I have found myself using this tag more and more over the past year or so.  For me, I started using the hashtag in the spirit it was created:  a joke, something to laugh at, and something that does add a bit of perspective. As I find myself becoming more familiar with global events and situations, I use the tag predominantly as a reminder to myself: Yes, my computer’s hard drive crashed, but I’m not being shot at by my government. #firstworldproblems. Yes, I keep getting calls from various student loans companies, but I had the privilege of attending college. #firstworldproblems. I had to pay $30 to go to the doctor’s office the other day, but I have health insurance. #firstworldproblems.
The Occupy movement needs to have this hashtag impressed on their forehead. The majority of the Occupiers are not the 1%. They make, if they’re lucky, $30,000 a year. They have no insurance. They are put upon by employers and neighbors. There should absolutely be something done to equalize the gross disparity between the 1% and the 99%. Well. Just some perspective: if you have a job – ANY job, if you have a roof over your head, if fewer than 5 people live in your house/apartment, if you had a meal today, or were able to get a cup of clean water from the tap, you are part of the global 10%*. We Americans tend to have a very myopic view of the world. As in we don’t see it. Maybe that’s something that we can work on. Remembering that, despite the hardships that we face in our lives, we are still better off than the majority of the world’s population. Our problems are real problems, no doubt. But #firstworldproblems are just that: #firstworldproblems.

Back in May, when I was debating applying for my current job and then debating taking it or not, my thought process went something like this: “Same money, better hours. Position bump. Cuts out some time on my L.L.Bean timeline. But I’d have to leave L.L.Bean. It would be my fifth year of service. And the centennial. And I’d have to leave L.L.Bean.”

For those of you who know me, you likely understand how heart-wrenching a decision that was for me. Few things are, or have ever been, as dear to my heart as L.L.Bean. As a consumer and as an employee.

As I walked out the door the morning of my last shift, I promised myself and my coworkers I’d be back. Not necessarily in the same role, but back I would be. Imagine my surprise when I recently said out loud, “I don’t know if I’ll go back.”

Maybe it’s just symptomatic of being in my twenties, but I’m loving the freedom I have at Horny Toad. Not just the freedom to not be confined to khakis and a white or green shirt, but the freedom to come up with new processes. To creatively problem solve. The freedom to fail and then come up with a way to fix it. Something that’s not in the manual.

Working for a 100-year old company is awesome. You know that, somewhere, an answer exists. In the digital age, it’s not hard to access that answer. However, that same thing is also what makes working for a 100-year old company somewhat stifling. At least for someone like me. Someone who has to know the why.

L.L.Bean gave me the basic and intermediate tools needed to do my job. They also developed me so that I want to do and know more. Horny Toad is giving me the space and flexibility to expand into advanced tools.

All of this isn’t to say that I won’t someday return to L.L.Bean. I will. I still plan on retiring there. But first I need to forge my own path. Figure out why something is done the way it is before I can figure out how to make it better. The ultimate moral of the story is I’m incredibly lucky. I’ve worked in some outstanding companies in my short career. These companies have, for the most part, already had It figured out though. With Horny Toad, I think the opportunity is here to make a real difference.

I’m psyched to see what the next few years bring.

It’s been almost 10 years to the day since the first time I remember coming to visit with my parents. I was a high school junior. I remember crossing through Crawford’s Notch in New Hampshire, leaving the head of the Saco River behind, and feeling like – with the river – I was also leaving behind everything I knew.

I’m going to pause here and point out how dumb that feeling was. My paternal family is from Plattsburgh, NY, a city we passed through on the way to Canton and a city we visited fairly regularly. My maternal family (at the time) rented a summer house on Lake George, also on the fringes of the Adirondacks. This (a) wasn’t a new route to me, (b) wasn’t a new region to me. But. I digress. Regardless, it was one of those pivotal moments in my development as an adult.

We stepped out of the car to a miserable, gray, drizzly, North Country, November day.

I was in love.

Everything about campus felt right. From the class I went to with the freshmen (sorry, Student Life Professionals, “First-Years”), the meal I ate in the “Pub” with my parents, and the soccer game I froze through in the new stadium. There were flaws (I’d learn about more later), but it was perfect for me.

SLU ended up being the only school I applied to the following year. I have never regretted that decision.

This was nailed home when I walked onto campus last night. It’s been two years since I’ve been here, and the last time was for the new president’s inauguration, so that was hardly a typical weekend, but still. Even without the alumni red carpet rolled out, this place is STILL home.

Although I had 18 years of life before I matriculated into SLU, I feel like my life didn’t begin until I had matriculated.

This place is so damn special.

I was driving to Bard this morning and it hit me: I have no idea what I’m going to write for this year’s #nanowrimo. This was immediately followed by the two part of the one-two punch: #nanowrimo starts next Tuesday. As in less than ten days away.

I remember last year at this time I was certain I’d never make 50,000 words. This year I know I can make 50,000 somewhat cohesive words, but am petrified that – after a strong start last year – I’ll never make it this year.

Oh the foibles of playing at being a writer!

In other news, a week and a half until #nanowrimo kicks off! I’m so excited!

You may have noticed along the way that I have a real love affair with this state.

It’s cool.

I’m not ashamed.

Only partly for reasons like this. Maine Public Broadcasting had a novel idea for their pledge drive this quarter/month/year (I’m unsure how they mete out their fundraising drives): instead of a week or even month long effort they decided to get everything done in one day. Super Thursday was born. MPBN’s goal? 2,600 pledges in one day. Perhaps even cooler than not having favorite programming bumped by fundraising asks? MPBN made it. They had well over the requested 2,600 pledges.

Go. Maine.

I’m addicted to books.

I can’t stop buying them, I can’t stop reading them.

Luckily, I have a lot of really smart people in my life who are more than willing to enable me in this addiction. Among them Josh (who I affectionately call my “dealer”) who works at a book store near me. Josh, bless his ever enabling heart, has a podcast with two delightful ladies, Jenn and Rebecca. Their podcast, Bookrageous, is dangerous in that, inevitably, by the end of it I’ve messaged Josh fifteen times over about books that he, Rebecca or Jenn have mentioned throughout. However, it often gets me thinking at the same time.

This week’s episodes centered on “Subversive Books”, books that turn on end how you previously thought of the world. Hearing these guys talking about their books made me wonder what books might fall on my list.

Books like The Giver, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and The Odyssey certainly gave me a much broader understanding of the world than I had before. But I was thinking, what books might have had the same effect on me since I was in school?

I couldn’t think of any.

Which made me wonder what the hell I’d been reading for the past five years. My answer was a WHOLE lot of Young Adult fiction. So how has that affected me? Other than being a whole lot of fun to escape into?

And it occurred to me, since starting to really read YA, I see so many more possibilities around me than ever before. I commented to my parents once that YA isn’t necessarily about creating a whole new world to live in, just about changing one or two things so that it’s different. It’s not necessarily just seeing faces in the brambles, but about seeing…more. I can’t think of any clearer way to say it than that.

I love YA for the power it has to stretch my imagination on a near daily basis.

As adults, we all get so tunnel visioned into our lives. We have to get to work, get home, go grocery shopping, sleep and do it all again. YA ensures that we never get too comfortable in our ruts.

I love that :)

But here’s my conundrum.

I will absolutely be doing it again, I had a really good time and (surprisingly) met some really great people doing it last time. My problem is that, since proving to myself that I am capable of a piece of writing that is novel-ish length, I have started not one, but TWO writing projects.

Am I tapped out ideas wise?

I should probably brainstorm A LOT more before November 1st.

I never thought that a grueling, emotionally draining, SELF-IMPOSED endeavor such as this would be something that I looked forward to.

But.

Here we are. September 26th. And I want to fast forward a month so we can get this show on the road.

Bring it on, #nanos!

We have a warehouse sale next week. Which is fine. Based on my experience with our previous sale, I was anticipating a heck of a lot of work, a heck of a lot of stress. The former is certainly there, but the latter is not.* Surprisingly, not being stressed is stressing me out more than actually stressing would.

It’s the most confounding of situations.

This all results in me feeling like an uber goober.

Seriously. Who gets stressed over not being stressed? Evidently this kid. What do you do in these situations?

*That is to say, the stress isn’t here YET. I fully acknowledge it may be there by week’s end…