As we all know, Conan O’Brien hosted his last episode of The Tonight Show last Friday. I watched his closing comments online the next morning, and this statement stood out to me as brightly as Conan’s red hair:
“All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
On the exterior, I am kind, soft-spoken, and a little funny. But under that thin layer lives a very cynical soul. If I took away that cynicism, I’m not sure if I would recognize myself.
The cynicism serves its purpose. It protects me. It makes me feel better about myself by pushing others down. It contributes marginally to my sense of humor. However, as is the case with so many things in this world, what makes me feel good is actually a cancer. Like The Bachelor (two hours every week? really?).
I want to be kind — truly kind. I want to be happy for the successes of others and applaud their efforts without planting devious motives in their heart. At first, I think that the opposite of cynicism is naïveté. I’m wrong though; it’s love. And whatever quality I think is enhanced by cynicism, like my humor, can be enhanced more by love and the positivity and creativity that come with it.
Despite all of the neat things that God has let me do over the years, I’ve never made it to the small screen, meaning I’ve never been on TV. Well, there was the one time when the local news posted a 5-second sound bite for an event that I planned while they listed all of the important details wrong.
Cool Mum was on that beloved, controversy-free late night program The Tonight Show with Jay Leno a few years back. During a band trip to California, she met up with a good friend and they attended a taping. The two young ladies made it to the platform where Jay did his monologue, so she was front and center when Jay high-fived the crowd at the start of the show.
My best chance of being on TV is moving back to Florida and raising a shirtless ruckus when the COPS film crew is at the local precinct. I also wholeheartedly believe that ‘Shirtless Ruckus’ is a stunning name for a band.
Have you ever been on TV?
The last few months have seemed like a long flashback as we’ve tried to keep up with what’s been going on. Now, we finally catch up. We pick up at July ‘09 …(cue big WHOOOSH sound à la Lost).
July 2009: We put our house on the market in June 2008 when it was clear that God meant to move us. We first tried to sell it ourselves, but our lack of desire to promote, advertise, or clean the house made it unlikely that we would sell it on our own. So, we got a realtor.
We got an offer fairly soon, but it was a little less than we wanted, and we declined. Surely, a better offer would come around soon.
A year passed.
We waited, hoped, stressed, prayed, and knocked the price down a few times. We felt ensnared by the house, like we couldn’t thrive in NYC until we were free from it.
In May, we finally got a decent offer on the house ($5,000 less than that other offer – sigh). The folks couldn’t move in until July, so we waited with trepidation until then. On July 15, we closed on the house and wriggled free from the threat of being forced to move back to Florida.
Aug 2009: Cool Mum and Cool Baby attended the casting call for extras for Sex and the City 2. CB had already scored us front placement for the New York Magazine photoshoot. Alas, after waiting in line with some of the hottest and coolest non-union actors anywhere, CM and CB never got a call. The casting agency didn’t get it right, but at least WABC 7 did.
Sept 2009: After a year of pushing used, ragged strollers around the city, we finally upgraded to a new, primo deluxe jogging stroller. The good news: easier handling and added safety for Cool Baby. The bad news: carrying the stroller down and up 4 flights of stairs every day; we had left our other strollers downstairs without fear of theft.
Oct 2009: A busy month. CM and CB visited family in Florida. While there, CM discovered our dream NYC apartment on Craigslist. Ground floor. Backyard with deck and grill. Dishwasher. 3 bedrooms. A lot higher rent than we could handle. We’d have to get roommates to afford the place, but we had tried in the past to live with roommates to no avail. The dream place was like a pipe dream.
The next week, Cool Grandmum (on my side) and my cousin visited us in NYC. We had a good time showing them around the city, especially the naked jungle that is Times Square.
We decided to give our dream place a shot, and to our surprise, people actually wanted to live with us. Us… The weirdos that call themselves Cool Dad and Cool Mum on their silly blog. By God’s grace and after the requisite twists and turns, we were getting our dream place after all.
Work was a dream, too. I had graduated from college 10 years ago, but still hadn’t settled into a career. I loved the people and the mission of the non-profit that I worked for, but I felt that being an office manager was not my calling. I was good at it, but it didn’t fit my talents.
Over the year, I put my talents to use and worked on the geeky side of the organization between my office manager duties: databases, website, social media. I loved the work, and it became clear that I didn’t want to do anything else.
I preached that the future of our company was online. My bosses agreed, and after a series of presentations, delays, and prayers, a position was created for me: Director of Communications.
And I realized God’s brilliant plan: A year ago, I wanted my career to be doing communications at a non-profit or church. But I had no experience, so I would never get hired. I became an office manager, pretty sure that it wasn’t my calling. A year later, the exact job that I wanted, but never could’ve gotten, was created just for me. Faith and patience (though I was the model of neither) yield sweet results.
Nov 2009: We moved into our dream apartment during the first week of the month. An email went out to our local church group, and 13 people showed up to move us out from our 5th floor apt. It took a New York-record 30 minutes to move! Slowly, we’ve been settling into the new place and readjusting to life with roomies.
We hosted our first Thanksgiving and had friends visiting from Orlando and local friends from Japan. On the menu: crock pot turkey breast, stuffing, sweet potatoes, frozen vegetables, and a couple of pies. When our Japanese friends asked if they could bring anything, Cool Mum responded with a Thanksgiving necessity: toilet paper. We’d like to think that we were the only family in America that asked their guests to bring TP to T-giving.
Dec 2009: My birthday was early December, and I celebrated with a deluxe Tex-Mex lunch with my co-workers (Chipotle) and dinner with our small group at church. My brother gave me a gift certificate to the Gator Sports Shop, so I loaded up on Florida shirts to proudly wear in the city. We spent 10 days in Florida for Christmas, so both sets of Cool Grand ‘Rents enjoyed reacquainting themselves with Cool Baby.
…and we’re finally caught up. I left out some big twists, but they’ll be in the book. 2010 has been good: living through the cold, settling into my new job, bonding further with our church family. We look forward to an even more adventurous year and actually keeping up with it here on the blog!
I’ve flirted with the idea now and again, but last year it hit me: AWSC?-branded Snuggies. Then I realized that a minimum of 3,000 cool points is required to have your own Snuggie, so I decided to write a book.
My high school English teacher, Mrs. Shayman, told me that I should be a writer. Had I pursued this goal, my life might have been starkly different:
- I wouldn’t have studied engineering (and might have had a girlfriend).
- I probably would have worked at the student newspaper (and might have dated one of my fellow beat reporters).
- I woulda developed a more clearer and stinkin’ elegant way with my words (and might have wooed a UF coed to be my steady).
However, in light of my misguided priorities in college, I am blissfully happy with my choice of (non-)career, and with the beloved Cool Fam that I have to show for it.
So, last year, while thinking about our story (which apparently I do all the time), I thought, “It would be cool to write a book about our journey.” Who knows what we would do with it. E-book, self-publish, shop it around. If nothing else, it would be a concerted effort to document our story for our own family legacy.
However, writing a book is no small task, and we never started last year. This is despite little pushes of inspiration like walking through the local Barnes and Noble and seeing the thousands upon thousands of books peddled there. We figured that we could surely match the writing prowess of a few of these published authors.
Over the Christmas break, I decided that to become a better writer, I should become a better reader. So, I read of a couple of books during the break, and I ordered several on Amazon. And I started writing, too.
So now, I’m outlining our lives’ stories little by little, and I’m loving it. Compared to writing my screenplay, this is cake. All of the characters are already made up. All of the plot twists already mapped out. Now, it’s just stoking my memory to bring them back to life.
I guess every year needs a goal, and this is among the biggest for 2010. Maybe on this day in 2011, I’ll be writing about a publishing deal. Mrs. Shayman will be so proud.
I’ve had some time to write lately, but I haven’t devoted much of it to writing. I was just verbally kicking myself over this with one of my friends, and she made a brilliant point:
If you press yourself to write during the appointed time, it won’t happen. Take the pressure off, and the writing will come when it will.
I know this isn’t the case for everyone. Some of you, if not many, can sit down during a free couple of hours and bang out a blog post or book chapter or Communist manifesto that you’ve been meaning to write. However, when I reserve ‘writing time’, it mostly ends up becoming ‘Farmville time’. (JOKING – I’m not a Farmville farmer – not that there’s anything wrong with that (ahem)).
However, now that it’s 11:00pm, and it should be ‘Fiesta Bowl watching time’, I’ve written this epic, unforgettable post.
If you’re a writer/blogger/Communist literary icon, when do you write? Are you disciplined to keep an appointed time, or do you just write whenever it flows?
