Truth

I started a new job yesterday. And, as you might expect, it's brought up a whole host of questions. My last job started with much potential and hope, yet it ended in a cul-de-sac. I made good friends and learned that, despite my prior desires, I do not want to spend the rest of my days as a copywriter. So that was a much-needed experience.

Back to the new gig. The people are so incredibly lovely. I can't imagine my good fortune at working with such smart and kind people, including my boss. On paper, my boss really is all you could want for a boss. I say on paper because I hardly know my line-manager at this point. Oh, sure, I know things like children's names and after-work plans. I know frequent flier numbers and credit card details. I know that we drive the same car and share the exact same birthday (odd). But that's about it. How my boss reacts to stress? Not sure yet. To my mistakes? Thankfully I have to learn that one in the coming days. To disappointment? Nada. So it's a paper trail and a handful of conversations I have to go on. So far, my boss seems to be Wonderboss.

May I break for a short disclaimer? You won't mind, I hope. I've no idea of this blog's readership. I hope to increase it...maybe. But for now, it's a purely personal space, one that is admittedly self-indulgent. I'm not aiming to meet deadlines so that I can share the latest finds from the glorious Internet; I'm just writing. And I hope now that I'm in this new job--in this new lifestyle--I'll write here more frequently. So, with that in mind, I'm keeping some things very vague. I'd be devastated to air someone else's personal struggle here.

Anyhoo, the weeks leading up to my first day, I had a few nightmares about my new job. The most common issue my sleeping mind struggled over was how cool I am. Seriously. You'd think my mind--sleeping or awake--could tackle more pressing issues, but that's what bothered me. To many, my boss is ultra "cool," and this intimidated me. I could go into detail, but I'll just say when I got access to Wonderboss' rolodex, all my suspicions were confirmed: Wonderboss is the ultimate tastemaker for some, the supreme last word on matters of music for others, and a bit of an idol for a handful. I, on the other hand, am the walking antithesis of Wonderboss.

WB--may I call my boss that?--is a grounded person. Case in point, upon my arrival at the office yesterday, I was given WB's desk...by WB. Where did WB sit? On the desk adjacent to mine because, you guessed it, I was sitting in WB's chair. WB is proud to drive an older Honda Civic. WB flies coach. WB is a hands-on parent. All of these things, WB does with a manner of humility.

I, on the other hand, am wrestling with humility. And it is Wonderboss who has unknowingly pointed that out.

You see, I am sometimes ashamed when I pull up to a valet stand in my 2002 Honda Civic. I blush when people figure out I am 33 and not married/not a parent/not even in a blasted relationship. I want to rush through the conversation when people ask me what I do for a living. Somehow, I've become embarrassed of my life. Yet I chose, and continue to make choices, to live this life. I chose to stay in LA, which led to forgoing a job writing for someone else, which led to taking an executive assistant job with Wonderboss. I asked for this. So why am I blushing and coveting Audis?

In the end, I can only answer by acknowledging I have put my faith in the backseat. Maybe something else drives you; for me, faith in God is my true north. And I can assure you that God doesn't care one bit about the car I drive or what my title is.

We're all struggling to fit in our own skin, I suppose. Some just hide it better than others.

Photo is from the album cover, "All Is Wild, All Is Silent" by the band Balmorhea.

A Loaded Question

I've been thinking about this blog a lot lately, specifically how my current schedule keeps me from it. I'd like that to change. So I'm looking into making a major adjustment in my life. Stay tuned.
Image found here.

Re-Gift Prevention

Here's a clever idea for personalizing a book. And bonus! It should aid in preventing your gift from ever seeing a garage sale or the musty inside of a thrift shop.

Idea came from where else? Martha Stewart.

My Dreams Are Built On This

Wow. This picture pretty much sums up the substance of my dreams: stories. And I'm not just talking about the dreams you enjoy while sleeping. I daydream about characters I've met in novels, writing my own stories, and piecing together the stories of everyone around me.

Want to make sure all the credit due is given for this photo. I found it on Style Me Pretty, a wonderful blog that centers on weddings and happens to be a great source of inspiration for design. The photo was taken by the talented people at Mango Studios in conjunction with the clever people at One Fine Day.

The Story That Ate All My Time

I've been working like a mad woman on a story for my grad school applications. I should get a medal for getting this far, but I'll settle for a fancy pumpkin coffee drink at Starbucks.

Here's a small blurb from the story (it's called What Might Have Been Lost):


My brother’s confession is terrifying, like being blinded by sunlight after living in the darkness of a cave for weeks and weeks. My mind struggles to make sense of this new bleached-out landscape, to decipher where the hem of the sky meets the ground, to distinguish angels from chimeras. My brother’s life was not full of affliction, as I had imagined. Instead it was saturated with remorse and the constant hum of longing. It occurs to me that I have wasted time on my hands, the result of building houses from ash. But thoughts like these are weak aftershocks today, flashing and then fading to black before their strength can be registered.

“What do we do now?” I ask. David has his arms by his side with his palms open to me. He looks like he is preparing to receive a heavy load.

“I’m not really sure. Javier certainly won’t be conceding the election, and I doubt he will condone any sort of public ransom payment. I suppose he could be persuaded to a quiet payment if the funds weren’t associated with him, but I think it might be best to exclude him from the equation all together. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I can’t pay what they want, that’s for certain. And I don’t have any allies here outside of our family. I could maybe contact the American embassy, but what can they do? They would end up working with The Lieutenant and his staff. I don’t know if I can just cut Javier out. It seems like he is who these people are really going after anyway.”

“There might be one option,” my brother says, sinking back into the couch. He is silent for a while, staring at his hands, before he continues speaking. “Ursula and I both have extensive insurance policies, which provide access to a professional negotiator in situations like this. I don’t know what can be done, but I know that negotiations have worked in the past.”

“What would that mean for Sophie?” The question comes out so softly, I’m not sure David heard me.

“Well, it would be tricky. We would have to stipulate that both Ursula and Sophie are returned alive for the ransom.”

In response to this kindness my eyes sting, and my chest shakes. I cover my face with my hands and cry. I cry for the 7-year old boy who was pushed off a bridge by his brother. I cry for the lonely 18-year kid old who left home and never looked back. I cry for the adult who is consumed with the fear of losing his wife, his identity, and his purpose forever. I cry for hope I never knew existed. David comes to the window and embraces me.

“I am sorry,” he says, and he means it.

Flash Cards Only Work When You Look At Them.

I've been studying for the GRE lately, a topic that I will discuss a bit more in a post later. Well I should say I've had good intentions to study. And you know what they say about good intentions--a highway to a very hot place is paved with those.

Anyways, I've been sorta studying vocab words and word associations and yucky ol' math. Every day I carry flash cards to work in a nice cotton bag covered in tiny flowers. The cards are divided into three stacks: words I know, words I do not know, and word roots Kaplan says I should know.

I'm packing up now to leave for the day, and I just realized that I haven't taken one look at my flash cards this week. Or my math problems. Or the word roots Kaplans says I should know.

Sigh. Maybe the GRE will give me some points for good intentions.

Short Story: The Spoon

Dear Internet -

Yes, I know. I owe you pictures from my trip to Scotland and Ireland last month as well as stories of the grand and not-so-grand adventures that have kept me too busy to write to you. For now, a peace offering in the form of a tiny story I wrote for a writing class last year.

***

The spoon belonged to a set of flatware called “True Rose”. Purchased from a JC Penny’s wedding registry, the spoon was tucked inside a velvet pouch before embarking on a life of transit between drawers, bowls and dishwashers. The stem was graceful and strong; embossed scrolls defined its edges. At the tip, a tiny rose.

To bend the handle, a bit of force had to be applied, for the spoon’s stem never intended to be shaped like a tear. Once the stem bowed and weakened at the center, the spoon could wrap itself around a finger. The spoon became more than a vessel for Cheerios and Fruit Loops.

The spoon was passed—from a girl with brown hair dyed shades of gold and honey to a boy called Tom. The shallow palm of the spoon held one tiny rock. A flame danced along the smooth curve of the spoon, and the rock began to bubble and hiss.
First came the smell of marshmallows roasting. Then, like a marshmallow left to rest over a campfire for too long, the caramel aroma burned. By the time the spoon held only liquid, the room filled with the acrid smells of ammonia and sulfur.

Oh sweet alchemy! Several drops of poison transformed despairs into moments of escape. In the darkest of night, time lost all power. A deep, soul-full horn signaled that somewhere, away from here, a train snaked through the thick Pentecostal pines toward the banks of a river.

The spoon sat on the coffee table, its warmth fogging up the glossy cherry finish. The belly of the spoon was now charred, bearing the color of grief.

Life Changes You. So Does Death.

My head is currently swimming with questions and sadness, and I don't want that to spill over this blog just yet. Instead, I am posting a story I wrote for a creative writing class that I just finished at UCLA. The assignment was to find a picture of a person we did not know and write a story about that image.
This is the photo I used:

The story I wrote is below, though the girl in my story is not the woman in the photo but someone finding her own two feet.

After Daddy died, Mama moved us three kids from Alabama to Minnesota so we could live with her Ma and Pa. We left our white house on Willow Tree Drive on a Friday morning and pulled in the driveway of Ma and Pa Regan’s on my 16th birthday, four days later.
Mama didn’t waste no time getting me and my sister in school. Sandra and I both started at Rawlings High, the same place where Mama went, just a day after getting to town. Little Tommy went to a grammar school across town.
I thought moving would be a good chance to change my name. All my life Mama and Sandra and everybody else called me Geraldine. I just hated it. So I thought I’d go by Gi-Gi instead. The name didn’t take at home, but the teachers didn’t know that.
There was a lot different about Minnesota. Sure we had winters in Alabama, but they were nothing like the miserable winters that come north. And the kids in the North ain’t at all like the kids in the South. They dressed a little better up there, and they all talked like they read dictionaries before bed every night. They hardly ever said please, and they weren’t polite about gossiping. In Mobile we’d at least wait until you were around the corner before starting in on the name-calling. My first few days at Rawlings, I caught hell because of the way I talked. Then the kids started in on me about my clothes. After that I stopped paying any mind, and I ate my lunch in the library.
It was like that for about four months, I guess, when one day a girl in my Biology class asked me if I wanted to sit with her at lunch. I thought, “My stars!” and tried not to grin like that Cheshire Cat. The girl’s name was Judith, and she had a strange way of talking too. I sorta frowned when she told me she was from Maine because that meant she was a Yankee, but I was so happy to have someone to talk to, I was willin’ to overlook that.
Judith and her friends smoked, colored their hair, and kissed boys in the janitor’s closet. Smoking wasn’t so bad once you got used to the sweet tobacco scratching at the back of your throat. And I’d always wanted to be blonde like Marilyn Monroe. Try as I may, though, I always felt like I was tagging along. Boys didn’t take a shine to me like they did to the other girls, and I only smoked at school. Mama woulda smacked the fire out of me if she caught me smoking in the house. So I wore more eyeliner than any other girl, and I kept quiet.
One afternoon, Judith talked a couple of us girls into cutting class. We went to Conrad Department Store to try on fancy hats and gloves. Usually bracelets and rings were behind a glass case, but that day there was a tray of sparkly stuff sitting out on the counter. I saw the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen—a ring with a pearl sitting right on top. I rubbed my thumb over the smooth pearl and watched how it disappeared under my palm.
I could hear Judith hoopin’ and hollerin’ over near the belts, so I went to join her. It was about that time that a man pressed his claw of a hand into my shoulder and boomed out, “Young lady, just what do you think you’re doing?”
Judith and the others stared at me wide-eyed and pale for a split-second before running off.
At the police station I had my fingers smashed in ink and my picture taken twice—one looking in the direction of a secretary typing away at a little desk and another looking right at the camera. The police didn’t really talk to me, just at me. A detective named Mr. Falls told Mama that I was probably doing it for attention—what with the move from Alabama and Daddy’s passing, but that weren’t true.
For once, I just wanted to keep a little something beautiful for myself.