Ever wonder why your the last one picked or end up stuck in a windowless office at an air-conditioning installation company with 6 employees answering one phone call per hour for $8 an hour? Of course not. Because if you did then you would be me and you are certainly not me. Because I am me and were I not I would be you; having the time of my life, getting married, developing an acting/singing career, looking gorgeous, and being first pick. That is how I know you are you and I am me. And these are the kinds of things I wonder about on a regular basis:
1. Why do I come up with ideas for operas but have no skills to create one?
2. Where will I get enough money to buy a car, a computer and rent money to be able to move?
3. How come I don't have bigger pecs?
4. Can I make money writing, and if so, who do I approach?
5. Why do I hate writing every other day?
6. Is this why I don't have a writing career?
7. Perhaps this is why I haven't graduated yet.
8. That and I hate going to class.
9. And homework.
When I think about those days on the black top, waiting at the end of the line (I'm not sure I have fully forgiven my mother for marrying a man whose last name wasn't Applebaum), picking flowers in the outfield and singing to myself, I realize that I had a dream then. It is the same dream I have now. To be jewish, rich, an ivy league alum, and to change the world with my charisma. I can safely say I live in the same world as my seven year-old self and am just picking daisies humming songs alone.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
An Open Invitation
Dear You,
What I love about you is your timeliness, you never let anything just sit and wait. You have great gumption and drive; these are qualities I admire (read, lack myself) and are the reason I am your friend. Anne Frankly, I am the center of your rather dull and uninteresting life -regaling you with stories of my adventures as the stereotypical Baby Boomlet wunderkind.
For example, I am waiting to hear back about an internship this summer in Salt Lake at a capital investment firm in their marketing dept. Should be interesting, if I get it. Otherwise I am going to travel to Europe - France, Spain, Morocco, Greece, Sweden...and Ceska Republika? Could be, but don't hold your breath, I am notorious for changing travel plans.
I don't know if you got wind of it, but after moving hundreds of miles away and having less and less contact, I have finally let Ellie go. I just hope she can pick up the pieces and move on with her with life in some kind of meaningful way. Perhaps she can find someone to mend the broken heart I've left. If she's lucky, there might even be some guy from her past who has still kept the torch burning and will wisk her away to married life in Utah. Wouldn't that be just the ticket. Here's hoping.
I on the other hand have nothing but blue skies ahead of me, what with working as a professional temp, taking online classes and living at home again at 25 (26 on the 26th this month). What more could I ask for!? Besides the community my folks have moved to has a pool, weight room and gorgeous grounds. And the wisdom and experience of the people who live here is ever-flowing. Gosh, that "greatest generation" really have the stories and opinions to convinve themselves that they are.
So, come down anytime. Please, soon. I need a distraction. I need an escape strategy!
What I love about you is your timeliness, you never let anything just sit and wait. You have great gumption and drive; these are qualities I admire (read, lack myself) and are the reason I am your friend. Anne Frankly, I am the center of your rather dull and uninteresting life -regaling you with stories of my adventures as the stereotypical Baby Boomlet wunderkind.
For example, I am waiting to hear back about an internship this summer in Salt Lake at a capital investment firm in their marketing dept. Should be interesting, if I get it. Otherwise I am going to travel to Europe - France, Spain, Morocco, Greece, Sweden...and Ceska Republika? Could be, but don't hold your breath, I am notorious for changing travel plans.
I don't know if you got wind of it, but after moving hundreds of miles away and having less and less contact, I have finally let Ellie go. I just hope she can pick up the pieces and move on with her with life in some kind of meaningful way. Perhaps she can find someone to mend the broken heart I've left. If she's lucky, there might even be some guy from her past who has still kept the torch burning and will wisk her away to married life in Utah. Wouldn't that be just the ticket. Here's hoping.
I on the other hand have nothing but blue skies ahead of me, what with working as a professional temp, taking online classes and living at home again at 25 (26 on the 26th this month). What more could I ask for!? Besides the community my folks have moved to has a pool, weight room and gorgeous grounds. And the wisdom and experience of the people who live here is ever-flowing. Gosh, that "greatest generation" really have the stories and opinions to convinve themselves that they are.
So, come down anytime. Please, soon. I need a distraction. I need an escape strategy!
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
New Parents Please
In what is probably the hardest thing for me to confess, I want to let my dear friend Kari know that I have always wanted different parents. Let me say that I love my parents. But that love has changed and developed over the years as I hope it continues to do. In my needy years I loved them unconditionally, because to be infallible meant to provide me with the necessities of life - a full lunch box, a bunk bed, and play time. As I got older, I started having my own milestones (first day of kindergarten was hers, as was my baptism at 8 for that matter).
My Eagle Scout court of honor was a big one for me and I would have given anything to have anyone else function as my parents. My mother was so eager to pin my badge on me that she rushed up, pulled me by the hand and denied me the dignity of walking up as I needed to do as a 17 year old young man. She shrieked and tears rolled down her cheeks. This was a milestone of MY life. I felt like a clown of a kid with an overbearing mother who didn’t know how to respect her sons boundaries. I wanted a different mother who would go to PTA meetings at my school; who would remember after the 7 billionth time that I don’t like tuna fish. The mother in my imagination could have looked the same and talked the same but she would do more for me, more to make my future life be easier. She would be better at personal finance, at follow through, at getting things organized. I guess I didn’t want a different mother so much as another mother whose skills would augment mine and who I could learn from in a different way.
I’ve always wanted a different father. But for better or worse, they are who I was stuck with. I am grateful for the bond that I’ve made and continue to make with them. But is it wrong that I will want to make a bond with my in-laws (whenever that’s going to happen)? Or that I want my friends Andrew and Shelby to be at my wedding as much as my mom and dad? Maybe I’m a little more heartless than most. Perhaps I am too independent. Without going so far as to say "out of sight out of mind," there is a lot to be said for "love the one’s you’re with." I think that the people in our lives are the ones who shape us and make us and it is how we interact with them that truly forms who we are. My mom is a different person then when I was five. Our relationship is different and she and I have both had to adapt and change to meet the changes we both have gone through.
Do I miss my old mom? Yes, of course; but only as much as I miss being in kindergarten again which is more about romantic reminiscences than an actual desire to relive that time. As time goes forward it takes us with it either with complicity or kicking and screaming (that’s part of five that I don’t miss). I try to assess each day and what its challenges are. I try to access the joy of each opportunity to grow and make the most of what I have right now. Tomorrow it will only be a memory.
My Eagle Scout court of honor was a big one for me and I would have given anything to have anyone else function as my parents. My mother was so eager to pin my badge on me that she rushed up, pulled me by the hand and denied me the dignity of walking up as I needed to do as a 17 year old young man. She shrieked and tears rolled down her cheeks. This was a milestone of MY life. I felt like a clown of a kid with an overbearing mother who didn’t know how to respect her sons boundaries. I wanted a different mother who would go to PTA meetings at my school; who would remember after the 7 billionth time that I don’t like tuna fish. The mother in my imagination could have looked the same and talked the same but she would do more for me, more to make my future life be easier. She would be better at personal finance, at follow through, at getting things organized. I guess I didn’t want a different mother so much as another mother whose skills would augment mine and who I could learn from in a different way.
I’ve always wanted a different father. But for better or worse, they are who I was stuck with. I am grateful for the bond that I’ve made and continue to make with them. But is it wrong that I will want to make a bond with my in-laws (whenever that’s going to happen)? Or that I want my friends Andrew and Shelby to be at my wedding as much as my mom and dad? Maybe I’m a little more heartless than most. Perhaps I am too independent. Without going so far as to say "out of sight out of mind," there is a lot to be said for "love the one’s you’re with." I think that the people in our lives are the ones who shape us and make us and it is how we interact with them that truly forms who we are. My mom is a different person then when I was five. Our relationship is different and she and I have both had to adapt and change to meet the changes we both have gone through.
Do I miss my old mom? Yes, of course; but only as much as I miss being in kindergarten again which is more about romantic reminiscences than an actual desire to relive that time. As time goes forward it takes us with it either with complicity or kicking and screaming (that’s part of five that I don’t miss). I try to assess each day and what its challenges are. I try to access the joy of each opportunity to grow and make the most of what I have right now. Tomorrow it will only be a memory.
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