Hannah, Meet Hannah. Hannah, Hannah.

DAY EIGHTY-NINE: The Pauper Drinks a Boost

I used to have a major problem watching the show Girls.  This is a well-documented road block known to my friends.  When I was in college, I had an idea to write a show about three post-grad women in their early twenties trying to navigate life, love, and career pitfalls.

"But Hannah, everyone who has ever had an idea has had that idea."

The reason I was sure watching Girls would cause me to convulse, spasm, vomit, and rotate my head 1080 degrees was a tonal reason.  I wanted my show to be real.  It would star a young woman, not stereotypically beautiful, but a woman that women could identify with.  She would be an anti-heroine.  Not always the best person, someone you certainly shouldn't admire, but she'd endear you because of her humor.  She would make horrible sexual decisions.  There would never be a scene where the characters begin kissing, and then slowly fade into the morning after with the two of them laying awkwardly in bed with the sheet pulled up to her chin.  She was an aspiring writer with deeply penetrating fears of writing.  Her "love" interest was named Adam, because I always named my male counterpart Adam.  And she was me.  She was Hannah.

I tell you all this because some of you readers don't know me well enough to understand my frustrations at seeing and hearing about this show.  But I can assure you from the number of times it was brought up in conversation, "Have you seen Girls?!  You would love it!" that this show stole my idea.  And Lena Dunham would pay... by not having me watch it!

Until, yeah, I watched it.  I cringed as I saw exact storylines I had thought of executed in incredibly similar ways.  I squirmed as little "self-deprecation in the face of comedy" moments played out like Hannah always sneaking into the fridge to eat something when stressed, even if it's Cool Whip.  I agonized as Jessa responded to Hannah's sighting of Adam with "Who?  The first man?", a rationale I adopted long ago in my writing.  It was difficult to digest, but I watched the whole damn thing.

Girls and I have a very complicated relationship.  It's nearly impossible for me to watch this show without bias.  The same things I love about the show are the same things I love about my writing.  But the Catch-22 is I therefore hate everything about the show that I hate about my own writing.  And that self-loathing is the reason I'm sitting here at 26 writing a blog that about 4 people read and at 26, Lena Dunham won a couple Golden Globes.

She had the confidence to go after an idea she had.  Whereas I have a tendency to overanalyze everything I do creatively, she just did it.  (Don't even get me started on Tiny Furniture.  I have a nearly finished screenplay stored on my hard-drive that would like to have a word with it.)

So how do we attain this confidence?  Well, speaking from two month's experience, it helps not being berated at work on a daily basis.  It helps actually showing your work to people.  It helps forming friendships with people who not only support you, but encourage you.  And it even helps when you have a nice conversation with a mother/daughter at your table who writes "Good luck with your career!" on your credit card receipt.  But ultimately, you just have to understand that you won't be perfect, but with practice you will be good - even great.  And the difference between the people who make it and the people who don't is confidence.  Or an amazingly stupid amount of luck.

Girls and I are doing a little bit better now.  I've forgiven it for making me feel like shit about myself.  Because something happened over the past year.  I realized it's not really the storytelling I aspire to anymore.  Kudos to Lena Dunham for doing what she is doing, but the idea of reliving my early 20's for the sake of my career seems like a certain place in hell meant for pedophiles and sandmonsters.  My desire to create is stronger than ever.  And I think I had to get over myself a little bit before I could do that.  I have confidence in knowing Girls is a show I probably could have written (and maybe I'd have a couple Golden Globes to add to my shelf, though I've already got a couple of my own.  HEY-O!), but it's no longer the show I want to write.  It's no longer the story I want to tell.  Because I finally realize I my creation abilities excel beyond recreation of the past.  And without Girls, I don't know if I'd ever have gotten out of that frame of mind.

So thanks, Lena.  But if your next heroine is named Katharine, I'm coming for you with the force of a thousand and twelve banshee grey hounds.

From Great Risk Comes Great Forward

DAY EIGHTY-FIVE: The Pauper Settles In

A weird feeling has recently passed over me.  It's weird because it's so foreign.  It's not something I've felt for the last quarter of my life.  And though I'm not foolish enough to believe it will last for years to come, I can confidently say that in this moment... I'm happy with my life.

What brought me to this utterance?  A risk.  A big one.  When I was a freshman in college - a point in my life where the world felt like the proverbial oyster - a senior I knew from College Democrats bestowed some advice upon me.  She was at an age where the world seemed less like an oyster and more like an ominous void.  But when she was discussing her plans to do Teach for America in a new city she knew no one in, she explained, "If the decision isn't scary, it's probably not the right decision to make."

Scary life decisions are the most difficult to make.  It's all there in the title, so it's not like I'm making a grand statement that will open people's eyes.  But one of the hardest things you or I will ever do is step outside of our comfort zone.  That warm security blanket that makes the day to day easier, but the long run impossible.

At the beginning of August, the idea of quitting my job seemed, ironically, impossible.  Why on earth would I leave the thing that has kept me going for four plus years?  This is what people do.  They graduate from college, find themselves a job, and they stick by it to ensure a life of financial stability.  But when you graduate in the midst of a recession, you get this curve ball that requires a bit of risk.

In 2009, the place mats where set for a life of drudgery for Miss Hannah Williams.  Working in a position so far from my major that I trained myself to laugh every time I admitted the difference.  "Majored in film?  What are you doing now?"  "I work at a law firm... yuck, yuck, yuck."

But it took a low point at work to point me in the right direction.  A moment of realization that spending my life hating the days and yearning for the nights would do nothing but subject me to a life of misery and regret.

Regret: The biggest devil of them all.  After a collegiate romance gone astray because I felt too inferior to reveal my true feelings, I promised myself I would never regret the things that I didn't do, but would rather regret the things that I did.  I took this to heart, but relegated them to my romantic life, as I thought anything else was merely what I "should" be doing.  And it took four years to realize that there is no "should" in our professional lives.  There is simply what we do.

So on that fateful day in August, when the fates fed me a can of unnecessary "whoop ass" at work, I realized that I simply could not carry on in this charade.  Paychecks weren't enough to keep me going.  Life had other plans for me, I was certain.  But I had eked out everything I could from four years of professional ambiguity.  It was time to take a risk.

I'll admit that waiting tables hadn't felt like my proudest moment.  In the beginning, I welled up inside nearly every day I slipped on my uniform and stared at myself in the mirror before I walked out the door.  Last week, I encountered a father and his collegiate daughter who asked me what I had majored in when I studied at Loyola.  I felt ashamed.  Telling this man that I attended school four years ago and now I am serving him and his daughter pizza with my degree.  It wasn't exactly what I pictured myself doing when I wore that cap and gown in the spring of 2009.

But then I added in, "I'm studying at Second City now."  And I continued to recommend some shows to him.  And I realized, I have nothing to be ashamed of.  I was working in a job that sucked my soul away like some kind of legalese Dementor.  And I had the balls to walk away from it.  And now I'm starting over.  There is no shame in changing your life.

And now, I stand as a woman who walks into work joyously.  My coworkers are wonderful.  I am obliged to improv with tables on a daily basis.  I wake up in the mornings and get to write instead of hopping into the shower to go to a job that will do absolutely nothing for me beyond giving me rent.  I have a new show opening next year.  I feel confident.  I feel strong.  And I feel happy.

The dust has settled around the rough patch of my risk.  And from it, the phoenix rises.  Though the future remains uncertain, it's a hell of a lot clearer than a life resigned to apathy.

The Railroad Tracks on the Horizon

DAY SEVENTY-EIGHT: The Pauper Gains Perspective

I'm about to blow your mind grapes: We all see things differently.  Not simply because our life experiences dictate how we perceive any new hurdle presented to us, but because of perspective.  Perspective is the reason this street art:

Is not nearly as impressive as this:

It's the reason members of the Academy in 1942 believed How Green Was My Valley to be superior to a movie that is now widely considered the greatest American film ever made.

Sorry guys, though it fits most of the above description, this movie unfortunately didn't come out until 2011.

And it's the reason someone like Chris Brown can't understand why the world would be a better place if he simply moved to Northern Canada and let the polar bears deal with him.

But even the polar bears beg for sweet, sweet respite.

We see things how we see them because few of us have the range of [e]motions to comprehend a life outside of where we stand.  To do that takes experience.  So for the unexperienced, we often need to take alternative measures to see the truth in a situation.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day.  I wasn't feeling particularly optimistic about my circumstance.  I had made the difficult choice to spend my first Christmas alone in the name of waiting tables.  I've made very little progress in the search for a better "grown up" job outside of submitting resumes until my fingers bled.  And a lack of creative confidence still plagues my thoughts as I stare into the abyss known as "social media helps me see why everyone is so much better off than I am."  So my friend did the best thing he could have done for me, he told me I was being "daft".

He proceeded to point out the fact that I made a decision knowing it would take some time.  He pointed out that it had been roughly 6 weeks since I left my job.  That I have multiple creative opportunities on the horizon.  That this job is only as temporary as I want it to be.  That in order to be what I truly want to be, I am exactly where I need to be.  He gave me perspective.

Some times it's easier to get a hold of perspective.  In the case of the street art, you could just stumble upon the correct spot to view it's ingenuity.  

Other times, there's no way to gain perspective outside of time doing all of the work; as is the case of a film like Citizen Kane losing the title of "Best Picture" in 1942, while being lauded as the great American masterpiece nearly every subsequent year.

But when you don't have the time or the internal ability to avoid a state of mental collapse, the brutal honesty and insight of others can help you see what you can't.  It's a gift for which I am incredibly thankful.  And though my perspective will waiver as my days ebb and flow, I can fall back on the knowledge that where I am now is not absolutely where I will always be.  A simple truth that isn't necessarily so simple when you are too close to the edge of despair to see properly.

Now who is ready to Clockwork Orange the vitriolic piss out of Chris Brown with me?

Opportunity, Meet Change

DAY SEVENTY-THREE: The Pauper Tumbles with the Weeds

So I have taken a job.  A job shilling pizza pies to customers in the Loop.  A job that will pay my bills, force me to improv with humans on a daily basis, and could possibly prevent me from seeing my family come this holiday season.

And with that, I had a bit of a breakdown last week.  I was overwhelmed by a new position.  I was overwhelmed with the possibility of not spending my Christmas season with loved ones.  And I was overwhelmed with the idea that I will never supersede mediocrity.

I am essentially at the same place I was when I graduated from high school.  A little backstory, if you will allow.  When I graduated from high school, I had very little stakes in quitting my job at Bon-Ton (an east coast version of JCPenney's.)  If I had no income, I wasn't going to lose my home (thanks, Mom and Dad.)  If I had no income, I wasn't going to lose my car (thanks, Mom and Dad.)  If I had no income, I wasn't going to starve (thanks, Mom and Dad.)

But at 17, those responsibilities were figments of my imagination.  Instead, my reality was, if I have no income, I can't go to the movies (Revenge of the Sith came out that year!)  If I have no income, I can't drive around relentlessly with my friends while chatting about life.  If I have no income, I can't go to T.G.I. Friday's this Friday and get the the chocolate cheesecake swirl dessert (I settled for the side of fries.)

So I searched.  I searched for a job anywhere I could find it.  But with the legal age of serving alcohol in Frederick, Maryland being 18, my options of growth outside of Bon-Ton were limited.  I applied to non-alcoholic restaurants like IHOP and Waffle House.  I contemplated going back to my first job, Quizno's.  I searched high and low.  Until one day I applied to Carrabba's Italian Grill to be a hostess.  On the day of my interview, my (future) boss admitted that there were no hostess positions available, and that I was still too young to serve.  In a moment of sheer panic, I shouted at him, "I'll bus!"  He looked at this young white girl for a moment, and returned, "You want to bus?"  Knowing that I was only 17 for one more month, I nodded vigorously.  "I'll bus."

I finagled my way into a job.  A job I didn't want to do, but knew it would lead to better prospects once I turned 18.  And it did.  It was the job I returned to every summer and winter break from college.  It was the job that made my study abroad travel in Rome possible.  It was the job that meant I didn't need a job during college semesters.  It was the job I got my heartbroken in (multiple times).  It was my favorite job.

And now, here I am, a college graduate for more than four years, and I am in the same place I once was as a lowly high school graduate.  I'll admit to a feeling of shame when a class from Loyola's law school came into my section last night, and I proclaimed I studied undergrad there (and here I am now!  Serving you pizza.)  I admit that nearly every time I learn of someone's job (Marketing!  Designing!  Microbiology!) I cringe realizing where I am now.  And I admit that life feels especially hard right now.

But I had a conversation with my dad the other day.  **Please keep in mind that the person writing this blog once had an epiphany on a bus ride down Lake Shore Drive that she no longer wanted to be an actress because the idea of having an uncertain future scared the shit out of her.**  As I cried to my father over my current status, my inability to spend Christmas with my family, and my murky future; he said something to me that resonated.  He told me that right now, I need to let life take me.  I need to stop trying to make things happen and just let them happen.

It felt like a ruse.  I need to be in charge of my life decisions, Goddamnit!  I am, as Destiny's Child so proudly declared, an Independent Woman!  I am the master of my own destiny!  I cannot just sit back and watch what happens.  I need to take control.

That, in and of itself, is not a bad way of thinking.  However, there are moments - times - in your life that you have no control over.  I quit my job knowing the consequences of my decision.  But knowing the consequences and living them are two very different experiences.  It's difficult to relinquish control over your life.  But sometimes, for the sake of growing up, you must.

I may have steamrolled myself into a job in the summer of 2005, but my decision to leave my dead-end "stand behind a register and fold clothes" job left my possibilities wide open.  The thing about life is, you never know where it's going to take you.  And riding out the journey is the part where you grow the most.  It won't always be easy.  But if that were the case, you'd never change.  And if there's one thing I've learned from improv, it's that the transformations are the most fun to watch.

I Live In A Hologram With You

DAY SIXTY-EIGHT: The Pauper Meets Her Lorde

And now, we diverge from the norm of this blogosphere.  In lieu of opining over my current mind-fuck I have deemed "human perception", I would like to discuss an issue close to my heart: The degradation of society.

I recently purchased Lorde's debut album Pure Heroine.  Now, I'm not typically the person who seeks out entire albums by top-charting artists, but that damn "Royals" is so catchy that I thought I'd give it a look.  Plus, I had read a small amount about Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O'Connor, and she seemed like a pretty cool chick.  So I listened.  And I listened.  And I listened.  And I am still listening.

Lorde is the kind of artist I wish I discovered at age 13.  An age where Britney Spears was an artist I enjoyed, but felt weird admitting.  She went against everything I felt (read: I never felt like I was anything like Britney Spears.)  And although my dearest, Fiona Apple, premiered on the scene during my middle school years, I didn’t come to appreciate her beyond her “Criminal” success until college.

I have a big problem with youths today.  This is no secret to anyone who spends much time around me.  As an inhabitant of the final generation to live without the Internet, I find the youths of today mostly privileged, bratty, and narcissistic.  And their champions, Justin Beiber and Miley Cyrus do little to dissuade my bias.  These are artists who embody the narcissism of today's youth.  The fish-lipped selfies, the "do what you care" attitudes, the desire to grow up much too fast.  These aren't role models.  These are the embodiments of why people have little faith in the future.  These are artists so content on appearing grown up, they forget what being a grown up is.  Making yourself a sexual object does not make you a grown up.  It makes you a fool.  From a woman who has experienced her fair share of meaningless and empty encounters, I can promise this notion is true.  Sex without trust will do one thing: it will show your age.  But not the way young people may think.

The opposite end of the spectrum of pop lies people like Taylor Swift.  Taylor Swift is a talented sweetheart.  But as far as an outstanding artist, well, I've never boarded that train.  Because Taylor Swift apologists harbor under the notion that teenaged pop songs should be dumbed down to the one-dimensional standards of puppy love.  First crushes.  "Falling in love" with a boy.  Dumping his stupid ass.  And so on and so *excuses herself while she recuperates from thinking about "We Are Never Ever Ever EVER Getting, Like, Back Together."

This all comes back to the pop stars we idolize as impressionable teenagers.  Before any of these life changes arose for me, I had someone enlighten me on my priorities.  He rightly pinpointed my dependence on men, being desired, and having a relationship.  Though there are many reasons I have traveled down this path, it's difficult to ignore the cultural influence.  When pop culture is so saturated with songs and movies about finding "the one" or embracing sexuality as a way to appear "grown up", an impressionable youth has little to ascribe to besides using her vagina to find love.  It's a dangerous mix.  And it's something you see very little in pop culture rebelling against.

And it all comes back to Lorde.  I listened to the album once through, and was taken aback by the maturity in the lyrics and vocals of this 16-year-old pop star.  She sings about the fear of growing up, alienation, the desire to be something bigger than you feel capable.  These are the emotions we feel as youths, as well as grown ups.  These are observations and emotions I some times struggle with identifying as a 26-year-old.  Yet through the maturity, her true age shines through.  She sings of being a beauty queen (in tears), sings about "lik[ing] you", and "laughing til [their] ribs get tough".  Things that any teenager can identify with while not feeling alienated by the one person who can identify with their own alienation.

I wish that teenagers today listen to musicians like Lorde.  I wish that teenagers strive to conquer the disingenuous nature of our Internet age.  I wish that teenagers knew what they were capable of in light of new technologies, not in spite of them.

And somehow, simply by listening to some 16-year-old's album, this cynical woman finally saw light at the end of the tunnel for today's youth.

It's All Relative

DAY SIXTY-ONE: The Pauper Loses the Paup

Well kiddies, unemployment isn't all the champagne wishes and caviar dreams the positive recession images would have you believe.  In fact, it's surprisingly the exact opposite!  I'll give you a moment to close your shocked and gaping mouths while you process this information.

In the meantime, here's an image to restore your equilibrium: a shark pony.  Or a Shpony.

The thing is, no matter how much money you save before self-induced unemployment begins, you will need to get back in the game eventually.  For a half-Arab saver like myself, that panic button gets hit much earlier than you can ever anticipate.  So after what seemed like months of applications and agony while waiting for responses, I had two interviews today.  (Please remember that in reality, it has been just over a week.  Time is relative, people.  Time is relative.)

The first position was for a marketing coordinator - the type of career I can see myself doing if this whole writing thing never fully pans out.  The type of creative job that I wouldn't mind calling home if I never become the next Woody Allen.

Or sell out and become the next Roland Emmerich

The interview turned into the longest interview I have ever encountered.  I got along really well with the interviewer.  It seemed more like a "shoot the shit" session peppered with remarks about my experience.  Three hours later, we were shaking hands and I was told the next step would be narrowing down the interviewees for a short list and going from there.  An arduous process that would hopefully end on happy news if I did as well as I felt.

And then as Jay-Z would say, on to the next one!  A restaurant position to tide over the Arab saver half of my person.  Finishing my chapter of "Gone Girl" early in the Starbucks down the block, I paced around the blocks near the restaurant trying desperately not to get there "too early".  I arrived a few minutes before 5:00 and asked the hostess for my contact person.  He ushered me to the back of the restaurant where a family most likely in from Cleveland mangia'd on a sheet of pepperoni pizza.  He asked me if I was currently employed.  I said no, and briefly explained my self-righteous answer that I left a job I saw no future in to pursue my dreams and felt that I wanted to return to a job I found I truly enjoyed: serving.  He cut in with "when was the last time you worked in a restaurant?"  I timidly mentioned "2008..."  He looked over a sheet of paper and then said, "Ok, so we'll have you start on Monday at 4:00.  Black shoes, black pants."  I found myself asking more questions than he had.  Suddenly that moment of rehearsed "interview questions" you are meant to spew out of courtesy of interest became necessity.

I shook his hand, and walked out of the restaurant.  I checked my watch: 5:03.

Ba-da-bing.  I got a job.

All Day I Dream About Smarts

DAY FIFTY-NINE: The Pauper Needs Some Stimuli

Working out is something everyone in their 20s at least mulls over.  Unless you are one of those cross-country sporty types in high school (read: I was never), then exercise is something that rarely crosses your mind.  Even if you are uncomfortable with that excess flab (read: I was always), you'd still rather LiveJournal it or cry in your room over it while listening to John Mayer albums believing "if only he got to see my personality, he'd fall in love with me!"

Really sorry that never worked out, by the way.  Try again next time.

But once your metabolism starts to fail and you realize that what you put into your body and how you treat it genuinely affects your own personal output in society, things start to change.  Motivation will strike in the form of a break up, an upcoming event where you just have to look a-MAH-zing, or a good old fashioned weekend-long ANTM binge that leaves you feeling like a balloon filled with delivery pizza and shame.

The point is, we motivate ourselves to be better people when a catalyst forces us to take action.  The same is true for our brains.  But people don't often realize that their brains are atrophying in the same way our muscles do.  In other words, getting dumber is a lot less obvious than getting fatter.

My catalyst for writing was quitting my job.  It gave me the freedom of time, which I covered last post.  But the motivation is getting harder to come by as I realize how atrophied my brain has become.

In high school and college, I was often the girl that students gave a silent (or in some cases, verbal) "yes!" about when realizing they were paired for an assignment with yours truly.  I got good grades.  Teachers loved me.  And I wasn't afraid to voice my opinion (read: be "that girl" who raised her hand to answer every question.)  If I wasn't going to be cool, I was at least going to be smart.  I liked being smart.

But something happened in my four years of paralegaling.  My brain was devoted to a field I cared very little about.  I didn't have to think the same way I used to.  I trained myself to be good at allowing others to succeed at their dreams.  Routine took precedence over challenge.  And I'm no longer the same thinker I was four years ago.

Sitting down in front of my computer, finding motivation becomes more and more difficult when I don't trust the thoughts brimming inside.  People around me seem to have evolved, while there's some personal devolution I can't seem to shake.  How do you overcome atrophy when you don't have school to knock the cobwebs loose?

You have to do it yourself.  It's not just a matter of writing at this point.  I have to study.  So before I get down on myself because the blank, white LCD screen in front of me shouts back slurs of insecurity; I'm going to do some things I haven't done since the last time I felt confident about my abilities.

I'm going to read.  Leisurely (fiction), scholastically (non-fiction books on writing), and research-based (screenplays).  Regardless of how much I hated studying in college; this becomes a matter of mental life and death.  Before our brains become a sedimentary rock formation, some times we have to push ourselves to get up off the couch, strap on our reading glasses, and start running some mental laps.