I am always frozen when people ask me what I do for a living. My immediate reaction is to tell them about how adept I was in procuring outrageously fun jobs during my single days. I was a professional interviewee and could sell myself to anybody. Sadly acknowledging that I must no longer live in the past, I tell them that I am CFO, Producer, Creative Director and Gestapo of three hellions and my husband, Wade, and I am a Blogger/Travel Writer. “What is it that you do”, I ask in return.
Honestly? I really had not the faintest idea of what I was getting ourselves into when I convinced Wade that we needed to have three children. Three boys later, I realized that I have signed up for a lifetime of raising them to be well rounded, honest, confident, sensitive, humble, chivalrous and charming. So here we are in the throws of family life and I pray that the results of our efforts will start shining through anytime now. The feedback has been promising.
When we were growing up, my father would reprimand his three daughters for focusing on fun and not being serious enough about making money. Spoken from a true bachelor until the age of 42. Fun was his middle name.
My first job in New York City was at Simon & Schuster. I had just moved from Los Angeles where I tried to do something with my Broadcast and Film Degree but was traumatized by the loneliness and emptiness of living in the shallow world of Hollywood. New York City was so much more my style. Every day was an adventure and I was electrified by the magic of the city. As long as I didn’t feel an alien body rubbing itself against mine on the subway, I could manage.
I loved taking the elevator at Simon & Schuster and listening to the buzz of the Literati. Entering my little Department, I would run to my desk and answer the phone, “Hello, Pocket Books Publicity Department” trying to impress my boss who was often portrayed in the books of his client, Jackie Collins. He was tall and lean with a tousled head of beautiful thick, silky, black hair coveted by every woman. My desk was directly outside his office and frequently he would scream out expletives ending with, “WERNICK get in here”. I was in love with him, or at least I thought I was, and was a bumbling mess in his presence.
The Department was comprised of four head honchos and we minions; Sarah (the names have been changed), a native from Manhattan with a quick-witted, no-nonsense, fierce devotion to her friends, as long as we passed her character strength test. If ever embarrassed she fanned her face with her hand to decrease the blush rising on her creamy white skin. Next came Cherie, her homely face disguising her wicked ways. She married her boss while working for a phone sex company (she had a childish voice). Cherie loved to astonish us unexpectedly by talking dirty like the time she shared her fantasies on the elevator of tonguing our boss. We all nervously laughed until the elevator opened again when he entered, it was the most uncomfortable silence I had ever experienced.
Then there was Tatiana, a beautiful, highly emotional woman who wore red stilettos and short skirts to work. Her fiancé was a fellow Publicist in our department, as cool and sophisticated as she was fragile. They lived together in a tiny apartment near Columbia University where they had gone to college. Dinner at their apartment was my first introduction to Bohemian life as they cranked out home made pasta and introduced me to their shelves of vinyl records and books.
I visited Tatiana in her office daily to find her in tears, talking to me about her strict Catholic, Italian mother who was not too happy about her engagement to a Jewish intellect. For therapy, she’d take me to the ancient press that should have been replaced years ago. As much as the cogs and wheels were Tatiana’s therapy they were the bane of my existence. She had an understanding of that machine likening it to the book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I had never read that book and struggled to follow her thought process.
When the office was slow I clunked down the hallway to visit my friend in the editing department and listen to all of his quirky anecdotes. After work, we resided at hip bars like MK, a long narrow bar with a fish tank embedded on one whole side of the wall. Stuffed Doberman Pinchers loomed above us with sad marble eyes. Drinking the days’ pay away we checked out all of the beautiful posers.
I left the company when I realized that the only way up was to take over the job of writing press releases for romance novels. I knew that I was not up to the task of repeatedly writing about hot bulging muscles and curvaceous femme fatales.
After I left, David Letterman spotted Sarah’s long blond hair from his studio across the street in Radio City Hall. She became his muse and he would send marching bands through our office and call her often live from the Studio. I was able to keep up with their lives as I regularly watched them on The David Letterman Show.
My next job was working for Seventeen Magazine as a Merchandising Editor. I put on fashion shows across the country. My boss was a woman who sat on crystals and wore her string bikinis and stilettos down to the cheesy pools we frequented when we traveled.
The movie, “The Devil Wears Prada”, resembled my life while working at Seventeen Magazine. My friends and I would meet in the morning and evaluate the clothes that we were all wearing. I always failed, as the country bumpkin from Massachusetts with no fashion sense, Anne Hathaway I was not.
My biggest fear at the time was public speaking. Unfortunately, being the MC on fashion shows was part of the job description. At my first show in Washington D.C., I passed out under the hot lights and silence ensued as the models strutted down the runway. My co-worker had taken me out and ruined me the night before. She abandoned me at my first debut feigning laryngitis. Upon our return she blamed the failure of the show on me and tried to get me fired. Luckily the crystals were working in my favor and I put up a good fight.
I decided to leave New York City three years later, in 1995 after a traumatizing morning. As I walked into my favorite coffee grind the people walking out got hit by a car that had lost control. As I helped the wounded that were strewn throughout the street the city lost its charm on me. I quit my job, packed up and drove to stay with my sister, Michele, in Aspen, Colorado.
nice post … Of all the glamorous and exciting jobs in the world you have now been promoted the most important!!
Ha “you area great skier until you’re not” !!! So true! Yesterday was a beauty though – we were up too!
We have so much freedom as women to choose a family, a career, a passion or all of the above. So why are we so worried about what other people think of our choices? I don’t know, either. The truth is, I feel like I am most comfortable proclaiming my “occupation” when I’m happy with my work. On a good mommy day I am “part-time stay at home mom.” When my daughter is acting up, I tell people I run my own business… ha ha.
I knew you had it in you. Keep up the good work. Can’t wait to see what’s next.
Sounds like you had some exciting years before you had your family. The nice thing is if you have those years of trying new things before responsibility I think you can more fully put yourself into your family life! You have done it lived it and enjoyed it and can comfortably go into the next part of life never feeling you missed something!!
I know I enjoyed my youth very much and have no regrets!! I love being a mom and raising my children!! I too struggle a little not being able to identify myself as a professional like I once did. I am a school counselor(but at home now) and really enjoyed that role and identity! I think that is why I started blogging-to connect intellectually with something I enjoy! It’s a great outlet-and I too hope to say one day that I am the famous writer of my blog!!! LOL.
Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this topic,so thanks for sharing. I will definitely be subscribing to your site.
[...] lived in the city for three years before moving to Aspen and cabin fever hits me hard leaving me with an Inspector [...]
[...] After moving to Aspen from the city I missed that energetic vibe. Everybody was so calm, so mellow, being one with nature and all. Michele broke me in quickly by taking me on “hikes” and “bike rides”up The Ute Trail and up to Four Corners. These were no ordinary excursions. Oh no. These were trails where you quickly gained major vert as you huffed your way up the steep terrain. I’d be hurling from the thin air, my tight NYC aerobic clothes revealing my mountain naivety as slick Aspenites in fancy gortex cruised effortlessly by competing against their last time trial. If I weren’t careful I might get swept off the side and plunge to my death by a beast carrying a small tree across his shoulders to increase his weight. No wonder why everybody was so calm, they were exhausted. [...]