Stephanie Lechner: Nametags and Hairnets

Failing career assessments since the 8th grade

Category: Uncategorized

April 8, 2013

Sam and the Magic Pants

I like shopping for pants as much as I like first dates: there is the hope of something new and good, but I usually find myself knee-deep in self-pity seeking comfort in a box of Fig Newtons. Sizes are slippery fish in most stores, but to my chagrin, I’ve always sat comfortably in a size 16. Not that a size 16 is bad in and of itself–it just means that I’m on the cusp of being able to purchase clothes at major retail chains or having to shop in the plus-size section. I usually can ignore the extra poundage I drag around on a daily basis, but there is no way to sustain denial under the harsh fluorescent lighting of a GAP dressing room. On an impulse, I decide to deviate from my usual “Long and Lean” cut denim and grab a pair of straight-leg, ankle-cut corduroys in a bold shade of red. The straight-leg pants at this store never fit. I’m preparing myself for disappointment, but much to my surprise, I zip them up to perfection. I stand, fluorescent light be damned, as I celebrate a shopping victory. Thrilled to be able to wear a new style, I grab 5 pairs of other colors and pull them back to the fitting room. Despite them being labeled in precisely the same manner, only the red ones fit. I cut my losses and happily walk out with my purchase, my very own magical pants. I was wearing those red pants when I met Sam.

Sam and I had been emailing for three months. I broke my rule against befriending strangers on Facebook after multiple prompts of “Do you know Sam” in that little toolbar on the right-hand side of my screen. No, I don’t know Sam. Should I? I glanced at his profile to discover we know many of the same people. He was very handsome, perhaps a little more clean-cut than I was normally attracted to (short blond hair, suited wardrobe and no tattoos), but what drew me in was his “About Me” section, more specifically, that he took the time to write a five-paragraph Facebook auto-biography. I made mental notes of all the things that piqued my interest and sent a friendly message introducing myself. Introductory emails gave way to hours of clever banter revealing a quirky sense of humor that matches closely with my own. We joked about politics, and we swapped a lot of popular Internet memes. We were both big fans of Grumpy Cat.  Beyond that, we shared many of the same interests and philosophies on life, a rare occurrence for me. Sam worked long hours as a copywriter for a boutique advertising company, so the messages usually didn’t ramp up until after midnight. I noticed that I would stay up later and later each night looking forward to our next exchange. Because he lived in the suburbs of New Jersey and worked so much, it took three months of failed attempts before we made solid plans to meet in person, but finally, at Sam’s suggestion, we scheduled a Saturday night dinner.

Suddenly, I’m overwhelmed with the nervousness and anticipation of discovering whether or not the real Sam would match the version of him I conjured in my imagination. As worried as I am that he will not match my expectations, I am even more stressed that I will somehow disappoint the version of me he has envisioned. My anxiety peaks as I obsessively comb through our emails to look for clues as to whether this dinner was a friendly meal or a date.  There are no discernable signs to be found, so I decide to wear my magic pants and a full face of make-up to be on the safe side. As I’m mulling over the weekend’s possibilities, the ping of a new messages breaks my concentration:

“I am really craving Mexican . Let’s do Tortilla Flats in the Meatpacking district. I’ll pick you up at your place at 8.”

He’ll pick me up!?! At my place!?! This is unheard of behavior in New York. I am used to meeting men at bars and saying awkward goodbyes outside of subway stations, but this guy was going to pick me up?! A date, this is definitely a date. Saturday arrives, my doorbell buzzes, and my stomach flips. I open the door and am greeted with a warm “Hey you!” I walk towards him and we hug, not as strangers, but as people who’ve known each other forever. I sigh and am immediately at ease. At dinner, our banter is as rapid-fire and easy as it is in print, but there is so much more to explore when you add in facial expressions and body language. Sam’s eyes blink hyperactively as we frenetically switch from topic to topic. I am too charmed for my own good. Dinner ends, and he suggests a second location for drinks. So far, he has opened every single door and paid for everything. The scale is tipping heavily on the “date” end, but everything is riding on the goodbye. I stand on my stoop trying to telepathically convey the message of “kiss me, you fool!” but the night ends with a hug. I float up to my 4th floor walk-up, not letting the vague nature of the evening detract me from the joy of connecting with an interesting man. It’s not even a day later that I hear that familiar ping on my phone:

“I had such a great time last night. It was so nice to finally meet you. Let’s do it again soon.”

I take a page out of the movie Swingers’ playbook and determine that a 24-hour follow-up means he is interested (Vince Vaughn would suggest that waiting three days is “money, baby”). A quick post-mortem leads me to finally settle on the opinion that our night out had romantic undertones.

Our friendship continued over the course of a couple of months when I offer my photography assistance on a side web-project he’s developing. It is not a ploy to spend more time together, but inevitably that is what happens. Ok, it might have been a ploy. I realize as we’re working together that our once playful banter has transitioned into a less-flirtatious buddy rapport, and all we ever talk about anymore is this photography project. After a boost of self-confidence, and perhaps an Ambien, I compose an email to say what I’ve been too scared to say since we met: “I’m interested in you, Sam, and I want more than good friendship.” I ended the message with the latest YouTube clip of Randall, the Honey Badger. I wait 18 torturous hours for his reply, the lowlight of which was the following:

“I don’t even know what to say. I think we are on different pages. I’ve been approaching things                           from a ‘friendly’ perspective. I’m pretty picky when it comes to dating, and I’m not sure I’ll ever find what I’m looking for. But I’ve had a great time getting to know you, and if you are ok with this, I’d be happy to continue just being friends.”

He seals the message with the latest Chuck Norris meme. We are both desperately trying to diffuse the awkwardness of this conversation. In the list of possible scenarios I had imagined, all of them operated under the assumption that he had at least thought about me as a romantic prospect. I was prepared for “he’s just not into me,” but I was completely unprepared for “I was never worthy of being considered.” I’m embarrassed to say how deeply this hurt me, but I was crushed. Lucky for me, this was not an in-person conversation. Since he is not witnessing my devastation over the computer screen, I have options here: cut my losses and walk away, or take him up on his offer for friendship and hope my feelings subside. I foolishly chose the latter. In an effort to save face, I pack my feelings for him in a little box and hide it under my mattress. Compartmentalizing is easy for me as I’ve never been very good at handling my emotions. I find it’s always more comfortable to trust my cerebral instincts and completely ignore what my pesky heart might have to say about the matter.  I prefer a robot’s life.

Six months passed after that gut-wrenching rejection, and neither of us ever mentioned the conversation.  We carried on as old chums happy to be in a platonic relationship. I helped him with photography. He helped talk me off countless ledges after heated arguments with my mother. We gave each other encouraging career pep talks (neither of us was happy with the distance between our corporate jobs and our artistic dreams). He made me laugh all the time, and we messaged almost daily. I’d spent most of my life relying on self-sufficiency and independence, but for the first time, I needed someone, not in the sense that I was needy, but in the sense that my friendship with Sam was necessary. Most days, I convinced myself I was happy with the arrangement, that his friendship was worth the tiny twangs of discomfort I felt when I realized we both wanted different things. Those twangs often erupted from suspicions that he was interested in someone else, a girl who lives in his building. Jealousy is an evil gremlin that can seriously harsh your buzz. My robot wiring short-circuits when rogue emotions pop up, and I did my best to ignore the feelings that emerged every time I heard him mention her name, or worse, when he would pause mid-conversation to send her a text message. I tried to keep my feelings for him sealed in that hidden box separate from our actual friendship, but I was eventually faced with the reality that my emotions were spilling over. It was difficult to come to grips with the fact that our friendship might only be this special to me. By agreeing to be “just friends” with Sam, I wrote a check my heart could not cash, and our platonic relationship hurt more than I thought it would. It’s not that I thought his feelings would change; actually, on the contrary, I was so certain my feelings would. They never did.

Recently, I had an “a-ha” moment. Sometimes, my imagination gets the best of me, and I ponder a life where Sam does return my feelings. I was walking down Broadway after work with my IPod cranked full-blast on a list of 80’s power ballads, lost in a day-dream where I imagine that first night ending with a passionate kiss. My thoughts were quickly interrupted–

Zzttt. zzzzztttt. ZZZZTTTTT.

I literally blew my IPod speakers while listening to Peter Cetera’s “Glory of Love.”

“So this is what rock-bottom feels like,” I thought to myself. I looked down in my moment of self-pity, and I realized that I was wearing those same red corduroy pants, only they didn’t fit anymore. After a come-to-Jesus moment with poor-eating habits around Thanksgiving, I lost several pounds on a low-carb diet, and my once-magic pants now looked baggy and unflattering.  It’s funny, they had probably been that way for a while, but in my mind, they still looked as amazing as they did in that dressing room. I should probably have thrown them away, but I liked them too much. Too stubborn to embrace change, time went by and I was still using my broken headphones and wearing my baggy pants. A coworker compared my red corduroys to a pair of broken-in sweatpants, which prompted an emergency shopping trip. I walked right by the GAP and decided to instead try my hand at Urban Outfitters, a store I previously had not had the pleasure of perusing because they did not carry my size. I grabbed a pair of plain boot-cut jeans and head towards the dressing room. I nearly cried as I zipped up the smallest pair of pants I have worn in my entire adult life. These jeans are not magic, but they fit perfectly. I stared in the mirror long enough to annoy the sales associates who wanted to fill the dressing room with the next customer.

This is precisely what pants should feel like.

I’m noticing that Sam and I don’t email me as much as we used to. Maybe we’ve exhausted the pool of Internet memes, or maybe I’ve finally allowed the proper balance to be restored to the relationship. No matter what, I’ve slowly learned the risk you take by opening yourself up to another person is worth the potential rewards. Sometimes, you are met with the same emotions, and sometimes you are emotionally out on a limb, but it sure beats the lonely, isolated existence of a robot. I scroll through my Facebook feed to see a witty exchange between Sam and a new woman friend. I am relieved to discover that evil jealousy gremlin is nowhere to be found. I have a habit of waiting a long time to fix things that are broken. It’s taken me over a year, but I am finally beginning to reconcile my heart with reality, and yesterday, I finally tossed those headphones in the trash with my size-16, red corduroy pants.

1 comment
March 10, 2013

The Wonka Method of dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress

“There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination.”

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a bizarre fascination with the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The film is full tilt whimsy, and for those of you who really know me, you know that whimsy is my single favorite word in the English dictionary.

“From Loompaland.”

Something about that film that completely mesmerized me, and every time, I was left longing to own my own chocolate factory. The only problem is I’ve always hated eating chocolate (that, and I have no idea how to go about hiring Oompa Loompas).Fruity, taffy, gummy candy? Yes, sir! Peanut butter perfection? Absolutely! But chocolate, particularly milk chocolate, does nothing to tickle my taste buds. One year, during a depressing period of my existence, my dad (under the advice of my mother) decided to forgo the customary bouquet of flowers he sends me on Valentine’s Day and opted instead to send a 5-tier tower of chocolate candy from Harry and David. I cried, then gave it all to my roommate. Did I mention this was a sad period of my existence?

 

The nagging feeling to make my own candy finally gave way after a viewing of Willy Wonka a few years ago. I found a recipe for dark chocolate truffles, and went to town. I whipped up a couple of batches, tasted one to make sure it wasn’t poison, then gave the rest away. That is when I discovered the following:

  1. Making your own candy takes a lot of time and patience.
  2. Melted chocolate is aesthetically beautiful. Seriously. I just like the way it looks melted.
  3. People like when you give them homemade chocolate. Instant joy!

At that moment, my Wonka itch had been scratched, but every now and again, I would look up a recipe and play with chocolate. It wasn’t until recently that I unearthed a new discovery about the art of making chocolate. I like to call it the Wonka Method to dealing with post-traumatic stress. You see, a weird thing happened to me a few weeks ago. I was walking down the street near my office, texting hilarious nonsense with a friend, when I suddenly felt a powerful force knock me to the ground from behind. When I say a powerful force, I’m talking an NFL tackle level of force, square on my upper back. It knocked the wind out of me, and as I caught my breath, I looked back to see a man darting away suspiciously. I can only guess it was him, and I can only guess that he was trying to steal my purse and/or Iphone. Little did he know that my biological response to being threatened is to clutch my material possessions instead of protecting my own person. I’m not kidding when I say that all of my weight fell on my right hand because my left hand refused to let go of an Iphone that should have most-definitely flew out of my hands as I crumpled to the ground. Priorities, people! Anyways, after a couple of people helped me up, and I processed what had just happened, I did what any normal person would do—I finished my text to my friend. Then, like a child who doesn’t cry until a full minute after getting an “owie”, the adrenaline wore off and I had an epic fit of hysterics. Not only could I not catch my breath, but also I was confused and literally could not stop sobbing. It wasn’t that I was emotionally upset, after all he didn’t succeed in stealing anything, but my body was having a reaction all on its own. My friend, confused by my string of texts that had clearly shifted in tone, called to help me calm down. I took a few minutes to compose myself, then I continued on towards the grocery store as if nothing weird had just happened to me.

photo-14

“A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.”

But let’s get back to chocolate, shall we? Stress can do some interesting things to your body, and over the course of the following days, I noticed that despite me feeling completely over my brush with violence, I still had a lot of trouble breathing. My rib cage felt like it was too small for my lungs, like two pit-bulls that had outgrown their kennels. It seemed as though the most innocuous irritating thing would cause my entire chest to tighten up and restrict my breathing. So annoying. I tried stretching and breathing exercises. I tried anti-inflammatory medicines and muscle relaxers (which totally work but make me too sleepy to function). Even something like dancing, which usually calms me down, was making me so anxious and out of breath. The only thing that seemed to calm me down was to focus my energy on a task that required patience and stillness. In this case, that task was making chocolate. I was planning on making a batch for an upcoming party, but I noticed that the act of melting chocolate and caramelizing sugar had a noticeably Zen effect on me. When I was finished, my breath was controlled, I was relaxed and I was completely stoked with my culinary creations. I had found Nirvana and it was made up of Guittard dark-chocolate chips (63% cocoa, natch). I know it sounds ridiculous and nonsensical, but it completely de-stresses me to the point where I have been obsessively making dark chocolate truffles for the past two weeks. At this point, most of my anxiety seems to be gradually fading away, but what has been left in its wake is a new hobby, and what better hobby than one that results in my friends getting to eat free chocolate candy (while I’ve now developed a taste for dark chocolate, I still adhere to the rule of only trying one per batch to keep my weight-loss on track. It’s all about moderation!).

photo-17

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

My roommate is a trained pastry chef, so she is enabling my recent addiction, loaning me culinary text books and baking supplies. So far, I’ve experimented with sea-salted caramel, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Kahlua and coffee, and my most exciting batch—cayenne pepper with chili powder. Yum! I’m not sharing this with you in the hopes that you too will discover the zen-like properties of making chocolate, but instead, I hope that it inspires you to find the thing that relaxes you and to embrace it. It is too easy these days to find ourselves rushing around trying to conquer life,that we don’t realize how beneficial it is to slow down and just be at peace in a single moment. Sometimes the only way to get over a stressful experience, is to slow down and allow your body to sync up with your mind. And if you can’t find that thing that gives you peace? Well, science shows that eating chocolate causes your brain to release that feel-good chemical, serotonin, and it just so happens I have a few truffles for you to try.

photo-16

“Come with me, and you’ll see a world of pure imagination.”

 

2 comments
February 13, 2013

The Cyborg’s Guide to Human Dating

I used to say I was going to write a book on relationships titled The Cyborg’s Guide to Human Dating. There, I would finally share all of my dating tips, quips and rules of the road as I learned to navigate the world of human romantic relationships. You see, for the longest time I have felt like a robot when it comes to emotions, especially ones like looooove. Almost every personality test seems to confirm this. The Enneagram tells me that my key motivation is to “possess knowledge, to understand the environment, and to have everything figured out as a way of defending the self from threats from the environment.”  See? Robot.

I got a very late start to traditional dating. You know the story–too shy and awkward in high school, too hyper religious in college, blah blah blah. Before I knew it, I was in my mid-twenties with nary a relationship under my belt. I decided to approach this aspect of my life like I approach most things–read books, ask questions, and amass as much knowledge as possible until I was ready to jump in with both feet. I found a fella, asked him to a Yankees/Red Sox game and it was a disaster. I apparently skipped all the chapters that address how to deal with douchebags who threaten to leave you alone in the Bronx during a rain delay. I waited around for guys who never wanted anything but my good friendship. I dove into the murky waters of online dating, and you all know how that turned out (scroll through this site if you aren’t up to speed). This robot was frustrated.

For years I was accused of being too picky and having unrealistic expectations about love. I was advised that I needed to try to put myself “out there more” and “kiss a few frogs.” I was instructed to give men who were all wrong for me more chances in the name of good practice for the real thing. Someone actually advised that 3:00 am last calls were great target practice, and that I’d feel a little better if I just had some good old-fashioned casual sex with strangers. I simply drove myself nuts trying to heed some of their well-intentioned advice. That casual sex advice was never entertained, but there was something to be said about making myself available to what life had to offer instead of hiding behind my sarcastic and guarded persona that had grown so comfortable over the years. I learned a lot from this process, and I have no regrets. I can safely say now that dating no longer scares the bejeezus out of me which is a wonderful thing; however, about six months ago, I decided to stop “trying.”  Do not be confused, I have not given up, but I have stopped doing all these ridiculous things like online dating and figuring out the appropriate amount of hair tossing to attract a suitable mate. Occasionally, I get a little bored and still test that hair-tossing theory as was the case recently. What can I say? I’ve been having a good hair month.

Instead of beating myself up about how terrible I am at this basic human interaction, I have started to think long and hard about what I actually believe about romance and what I really desire in a future partner. I could wax on and on about what I’ve learned from this emotional journey and the sort of man I hope to find. Maybe one day I will, but for now, I’d like to share one of my favorite quotes on the matter that sums up a lot of my feelings here:

“The first time you fall in love, it’s such a transcendental feeling, you know? It’s like eating pizza-flavored ice cream. Your brain can’t even process that level of joy. And love makes people do crazy things, like kill people, or shop at Crate & Barrel. It makes us all a little delusional. I think our whole lives, no matter how low our self-esteem gets, there’s some part of us that thinks, ‘I have a secret special skill that no one knows about, and if they knew, they’d be amazed.’ And eventually, we meet someone who’s like, ‘You have a secret special skill!’ And you’re like, ‘I know! So do you!’ And they’re like, ‘I know!’ And then you’re like, ‘We should eat pizza ice cream together.’ And that’s what love is. It’s this mountain of pizza ice cream and delusion.”

-Mike Birbiglia, Sleepwalk With Me

Though I rely heavily on logic and reason, I am someone that has always made her best decisions when she abandons all of that and goes with her gut instincts. My gut tells me that I know what I am worth, and settling for less will never make me happy. My gut tells me that I am not picky, but rather that I possess enough self-awareness to know what works for me, and that pizza flavored ice cream is worth the wait.  This is ultimately why I know I am not a robot….robots don’t have stomachs.

.

3 comments
January 29, 2013

The Whole30 Shebang

I’ve always fancied myself more of a cerebral individual. I say this not as an attempt at intellectual boasting as much as it is to say this: I’ve always thought of my body as a clunky, oversized carrying case for my brain.  I’ve spent the better part of my life treating my body and its physical needs secondary to the nourishment and attention I give my mind and my thoughts.  Secondary? That’s probably an understatement. I’d rank health and nutrition somewhere between household chores and doing my taxes—I do what I need to do to get by without any extra effort or consideration (sorry, IRS!). In this respect, I’ve reaped what I’ve sown, and as I approach 30 (!?!), I’ve reached my comeuppance. My 20’s have been a constant rotation of chronic insomnia, blood sugar mania, joint injuries, poor digestion, ER visits, pain-killers, Ambien and lots of extra pounds.  I’m hardly on my way to being 30, flirty and thriving (quick, name that movie!)

So what’s a girl to do? As I mentioned in a previous post, the start of 2013 meant resetting the way I look at nutrition, my relationship with food and the impact my diet has on the rest of my body’s operation. Thanks to the suggestion of a dear friend, I decided to not only give the Paleo lifestyle a try, but I decided to jump-start that transition with the #Whole30 challenge. For 30 days, I would strip my diet of all inflammatory foods: grains, sugar (real or otherwise), legumes, alcohol, and soy. What’s left is a steady diet of meat, seafood, fruits and veggies. I would take this time to allow my body to heal from the damage that occurs from a lifetime of eating toxic chemicals and an unspeakable amount of carbohydrates. I am nearing the end of my 30 days (with nary a cheat in sight), and the results have been nothing short of amazing. I am down twelve pounds, my skin is glowing, my sleep has improved, my blood sugar has stabilized, and more importantly, I better understand how and what kinds of food best fuel this clunky, oversized brain-carrier. Also, my cheekbones are back, so there’s that. Here are some random, interesting things I’ve learned throughout this process.

Image

  1. Betty Ford should open an institute to treat sugar addicts. The first seven days were straight up sugar rehab.I was climbing the walls craving everything from candy to donuts to my old friend Diet Coke (yep, even fake sugar got the axe). If you were unlucky enough to be around me during this first week, you witnessed manic mood swings and heightened irritability.  Also, I looked like an extra from Walking Dead.walking dead
  2. All my life, I was convinced that sweet potatoes needed brown sugar to be enjoyed. They don’t, and I was insane to think so. Sweet potatoes are my heavenly manna.
  3. If it’s not in my house, I can’t eat it.
  4. It is not really that hard to drink water while your friends sip mimosas and beer. If you get bored, you can always run down the street and order a veggie/fruit smoothie, and no one will judge you. That being said, I kinda miss whiskey.
  5. I ask myself all the time if it’s possible to eat too many apples. It probably is, but there are worse vices I could have.big mac
  6. Speaking of vices, it is safe to say that I will look back on this month as the time I truly fell in love with coffee. Removing cream and sugar has opened up my taste buds to a world full of rich, aromatic flavor. Also, coffee kept me alive and tolerable for those first seven days. Anyone who crossed my path during that week should thank his or her lucky stars for coffee.
  7. Servers at restaurants are more than happy to put up with your obnoxious ingredient questions if you smile (and tip them well).
  8. It took my deli guy close to two weeks to stop looking confused when I ordered my breakfast. “No double egg and cheese on a toasted English muffin?” Sorry, Marcos, sometimes things change.
  9. I do still know my way around the kitchen. After nearly 5 years of flexing my take-out muscles, I was actually worried this would not be true.
  10.  The coconut knows no bounds. Seriously, the Professor from Gilligan’s Island was totally on to something.Roy Hinkley

The trick behind #Whole30 (and it’s not actually a trick), is that after the 30 days, you don’t really want to go back to your old way of eating. The cravings are gone, and the pain and sickness is truly not worth that slice of pizza. I’ve turned a serious corner here, guys, and I am seriously jazzed about this new outlook on food. I have given some serious consideration as to what foods I will attempt to carefully incorporate back into my diet, and the list I’ve decided on is quite short—small amounts of dairy, most legumes, the occasional soy and of course, whiskey. I feel pretty good about my permanent exclusion list: sugar, grains, potatoes, corn, diet soda, beer, etc. I know I run the risk of becoming one of those uber-obnoxious, self-righteous health nuts, but this experience has been too good not to share. I don’t expect everyone to take such extreme measures with their eating habits, but I will be the first to join your cheer squad if you do.

Now, if only I could be this excited about doing my taxes.

2 comments
January 7, 2013

Angry Sardines in a Can

Do you remember that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine gets stuck on a crowded subway car and begins a spiral descent towards insanity as she waits wedged between a bunch of smelly strangers? I would like to tell you that scenario doesn’t actually happen in New York, but it does, and more often than I’d like to admit. You stick a bunch of New Yorkers into a tiny metal box, and all sorts of ugly behavior can erupt.

A month or so ago, I was on just such a train. Hurricane Sandy had just came through, and service had just been restored on my line. In a word, this train was crowded.

rsz_just-about-ass-to-ankles-back-here-a-classic-arrested_a16bc3_3353339

It never fails, though, that there is always one person too many who squeezes in as the door closes, and everyone collectively groans. A tiny metal can full of angry, irritable sardines. A man, small in stature, jumps in, wedging himself right behind me and a young woman of a more intimidating stature. We all sighed uncomfortably and dredged forward. Suddenly this woman turns around and accuses the man of touching her.

“Get off me mother-f***er. If you touch me one more time, I will beat your a**”

We all sighed uncomfortably again as we now realize we are on a one-way trip to Crazy-town. Let me say this:  as tightly as we were packed in there, we all were being touched inappropriately, and I can assure you that none of it was intentional. The situation drastically escalated as this woman turned around and began drilling her pointed fingers into the guy’s forehead. The energy in the car immediately shifted, but we all stood there silent as this woman became increasingly more violent. The man, who spoke English, stood there frozen allowing this violent form of public humiliation (thank heavens he wasn’t the sort of man to fight a woman). Honestly, the closest person to the action was me, and I stood there paralyzed and conflicted—I knew this woman’s behavior was wrong, but I also knew that any interference might escalate this situation towards an even larger altercation (this woman had friends with her and most definitely could take me in a fight). Sometimes when a spark of hatred erupts, the only thing you can do is to contain the flame. The woman barged out of the subway at the next stop and we all sighed in relief. The man stood silent still.

Tonight I witnessed a similar encounter. A woman wheeled her small child on to a very crowded Q train, and we all groaned—she wasn’t one person too many, but that stroller was. I’ll admit that we all thought this woman was obnoxious for about thirty seconds. As she wheeled in, the foot strap on the stroller struck the heel of an old lady. The lady turned around and snapped at the woman “get your kid off of me.” A tiny spark of hatred had formed. The young mother tried to adjust the stroller but it kept sliding back towards the old woman. She snapped again and shouted “Take that kid out of the stroller and fold it up! Get him off of me!” At this point, I turned off my Ipod to pay attention because the tension was thick as that the tiny spark of hate burned a little hotter. The old woman turned around and began to kick the stroller with all her might, kicking so hard that she was practically kicking the child. We all stood frozen and silent. The mother shouted back at the old woman in Spanish as she moved the stroller back. Stubborn and unhinged, the woman stuck pressed her foot against the stroll pushing the child and mom back as far as she could. I felt helpless in that moment as I looked down and saw the look of pure terror on that precious boy’s face. I pushed back on the crowd to give the mom space to move the stroller towards me, and my heart broke as this woman silently wept into a Kleenex. I looked down at the boy who was now hiding half his face behind his tiny fingers, and did the only thing I could think to do—I smiled and made a silly face. The boy pulled his hands away and grunted with delight, and the whole crowd around us laughed. The bubble of tension burst in an instant.  Another sigh of relief.  That mean, old bitty got off at the next stop, and we all turned compassionately toward the mom. I told her not to let that miserable old corpse get her down, that she had a wonderful child and that is all that matters.

It never ceases to baffle me, how humans can treat other humans and think it’s acceptable.  They react with pushing, shouting, insults and violence. And why? Because they were slightly inconvenienced on their commute? Has our standard of human decency fallen so low? I watch the news for ten minutes, and often I think so. Watching that woman kick the stroller and that man get attacked earlier made my stomach turn, and I felt completely helpless to stop them from happening. In both cases, it bothered me that we, as a group of respectable citizens, did nothing to put out the flame. If I can be honest, I was terrified of what would happen if I tried to step in (and I so badly wanted to step in)– would that tiny flame of hate explode into a raging wildfire? It’s quite possible, as the crazy in this town is completely unpredictable. I know that everyone else there felt the same way, so there we stood, frozen, until the fire extinguished itself. I wish I could say that in either of these scenarios I was a hero, but that is most certainly not the case. I did what I usually do in tense awkward situations, and I tried to make somebody laugh (lucky for me, toddlers are a great audience). I reacted the best I could with kindness because sometimes all we can do when faced with terrible people is…smile and make a silly face.

3 comments
January 6, 2013

Listen Sugar, We Need to Talk.

Shortly after I moved to New York, I was awoken around 4:00 am with a searing pain in my back. The pain was so strong I could hardly catch my breath. The only thing I knew was that I needed to get to the hospital (and that I did not want to take an ambulance there). I had just moved to Queens and knew nothing about the area, but I was able to hobble down to the main intersection in my pajamas and hail a cab. I asked for the nearest hospital, and he drove me away from the finer establishments in Manhattan to the now defunct St. John’s hospital in Elmhurst.  After a battery of uncomfortable tests and logistical nightmares (at one point they wheeled my bed into the waiting area because they had no space for me), they diagnosed me with kidney stones and sent me home with a delightful quantity of Percocet.  This wasn’t the first or last time I would be diagnosed with “the stones,” so I decided to seek out a doctor that could really help me sort things out.

A coworker recommended a doctor in the area who combined holistic and western medicine. Wanting to take a different approach to healthcare, I immediately made an appointment, and what I learned from this doctor was nothing short of mind-blowing. After a thorough assessment of my health, he explained to me that most of my seemingly unrelated symptoms could probably be addressed through my diet. Say what, doc!?! He went on to explain that a lot of people experience food sensitivities and/or allergies that compromise the digestive system and can result in a variety of ailments similar to an autoimmune disorder. Basically, he was saying that my kidney stones, history of knee complications, chronic insomnia, and frequent stomach pain could probably all be reversed if I took the time to clean up my eating habits. Before I could start, I needed to determine what foods could be causing my problems. This is where he prescribed me six weeks of hell: the allergy elimination diet.

This six-week eating plan required me to strip everything from my diet to which anyone could possibly be allergic. This included the following: wheat, sugar, dairy, night-shade vegetables (buh-bye potatoes!), corn, nuts, caffeine, certain types of seafood, and anything else of the processed chemical variety that I can’t pronounce. After six weeks of painful detoxification, I would then reintroduce these items every other day and journal any and all reactions that resulted. Oh, did I mention that Doc prescribed this to me at the beginning of December ensuring that my birthday, Christmas and New Year’s would be full of so much joy? Yeah, that was the icing on the cake…..that I wasn’t allowed to eat. I’ve always had an iron-will when it came to short-term challenges, so I jumped right into the misery. I was about halfway through the diet and I was dominating, but one of the most challenging feats was surviving my birthday.  Some friends took me out to a restaurant on the Lower East Side. I managed to order some carefully seasoned steak and a side of steamed vegetables, but the whole house of cards almost came crumbling down when our waiter brought us the dessert menu. To paint a clearer picture, let me tell you that this was an Australian restaurant, a place where the owner must exclusively hire good-looking servers with sexy accents. There are not words to describe just how handsome our server was, and he totally knew it. He was aware it was my birthday, but I explained to him that I was on a special diet and wouldn’t be indulging in any birthday sweets. He crouched down beside me, leaned in close and whispered to me every unspeakable ingredient in his favorite dessert, seductively, as though reading pages out of a harlequin romance book.

“Rich, decadent dark-chocolate brownie…..smothered in melted caramel sauce and hot fudge….ice-cold vanilla ice cream melting down the sides…”

My mouth watered, and my friends were silent. After a long pause, I looked at this evil man, gritted my teeth and told him “No, thank you.” It never got more difficult than that night, and after a few more days, I did eventually pass the point of sugar rehab and moved on to that phase in healthy eating where you simply feel like you can conquer the world. Once I began testing the restricted foods, it became obvious that wheat and potatoes are not my friends. Overall, though, when it was over, I felt nothing short of amazing! My energy levels were up, I was sleeping better, and I wasn’t running back to the ER with back pain. I returned to the doctor confident that I could make a couple of these dietary changes permanent. It’s been four years since that diagnosis, and I can tell you that I made none of those changes permanent. I should not, then, be surprised that I haven’t lost any weight, I still have insomnia, and my knees still barely function above the level of the Tin Man. Why is it so difficult to eat the way I should eat? To deny the immediate pleasure of toxic food when I know that I will pay for it later? I just spent ten days back in the Midwest devouring the best of my mom’s cooking and the worst of the Midwest’s dining options. By the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, I felt lethargic and ill.

I am not someone who usually makes resolutions, and I’m not usually the sort of person who makes public my issues with weight and poor health, but I think I reached a breaking point three weeks ago. I was riding my subway to work when within 30 seconds, I felt queasy, broke out into a massive sweat, and my whole body went numb. I clutched to the pole as hard as I could, and I was determined not to be “that person” who collapses on a train and holds up everyone at rush hour. I felt my knees buckling just as the train pulled up to my stop. I stumbled out the door and hunched over on the platform bench, laying there like a homeless person until my legs decided to work again. I went to the doctor, and she thought it was just a virus. It was impossible to determine my blood sugar at that moment because I had eaten by the time I went to the clinic, but my hunch is that this was a wild attack of low blood sugar. I toss back so many processed, sugar and carb-based foods on a daily basis that I’m convinced I am experiencing the peak of my comeuppance. Things must change, and they must change now.  This isn’t about looking better in my clothes. It’s about being the best version of myself and being a good steward of what has been given to me. It was with that revelation, that I stumbled across my dear friend Kristine’s post on Instagram rallying folks to participate in the Whole30 food challenge.  Click here for the specifics and I will expound in more detail later, but this is precisely the type of detox that I desperately need. Hopefully it will transition me to a permanent, healthy relationship with food. Almost a week ago, I accepted this challenge. It’s on!

To be continued.

*PS. I do plan on finishing my blog series on my Joe Jobs. Still tweaking those drafts though :)

2 comments
December 9, 2012

Life Lessons From Far Away

You know that game where you stand facing your opponent with your hands resting, palm to palm, on top of theirs, and the goal is to anticipate their move and pull back before they can smack the ever-loving daylights out of your hands? It’s a silly little game, but it can get un-silly quickly if you’re not paying attention. I played this game with one of my closest male friends in college.  It was late, we all were bored, so we roamed over to the local playground (don’t all well-adjusted 20-year-olds hang out at playgrounds after dark?). It started innocent enough, but anyone who knows me well, knows that I hate to lose no matter how the odds are stacked against me, so I kept playing this game determined to get a few hard smacks in. I don’t remember how long we played, but it was a humid Nashville summer night. An interesting thing happens to your skin in a sweaty climate—you bruise like a peach; however, it was so dark out there and I was so blindly determined that neither of us bothered to notice that my hands had started to swell and turn five shades of purple.  The light caught my hands, I realized what was happening, and we stopped, obviously, but not in time to stop the swelling. Within a half-hour my hands were almost double in size and covered entirely with black and blue splotches.  My best friend’s mom happened to be visiting us that weekend, and after the shock wore off, she gave me aspirin, shoved my hands in a pot of ice, and sternly scolded me that I should never, ever play these games with boys.

That is a prime example of the Lechner in me. Lechners are fiercely competitive. My dad taught me to only play to win, and even though he always won, I never stopped trying. This is the part where he would interject that I should be smart enough to stop before self-inflicted injury, but I guess that moronic display was just the Stephanie in me. A few other things about Lechners is that they are insanely sarcastic and often quite clever. Anyone who has been around me, my dad or my grandfather can attest to this very obvious genetic trait. But what about the parts of me passed down from my mom? Where is the Fara in me? On most days, I would tell you that I’m just like my dad, with a more liberal bent, but in honor of my mom’s upcoming birthday, I started thinking that there is so much to learn from this woman.

Life Lessons from Fara (pronounced far-a, as in “far away”):

  1. Be a generous hostess.  Growing up, my friends were always thoroughly amused when they came over. The exchange would usually go something like this:

Mom: “Hi! Are you hungry? Can I get you something to eat?

Friend: Oh, no thanks. I just ate, and I’m not really hungry.

Mom: “Oh alright.” (she exits and 5 minutes later returns with a full plate of manicotti)

You will never feel unwelcome in her care. The woman will not rest until your belly is full, your bed is made, and you feel completely at home in your surroundings.

  1. Be good to your friends…..even if they don’t always know how to return the favor.  If you are lucky enough to be friends with my mom, you have a loyal, generous friend for life. She will never forget a birthday, miss a funeral for an extended relative, and she will be there in any crisis, but beyond that, she will nurture you in ways that most people are too selfish to do, and she expects nothing in return.
  2. Be kind to animals. In my lifetime, my family has rescued 8 cats, 3 dogs, and 2 very annoying birds (not to mention the countless fish and hamsters we bought over the years). She and I once stayed up round the clock for 6 weeks bottle-feeding a litter of abandoned kittens.  She has taught me that you love your pets like you love your family because they, too, are family. Her heart bleeds for animals, and it would be easy to dismiss her as a crazy cat lady, but here’s a good example of why the rest of us just haven’t caught on to her ways yet:

We took a day trip a few years back and asked my friend Justin to watch the 6 cats and blind dog for the day. When he dropped by, he found a VERY detailed 2-page letter giving him specific instructions on how to care for each pet. At the end of the letter, she told him to place Lilly, our blind mini-dachshund at the time, on the bed facing the window and to “tell Sammy (one of the cats) to take care of Lilly when he leaves.” Crazy, right? Well to this day, Justin swears he was so curious to find out what would happen that he put Lilly on the bed facing due north, and with a puzzled expression muttered the words, “Sammy, take care of Lilly????” I kid you not, that cat came out from under the bed, jumped up next to Lilly and curled up right beside her. The woman has actual magical powers.

  1. Persevere through hard times when possible, laugh when not.  I am lucky both of my parents ascribe to this philosophy, and it makes sense I’m pursuing comedy. My mom has been sick for most of my life, and there was a stretch where the medicine she was on made her a little more clumsy than usual. Being sick for so long, it would have been easy to feel discouraged and hopeless after a couple of accidents. Instead, that year, my dad bought my mom a helmet as a gag gift for Christmas, and I can’t remember a time where we all laughed harder than in that moment. Seriously, the pictures are priceless.
  2. Love unconditionally, even if it hurts. It would take me too long to expound on this one, but needless to say, my mom has been through a lot, more than most people face in one lifetime, but she will always support and love her children. There has not been a time when my mom wasn’t my biggest fan. She will tell strangers about her daughter out in New York City, and she’ll remind me periodically how smart she thinks I am (she keeps insisting that I put on my resume that I graduated 4th in my high school class despite me telling her that is both irrelevant and inappropriate.) She told me that any dream was possible for me, and that even though she’d miss me, she knew that I’d be ok out here on my own chasing those dreams.

You see, somewhere along the line, I started to think that to be a strong woman, you needed to be able to run as fast as the boys or be the smartest one in the room (it’s worked out for me in some respects, not so much in others).  Strength, I thought, meant taking care of myself and never showing any sign of weakness, but my mom has shown me otherwise. A strong woman is one who is kind and generous in the face of adversity. She is nurturing and selfless, and will not rest until the people around her are cared for and deeply loved. She is not afraid to embrace the sad realities of life and admit that sometimes there are problems too big to face alone.  My dad is devoted to taking care of her, and lately that is more necessary as her health wanes, but this has never for one second made her weak. There are some people just naturally destined to be mothers, and Fara is one of those women.

I’ve always battled my tom-boy inclinations. I wish I could say that I never again challenged a boy to an arm wrestle, or stubbornly fought for autonomy to my own detriment, but there are moments when I have hope that I could one day be the kind of woman my mom has shown herself to be. That same summer in college, I was running around fixing up things and making dinner for all of my friends. I don’t remember doing anything special, but in the middle of the hustle and bustle, a friend stopped me and said, in earnest and out of nowhere, that I was the most feminine woman she knew. I laughed in the moment because it seemed ludicrous, but looking back, I would like to think in that brief moment she just happened to see the Fara in me.

Image

3 comments
November 12, 2012

Sinking the SS Theseus

I was chatting with a friend the other day, hashing through some of life’s most profound questions, and he mentioned to me the story of the ship of Theseus (click here for a quick breakdown if you are not already familiar with the tale). It got me thinking, and I used it as a metaphor for my current state of affairs. As a result, I wrote the following:

 

So I’m captain of this ship, you see.

Image I’ve always been captain of this ship. It’s my ship.

It’s a funny thing, running a ship, because they break down, so from time to time, when seas got rough (or even when they didn’t), parts needed repair, or more often, replaced. Slowly, but surely, I began to replace all the parts I thought to be broken, and suddenly, I realized I was captain of a ship made of completely different parts. Is it still my ship? It doesn’t look like it, but it sort of feels like my ship…most of the time.

And then this captain started to go a little insane (it happens when you try to run a complicated sea operation sans crew). My head started spinning as I began to second-guess every seemingly broken part I had ever tossed overboard. Was I perhaps overly aggressive in my self-improvements? What if that little original knob on the whatchamacallit was better than the cheap knock-off I purchased at IKEA? More importantly, what if I began to realize that I may never have been captain of this ship to begin with, and maybe in my frazzled state, I threw the real captain overboard with that rusty steering wheel and frayed rope. And most importantly, where on earth is this boat even going!?!?!

Image

Upon realizing this, you’ll never guess what I did next. I SHUT IT DOWN. Thinking about where I might have screwed up, wrestling with my current frustrations, and agonizing over futures I can’t seem to reach simply became so overwhelming that I anesthetized my brain. In lieu of growth, I started wasting brain cells thinking about what to watch next on TV next and lamenting over the fact that reduced-fat peanut butter does NOT taste as good as the real thing (I just need to get over it already!)  Now I’m starting to realize that if I don’t wake up and assess the situation, this will likely be my future.

Image

I know. I can be so melodramatic sometimes. Seriously, though, if I don’t start acknowledging where I’ve been, existing where I actually am, and letting go of where I thought I was going, my life, and more specifically, my art will continue to suffer. I have a wealth of great usable material sitting at my disposal and I do very little to mine that material for gold to share with the world. You want to know what will not inspire you to write the next ground-breaking screenplay? Curling up in bed and watching 5 consecutive hours of Pretty Little Liars. Trust me, I’ve tried it, and much to my chagrin, the pages did not write themselves.

Sigh.

So now what?

I will press on. I’ve decided to turn off the television and set sail again. Every day, I will pace my ship, and ultimately remember that I am here, right now, in this very moment, wherever “here” might be. I don’t need to know exactly where my destination is, but if I’m willing to, I might find some interesting stories to share along the way. At least one thing is certain: though it might look a little different, with its busted IKEA parts and shiny new thingamabobs it is very much still my ship.

*PS. I do realize that I took a highly complex philosophical discussion (the ship of Theseus) and dwindled it down to personal musings and cartoons, but what do you expect of a blog named after a scene from Wayne’s World.

Leave a comment
October 2, 2012

Circling Back and Touching Bases or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Job (Part III)

The Boomerang Generation

A boomerang is a funny sort of device.  Triangular in shape, typically made of wood, they are aerodynamically designed to be tossed into the air like a Frisbee, but due to the physical nature of their shape, instead of reaching a new destination, they follow an elliptical path right back towards its point of origin. It is with little enthusiasm that my generation has been dubbed the “Boomerang Generation.” Thrust out into the real world after high school, gliding confidently through college only to discover that not only will a barista job not appease the gods of Sallie Mae, but also Starbucks isn’t even hiring. Velocity waning, we turn the corner and as if pulled by the forces of nature, we glide back into the safe hands of our throwers, also known as our parents. A reluctant boomerang, I packed my life into a 10-foot moving truck, and waved goodbye to Nashville, TN in the spring of 2007, almost five years after arriving. I melodramatically cried a lot on that four-hour drive, and I sang a lot of blues.

 

Let me back up a few months. After taking a soul-crushing job as the office manager of a real-estate office, I almost immediately began searching for new, more lucrative employment. To give you an idea, my annual income was roughly 40% of my accrued undergraduate student debt, a frightening fact that still rears its ugly head. I got in contact with a headhunter who was looking for math-inclined individuals to take on the task of studying actuarial science. The oversimplified way to describe the field of actuarial science is using calculus-based statistics to help insurance companies pinpoint the rate at which their clients might kick the bucket. The only part you need to understand, was that the only thing standing in the way of me and a doubled salary was a 30-question math exam….with a passing rate of approximately 40%. I signed up for a course with a dyslexic calculus instructor. I’m not kidding, half the time he realized he was doing the problems backwards and had to start over (as if derivatives weren’t hard enough). After months of studying, I came in just 2 points shy of passing. To date, this was the hardest test I have ever taken, and the only one I have ever failed. It is worth noting that my friend at the time got a 0 on the same test leading me to believe that she might have spelled her name incorrectly and that my close proximity to passing was indeed a small victory. I received these test results right around the time that I quit the real estate gig, leaving me unemployed with virtually no job prospects. I could almost physically feel Nashville breaking up with me, and instead of seeking new adventures, I felt the nagging pull back towards Greenwood, IN.

            I refer to the year I spent back home simply as The Dark Year. It is hard to explain the feeling you get when you barely taste adulthood and then must return to your childhood bedroom. Everything was pretty much as I left it at 18. The walls were still adorned with posters of  a shirtless Jim Morrison and a barely-shirted Robert Plant. Taped on the doors of my closet was a collage I made of former Saturday Night Live cast members; chunks of it were missing at this point, but it was still fairly obvious that Mike Myers and Dana Carvey were my favorites. I had just started accumulating grown-up things like lamps and fluted cake pans, and those things were now packed away in storage. I had no goals, very few local friends, and I was living with my parents, two dogs, six cats and a cockatiel that liked to whistle along with The Andy Griffith Show. I knew only misery. I did have the joy and comfort of my mother’s Italian cooking, so I suppose it wasn’t all bad. Unclear what my next step would be, I drove around town filling out as many applications as possible.  The first interview I had turned out to be a daylong foray into marketing, but I use the term “marketing” rather loosely. They put me in a pick-up truck with 2 strangers, drove me to a Kroger grocery store, had me sell knock-off Disney toys and paid me nothing. Over lunch, they gave me a job pitch that reeked sadly of a pyramid scheme, and the saddest part is that I almost considered taking the job. Finally, I got hired as a server at the Olive Garden down the street from my house. The genuine excitement I felt getting hired to wait tables in the least authentic Italian restaurant in existence should give you some sort of indication of my desperation at the time.

            If you would have asked me prior to working at the OG (that’s what we cool cats call it), I would have predicted that this job would be my worst one yet, but much to my surprise, I have very few complaints of my time there. Sure, the hours were physically exhausting, and the wages were often abysmal, but if it were possible to make more than $50 off a lunch shift slinging soup, salad and breadsticks to old ladies, I probably would still be doing it (but wouldn’t we all?). If you have ever worked in a restaurant, than you know I’m not exaggerating when I say that the food-service industry attracts the most bizarre, eclectic group of crazy misfits, and I couldn’t be prouder to have counted myself as one of them. I don’t think I’ve ever had such fun with a group of coworkers as I had with my friends at the OG, and I count a few of them as close friends today. I lament over the time I spent at home because in all honesty, I felt like an absolute failure, but I can quite confidently say the Olive Garden experience was the bright spot of my darkest year. Hospitaliano!

            In preparation of this entry, I googled Boomerangs, and I discovered that there are actually two types: returning and non-returning. Clearly, I was fashioned into one of those “returning” devices, but I can’t say that I have any regrets. My path may not have been direct, but as I soon discovered, in turning back towards my point of origin, I unknowingly came across an opportunity that directly resulted in the achievement of a life-long goal: moving to New York City. 

Leave a comment
September 16, 2012

Circling Back and Touching Bases or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Job (Part II)

The College Years

Moving to Nashville, TN and attending Belmont University was one of those “sliding doors” moments in my life.  Up until my last year of high school, Nashville was most certainly not in my life plans (despite the rampant popularity of country music in the Midwest, I always had a passionate disdain for the genre). For as long as kids are supposed to consider which university to attend, I had planned on attending University of Southern California. I had researched their Music Industry program, and had determined that LA was where I wanted to be (at least for college–NYC was always my ultimate dream destination). Through a random discussion with a recruiter at a college fair, I had discovered Belmont’s Music Business school and subsequently arranged a visit. I fell in love with the small campus, and Nashville’s close (but not too close) proximity to my home state seemed appealing, but USC was still #1. I got into both schools and agonized over my options for months. I had housing requests and financial aid set up to both schools, biding my time until I ultimately had to make a decision. I’m typically someone that follows my gut instinct, and for reasons unexplainable, I made the leap towards Belmont.  I packed my little Saturn, moved to Tennessee and vowed never to return to Indiana beyond the occasional visit. My plan was to get in, learn as much about the industry as possible, and get the hell out of there to more metropolitan pastures.

For the most part, my jobs held during my college years were mundane. I was a hostess in a brewery.  I was an administrative assistant. I edited single-camera instructional videos about Jesus. I even worked as one of those people that go into retail stores after hours and manually count their inventory. See what I mean? B-O-R-I-N-G. The job I held the longest was under the employ of Every Nation Ministries (the organization responsible for the aforementioned Jesus videos), or as my dad would describe it, a noticeably not-Catholic charismatic cult church.  Much like every other occupation, I didn’t apply for the job out of any long-term career plans. I needed money, and if that meant working for a church organization or counting t-shirts at Express, I was content to do the work. I won’t dive into the details about my work at EN because it is a section of a larger narrative I’d love to share later. I will say this, though—I understand that somebody needs to run the business logistics of churches, but I also recognize that I am not one of those people. Unfortunately, working behind the scenes of “God’s work” left me little more than cynical, jaded and broke. Sigh. Such is life. (Side note: this should not at all reflect poorly on the 6 or 7 stellar people that I worked with directly on my team. Those folks were awesome, and my bosses were remarkable people. It was being a cog in this larger machine that left me a tad deflated. As I mentioned, much bigger story here than I have room to do justice to in this series, but I will one day. I promise. )

On the academic side, let me give you a little context on what it was like to study the music industry from 2002-2005. This was the post-napster, pre-Itunes era, and the Nashville community was terrified. They filled our seminars with browbeating lectures on the career consequences of illegally downloading music. Since, this is an industry perpetuated by the who-you-know mentality, they also spent a lot of time trying to teach us how to network. At the same time, I soon discovered that I didn’t really have a knack for picking up recording technology, and became flustered when I began to imagine life outside the walls of my school. I think there are 2 types of graduates from Belmont’s music business school: those who leave ready to enthusiastically tackle the business of music, and those that leave loathing the industry. Unfortunately for me, by the time I graduated, I was hardly listening to music at all which is the most depressing sentence to write. Learning about the business side of things completely sucked the joy out of music for me (this was not the case for most of my classmates.  It’s just me. I’m weird).

If I could emphasize one major life lesson learned during the ages of 18-23, it would be this: never make absolute statements, and if you must, whatever you do, don’t make them out loud. In addition to my life-long vow never to wait tables, as my parents dropped me off at school in 2002, I promised not only to never leave the Catholic Church (oops!), but I promised never again to be an Indiana resident. I was convinced I had bigger and better plans, and I was also certain I knew exactly how my adult life would play out. Ah, the pride and foolishness of youth. Now you all can understand why I was depressed at the age of 24, when I moved back home to Greenwood, Indiana, unemployed and started waiting tables at the Olive Garden.

Leave a comment
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.