Thing of the Day: Fame

Up until very recently ago, I was under the mistaken assumption that if, as an adult, I was successful, healthy, wealthy and content in my relationships, I would be happy. The past week has proved me wrong. Yes, I would very much like to have success and money and good health and a great life partner and lots of small adopted African and Asian children, but I have decided that this will not be enough. I would like to be famous.

Several things have led me to this conclusion. Last Wednesday, I had the luck to work the red carpet at the Country Music Awards in Nashville. Since I do not like country music, standing for long periods of time, or taking directions from others, I thought this would be a pretty average and not terribly exciting experience where I would briefly glimpse several B-list celebs, snap a few iPhone pics, perhaps get some free shit, and be on my way. Wrong. Working the red carpet, apparently, means you get to actually be on the red carpet. Next to those who are walking down the red carpet, being photographed and interviewed and fawned over. Now, a fan of country music I may not be (Seriously. George Strait, Kenny Chesney, and the Zac Brown Band walked into the awards within one foot of me and had to be pointed out to me by my co-intern, to whom I responded with "who?!"), but when I found myself within approximately 2 feet of Carrie Underwood for a prolonged period of time I had to physically restrain myself from reaching out to stroke her perfect blonde curls. As if this wasn't enough, I actually touched Nicole Kidman. I don't particularly like Nicole Kidman--I think she desperately needs to go tanning, or if she's concerned about 'cancer' or something, use a no-side-effects tanning spray, stop getting Botox, and be generally less creepy-looking, but when we briefly grazed hands and exchanged greetings I would have chopped off my left arm, freeze-dried it, and crushed and spoon-fed it to my first born for the opportunity to hang out with her for five more minutes.

Hyperboles aside, I spent the following four days excitedly Googling CMA pictures in the hopes that I would appear in the corner of one (fail, but the co-worker who calls me "fashion girl" (I like you, co-worker), did tell me he saw me holding up the red-carpet sign for Reba on C.M.T! What I would give for that to have made it to my TiVo...), and on Saturday night, my lingering thoughts that I would maybe one day like to be famous were confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt. The reason? Jay-Z.

Jay-Z played at Vanderbilt's Memorial Gym this weekend and by the first song, quickly moved onto my list of favorite-concerts-I-have-ever-attended (other contendors: Radiohead in Miami, Regina Spektor in Nashville, N.E.R.D in Nashville, Backstreet Boys Reunion Tour in New York). The man is a performer--to see him live is truly an honor, and to see the effect he has on the crowd is breathtaking. Within ten minutes, my Jewish-white-girl friends were sweaty, screaming song lyrics at the top of their lungs, bopping to the beat and attesting that if the only way they could engage in sexual intercourse with Jay-Z was on stage in front of the crowd of 5000 at that very moment, they would absolutely do it. And I found myself thinking...I want people to say that about me.Not quite that, because it would be creepy and offputting, but I would like people that I don't know to get moderately excited to see me. I'm not striving to be an actor or a singer, or a reality TV star turned actor-singer (although if anyone wants to pitch me a good reality pilot, please don't hesitate for one second), but I'd like to be known. Perhaps in a really good author or cool talk-show personality way. Or a wife of actor/singer/reality star turned actor-singer who uses her husbands' money benevolently to start a scholarship fund for Russian immigrants and makes frequent appearances on Oprah and The Today Show while running her non-profit and casually attending culinary school/submitting weekly columns to New York Magazine. Not that I've given it much though, really.

In other news: I am going home to New York for the first time since August and I am so excited. I am making a brief stop at my friend Megan's house in D.C for the weekend to eat good food, bar-hop around Georgetown, and decide if I would ever want to live there after graduation. I plan to make her tour to me around all of the places I toured in middle school and take many embarassing tourist photographs, and then on Sunday I will re-unite with my one true love: the great NYC. People often ask me why I am so set on not living in New York right after graduation if I love it so much and I've come to start explaining it like so. You know those couples that have been dating forever and are obsessed with each other but decide to break up to see what else is out there and date new people and realize if they are truly right for one another while always secretly harboring the intention to get back together? That's like me and New York. It was wisely pointed out to me that in the case of these couples, one or both halves do tend to find someone they'd rather be with and then months are wasted Facebook stalking and writing angry emails that will never be sent and shooting imaginary poisonous arrows into each other's backs and all sorts of other dramuhhhh....

But lucky for me, New York can't ever break up with me. Only I with it, briefly, for D.C or Chicago or maybe even an extra year in Nash-Vegas, where I will cultivate a short-lived but undoubtedly exciting affair with the lesser city before coming back with open arms and welcoming myself home.

Thing of the Day: Lessons Learned

Preface: Picture fairly unrelated to the rest of this post, but how AWESOME would that be?

Four years ago, when I opened my Suntrust bank account in Nashville (a quick shoutout to the employees at Suntrust West End who have forgiven me somewhere between 5 and 15 overdraft charges), I was asked to create a pin for my debit card. 18 year old me looked down at my classy tricked-out flip phone and rapidly selected a pin based on a four letter word I could easily remember by spelling the numbers out on my flip phone key pad. Feeling clever, I proceeded to not to make room in my brain to memorize the four digits in the years since.

Enter Blackberry. Ever since I got the glorious PDA that never leaves my side but unfortunately lacks an old school number/letter keypad, one would think that I would have made the effort to memorize the four numbers that gain me access to cold hard cash. The one who might think that, however, clearly knows nothing about me. Ever since I first started using phones I have only memorized six phone numbers (my house, my mom's office and cell, my grandparents, my best friend Rachel, and one boy when I was 15). Furthermore, the only way to enter our campus apartments is via 5 digit access code. It took me until mid-October to memorize my own access code without checking my Blackberry notes, and I know only 2 others despite day-to-day entry into my friends apartments and the fact that all the codes are made up of only the numbers 1-2-3-4-5. The point being--ever since my phone keyboard stopped providing me with the numbers that make up my pin code (thanks a lot, QWERTY), I have had to resort to desperate measures to withdraw.

Usually I don't have much of an issue. Store purchases always have letters conveniently placed on the number pad where you swipe your card, and most ATMs still use the numbers as well. While abroad in Europe, I had several unfortunate ATM encounters where foreign alphabets threw me off and I was forced to either Google "phone keypad" on my Blackberry and cause a frustrated-at-dumb-Americans line to build up behind me, or grab a strangers' cell phone to quickly identify the numbers I needed. So despite embarassment, I never felt the need to really take the leap and embed the four digits to memory.

Until yesterday. A loving family member made the gracious decision to surprise my campus mailbox with a check, so I giddily headed down to the Suntrust office on the first floor of my building to make a rapid deposit and begin online shopping at work. As I approach the teller, giddy with check in hand, she has the audacity to ask me for my pin for "security reasons." Uhhhhhhh. "Can I borrow your phone?" is greeted with a dirty look and a flash of a Blackberry Tour. As I attempt to explain, the tellers' eyebrows retreat further and further towards her hairline as she judges me in utter disdain. I am clearly deemed an identity theif as the teller asks me to hold on and calls an intimidating looking superior who then proceeds to lecture me for a full two minutes about selecting a pin I am "capable of remembering." I am then told that my check will be held for 24 hours for further security reasons. There's a Gilt sale going on now, woman, I don't have that kind of time. But alas. After recieving a pamphlet about managing my student checking account, I am given a brisk goodbye and sent off.

I think I've learned my lesson.

On to embarassing moments for others. Now that I am a 21 year old responsible legal adult, I can judge the stupid decisions of those younger than me. So it must be said--what is with kids these days?! The Cheat Sheet this morning had not one but two WTF worthy pieces of news. Firstly, an 11 year old girl in Bulgaria gave birth to a child last night. On her wedding day. Sick. The Daily News quotes her as saying "I'm not going to play with toys anymore, I have a new toy now." I am going to vomit--there are several things that are incredibly disturbing about this case aside from the fact that this girl is ELEVEN.

1)Okay, no, she is 11. When I was 11 I learned from the son of the family who was renting the mountain house next to ours what sex was by engaging in one too many dates between my Barbies and his Kens. I was shocked that my beloved Barbara would engage in such an act and all in all didn't understand the logistics of it , but that may have been because Mattel didn't feel the need to equip B or K with genitalia of any sort. Nonetheless, the idea of humans engaging in the bizzare act was unthinkable.

2)Of course she's Bulgarian. Come on, Eastern Europe--no one is ever going to take you seriously if you continue to allow shit like this to go down on your turf. Lay down the law. Sex education in middle schools, please.

3)The girl is also quoted as saying "I didn't know I was pregnant until my grandmother said I'd put on weight. I just thought I'd ate too many burgers." W-W-WTF. I once spent a full eight hours watching I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant with Momma B this summer and have never heard as ridiculous an excuse. How many burgers is this child eating? And where oh where are her parents?

4)The new baby's name is Violetta, as is my little sisters' (hi, V). Since I have never met or heard of any other person named Violetta, I am going to take this as some sort of sick and twisted sign. To either join an against-child-brides-advocacy-group or call V and demand to know exactly what kind of crap she is up to her freshman year of college.

Moving on to the Cheat Sheet's second ugh-story. Next week's Gossip Girl will apparently be featuring a threesome. As excited as I am to find out who the lucky characters will be (Serena-Nate-Trip Vanderbilt? Olivia-Dan-Vanessa? Lily-Rufus-hot rockstar from Rufus's olden days...ah, I can only guess), this is completely inappropriate behavior for basic cable television aimed at teenagers. Back in the days of my dramedy filled teen-hood, the raciest shit ever pulled on TV was when Marissa and Ryan had sex in a random tent for some reason set up in their high school. And it took them three seasons! Maybe if we didn't air threesomes for impressionable eleven year olds to watch, we wouldn't have burger-babies named Violetta! Ick, world! I have learned my debit-card-pin lesson. When oh when will you learn your stop-encouraging-stupid-teenagers-to-have-sex-and-then-be-shocked-about-teen-pregnancy-statistics lesson? Oy.

Until then, I'll be counting down the minutes till my workday ends and listening to the "Glee Soundtrack"station on Pandora (Thanks, Caybabe!) Other music played on the Glee station:90s Disney movie soundtracks, the Rent and Wicked soundtracks, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Miley Cyrus. It's going to be a great hour and a half.