Goal for the day: think about who I was at twenty, and who I've become since then.Last night, I found a book called The Bad Girl's Guide to Getting What You Want in our apartment. The book was in a cardboard box that lives on our floor and positively overflows with books we're going to give away someday. I haven't looked at it in years, and figured I'd give it a nostalgic shot. Three pages in, and I was laughing out loud.
The book is a self-help manual written to help a woman find her "inner bad girl" and be unashamed about finding what she wants and getting it. It's the most nineties-est thing I've seen in a long time, full of sentences like:
"At every age, being a girl rocks. It's your ace in the hole, your backstage pass, your automatic first-class update. Being a girl is what makes you who you are. It's your power source, your secret sauce, and your *69."You can imagine Ally McBeal reading this book. You can imagine an episode of Friends centering around Rachel finding this book and trying to put its advice into practice. You can imagine Riot Grrls everywhere snorting and rolling their eyes in their Doc Martens as they turn the volume up on their Walkmen and blast their L7.
I turned to the copyright page and saw that the publication date was 2000--written in the heart of the 90s, and finally making it to bookshelves in the last year of the millennium. Which makes it the perfect jumping-off point for thinking about who I was at twenty, when I bought the book, and who I've become since then. (In convenient lists of ten items!)
When I was twenty, I...
- was a junior/senior in college.
- thought I wanted to be an actor when I grew up.
- had already danced with Jake for the first time (although we wouldn't really date for another 4 years).
- had been to Paris, London (where I lived for 2.5 months), Ireland, and Wales.
- worked at a paint-your-own-pottery store.
- had taught classes in Commedia dell'Arte, improv, and creative writing.
- watched Friends and Seinfeld every Thursday night.
- had only ever dated one guy.
- had sent my first full-length play to a festival and gotten a very kind rejection letter. (My play was seriously overwritten: Joan of Arc--speaking only lines from Henry V--coaches a woman towards fighting her abusive boyfriend with a metaphorical sword. What the hell was I thinking?)
- was not comfortable with myself--either my intellect or my body.
- have gotten my BA in theatre and my MA in theatre history & criticism.
- realized that my passion lies in writing and research.
- married Jake. :)
- have been to Italy and Greece, and make frequent trips to California and New York (both the city and western NY).
- have had a lot of jobs (from teaching preschool to bartending to running a tutoring center), and have learned from all of them.
- got a job that actually uses my two theatre degrees! And get health insurance doing it!
- have evolved with NBC's Thursday night line-up. And faithfully watch Lost every Tuesday.
- have had my share of dates and boyfriends, and am incredibly happy to have ended up where I did, with whom I did.
- have written plays for the summer camp I run, and learned how to guide other playwrights' new plays through the writing and production process.
- have become increasingly happy with myself: comfortable with my intellect and my body (I embrace "sexy librarian")
Wow, that got sappy fast. Let me close with another quote from the introduction to The Bad Girls' Guide to Getting What You Want:
"Once you light your badness fuse, you'll start to hear the muse--that sassy little voice inside your head reminding you to go for it, trust your instincts, and find the G-spot of your own life."(Really? Really?)
1 comment:
Wow. This ranks up there with the "Dating for Dummies" book I bought roughly 10 years ago as well.
Great blogging thus far, JBHEO!
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