The Tipping Point

If you were to look up "affable" in the dictionary, you would find the definition of affable. But say you had some magical dictionary that had pictures of people you knew next to certain words. Say you had one of those. You might find a picture of my friend Yamanashi Dave. There was only one person in the entire prefecture that disliked Dave, and that guy wrote a thesis in the teachers' newsletter about becoming a musical lute. I wish I could make this up.

So I wasn't surprised when Dave was essentially hired as he got off the plane into customs. I picture an interview process where they keep trying to throw more money at him while he refuses. "No, kind sir. I'll work from the ground up!" Dave has helped in cultivating the right frame of mind for my unemployed self, and one point of advice really stuck out: It only takes one offer for everything to change.

That offer came yesterday.

The advertising agency that I had been interning at (read: for free) wants to see me around more. They want to give me the green papers so that I will come to the office more often. It's still on a part-time basis, so I will spend part of my time at the office and part of my time at home on weekdays. But we're getting somewhere.

What tipped their hand? I wrote a letter to clients in the voice of a child away at summer camp. It only takes one offer for everything to change.

Like Dylan Thomas, but not at all

My friend Cassidy just moved back to her hometown of Boulder. She, like me, spent a few years working in Philadelphia after graduating from Penn. Whenever we get into long conversations, we tend to reveal something about ourselves that we only thought was true of ourselves. It's refreshing and humanizing. Yes, it's a wonderful feeling to confirm that you are indeed a human person. We talked about the novel nature of our current situations.

The answers used to come simple. Up through high school, I tried to get the best grades so that I could go to a good college. In college, I tried to get good grades so I could land a job after graduation. These things happened. Around sophomore year of college, the crazy notion that I could write about music for a living entered my brain, and I pursued that goal. I did that for a job. But what happens when you don't know what you want?

I have a long list of reasons for leaving music journalism as a full-time pursuit, and I won't name those here. I'll save it for later because that's not really the point of this post. But I will reveal one very important reason: I just didn't feel the job was that important. I'm talking about the big scheme of things, the deathbed-looking-back-what-have-I-done scenario. I wanted more, so I let it go.

Now the following line has been trademarked and inserted into an upcoming screenplay by Cassidy, so don't go anywhere with it. (It actually came from a conversation she had with a friend of hers, but I'll let them settle the royalties.) I have bad unemployment days and good unemployment days, but Cassidy summed up my frustrations with one line. She called it "raging against the realization that you are just becoming an average person."

I'm not throwing a pity party. And I say this with much humility when I admit that I am proud of the choices I've made so far in my life. I went to the only college I applied to, I've written for national magazines, and I've lived abroad in a place where I didn't know the language. I like these choices. But what now?

So I live with my parents. I'm raging against getting a job just to have a job. I'm seeing more and more what's important to me, what brings me joy, who matters, and who I matter to. And I'm going to keep raging because I do see some light, however faint, at the end of some cliché filled metaphor. We all want to be big stars. But we don't know why. And we don't know how.

Excerpts from unanswered cover letters

"I fondly remember tying up the phone line with my 56k modem to defend against Zergling rushes on the River Styx."

"I also freelanced for Spin Magazine, Philadelphia Weekly, and Gawker.com, covering everything from Pandora.com’s Music Genome Project to the fashion styles of affluent pre-teens in Manhattan."

"I’ve microphoned Yo-Yo Ma’s cello and discussed politics with Henry Rollins."

"I spent much of my time strumming plastic guitars and hitting taiko drum sets."

"So when you see Shaun White breakdancing in mid-air, remember that he’s a professional. He’s called “the flying tomato.” There’s a video game with his name on it. Even if you live atop a snow-covered mountain, do not try this at home."