awkward intern

Today is my last day of my summer internship. It was a good experience overall, something to keep me busy but that I rarely had to take home to work on overnight, something to get me published here and there without being too stressful, something to get me class credits while also being flexible enough to allow me to take off when I needed to be there for Tait at her wedding or visit my parents.

All truly great. There was just one liiiiiiittle thing.

Several different factors have combined to create the PERFECT STORM of awkwardness at this job.

First and foremost, the room is layed out super awk. There is a main part, and then I'm off in this little weird side nook blocked by a huge bookshelf. Which means I can hear but not see the two females that work in the same room. This makes me feel like I am constantly eavesdropping and also makes it very difficult to enter smoothly into conversation. Awkward.

Secondly, for about a week when I first began working, two of the people who work in my room and the Accounts Executive often discussed ads, coming up with different ways to make them dirty double entendres. I found this hilarious – however, could there be a more awkward thing to just jump in on a joke about? Especially when I'm just this random disembodied voice around the corner? And they only met me two days ago? So instead, I just awkwardly and quietly sat there, typing away.

I also don't really fit with any particular social group in the office. The people I am closest to in age (although they are all a bit older) are all longer-term, paid employees. I, on the other hand, am an unpaid intern [see: slave labor]. The rest of the unpaid interns are in high school, and when they aren't filing or being sent on assignments or making copies or whatever, they are clustered about giggling and facebooking. Yet I am still considered an intern, same as them. Being the only intern older than Justin Bieber = awkward.

Another issue: the fact that my computer tower is, for some unexplained reason, on the floor. But the cord connecting the keyboard to the tower is really short, so the tower has to be pulled really far forward - in fact, directly where my knees SHOULD go. This causes me to shift a lot, trying to find a comfortable position to look at the screen/type on the keyboard. So then I'm the awkward, fidgety intern.

Then, things get quiet a lot when everyone digs into their work, so I tend to put my headphones in and listen to music on my phone. Of course, as soon as I do, everyone else starts chatting again and I'm suddenly awkward and anti-social.

Another another issue: When I need a break from staring at the computer screen, I can either look at the white wall a foot to my left (ugly and not very interesting) or into the rest of the room to my right. Obviously I choose to stare off to the right, into the main part of the room and out the windows (which, in true city fashion, give us a fabulous view of the windows of the building right next to us). However, I fear that gazing in this direction makes Evan, the co-worker whose desk is the only one in my field of vision, think I am constantly staring at him. Awkward stalker intern.

And then there are the times another co-worker, Alex, comes in and chats with the other girls around the corner (this occurs pretty often). Randomly they will go from speaking at a normal volume to whispering almost inaudibly to each other. I'm sure they aren't talking about me though... right? RIGHT?? I swear I'm not paranoid and awkward.

In what might be the worst one, I get really thirsty at work, so I am often getting up to re-fill my water bottle. Unfortunately, this makes me also have to get up to hit the ladies' room pretty often too. I'm pretty sure my co-workers believe I have bladder issues (in addition to being obsessed with Evan). Extra awkward.

Finally, there are even some things that are awk but (surprisingly) not caused by me:

1. One of the wireless internet networks my phone picks up is called "PlunderBunny." What does that mean?! Actually, I don't want to know.
2. On days when I'm not here, another intern uses my desk/computer. Some of the things I have found in the recent Google searches include "how to remove corns on toes," "are scones bad for you," and "what size should women be." She also spends a good bit of time on Facebook it appears.
3. It is freezing in the office to the point where I wear normal clothes to commute here but pack a cardigan, jacket AND scarf in my purse. This is not okay.

So with that, farewell internship. Every awesome, yet awkward, bit of you.

sexism from feminists?

Recently a female I know wrote about leaving behind a man in order to have a successful career.

People who say that women can't be successful with a man, that they can't have a fulfilling career and a family simultaneously make me mad. But when WOMEN say it... that is simply unacceptable. I am infuriated.

Women have enough to overcome without suffering negativity like that from our own kind. They may think they are promoting feminism, but really they are just advancing sexism in a different way. That, in a word, sucks. I have always considered myself a feminist, but I cannot support this way of thinking.

Success in the career path I've put myself on, journalism, depends largely on access to the big stories (read: living in a big city) or digging deeply into interesting topics (read: spending a lot of time away from home following the story).

So that being said, would I rather be working for a big-name newspaper, covering the top stories in the world if it means coming home to an empty apartment?

Or taking a job that's considered less prestigious in order to wake up next to my best friend every morning, share dinner every night and laugh every day?

There's really no comparison.

Should I have to choose? No. Will I have to choose? Likely. As will my fiance. We will make the choice based on what works best for the BOTH of us. I will not follow him blindly – but he will not follow me blindly either. Equality is about making it work the best you can for everyone, and the best for everyone usually requires some compromise.

I am adamantly against the wage differences between males and females and nothing incenses me more than the glass ceiling, but turning the tables and making men inferior or unnecessary to our lives isn't what feminism and equalism should be about.

Sometimes a job will be worth more than a relationship, that is undeniable and I'm not arguing with that. What I'm saying is that when you find the relationship you want to pursue for the rest of your life, maybe a job and money and material success isn't worth losing that over and it has nothing to do with feminism or success or anything else – it has to do with going for the thing that makes you happy, and will continue to make you happy for years to come.

I keep seeing this Lady Gaga quote pop up on people's facebooks and elsewhere on the internet:

"Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore." — Lady Gaga

My question is, your career might not tell you it doesn't love you anymore... but will it ever tell you it loves you in the first place?

To Dad, a Poem

They say roses are red, and I've heard violets are blue,
People say I look like mom, but I think just like you.

We're two of a kind, you know, you and me
Both super awkward, until we imbibe in a drink or three!

We both like red meat, good wine and games with words
And when it comes down to it, we're both total nerds.

I have your brain and competitive streak, no lie

In fact, while playing Scrabble you once told me, "Girl, eat shit and die!"

I'm daddy's little girl and I'd have it no other way,
Thanks for being my dad, this and every other day.

Happy Father's Day, Daddio!

HOLE. E. SHEET.

I'm not sure I've ever been more excited for a movie.

The Help, and thoughts on Mississippi

It's hard to categorize a book like The Help. Part fiction, part history, part ethnography, part biography, part autobiography, part coming-of-age story... Kathryn Stockett has put all these genres into a blender, added a liberal helping of sweet tea and pressed blend.

It took a while to get the steam rolling, as with so many books, but by the time the three protagonists – nerdy white girl - slash - (fellow!) journalist Skeeter and the two black maids, hotheaded Minny and motherly Abileen – were secretly meeting to write their book, I was hooked. I finished the entire second half in one sitting.

Stockett writes about the south as only one who is intimately familiar with it can, and (even though I'm not technically from the south) so much of this book hit home with me – from the brief snippets of southern sorority life ("A Chi Omega never walks with a cigarette.") to the distinct drawl to the sometimes old-fashioned, sometimes elitist attitudes.

One thing I was particularly impressed with is that while there are clearly characters you are meant to cheer for and those you are meant to root against, no character is painted black or white (play on words unintended, but appreciated). Even the most loathsome female character, Junior League President and resident mean girl Hilly Holbrook, has redeeming qualities – at least she truly loves and appreciates her children, which is more than can be said for the generally more sympathetic Elizabeth Leefolt. All the characters have flaws as well as worthy traits. They all have secrets and shames that they share or hide.

In the same way, Mississippi of the 60's isn't necessarily portrayed in a glowing light, but nor is it the uncouth, dangerous, uneducated place it can be known as. It is fleshed out, the good and the bad. It's real.

Anyone who is remotely interested in southern culture, race relations in the U.S., the civil rights movement or good storytelling should read this book. We think we've come so far from separate bathrooms, but this book reminds us that, despite our progress, we are still much the same as we were in the 1960’s – for better or worse. In this way, The Help manages to feel both historical and somehow modern.

Beyond the universality of the larger themes, though, I think this book is especially wonderful to read as a Jacksonian or a Mississippian. New York, Boston and L.A. have their books and movies in spades. But to read Corinth, Mississippi and Ole Miss and Millsaps College in a New York Times bestseller is pretty cool.

In the back of the book, Stockett wrote a short essay explaining why she wrote The Help. In it, she puts into words the complicated relationship I think many of us have with our state (I lived there for eight years, I'm totally claiming it). The whole essay can be found on her website, but this is the excerpt I relate to the most:

The rash of negative accounts about Mississippi, in the movies, in the papers, on television, have made us natives a wary, defensive bunch. We are full of pride and shame, but mostly pride.

Still, I got out of there. I moved to New York City when I was twenty-four. I learned that the first question anyone asked anybody, in a town so transient, was “Where are you from?” And I’d say, “Mississippi.” And then I’d wait.

To people who smiled and said, “I’ve heard it’s beautiful down there,” I’d say, “My hometown is number three in the nation for gang-related murders.” To people who said, “God you must be glad to be out of that place,” I’d bristle and say, “What do you know? It’s beautiful down there.”

Once, at a roof party, a drunk man from a rich white Metro North-train type of town asked me where I was from and I told him Mississippi. He sneered and said, “I am so sorry.”

I nailed his foot down with the stiletto portion of my shoe and spent the next ten minutes quietly educating him on the where-from-abouts of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Oprah Winfrey, Jim Henson, Faith Hill, James Earl Jones, and Craig Clairborne, the food editor and critic for The New York Times. I informed him that Mississippi hosted the first lung transplant and the first heart transplant and that the basis of the United States legal system was developed at the University of Mississippi.

I was homesick and I’d been waiting for somebody like him.

I wasn’t very genteel or ladylike, and the poor guy squirmed away and looked nervous for the rest of the party. But I couldn’t help it.

Mississippi is like my mother. I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me, unless she is their mother too. 

I love this. It can't be said much better.

Although I seriously doubt the movie will top the book (no offense any of the filmmakers, I simply believe the book is better than the movie in 98% of all cases), I am really looking forward to the film version. Not only because it stars my current girlcrush Emma Stone, but also because I can't wait to see Jackson and Stockett's characters brought to life on the big screen.

I read that the filmmaker directing the upcoming movie version is a friend of Stockett's from way back and also grew up in Jackson, MS. She insisted that the movie be filmed in their home state and told Entertainment Weekly, "We dumped, like, 17 million bucks into a very poor county in Mississippi.”

I'm proud of that too. Because Mississippi is my mother too.

Summer Reading List

With all this newfound free time the summer has provided me, I have big plans to catch up on the reading I have had to forsake in the name of "school."

I was originally going to take an Arts Criticism class during the second summer term, but I got a summer internship at a regional magazine called Art New England - yay! - which I'm going to do instead. But the internet is basically as good a teacher as real professors, right?? (No.) And everyone wants to read my opinions on everything, right??? (Unlikely.) So I will be practicing my reviewin' skillz here on the blog.

Here is my summer reading list:

Just kidding, that's our whole beautiful bursting bookshelf. Here is my real list:

1. The Help, which I actually just finished yesterday. I had to read it before the movie came out and I'm so glad I did. This will probably be my first review...

2. Catch Me if You Can. I am about halfway through this. I wanted to finish it before going to see the new musical of the same name in NYC with my mom and Tait, but I wasn't able to. Still, it's already interesting what is different and what is the same among the book, movie and musical.

3. Bossypants. I read this in about two days last week. Great read, particularly because Brian and I are currently making our way through every episode of 30 Rock in order. (We're through the fourth season, now just waiting for the fifth to come out on DVD/Netflix.)

4. The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, Vol II. I read Volume I sometime last year, before grad school started and consumed my life. I started Vol. II but had to pause while we moved to Boston and a year later, I'm going to finally finish the dang thing.

5. Black Mass. This book was co-written by one of my professors from the fall semester. It is the true story of an infamous Irish mobster in Boston – the movie The Departed drew a lot of inspiration from this book (although they don't credit it). 

6. A Writer's Life. One of the books I got signed at the narrative nonfiction conference, by a journalist who has been doing it forever.

7. The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People. The other book I got signed at the conference (see my love letter to the author here), a collection of shorter pieces.

8. My Booky Wook. I started this one over Christmas, but again kept having to put it down when the spring semester started up and never finished. I promise this isn't a thing with me, I typically finish every book I read (as long as it's good of course), but this past year has been rough on the ole' book list. 

9. American Nerd: the Story of My People. Judging from the title, I might as well have written this book myself.

10. Lost in Shangri-La. This is a new release (another narrative nonfiction) that one of my professors from the spring semester wrote. It got some seriously huge buzz, top of all kinds of lists like Amazon's Best Books of the Month, etc.  

And, because I'm insane, here is my B list in case I finish all the first ones quickly:

1. The Eight. I have a few books that I can read over and over again, and this is one of them. As evidenced by the wear, it has been read many many times, by both of my parents as well as myself.

2-4. The Hunger Games trilogy. Even though I just read all of these last summer right before school started (when Mockingjay, the third book, arrived I opened it and didn't move until I finished it many hours later), I'm ready to read them again. They are a near-perfect balance of fun/easy and thought-provoking/emotional, bested in the so-called "young adult" category only by His Dark Materials and Harry Potter. 

5. The Secret History. I've been told this book is reminiscent of Millsaps (it's set at Bennington College in Vermont, a small liberal arts college). Plus, another Mississippi writer!

6. The Search for God and Guinness. This is one of those books I picked up on a whim but has sat on my shelf ever since, unread. I got it in a fit of home-away-from-homesickness shortly after I got back from my semester in Ireland. Since I've been feeling that same homesickness for a place that was only my home a short while, this seems like a great time to finally get around to reading about the genius of Arthur Guinness.

7. The Book of Lost Things. One of my favorite genres is actually fantasy/adventure, and this is supposed to be a "vivid journey through the loss of innocence into adulthood and beyond" about a 12-year-old who loves to read during WWII. Sounds right up my alley. 

 8. Catch-22. A book I've started several times since high school but failed to finish. I know it's a classic and blah blah blah but I just could never get into it. Maybe its time has come? We will see.

Not pictured: Harry Potters one through seven.

Yes, I really want to read all 4,100 pages* again before the final movie installment comes out except that SOMEONE** refused to let me bring our hardcover copies to Boston*** and I haven't yet dropped the $100+ on a new set.

And because I am ridiculous, here is the C list, comprised of books I don't own yet, but will buy if I finish both the A and B lists:

1. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Philip Pullman is one of my favorite authors, and one of the most versatile writers I know. This is his latest and I've been wanting to read it since it came out.

2. Eating Animals. Although I don't think I'll ever be able to give up meat completely, I think it's good to know more about our food and the culture around it, and this book should fit the bill nicely.

3. Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Rules for Making it Work. This is actually more of an etiquette-based book rather than a fashion manual, but it also has lots of stories from Gunn's life. Which I plan to read entirely using the accent he has when he says, "Designers! Time to go to the runway!"

4. The Warmth of Other Suns. At the nonfiction narrative conference I attended, this book was basically the poster child of the genre and the author is on staff at BU, so I probably should read it.

5. Spoiled. Young adult ain't just for kids! The women behind one of my favorite blogs, gofugyourself.com, are also the authors of this book. Fun beach read? Check.

6. The Psychopath Test. This book was featured on a re-run of The Daily Show I caught last week. It's all about the ways in which power and psychopathy (psychopathness?) intersect. It looks super interesting, but also... I just want to know if I'm a psychopath, y'all.

So! This is what y'all can look forward to learning about in the coming months as I inch my way through glorious prose. 

* Yes, I looked it up, and that is the total number of pages in the US editions. Nice round number, don't you think?
** My mother.
*** I did, however, sneak all the DVDs up to Massachusetts before she noticed.  

LL Cool House

I've been getting really into home decor lately. All I want to do is organize and decorate and fancy up our humble abode but unfortunately that costs a lot of money, so instead I obsessively look at design blogs and tear pages out of magazines and try to figure out how to make it happen one ebay purchase and can of spray paint at a time.

I'm inspired by a lot of different things, from the insanely awesome (Vogue) to the affordable (Real Simple). One thing I definitely want to work on is our art collection. We have a lot of photos, mainly personal and travel related, but I would really like some real art pieces for the walls and cool furniture to make this place personal.

One home I recently found in an old issue of In Style was that of LL Cool J. I secretly love LL Cool J because a) he freaking named himself Ladies Love Cool James and everyone acts like it is totes norm and b) he is pretty good on NCIS: LA which I don't follow necessarily but will watch four episodes in a row On Demand when the mood strikes and not even feel bad.

Also, this:

Cute family, right? But wait, is that? Am I seeing this correctly? Above the mantle?

YES.

There is no portrait in existence more mantle-worthy than this. I've taken the liberty of pointing out some of the beautiful details in this masterpiece (besides the abs, which I feel do not need to be pointed out because LOOK AT THEM). 

Clockwise from the top:

1. That hat. What is that hat?!

2. The formality and stoicism of Mrs. Cool J is something to be admired. 

3. Jesus God that's a large swath of underwear. 

4. The rosary - I assume it is fully diamond encrusted.

5. The veins in his arm. Ew. Chill on the pushups, J. 

So although we are still working on acquiring paintings (artsy friends, I'm talking to you!) and other artwork and funky doodads, I am excited about what will soon be hanging above our very own mantle:

Now THAT is what I call an engagement photo.