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Six or so months ago I had dinner with a close friend in the midst of a career transition. The company he’d been working for in X industry went through a round of lay-offs giving him the push he needed to pursue the next thing. The problem was that there wasn’t a next thing. A. no one was hiring, and B. even if they had …
This is a story about The BET Honors (the televised awards-show honoring the accomplishments of five, prominent African Americans) and my four, white friends who graduated from Ole Miss (four caucasian friends of mine who attended the University of Mississippi). I promise that this will start off making absolutely no sense but leave you with a warm, cushy feeling like that Kleenex commercial where the …
…or, the I’ve-got-the-first-week-back-to-work-blues… By my basic calculations, the American workforce is comprised of three types of people: people who are appropriately paid and appropriately worked – they make just what they deserve for the amount of time they put in people who are over paid and under worked – they make way too much and do way too little. And people who are under paid …
Theory: the reason no one ever keeps their New Year’s resolutions is that we’re going about making them the wrong way. Root of problem: we’re making them Evidence supporting theory: we exhibit a general lack of follow-through on all things born of our own invention. Will-power is our generation’s Goliath. Hear me out: The whole idea of a resolution – this thing we want to …
I’m not what you’d call a here and now person. I’m what you’d call a here-and-now-and-six- months-from-now-and-two-years-from-those-six-months person…who pretends to be all here-and-now. I live in the moment I’m in – the whole presence is a present deal – but I plan for the moments way far down the road, chronically. This isn’t entirely problematic. It’s good to plan. It’s good to see the forest …
One of the most annoying things about being an adult is that you have to “be an adult about it” all the freaking time. When we were kids we were “just a kid.” We could throw temper tantrums and hit other kids and lie and cheat and steal and eat random candy and fall asleep wherever we wanted and ask people inappropriate questions and cry …
Two years ago this blog was started as part creative outlet, part keep-friends-in-touch method, part (and really mostly) me appeasing Pierson who insisted I have a blog. Two years later this blog is a list of things I barely knew were options. It has been my introduction to professional writing and my segue to transitioning that writing from blogger.com to TV, film, and theater. It …
If 2009 taught me anything it’s how very not easy it is to be a this-aged person trying to live in Manhattan, successfully. National economic depression, a 9-5 that’s more like 8-8, some relationships that can’t really be described as such and the arrival of leather leggings (who can wear those?!?!). It can be difficult to find the silver-lining, glass-half-full moments in these years of, …
The second in what is now technically a series – “understanding what they preach.” Per the first installation around “integrity” – older people are always offering Hallmark card advice that’s unfortunately void of a “how to” appendix. Here we unpack those stock phrases with the help of dictionary.com and, sometimes, Jesuit priests. Today: “perspective” “What you need is a little perspective around this issue …
“I’m preparing to enter my glory days,” my friend Ben said as we were walk slash talking down Abbet Kinney in Venice Beach. He said it just like he’d said, “so we’ll go surfing for about two hours this afternoon, then run errands.” Or, “I figure I’ll buy my big boy car after business school” – definitive and matter-of-fact, but not without a clear background …