Some of my personal collection

In 1998, my eighth-grade classmates deemed me “Most Creative” in our yearbook superlatives. To a 13-year-old, this held little meaning. I had never really thought about it until this summer when I took a creative thinking class as an elective in my graduate Integrated Marketing Communication program.

While a few assignments brought me back to my sorority crafting days (which my little will tell you were not very successful), I learned a great deal about the creative side of marketing and where I might fit in within the industry.

I chose my Emerson program because I wanted to learn how to apply my writing skills to a new industry, preferably one that wasn’t as doomed as print media. A year in, I see myself writing on the creative side. As the Web continues to turn most industries on their heads, marketing communication grows stronger and stronger online, where content reigns. (The fact that one of Emerson’s most successful alumni said this in a lecture the other night makes me feel much better about my rather sizable investment in graduate school.)

But, back to that creative thinking class… Our first task – transforming a personal story into a fable, myth, legend, conspiracy theory, what have you – proved daunting and sent me into a self-doubting tizzy. It took a long weekend down the Shore to finally spark an idea, which, surprising to absolutely no one, involved the beach. I likened myself to my favorite shore finding, sea glass, and brought in my collection for show and tell.

My whole life has been about stories – hearing them, reading them, telling them. My professional career follows suit, from writing the stories of my beat for the newspaper to telling the story of beer to our visitors. I hope to spin yarns for years to come. The sea glass story, however, aptly explains this era of my personal life.

The essay in its entirety:

Mom, dad and me at my very favorite spot in college over graduation weekend. Fortunately, I no longer look like I recently devoured an entire person.

A couple summers ago, I needed a beach book for a week of staycation and was shamelessly drawn to the Tiffany blue cover of Commencement. It followed four friends through their years at Smith and the four years after they graduated. The title actually referred to the end of that second time period as each realized those first awkward four years of adulthood were the real-life education that college didn’t provide. May 13, 2011 marks that second commencement for me and I have undoubtedly very much changed since this day in 2007.

First of all, who thought that shipping high school graduates off to live in a land with no parents, no rigid schedule and easy access to alcohol was a good way to turn them into adults? The ladies in the book certainly had a much different experience than I did, but I’ll always admit feeling better prepared for the demands of real life after high school than I did after college. In my various adventures through two very different colleges in the northeast, I found the person I wanted to be and figured out how that person fit into the world. I wouldn’t have been able to do that in high school. Among many other things, I also learned how much that person could drink (too much for her own good), how long she could stay awake to write a paper (not long), and how many layers she needed to wear to make it through a five-minute walk to class through the frozen Syracuse winter without cursing (a great many).

In fact, four years ago this very night, I was sobbing into pitchers of Miller Lite at a bar that life as I knew it was over. Tonight, I weighed going out or staying in and taking care of my horrific seasonal allergies so I’d feel well enough tomorrow to work and then go out. The latter won. Who’s a loser in sweatpants with laptop out and watching Real Time with Bill Maher actually live on television? This guy.

However, nothing in that time ever really challenged my existence or created any problems beyond what your normal 19- to 22-year-old faces in her somewhat privileged, rather charmed life. I’d had a few boys not treat me very nicely; I probably broke down a few times over what then felt like crushing amounts of school work; I dealt with regular girl drama that felt like the end of the world at the time. But that was pretty much it.

I needed the years that came later to learn how to deal with the rest of it. My first job taught me to balance my time between work and the rest of my life and to assert myself to people who doubted my abilities because of my age. (There was actually quite a bit of the latter.) Having my first big-girl relationship has shown me how to have an equal partnership with a boy who is also my best friend and taught me how to learn to love someone outside my nucleus of friends and family. (Totally just alienated my only reader with that.) After graduation sent my girlfriends out from our warm little cocoon to a myriad of points along the eastern seaboard, I learned what it meant to work to keep the friendships I wanted in my life alive and well. All of these have proved to be rather important lessons and without them I’d never have made it through the doozy the universe hurled us in what would be my junior year of real life.

The loss of my dear dad opened my eyes to so much. I’ve seen the worst of humanity, the selfish, irresponsible and destructive actions that led to the split-second that robbed him of the life he cherished so much and irreversibly marred ours. But I’ve also seen the absolute best of it – the unhesitating outpouring of pure love and support from the scores of people who have graced our lives. I have learned just how cruel, crushing and unjust the world can feel and seen how instantly what feels like even the most assured fate can be snatched away. However, the converse here might be the most important lesson of all: This wonderful, fragile, fleeting life threatens to be taken so quickly that we owe it to ourselves and those that came before us to live it with the most purpose and delight as possible. My dad would expect nothing less as the legacy that we live out in his name.

The pencil-thin line that lies between these two extremes marks a choice. You can espouse the dark side and allow your sadness to swallow you whole. You can embrace the light and keep a little pocket a grief inside as a reminder of your decision to see the bright side. I don’t think I’ll ever lose that pocket, but that piece serves almost as an inner fortitude and can glow from within. I hate that I have it but I love it all at the same time because it’s a small way to keep my father with me.

In higher education terms, those years in college served as the prerequisite I needed to become the young lady that’s weathered this storm. It’s not a final exam I’d wish on anyone, but I think my dad would be proud of how we’ve handled it.

I got some pretty funny looks from people while reading this on the T. (Isn't my bedspread super cute?)

Quite a while ago, I was perusing the local interest section of the closest Barnes and Noble during a stay at home in January (something I never really do anymore, thanks Boston Public Library!) when Miracle on High Street: the Rise, Fall and Resurrection of St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, N.J. caught my eye. This sentence has probably conjured up a few questions so let me answer them: 1. Yes, I’m a nerd and I like reading books about my surroundings. 2. No, I don’t have a Kindle, nor do I want one. 3. Yeah, that title is really super long. and 4. My dad went there.

Every morning from 1969-1972, my father left his home in not-yet-overdeveloped suburban Roseland and made his way into Newark to attend school at St. Benedict’s Prep, home of the Gray Bees. Just two summers before Big Mark’s freshman year, Newark endured the riots from which some say it never really recovered. Things were bad and he said his route to school from the bus stop took him by an abandoned National Guard tank still on the streets from 1967. Eventually, the school fell on tough times and had to close just as my dad was about to enter his senior year. He finished up high school in 1973 at Delbarton, which was St. Benedict’s Benedictine monks acquired in 1925. Some 30 years after this, I would attend Villa Walsh, right down the road from Delbarton so the big guy and I chatted about his senior year in Morristown way more than any of his years in Newark.

By and large, my dad’s high school career was a mystery to me. I had heard bits and pieces of course – about the football incident that he claims nearly ripped his jaw off, about how lucky I had it because corporal punishment was no longer allowed in Catholic schools, about hitchhiking home to Roseland after school. I had repeatedly heard tales about the music teacher who had a penchant for flinging cymbals at misbehaving boys, but any questions I still had seemed doomed to go unanswered. Everyone knows their parents won’t be around forever, but I never expected to lose one of mine at 24 so I never really had a sit-down with my dad to learn all the intricacies of his life before we met.

Fortunately, Miracle on High Street filled in so many of these gaps. Thomas McCabe eloquently paints a picture of daily life at the Hive (so named for the constant buzz of activity and lent itself to calling the sports teams Gray Bees, which I never understood until reading the book) from the school’s founding to its 1972 closing to its resurrection the next year. I immensely appreciate being given a look into my dad’s life when he was a teenager and wrote to McCabe (months ago – I’m really good at neglecting this blog) to say so:

I’ve been able to understand a part of his life that I never really knew much about. He had mentioned the riots and abandoned National Guard tanks that he passed on his way to school, playing on the football team, taking a bus from Roseland to Newark every day and that my grandfather marched right up to the headmaster on his first day freshman year and encouraged him to give my dad a few good whacks if he ever got out of line.  Thanks to you, I’ve learned so much more about my dad’s high school career. I finally know how Jug came to be called that (why detention was referred to as “jug” had driven me crazy for years and I had never thought to ask him what it really meant) and have learned why Benedict’s mascot was a gray bee. Also, my brothers attended Seton Hall Prep and my dad had become super involved with SHP’s Father’s Club so it was really amusing to read about the Benedict’s/Seton Hall rivalry (which is why my dad went to Delbarton for his last year- he couldn’t stand the idea of going to the Prep).

Jug, in case you were wondering, stands for Justice Under God and if that had been the only thing I learned from the book, I’d be a happy lady. Why my dad never called it “detention” was beyond me.

Anyway, reading the book was quite special for me for many reasons, but I’d highly recommend it to anyone. It’s a fascinating story, especially when woven into Newark’s tapestry. More to come on Newark another day though. You can borrow mine, but sales of every book benefit the school so, really, buy your own.

You could always tell that there was some love lost for my dad’s first high school and you really couldn’t blame him. The last year of high school was certainly the best and its perks well deserved. (At Villa, this entailed the senior parking lot, the senior section of the cafeteria, the ability to go home if your last class was a free period, and permission to wear college sweatshirts with our uniforms once we were accepted. To 17-year-old girls, these are huge deals.) Having all of that taken away just before you’ve earned it is bad enough, but having to start all over at a brand new school makes it much, much harder. Being removed enough from my own high school experience to remember it fondly, it was comforting to know what my dad’s was like. Without Mr. McCabe’s book, I’d never have been able to.

The only thing lacking here is the beach.

I’m not sure when I developed this deep love for guacamole*, but it appears to be here to stay. Before I realized how easy it was to make, it was just an every-now-and-then treat. Thanks to my local Stop & Shop’s never-ending supply of Concord Food’s guacamole mix , chips and guac has become a staple in our humble (if mouse-infested – another story for another time) abode. My dear friends at Concord make tasty guac so simple – mash up two avocados, stir in some mix and you’ve got a snack. (*Actually, I do remember: It was in 2006 at the Playa Suites in Acapulco, where the staff thought “all-inclusive” meant that it was OK to lay out a lunch buffet of rotting bologna and mayo sandwiches and various other nasty things. The guac seemed to be my only shot of getting a meal that wouldn’t make me as violently ill as the tequila shots. Oh, spring break…)

Obviously, any fool can do that. Any fool can do the next part too, but this I believe is the secret to my success: I chop up tomatoes and onions (preferably red), mix them in and then squirt with fresh lime and add a dash of sea salt. Now usually, I stop here and rest on my laurels. But a trip to Trader Joe’s got me thinking recently. In the produce section, they sell guacamole kits – containers with two ‘cados, two tomatoes, a tiny onion, two cloves of garlic and a jalapeno, all for $3.99. Genius, right? Wrong. Everything but the avocados was about to peak so I figured it was time to start chopping. I did all the vegetables first, but the ‘cados were hard as rocks. Womp womp. Eventually we got some better ‘cados and all was right with the world – until things got even better. I gave in to a quesadilla craving a few days ago and picked up a massive stack of corn tortillas for $1.99 at the convenience store.

This, my friends, was where the magic happened.

Homemade chips? Yes, please!

Despite the fact that we have a perfectly good, unopened bag of store-bought chips, this Saturday night spent at home demanded a little something extra so we cut the tortillas into sixths and tossed them in a pan on medium-to-high heat with some oil. We had to do this in a few batches so that the chips didn’t stick. After several kitchen mishaps, I’m skittish so I watched each batch while it cooked, but they seemed to crisp up and brown rather quickly so you should probably keep an eye on things.

Almost there...

From the pan, we moved them over to a paper towel on a plate to absorb the excess oil. They were sprinkled with salt and lime juice and let me tell you they were fantastic. This picture kind of makes them look like those pita chips, but don’t be fooled because they were far superior. Most were crunchy but some took on a nice chewy texture. When warm and dipped in guac, they were just delightful. The guac was just as good with warmed up store-bought chips, but the homemade ones were straight-up out of this world. Not to toot my own horn or anything. No one ever confuses me with Martha Stewart so I was pretty proud of myself. (Basically, this has just been a really roundabout way of saying “Hey, I made my own chips and it’s really easy so you should too.” …seriously though, you should.)

In grad school, however, all of this has changed. First of all, I’m footing the tuition bill myself with the help of the federal government. For this reason, I’ve definitely put forth more academic effort. Thirdly, because I know my stuff, I feel better about talking in class so I participate. The biggest difference I’ve noticed, though, is that the textbooks these classes use may as well have been written by a robot with a list of research jargon and a thesaurus. Today, I was studying for tomorrow’s final and searching the book for some more official definitions than the ones I had scribbled in class and, man oh man, I found some serious atrocities.

Case in point: “External validity refers to the applicability of the experimental results to situations external to the actual experimental context.” So, in regular terms, I’m guessing this would mean that your experiment has to be pretty similar to results you would find in the real world outside of your experiment. What about that is so hard to say?! Please, writers of Marketing Research – International Student Version 10th Edition (shh, I got it on eBay), enlighten me.

Exhibit B: “Internal validity refers to the ability of the experiment to show relationships unambiguously.” Now the first one wasn’t terribly hard to translate, but for the life of me, I can’t really tell what this one is trying to say. Do things in the experiment need to know where they stand? Maybe right now they’re just texting each other late at night and haven’t hung out before 2 a.m. yet. Maybe one of them wants only to be friends with benefits but doesn’t know how to tell the other, who really wants to make it official on Facebook. Honestly, I still don’t even know what this one means.

Here’s a gem from the glossary, where things are supposed to be simple: “Variance – measure of dispersion based on the degree to which elements of a sample or population differ from the average element.” That’s a crime against English right there.

You should always write with your audience in mind, but did the writers of this textbook assume they were writing for the most boring, convoluted people of all time? The time I have to spend translating this non-sense into regular people language could be put to much better use doing, oh, say pretty much anything.

I know the olds love to blame the crazy texts and tweets those darned kids get up to nowadays for bringing down the way we speak, but I say this crap is just as guilty.

Good reading back in 1987

So, over the course of the past year, I’ve become far less tolerant of other people’s complaining. I also think I’ve made a concerted effort to complain less, but I’m sure there are a few people who would dispute that. And, this is nothing new, but I’ve always had a distaste for people who broadcast all of their emotions on the Interwebs. Lately, it seems as though a major case of the grumpies is making its way around Facebook and I’ve exercised a great deal of restraint in not reminding my virtual friends of the mantra of this fantastic and ridiculous children’s book still in my bookcase: “Could be worse!” It tells the outlandish tale of some kids who were abducted by a giant bird and had all these other things happen to them. As they regale their grandfather with tales of their ordeal, all he can say at every step of the way is “Could be worse!”

The truth is, it really could be worse for most of these people. Occasionally someone will post that this is “the worst day everrr” and I’ll think back to my actual worst day ever and wonder if anything in their day compares. Generally, in the year that I’ve been in the Sad Kid Club, it seems that people whose lives really do contain a true element of sadness, loss and grief don’t talk about it too much very publicly.

Whenever people take to the FB to whine about their relationship, their job or just the overall unpleasantness of the day they’ve had, I bristle a little bit on the inside. Right away part of me of will think that if they’d put themselves in my family’s position, then they’d have some real problems.   A few moments after that, I usually reflect on the fact that there are millions of people around the world that are even worse off than us.

Then there are the people who are always in a bad mood or having a bad day and always have to let you know about it. These people, I have to admit, I don’t really get. How fun can it possibly be to live in a world where it’s always cloudy and the glass is always half empty? If the glass is half empty, it’s because I drank what was in it before. Yeah, in the year since my dad was killed just about every hour of every day has been bogged down by nagging sad feelings, but for the most part, I can still get a smile on my face and find things to be thankful for. (Isn’t that what the season we’re rapidly approaching is all about?)

Now, I’m a big fan of social media and what it’s done for the world, but part of its dark side is that it’s given everyone a platform that many people abuse. For the most part, the rest of us don’t really care to read about your crummy day, your fight with your significant other or your altercation with your cat. So, in conjunction with National UnFriend Day, I’d like to make a push for National Could Be Worse Day, because, you know, everything pretty much could be worse.

In her defense, she was asked to write a letter by the victims/witnesses/sad people’s office and decided we should all write our own, which is a good idea. I do a decent amount of that here, but I largely pretend that no one reads this. With a specific intended audience, I don’t know how I’d do. It could be really cathartic and helpful and, dare I say, easy. Or, I could sit in front of a blank Word doc for hours. Woof.

For the record, I still dislike this movie.

Way back when, a friend dragged me along to see ‘Garden State.’ As a happy, well-adjusted college student in 2004, it really rubbed me the wrong way. I had never grappled with struggle or sadness and had nothing but pride for my home state. Even now, I still don’t really understand what Zach Braff’s character’s upbringing had been like.  He hosted Saturday Night and, in his monologue, called Garden State his “love letter to New Jersey,” which I still don’t understand. Had such a love letter come to me in the mail, I’d return to sender. What I found so offensive about it was that he used the state’s official nickname as the title, as if to speak for all New Jersey’s residents. Little did I know what name-usurping, stereotyping train wreck was coming next. But I digress.

For a while, Garden State became one of those “statement” movies – you know, people would casually toss it into their list of favorites to show how deep, intellectual and edgy they were. For months after its debut, people plastered quotes from it all over their (about to seriously date myself here) AIM profiles and away messages. However, one stuck out at me as being profoundly sad. A grammar school friend whose parents had divorced when we were in college used it and even though we weren’t close anymore, it made me so sad that this snippet of dialogue spoke to her so much when we had shared such happy childhoods. I never really understood the concept of it until recently, faced with the loss of a parent and the prospect of our home being up for sale.

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew Largeman : You’ll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it’s gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It’s like you feel homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s like this rite of passage, you know. You won’t ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it’s like a cycle or something. I don’t know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

For a long time, I sympathized with Natalie Portman’s character, Sam (except for the whole helmet thing). I still felt at home, even after going away to college and coming back and living full-time in our Shore house. My brothers were at school, but things were largely still the same. I saw my parents just about every weekend and usually during the week for dinner. Aside from the fact that I desperately wanted to move, life was still pretty good.

Then, one day last November, everything changed when my dad was killed by an intoxicated driver. One of the biggest central forces in shaping us both as individual people and, more importantly, as a family was gone and we were lost, cast off to bob around on a sea of grief that I don’t think any of us really understand.

I don’t think it’s actually moving out that causes the feelings Braff is discussing. I just moved out to a new city (to a darn cute apartment, if I do say so myself) and I don’t think I’d feel this way if all members of my nuclear family were present and accounted for. When something breaks that family dynamic, be it death or divorce, and the cohesive group that formed your childhood irreversibly changes, that’s when your “idea of home is gone.” Maybe Braff is right in that you don’t get it back until you start a family home of your own for your kids. It’s crossed my mind more than once that if I get married and have babies sooner rather than later, maybe happiness will return to my sad family. However, I think my mom knows more than anyone that I’m in no way ready for that. I couldn’t even get my new bedroom set up until she came to visit this past weekend.

With me in Boston, one brother in Los Angeles and the other at school in Rhode Island, we’ve never been this far flung from the Garden State and our mom. I can’t speak for everyone, but I still feel like we’re a family, no matter how far apart, and I still feel at home in both our houses, but it will always feel like something is missing.

We’re all homesick for the same imaginary place, like smug Zach Braff says. It’s not on Wellington Avenue in West Orange or on Joseph Street in North Lavallette, because those are still home. I think it exists somewhere between this life and the next, which makes getting it back depressingly, achingly impossible.

“Sex on the beach
We don’t mind sand in our Stilettos
We freak
In my Jeep
Snoop Doggy Dogg on the stereo (Oh oh)”

Whatever happened to a little mystery?!? Apparently Ms. Perry blasted it away with her whipped cream cans. She obviously isn’t interested in sipping a fruity cocktail with the same name as the aforementioned activity.

This doesn’t surprise me one bit, especially coming from someone whose breakout song was about making out with another girl for attention. (Disclaimer “I Kissed a Girl” and “Hot n Cold” both got some heavy rotation on my iPod’s gym playlists.) It made me think of the world at large and some people’s penchant for droning on ad nauseum about their sexual proclivities. I’ve regrettably been on the receiving end of several of these rants recently and my opinion of the other person never changes to “My God, So-and-so is such a stud between the sheets – I’m so impressed!” It’s usually “Wow, this person just sounds ridiculous.”

And so it is with the future Mrs. Brand. Her forthcoming song “Peacock” doesn’t even bother to hint at naughtiness, as pointed out by New York Magazine’s Vulture blog. She just bashes you over the head with the fact that she wants to see what’s in your pants in a way that absolutely can’t be misconstrued as a bird with bright plumage or NBC’s mascot.

Katy, and many, many other young women famous or not, seem to have never received Ludacris’s immortal advice when he stated in 2004 that he and Usher sought a girl he described as “a lady in the street but a freak in the bed.”

I’ve been working on being more of a lady in the street lately. I’m curtailing my cursing and whenever a friend tries to strike up a more prurient conversation, I smile politely and hold my tongue because, hey, it’s not really cool to kiss and tell – let alone anything else. It might take finishing school to make me stop chewing on my nails and audibly burping.

Hope is not lost though. Another California girl of note took offense at the notion of her stateswomen only wearing Daisy Dukes and bikini tops and gave Katy an earful via one of my favorite websites, Jezebel.

“All I ask is that you perhaps expand your definition of ferocity to include those of us who don’t think it’s cute to turn ourselves into giant cupcakes and melt the popsicles of strangers. Until you can come up with a song that celebrates California girls for being more than just hot bodies on a beach with projectile dessert breasts, I won’t be listening to your songs.”

Read more: http://jezebel.com/5573546/an-open-letter-to-katy-perry-from-jessie-spano#ixzz0wiNVryEd

Oh, Jessie Spano, you were my favorite Bayside High girl in fourth grade and have forever crafted an articulate, ladylike place in my heart.

Think this plea will work?

I’m about to begin the second day of a whirlwind wedding-themed weekend – a bridal shower yesterday way up in northwest Jersey and a bachelor dinner back at the Shore last night for two different (obviously) dear friends and yesterday’s newly-showered bride’s bachelorette party in a few hours.

Rather appropriately, my mother just handed me the Sunday Best section of today’s Asbury Park Press with a front page story titled “Bachelorette Nation: The Party Goes on for Brides-to-be.”

The author consulted the owner of Parties by Schari, a company that “will help customers set up a racy bachelorette party in a private residence or hotel room where attendees can sample ‘anything from bath and body lotions to…toys and bedroom games.” ….Toys, hmm? I don’t think they mean Barbies or boardgames. The business owner stated that “Women don’t want to go to a bar and spend money on alcohol.” Well, Schari, I’ve never been to a bachelorette party, but I’m pretty confident that you might be mistaken.

I was completely perplexed at the dish towels, serving platters and cake slicers at yesterday’s bridal shower and I’d certainly be at an utter loss when presented with a variety of “…toys and bedroom games” at one of these racy bachelorette parties, but bars and alcohol are where I shine. (Makes you proud, right, mom?) I was there for the bride’s 21st birthday when she took jello shots with whipped cream and we took our chances with Bar A’s shot wheel and today I’ll be right there with a surfer on acid and/or a pina colada at the Surf Club. We have a tank top for the bride that says “Tying the knot – buy me a shot!” and I bought a bubble gun to add to the festivities. My only mission today is not to become more intoxicated than the guest of honor (unlike her 21st – we won’t discuss how that night ended). The secret mission for today is to find the Situation and have him, ahem, perform for the bride. I hear he has some experience.