Lucrative Words

Next week when I'm officially unemployed, if I go sit by this sign -

- is that technically considered "looking for work"?

Sweet Words

I'm not a designer, nor can I think of a situation in my past, present, or near future when I would need to create Lorem Ipsum for anything.  So maybe I should be a bit ashamed to admit that I just spent five minutes generating dessert-related nonsense filler text using Cupcake Ipsum.  But I'm not.  Because Jelly lollipop ice cream cheesecake chocolate.  And Croissant candy canes caramels chocolate bar croissant cookie gummi bears. 

And also, I discovered a dessert I didn't know existed: faworki.  So it was totally worth my time.

3 Little Words

I quit, yo.

Okay, so maybe I didn't actually use any of those words except the first one in my resignation, but trust me, the sentiment got across.  People keep asking me how I feel, and to be honest, it feels the same.  I should feel terrified (because I don't have another job lined up), excited (because the future is unknown), and relieved (because I've been wanting to do this for a long time).  But so far I just feel like I'm still going to work each day and still have a steady paycheck for the next two-ish weeks.  So, normal.

Deep down, though, where all of my secret thoughts are stored--to only be released when I write, because otherwise the words just don't come--I'm ecstatic.  A part of my heart that's been dead for five years, or at the very least in hibernation, is stirring.  It's about to come alive (or wake up...I really should have stuck to one metaphor) and it is terrifying and exciting and relieving. 

For the next few days, when I think about what I've accomplished, well, I don't even have to think.  I quit, yo.  These three little words are huge.

Apologetic Words

I'm sorry to everyone I've ever offended by making fun of their terrible grammar or spelling.  Why?  Read this.

Did you read it?  Are you done laughing?  Okay, well, although I agree that the letter is hilarious, the outcome of the note--in case you missed it, that would be toilets installed on India's trains--is monumental...at least to people with tiny bladders.  Anyone?  Anyone else out there?  I can't be the only one.

So again, I'm sorry.  Apparently you can get your point across without a good grasp of how to use words.

Note: This doesn't mean I'm going to stop making fun of people's terrible grammar or spelling.  Only when they're writing about toilets.

Words Have No Meaning

I've been reluctant to write about the Occupy Wall Street Movement (in fear that the one person who accidentally found my blog somehow might discover this post and never come back again).  At first I thought I didn't fully understand it.  Then I received a random email from someone asking me to occupy Times Square, and it still didn't make any sense.  So this weekend, after walking past the group in Zuccotti Park, I said to my boyfriend--who already knows I'm clueless--"This is a dumb question, but what exactly do they want?"

Apparently, it's not clear to anyone.  While the movement's words get thrown around a lot, these people aren't specifically asking for anything.  The closest I could find on the website is that it "aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future."

So it's about exposure.  Well, mission accomplished.  What now?  To me, it seems like the equivalent of standing up in front of the class and shouting, "Ew!  Billy just picked his nose and ate it!"  People are looking.  You have our attention.  So now what do you want us to do?

Maybe I'm ignorant.  Probably I'm ignorant.  But as much as I love words, I realize they're always going to be inanimate if there's no meaning behind them--you know, unless you use cool special effects.  So I guess I'm just waiting to find out what that meaning is.  Or see a really cool laser light show.  Now that's something I would support.

Words of Wisdom

Put on your coat; you're going to catch cold.

--said the fruit stand guy to me, after he finished asking about all of the grocery stores in a two block radius, which included Gristedes, Food Emporium, and the new arrival, Fairway.  It was his first day on the job so he wanted to check out the competition.

I've been briefly enamored by various fruit stand guys in the past (most memorable is the one who asked me where I'd been after I returned from a short absence due to a trip to Ohio), so this is nothing new.  But for some reason it always makes me inordinately happy when everyday, regular people are randomly nice to me.  It's probably because I have a hard time getting outside my own head and whatever random indignity is being replayed inside as proof that the world hates me for long enough to be randomly nice to everyday, regular people until they speak to me first.  One day I'd like to be the fruit stand guy to someone else.  It seems simple enough, but I know--at least for me--the words don't come so easily.

3-Letter Words

Poor Ben.  He's getting really desperate.

Reading Words: Half Empty

Half Empty
David Rakoff, 2010

Continuing on my nonfiction kick (which I have never, ever been on before, by the way), I started reading this book with the kind of glee only a true pessimist could appreciate.  "Hahaha," I thought to myself--or maybe I said it out loud--"This is going to be good."  And it was.  Rakoff's sardonic attitude toward his life's trials (some silly and some grave, regardless of your attitude) is extremely comforting to people like me, and people with a perpetually rosy outlook on life probably couldn't help finding some of it at least slightly amusing as well.

Unfortunately, I couldn't finish the book because I noticed on Saturday that it was overdue at the library and you can't renew overdue books.  I could have kept it till Monday, but then I would owe 50 cents vs. the 25 I owed already, and I had just paid off my last library debt.  It wasn't the money, you understand, but really just the principle of the thing, so I skimmed the second half and dejectedly parted with the book.

So I'll leave you with my favorite quote from the pages I can still read on Amazon: "Pessimists are born, true, but they can also be made."  Delightful.

It's a Word! It's a Plane! It's...

...strange skywriting!



Watching these words sloooooowly appear yesterday (by the time one was finished, the previous one had almost completely faded away), I was thinking how I could very easily turn them into a metaphor for the writer's career.  You do something that catches people's attention, so they stick around to see what will happen next.  After a while, though, they have a decision to make.  Does your audience remain loyal to you or shrug and decide the payoff can't possibly be worth the agonizing time wasted waiting for something more?  The lucky (and hopefully, in most cases, talented) planes keep their viewers captive regardless of how long they have to wait, and that's because they know that what's coming after will be worth it.  But what about when the words are brand new, in a patch of sky people don't usually look at?  Who stays to see the end?

Anyway, I won't use that metaphor because it's a little too obvious for my taste, but I will say that these words took a very long time to appear and I gave up before the entire message materialized.  Twice.

Right Words, Right Time

People say everything happens for a reason.  I think that's true, but most of the time, that reason is simply that a human being did something to make it happen.

Last year, it was my dream to get a creative writing MFA.  I couldn't think of anything better than spending two years with nothing else to focus on but writing, and I couldn't think of any other practical way to do that than by getting an MFA.  For whatever reason (it probably had something to do with the fact that I only applied to four top schools and had absolutely nothing to show for my so-called destiny to become a writer...but who can say for sure?), I didn't get in.  I was secretly devastated, even though I'd told everyone I'd never expected to get in.

Fast forward to now.  I am a New York Times-published writer.  Would it have happened if I had gotten into an MFA program?  Probably not, or at least not at this point.  But do I think fate had anything to do with this?  Nope.  I did it all on my own.  And honestly, it feels a lot better that way. 

(And even if fate did help out a little, no way am I sharing my glory with that lazy bastard.  You hear that, fate?  You can't just ignore me for 27 years and then swoop in and expect to share the by-line.)

Last Words

Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement address at Stanford has been passed around all day today as if it contained his last dying words, and rightly so.  It's compelling stuff.  The quote that almost had me in tears at my desk was:

I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

My emotional fragility aside, it's an easy concept to read or hear and respond to with, "Yeah!  I'm going to do that!  I'm going to quit my job if it's not making me happy and devote myself to what I love!  Immediately!" But Jobs might as well have said, "あなたが好きであることをしてください" (which is allegedly "do what you love" in Japanese...but don't go getting it tattooed onto yourself or anything, because it could actually mean, "do me in the lovely bathroom").  To me, that speech was in a foreign language.  For those of us who have been raised in a "do what you have to do" world, the entire concept of doing what you love simply because you love it is extremely difficult to comprehend.  It doesn't even seem like a real option, let alone something an actual human being could do without detrimental consequences.  That's how little it registers with my life experience up until this point.  

I hate my MacBook with a passion and wish it would finish literally falling apart so I could get rid of it.  But Jobs knew what he was talking about in that speech, I think.  And I think it's time I start learning to speak the language.

Perplexing Words

I had so many questions after seeing this sign:

1. Why was this guy asleep in his car?
2. Why was this guy so deeply asleep in his car that he couldn't hear/feel someone taking something from the vehicle?
3. Out of the important things he mentions he wants back (journal, magic stones, sacred items), which is the one worth $100?
4. What is the LAW OF THREE?  (I've since figured it out.  I think.)
5. Is that the proper use of "whomever"?  (No.)

Reading Words: Committed

Committed
Elizabeth Gilbert, 2010

I read the book that came before this one, Eat, Pray, Love.  I thought there was something horribly wrong with me when I wasn't terribly enamored with either the writing (it was good, but it didn't blow me away) or the story (I just couldn't get past the idea that the author was being paid to write about these soul-discovering experiences, and that had to somehow make them less authentic, right?  Or else I was just jealous that she got to travel around the world in the name of research...).

So I'm happy to report that this book I enjoyed immensely.  In fact, I think this informal study on the institution of marriage (based on the author's extensive research on the subject) should be required reading for anyone contemplating marriage--or for anyone who doesn't even want to think about getting married.  (I have been both of these people at various times in my life.)  It's refreshing to read musings about marriage from someone who isn't completely blinded by white dresses and flower girls, and yet at the same time does manage to cheerlead a little bit for the practice, despite her best efforts.

One of the most interesting things, to me, is the book's subtitle.  In the version I read, the original hardback, the cover proclaims, "A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage."  Yet the paperback cover has erased that message and instead tells us the book is, simply, "A Love Story."  I guess the initial subtitle wasn't uplifting enough for all those girls who couldn't possibly understand how someone could be skeptical about getting that ring and living happily ever after.  Personally, I like the original better.