first grand slam of the year for tennis. It's one of the hardest to watch, simply because of where it's held. Australia. Seventeen hours ahead of my time zone. Great. But when forced to choose between a good night's rest and a tense tennis match...well, let's just say I've been yawning a lot this week! I have reinstated my college schedule of staying up as late as necessary and only waking up when required. My alarm clock is getting a little dusty as ten in the morning seems all too early. Hopefully come Sunday I'll be able to get back into a reasonable sleeping pattern, but for now I'm just going to sit back and enjoy.

Whenever a grand slam comes around, I start to appreciate the free time that comes from part-time employment. When I was working full time over the summer I remember getting withdrawls from not getting to watch Wimbledon 24/7. I had my pop-up window for scores, but that's just not as exciting. When the 4th of July came around, I wasn't looking forward to fireworks or hot dogs. No, it was the day off to watch tennis.

Of course, I would much rather have health insurance, annual salary and stability than just eight weeks of tennis bliss. But somewhere deep down, I'm hoping I can have both...I don't suppose the ESPN team is looking for an energetic and nerdy writer to join the squad?

No Offense, But...

Oh, the things you learn about people working in retail. Last week, people seemed particularly crabby. Whether it was the weather or the fact that many were returning to work or school for the first time since the holidays began, I don't know, but people were a little crabby pants.

One woman came into the anonymous store in which I work and made a comment which began, "No offense, but," and ended, quite obviously, in something offensive. I can't give all the details without giving away where I work, but basically she was making a comment about something in the store being less than clean (a clearance item which had been through the wringer, but was essentially fine. Trust me, this was not actually gross). I commented that it was easy to clean. Her response was, "No offense, but if that were true you all would have done it already."

Well, excuse me. I didn't tell her off, but in my mind, I thought about the nine hours I had spent here on my last shift, with about six other people until three in the morning setting up the store, changing the tables and putting up new posters about the new deals for the week. I'm sorry that after killing my feet and making myself sore for days afterwards that I didn't wash down each individual clearance item for your convenience. I mean, sure it's 90% off, but hey, that's worth stretching into four in the morning, just to make sure that you don't have any "eww" factor when gracing us with your custom.

Ahh, that feels better. Sometimes the annoyance builds up, and it has nowhere to go. Here's my suggestion: never use the phrase, "No offense, but..." It's like oxymoronic, and actually pretty rude. It's like punching someone in the face, but telling them not to complain about it. It means that you get to say something mean, and the person you say it to has to forgive you, otherwise they're being super-sensitive. Because, after all, you didn't mean to offend. It's a faux-superiority, and I think that most of the time, people know exactly what they're doing when they say it. We all dabble in superiority after all. But from now on, I'm going to make sure to stop myself any time those words start coming out of my mouth. Then I can feel superior about not acting superior!

I do feel the need to apologize yet again for being an absent blogger, but I'm feeling a resurgence in productivity, so fingers crossed that I'll be pestering you with my thoughts more frequently in the coming weeks!