“We’ve become a nation of 13 million authors, each of whom will have 36 readers — and half of those will be blood relatives.” That’s what Garrison Keillor said at the annual Author’s Guild benefit a couple of days ago. Thanks a lot, Garrison. Like I wasn’t discouraged enough. Even more depressing is that I couldn’t scrounge up 18 blood relatives who would be willing to read my crap if my life depended on it.
Sometimes people ask me why I blog. I usually tell them that I’m actually sending secret spy codes to the Russians, but I recently learned that the Cold War is over so I’ll have to come up with a better explanation. One good reason is because all of my friends and husbands and people in surrounding cities have heard my stories ad nauseum, so I’ve taken to the internet to gain a new audience. (Although you guys totally miss out on my gesturing, which is really the best part.)
I recently reviewed a personality profile I had done a few years ago. One of my strengths is a sense of “connectedness”, meaning I believe everyone has a purpose and we should all hold hands, share our toys, and make the world a better place. Really, is that too much to ask? No wonder I became an alcoholic. Since my highest strengths are “achiever” and “responsibility”, it can be pretty damn depressing trying to save the world when you can’t develop metrics and pretty Powerpoint slides to show how effective you’ve been. That could be why my altruism sometimes blows up in my face.
My friend Pam is a fellow wannabe do-gooder, and she gets me into all kinds of messes. Together we are like Laverne & Shirley. Several years ago, she asked me to help with this gala Jane Fonda was throwing to benefit the prevention of eating disorders. I volunteered to work at the benefit, and got assigned to the coat closet. Taking people’s coats on a 70 degree evening wasn’t exactly challenging work. Some of the guests tried to give me tips, but I declined by saying, “No, no; I’m a volunteer!” in a kind of chuckling voice that I hope implied, “Don’t you dare pity me, I’m doing God’s work here!”
It wasn’t until some of them began to ask me how long I’d been in the eating disorder program that I became incensed enough to accept tips. (I know I shouldn’t have gotten mad about that. I was young and scrawny, after all. But an eating disorder is one of the few maladies from which I don’t suffer, so I kind of get ticked off when people make those assumptions.) I think it was at that point that I took a bottle of wine off one of the tables and brought it in the coat closet with me, and then had the brilliant idea that I’d actually be doing God’s work better if I took the tips and then handed them over to the organization. So I sucked my cheeks in a little and started asking folks if I looked fat in what I was wearing, and if that doesn’t get me into heaven, I don’t know what will. The good news is that Pam got assigned to the wait staff and worked her ass off all night while I guarded a handful of coats and drank a bottle of wine. Neither of us ever got to meet Jane. I turned in my tips and never looked back.
Shortly after we finished our graduate work (and were feeling pretty brainy), Pam and I decided we should be Junior Achievement ambassadors to teach our youth about International Business. We got assigned to this 6th grade class in a school adjacent to one of the amphitheaters in town, where everybody parks in the school lot and smokes pot/guzzles beer before going in to concerts and smoking pot/guzzling more expensive beer. (God has a sense of humor, I swear.) So we showed up wearing our best Corporate/Uptight/I-Am-Smarter-Than-You suits and met our new students. No one told us we would be teaching the remedial kids. Not that there’s anything wrong with remedial students, but we’d prepared to teach the future barons of industry, and some of these children couldn’t speak English*. So we had to scale it waaay back. We chunked the lesson plans J.A. supplied us and kind of made it up as we went along. We were fish out of water, though. One day we asked the kids what popular things we could sell. I don’t remember everything they mentioned, but we didn’t know what half of them were. And the ones we thought we knew, we didn’t. For example, when one kid said, “Low riders”, Pam and I ran with it. “Yeah! Low riders, that’s a good one. Where do you get your low riders? I get mine at the Gap!” we enthused, until their regular teacher interrupted to tell us that a low rider is a car, not a pair of jeans. Huh. After that, Pam and I felt seriously unhip and decided we needed to watch more MTV, yo.
We worked all semester to teach the kids the difference between “goods” and “services”. When the class gave us a thank you card on the last day, I think one kid’s comment summed it up the best: “Thank you for wasting your time teaching us.”
So maybe ole Garrison (the big fat buzz killer) is right and Subourbon Wife (the book) will only be read by 36 people once I rip the band-aid and self-publish the bitch. And maybe I’m wasting my time trying to tell people about alcoholism and self-esteem problems and pubic hair dilemmas. (And perhaps Pam and I should hold back on our projects – you should see the elementary school cafeteria we painted one year. I’m pretty sure Hands-On Atlanta never wants to see our helpful faces again.) But I can’t help all of this – I have a high need to save the world, and the personality profile to prove it.
*This is not intended to imply non-English speakers can’t or won’t be barons/baronesses of industry. Also, Garrison Keillor is neither big nor fat. (When did you start to take my words so literally, anyway?)
