Several weeks ago, I randomly pitched an article idea to a website I was reading. I was shocked when they wrote back weeks later saying they liked my idea and asked for a draft. I wrote it, but they eventually turned it down. (If you know about my obsession with personality tests, you know that I am now analyzing the fact that this perfectly fits in with my pattern of big ideas with flawed execution.) After the initial sting of rejection, I felt proud of myself for doing something new and totally out of my comfort zone. That real-life rejection letter weirdly made me feel like a real-life writer! I honestly reevaluated my essay, and realized it probably needed better structure, more of a point, and honestly, just wasn’t a great fit for that website. But to take this “I’m a writer!” experiment to completion, I'm “self-publishing” it here. I think there are some lessons for me here about being courageous, taking action, and giving myself grace. Maybe topics for a future es...
I went back and reread previous blog posts, and I don't really sound like much of a Beatles fan at all. But rest assured, things quickly turned around with the introduction of BRUUUUUM... At the peak of my Beatles fandom in the mid-1990's (the teenage years coincide with pretty much everyone's peak fandom of whatever they happen to be into, I assume), the Beatles Anthology was a big deal. It was this mini-series documentary with accompanying double-CD albums for you to play along at home. I was definitely too poor at the time to buy the albums. Double-CDs? What am I, made of money? But I did have cable TV, and AMC (long before the days of mad men and zombies) used to play classic movies, and they played the Beatles movies on a continuous loop to try to catch some of the anthology audience. I remember waiting patiently for the next scheduled showing of "A Hard Day's Night," finger poised on the VCR remote, trying to get a perfect recording. I fell in lov...