All you want for Christmas is a biodegradable, made from post-consumer materials yoga mat.
The manager at Home Depot offers you a job because you know more about their hardwood-flooring stock than their hardwood-flooring specialist.
You no longer have to put stickers over your predecessor's old biz cards
You have interns reporting to you.
Receiving your box of new business cards is the best thing that’s happened to you all week.
You can say to a teenager “when I was your age…” in a non-ironic way.
You no longer consider flip-flops to be appropriate outdoor footwear.
You realize it’s not necessary to take 1,000 photos of you and your friends every time you go out for drinks.
At 7:00, you’re still at work, with no foreseeable exit time. You send a text message home that says: “Have. Gin. Ready.”
The suburbs suddenly seem appealing.
Your afterwork martini is the only thing that gets you from Monday to Friday
You buy yourself flowers.
There’s at least one photo out there that can prevent you from having a viable career in politics… but may help launch your career as a page-6 socialite…
People start asking you if you have children.
People start giving you things to take home for the children you don’t have.
Small children start mistaking you for their mothers.
Instead of asking you “when was your last period” and “do you have a rich boyfriend yet,” your doctor slips a handful of condoms into your purse.
“Married women don’t get enough credit,” my mother said one afternoon a few weeks back. “Marriage is all about being able to deal with assholes.”
I don’t know what my father had done that day, but clearly, it wasn’t good.
With my great-grandmother's wedding ring in hand, I suddenly felt the weight of the generations.
My mother’s wisdom is always appreciated, but that day’s insight may not have been what I should have heard the night my cousin Julie arrived from Canada with my Great-Grandmother’s wedding ring.
Julie passed the generations-old, Irish-made gold band on to me in an understated ceremony in my kitchen, over a beer. I think the theme from Riverdance was playing from the Bose in the background, then again, my memory could just be over-romanticizing the significance of the scene and the transcendence of my Celtic heritage.
“I don’t doubt you’ll put it to good use,” she said as I slipped the ring out of the silk sack and onto my finger.
Mistake. I was stuck with it as we headed out the door. Cute waiters were no longer fair game – I was, for the night, a taken female.
Starring down at the ring through dinner, watching my finger change colors from peach to blue, I grew strangely sentimental and slightly anxious. Few things have been passed successfully through the generations in my family – a blue vase and a fetish for hats – and to have my great-grandmother’s wedding ring bestowed on me was to have an unexpected amount of pressure on my shoulders.
I guess I was going to have to get married after all.
Another Blue Moon and a bar of soap when I got home made removing the ring somewhat less painful than I had anticipated.
A week later, my friend Julia posted on my Facebook wall: “I had a dream you were engaged!” And then last week a woman stopped me at the cross walk for a chat. She was eager to make a friend and seemed slightly crazed from the hot summer sun. Midway through my story about my hat, she interrupted me: “You’re going to get married. I just know it! You’re going to get married.”
It seems the voices have changed their tune from prescriptions (you need to find a nice rich husband) to premonitions. Luckily, I don’t put much weight in the predictions of raving women on crowded street corners.
Then again, the soothsayer in the crowd advised Julius Caesar to beware the ides of March… and, well, we all know how that turned out.
I don't necessarily put much weight in the perdictions of raving women... but then I remember Julius Caesar
Today, my first quarter century fades behind me and I embrace my 26th birthday. I’m not one prone to reminiscing on days gone by, but when I realized I was about to start a new year, it occurred to me that a lot of life happens in the 12 months between birthdays.
Armed with optimism and a gimlet, I headed out into the world to search for employment and prince charming. it's been a long year
I started “They Told Me to Find a Rich Husband” when I was 24 going on 25 and standing on the cusp of a quarter-life crisis. I was single, jobless, and homeless. Luckily, I was a girl with a plan, armed with optimism and motivational tarot card readings. So I ventured out into the world with the blinding confidence that eventually everything would fall into place.
All I needed was some elbow grease.
And a good pair of shoes.
And a gimlet…or two.
Last year, I spent my birthday in a Chelsea gallery interviewing for a job I had no intention of taking. Uncertainty surrounded me, and when my parents and I shared some biltong and a bottle of white in a small Hell’s Kitchen South African wine bar, I confessed to being a bit panicked.
A lot has changed since that birthday dinner.
I landed a budding-curator’s dream job. I learned to love the suburbs. I’ve (temporarily) retired from the sport that defined a decade of my life. I lost a beloved dog. I gained a beloved puppy. I learned German. I discovered yoga. I learned how to garden. I presented on stage in front of 1,800 people. I lost my favorite Bob Dylan CD. I renewed my faith in romance.
And so, as I weigh in on the things lost and gained since July 1, 2010, I ask the question: is my quarter life crisis over?
It’s been several months since I’ve heard “you need to find yourself a nice rich husband.” So, maybe I’m starting to hit my prime. Or maybe my mother’s right — the crisis is just beginning.
I’d prefer to think it’s the fun that’s just beginning…
Stay tuned to find out.
A lot of things change from birthday to birthday, but some things never change
It was a long morning of meetings and by mid-afternoon, I was in need of a pick-me-up. I ran out of the office building and trekked half a mile to a teashop that steeps me in exquisite, antioxidant-rich, caffeinated refreshment.
“I’ll take a samurai chai mate, very slightly sweetened with German rock crystal sugar, please,” I said to the burly, blond-haired, sweet-faced guy behind the counter. With his bulk — he was somewhere between a body-builder and a swimmer — he embodied the proverbial elephant in the China shop.
Buying $40 worth of tea and bending over backwards are the least inconvienient things I'd done to get closer to a boy
We chatted while he rummaged through the canisters of tea leaves, carefully pulling together my requested blend. He was cute (think a blond Josh Hartnett), and we shared mutual tastes for morning cups of hearty black teas and afternoons helped by crisp green teas. We were both envisioning our future shared kitchen cabinet chock-full o’ tea. As he measured and poured my cup, he insisted that he teach me about matcha — he was about to have a cup and wanted to share it with me.
15 minutes later I was walking back to work with my mate chai in one hand and $40 worth of green tea in my purse. If only this was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done for a boy…
Joining the jazz band in middle school, joining the film club in high school, adding a Philosophy major to my Economics major in college, learning to ride a bike, traveling to Brooklyn, eating a steak when I’m a vegetarian — there are few inconvenient things I haven’t done while attempting to get closer to a good-looking fella. These things have frequently resulted in personal injury (bike crashes) and always cost me time (Thursday afternoons for film “discussions”) and money (a new amp for my electric violin) but rarely achieved their goal — get the guy.
I became a joint major in Economics and Philosophy to win over Jacob. The West Coast-raised upper-classman and I loved talking about biking/hiking trails and Plato to such a degree that our French professor proclaimed we went together “like peanut butter and chocolate.” Alas, Jacob was allergic to peanuts… and eventually, to me.
I don’t know if my tea purchase will result in a date or go the route of Jacob and my Econ-Philo major. In the very least, my matcha consumption will increase my metabolism and reduce my risk of cancer. It seems that for once, an act made in the name of lust might finally prove fruitful.
Unlike my attempt at learning to ride a bike, buying green tea to impress a boy will prove good for my health
Sitting next to my computer is a book called “Not Quite What I was Planning: 6 Word Memoirs by Famous and Obscure Writers.” I bought it to spot read at will — the 6-word memoirs would be lessons in wit and brevity. Indeed, the minimalist writings inspired me to conjure my own 6-word autobiographies…
Always makes it work… usually.
Frequently found herself lost abroad.
Played hard, earned many bruises.
Saved old girlfriends, discarded new boyfriends.
Easily transitions from Asolos to Manolos.
Of the above, the last is probably the best distillation of Kathleen anyone could ever write — if I have a gravestone, I wouldn’t object to that becoming my epitaph. Easily transitions from Asolos to Manolos, from clunky hiking boots to dainty stilettos, from rough n’ tumble outdoors-woman to uptown girl…
I was probably running late, but there’s always time to take one last look in the mirror. The reflection was of the girl people are used to seeing — thoughtfully made-up and sharply dressed in clothes culled from Saks 5th Avenue and trips overseas. This was the Kathleen my date was going to get, and had he, or anyone else, seen me an hour earlier, they would have thought my transformation to be the stuff of fairytale musicals.
Me in summary: Easily transitions from Asolo hiking boots to designer heels.
An hour before the eyeliner and gardenia lipstick, before the tamed curls and gold earrings, before the Diane Von Furstenberg dress and red patent high heels, I was make-up-less, except for the spf 15 and the smudge of dirt on my chin. The old t-shirt and Nike spandex I sported were covered in wood-shavings and top soil, and tufts of sod hung from the soles of my ankle-high Asolo hiking boots. Thorn pricks left bloody splotches on my calves and sweat clung to my forearms. I had spent the day hauling and laying down 25 fifty-pound bags of woodchips and boy, did I look it.
I never really think of myself as beautiful, but caked in mud, muscles toned from exertion of countless treks uphill with 100-lb loads, hair tousled underneath a dingy Yankees cap, I felt gorgeous. There was no one to judge me and no bell-curve of tall, busty blonds to grade me against. There was no need to be self-consciousness. The flush in my cheeks, the rose in my lips, and the light in my eyes were put there by the fresh air and physical exertion — not by a brush and a pancake of pressed powder. I was fit, invigorated, living, breathing, unmediated Me. What could be more beautiful than that?
I might have looked a lot like pigpen, but I felt beautiful. Lucky for my date, I clean up okay too.
When I met my date for dinner, he gave me a kiss on my cheek and told me I looked “lovely.”
“Thanks. I clean-up well.”
He repeated it back to me under his breath and it took a minute to process before he laughed and helped me with my coat. Little did he know…
We're more than fodder for a cartoon. We're young adults stuttering at the start of our lives, but we have a voice.
I don’t know who Matthew C. Klein is, but I like him. I like Matthew because he wrote an Op-Ed piece entitled “Educated, Unemployed, and Frustrated” for the New York Times on March 21st, and in doing so, is one of the few of us early 20-somethings attempting to tell the world how we feel. We’ve been mocked on the cover of The New Yorker, labeled boomerang kids by those who need catch phrases, and attacked in the New York Times Magazine. But we’re not just fodder for a cartoon. We’re young adults stalemated, stuttering in our attempt to get going. But we have a voice.
“The millions of young people who cannot get jobs or who take work that does not require a college education are in danger of losing their faith in the future…Even if the job market becomes as robust as it was in 2007… my generation will have lost years of career-building experience.”
Right On, Matthew, right on.
Us educated 20-somethings trying to find work in saturated job markets, where entry level positions are going to applicants technically at a “mid-career” stage, are living in a constant state of uncertainty. It’s a Catch-22. The process is frustrating, and we’re forced to be victims — you can’t say to a potential employer, who may take weeks to get back to you, “Please, Sir/Madam, could you make your decision on me a little faster — I’d like to get my life together now.”
There are many times over the last few months when I wanted to bash my head against a wall — like when I learned an email I sent to an old boss about a job opening at her museum went into her spam folder. She liked me for the position, and would have gone to bat for me, but didn’t get my email until after the position had been filled with another applicant. Lesson learned? Pick up the phone.
Someone told me landing that first job is all about luck. And while luck hasn’t necessarily been on my side, I’ve managed to stay cheery. Remember, if all else fails, there’s always my back-up career as a wingwoman.
It's been 3 weeks since I've heard on those 3 interviews, there must be an outbreak of wastepaper basket fires
I try to be practical. Interviewers do have jobs after all, and they have work to do: “There was just an opening in their gallery — I’m sure they’re busy.”
Then another week passes. No one has said “No” yet, so I’m still inclined to give the company the benefit of the doubt:
“There must have been a fire in the building and they’re not allowed back into their offices this week.”
Yea, that explains it. I’ve only heard back on a handful of job applications because of an unannounced outbreak of wastepaper basket fires raging across the tri-state area. And apparently, Mercury just entered retrograde.
Okay, it’s not me or my resume — it’s Mercury and office fires. I feel better now.
They Told Me to Find a Rich Husband 