In Which I Try to Convince You to Check Out Grub Street

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If you like to write and live in the Boston area, you must check out Grub Street. (After reading the title, you probably thought I’d be a little more subtle than that, right?) But one of the cardinal rules of writing is “Show, don’t tell.” Therefore, I will show you why you should check out Grub Street.

Grub Street offers many writing classes as well as weekend workshops and one-night seminars, all taught by experienced, successful writers. My thesis in college was a young adult novel and the novel I’m working on now is women’s fiction, so accordingly, the two seminars I’ve been to were on young adult lit and on chick lit (which, as I learned in the class, is now called “commercial women’s fiction”). At the chick lit one, I learned a lot about the current state of women’s fiction and got a pretty enthusiastic response when I described the premise of the novel I’m working on. At the young adult one, I got a lot of great advice from Emily Franklin, including her suggestion to become a reviewer for Teens Read Too. She also later helped me with my query letter.

But I think the easiest way to convince you to check out Grub Street is to describe the day I had last Sunday.

When I heard that Grub Street was offering an event called Muse and the Marketplace, I signed up right away. I’d have the chance to meet with an agent; attend several writing seminars with professional writers, editors, and agents; and go to a lunch with a keynote speech by one of my favorite writers in the world, Jonathan Franzen.

Muse and the Marketplace was last Sunday, and it was everything I could have hoped for. First, I met with an agent about the novel I wrote for my senior thesis. She’d read the first twenty pages, and although she expressed some concerns about it (which I agreed with), she wanted to read more, so I’ve sent her more. Fingers crossed!

Then it was time for the workshops. The first one was on children’s and young adult literature, and it was taught by…Lois Lowry. As in The Giver, Number the Stars, the Anastasia Krupnik books, etc. As in one of the greatest children’s authors of all time. It was great and she had a lot of interesting things to say, but my mind was going, “LOIS LOWRY! Ooh, that was a really good point she just made…LOIS LOWRY!…Yeah, that makes sense about children’s literature…LOIS LOWRY!…Ooh, I like that book she’s reading from…LOIS LOWRY!”

One thing she did mention was that they’re making The Giver into a movie. I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I think it would be really cool visually, with the black-and-white becoming color and all. On the other hand, though, The Giver was an amazing, very original book that’s possibly one of the most intelligent novels ever written for children, and I kind of think it might get lost in translation to the big screen. It would have to star unknown actors, too, I think.

Anyway, my next workshop was fun. It was called “Agent Idol.” The idea is, you submit the first page of something you’ve written (I submitted the novel I’m working on right now), and a woman reads it aloud to a panel of three agents, who raise their hand at the point where they’d stop reading. Once two of them raise their hands, they stop and explain what they liked and didn’t like about the piece.

They were pretty brutal with some of them, sometimes only reading a sentence. There was also one that they absolutely loved and couldn’t find anything wrong with. They were actually more positive about mine than they were about a lot of others. One agent didn’t raise her hand at all and said, “What is wrong with you people?” when the other two agents did. One said the subject matter just wasn’t her thing—fair enough. The third one thought there was a little too much description too early and had some questions about the content (both of which were actually addressed in the next paragraph), but she said that out of the ones she’d heard thus far (mine was read somewhere in the middle, before they heard the one they really loved), it was the one she would have read the most of. It was kind of a wake-up call to know exactly how quickly agents stop reading a manuscript, but I ended up coming out of it feeling encouraged.

Then was the keynote lunch with Jonathan Franzen. The lunch itself was kind of cool—I sat down next to some people and talked to them about their experiences with agents and workshops that day. But then it was time for Jonathan Franzen. He looks exactly like his picture on the book jacket. For his speech, he mainly read part of his essay “The Foreign Language,” from his book The Discomfort Zone and added some remarks at the end. Then he took questions, and I was kind of surprised by the way he answered them. He seemed to have a good sense of humor, but he also seemed a little uncomfortable, and almost…shy. That definitely wasn’t what I expected.

I should say a word about him. I’ve read three out of his five books (and I’m reading a fourth right now). I enjoyed Strong Motion. When I read The Discomfort Zone, a book of essays which my coworker Nate recently lent me, I was struck by his ability to find meaning in commonplace situations. And The Corrections is one of my favorite books of all time. It’s amazing—I’ve read it several times since February 2002, and every time, I pick up something I didn’t notice before. The characters are so real, and you sympathize with them even if you don’t really like them. It’s funny in some places but heartbreakingly sad in others. And most importantly, like all my favorite books, it touches on truths that I’ve felt but could never articulate. I didn’t pick up on this quote the first time I read it, but on a subsequent reading, it jumped out at me:

“And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before? You see things more clearly and you know that you’re seeing them more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this.”

I’ve never found a better way of expressing that thought, and it can apply to so many things. But my admiration of his writing has always been tempered with my disdain for his snobbery. I think he came off as a jackass in the whole Oprah incident, and while I see his point, you’d think he’d be happy about his book being exposed to a wider audience rather than being disappointed that the mainstream had tainted it. So my greatest wish, as a writer, is to have a tenth of Jonathan Franzen’s talent with none of the snobbery.

After the speech, I took my old, beat-up first edition copy of The Corrections and went to get his autograph. I got up there and realized that I had absolutely nothing interesting to say to him. I ended up stammering something like, “Um…I really liked this book!”

So. After lunch I had my third workshop, “Agents on the Hot Seat,” where you could ask a panel of agents anything. I asked how important it was to have published short stories before selling a novel. Surprisingly, they said not very, just like the agent I met with in the morning did. Every successful query letter I’ve ever read lists numerous literary magazines, and while I’ve written some short stories I’d like to get published, I don’t know if I have the patience for it when most literary magazines have less than a 1% acceptance rate. So that was good to know.

And the last workshop I went to, in the “Hour of Power” where you could pick between four options, was “Moms Who Write.” I’m obviously not a mom, but someday I might be, and I can always use time management tips. Interestingly, a lot of other people in that seminar weren’t moms, either.

So, getting to my point—I got all that in one day. For a fraction of what an MFA would cost. From Grub Street.

Therefore, if you are in the Boston area and you write, you must check them out.

Local Politics Rant

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I don’t often discuss politics in my blog, but this is one local issue that I can’t get off my mind lately, so excuse me while I vent.

I grew up in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, which is about forty-five minutes north of Boston. One of the reasons my parents chose to live there was because of its good school system, and I agree that for the most part, I had a great experience in the Chelmsford public schools. I had some amazing teachers, and I feel that I was so well-prepared for college that college actually seemed easy to me. I majored in English, and none of the English classes I took at BC were as rigorous as the English classes I took at Chelmsford High. I had a terrific calculus teacher who made things so easy to understand that I wondered why anyone thought calculus was hard. I had some wonderful teachers in elementary school and middle school, too, and some of my fondest memories of high school involve extracurriculars: swim team, musical theater, treble choir, yearbook, etc.

I don’t live in Chelmsford anymore, so I don’t really follow the local news there, but this week, I read in the Globe that voters had failed to approve a property tax override that would have prevented several budget cuts. I was sad to hear that, but I had to give the voters the benefit of the doubt, since I’ve never had to pay property taxes myself. Nobody likes tax increases, and I thought that if the override had failed so decisively (3 to 2), it must have been a significant increase.

Then I found out more facts about it. Because this override failed, an elementary school will have to be closed permanently, when the schools are already getting overcrowded. Students will have to be redistricted yet again. There’ll be a $200 bus fee per child, when previously, buses were completely covered. Student activity fees will be significantly increased, which means that some kids might not be able to afford to participate in the extracurriculars I was involved in. 35 school employees will be laid off. A fire station will be closed permanently. Police officers and firefighters will be laid off. Libraries will have to cut their hours.

These are not small things. These are life-changing, property-value-diminishing, educational-quality-decreasing, threat-to-public-safety changes. The people of Chelmsford decided, through the democratic process, that several people should lose their jobs, residents should be more vulnerable to crime, homes should be more likely to be destroyed by fire, and that the town should no longer have a high-quality, enviable school system that makes people want to raise a family there. That override must have been for a hell of a lot of money, I thought.

Then I found out exactly how much. This document explains that the taxes on a home valued $370,000, which is slightly above the town average, would increase by about $200 a year.

Whoa.

Back up there.

$200 a year? $200 a year! Not a month! A year. A YEAR! $200! Not $2,000. $200! Two zeroes! Two!

Now, you all know that I have no money. The first word of my blog title is “struggling.” I recently joined a Facebook group called “I work in publishing and I’m underpaid.” Taking a vacation is a dream of mine, and God only knows when I’ll be able to afford a house. But when I can, I will most definitely be willing to spend $200 a year to help schools and town services. I’d be willing to pay that now, for God’s sake, as little money as I have!

I just don’t understand this way of thinking at all. Not wanting a tax increase when you don’t know where your tax dollars are going is one thing, but how can you see these very specific things that are going to be cut and think, “Oh, we don’t need good schools! Screw the fire department and police, I’ll take the risk and save myself $200 a year!” I get that a lot of the people voting against it are senior citizens on fixed incomes, but most of them had children in the school system in the past. How can they look at the kids in their neighborhood and feel okay about decreasing the quality of their education so that they can save $200 a year? How are that many people so selfish?

The last override in town happened seventeen years ago. I actually vaguely remember it—I was in first grade, and my parents, along with many, many others, had a bumper sticker on their car and a sign on their lawn urging people to vote yes. I was only six and had no idea what taxes were, but I remember thinking, “Well, of course people should support the schools. Why wouldn’t you?”

Seventeen years later, my thinking hasn’t changed at all. Maybe someday I’ll look back at this and think, “Oh, you stupid, idealistic twenty-three-year-old. You have no idea how the world works,” but I really don’t think so. Last year, Chelmsford was named the 21st-best place to live in America by Money magazine. Somehow, I doubt that it will happen again. And I used to think that once I was married with kids, I’d like to live there and have my kids go through the Chelmsford public schools. Unless something major changes between now and then, that’s most definitely not an option anymore.

I believe strongly in public school education. In college, I was amazed to meet so many people who had gone to private schools, since I barely knew anyone who did growing up, and I’ve never quite understood the school choice position because it doesn’t address the problem of how to fix failing schools. Education is a right, not a privilege, and the people of Chelmsford, who, according to the PowerPoint presentation on this page, spend $2,000 less per student than the state average, aren’t asking for anything extravagant. They just want a school system in the town they live in with good teachers, small class sizes, available transportation, and affordable extracurriculars. I thought most people in Chelmsford felt the same way.

But apparently, by a 3 to 2 margin, they don’t.

Business and Pleasure

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I’m twenty-three, single, have no kids, and haven’t done much traveling. I am, therefore, in probably the only point of my life where I’ll be this excited about a business trip.

My first one was last week. I went to San Francisco for a conference, where I worked a booth talking to professors and trying to get them to fill out forms so we could send them books and hope they’d want to use them. I’d never been to San Francisco before, and I discovered that it’s a really nice city. Small and easy to walk like Boston, but a lot hillier. I went on one of those cable cars, had dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf, did some shopping (well, didn’t really buy anything, but I went in a lot of stores), went to a bar, and just walked around and enjoyed seeing things.

The thing is, though, I think I would have enjoyed the trip even if I never saw the outside of the hotel. As I’ve mentioned before, I never travel, so just taking a trip on a plane and staying in a hotel are events for me. I bought myself books specifically for the plane ride, which I’ll probably do another post about soon. Also, this was the first time I’d ever had a hotel room to myself. I was excited about sleeping in this king-sized bed with a million pillows and actually getting to take a bath—I love baths, but the water pressure in my apartment is too low for me to take them.

I feel like such a dork for getting so excited over this trip, but I’m a bit comforted in knowing that my feelings were pretty similar to those of some of my college friends, whose facebook statuses have demonstrated their own excitement at getting the opportunity to travel for work. One friend from college went to Houston, where she’d never been before, and she was telling me, “People were wearing cowboy hats! I thought that was a stereotype!”

Work is a big part of my life, but I don’t talk about it much here except in very general terms. You hear all these horror stories about people being fired for blogging about work, and I’m a bit paranoid. But I don’t have anything bad or revealing to say, so here goes. I am, for those of you who don’t know, an Assistant Editor for political science at a large textbook publishing company. When I tell people this, they usually think I’m either a copy editor (I’m not; we have freelancers who copyedit) or some kind of political science expert (I’ve actually never taken poli sci in my life). Basically what I do is manage the supplements for political science books—things like test banks, instructor’s manuals, study guides, companion websites, etc. I hire people to write them, make sure they’re of high quality, and put them into production. I also do random other things like make grids comparing us to the competition and sometimes helping the sales reps.

The thing with it is, it doesn’t sound very interesting, and a lot of people discover that it’s not for them, but for some reason, it’s interesting for me. I had originally planned on working in trade book publishing, so that I could learn a bit about it since I want to publish novels, but in the end, I liked educational publishing. There was a time when I considered teaching, but I don’t think I could handle it—I have so much respect for my friends, like Christina and Erin, who teach, because there are so many headaches that go along with it. So I kind of see my job as a way to be involved in education without teaching—it’s a different way of helping people learn. Of course, it’s a business, so it’s all about the bottom line, but it’s a business full of English majors instead of finance majors, so it works for me. Plus, I have a great boss and awesome co-workers, so at this point in my life, I don’t think I could ask for more.

I’m lucky that I got to this point. My first year out of college was extremely difficult and full of a lot of ups and downs, but despite some disappointments, what I got out of it was the knowledge that I did want to stay in publishing, specifically educational publishing. I mean, if I had my choice of doing anything for the rest of my life, I’d be able to make a living as a novelist, but that’s not exactly a stable career path. So while I’ll continue to pursue that dream, I think I could be happy making textbooks until I retire, as strange as that may sound. Maybe someday I’ll even get to the point where I’m sick of business trips.

But for now, it’s fun traveling for work, and it’s hard to imagine being used to it, let alone sick of it. On the plane last week, I’d see people on their laptops and think, “Huh, I wonder if they’re traveling on business.” Then I’d think, “Wait. So am I.”

An Open Letter

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Dear T Riders of Boston,

Here are some rules of etiquette for you:

-Do not set gigantic bags on the floor right by the door, causing people to trip over it and each other (literally), especially during rush hour.

-Do not stand in front of an empty seat. And don’t give me a dirty look when I say, “Excuse me,” and move to sit in it. You can give up your right to sit, and I respect that, but don’t infringe upon my right to take the seat you didn’t want.

-Do not block an empty seat in any other way. If you’re on one of the older green line trains, do not sit in the aisle seat and refuse to move over when you see me standing near you. Do not sit in the aisle seat and put your stuff on the empty seat next to you. If you’re in any seat on any line, don’t take up two seats, either with your body or your stuff.

-For the love of God, do not put your feet on an empty seat.

-Don’t be a college student. Not only do you annoy me with your loud chatter and inane conversation, but you make me realize a.) that I must have sounded exactly like that a couple of years ago, and b.) that I’m officially OLD if I’m at the point where college students annoy me.

That is all.

Love,
Katie

P.S. Well, not quite. I should mentiont that not all of you suck. Some of you are quite friendly, and some of you actually have interesting conversations that I like to listen in on. Like the guy I once sat next to and the woman he knew who walked over and started talking to him, whereupon I discovered that they were both actors in musicals. I’ve since seen the woman a few more times on the T (apparently, we have the same schedule), and one time she was mouthing the words on the sheet music she was looking at.

P.P.S. Oh, yeah, and if you’re a T driver, could you try not to slam the door on me (literally , close the doors with me stuck in between them) like you did last Monday? Thanks.

The Title of This Blog Has Not Changed

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Yes, Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and the “single” part of “Struggling Single Twenty-Something” is still valid.

This year I went to a bar with some coworkers who also didn’t have plans, and it was fun. We had some drinks, talked, and came up with reasons why we like being single and why we don’t like being in a relationship.

Except I had to guess on the last one, because I wouldn’t know.

It’s kind of embarrassing to admit it, but I’ve never had a boyfriend. I read a short story by Curtis Sittenfeld where the main character wonders “how people made the leap from not mattering in each other’s lives to mattering,” and that articulates a thought I’ve had much better than I could. (Incidentally, the main character in that story was a slightly crazy twenty-three-year-old who volunteers through a program that sounds really similar to the one I volunteer with, so that disturbed me a bit.) I hope a time comes when I feel differently, but right now I’m not feeling too good about the odds that I’ll ever a.) have a guy in my life who’ll become my best friend, b.) fall in love with him, c.) have him feel the same way, and d.) not have any factors (like distance, timing, etc.) get in the way.

Maybe I’m overly picky, but I don’t think that’s the point. I guess it’s that I don’t understand having a relationship if you know it’s going to end. You’re either going to spend the rest of your lives together or you’re going to break up, and if you’re going to break up…you’re wasting your time and possibly missing out on meeting someone better.

Of course, I could be overreacting, and a relationship that doesn’t last might be good for me after all. But I’m also thinking about something a friend said to me recently. When I told her that I’d never had a boyfriend, she said, “But you must have a really good sense of self.”

And that made me pause. That wasn’t the reaction I expected, but I kind of think she’s right. I am not the most confident person in the world, but “sense of self” isn’t an issue with me. Christina and I were talking tonight about how sometimes that’s the most important thing for getting you through hard times. Having someone else to depend on is great…but first you have to be able to depend on yourself. (Oh, yes, and I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside, you know?) And if you go from relationship to relationship without taking the time to be single, or even if you’re single but constantly thinking about how you want not to be, I think it’s pretty easy to lose yourself.

If I was going to write a song to describe my life right now, it wouldn’t be a love song. It would be more like that Jessica Andrews song, “Who I Am.” (You know, “I am Rosemary’s granddaughter/The spitting image of my father/And when the day is done my mama’s still my biggest fan.”) Too bad I can’t write songs. But if you want a concise description of my life, read my “About Me.” For a longer version…well, keep reading.

The Foul-Weather Fan

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I have a confession to make.

I don’t think I’m a Pats fan.

And no, I didn’t come to that conclusion after they lost the Superbowl. It wasn’t even after Spygate (come on, they can’t be the only team who’s cheated). Actually, it was more like once they started winning a lot, and winning with ridiculously high scores. It would have been one thing if we’d always been the underdog and just started to have a great season this year, but instead, we’re a Dynasty. It’s gotten to the point where it’s impossible to talk about the Patriots without saying the D-word. Honestly, by now I think being a Pats fan is kind of like being a Yankees fan.

Yeah, I went there. (When I shared that thought with my mom, she said, “Be careful who you say that to!” as if I’d said something really offensive.) But really. We’ve won three Superbowls in the last seven years. Why is losing one so devastating? I was reading in the Globe today about how Pats fans are “crushed” and “devastated” and “depressed” about the loss. I even heard someone ask whether this or Aaron Boone was worse. And in my mind, those things don’t even compare. When Aaron Boone hit that home run, our dreams of ending an 85-year dry spell evaporated. (Only for a year, but we didn’t know that at the time.) When we lost the other night…well, we realized we’d have to make do with an 18-1 season instead of 19-0 and three Superbowl titles instead of four. It kind of makes us sound like the high school cheerleading captain who was dating the quarterback and was elected prom queen and got into her top choice college, but then got upset because her best friend wore the same color prom dress. And I’m finding it harder and harder to like Tom Brady. It’s hard to like a guy who’s dating a supermodel, no matter how attractive he is—especially when his situation with Bridget Moynahan and the baby is so sketchy.

Maybe I’m just used to being a Sox fan and rooting for the underdog. Or maybe it has to do with rooting for BC. Another reason I didn’t watch the Pats much this year was because I was busy watching BC football. BC had such a great year, and, like the Pats, blew it in the end. But it was easy to root for a team with so much promise, hoping to reach heights it hadn’t climbed to since Doug Flutie, led by the awesome Matt Ryan, the first guy in a long time to be compared to Doug Flutie.

Would I have been more interested in the Patriots if they’d lost a few games this season? I don’t know. But I do know that on Sunday, while I was rooting for the Patriots in between the commercials I devoted my full attention to, I found myself thinking things like, “Wow, wouldn’t it be an interesting twist if they lost after all this?” and “Well, if we lost the game, it would solve that parade issue.”

So I guess you can call me a foul-weather fan.

If This Blog Isn’t Enough…

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…here’s another place you can read my writing. Especially if you’re interested in YA lit.

Teens Read Too is a cool site with reviews of Young Adult books, and I’ve recently become a reviewer. The thesis I wrote in college is a young adult novel, and I think it’s a genre that resonates with anyone, even if you left high school long ago. One of my reviews is up, and more will follow.

This is my page here. And no, my bio does not say anything about spewing generational angst.

How Do You Know When You Spend Too Much Time on the T?

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You start recognizing people you saw on previous T rides.

Kind of a funny story behind this one. A few weeks ago, there was a guy hitting on a girl on the B Line. They were both probably in their late twenties. He was making conversation with her, asking her questions, etc. After he asked her where she lived, he asked whom she lived with. She said, “My husband.” (Ha!) He said he noticed she was wearing a ring, but since it didn’t have a diamond, he figured she wasn’t married. She said, “I’m not a diamond girl,” and they continued making awkward conversation until she got off. Then he started hitting on some BU students.

Well, today I saw her again. Not A Diamond Girl was sitting across from me on the Red Line this morning. Same green coat, same diamond-less ring. She got off at the same stop as me. But the funniest thing? As she got off, another guy started hitting on her.

Apparently guys on the T find her irresistible, so if she really is married, she might want to consider becoming a diamond girl.

I Was a Thirteen-Year-Old Titanic Fan

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Today is the ten-year anniversary of Titanic’s release. Which is amazing and scary to me, because I can remember it so well.

When Titanic came out, I was That Girl. I saw it in the theater three times. I had a gigantic Leonardo DiCaprio poster on my bedroom door (the whole poster was his face, larger than life). My friend Jenna and I were full of all kinds of Titanic trivia and could recite entire scenes from memory. I became addicted to the Oscar telecast after seeing Billy Crystal host the show where Titanic won 11 awards. I sang “My Heart Will Go On” at the top of my lungs whenever it came on the radio. I had a Titanic T-shirt. I even sent away for a replica of the necklace, which turned out to be plastic and really cheap-looking.

Did I mention I was thirteen? I was the movie’s target demographic, so I can say all this without shame. Plus, if you’re going to get all nostalgic, it’s always more fun if you jumped on the bandwagon and were a complete dork than if you were too cool to be into whatever the trend was.

It’s funny to think about everything else that was popular circa 1997-1998. Dawson’s Creek was just starting. Boy bands were beginning to hit their stride. The Macarena was on Minute 14. People wore striped shirts a lot, or at least they did at my middle school.

But Titanic really dominated that year. Ten years later, I realize it’s not quite as good as I thought it was in eighth grade. It was nominated for fourteen Oscars, but Best Original Screenplay, rightly, was not one of them. The characters are very obvious and have no layers, and a lot of the dialogue is really cheesy. Example:

Jack: I’m not an idiot. I know how the world works. I’ve got ten bucks in my pocket. I have nothing to offer you and I know that. But I’m too involved now. You jump, I jump, remember? I can’t turn away without knowing you’ll be all right.
Rose: Well, I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Really.
Jack: Really? I don’t think so. They’ve got you trapped, Rose, and you’re gonna die if you don’t break free. Maybe not right away because you’re strong, but soon, that fire that I love much about you Rose, that fire’s going to burn out.
Rose: It’s not up to you to save me, Jack.
Jack: I know. Only you can do that.

Also, while Leonardo DiCaprio is a very good actor, you’d never know it by his performance in Titanic. Even when I was thirteen, I was afraid that both he and Kate Winslet would fade into obscurity or be typecast for therest of their careers. Happily, and surprisingly, that didn’t happen, and the two of them did another movie together that will be released next year.

And if you really think about the romance part of it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. How were they supposed to be soul mates? They only knew each other for a few days. Who knows how long the romance would have lasted if Jack had lived?

My thirteen-year-old self would be horrified to hear me saying this. But has any of this stopped me from getting the Special Edition DVD? Hell, no. I think that no matter how old I get, this is a movie that will have a special place in my heart, just because of all the memories I have associated with it.

Today the Passport, Tomorrow the World

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I am one step closer to traveling the world.

My passport came in the mail last week. My first passport, that is. And the picture’s not even that bad.

I have never left the country. In the past year, I’ve barely left the state. Actually, I think I left the state about three or four times in 2007—a few times when I went shopping in New Hampshire, and one time when I was helping Christina look for an apartment and she took a wrong turn and ended up in Rhode Island. And I live in Massachusetts, so leaving the state is not a big deal.

And I’ve only been on a plane three times—Florida twice and California once. In March I’m going to San Francisco on business, and even if I won’t have much free time to do anything work-related, I’m still really excited about it because a.) my company is paying to send me to a city I wouldn’t have the money to go to on my own and b.) even if I never see the outside of the hotel, I’m still traveling on a plane and staying in a hotel—and those, for me, are events.

I volunteer at a homeless shelter, and one day my fellow volunteers started talking about places they’d traveled, how nice Spain is, blah blah blah. Then one of them looked at me and said, “What about you? Do you travel a lot?” Me: “Um…I’m hoping to get my first passport soon.”

Seriously, though. Is it just because I work in the extremely low-paying publishing industry that I can’t fathom spending money on a trip? These people aren’t that much older than me. Maybe they have better-paying jobs, because I honestly can’t imagine being able to afford plane tickets to a foreign country while still being able to pay the rent.

So while the small obstacle of money is still there…at least I know that theoretically, if a gorgeous rich guy falls madly in love with me and wants to whisk me off to Europe in his private jet (hey, it happened to Monica on Friends), I won’t ruin the moment by saying, “But I don’t have a passport!”