General Life Whatnot – Page 5

September 15, 2014General Life Whatnot Uncategorized

Pulling back and stepping back up

I just checked my book sales for the first time in two months. This is the first time I’ve logged into my own website in nearly three. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably forgotten that you follow me on Twitter. If you’ve worked with me at all for the last few months, you might have noticed that instead of being prompt, responsive and committed to meeting my own high standards, I’ve been juuuuuuust squeaking by.

Sorry, world. It was unavoidable. Something has been sucking the life out of me in a greedy quest to feed its own existence. It’s a baby. And I am, of course, more than willing to let it do so for the next 19 to 25 years. Though I was fully unprepared for how difficult the first trimester would be (the fatigue! the evil, stifling blanket of fatigue!), everything that I am and all that I believe preclude me from blaming my need to temporarily recede from reality on a pregnancy. Oh no. If only that was the only thing.

June 12, 2014June 12, 2014General Life Whatnot Writing

Stop trying to be me, Amy (Just kidding, I love you. Please be my best friend.)

Someone has made an NBC television show about an American moving to Sweden.

It wasn’t me. It was Amy Poehler. Of course. Because, just six years after launching an NBC television show about the hilarity of working for local government, Amy is continuing her quest to tell my life story in reverse for the American viewing public. I assume, a few years from now, we’ll get to indulge in her comedic rendition of a small town girl having a mediocre college experience at a Big Ten university. Be prepared, there will be no discernible plot or meaningful takeaways.

So there’s this show. It’s a comedy called Welcome to Sweden and it starts in July. What does this mean for someone who recently released a book on nearly the same topic, plus some weird cults and indentured servitude? I don’t know. It seems like an opportunity, but I’m not sure what that opportunity is. Will people accidentally buy my book, thinking it’s associated with the show? Should I send the book to Amy so she can write a desperate American house servant into the second season? It certainly means, as this show is based on the real life experiences of Amy’s brother, that if my sibling was famous, the Swedish Lessons version of Welcome to Sweden would have already happened. Come on, Brianna. Get with it.
While I mull over how Swedish Lessons can hop on Welcome to Sweden’s coattails, you may enjoy the trailer. It looks amazing.

June 5, 2014June 5, 2014General Life Whatnot Millennials Self-Employment

The role of the millennial elder

If I had a dollar for every article I’ve read about how the business world is readying itself for the millennial workforce, I might not be insanely rich, but I could at least take pretty swank trip to Spain with my loot. I know this because I’ve written a bunch of those articles, and dozens of others for research. And each time I do, I think, “Wow. Would have been pretty cool if the world cared so much about this 10 years ago, when this millennial was entering the workforce.”

Ah. The woes of a millennial elder. Though the dates bookending my generation vary, the most common – and accurate, in my experience – call 1982 the dawn of the millennials. This means I am seven days away from being as old as millennial gets.

Now, of course the lines are blurry. I know people up to a year older than myself who definitely fit into my generation, and those a year or so younger who are startlingly Gen X-ish. But, by and large, if there a way to define a millennial elder, someone born in January, 1982 is about a close as it gets.