Daily Prompt: This Week In Song

This week…

Got offered a full-time job for the summer, so honored and so excited and so surprised…

Found my first sundress of the season…

Saw the end of Silver Linings Playbook and evaluated my life…

Ate a full restaurant breakfast, waitresses and all, on my way home from the bar at 3am, and discussed Billy Joel’s potential for knighthood…

And then the sun came out in Albany and it wasn’t gray anymore…

Answers

You can’t be afraid to make the life you want yours. Self-advocacy is one of the toughest parts of growing up, but that’s no reason to not get what you want. The National Equality March posted this photo earlier this week and I can’t even begin to do justice on how inspirational this is on the policy level, to unite an entire group of people fighting for one cause. In our personal lives, we can take a few notes from what has become a full-fledged civil rights movement. You have to empower yourself to make the smallest step, even if you have to crawl an inch closer to what you want.

If you have a question that’s been nagging you, you need to ask it. There will never be a time that you’re ready. So speak up, get out there, and do at least something for the answers you need in life. This could mean changing something you know is currently an unjust, or maybe it’s simply closure. Time won’t answer those questions, and if they’re the types that replay in your head when you’re alone or hear old songs, they won’t answer themselves. If you’re afraid of damaging your pride, there are too many boring, one-dimensional people out there anyway.

Earlier this week, I woke up a little earlier than usual. Naturally, I made the choice to finish watching Silver Linings Playbook, instead of making sure I wouldn’t have to run to catch the bus downtown. At the end of the film, everything miraculously comes together for B. Coop’s character. He ends the film with this expository insight: “The world will break your heart ten ways to Sunday, that’s guaranteed, and I can’t begin to explain that, or the craziness inside myself and everybody else but guess what? Sunday is my favorite day again. I think of everything everyone did for me and I feel like a very lucky guy.” The world is going to break your heart, but the key to all of this is keeping your heart open to everyone who won’t. You have to realize that there are awful, soul-sucking people that will grab hold of you sometimes. If you keep your heart open to the people that will lift you above this, you’ll enjoy Sunday again.

Where will you be?

If you could be any place in the world right now, where would you be? That’s a fairly easy question to answer: most of us would say right here. Why—because we like to be right, and if we admitted anywhere else, then we would have done something dreadfully wrong to not get what we want. Others would say that staying put was the most practical choice, even if the town we live in can’t provide us the same adventure it did as wide-eyed 18-year-olds, or for the first time we pranced around the city’s streets six years ago. One day, I will find myself in a new place with new people, and I find that only semi-comforting. I’d really just like to handpick individual people from my past and place them on an island to eat breakfast sandwiches and talk about great things, but that would be selfish.

The question I’m trying to land on is this: Is there anyone you’ve met that you would want to share your whole life with? The harder question to answer as we grow older: If you could have your own life and tag around in someone else’s life, whom would you choose? And would you be happy there? Do you just want a similar life that parallels theirs in terms of awesome? Or if you want to be around this person, would you one day sacrifice the life you have to fit those two together? I might be the only person that thinks of the gravity of these things.

I’ve been thinking about home a lot recently. Not the conventional meaning: the house I share with my roommates or even the home I grew up in, now my parents’ house, I guess. For most of us kids in our twenties, home has become something we constructed as we moved out of dorms, graduated college, and freely chose who we would tell our stories to when we walk in the door. The longer we spend out of our homes, the more distant they become. You can never step into the same river twice, and thus our past homes become something we preserve in our memories. The concept of home becomes this transient place, and our own happiness depends on our willingness to build our happiness with those we choose to be around. But, no pressure though.

Girls

When was the last time you had the first-time jitters?

P.S. Three episodes into HBO’s Girls. Obsessed.

My first thoughts about MTK, written ages ago–Suggestions?

On May 27^th, I heaved my summer essentials into the back of my Chevy Blazer and prepared to set off alone for my two hundred mile adventure to the tip of New York State. I didn’t leave before double-checking that I hadn’t forgotten any toiletries and running back inside for my coffee maker and other various necessities. After locking the front door for the fourth time, I reconciled that anything else I had left behind could easily be replaced. Scanning the block, I paused at the church atop the vast hill that I climb with Tucker on our afternoon walks. That hill I would certainly miss, but the construction, traffic, and suburban monotony, I would not. Absentmindedly, I rolled down the hill and out of my neighborhood. Navigating to Westchester was a trip that the Blazer and I knew well.

I crossed the Throgs Neck Bridge and spent the night at my friend’s home just outside of the city. I knew Kerouac would be proud as I departed my friend’s house slightly under the weather after a night of catching up with college friends, in attempts to navigate my way out there with only the directions I had scribbled in my notebook.  He would applaud my gutsy departure with the limited resources of $100 in my bank account, probably as much as he would admire the aspiration of turning the numerous business contacts penciled into my notebook into a secure job for the next two months.

With the angle of securing a job as a waitress, somehow Lucie convinced her parents that it was imperative to head out to their summer home over Memorial Day weekend, well before her family would be out for the season.  She needed a friend there and I was dead-set on going from the moment Lucie ran the opportunity by me.  Spending the summer in this ritzy beach town sounded more than appealing to me. Chalk it up to the business owners’ rudeness when I admitted to no prior food service experience, or my bland voicemails that failed to interest employers, weeks had gone by with no success for me in the job department.

I could return to the suburbs this summer: work at the same company I had for the past five summers, spend nights cruising around, listening to music with old friends, including my ex. To him I was the one, but I wasn’t the only one. This summer, I wouldn’t sit at the baseball field in chatting until 3:00 AM, but more importantly I wouldn’t sit at home waiting hours for him to text me back, well after he had dropped off his latest 16-year-old fling. In my mind, the stresses that lay behind were overshadowed with excitement of finally reaching the coast.  After spending three hours in traffic on the Long Island Expressway, I flew down Sunrise Highway, cherishing every second along the desolate, sand-traced roadway.  Arriving at my destination, five miles short of Montauk Point, I had arrived at my paradise, ready for all the challenges that faced me.

On job interviews

Are you most interesting on paper, or in person? A few days ago, I struggled with this question when I exited a job interview. If the employer really and truly knew me, would they want the real person I am, or my one page, black-and-white history?

I fastened the final button on my peacoat and stepped out into the morning air of downtown Albany. I looked at the clock, 11:40. A forty minute interview seems like more than enough time to share who you are, but the fact is, it never ever is.

Before arriving at the interview, I thought this job would be a simple, easy resume builder and an excuse to leave my comfortable retail life. This changed when I realized I was too incompetent to use the intercom system to enter the quaint residence turned office building. A middle-aged secretary led me upstairs, and offered me water, coffee, or tea. Once they offer you coffee, you know it’s an adult job.

After several painstaking minutes of looking busy without using my iPhone, another woman greeted me and directed me down the stairs and into the conference room. Out of politeness, I chose to situate myself three seats down on the left side, despite every inclination to sit at the head of the table. Had they been watching for leadership qualities, I may have unfortunately misrepresented myself.

The chairs were all adorned with the non-profit company’s emblem. A gold, circular image that I couldn’t make out against the black matte paint. As three other interviewers filled in on the other side of the long, narrow black table of the unofficial state building across from the Capitol building, I realized the gravity of this position. All I could think was, good call on the black blazer.

I’ve never had a traumatic interview experience. In fact, most of my interviews go quite well, though I am very mild-mannered and shy around new people. Especially if I don’t know exactly what they are looking for in me. For me (and most other people in their early 20’s), selling myself professionally is difficult because I am fresh in the working scene. There’s something fundamentally artificial about the job interview process, on both sides of the table. My interviewers probably wanted to know if I’m competent, independent, can arrive on time, etc. Instead, of answering these questions, I’m subject to handling the inevitable, “What is the quality you need to improve?” question.

One of the interviewers read my cover letter and resume in front of me as another described the company and their mission to improve education and society. I uneasily crossed my right leg over my leg to ensure that no one could see my 1-inch tattoo. There are many aspects of myself that are taboo in job interviews, but have little to no effect on my talents, success, and ambition. Things you can’t include on a resume: Tattoos, exciting trips you’ve went on, your connections to other professionals and visionaries, your title as an official whiskey taste tester, or how much of an asset you are to your friends and family…. The older I get, the more easily I can write on an index card the features of strangers that I meet and admire. It’s only my oldest and longest friends that I will meet up with, spend hours and days with, and have absolutely no idea or interest in what they do professionally. This whole sell-yourself idea is what makes many people avoid the whole thing. “Why don’t you grow up?” Suddenly, I can come up with a few great reasons.

At the close of the interview, I was handed a business card to contact them in case I came up with any questions other than the minuscule one I had posed earlier. It was only then that I felt I let a bit of my true personality show. I commented on the beauty of the architecture of the building, specifically that I didn’t expect it to be as cozy. The interviewer proceeded to show me exactly how cozy the working quarters are by giving me a brief tour of the office. After some friendly banter, she walked me to the door and I felt that I made a better impression than I did during the initial Q&A.

But despite all of this interview awkwardness, I still want the job. Crossing my fingers for a call tomorrow!