Sightings at the Mall

I went to the mall today to get the little one new sneaks. Who knew his feet had grown a size and a half over the summer?! I feel very guilty for stuffing his feet into the shoes I was putting him in lately...

Anyway, my mom, little T and I were eating our lunch in the food court, and there was some serioius people watching going on. Interesting lunch crowd. I forgot that today was election day, which meant schools were closed.

Anyway, the best thing I saw by far was the skater kid in the pizza line with his back to me. His shirt read, "I enjoy a good dump." I don't know what the double entendre is, but I don't really care. That shi(r)t was awesome.

The end.

HMPH

Okay, I am just a bit peeved right now. Let me explain.

Follow me if you will all the back to 1993. I was a junior in high school, and I was pretty happy with life as I knew it. However, I harbored a dream. It wasn't a secret dream, mind you. Most of my friends (I think) knew about my aspirations to be, as I put it, "just like Oprah."

And so, I wrote her a letter. I poured my heart out to her, told her all about how I wanted to be just like her, and wasn't it so ironic that I happen to live in the area where she worked just prior to making it big in Chicago? I even threw in the fact that I used to watch her on "People Are Talking" with Richard Sher all the time, and that I just knew meeting her and shadowing her for a day to see how she did what she did would be kismet.

Never heard from the bitch.

However, imagine my surprise when I turned on the TV one afternoon after school to watch my beloved Oprah, only to find that she had some nine-year-old on, who had written her a letter, telling her that she wanted to be a talk show host...

I was irate!!!

Obviously I've never forgotten this, and there is a part of me that hasn't gotten over it. Let's fast forward to today, September 12, 2010.

I'm watching the season premiere of the final season of the Oprah show. I knew she'd be pulling out all the stops. John Travolta escorting her out to greet the audience, Don Johnson presenting her with the rhinestone glasses she sent to him back in 1986, blah, blah, blah. What I didn't bank on, however, was that Oprah would try to find the little nine-year-old who dreamed of being a talk show host...Well, she did.

And that little snot-nosed brat turned into a 26-year-old teacher from New Jersey. A noble profession, of course. Well, what does Oprah do but surprise this woman in the middle of her teaching day to tell her to get her ass outside to a car that's waiting for her to take her to the airport for a flight to Chicago to attend the season premiere.

How nice.

And what did Oprah just surprise her studio audience with? That'd be a trip to Australia. With John Travolta as pilot.

So this little bitch gets to go to Australia with Oprah. And I'm watching at home. And Christ, now Paul Simon has surprised the audience with a serenade.

Where did I go wrong?

So It Seems...

...that things will be changing for me in the very near future. It's scary, to be sure. But it's also inevitable. So I might as well go along for the ride, right?

My career path as I know it could be shifting. For now, I'm trying to weigh all of my options. It's tough out there, but I know in my heart of hearts that things are meant to be. Whatever happens happens, right?

Well...it's a little tricky. It's unsettling when you're responsible for the well-being of someone other than yourself. So to say "whatever will be, will be" is easy, but to believe it, well, that's easier said than done.

So to begin, I have to set some goals that will see me through to this new, scary, exciting phase of my career. What is it that I want to get out of it? I feel that I may have pigeonholed myself for far too long in an industry that, while sustaining, may limit me to those hiring for a more broadly-experienced person. So do I try to stay the course with my current industry? Do I settle for something less so that I can broaden my experience? Do I strike out on my own? Do I, do I, do I...

This is vague, I know. Once things are a bit more concrete, I think I'm going to blog about my adventures in trying to carve out a new career path for myself. I know a little of this and a little of that, so it should be an interesting trip...