What I Learned at the Wedding

While at the Wedding the other weekend, I realized a few things (other than I am not likely to get wifed up any kind of soon). Here's the breakdown:

I flirt.
A lot. Particularly with friends or relatives of friends. Usually I just do this to keep myself amused, though I've dated some and hooked up with others, so that preceding clause is basically meaningless. Every time I try to be modest, I am undermined by the truth. Fuck.

(Jewish) Parents LOVE me.
This is particularly true of, but is not limited to, Members of the Tribe. In addition to my outstanding showing at the wedding (Shabbat Dinner, the Rehearsal, the Reception), I present the following example:

Last Friday, I went out with the roommates, The Homeowner and The Phone Salesman. The latter has been dating a girl for a long ass minute, and we're friends with the older sister (my arbitrary BFF; second graph). Any case, we get an invite to meet up with the BFF, the Girlfriend and their parents at the Sego Cafe for a drink or two. We head out, I get introduced ("Oh, you're [Last Name]! I've heard so much about you!" People live to tell their parents about me. I got nothin.) and I swear on my soul I have fewer than five exchanges with the mom, totaling less than five minutes. Then the BFF is over last night with a bunch of people, and she goes, "Hey, [Brooklyn] - my mom thinks you're 'sophisticated.' And handsome." Also, I neglected to mention that she invited me to be part of the family by the third exchange.

I do not understand the specifics. Something in my Jew humor is girl tested, mother approved, my Semitic-with-a-touch-of-the-Irish looks are appealing to them and my general demeanor somehow makes them want me to date their daughters. (Male parents and relatives, I just bullshit with and talk sports. In the event they bat for the other team, I talk Broadway musicals and celebrity gossip. I am golden either way. That, I understand.)

So the trick from here out is figuring out why I do this so easily and comfortably, and then translating that to any potential lady I meet. I have my smooth moments - sometimes even on purpose! - but I usually need a kick in the ass to get there. Clearly, I need to start pretending every hot girl is her mother, and I will end up like Roosh, Roissy or vk. I'll be sure to keep you kids posted on how this pans out.

If one more person mentions the phrase "dream job," I am punching them in the face. Maybe twice.
I get it. What I do as the in-house writer here is interesting to other people. As is the story of me getting to said position, which begins with a wildly unpopular political stance the Hall President took in 2003. People have a hard-on for baseball, sports, writing and/or success stories. Word. I'm a fan of all of those things myself. However, after more than a year, I have grown to loathe the inevitable moment when they tell me (in sentence or question form) that I'm working a "dream job."

Several reasons come into play here. On the semantic level, one would have to have been "dreaming" of the job. This is inaccurate because a) the job didn't exist prior to my taking it; and b) you could have had me list 100 things I'd like to be doing one year out of school, and I wouldn't have mentioned this.

However, this leaves open the possibility of retroactive dreaming, i.e. "I've always wanted to do this, but never realized it because it wasn't on my radar." This I would like to blow up with the following:

1. I never ever would have dreamed up a job that meant spending the majority of my mid-20s working in a town with less people living in it than were housed in my high school at a given moment.
2. I find history interesting, but live for current sports. Also, I work in baseball, but spend my time online reading about the NBA. In the basketball offseason. And there is no baseball magazine that is as close to cool as SLAM.
   
3. I also wouldn't wish a "journalism" job limited by the framework of public relations upon any writer I respected. You can only write so many masturbatory puff pieces before becoming a cynic so hardened you could mince diamonds. ("Why is it important to give us money?" "What about our mission makes you feel all warm and fuzzy?" "Why is this interview different from all other interviews?")

A Sidenote
--OR--
"What My 'Dream Job(s)' Would Be"

Generic: Sports Illustrated. Anyone who's ever wanted to write sports would accept this. Just to say they did.
Realistic: National basketball magazine, preferably SLAM. My writing, which can get experimental due to my base in fiction writing and poetry, is well-suited to this. Also, I grew up the white kid in Brooklyn. I've got a feel for the hip-hop.
Idealistic: Blogging for pay, most plausibly for The Watering Hole. This would be awesome, because I do a shit-ton of it for free and on other people's dime/time. Alternatively, becoming a touring poet would be dope.
Potential: Something in straight up PR, Community Relations or teaching, the three places I'm most likely to end up because for most people, writing is not going to pay the bills, and it's hard as fuck to become a well-known sports writer. If I'm going to be anonymous, I'm doing something productive and fun. Also, I wouldn't be shocked if wound up doing something Jew-oriented. I always enjoy that when I do it, which is significantly less often than Jewish professionals I know would like me to.

--End Sidenote--

The other, big reason this ain't a "DJ," is exactly that - it's still a job. While I occasionally get to do cool shit like interview Larry King or Nolan Ryan, I have loads of crap work to do, like compiling electronic news clips because the organization is too tight to hire a clipping service. I have a pile of newspapers dating to May that I'm suppose to cut-and-paste into a "hard clips" packet. Updating press contacts and deleting bad e-mail addresses - it's a party. Woo hoo.

I have problems with my boss. I'm isolated physically (the only person at a four-person cube), though the only person I need interact with has an office within spitting distance. I'm the youngest full-time staff member by five years, and while I get along with plenty of people quite well, I've never gone out for a drink with a co-worker. I'm the only "entry-level" staffer, as well as the only person hired specifically to write, so I've got no peers to push me on any level, and no challenges from an editor who expects more because he knows better (let alone an actual editor). Basically, if I type it, it's going in. No, "Hey, you could rework this story and really improve it," or completely reedited-from-above stories come publication. I'm not learning - I'm compiling clips. Like I said earlier - the puff pieces have become paint-by-the-numbers.

Note I deglamorize for effect; it takes that kind of deconstruction to break the fallacy people have in their heads of how "awesome" this is. However, it is awesome in a lot of ways:

I like the baseball, I like history, I like baseball history. I get free tickets to Mets (playoff) games. My phone background is me holding up a jersey Tom Glavine wore while winning his 300th game. I've interviewed Ozzie Smith multiple times. I got put up for a night in the Waldorf=Astoria. The President called me "our young star reporter" during the nationally broadcast introductions to the press conference announcing Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn as Hall of Famers. I have enough time to blog entries longer than the bathroom lines at Yankee Stadium during the seventh-inning stretch. I get a ton of free (mostly useless) baseball schwag. Also, two years here will be a helluva resume chip.

And I haven't even factored in the move to Oneonta, which - though it was completely ridiculous - I wouldn't trade for anything, because I've met a ton of awesome fucking people, and my poetry has improved in ways I never expected. I went to the NPS, which wasn't anything I ever thought I'd be a part of. I performed as part of a sketch comedy show. I learned to live away from home without the crutch of college. And I've started three blogs that a few people actually seem to find interesting. So yeah, not the worst bunch of outcomes.

But I guess what chafes at me most is that "dream job" sounds so final. Like now that I'm here, I'm here. Like I wouldn't want to go anywhere else. But this is a step for me. A cool, unexpected step, but a step. Call the cliché police, but this isn't all I was meant to do. Cooperstown is not ... me. I'm too urban, too single, too motivated for this town, this job, this life. For now.

Maybe in the future, things line up such that I'm back here, and I'll acquiesce to your labels. Until then, just say it sounds cool and tell me about what you do and love and are passionate about. I want to hear about your $200 season tickets to the Bobcats or your family reunion the other weekend or the last book you read, even if it's Harry Potter and I'm not going to have a got damned clue what you're talking about. Tell me why the Shins will change my life or how I'm a troglodyte for never having explored linguistic anthropology. I know you think any and all of these things are boring or trivial or don't have enough cachet to match mine, but fuck - they're important to you, and that makes them way more interesting to me than talking about myself. Again. At length. On autopilot. While thinking up 1,000 ways to stab out my eyes.

Spar with me. Share secrets. Spin me for a loop.

Let's leave the labels at home - and live.

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