What life looks like after graduation. (I don’t know who painted this.)

So you’re an English major. Welcome. It has been almost ten years since I graduated college and I prepared some advice, as well as responses to common questions. No other major has been so scrutinized, so deemed USELESS by the gainfully employed. Useless. What an awful word for a fantastic study.

If you’re reading this, it’s probably too late to change it. But you wouldn’t want to.

My “useless” degree in English taught me to examine the fabric of life. Everything is present in books. Everything. A writer observes and records. A writer makes his characters suffer so we know what it will be like when we get there.

I learned about love, death, desire, war, sex, passion, food, junk, poverty, disease, diplomacy, philosophy, social issues, activism, etc. I still don’t get commas though.

In short, an English degree is the universal degree. You just need to learn how to market it, how to make it work for you.

Let’s start with advice from one of my favorite writers: Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.~ Murakami.

The big question:

What can you do with an English major?

That’s Elsinore. As an English Major, you know where this is from. Not many do.

That’s easy. Anything. Just get skills. By skills, I don’t mean writing erotic fiction or building beeryamids. Both are great, but they won’t help you land a job.

Some ideas:

Learn Word inside and out. That includes working with columns.

Get a few books on grammar and styleguides. Read them. Your MLA stylebook is useless in the so-called “real world.”

Take a class or five in InDesign, HTML, or whatever the kids are learning these days. Save the powder-blue typewriter for another day. 

Start a blog. Don’t call it musings. No one will read it.

WRITE everyday, if you intend to crawl down this path. 

Don’t send in clips of your creative writing. Work on getting something published, somewhere. 

Complete an internship. Even if it’s unpaid (gulp).

At 32, and an established copywriter/travel writer/journalist/poutine taster, I still don’t REALLY know what I want to do with the rest of “my one wild and precious life.*” It’s a big question.

I like not knowing. The minute I am sure of something, it shifts. I don’t want to settle into one of those uncomfortable office chairs, working 60-hour weeks until I become a Creative Director. I don’t want to know, I want to learn.

And I am, by all means, a “grown-up.” I have houseplants. I pay taxes. I can’t remember the last time I took a dime from my parents. I have a bank account and there’s food in the fridge.

You’re not going to teach! 

Prepare for a look of grave concern when you inform your friend that no, you’re not going to teach. You’re going to be a WRITER.

“How are you going to afford to eat?”

First of all, if there were a link between homelessness and English majors, those cardboard signs would have better spelling.

Sometimes the employable will tell you a story that’s supposed to make you feel better, but really makes you want to put your head in the oven, Sylvia Plath style.

“My sister was an English major. She figured out she could make more money mopping up the vomit under the Gravitron at the carnival. She graduated from Princeton ten years ago. Where do you go?”

 You may also be lectured by a know-it-all.

Why didn’t you major in something useful, like math?

Exceptionally witty and snarky responses only an English-major could write:

1. Math involves allows one right answer. English majors draw multiple interpretations from one line of text. Then they turn those interpretations into a 20-page analysis. What about me being an English major leads you to believe I would be good at math?
2. Why didn’t you major in math?

What are you going to do with the rest of your life, now that it’s ruined since you declared yourself an English major?

1. The rest of my life is a long time to decide what to do with it. Mind your bizniz.
2. Probably work at one of those cool agencies where impromptu games of Pictionary break out and big, slobbery dogs wander the halls and I draw silly ideas onto post-its. Enjoy that mega finance corp. Sounds like a great time. I heard you get to wear a suit all day.

It’s not that bad. Walk into your future, find your place, but don’t sit down. Once you carve out your niche you’re just going to want the next thing anyways.

*(English-major points if you know Mary Oliver wrote this).

What goes on backstage. Coeur de Pirate’s sound test at Summer fest 2011.

Anyone lived in a pretty how town…~ E.E. Cummings

As a teenager, I wasn’t much for journalism. I defined myself as a creative writer, too artistic and impatient for plain old facts. I didn’t like sports and never wanted to write the expose on the cafeteria pizza. I wrote stream-of-conscious poetry for guys who didn’t like poetry and didn’t like me.

I was an idiot.

Journalism is storytelling. At the Quebec City Chronicle-Telegraph (the oldest newspaper in North America), I focused mostly on the small stuff: charity drives, local teams, high school graduations, restaurant openings – the minutia of the small English-speaking community.

As small papers dry up or battle for readership online, we’re losing human-interest stories. We may never read Shelly Brown’s obituary,  Shelly who spent thirty years working the counter at the deli; who gave the community three great children, who dedicated her life to rescuing dogs.

Why care about Shelly, the smiling deli worker? We have this to read:

Just like there’s a time and place for the above, (lunch breaks), there’s a time and place for newspapers: Sunday afternoons. I can’t remember the last time I sat with a newspaper article, chewed the story over, let it linger. I love blogs, but getting the story out is stressed more than getting the story out right.

Be a good listener 

Don’t just focus on what’s going on on the stage. What’s going on in front?

I interviewed a famous filmmaker, covered the 2011 Royal Tour with Prince William & Kate, interviewed the bassist from the Sheepdogs; met the winners of Red Bull Crashed Ice. But those aren’t the stories that mattered most. I talked to a lady whose teenage son was dying from cancer, about nine months before he passed away.

Most people don’t know what to say to a mother whose son is dying. I certainly didn’t. The interview still haunts me – maybe I was too probing, too self-centered, too positive.

Since that article, I ask myself constantly – am I listening or talking? Am I lending advice or listening? When I don’t know what to say, I say exactly that. Sometimes, it’s our job to silently absorb our friends’ words, so the weight falls off them and onto us.

Fame is overrated 

Imagine this.

Fame and famous people are overrated. I followed Prince William and Kate around on a bus for an entire day. We snapped thousands of pictures. I realized they would never have the privacy I take for granted. They are puppets, sure royal puppets, but definitely puppets. Meanwhile, around the world, children starve, poachers drive elephants to the verge of extinction, and millions flee from wars they did not cause. And it’s getting more difficult to hear the voices reporting on those issues under the heap of useless information piled on top.

I don’t pretend to know the answer to any of this.

Change the beat

Cavalia. I like horses and theater. What’s your beat?

If the writing isn’t working out, it might not be the writing; it might be the subject. Perhaps your old-lady character isn’t as witty and appealing as she seems because you don’t find her that interesting. Maybe as a travel writer, you’d rather write about the crazy taxi ride in your hometown than shopping the bazaars in Marrakech. That’s ok.

Write what interests you and it will interest the reader.

Remember the greatest writing compliment

After reviewing my clips for the first time, my editor said plainly, “the kid can write.” The Kid.Can.Write.

This is the best compliment I ever received from a person not required to love me. It’s accurate – he didn’t say I was the best writer, the most beautiful writer, an up-and-coming Hunter S. Thompson; he said I could write. Relief. I repeat this to myself when it feels like I am turning my wheels in the worst career.

Writing advice: find your greatest compliment ever and stick it in your temporal lobe. Refer to it often.

Then I did something I’ve never done before:

The Math.

After the tax man has cometh, one-million dollars turns into $500,000. That $500,000 has to be sliced evenly between you and your partner. Even if you carried your partner in your arms like a baby the whole time and still miraculously ended up in the winners’ circle; you’d have to split it. Otherwise, you’d be the jerk who said, “I should get 70% because I won 70% of the challenges.”

The most you can bring home is $250,000. IF you win. And then, you’d have save for your kids’ college, buy a house, retire mom, give to all the third world countries you traipsed through during your ’round the world jaunt.

That’s if you win.

Winning seems much less exciting to me. But there’s still the glorious-magnificent-earth-shattering travel right? Here’s the thing about that…

5 Reasons I’d never try out for the Amazing Race

1. I like to SEE things when I travel
I fully plan on seeing the world and writing as I go, but at my own pace. I get that the show is spliced and edited into episodes, but it moves so fast, there’s no seeing anything. If I go to Bali, I want to swim and surf without this nagging voice that says, oh yeah, it’s time to get out of this bath-like water now or I’LL BE ELIMINATED IN FRONT OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.

2. I’m bad at sports

If the challenges involved eating 100-plus Cheetos in a sitting, or sniffing out the most infested food cart, it would be game on. But they don’t. No, the race comprises terrifying challenges only those who endorse sports drinks should do, like base jumping and freefalling.

This would happen to me. Twice.

3. I have no Interesting Backstory

Amazing Race teams fall into two categories:

Couples with gleaming teeth and tight calves or partners with an interesting backstory that can be broken down into a one-word nickname: Doctors. Pirates. Debutantes. Divorcees.

I don’t have much of a backstory. I transpose lettesr a lot but can’t say I’m dyslexic. I grew out of my scoliosis. I compulsively stockpile Cadbury mini-eggs, but that’s not a backstory.

Here are several personas* I worked out, in case I change my mind and try out:

Siamese Twins. Next time a stranger regales you with juicy tales of their gluten allergy, tell them you’re a post-op Siamese twin and watch their jaw hit the m-f-fing floor. It’s the ultimate trump card. And the show is all about teamwork and partnership so there’s guaranteed to be a lot of tears.

Hoarders. I would love to see a hoarder/Amazing Race crossover episode. Starring Andre and his frustrated partner.

Pack light. What about my 1,000 dusty hats?

They said, ‘pack light.’

Viewers will watch as the hoarder attends a mandatory counseling session at the airport and tosses his hats, one by one, while whimpering and mumbling to himself. Will he make the flight?

Shark Attack Survivor. Afraid of heights? Heights don’t have rows and rows of teeth made to tear apart your thigh. Imagine what a shark attack survivor would feel like on this show. Going to the beach, snorkeling, surfing, eating shark fin soup, swimming with sharks. Flashbacks will come in waves after every water-involved challenge. And his partner will have to coax him into the ocean. Oh the drama.

4. You don’t want to see me in travel mode. I look like hell after a drizzly day in Seattle. I don’t know how the obligatory hot-blonde teams (who we’re all sick of) get off a 12-hour flight so fresh and gorgeous. I hope one day we get to see how the pretty holds up in the wake of Montezuma’s revenge.

5. I would kill my partner. Either by accident or in a blind competitive rage.

*If you find these offensive, I feel bad for you son.

It’s the people I have met and yet to meet. It’s the friendships that have yet to unfurl.

Friends 4ever.

While flying from Detroit to Quebec to work on a travel guidebook, I befriended a four-year-old. I know.  What could we possibly have in common?

Trick question. We both love pink and purple, paging through the SkyMall and making wide-eyed puppets out of paperbags.

She sat next to me for three hours on the plane as the mom had to sit with the other little one across the aisle.

She spoke both English and French. There’s nothing cuter than a child en route to bilingualism. Gold highlights shimmered in her bouncing curls. She had a list of questions for me: who was my favorite princess (Ariel), did I have a dog (yes), how old was I (31) how old was The Dog (6).

We paged through the SkyMall catalog and doodled. She preferred my butterflies with their long, looping antennas to my lilies. She scrawled a butterfly on my tattered reporter’s notebook and signed her initials. I still have it, somewhere among the books and other things stacked along the walls in my office.

When the flight landed, she walked with her mom through the tunnel. I thought that was it. I magnified the friendship, gave it significance, when it wasn’t mutual.

Then at the gate she turned to me, pushed the curls out of her round blue eyes and asked, “How long are you going to be here?”

“One week.”

“Oh, my mom says we’re here for three weeks. We prolly won’t sit next to each other again then.”

“Probably not.” I suck at lying. At this she looked close to tears. The feeling was mutual.

“Do you think the person I sit next to on the way back will be my friend too?” Friends. I live for the moment when a friend calls me a friend for the first time.

“Absolutely.”

We shook hands. When the family moved on to connect with their other family members, the passenger sitting behind me turned to me, “You were very patient with that little girl.”

I wanted to say, no biggie we’re friends. And really, what did she expect? Should I have put my headphones on and glared at the mother for not being able to control her wonderfully willful little girl from across the aisle?

It’s true: a few turbulent moments used every ounce of my patience, but I am positive, somewhere in the friendship handbook, there’s the line: “be patient, forgiving, and kind.”

Travel with a purpose.

Animals in suitcases. My favorite thing.

Lost friendships are one of the five regrets of the dying. I think not only of my old friends, the ones I’ve known forever, but the ones I’d never have met had I not moved to Seattle and then to Quebec.

I know somewhere along the path of life death waits for me, maybe crouched, maybe standing there with outstretched arms. I will collide with it and vaporize and won’t even have time to check a bag.

We think of tomorrow as a guarantee.

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, it’s only a day away.” 

Until it isn’t.

This is why even though I hate flying, I want to see whatever pockets of the world I can reach. But it’s no longer about seeing the things; it’s about the people, the friendships, brief and long, waiting for me just beyond the terminal.

The cultures where I delight, not in our differences, but in our similarities. The more friends you make, the more you will be able to, in the words of John Lennon, “imagine there’s no countries.”

Travel’s greatest drawback

Never take just hanging out for granted.

The most painful part of going far and wide in search of yourself are the things you miss. Three years ago, a friend of mine passed away suddenly and I couldn’t go to her funeral because I lived in Seattle.

When I think of the last time I saw her, when we both swore we’d keep in touch, but didn’t, my heart shatters. I wanted to run to the place that knew me, the place we grew both grew up in because the memories are the strongest there. I wanted to be with her family, so familiar it feels like my family.

I couldn’t. But I could lean on my friends here.

The 2013 guide to Montreal and Quebec that I helped author for Fodor’s Travel comes out in March and is available for pre-sale right now.

Some write fake Oscar speeches; I fantasize about crafting clever book dedications. I plan to dedicate future novel to my enormous family for well…everything, the Husband for his patience and encouragement and the Dog who keeps my feet warm as I write. And to my Grandma, for her endless advice.

Unfortunately, I don’t get to *actually* dedicate or thank anyone in the travel book because that would be unfair to the other writers, editors, and photographers who worked on it. Besides, I am a writing phantom taking the form of Eugene Fodor, a fascinating Hungarian wayfarer.

Miss Misery

This is one of the first paintings I ever connected to. I always thought it was icebergs, but it’s clouds. -Art Institute, Chicago

Should I ever write a novel, I would be tempted to throw it into the faces of those who spurned me early on when I was just a kid. I probably wouldn’t do it, because bitter ain’t the right shade for me, but it’s fun to think about.

One of my favorite writer bloggers  recently wrote an eloquent piece about a teacher who helped influence his writing career. I have a few of those too – wonderful people, who pulled me aside and told me that despite my horrific spelling, I had a knack with words.

I’ve also had the opposite. Miss Bruner, my 7^th grade art teacher deserves a failing grade. A teacher should encourage, not manage expectations. Let kids’ dreams bounce above their heads like big red balloons. When the time comes, they’ll clutch some and let others fly. Give them that choice.

Miss Bruner hobbled up and down classroom aisles with a cane. She’d pull your drawing out from your hands, exam it from behind little glasses that sat at the end of her nose and snicker. When we had to sketch George Washington (impossible!), I erased entirely through his eye. I am no Manet. Did Miss Bruner encourage me to learn from this mistake and be more careful next time? No.  She put my rendition of George Washington over her own face and peeped through the hole as if it were a mask.

Ok, so maybe I screwed up the portrait. Maybe she was joking, maybe the George Washington incident was part of her teacher schtick.

But later that semester, when I expressed an interest in going to Venice to view art, she barked:

“How are YOU going to go to Venice? It costs a lot of MONEY, Am-an-da.” 

Be an angel. Show kids the world.

Money or lack-thereof posed a problem for me and likely every student in our Jr. High. No one I knew had been overseas. Travel, especially the international kind seemed like an unreachable dream, right up there with taking a field trip to KOOLAID’s Wacky Warehouse or standing-in for a kid on Double Dare.

But I believed Miss Bruner. I envisioned myself, at thirty, one gallon of milk away from bankruptcy. Luckily, I had supportive parents who let me practically live in the library.

Miss B’s words lingered until I nervously boarded my first flight to San Diego, solo at 20.

That night, I went to the ocean for the first time. I stood on the sand, the water swirling quietly before me like a vat of black ink. I felt at home – not home in this particular city; home standing at the edge, staring into the abyss.

I just booked a trip to Paris and Venice in honor of Miss Bruner, who taught me one of life’s most valuable lesson: never believe the naysayers.

Who would you/will you/did you dedicate your first book to?

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about. ~ Mark Twain

I know as a wayfarer it’s not fashionable to like you, my home country, let alone love you. I am supposed to know better; I am supposed to snub domestic travel. I am supposed to like soccer and drink imported beer and refer to those “Americans” as if I am not American myself.

Why this happens: when travelers leave, often the first time, they see all your flaws from through an extra-long lens: the shootings, the rampant obesity, the vacant lots and strip malls and commercialism. The unbelievable pressure: whiten your teeth, go to the right school, chew the right brand of gum. I almost crumpled under your constant demands. I never felt like I was doing anything right. And I hate that you made me drive everywhere.

I ventured beyond your borders, tested our sacred “love or leave it” bond – a contract I entered into without choice. I didn’t want anything to do with you. Like a petulant child, I refused to turn around. My post Post-America life started like any relationship – French Canada and I would have surely broken your heart. We shared poutine and frieds with mayo, we cross country skied, we strolled along cobblestone streets in the middle of the day.

Canada recycles, Canada doesn’t waste napkins and plastic forks. Canada felt nice, Canada felt different. Canada didn’t press weighty expectations upon me like you. You cluck a lot about liberty – but in Canada, I felt freedom – no one asked me what I did for a living; I felt no great urge to keep up; I never felt doomsday paranoia. Sure, the new country had its problems, but I wouldn’t see that until we lived together awhile.

I came home to you after a year and three months defeated — through no fault of my own, Canada and I couldn’t make it work. Finding and holding jobs in the French-speaking province proved difficult and so we moved.

I had forgotten about all the things I loved about you. New York with its waves of people, rushing in from all angles, from all countries; hip-hop, rock n’ roll, blue grass; your vast prairies and deserts, Vegas – yes, Vegas – an homage to glittering capitalism. I had forgotten how much I love Chicago, the city responsible for the first version of me, before I knew anything else. And Seattle – a misty music town with new liberal policies that make Canada look conservative.

We have our fights, USA. There are times I am not proud of you. There are times you gravely disappoint me. But  wherever I go, I’ll always be part of this big dysfunctional family.

Yours Truly,

Anglo

First, during a writing workshop that combines looking at art and writing, a fellow volunteer (Michael Don’t-Know-His-Last-Name) pointed out that the ancient funerary portrait below, which hangs in the Seattle Art Museum looks just like Bill Murray, my too-old-for-me celebrity crush.

Where is Bill Murray on Ground Hog Day?

Obviously…

I have been working on three extremely scientific theories about the portrait:

1) Bill Murray’s face has time-travel powers.

2) Bill Murray’s face is trapped in the Seattle Art Museum. In Ground Hog Day fashion, he endures one day on repeat. Except instead of loveable bumpkins in a quaint Pennsylvania town, he’s stuck listening to snooty Seattle art critics. Poor Bill!

3) Everyone has an ancient doppelganger. Mine is surely Cleopatra.

Art Attacks & Attitudes

Also last week, while enjoying a few drinks in an overrated hipster bar, a huge wooden installation fell off the wall and hit my sister’s arm. Had she been sitting one seat over, she would have been knocked unconscious. Or electrocuted by the piece’s blinking bulb nose. This was not the kind of art one dreams of being killed by.

The bar didn’t offer to comp. her meal, not even when she mentioned impending bruises. Rather, the owner gave her the attitude. As if she willed the painting to fly off the wall just to get a small bowl of baked macaroni for free.

There’s nothing we could have done ~ the bartender

Actually, you could learn how to hang unnecessarily large paintings properly ~ what I should have said.

Stop, Take a Look & Listen

So what did I learn during this wild week of art? I should get more out of art. I visit museums often when traveling and lately, I have been snapping too many photos and just living behind the lens. Art isn’t a deer about to run away, there’s no reason to rush to get a photo of every piece of work. Oh wait, there is a reason.

Look, Facebook, it’s Degas! Look Twitter, it’s Dali!

And also, when Bill Murray’s face appears in a funerary portrait. It was the one time I wasn’t packing an SLR. My sad screenshot above will have to do, but I promise the portrait’s hanging in the SAM.

Another thing I learned was that kids today are extremely bright. So we can all just exhale. I am not sure if they go to private school, but there are some serious little learners out there. Like, using-words-I-learned-last-year bright. Talking-about-high-concept art bright. Knowing where Syria is* bright.

Words from middle schoolers:

It’s not like someone teaching me about history or reading about it, [with ancient art] I can see it.

The Christmas tree looks confused. In response to this, from a photography project focused on aluminum Christmas trees.

When asked “Is that art?” about a blank white canvas: Some people might say that’s not art, but it’s the intention that matters. 

Kids put the art in smart.

I wonder if I used to see things differently, if I was more passionate, more excited about art in grade school. I thought about this after I read about the  experiment with Joshua Bell, a near-famous classical musician playing on the subway steps. All the adults rush by, missing that they’re being treated to music from a respected violinist. But the kids slow down and listen.

Why?

Enjoy art. Just don’t let it attack you.

*I can do this too. But not in middle school. In middle school I was all wrapped up in breeding swordtail fish and naming my hypothetical horses.

This is the kind of conversation I love to speculate about, the kind that occurs after midnight with a gaggle of friends and a few bottles of wine. The kind that veers left then spins around so we can’t remember where it started. The kind that ends with a demonstration. It always like fireworks, one person’s words bursting forth and then another’s, the conversation rapidly intensifying until the subject has been exhausted.

Am I wearing high heels?

Is someone on the other side of the blender?

Does a blender’s blades go all the way to the top?

Is there water on the bottom?

If a single person took out their smartphone and looked it up, the fun would be over. Smartphones and search engines have destroyed our ability not only to reason, but to banter for long periods of time.

I am not a modern-day luddite. I don’t want to destroy technology. I just want screens to be locked in cages at dinner or in art museums or when I am with a group of people and we’re experiencing a moment together.

Why I gave up my phone

The burner is the way of the future. Excuse the hideousness of this photo. Neon green isn’t my color.

When I moved back and forth from Canada, I disposed of a lot of stuff: bags of clothes, old laptops, etc. La vie of the nomad.

 It took me at least a month to acquire a new phone in Quebec. Upon my arrival, I went to FIDO (a phone service branch) and tried to get a new phone in French.

Je voudrais un telephone.

Quoi?

Uhhhh. 

And then the salesperson went into this long, incomprehensible diatribe about cellphone plans.

Eventually, after several trips to the place, they sold me the iPhone 3, my first smartphone. Every day, after French class I checked my email and Facebook at Cafe Depot just to see if I had a new message, waiting to be unwrapped. Usually, the new message was not a “what-have-you-been-up to” email from my mom, but an email newsletter telling me I could get 20% off of winter boots.

I became one of those people, whipping out my phone every 10 minutes. Refreshing the screen. Texting when I could have been talking to people in front of me. Scrolling the latest sales on faux monkey hair coats.

Flash-forward to when I moved back to Seattle jobless and homeless*.

I couldn’t use my Canadian cell phone to call my American homies without racking up a huge bill. So I stopped. And eventually bought a burner. A burner is gangsta talk for one of those flip-up pre-paid phones, the kind boring people like me use for emergencies. For at least six months, I have been living without all-day email, texts, and GPS. My phone is more alarm clock than anything. Every text takes a half a minute away, so I only have about four contacts who have been notified to use my LANDLINE (that’s right). I’ve had to memorize numbers again.

It’s been at least six months.

What I’ve learned:

1. Digital Invasion is a real thing. At Christmas, I looked over and noticed a mini-screen in front of every person. And we were all gathered in front of the TV. It was strange. Conversations don’t roll along anymore, like rivers. They jerk forward like cars in traffic. Updates and not-real news constantly force themselves into our lives.
2. It’s easier than I thought. When I gave up the phone, I thought I would miss it more. The biggest inconvenience is that I no longer get the “hang-out” texts. No one can spontaneously get a hold of me; I force friends to get creative.
3. Smartphones make you dumb. I feel smarter without the smartphone telling me where to turn or when my next appointment is or whether it will rain or snow. I also feel like my tech-induced ADD has receded.
4. Texting and driving is stupid and dangerous.  When I drive, which isn’t often, I am never distracted by texts or phone calls. Before, when I had a phone, I would try to balance the phone on the steering wheel and glance at the text. I was risking my life to get a text that just “what’s going on?” or “bring home milk plz.”
5. Work can wait. Smartphones are the best thing to happen to an office since the photocopier. Now a business has its workers, glued to tiny screens all of the time. No more “I wasn’t at home” excuses.
6. Payphones have the time and make cool noises and are very useful when traveling.
7. My whole life is [not] on that thing. In the Boston airport, I watch a woman tiptoe on the edge of a breakdown after losing her iPad. “My whole life is on that thing.” She trembled so severely, as if someone kidnapped her child. While I would be devastated if I lost my beloved computer, it isn’t my life. I use it to record moments from my life. The mind has far better storage.  Interact with weather and art without filtering it through a screen and nothing will ever be lost.

Here I am, out of the blender, enjoying my freedom.

*Not homeless-cold-on-the-street homeless. Homeless-in-a-hotel-for-a-few-weeks, homeless. They had free cookies and ShowTime. Maybe the more appropriate term would be addressless.

**Thank you, Wall Street Journal and Google for coming up with one of my favorite interview questions.

Until Elwood’s modelling career takes off, this is all I have.

I took a hiatus from life to work a contract gig as a copywriter for a major corporation. With the exception of technical writing (or being a hugely famous author), copywriting is the most lucrative day job in the writing world. Travel writing appears to be the least lucrative so unless I want to be one of those hostel people (with dog? and husband? heck no), this is what I have to do.

There’s also video game writing, which I hear pays handsomely. I have no idea what that entails though.

If only I played Zelda more

I should stroll the bohemian stroll. I should be in Uruguay or something. I will be traveling again, once I figure out how to make travel journalism a fulltime job. That’s my goal this year and I am happy you’re aboard for the ride.

Thankfully, my current job is very creative and there’s free coffee. And because of all the stress and caffeine, I have an eye twitch. Maybe after my eye explodes, I’ll have to wear a patch and then I’ll become a super villainess — a corporate crime fighter in a pencil skirt.

8 writing lessons learned on the job:

1. Passive voice is like periodontal disease. It seeps into your writing, right up underneath the gums and weakens the bones. Floss it out. (Get rid of am, is, are, were, be, being been).
2. Put the ‘offer’ up front. Restructure your sentences so the most important piece stays strong up front. Start off strong, then get into the nitty gritty. In copywriting, I write to a message hierarchy. I figure out the key takeaways – every offer I craft goes back to the key takeaway, with the first of the message hierarchy on the top. This focus helped immensely.
3. Pay attention. Typos don’t matter much on a blog (some of us don’t have editors, you know), but they matter when thousands of dollars have been spent on a campaign. I pay attention to everything I write to avoid a horrific embarrassment.
4. Don’t be weird for weird’s sake. We’re talking weird names, exotic pets, too many scarves, failure to meet deadlines. Weird is fine. But don’t reinvent yourself as a kook. Creatives can be both the most brilliant and fun colleagues or the most obnoxious and pretentious. Be the former.
5. Hunt down inspiration. I developed an incredible amount of discipline from my career in copywriting and journalism. All it takes is a fear of being fired, a diet coke, a few Swedish Fish and BLAMMO! the muse is standing in my cube. I no longer wait for inspiration; I hunt it down. My muse resembles Mr. T, circa 1980s.
6. Don’t jam gigantic words into everything. Copywriters don’t have a ton of room, which is phenomenal because I avoid a big letter count in favor of a precise word. I don’t use the word cocophonus nearly enough. I don’t speak this way, why would I write this way? Maybe this is why I’ve always been drawn to tough guys, like Hemingway and Junot Diaz.
7. Criticism is necessary. My work is projected onto a screen where it’s critiqued by my boss and team. I no longer freak out when someone tells me what I wrote isn’t right.
8. Tell a story. I tend to focus on little details: how the sun looked like a lemon drop. I get lost there and forget the entire point – there’s a story. Words that don’t work to tell that story are wasted. The limited space in copywriting keeps me focused and on point.

I am convinced all black specks are eagles. See it?

Like most sane people, I have complaints about winter. It’s cold. It’s dark. I want to do nothing, but consume morsels of dark chocolate and glasses of wine while in a nest of blankets.

But when the alarm rings at 5:50 am, I get ready to face the day. A decent jacket, good attitude, and eight cups of coffee help.

So do moments like this.

My fondness for winter started in Quebec. I had to make the best of the worst weather. I danced under an ice palace at Winter Carnival, tumbled down small hills on cross-country skis, and rolled popsicle sticks in maple syrup taffy. I miss real winter, miss the rumblings of snow plows at night and the crunch of ice under my boots.

I didn’t think I would ever miss these things. Maybe what I really miss are mid-day field trips and singing French songs on a bus with the rest of the second-language students.

Nothing lasts forever, but I can’t help but to feel a touch of Cube Fever after being so wild and free.

Here’s how I am dealing with the first winter as a re-patriot:

Winter in Washington State

I half expected this tree to touch my hair to compare notes.

After a Wii Mario jamboree that lasted until 1:00 in the morning, I woke up early to photograph eagles in Skagit, two hours north from my house in Seattle. I had errands to do that day – taxes and such, but The Sister convinced me it was a good idea.

We hiked a bit in a fairytale landscape: ancient trees bending low as if they wanted to whisper their secrets. Wood-peckers fluttering in the branches. Mossy branches touched by frost and frozen in time.

We (The Sister, Her Boyfriend, and I) noticed three eagles circling above the firs as soon as we got out of the car. When it’s sunny, they fly high; if it’s rainy weather, they stay close to the ground scanning the ground for food.

Wild and Free

She totally dyes her hair to match her eagle.

Remember when bald eagles were endangered? As a child, I never thought I would see one. I was convinced they would die out and I would only see them immortalized on leather jackets and motorcycle helmets.

I was standing somewhere completely banal, like the parking lot of a gym when I saw my first eagle glide across a rare pale-blue sky. An eagle soars high and quiet. No flapping or prattle from these giant birds. They don’t need it. They are the kings and queens of the sky and sail across it in complete confidence.

That’s what I long to be.

We saw these eagles on our way home and turned around, pulling up close to get a reasonable shot. Mine is lacking, as I don’t have a long lens. Still…it was humorous, as there were three of us in the car, two women, one guy, just like here with the one bald eagle and what we believed were two juveniles.

In total, we saw fifteen eagles that day. Thirteen were wild and free, two were with handlers at a wildlife show. Although it’s amazing to see an eagle up-close, I would rather watch them in the sky.

We finished the day with salad, breadsticks, and hot donuts at the Olive Garden. Wild and free. At least for a weekend.