In Which Fortune Favors The Bold

For my birthday last month my roommates, Rachel and Kenny, took me to The Comedy Studio in Cambridge. Hidden on the third floor of a Chinese restaurant, The Comedy Studio doesn't do any traditional advertising, preferring the word-of-mouth method; hence, I had never heard of it. I enjoyed the show and the experience so thoroughly that I actually caught myself thinking, during it, that I had to somehow be a part of it.

My first foray into the Boston comedy scene was less than successful, involving more plumbing and heavy lifting than actually comedy, but I was so inspired by the show at The Comedy Studio that I wanted to give it another try. I decided right then and there to go up to the owner afterwards and ask for a job. When I told Kenny my plan, he suggested I come back on a Wednesday, the night when they audition new talent (and when the audiences are naturally more sparse than the bustling Saturday-night crowd) and try my luck then.

Every Wednesday for about a month, I found an excuse not to go: I was too tired from work, it would take too long to get there, etc. Finally, a week and a half ago, I bit the bullet and decided if I didn't do it that Wednesday, I wouldn't do it at all. Fueling me was the fact that I had nothing to lose. So, armed with a resume and a peanut butter sandwich to eat on the train between work and Cambridge, I set out.

The show itself was alright. Some of the comedians were better than others. The audience, unfortunately, was terrible. I really felt for the performers. With the post-show music still blaring and audience members hanging around finishing their drinks, I realized I would have to wait until everyone cleared out till I could speak with the owner, and that's when I almost chickened out. But I knew I would regret not waiting.

When everyone had finally left and the music was turned off, I went up to the owner. After what I determined to be an appropriate amount of small talk regarding how the show had gone that evening, I went for it.

"I like this place," I told the owner. "This is my second time here, and I like the way you do things." I was quick to add, "And I'm not just saying that to flatter you; I don't think you need the flattery."

"Of course," he agreed.

"And I want to work for you," I blurted out. There was a beat, and I couldn't tell from his expression what he was thinking.

"In what capacity?" he asked slowly. "Do you do stand-up?"

"No," I quickly assured him. "I think when I grow up [Note: I actually said "when I grow up"] I want to be a producer, and I want to somehow work in comedy. I think I want to do what you do."

He looked at me. "Well," he said, "we can start you off working the door, then we can see where things go from there. When can you start?"

On the T ride to Cambridge, I had anticipated every possible scenario, worked out how I would cope with any sort of rejection he could possibly give me. But it hadn't crossed my mind that he would actually give me a job on the spot, and when it happened, it seemed too easy. When I got home and told Kenny, he suggested that maybe I had made an impression on the owner by putting myself out there, which seems likely. But still too easy. I had risked all (or nothing, depending on how you look at it) - and actually won.

In Which Our Days Are Numbered

I recently found this t-shirt design, which immediately caught my fancy:


I would have worn it proudly circa 2006. However, since I am no longer a college student, and can thus no longer really be "defined" by my course of study, the point would be moot.

I have always had a poor relationship with numbers. Though I was a good student in general, I could never bring myself to pay attention during math lessons in elementary school. I paid dearly for it in middle and high school, when my lack of simple mathematical knowledge really hurt me. I always had the suspicion that despite what my teachers said, I wouldn't really have to use the math they taught me in day-to-day life. And I was right. Even so, numbers are still there. I got to thinking about the numbers in my life, and this is what I came up with.*

6 The number of Dunkin' Donuts I pass on my way to work. One of the first things I noticed when I came to Boston for college was that people here love Dunkin' Donuts. No, love isn't the right word. They worship Dunkin' Donuts. They kneel at its alters, which are, luckily, conveniently located mere blocks away from one another. There is literally nowhere you can go here without running into those familiar pink and orange stripes. Not that I'm complaining; their vanilla chai lattes are pretty good (I don't drink coffee). But where I grew up, I knew of only one Dunkin' Donuts. Yet somehow, we were able to manage. And vote Democrat in the recent presidential election. Maybe you heard about it.

9 The (approximate) number of scheduled hours of TV I watch per week. I've mentioned before that I watch a lot of TV. And 9 is just the number of scheduled hours I watch: I have shows I watch every night of the week except Friday and Saturday. I didn't plan it; it just worked out that way.

2 The number of dates I've been on in the past 6 months. Both nice guys; neither worked out. I'm over it.

2 The number of free drinks I've gotten in the past 6 months (see above).

4 The number of days I've spent at home (i.e., Cleveland) in the past 6 months. In some ways that's not enough, in others it is. Of course I enjoy visiting with my father and my dog (the only ones who live there now, as my siblings are both in college). But my dad is in the process of selling our house, an action which is somewhat painful to me, it being the only house my family has ever lived in. When my parents bought it in the mid '80s, it was carpeted in this admittedly hideous brown shag carpeting, which remained there until a few months ago (it wasn't really a selling point). When I visited in July, some very nice looking wood floors (which had been under the carpet the whole time!) greeted me. And while I have nothing against wood floors, it just wasn't the same. Hence my aversion. Like so many important things in my life that have been taken away from me or left me, it is easier to pretend it never existed than to face the pain of its loss.

3 The number of times I have read my favorite novel (Vanity Fair). I mention it because I am about a third of the way through reading number 4 right now. Some people are spoken to by music, or art, or politics, or any number of things that can capture the human imagination. This book is what speaks to me. If I could make a living of trying to understand it, I would. I could talk about it endlessly if I could find someone who would listen. Every time I read it, the story, the characters, the moral are the same as the time before. And yet it never tires me, and there is always something more to learn from it or about it. If only more things in life were like that.




*That was a long and overly-elaborate segue into what I really wanted to write about. I hope you enjoyed it.

In Which Hope Springs Eternal

There is nothing else to say.

In Which Things Happen

I was on the phone with my dad the other day. I haven't seen him for awhile, not since I went home in July for a weekend visit. I'm used to going months at a time without seeing him (or anyone in my immediate family, for that matter) because of the distance. He's never been to my apartment. He hasn't seen where I work. In short, he doesn't really know much at all about this new post-college life I'm starting to make for myself. Which is I guess what prompted the question he asked me:

"What do you do?"

I was a little taken aback, and I didn't know quite how to answer. I think what he meant was what do I do in my free time, but it got me to thinking: without classes, homework and extracurriculars - the essentials of my life for 17 years - with what activities do I fill my days?

The answer:

I wake up. I take a shower. I check my e-mail, Facebook and MSNBC.com. I eat brunch. I commute an hour to work. [Side note: I find it funny that I live in the city and work in the suburbs. For some reason that amuses me.] I work a job I like (thankfully) with people I like (also thankfully). I take the bus and T home. I make and eat dinner. I divide the rest of the night between putzing around on the computer and watching TV. (A lot of TV - probably more than any human being should ever be exposed to. In fact, I'm convinced that my roommate and I are the ones keeping the producers of those awful VH1 reality shows in a job. Whatever we can do to help the economy).

On Saturdays I grocery shop and on Sundays I do laundry or return library books, whichever needs doing. I spend weekend nights with friends or family, or sometimes just at home.

And that's it. It's a repetitive lifestyle, and much more quiet than what I am accustomed to, especially after the past four years, when there were weeks at a time where I would barely have a moment to breathe. Despite the monotony, though, I find that I like it. I thrive on a schedule, and if doing the same things at the same times day after day isn't the definition of a schedule, I don't know what is. For now, it suits me. And besides, who would want a life where checking ICanHasCheezburger.com wasn't part of the daily routine? Not I.

I look at this every day.

In Which I Voted Today!

Having lived in Massachusetts now for four years and three national elections, I think I can say with some confidence that the only time I can tell someone I'm from Ohio and not get a look of either pity or scorn (or a mixture of both) is during an election cycle. People haven't been as excited to find out I vote in Ohio this time around (perhaps because most of my acquaintances already know that about me), but in 2004, whenever someone found out I was voting absentee, I and my birthplace immediately became that much more interesting. While in normal times, Ohio is a state that seems to be universally looked down upon (and not always rightly, mind you), in an election year, an Ohioan has something special which for many a year past - and probably many a year to come - no person from Massachusetts has laid claim to: a vote that counts.

This morning I opened my mailbox to find that it was time for me to cast that vote. I was excited, not by the thrill of voting, but by the fact that the ballot had actually reached me at all. In 2004, it almost didn't. Turns out even Cleveland, one of Ohio's centers of art, culture, and intellectualism (if such a place can be said to exist), has its share of simple-minded Ohioans (read: idiots). It was the semester before I started college, and I was living in the Jamaica Plain area of Boston with my aunt and uncle. After arranging for my absentee ballot to be send there, I eagerly awaited its arrival, only to be disappointed week after week. A call to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections revealed that the ballot was on its way. Another week passed with no ballot, and I requested that another be sent, which, according to the B of E, was done. Still no ballot. Finally, my father went in person to the Board of Elections to see what the problem was. Turns out the ballots were sent not to Jamiaca Plain in Boston, MA, but to Jamaica. The country. See the maps below if you need help visualizing this.











But I guess all's well that ends well: my father straightened things out and a new ballot arrived to the correct location just in time for me to vote. Plus, somewhere in the island nation of Jamaica, a couple ballots with my name on them might still be floating around. Everyone's a winner.*

Happy voting.




*John Kerry excluded.

In Which Imitation Is The Highest Form Of Flattery

As evidenced by the fact that I haven't written anything in a few weeks, there is really nothing new and exciting going on. Perhaps, though, the fact that there is no news is news itself: faced with the lack of anything better to write about, I've decided to play the critic and give my two cents on a TV ad. Now, this is obviously not a new concept. Scores of bloggers write about advertisements, probably because they are so ubiquitous. And today I'm going to be one of them. Besides, anyone who watches as much TV as I do (and hopefully there are but a few) is bound to see some ads that just beg to be analyzed.

Mucinex's Mucus Family Reunion

Reader, meet Mr. Mucus.
Spokesblob for the expectorant Mucinex, Mr. Mucus and his mucus-y friends and family have been trying to hole up in the lungs of print and television advertisement actors for many a year now. Unfortunately for them, Mucinex has always been there to kick them out. Curses; foiled again. Anyway, most people's complaints about Mr. Mucus revolve around him being disgusting, which, as a giant glob of bronchial mucus, he is. I've never been too bothered by his inherent grossness; hey, if Mucinex wants to take the gross-out angle to sell their product, who am I to say they shouldn't? It was only when I saw their most recent TV ad that I became as sincerely disturbed with the campaign as most people have been from the beginning.

Now, this ad is so new that I've only seen it once, and, scour the internet though I did (and believe me, I did), I could not find a clip of it anywhere. So I will have to use the power of words to describe it here (a real-world application for my B.A. in English!):

We begin in the lungs of the unfortunate host. Mr. and Mrs. Mucus are inviting their mucus-blob relatives into their new home. "Aunt Harriet! Uncle Dick!" Mr. Mucus gushes, "It's a mucus family reunion!" Fine. The woman obviously has some sort of infection, and she's literally coughing up a lung trying to get rid of the mucus infestation. Then she takes Mucinex, at which point Mr. Mucus and his entire family are "evicted."

This is where it starts to get weird. After she's disease free, we see Ms. Previously-Infected-Commercial-Lady open the door to her own house. "Aunt Harriet! Uncle Dick!" she exclaims, as she ushers in some relatives of the human variety.

Here's the problem: The respective relatives of Mr. Mucus and his human hostess have the same names! What in the world is going on here? Are the mucuses anthropomorphisms of the humans? Deep down, are we all just really giant blobs of mucus? Or is there a parallel universe in which everything and everyone exists just as it does here, only instead of humans, they're mucus?

That should give you a little something to think about.

In Which Metaphor Is Used As A Rhetorical Device

In the last post I mentioned my uneasiness with the transition between college and not-college. It's an uneasiness that began as far back as this time last year and has increased exponentially until now. Even at this point, when I've started working and pretty much completely removed myself from college life, there are some days when I wake up and can't believe it's over. There's a big part of me - the rational, thinking part - that knows I wouldn't even enjoy being there if I still had the opportunity; I started being bored with classes early during my final semester, so I can only imagine that my tolerance for them now would be nil. But there's another part of me - the emotional part - that longs for the order, the stability, the familiarity of being a college student. I have to remind myself, sometimes, of how scared I was when I first started college; how, for those first few weeks at least, (that first semester, even) I was grasping for something that would keep me grounded. And though I have to believe that what I'm going through now is a lot like that, I can't yet escape the feeling that this, what's happening now, is a whole new world - and not in a Disney kind of way.

There's a poem I love that I think really captures the essence of what I am feeling, maybe more than I can verbalize myself. It's by a poet named Tony Hoagland; for those who are maybe averse to poetry for the reason that it is difficult to understand, I would strongly recommend him. His poetry, while easily understandable, is also so poignant, so true. Anyway, here it is.

Two Trains

by Tony Hoagland

Then there was that song called "Two Trains Running,"
a Mississippi blues they play on late-night radio,
that program after midnight called FM in the AM,
--well, I always thought it was about trains.

Then somebody told me it was about what a man and woman do
under the covers of their bed, moving back and forth
like slow pistons in a shiny black locomotive,
the rods and valves trying to stay coordinated

long enough that they will "get to the station"
at the same time. And one of the trains
goes out of sight into the mountain tunnel,
but when they break back into the light

the other train has somehow pulled ahead,
the two trains running like that, side by side,
first one and then the other, with the fierce white
bursts of smoke puffing from their stacks,
into a sky so sharp and blue you want to die.

So then for a long time I thought the song was about sex.

But then Mack told me that all train songs
are really about Jesus, about how the second train
is shadowing the first, so He walks in your footsteps
and He watches you from behind, He is running with you,

He is your brakeman and your engineer,
your coolant and your coal,
and He will catch you when you fall,
and when you stall He will push you through
the darkest mountain valley, up the steepest hill,

and the rough chuff chuff of His fingers on the washboard
and the harmonica woo woo is the long soul cry by which He
pulls you through the bloody tunnel of the world.
So then I thought the two trains song was a gospel song.

Then I quit my job in Santa Fe and Sharon drove
her spike heel through my heart
and I got twelve years older and Dean moved away,
and now I think the song might be about good-byes--

because we are not even in the same time zone,
or moving at the same speed, or perhaps even
headed towards the same destination--
forgodsakes, we are not even trains!

What grief it is to love some people like your own
blood, and then to see them simply disappear;
to feel time bearing us away
one boxcar at a time.

And sometimes, sitting in my chair
I can feel the absence stretching out in all directions--
like the deaf, defoliated silence
just after a train has thundered past the platform,

just before the mindless birds begin to chirp again
--and the wildflowers that grown beside the tracks
wobble wildly on their little stems,
then gradually grow stil land stand

motherless and vertical in the middle of everything.

In Which The Narrator Elaborates on Her Intent

"There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know until he takes up a pen to write."
-William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Henry Esmond

For a long time I was vehemently opposed to the idea of personal blogging. The rise in popularity of such websites as Xanga and LiveJournal when I was in high school, with the angsty, teenage, I-hate-my-life kind of writing they sported, led me to believe that journaling should stay in actual journals, where it belonged, away from public eyes. I remained with the attitude that diary entries belonged in diaries, not on the internet. As an avid diarist myself (I began when I was 12 years old and continued regularly through high school, and less regularly through college) I couldn't imagine the things I wrote in those journals being broadcast on the World Wide Web. And that's the way it was.

It was only very recently that my views about personal narrative and the internet changed. It becomes more and more apparent to me that in today's world almost everything revolves around the internet (I realize I might be a little late to this party, but at least I've arrived). Additionally, I am finally beginning to see myself as someone who has something to say - not just to a piece of lined paper, but to whomever wishes to read it. And while I'm not exactly sure what that "something" is, I plan on finding out here.

And that, in short, is the premise for beginning this blog.


P.S. A word about the title of this blog and my reasons for it: The title comes from my favorite book, Vanity Fair, by my (subsequently) favorite author, William Makepeace Thackeray. (If you were paying attention, the quote at the beginning of this post also comes from a W.M.T. novel). The novel's heroine, Becky Sharp (that's her at the top of the page), is a social climber who through her wit, charm, and (above all) intelligence is able to rise from humble beginnings to enjoy an opulent lifestyle without actually paying any money to maintain it. Here's what all this has to do with me: as a recent college graduate just beginning the rest of my life, I see myself as, metaphorically, starting with nothing. My challenge is to take that "nothing," learn from it, and, by consequence, live well.