Absolutely mind-blowing when I was 15.
Don’t try to read it again if you have any self-consciousness about how ridiculous you were at 15.
Books not to revisit
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Author Archives: Hope Ewing
Nathan Englander
Every book better be fully intimate, it better be all you have. I’m obviously not shy because I’m going to talk your ear off today, but I’m private, which is different. But the idea for me to be truly intimate — for me to be naked and raw — the fiction allows me to do what I need to do emotionally. And with this book, certain stories were looking at things — it was a change for me to look at things that were right there. And in a sense, this was normality — this game — and I just took a step back and said, ‘My god, we’re pathological.’
Love vs. Influence
At our first meeting this term, my workshop instructor, Heidi, told us to come back next week with a list of our “artistic DNA,” ten works of literature that we felt most informed, influenced, or inspired our own work. She had been talking about Jonathan Lethem’s “The Ecstasy of Influence” and the dreaded question of originality. I’m not particularly bothered by whether or not originality is possible; I know what I’m doing has been done, continues to be done, millions of times by people more and less eloquent than I am. I’m not here to compete with them…that’s too hard! Are you kidding? I’m just here to contribute. Nothing wrong with throwing another one on the pile.
The main issue of the assignment was the list: I was going to have to assess my own style and see how it stacks to others’. Which is also hard.
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Follow-up
Most useful things when traveling/couch surfing in France:
1. Dry shampoo
2. Old-fashioned paper map
3. Organized mealtimes
Least useful thing:
Rite Aid brand lactase enzyme pills. Didn’t do a durn thing to stop my stomach from ruining my cheese-eating life.
TransAtlantic 2012
Not to get too sentimental, but 2011 was a bang-up year for me. Having bade my final farewell to the high-end panhandling industry, I started a school program I’d been speculating on for years. Of course, this also involved going without health insurance for a stretch, massive new debt, and the relentless anxiety of doing what you really want to do (if you fail, you can’t blame apathy!). Altogether, though, a full out improvement.
And now, after a 10-year hiatus, I’m finally leaving the country again. Paradoxically, the fact that I lived in New York for a decade (therefore lacked funds and motivation for travel) helped me make a whole slew of friends who live or work in other countries. So just a hop past the new year, I’m headed to France. I’ve been boning up on my language skills:
Je ne peut pas avoir des produits laitiers.
…and stocking up on tiny bottles of shampoo. Cheeeyeck.
The biggest irony of the past two years is that, for the entirety of my 20s, I worked respectable 40-hour jobs, had no money, did no traveling, was angsty about it; while as soon as I re-entered the temp/food service/student life, I had better cash flow, produced more & better writing, am taking trips. Still hogtied with anxiety from time to time, but hey, we all need a familiar ground state to fall back on.
So… if a person was spending two days in Paris, where would y’all suggest she eat and drink?
Short Short Published!
It’s up!
So last June I sent in a 1,000 word story to the New Millennium Writings summer contest, and I guess they liked it well enough. Here is the story, Bolero, on their website. It will also be appearing in the print issue of NMW coming out in January.
So I got that going for me. Which is nice.
Love Letter to Street Fundraisers
Dear Adorable, well-meaning child with clipboard,
Ours has not been an easy relationship, and I’ll concede that the blame for that falls to me. You are spending a summer in the big city, trying to do something meaningful to shrug the burden of privilege you’ve been shamefully dragging through your gender studies curriculum. That was my major, too! So I know that this is probably the only job you could get after graduation. Our daily meetings on my route to work are fleeting, but don’t think I take you for granted.
Sweetheart, I’m sorry I told you I had “not even 5 milliseconds” for civil rights, that “I [didn’t] give a flying f**k” about “the children,” or that the rain forest could “blow me.” I’m really sorry about staring hard into your rosy face and pronouncing “NOT TODAY” as if you were the God of Death. I am sorry for the times when I gave you the “duhh” look and pointed to my oversize headphones, or for when I “answered” my mp3 player upon your smiling approach. Sorry for stopping ten feet from you to cross the street whilst scowling in your direction. Seriously, I am happy you’re committed to doing good things in the world.
I don’t question your earnestness, darling. When you tell me about how little cash it takes to feed one child in a developing nation, to get him/her to school, learn job skills and escape a life of poverty and exploitation, I don’t doubt you for a second. When you tell me about all the rain forest acreage I could reclaim with my modest donation, I believe the impossible. And when you say how acting now will make today and tomorrow better days for me and everyone else on the planet? I am sure it will, pumpkin.
The thing is: I’m never, never going to donate to you and I don’t want to lead you on. If you were taking cash, I might well throw $10 in your face to stop you from talking. But there is no way I am writing my credit card numbers down on that flimsy sheet of paper that makes you a hot, mug-able target in your size zero purple Uniqlo jeans. I am not jotting down the keys to my financial identity for you to keep in your little folder as you continue to accost pedestrians. I’m just not that kind of girl.
When I tell you I will go to the website, I will. I have. I sponsored that little girl from Sierra Leone via Paypal for what was, indeed, a fraction of my income. Please rest assured that your first-world guilt inducing tactics have worked blazingly well!
But walking time, my love, is mama’s ALONE TIME. Between uncle Ted, roommates, coworkers customers, friends and your lovely, telemarketing cousins, my time on the street is the only part of the day when I am not required to make eye contact or interact with anyone. Sometimes when I’m getting ready in my 4-person, 2-cat, 3-bedroom apartment, I’m just dreaming about the time I’ll get to spend walking down the street with no one acknowledging my existence. I realize you’re probably new in town, so I’ll give you a heads up: stop trying to talk to New Yorkers when we’re in public. Even for a good cause. It’s not that we don’t love you; it’s the only time we get to be by ourselves.
Xo,
H
30-year-old Wisdom for 20-year-olds
Dear friends and cousins born in the 90s,
Congratulations on graduating high school. As you look forward to starting college or career during the greatest economic uncertainty anyone but your great-grandparents can remember, it’s got to be a little daunting.
Some people would lump you and I into the same generation group, but we both know that there are some irreconcilable differences in our experiences. I ironically listened to the Sex Pistols in high school, you ironically listened to Journey. My parents were just starting to dabble in attentive child-rearing in their post-hippie 1980s lives; you were most tightly scheduled, supervised kid on the block. We both grew up with the Internet at home, but your devices are smaller, cooler and more adaptable.
No matter. There are still many, many things I feel qualified to tell you about, advice I wish someone would have given me when I was striking out into this crazy-changing world with no life experience to back me up. I don’t know if it will help, but in the words of Uncle Bill, I’d like to offer a few simple admonitions for young and old.
1. When moving to a new place don’t become romantically involved within the first ten days. Particularly with anyone you share a laundry room with.
2. Casual sex is exciting, and not always a terrible idea, but don’t do it with anyone too annoying to eat breakfast with. Sleeping with someone you don’t even like makes you a jerk, can get you a stalker. Which sounds glamorous but is actually no fun.
3. Get used to using condoms and don’t wait to be asked. I know the sex ed you received consisted of some nuns showing you barbie dolls with fake HPV lesions drawn on them with red sharpie chanting “bad! bad! bad!” but condoms really do work for most things.
4. Respectable drug dealers should be named after an insect or arachnid. Distrust pushers named “Brad.” Try out new substances in the comfort of your home. Stay away from opiates as a general rule. If you start craving something, stop immediately, seek assistance.
5. If you are compelled to use or drink before going to work/class, you officially have a problem. Shotgunning booze with water will not make you less drunk, will save your head in the morning. If you’re contemplating cheap tequila, you’re already over the line.
6. Go to class. It’s hard, nobody is breathing down your neck anymore, but self-discipline is one of those things you have to train for. Might as well start now before you’re sucking away your sick days having Ferris Bueller moments at 26.
7. Get a credit card but don’t use it. Purchase one pint of ice cream with it per month and pay the balance off entirely. Do this for as long as you can hold out without accruing revolving debt. Hide it somewhere you won’t remember when you’re drunk. Good credit history is more valuable than actual dollars when it’s time to apply to graduate school.
8. The best cure for drama is work. Heartbreak, turmoil, frenemies gone wild? Masturbation addiction? Get to work. Write that paper, do your reading, clock into your double shift at the Home Depot. Just keep going. You’ll make money and it’ll help you move on.
9. Do not believe people who say you can sleep when you’re dead. This is false.
10. These are not the Best Years of Your Life. No amount of money in the world could induce me to relive ages 18-25. You’re still not really sure of what you really want to do, what you actually want out of life, what you’re capable of. You look to others for examples and guidance, but nobody can really tell you because everything from media consumption to job skills is excruciatingly individual now. The only thing you can do is hold onto your friends and keep working.
Believe me, though: it’s so worth it. Nobody ever told me how much more interesting and fun it is to be an adult than to be a child. Sure, you have to worry about rent, health insurance, your carbon footprint, surviving in the decline of an empire. But once you figure out how to cover the basics there’s this amazing freedom in taking care of yourself. You need to be responsible, sure, but that includes the responsibility of making yourself pancakes for dinner or having sleepovers whenever you damn well feel like it.
Being a grownup is an excellent and wonderful thing. I know you’ll make the best of it.
xo,
Hope
Timeline for a Temp Gig*
Days 1-3
Look up new job site on Google Maps and calculate commute via public and private transport. Show up freshly showered in your best slacks 10 minutes early. Make small talk, try to learn names. Drink one cup of free coffee and avoid the candy bowl at your reception desk. You can’t believe they’re paying you to blog, read The Awl and answer the phone once an hour. What luck!
Days 3-5
Arrive at 9:00 am exactly. Pull hair back in lieu of washing. Say good morning, get second cup of free coffee. Eat two miniature snickers bars from candy bowl. Deflect telemarketers with curt, but polite precision. Enjoy growing pride in subverting their attempts to talk to the media buyers. Stop trying to learn everyone’s name and wait to be addressed directly. Post stunning new insights on the corporate world on personal blog, tweet excessively, revel in uptick in cleverness output.
Days 5-10
Push arrival time to 9:15. What are they gonna do, FIRE you? Angle bathroom hand dryer to aerate the smell of last night’s five gin & gingers from under your rumpled 3rd generation officewear. Forget the name-to-face recognition you learned the first week, start identifying coworkers by their phone extensions. Open and read every link on your Twitter feed but find no blogging inspiration. Use phone message pads to compose art haiku. Spend hours flicking through your own Facebook photos. Increase coffee intake to four cups.
Third week
Arrive begrudgingly punctual after reprimand from supervisor. Ignore looks that indicate coworkers notice you’re wearing the same clothes as yesterday. Grumble about being grossly underpaid to deal with all these assholes on the phone all the time. I mean, really, what are you, the den mother? People can’t even answer their own damn phones? Coffee intake incalculable due to chain-sipping. Someone asks you for a band-aid from the first aid kit behind your desk; backs away from vitriolic scowl. Jesus Christ. Lose patience with media blogs for not posting frequently enough.
Fourth week
Start new allegorical blog about a poor pixie caged by ogres and forced to answer phones in capitalist palace dungeon. Wear sunglasses inside, citing the AC drying out your eyes. Leave for lunch at 11:30 and return at 1:00. This is your last week, anyway. Drink all the communal milk from kitchen fridge and empty candy bowl into your gullet instead of $10 midtown lunches that have been cutting into the pittance they are paying you to shoulder this Atlas load of responsibility. Quit coffee when the shakes set in. Sigh loudly into phone receiver before delivering greeting. Engage telemarketers, become friends and scheme to fly to Tulsa or Mumbai to tie one on once this damn gig is over. Disable Facebook and Twitter accounts, think seriously about changing religions.
Final day
Show up ten minutes early, freshly pressed and blown-dry. Inform everyone in office this is your last day, put on wistful, frowny face and tell them what a wonderful experience this has been.
*Attention potential employers: This, being humor, is not a true reflection of my work ethic nor is it representative of what I may or may not be doing at your company, right this second. My references will attest that I am wonderfully friendly phone-answering dynamo. And I don’t drink milk.
What I’ll be doing during the NYC Ice Cream Crawl
I won't tolerate it!
They do add “…a note to our friends who don’t do dairy, we DO have Italian Ice locations on the crawl as well!”
Great. So I can sporadically eat some lame juicewater while you all gorge yourselves on delicious ice cream. Thanks for the methadone, you cruel, lactase-producing jerks!
Hope Ewing 