A Little Bit of an Exercise I Like

* Write one page of memories, always beginning with the words "I remember." Write a second page of sentences that begin the same way, but are lies. Then, intersperse them.

I remember the pain of gravel on bare feet, and how it eventually lessened the longer I stood.

I remember indescribable pain in my ears after running two miles through a Connecticut winter, and how the thaw hurt almost more.

I remember when it was cool to be religious.

I remember emotional landmines. You touch them, and you die.

I remember my mother's address book, falling apart at the spine and never replaced.

I remember irrational fury at someone suggesting I should like something or someone.

I remember the security of being with adults, and the exhale of being with friends.

I remember the pressure of always appearing to be learning or appreciating something.

I remember running away, wrapping all of my essentials in a white towel and trying to attach the bundle to a stick, like I had seen done in movies. It might have been a grand success, except for the note I'd left, telling my parents where I had gone.

I remember it was a thrill having secrets for about a day or so, and then feeling as if I would die if I didn't tell someone.

I remember the joy of rediscovering something, usually an old letter or picture. The rush of memory, sweet and sudden, is rare and precious.

Feels Like A Lifetime Ago

Today, thanks to some very generous help, I set out to craft a resume to send to Italian Wine Merchants, a gorgeous wine store in Union Square. It's the sort of place where I'd feel ridiculously cool just to learn at their feet. So, I had to call to mind some experiences I hadn't though of quite some time, my restaurant jobs. I've worked in three restaurants in New York, all while in college. Even though it hasn't been more than a year and a half since working in a restaurant, it took a while to even remember which summers I worked where, and for how long. It seems like a completely different world, and, in a way, it always felt like that while I was working in restaurants, too.
Going from Barnard to the Popover Cafe, for example, while only 20 blocks down on Broadway, turned me into a person I almost didn't recognize. At college, I was confident, surrounded by people more or less like me, at similar ages and with like interests. We were all moving toward the same goal, and everyone juggled classes and was looking towards a certain type of life. Even in my job now, being out of school, I'm surrounded by men in suits all day, all of whom went to business school and live in either Murray Hill (if they're under 35) or Connecticut (if they're not).
In restaurants, at least the ones I worked in, I was never surrounded by servers like myself, students working on weekend nights to make some extra money for nights at bars and daytime shopping trips in the Village. I worked with single mothers, college dropouts, one memorable gay "freelance stylist" who claimed to have dressed Soledad O'Brien (and called me fat whenever he got the chance), and countless strange and listless other people.
I was almost always reserved, feeling more like a spectator than anything else. On the instances where I did let my guard down more than usual, I felt as if I could be, and was being, a different person - maybe a departure from my usual life. The expectations of working in that sort of environment were completely unlike the demands I made of myself at school, with literally no overlap. So strange to imagine how many hours I spent at those places, and how little of it I can place in my mind. Something tells me that, if I'm lucky enough to get this second job, I'll feel very differently learning about and selling amazing Italian wines than I did serving the equivalent of Eggs Benedict in a popover.
In other news, I have my first volunteer adventure this weekend. My volunteer orientation at 826, Dave Eggers' non-profit to encourage creative writing in children, is on Sunday, to be followed by Storytelling & Bookmaking. Awesome.

And, finally...The TV in my area at work is tuned to CNBC all day, so, of course, I watched the entire Goldman Sachs hearing yesterday. Tragically, because I leave work at 5, I missed Lloyd Blankfein. For reasons I can't quite explain, I find him absolutely hilarious. Luckily, so do the ridiculously funny people over at New York Magazine. They brought this to my attention. Enjoy.

Until tomorrow!!

PS. I absolutely love the emails and comments. Keep them coming!

Bump in the Road & A New Plan

So, today, I found out I didn't get the job at Macmillan. The job I've gone on three rounds of interviews for, done two projects, and faked several doctors' appointments to pursue. Normally, this would not be that big of a hiccup in my plan to find a publishing job, but, if you're familiar at all with the history of my job search, you'll know that this is the latest in many, many of the same result. Ultimately, this was a job for which I was completely qualified and was called back for several interviews, but no offer. I've decided, after today, that going after a job in Publishing is not working, so I am going to pursue other things.
This is tough for me, since all of my internship experience has been in that realm, but I think the universe might be trying to tell me something. In a way, while this choice is a little scary, it's also liberating. Just thinking of all the things I might want to do...Advertising, Marketing, maybe go back to College Admissions, maybe take the LSATs (yikes). Luckily, I have my admin job to keep me from living on the street, so I'm going back to Barnard Career Development and meeting with my old career counselor to try to weave something new together. Plus, I got some calls back from wine stores today, so maybe I can turn drinking wine into some sort of career...cue me envisioning myself in Reims, guzzling champagne, and working at Veuve Clicquot.
So, bye, Publishing. It was good almost knowing you (I've interviewed at every major publishing house in the city, so I consider myself a fringe expert). I guess we weren't meant to be, but now I can find some other industry that will love me back.
God, I didn't mean for that to sound so pathetic. Onward and upward!

2 Things I Made From Scratch Today

The first is a little comfort food stew I made (no recipe!), basically a riff on one of my Mom's signature dishes. I felt very competent, sauteing my onions, chopping my parsley, etc...


With luck, it should feed me at work for most of the week. Saving money is a beautiful & delicious thing.

The second is this - a little free write I did this evening. I'm experimenting with proprioceptive writing as a way to mine inspiration a little differently. We shall see...

I left work at five o'clock on a mission, a sense of purpose that felt completely foreign. I needed a zebra aloe plant. If I went to sleep with that plant on my formerly barren windowsill, things would be better in the morning.

At a job where my most pressing tasks involve making sure there is enough coffee for thirty investment bankers to drink when they saunter into work in the morning, each day is an exercise in keeping myself occupied. For the most part, after navigating the complex list of websites the company blocks, I am entertained by the New York Times. Their seemingly never-ending supply of slideshows, "multimedia wedding announcements", and stories on everything from natural disasters to the MTA discontinuing student Metrocards is a godsend in my line of work.

My favorite section is in Sunday Styles, titled Home & Garden, though I have neither. I have Apartment & Dying Daisies in a Cloudy Vase. But that's the great thing about the Times. They don't just cater to people who have townhouses and charming neighborhood gardens. They're also talking to me, the young, relatively poor, yet endlessly aspiring class of person. They know what I want, and there it was - in a new slideshow: Apartment Gardens. The Zebra Aloe was the first slide: "visually arresting" and apparently almost impossible to kill. Perfect.

Equally perfect was the fact that, although I live on a somewhat forlorn stretch of First Avenue, my closest subway stop was in completely respectable proximity to the "Upper East Side" of fancy and comprehensive florists, which the Times, in her infinite wisdom, referenced at the end of the article. And so I left at 5 precisely. After all, the florist at East 87th Street closed precisely at 6, I needed that plant, and it couldn't wait until tomorrow.


PS. By popular demand, a photo of the zebra aloe!

Inaugural Entry, or, My Quest for Fulfilment

Hello, all.

Some of you may or may not be aware that I previously dabbled in a blog over last summer, with the intent of chronicling my job search. This, for a couple of reasons, did not work out. Mostly, it had to do with the fact that I took the process, including the many rejections, far too personally, and wasn't thrilled at the prospect of sharing them. That, and, since graduating college, my stick-to-it-iveness is lacking.
Now, I find myself in a place that feels increasingly different and similar to my situation last summer. I am living in New York, no longer at home, and I have a job that pays my bills, but it's not one that satisfies me further than that. I am lucky to have my job (as a receptionist for a financial firm), but my feeling of restlessness and desire for something creatively challenging are ultimately the same as when I first attempted to blog about them.
I have decided (with some inspiration and nudging from others) to be active instead of passive, and, while my job search continues, look for other ways to apply myself and fulfill some of my whims and serious goals. Like:

• Taking my writing seriously, which would involve other people reading it.
• Learning more about wine, something I find equally delightful and intimidating. I'm looking to remedy this by finding a part-time job in a wine store. Why pay to take a class when you can learn (and drink?) on the job?
• Giving back in some way. A lot of the volunteer programs I'm currently looking at involve literacy and children, although I am very open to new ideas and suggestions.
• Cooking, in a baptism by fire sort of way. Again, why spend money on a class when I have an Alice Waters cookbook & a tiny Manhattan kitchen?
  
• Trying (in the long term, which for me means in the next 1-2 years) to get back to Europe, preferably Italy. Still attempting to figure those specifics out.
  

I'm taking a hard look at things I've always wanted to do and trying to make them happen in a regulated way, ie. keeping myself accountable for taking action and going after opportunities I want. This is where you come in.
I've always wanted to write a regular (as in, every day, we'll see how that goes) blog, but to have it focus on something specific that I could reflect on each day. Thus, this blog now exists (check one thing off the list!). Through this little outlet, I want to both keep myself on track, and share my progress and adventures with you along the way. I'm hoping to include everything from things I write to tales from the job search and everything in between, depending where the journey takes me.

Ultimately, I'm looking to take life in a new direction, and hoping to share it with you!

Thanks for reading this ridiculous rant of self-discovery (I hope I don't sound like a walking cliche), and I will be back tomorrow!

x-Francesca