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.

That Barrel-Chested SOB

DAY FIFTY-THREE: The Pauper Times It Right

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.” - Albert Einstein

Time.  Friend or foe?  Hero or villain?  Protagonist or antagonist?

One of the reasons I quit my job was because I never felt like I had enough time to do the things that I wanted to do.  I was emotionally exhausted by the end of each work day (being a human chew toy will do that to a person.)  So my goal from the minute I walked into my second story apartment was to shut down.  Make an easy dinner.  Pour a glass bottle of wine.  Binge on 30 Rock reruns courtesy of our great, red friend.  There was never any time.  Or at least never the right kind of time.

And here I am, fifty-three days post-decision.  And time has become my mortal enemy in lieu of the barrel-chested companion my heart craved.  

Brought to you in RealD by Time.

Suddenly, there's simply too much of it.  It sits there mocking me for not getting things done.  The financially responsible side of me panics on a daily basis and spends most of the day applying for jobs.

The truth is, I can't say that last statement in earnest.  Yes, there's the panic that hits me in the midst of catching up on Homeland (a lunchtime respite) when my mind wanders into the regions of remembering that rent is due tomorrow while my plane ticket to London shouts insensitive slurs on my credit card bill.  My stomach both drops and jumps inside its connective tissues.  But that's not the whole truth.

Failing at finding a job is the easier option.  If I can't find a more interesting job that I at least somewhat enjoy, it's the easier pill to manage down.  Because it's really just something I want.  But to fail at writing.  To fail at the only thing that really feels like it matters in my life right now.  To fail at my passion.  It's not really something I feel like I can handle.

And so I wait.  I procrastinate.  Until the panic turns into fuel.  Until the rejections turn into some form of mental cocaine.  Until I simply can't handle it anymore.

Happy Halloween, everyone.  I'm not dressing up because right now, I can't think of anything scarier than exactly what I'm doing right now.

Except hillbillies.  Nothing scarier than hillbillies.

To A Poet

DAY FIFTY-ONE: The Pauper Returns

There's something about returning from vacation that is one of the most unsettling feelings you can experience.  We've all experienced it.  It's this hardened pit stuck in your core that slowly seeps its way into your esophagus until you feel like you might actually choke on your own anxiety.  You get to have the highest of highs; seeing beautiful sites, spending time with loved ones, and simply being away from the doldrums of responsibility.  But when you return, you are reminded of the every day.  The ordinary.  The doldrums of responsibility.

Because of this common feeling, I figured I had concocted a solution to the Back in Town Blues.  I quit my job, and then I bought a plane ticket out to London to see my family.  My thought process being, I'll come home from vacation and still be on vacation.  I don't have to drag myself into an office that fills my every essence with self-loathing.  Instead, I can still sleep in.  Still go take a random walk around town.  Still do whatever I want and ignore the doldrums.

But what I did not anticipate is that a more fearsome sense of anxiety lurked around the corner of my return.  A one-two punch to the gut that makes the hardened pit of returning to work life seem like a game of patty-cake with your two-year-old niece.

I'll begin with the first pang.  Imagine being surrounded by undying love and support for two weeks straight.  Not simply some tangential love that you know always exists, but actually feeling it, seeing it, and touching it.  Feeling the embrace of your parents that you haven't felt in close to a year.  The look in their eye when you say something that you know they are proud to hear.  A look and a feeling that can't be replicated via Skype, no matter how hard our scientists and engineers try to put our lives online.  Imagine all this love that you anticipate as you walk out of customs at Heathrow; the thrill of seeing your mother giddy as a, well, mother who hasn't seen her daughter in nearly a year.  And then contrast that with the feeling of walking out of customs at O'Hare International Airport 12 days later.  A long flight that you can still feel in your legs 3 hours later.  Your hair is greasy - not seeing a point in showering that morning.  And you walk out of customs to signs of fanfare for other passengers.  The same terminal you've greeted many a visitor in the past, but now you must make your own personal walk of shame to the taxi cab line because you are too exhausted to drag your stupid suitcase all the way to the train.  It's a feeling of emptiness.  Of loneliness.  Of realizing the best things in life are fleeting.

But even worse is the moment a newly unemployed young writer walks into her apartment and realizes there truly are no more excuses.  Vacation is over.  It's time to write.  And forcing yourself to get up every morning and maintaining this amorphous schedule is probably the scariest thing I've ever faced.  Scarier than Disney World's Alien Encounter ride at 10 years old.  Scarier than pulling the ripcord on Daredevil Dive.  Scarier than getting my heartbroken.  If I fuck this up, it's not because I'm not talented (I've finally convinced myself that isn't true).  No.  If I fuck this up, it's because I didn't try my damnedest.  Failure will only happen because of laziness or fear.  If I fuck this up, I have no one to blame but myself.

Dear reader, please excuse the ramblings.  I spent about 8 hours pondering what I wanted to write (and watching "The Way Way Back" and reading "Gone Girl", and staring out the window while listening to my ipod, but who's counting?)  But dear reader, one thing I highly recommend if you ever find yourself flying over top the snowy peaks of Greenland and Northern Canada, please do yourself a favor and put down the Candy Crush, pause "White House Down", and just take it in.  Preferably while listening to some Nordic band who really knows their lyrical way around snowy atmospheres.  My drink of choice: First Aid Kit.  It is breathtaking.