who’s this broad? | a story about me

All right, all right. I’m starting a blog.

It may as well have a dramatic backstory.

Hello. I’m Rose. Welcome.

Shameless flower-crown-wearer extraordinaire.

As you may have read on my about me page, I used to be a bit of an ugly duckling.

Throughout my youth, I was deliberately weird and self-conscious about it.

Unproductive combination, I now realize.

FAR better to be deliberately weird and OWN it.

Anyway, when it came time for college, I applied to Johns Hopkins University on a total whim. I needed another “stretch” place to try for, (according to my guidance counselor), and I had heard there was a really good women’s barbershop chorus in the city.

My vocal coach, Debbie Keretz, the director of our Young Women in Harmony group, got really excited when she heard that Baltimore was on the table. I worshipped the ground she walked on (with her be-sequined shoes) and her endorsement was the biggest selling point for the city, and therefore the university. Never mind its international renown.

By some miracle, they accepted me, and I studied writing and theater there.

I was an extremely fortunate recipient of what I wryly termed the “congrats, you’re poor” scholarship — financial aid directly from the school, in the form of need-based grants, enough to cover tuition.

Thanks, JHU!

Someday when I’m rich and famous, I’ll be sure to send you a check for a million dollars to use as financial aid for other kids who need a hand the way I did.

Dear reader: please do consider hiring me, if only to help make this a reality that much more quickly.

Light cue: fade to dim spot on ROSE, who is typing diligently on her laptop. “In The Arms of an Angel” by Sarah McLachlan plays softly, laptop keystrokes ticking away insistently in the background.

Booming voiceover: “YOU, TOO, CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF–”

Tuition covered, I worked to take care of the rent.

I had a lot of part-time jobs during college: call center, data entry, pet sitting, administrative assistance, retail, and my personal favorite from that period — working in the university library coffee shop.

Didn’t have too much spare time for socializing, but I still made some seriously awesome memories and friends both on and off campus.

I was briefly in Kappa Kappa Gamma, (couldn’t make dues after a few semesters — but still, met many wonderful ladies there), I was a member of the Pride of Baltimore women’s barbershop chorus, I played trumpet in an indie pop band with a spirited gaggle of STEM kids, and I performed as a vocalist with a jazz combo at open mics and holiday parties.

Upon graduation, I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself, so naturally I immediately moved back home with my parents and signed myself up for a job the very next day — catching a ride with my mom, packing boxes on the overnight shift in the Amazon.com warehouse just west of Allentown, PA where she worked at the time.

Yes, that’s right.

If you didn’t already know this, I am here to tell you that all of the random stuff that you order on Amazon is — more often than not — packed by an actual human person, by hand. (Or at least that’s how it was when I was there.)

You’re welcome, people who ordered about 100,000 items during my time there.

Basic math behind that:

100 items per hour (an almost laughably low estimate; we were often expected to pack much more — my ‘zon friends will tell you about the multi-smalls rate — but hey, 100 is a nice round number)

x 40 hours per week (again, low estimate; overtime was common and is actually mandatory during the holiday season)

x 26 weeks (I was extremely lucky, cross-trained and promoted, so I probably only packed for a third of the time I was there, all told)

= low ballpark of 104,000 items hand-packed by yours truly and scrawny.

Again: y’all are quite welcome.

My little spaghetti noodle arms thank you in return for the opportunity.

For those few months, they got to grow a tiny bit of muscle.

That-all wasn’t quite for me, but I couldn’t exactly afford to quit.

So I took some time and —clearly the best option when faced with a crucial life decision— just hemmed and hawed in agony about possible next steps for about a year and a half, all while packing endless cardboard boxes and (after being extremely fortunately promoted fairly early on) running around screeching into a walkie-talkie while tracking and chasing an unfathomably large volume of inventory moving through the warehouse every night.

After a silly amount of time spent perseverating about what exactly I wanted to ~do with my life~ I left Amazon and I started substitute teaching at local schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

I liked subbing, so I applied to and served with City Year, and I loved it.

For those who might be wondering, City Year is a subdivision of Americorps, which is basically a division of the Peace Corps, except you get to do helpful work in areas in need right here in the states instead of abroad.

It’s a government stipended volunteer program, and a feeder organization for Teach for America.

With City Year, I had the opportunity to serve as a full-time volunteer in a public middle school in the Bronx and I got to teach smart, cool kids about reading and science.

That was AMAZING and I got to meet a lot of talented, wonderful people while serving, but the stipend wasn’t really enough to cover the bills.

Since it is technically a federally funded voluntary service organization, minimum wage laws do not apply.

And as you might imagine, since my tiny, elderly mother was working at Amazon doing manual labor… my family wasn’t exactly in a position to be able to help me out with paying for food and electricity.

I had to leave part of the way through the year — put in my two weeks, heartbroken but cripplingly preoccupied with my creeping credit card debt — and I went back to working in a coffee shop.

The part-time pay there was better than the full-time stipend, and I looked for a more permanent job.

Eventually, I landed a really nice office gig with a local business, and I stayed there for a year and a half, working as an administrative assistant.

My department was great, my supervisors and colleagues were lovely people, and I finally had a sense of comparative peace when it came to cash flow, for the very first time in my young life.

And hey! Health insurance and a 401k! I was officially a real live adult!

Can I just pause here to say that constant financial distress is EXHAUSTING, folks.

Even after it’s in the past. It LINGERS. For YEEEARS.

I am in my twenties. And I’m feelin’ forty two.

After all of these many scattered professional adventures, it occurred to me (somewhat belatedly) that maybe I ought to try…writing.

After all, I went ahead and studied it at a fancy school that I got into by half-accident.

I had pretty good grades in the subject.

My teachers, professors, and friends all seemed to appreciate my essays, both lengthy and short — academic and personal.

All signs pointed to the DISTINCT possibility, “hey Rose, you are pretty good at this thing. You should… like… do it. And not just for kicks and giggles on Facebook.”

So here we are.

Right now, I am living just a short train ride north NYC, able to go in and meet up with friends when I please. I have an okay grasp of the subway system, and no residual fear of city driving / endless patience after having to find street parking in the Bronx every morning for months. (Thanks, City Year!)

I am still singing women’s barbershop. My chorus went to international competition last fall. My quartet won a minor award for being the best new kids on the scene when we competed at last spring’s regional.

I am still a total book dweeb. It’s gotten to the point where friends give me boxes of books and old bookshelves they’re planning on getting rid of.

My apartment is turning into a library; truly I am living my best life.

And I write words for businesses for a living, because I have an incurable addiction to buying designer clothes for my dog and cat.

I’m kidding.

He would get mud all over designer clothes and she wouldn’t tolerate them.

It’s to be able to save money, pay the rent, and help out my family.

I’m making ends meet just fine now, but I do want to be able to buy a house eventually.

Boring, I know, but what can I say. The dog could use a yard.

I have a wonderful partner who scratches his head in wonder at the fact that I am able to find work writing online. (The man does not even have an Instagram account.)

Though he sometimes squints warily at my laptop… he is loving and supportive of my endeavors, overall.

During my free time, I like to go hiking with the pup, hang out in my pyjamas reading and writing on my laptop with the cat by my side, and on weekends I like to meet up at grungy diners in Jersey to drink coffee and eat Disco Fries with my sister and my mom.

I have to admit — I’ve got a simple life.

My story is a little less “rags to riches” and a little more “rags to perfectly nice, clean, serviceable dish towels from Target,” but hey, I’m still young.

I’m working on it.

If you’ve gotten to this point, high five!

We’re friends now.

I am going to be blogging every week about topics to-be-determined! Yay!

Looking forward to making 2018 the year that I finally-do-the-thing and get myself writing the way that I should’ve since the day I stepped off that graduation stage.

Cheers to getting started, half a decade late.

If you want to be internet buds on my ongoing journey, feel free!

Say hello on Twitter, here on my site, or in the comments on Medium.

Until next week!

— Rose ✨