A month late Merry Christmas from Happy The Reindeer....
I don't know if things rings true for any of you guys about to graduate college, but the other day I found myself thinking a standard question I've asked myself my whole life. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Two seconds later I realized, "holy shit, I am a grown up!"
Well..now what?
I mean when did that happen? Gone are the days when I can pretend that I want to be a marine biologist/weather girl/mad scientist/princess/journalist/stripper (Well...I guess I could still become a stripper....Or a princess. Kate Middleton did it.)
(Only drawback is that I don't think the Queen let's her eat.)
I mean, seriously, three months from now I'm graduating with a B.A. in history with a minor in theatre studies and italian studies, which I like to refer to as my B.A. in starving and spaghetti and I have no idea what I want to do. See...I have this problem called, whenever I watch TV, I want grow up to do the jobs the characters are doing. IE: When I watch West Wing, I want to be the President of the United States. When I watch Mad Men, I want to be a hot 1960s secretary. Grey's Anatomy makes me want to go to medical school, and when I watch Weeds, I want to be a drug dealer.
So where does this leave me? Well...obviously I can't do all of those things, so I'm just going to have to suck it up and say the six words every parent dreads hearing, "I want to be an actress."
You'd think that having a dad who is an artist would make it easier to break that kind of news, but sometimes I think artist parents are more against their kids becoming artists than parents with "normal" 9-5 jobs.
For example, every so often, my dad calls me and our conversation goes exactly like this:
--
Dad: "Hey. I'm pissed of about _____. I saw this ____(insert movie/TV show/article on the Internet) and it SUCKED. Here is why: ______. Blah blah blah I'm also pissed about X,Y, and Z. What do you think of this: ____? Well I thought it sucked. So what the hell are you studying? This guy asked me at work and I didn't know what to tell him."
Me: I'm getting a B.A.
Dad: What the hell is that?
Me: A Bachelor of Arts.
Dad: Oh, so you're going to go to law school right?
Me: No.
Dad: Yeah but if you wanted to, you could go to law school with that major, right?
Me: Uh....
Dad: Yeah I'm just going to tell everybody that you're going to law school.
Me: Okay.
"Guys, I don't know what the fuck she's studying, but it's something to do with bachelors, art, and becoming a lawyer."
--
I have a similar situation that I need to approach with my grandmother. For my whole life, she's had a very specific vision of what I would be like when I grew up. First of all, I think when she imagined me in her head as a 21 year old, I was about 10 pounds thinner and much more lady like. I mean, my grandmother is a very a feminine, classy lady and had high hopes of my sister and I becoming the same.
Check it out:
The first thing I ever remember her teaching me was that at restaurants I should always put my napkin on my lap, keep my elbows off of the table, and make sure that if I was ever going to eat bread, I had to "take a tiny piece, put on a little butter and then eat that piece and only that piece before the meal came." More advice included that I should always order a salad or a fruit cup. When she realized that I was the type of girl who would eat an entire breadbasket, plus a cheese burger and three pieces of cake, she gave up on her advice missions and instead came up with more passive aggressive proper eating tactics. Sometimes, she asks me "If I'm going to eat all of that." When she met my boyfriend for the first time she put a basket of bagels in front of us for breakfast, and disapprovingly watched as I ate one of them. In addition to all of this, when she realized I wasn't going to have a lucrative career as a trophy wife/model, I think she started envisioning me as a doctor. Because, everybody knows if you're a woman with a career as respectable as that, you're allowed to eat bread.
I mean...I'm afraid of blood. Watching House makes me think I have all the diseases. I can't add.
But my grandmother still calls to ask me once a week if I'm applying to med school, so I'm not exactly sure how to break the news to her that I am not.
Well...I guess this blog is a start. HEY! GRANDMA IF YOU FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE THE INTERNET AND READ THIS I AM NOT APPLYING TO MED SCHOOL. OR ANY GRAD SCHOOL FOR THE MOMENT. I ALSO DO NOT WANT TO BE A TEACHER. AND ALSO I LIED WHEN I TOLD YOU I WAS ON A DIET ON THE PHONE THIS MORNING BECAUSE I WAS REALLY HUNG OVER AND JUST ATE A BUTTLOAD OF CANDY.
Although, to be fair to the whole grad school thing, on New Years Eve I did flip out and try to drunkenly turn in a bunch of ivy league applications right before the January 1st due date. My essays were about how my new years resolution was to find myself and "eat a piece of bread before I throw up all over this computer." I'm sure Harvard and Yale will be really impressed. Maybe I'll even get to have a stab at being Yale's version of a less perky Elle Woods. I can bring my chihuahua. Although I guess I'm not blonde. Damn it, blonde girls get everything. Hair dye, here I come.
I guess most of all, I hope I don't become one of those girls who decides that all of a sudden, their life calling is to become a yoga instructor. Although at this point in my quarter life crisis, that's starting to sound pretty good. I'll keep you updated.
Namaste.
Xoxo,
Clown Girl
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