Things I am thankful for:
the NBA
my friends (putting up with me)
Snack
a few things that I am lucky enough to own
breakfast

I shouldn’t loathe Christmas or Thanksgiving. They’re just days. They have symbolic meaning if you want them to. They come with cute songs, good food, and the promise of getting stuff, like slipper-socks and indigestion. You don’t have to go to work, and when you’re there, you’re not expected to do very much, unless you work in retail. The whole season has this kind of elated, Bacchanal feel to it, as though consumerism, sloth, and debauchery were as intrinsic to these holidays as Jesus, cookies, and land rape.

I think that part of my holiday angst stems from the fact that Halloween is my favorite season. (Yes, it has a season too, for those of us who care about it.) Once that’s out of the way, there’s an immediate push by stores and the media to sell me on buying shit, linking purchasing power to the birth of Christ or the miracle of energy conservation. Not only that, but as a sober person, I have to be honest, Thanksgiving and Christmas are kind of boring at best, and outright irritating at worst. At least when you’re shitfaced the letdown of gifts and exhausting social situations feel somewhat familiar, or it did to me, anyway. Spend a few years going home alone, inebriated, and on the fence about whether or not you’re going to puke every night and the Christmas and Thanksgiving blues seem downright bush-league.

And having a dead parent just makes the whole thing even worse, since there’s this understanding that no holiday will be nearly as awesome as the ones you had as a kid…no, really. Beyond the whole mom-in-the-ground thing, there’s the fact that this is my first post-breakup holiday season. That kind of kicks the puppy of good cheer square in the kidneys.

My family is great, please don’t misinterpret this to mean that they’re not. It’s just that the entirety of what we have to say to one another could be completed over the course of a long elevator ride. The rest of the evening involves a lot of staring at one another, staring at the baby, and awkwardly trying to busy ourselves with food preparation and cleanup. We’re not a particularly domestic bunch. At least on Thanksgiving there’s football. And the knowledge that we’re going to have even less to talk to one another about in a month.

Out of all the things I dread this holiday season, the Long Island Rail Road tops the list. I have to commute to my uncle’s house using this rickety railway filled with Jersey Shore rejects, kids with whooping cough, and leathery women loudly wailing into their cellphones. It’s 79% full of drunk assholes on a normal evening. Thanksgiving and Christmas? I’m going to have to have a dispenser of Mace in my purse the size of a can of Aqua Net.

In light of this Thanksgiving, I’m going to share with you some facts that may or may not make the holiday at least a little more interesting. They’re worth thinking about as you sit in uncomfortable silence with your brethren, wait for that pain-pack of Pepsid to kick in, or dodge slowly-spreading pools of vomit on mass transit. Just remember, once this one’s down, we only have one more account-draining debauch to go. (Until Valentine’s Day.)

• Back when the Air Force was playing around with the sound barrier, they noticed that local turkeys in nearby fields would drop dead. It turns out that turkeys have heart attacks, and they don’t take too well to unexpected scary noises caused by supersonic testing.
  .
• Turkeys have also been here a really long time. Fossils show that they were hanging around the Americas over 10 million years ago.
  .
• Columbus may have thought that the Earth was round, but he also thought he’d landed on India when he made it over to the west side of the world. Because peacocks were plentiful in India, Columbus assumed that the funny looking bird he saw was a relative of the proud plumage presenting ‘cock. So he named the bird the “tuka,” which is “peacock” in the Tamil tongue. Turkeys aren’t peacock cousins, however. Turns out they’re actually a variety of pheasant.
  .
• If your family gives you grief for showing up to Thanksgiving dinner with little more than a six pack and a hearty appetite, tell them that you’re imitating the Puritan pilgrims arriving in the New World. The Plymouth Rock pioneers brought barrels of beer with them on their trip, and they ultimately decided to settle in Plymouth ’cause they were running low on suds. Totally understandable, brahs.
  .
• Think the annual turkey dinner with your folks is interminable? It’s nothing compared to the original. The first celebration of Thanksgiving lasted three whole days. It wasn’t a large gathering either only 50 of the original 102 Puritans surviving until that first feast in 1621. It is believed that only five women had survived that first year.
  .
• Although George Washington was gung-ho about making Thanksgiving official, and did so on the national level in 1789, Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a fan. The badass inventor, grizzly bear owner, nearly-vegetarian, 6’2″ ginger President didn’t want there to be an established Thanksgiving holiday. Yet another reason to love him.
  .
• Jefferson died of diarrhea, which is something to think about on a day notorious for food poisoning. The last year that the CDC surveyed the data, they found that there were 1,097 reported outbreaks of food poisoning, which amounted to 21,244 cases of food-borne illnesses like norovirus and salmonella, resulting in 18 deaths. Eat up, and happy Thanksgiving!

Being a copywriter is a little like being a lesser-known superhero. I don’t mean that we look good in leotards or that we spend much of the time in ill-frequented back corners of comic shops, though both are often true. It’s just that no one outside of our field understands exactly what it is that we do.

I’ve touched on this topic before, about what copywriting is and isn’t, but I’ve given up trying to educate the public. Screw that. I’m going to learn how to work with their misconceptions. I like the word yes. It rolls off the tongue. It gets me into some of the more peculiar, story-producing situations that elevate my life from banal to batshit. So the next time a stranger assumes that what I do involves a law degree, room full of Xerox machines, or an endless supply of black pens, I’m just going to smile, nod, and say yes by preemptively determining in my head that any possible misunderstanding is actually fact. Here’s how.

Possible misconception #1 – Copywriters copy stuff. Over and over again. And over again.

Uh-huh.

It’s understandable. The word “copy” and the word “writer” are in such close proximity. It nearly seems obvious. Of course I’d just sit at a desk and scribble the Oxford English Dictionary word by word. That’s how you get all those pretty books anyway. Copywriters.

I might itch to correct the next man, woman, or child who makes this innocent mistake, but I’m not going to. After all, a lot of the process of writing copy is repetitive. The client might want one idea restated a hundred different ways. They might like a particular phrase or word and want it woven into every aspect of their advertising, website text, or advertorial. And isn’t that just what being a creative is? Simply regurgitating the same concept an infinite number of ways in the hope that the umpteenth idea has a glimmer of originality glinting off of its cloned frame? So, sure, bro. I’m a copywriter. I copy and write for a living.

Possible misconception #2 – Copywriters right copy.

Yup.

This is the closest to truth you can get, maybe. Often a client will hand over their site or pre-written drafts with a sheepish look in their eyes, a down-turned gaze, or worse, a declaration of how terrible it is, said with the caveat of, “Can you keep this part…and this part…and oh, that sentence right there?”

Part of copywriting is that you are a magician. You make people want to spend money, you compel them to look at a product or company twice, you entice and captivate them with the voice, concept, or overall feeling of the words. But a lot of what you do is fixing shit, both your own and your clients’. You correct the wayward run-on sentence, coax life into a line that has fallen flat. You erect strings of lights and whirring pinwheels around those “must keep” thoughts and direct the viewer and potential customer to the irresistible attraction of…whatever it is. Absolutely I right copy for a living. Believe it.

Possible misconception #3 – Copywriting has to do with copyright law.

Yes.

This most common assumption comes from the confusion between the homonyms, but I’m no longer going to correct you. If I do my job right, my client will have a tagline, mission statement, or brand name that’s so unique and outstanding, they’ll have to get that shit protected by law. So, yeah, kinda. I am a copywriter whose work hopefully leads to copyrighting, though technically you probably mean trademarking.

A copyright is the set of exclusive rights given to the creator of an original work. The rights allow this author to copy, distribute, and change the work as they see fit. Often this pertains to movies, albums, illustrations like maps and charts, photographs and artwork, choreography and architecture, and, of course, books. A trademark is an indicator of ownership, usually for a name, logo, slogan, design, and/or image, in order to express that these elements are registered as pertaining to a specific source.

Now while explaining the legal ramifications and distinctions between the two would cause my ignorance to do full-frontal, I’ll suffice it to say that, yep, I’m a copyrighter. I’ll just let it slide in my head by reciting the term “intellectual property” like a mantra, and by letting the person believe that I wear skirt suits and have added the fancy-pants title of Esq. to my last name.

Possible misconception #4 – Copywriters are witches.

But of fucking course we are.

This would be the belief if the person heard copy riting.

One of the definitions of the word “rite“ relates to process art, which is the view and creative philosophy that the results of art aren’t the main goal. The objective is the process, and therefore the procedure, or the rite, is the sole purpose of the art itself. It’s like the saying that’s often taught to men about female orgasm: it’s all about the journey, not the destination. And while the words are undoubtedly the goal and ultimate outcome of copywriting, it takes a hell of a lot of process to get there, usually. So, yes, I’m a copy riter, too.

All of these possible misconceptions and their justification in my head might seem silly to you, but trust me, try being a fry cook and having everyone you encounter believe that you boil actual chefs in hot oil for a living. You’d get tired of it. You’d grow exhausted of defining your job, and watching the luster in a stranger’s eyes dull to a glazed sheen. You’d find a way to either quit your gig and become something simple and self-explanatory, like a FedEx pilot or a lion tamer or a ballerina. Or you’d figure out how to slip the head of a kitchen staff into a vat of sizzling pork fat.

I’ll conclude with the infinite apology.

This past week I had another “Flavor of the Week” column run in the New York Press. It was about the perils of online dating and how I only realized way too late that I wasn’t doing it with the hope of actually meeting somebody awesome. Somehow or another – subconsciously, counter-intuitively – I was looking for quite the opposite. So I wrote about it. And this is how I’ve learned the unfortunate lesson that, if you’re a non-fiction writer, you’re likely to battle guilt with every minor success.

I wanted to write a post about the responsibility that comes with non-fiction, about how I feel that other people become collateral for my writing, but the whole thing came across as so self-aggrandizing and myopic that I scrapped it.

That said, I’m sorry. I have to be, at least a little bit. To the seven or so individuals who went out on dates with me, I’m sorry that you became word fodder, though I’m sure my impression was equally as flawed. And I apologize to my ex. For what it’s worth, three years together amounted in the good sense that real relationships flourish in the world, that stupid, yet honest, one outside of the Internet.

Jerk Ethic – Summer Survival Guide

When you feel moisture form in the folds of your rump, and you notice that you’re getting sleepy while it’s still sunny out, chances are it’s summertime. Either that or you’re at a wicked kegger.

It’s likely that you’re one of those weird people who likes sunshine, warm temperatures, extended daylight, and a natural healthy glow. To which I say, fuck you hippie. This freakishly hot, decidedly smelly time of year is enough to make me fall into a depression so deep, I practically can sign my name Elliott Smith. Seasonal Affective Disorder doesn’t just come after first frost, kids. There are those of us who hate the dog days worse than any other months on the calendar.

So because summer is, hands down, my least favorite season of the year, I’m going to share my tips on how I plan to survive summer in the city. Or, rather, what will keep me from mixing up a little phenobarbital colada and calling it the winter of my life.

Air conditioning

It may seem a bit excessive, but I actually budget for my summer electricity bills all year round. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I would rather skip a meal than go without air conditioning on a day that the mercury hits above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. And while this might label me high-maintenance among certain groups of people, air conditioning can be dated back to Ancient Rome, when certain Romans had aqueduct water circulated through the walls of their houses in order to cool them. Medieval Persia also adopted their own version using cisterns and wind towers that cooled them during the hotter months. If people back in ancient times could create air conditioning, then my incessant whining on only staying inside when the summer sun is high isn’t simply a byproduct of modern times. In the 19th century, advances in chemistry led to further development of my thermal cooling cynosure, and in 1902 Willis Haviland Carrier created the first large-scale electrical air conditioner, thereby convincing me that all good children should be nicknamed Willis.

(I created the air conditioner, what did you do today?)

Lula’s

Eating ice cream is a key point the summer, isn’t it? I mean, if do you really crave hot cake in August? This is why you shouldn’t have children in the summer. Have I mentioned that my birthday is in August? Yeah. Thanks, mom and dad.

I’m not going to go on one of those vegan diatribes about how, when I went vegan, I feared that I would never eat ice cream again. I knew that vegans made some damn delicious soft serve, as one of the first fully vegan meals I ever had was at Blossoming Lotus in Portland, Oregon. There my future roommate Wes Hannah* served me mighty fine chocolate soft serve that could have knocked any dairy-based concoction out of the park. It’s easy to recreate ice cream for some reason. It’s the steak tartar that vegans seem to have more of a problem with.

That said, sometimes I don’t want to throw frozen bananas in my blender, I want someone else to do it, especially when it’s so hot out that it feels like I’m walking around inside of God’s mouth. In New York we have two vegan ice cream parlors: Stogo and Lula’s Sweet Apothecary.

Stogo is great, they have a ton of flavors that are hemp based, coconut based, soy based, and nut based. They also have baked goods and the option to make your own chipwich with two cookies. I like Stogo, their chocolate sorbet is my tongue’s version of a Swedish massage, but for some reason Lula’s is more dear to my heart. Maybe it’s because it’s located a block away from a notoriously amazing tattoo parlor. Maybe it’s because it tries to recreate the ice cream parlors of yore, with sundae glasses and metal straws for shakes. (Not to mention their thoroughly modern, totally biodegradable cups and spoons for to-go orders.) Blythe Boyd and Derek Hackett have been serving up scoops of vegan goodness since October 2008, though they recently remodeled to make the checkered-floored space more accommodating to the throngs that seem to perpetually be on line for a cold one. I do believe that their Death By Chocolate might be the fuel that gets me through this summer unscathed, if slightly larger.

*Wes is up for Vegan Iron Chef. As one lady in the comments section noted, he should be up for Vegan Iron Boyfriend. Boy is easy on the eyes, and he can cook.

Ditch Plains (the town, not the restaurant)

I’m lucky enough to have friends and family who camp out here during the warmer months. On the best of years, I get out to Ditch three or four times, and those weekends are the highlight of my summer. A sleepy surf town where you’re invited to a barbecue even if you didn’t know it, this place is the most peaceful retreat from Manhattan that an unfancy, anti-Hamptonite can find. Bonus points if you bring a board, but even if you’re a sun-shunning goth like myself, you’re bound to get some r&r, and some sand in your shoes.

Traveler’s tip: there are rad bonfires down by the beach at night.

Sweat

Ever since I’ve started running again, I’ve learned to love the feeling of my own juices sliding off of me in sheets. Though that sounds dirty, it’s actually quite healthy and invigorating. Sweating regulates the body’s temperature, mineral content, and it removes toxins. The average person has 2.6 million sweat glands in their skin, so I figure I should put mine to good use. Well, maybe not that good of a use. I refuse to run or exercise outside until September. Unless I’m at Ditch. (See above.)

For the record, if you move to a hot climate, like Marble Bar, Australia, your ability to produce sweat will increase to roughly two to three liters per hour within six weeks. Apparently that’s the most sweat the human body can produce. If you’re not acclimated to hot weather, the most sweat you can make is about one liter per hour. On the treadmill, I feel like I sweat roughly that much per minute. Just ask the poor (soaked) souls on either side of me.

Iced tea

A cup of the iced mint or iced green from Grey Dog is the perfect compliment to a lazy afternoon spent reading or staring at hipster boys doing track stands.

In the United States, where Snapple is sold side-by-side with Coke and Pepsi, iced tea makes up nearly 85% of all tea consumed, with some of the earliest printed recipes dating back to 1870. All I’d really like to know is why there’s a big fucking Z in the center of AriZona Iced Tea. Is it like the trippy ‘Q’ of NyQuil?

Rompers

I’ll start with the negative up front: you have to get naked to pee.

But the romper, aka the infant bodysuit, is ideal if you want something light, breezy, and makes your absence of breasts less of an issue. Although they were created in the early 1900s as a means of keeping kids clothed as they played, rompers had their first surge in popularity in the 1950s when women started wearing them at the beach. Nowadays, they’re sold at stores that have a high ratio of employees who prefer cocaine to food, and, I swear, they’re the best thing to happen to my wardrobe since feetie pajamas. Anytime that I can wear a single article of clothing that doesn’t emphasize my lack of womanly curves, I’m happy. Hooray for rompers, my perspiration-friendly pull-on outfit.

(He got this at American Apparel for $29.)

Baseball

Let’s be honest, I’m really excited when the NFL starts on August 8th, because it means that summer is almost over. In the meantime, I love the boys of the season, as both of my New York teams are doing well.

Because I’m a sucker for trivia, I found a few facts that add to my enjoyment of this fancy stickball game:

The odds of a fan being hit by a baseball during a game are 300,000 to 1, which makes your ex-girlfriend’s excuse for not going with you to the stadium complete bullshit.

Each baseball game has 12,386,344 possible plays, which is why it seems absolutely ridiculous to me that they won’t overturn one so that a pitcher can get the perfect game that undoubtably would have been the highlight of his career.

Babe Ruth put a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep himself cool during games, and would change it for a new one every two innings.

Was I the only person who was mortified for Kendry Morales? Poor dude. For those of you who scoff at sports, Mr. Morales hit a grand slam, ran to home plate, leapt into the air to celebrate with his teammates, and broke his leg upon landing.

Kombucha

Looks like pond scum, tastes like amazing. A bottle of GT’s magic potion is bound to make you feel like you can punch through a brick wall or seduce the skinny jeans off of a barista. And while I don’t think the FDA would get behind my claims that this elixir makes my skin glow and my digestive system work like a well-oiled cuckoo clock, I swear that it’s worth every penny.

Nudity

Granted, I sleep naked all year long, but summer is the time to flaunt your skin suit. Unless you’re a guest at one of the over 270 naturist resorts or clubs in the United States, these are the only months where you get to see this much public nudity. It doesn’t matter if you’re a bikini-rockin’ badass or just a sweaty little troll like myself, stripping down is one of the boons of baking in the sun. (Use SPF! For real. Melanoma killed my grandpa, that shit is no joke.) I’d also like to express my joy in witnessing other people’s nakedness. Sure, not everybody looks like a supermodel, and I see my fair share of oiled men in hot pants on rollerblades in my area, but I love the way that everyone seems to revel in their exposure. Girls who previously covered up are now in off-the-shoulder miu-mius, men who usually are in suits and ties don khaki shorts and tank tops. There are tattoos, tans, and freckles galore. It’s the most sensual of the seasons, and the one that makes me feel the most animalistic…or human. So take it off, with your sunscreen on of course, and go out and enjoy the solstice.

Soliciting clients is not like dating, no matter how badly you want it to be. You may wish to be engaging in a slow seduction, showing a little skin and giving a coy giggle and a wink. You can even convince yourself that it’s like courting, that the client is getting to know you, warming up to the idea of committing. But really it’s more like prostitution.

We’ll do anything for money. And we just try to make it clear, up front, that there’s nothing they can ask for that we haven’t already done, no kink too taboo, no position too uncomfortable. We are the ultimate working girl.

Our online portfolio was severely neglected for a year. If it had once been a domesticated housecat, by now it’s a feral tom on the street, rummaging through garbage bins and trying to impregnate every critter with four legs and a collar. So what’s to do with this grimalkin? After nearly a full rotation of the Roman calendar, we’ve submitted an entire portfolio overhaul to our web dev friend to fix ‘er up over the course of the next month, but this week we nearly learned that it could have been too little too late.

Building up a portfolio isn’t a science like baking, though it feels as though it should be. It’s an art, more like cooking a delicious risotto, only you never know if your potential dinner-mate has Celiac or is a vegan. We were asked by a big-name potential client to provide two additional samples on the spot because they found our online portfolio unimpressive. Gasp! (That was a sarcastic gasp. We’re unimpressed by it, too.)

The two impromptu pieces may have worked more in our favor, since the client got a chance to see how we would write directly for their website and they eventually went with us for the job. But it was a wake up call. Not every company gives you that kind of chance, especially if there are several writers clamoring for the chance to pen their words. So we’ve had to reevaluate how to build a portfolio that sings to every potential client, without alienating anybody or pigeonholing ourselves.*

We try to make it clear when hunting for clients: there’s no type of work we won’t do. But without the aid of a tailored cover letter, the only thing the public has to go on is our website. Back in the day, before the Innerwebz were the main mode of introduction, copywriters had portfolios made of paper and plastic, bound in leather or leather-like synthetics. They were large and wieldy, like a photographer’s portfolio or the diary from that really weird girl in high-school. High-quality print outs of your work were kept inside, and organized according to what was the most impressive. It was useful to separate the copy that was used for print ads from the copy used on radio, television, or mass mailings, which is similar to how many copywriters compartmentalize their online portfolios today.

The benefit of working with tangible portfolios, the kind that can actually give you papercuts and require a crazed bike messenger or hot FedEx guy to deliver them, is that you can tailor them for each firm that you’re contacting. Ideally, even in this virtual world, when you send samples to a potential client you’ll know about the job or their company, but often we find that we’re referred by word-of-mouth. This results in potential clients only seeing our website before they contact us or, at best, they’ll see our site along with the work we’ve done for their friend or colleague. That means that if they’re a sneaker company, for example, they don’t really see anything that convinces them that we could write for their foot-friendly campaign. They might see some stuff they like, either the tone from a prior job or a brilliant tagline from another, but they would really have to suspend their disbelief and give us a shot based on little more than hope and hearsay. And while we’d love to think that’s enough, coupled with a desperate and witty email from us, it isn’t guaranteed to seal the deal.

When revamping our portfolio, we had to keep a few things in mind that are helpful to any writer who is looking for some portfolio guidance:

• Prove that you have experience with large clients, just like any of the other, more voluminous agencies out there.

We’ve been lucky enough to work with some pretty heavy-hitters since the last time we updated our portfolio. By putting these jobs at the forefront of our site, we guarantee that a potential client will at very least be impressed. Or so we hope. Don’t be bashful, put your most prominent job out front. That way you can get it in the face of your site’s visitors and show that you have experience working with clients who have industry clout. Way back when, when portfolios had handles and zippers and shit, the advice was to put your best pieces on the first few pages. It seems obvious, but sometimes copywriters get fooled into thinking that if they don’t draw attention to the bigger names they’ve worked with, it’ll seem like they work with those larger names more often. Kind of like how not bragging on a date can make the subtle dropping of "Oh yeah, and I have a private yacht" or "Steve Nash is my brother" seem even more impressive. We remind you once more: this is not dating. Put your crown-jewel conquests out in front.

• Highlight your diversity…

…and we don’t just mean the fact that we’re each half Jewish and I used to be fluent in Spanish. Possibly the most important thing that your portfolio can do is demonstrate that you aren’t a one-trick pony. The problem with our site as it exists now is that we have a lot of whimsical, badass creative copy up, but it’s thin. It doesn’t show how we can write for a predominately female audience, or how we can adapt our tone to be more reserved and professional. What’s more, it doesn’t showcase the types of jobs we can do. It’s essential for potential clients to see that you can write for an iPhone app just as readily as you can write a bio. Your ability to absorb information and transform a company or brand regardless of its field or focus is key. Make sure that your portfolio is as well balanced as your diet. That means you’ve got to be full of more than just chocolate-frosted donuts with sprinkles.

• Tell, don’t just show.

Our portfolio didn’t do a very good job explaining what we did in each job. Sure, each section had a blurb and a screenshot or link, but there were no pull quotes, no in-depth breakdown. It’s vital that each piece of your portfolio explains who the client was, what you were assigned to do, and what the end result was. Why was the project difficult? Was there a specific reason why it was assigned to you? What did it entail? In our text overhaul we’ve tried to mention everything we’ve done, from conference calls to brainstorming social networking ideas. It shows the potential paycheck…I mean, client, that you do more than just write nifty snippets. You’re willing to work one-on-one in any capacity to get their copy job done. Also, don’t simply rely on screenshots, links, or pretty pictures of your work. Of course the client wants to see proof that you actually did the job, and they’d like to familiarize themselves with what the outcome of actually hiring you will look like, but a well-written, concise explanation of each project not only illuminates what you’ve done, it proves you can do it for yourself.

• Accentuate the positives, even if you can’t sing like Bing Crosby.

Although our parents will always brag about the awards we’ve won or accolades we’ve garnered, it’s important for us to gently brag about them, too. For every piece in your portfolio, make sure that you have a positive spin at the end. Sure, not every gig will get you a certificate of awesomeness as deemed by an international ad council, but if your web text increased the client’s site traffic, state that. If your last project launched a product that increased the company’s sales by a third, put that out there. Your potential clients have the right to know that hiring you will only bring them a fantastic return of investment. Even if it’s something small, like just restating the positive elements of the company who previously hired you, it’s enough to show the benefits of working with you, and how both parties benefited. 

The most important piece of advice is to update your portfolio every six months. I repeat, update your portfolio every six months. If you don’t have a wide variety of work, do pro-bono projects, collaborations, or write unsolicited samples. Make sure your contact information is updated, and, if possible and appropriate, send out a notice to previous clients about the work that you’ve been up to and direct them to the updated site. Remember that the only thing that stands between you and the entire client pool is your website. Be your own pimp, and let them know that you’re worth the money.

* The term pigeonhole comes from the tiny nesting boxes that the birds live in when housed in a pigeon loft. The saying was first recorded in 1789, back when pigeons weren’t known as letter carriers or rats with wings, but as dinner. By the 20th century it was being used as a verb, meaning to put aside or to categorize. Although I think that housing birds is pretty lame, especially if they’re pigeons, supposedly they like small, cramped, dark spaces. It apparently minimizes their stress level. Perhaps literal pigeonholing might be the next thing Ministry of Imagery tries to assuage our ulcers and stress headaches. We’ll add it to the list, right below transcendental meditation, Bikram yoga, and a visit to a sensory deprivation chamber.

My mother might be dying, but she’s not going down without a fight, and what I mean by “fight” is a lengthy, nagging discussion of how being a copywriter is not an adequate enough job for her daughter.

I can understand her concern. I was the kind of kid who always had a gig of some kind, one that brought in a steady paycheck to be blown either on Manic Panic hair dye, booze, concert tickets, or a Hello Kitty lunchbox. (Thank you, Marilyn Manson.) I’ve worked as a fish monger, surfboard salesgirl, secretary, legal assistant, a story department PA, whipping girl for a pilates studio, ice cream scooper, crystal shop keeper, and a green start up space-filler. I have always had a job. Now, perhaps it’s because I work from home, or maybe because I am dirt poor, but my mother seems to think I am unemployed. As in, “You need a job. How can you support yourself when I’m dead and you’re unemployed?” She apparently moonlights as a life coach.  No matter that I don’t rely on her to pay my bills, and that I contribute groceries and labor in return for my temporary freeloader status.

She emphasizes that she only says this because I need “something to fall back on,” and even a part-time job would help me out, or maybe get me out of the same clothes that I’ve worn since high-school. I try to explain that I am a copywriter, I get up at dawn and work, exhaustively, until my words are on the page or my edits have carved an angel from word-processing program stone. Nevermind that I don’t have weekends. Sure, I’m more broke than a Dane Cook joke, but I like to imagine that Ministry of Imagery is an viable company, since I do get paid in actual checks and spend my quite-long days working and being driven nuts. Anyway, to humor my humorous mother, and to stop myself from running smack into the walls in a panic, I present to you a list of jobs that I would happily apply for. But don’t get your hopes up, mom. It would take more than a sexy bisexual vegan or a tattooed MILF yogi to get me away from my paltry penny paying daily grind.

Produce worker at Whole Foods
Pay: A little over $10 an hour

I have written about Whole Foods and produce, and how awesome I find both. As a vegan, and an avid advocate of a more holistic approach to consumption, I think I would help contribute to the Whole Foods team by being another tattooed, twenty-something, health-conscious cog in the wheel. Reasons I shouldn’t be hired include the fact that I call the place Whole Paycheck and I’d sleep with more than one staff member. I do know quite a bit about fruits and vegetables, though, and I can tell you how to pick out good ones. Of course, “shitting where you eat,” so to speak, might lead me to get a bad taste in my mouth whenever I reach my hand into the fruit bowl. But hey, if it supplies me with my new-found addiction of nutritional yeast, I’ll arrange carrots, kale, and cucumbers until the sun goes down.

Tattoo shop apprentice
Pay for an apprentice? None. But tattoo artists are paid roughly $100 an hour, with some also getting a cut of the studio money.

Working at a shop, I assume the pay would be minimum wage. Or maybe some ink. Although I might not be able to turn serious coin with a gig like this, I think that my extensive experience on the other end of the needle would help me to treat clients with a little bit of dignity. Besides, I’m good at being ordered around, especially by tattooed boys (and girls.) And perhaps I might not be taking the traditional career-track of becoming an apprentice to become an artist, but maybe becoming an apprentice in order to become a shop manager might not be such a counter-intuitive career move. After all, I’m very talented when it comes to copy machines and keeping displays clean, and I’ve always wanted to own my own business.

I’ve got skills sweeping, spraying, I can learn how to sterilize and organize the autoclave, I can sweet-talk unruly clients, and I’m a scheduling maven, so if you own or work at a tattoo parlor near Long Island, New York, you very well may have found your next apprentice. Only I don’t want to become a tattoo artist, I just want to work in the shop. Preferably for money, that will be spent on tattoos.

Low-maintenance secretary
Pay: Secretaries make anywhere from the mid-twenties to 40K a year, depending on the size of the company and the skills required. For what I’m going for, I’m thinking low-twenties. If that.

I have had this job, and I love this job. Allow me to clarify, what I mean by low-maintenance isn’t that I don’t complain when my boss hangs out with “the boys” six nights a week, drinking beer and eating wings. What the lack of maintenance implies in this case is that this would not be a partner-track position. Part-time, or perhaps even full-time, at a desk, doing traditional secretarial tasks, such as answering phones, greeting clients, collating, copying, filing, and scheduling. The less demanding the position, and the more long-term it could be in its soul-sucking boredom, the happier I’ll be. Just let me write during work, boss.

Personal assistant for eccentric artist
Pay: A personal assistant usually makes somewhere around $18 an hour (or 31K) but it’s tough to determine ’cause the hours and requirements can vary day by day.

This kind of a part-time gig would be good, ’cause it would keep me busy, utilize my undying respect for authority, and would likely provide fodder for future Jerk Ethic posts. As Patricia Cohen wrote in a New York Times article about personal assistants, “The job requires walking a fine line between intimacy and professionalism, a bit like the nanny who is paid to feed, bathe and hug your child.” And I’ve learned from experience that perhaps the problem with this job, or maybe my personality, is that once you send me out twice during a rain storm in order to get the “best” kind of organic calimyrna figs I will start wanting to stick a fondue fork in your eye. Fuck that you’re paying me overtime, since it’s 11:30PM.

Editorial writer
…makes about 54K a year?! Oh, hahahaha. I give it away for free right here. Dammit.

Nutritional consultant and yoga instructor
Median pay for a nutritionist is between 45K and 50K, while a yoga instructor can make $5 to $10 dollars per student if they’re teaching in a community center.  If they’re doing private lessons, their fee can go up to $60 an hour.

I have to say, this one interests me most. The idea of learning about what makes our bodies run, and integrating different cruelty-free methods and practices that help it to run better, is kind of an inspiring way to make a living. Granted, I’d probably need an RD or MS, both of which require maths, so it wouldn’t be easy. And although I love yoga to distraction, I look more like Awkward Facing Pygmy than Downward Facing Dog. Also, I’m just not one of “those girls.” I think I’m too cynical, too negative, too entrenched in certain unseemly aspects of the Western tradition. (Hello, Perez Hilton!) I’m a hedonist, not a healer. But I do like the science of our bodies, and if I could apply my mother’s perceived lack of my own employment toward helping people, well, maybe karma will swoop in and cure cancer.

Drop me a line, AinsleyDrew at the gmail one. Thank you to everyone who donates! Seriously. Talk about karma.

Hire Ministry of Imagery, ’cause in spite of my maternal unit’s nagging, it is an actual job.

Like It. It’s like eating my brains, if you were a zombie.

My boyfriend is so awesome, he makes you stare.

Like many children birthed by the baby boomer generation, my parents got divorced. I was only twelve, so this sent me into an understandable emotional tailspin, complete with an all-black wardrobe, penchant for bands who sounded like a trash compactor set to a double-bass drum, and a therapist. Said therapist seemed to be perpetually in her last trimester of pregnancy, spoke in a grating monotone, and asked me a lot of bland questions about how I was feeling, most of which were answered with the word, “Shitty.”

After a few months of her growing exasperation at my unwavering state of clinical defiance, she suggested I start writing in a diary. You know, about my feelings. I suppose she imagined 80 college-ruled pages of scrawling “shitty”s written in aggressive cursive. Instead I started archiving my days, most of which were repetitive and filled with chronicles of chemistry class and half-assed wishes for suicide. That said, it was that therapist’s suggestion that gave me the first action of my teenage life that I could hang my hoodie on: I wrote every day for years. Even if it was just a paragraph-long entry about how much I hated the Marlboro-smoking cheerleaders in my sophomore class, it was something.

I’ve seen numerous self-help websites over the years profess to know the secret to relaxation and crisis management. When I’m hoping for some quick fix unrelated to drugs and alcohol, I usually find stock photographs of flocks of birds, clip art of angels, or sketches of cats in picnic baskets, along with the Comic Sans suggestion of, “Turn to Writing for Stress Relief.” To which I call shenanigans.

I write every day, and although I can’t always say that I knock it out of the park when it comes to originality, interesting content, or thought-provoking prose, at least I’m clicking the QWERTY. More often than not, this is because I’m writing for a client, or corresponding with a potential paycheck provider. What used to be my tiny vehicle for self-expression has become my personal monorail to a stocked pantry, on good days. On bad days it’s just a broken Ferrari with a half a bag of stale Cheez-Its in the glove compartment.

Given the amount of stress that has worked its way into my life of late, it’s no wonder that what once assuaged the tension in my life is now multiplying it. When my brain misfires under the duress of wondering what endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography is, or where the parking lot for the latest testing facility is located, I can’t adequately express my gratitude to Simon’s myopic little peepers. Sometimes stress makes the easiest jobs impossible. Which is why having a partnership is so imperative. Working while wrapping your brain around Serious Life Shit turns the learning curve from a basic bell into Kim Kardashian’s measurements. That said, there are three things I’ve learned in the past two weeks since my mother’s CT scan came back with what we swore had to be a sneeze on the film:

1. Just as with dating, diagnostics, folding laundry, and fisting, the most important thing to remember is to go slow.

The best copywriters take their copy one section at a time and work on just that section until they get it right. So start with your headline and make sure you’re happy with it before you go one step farther. Forget you even have anything else to write. For that period of time, the only thing that should be on your mind is the headline. Steven Wagenheim

I sometimes forget that the whole is the greater sum of its parts. I want so badly to turn my copy over ahead of schedule, which is usually possible when I’m not dealing with a family crisis several states over. Each line has to be combed over for errors. I can’t simply rely on my usual charm and wit to get me by, especially when I’m freaking out about something unrelated to the words I’m letting loose upon the world. But, just as with disease, prognosis, and treatment options, each tiny section has to be picked apart, perfected, and inspected before being sent on its way. Again, I can’t reiterate my reliance on Simon for this, he’s been the much needed jolt of word-polishing reality that my scatterbrained work needed. Even if it takes all day or all night, I have to make sure that my first draft is regarded as carefully as my last draft. I can’t lean too heavily on the production line we have set up, or the entire factory may break down. I need to take my time. Phone calls, boiling water for tea, watching the nightly news, all of those can — and should, and will — be sacrificed to make sure that the first round of text is no longer looking like, well, a first round of text. Thank you, Simon, for throwing the Elements of Style my way for the first time since college, when it was used to aid a drinking game known as “Drunk & White.”

2. You’re only as good as your most recent work.

I will never be a hip-hop dancer. I will never be a brain surgeon, or an oncologist for that matter. I can’t knit, manage a fish shop, or work as a dominatrix, all of which I know from experience. I can write. And so long as I remember that, and don’t take my work or my partnership for granted, I can turn over good copy every day if I work at it. This is not a desk job. I can’t jam up the Xerox machine and traipse away to take a coffee break, I can’t say that I hate my job or that my boss sucks, because this job is my life. Rita Mae Brown once said that you are your work. I believe it, but I would like to add that this only applies to you if you enjoy your profession. I am every missed comma, every verb tense that doesn’t agree, every misspelling, every image that could have been just a dust mite’s clitoris more clear. Writing is the most important thing I have, and when I do it well, I can say with confidence that I’m good at it. It’s more like a mirror than an occupation. If only the way that people handle themselves in professional situations was reflected in their appearance, we’d have a whole slew of doctors, baristas, and postal workers whose faces resemble the underside of Larry King’s scrotum.

I can’t rely on Simon to “spruce up” my rushed descriptions, even though he can and he will. As some dude named Stephen King wrote, “If you haven’t marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don’t be a slob.” Granted, he writes about prom queens, cats, and shut-ins, he can probably handle things that are frightening, like cancer, baldness, and Atlantic Southeast Airlines flights.

I need to treat each piece of copy with care (as per numero uno) and compassion. After all, I’m turning it over to the person who provides me with oral when I’m not busy arguing with him, not to mention that it will eventually wind up in the hands of a client. I wish each doctor that my mother has seen realized this, ’cause I’m convinced at least two of them don’t comprehend that in the privacy of their office, with the strangers they know as “patients,” they seem like pompous, ignorant dicks. This goes especially for the one who suggested that my mother had ovarian cancer. She had her ovaries removed five years ago. Read her chart. Read it slowly. Read whatever is the doctors’ version of Elements of Style.

3. Patience should be as highly prized as your porn collection.

This is the lesson I have failed to learn since I stopped puddling in my Pampers, and it’s the one that’s been beating me down for a month. Although it seems like episodes of House give a diagnosis with the aid of a white board, Hugh Laurie’s infinite hotness, and a single commercial break, finding out what’s medically wrong with a homo-sapien is hard. When completing a job, may it be pathology or proofreading, waiting for treatment assessments, edits, or emailed feedback, patience is, at times, the only thing that can keep you one shade shy of Christian Bale-level office rage. Although there have been times in the past month where I wanted to give up writing professionally and send a massive blast of my now-dated secretary’s resume out to the scant, crappy part-time positions out there, I’ve had to listen to everyone around me who has said, “Breathe. Be patient.” (Several of them have learned how to dodge a punch. One of them perfected the palm-to-assailant’s-forehead move that keeps little brothers from punching older brothers in the stomach.)

Moreover, I’ve had to apply my very fine coat of calm to doctor’s offices, phone calls to laboratories, and my own mother, lest I start picking up chairs and tossing them through windows, WWE-style. One thing is for certain, cancer and revisions both suck, but both have to be accepted and handled like a crying baby. You can’t simply ignore it, yelling doesn’t solve anything, and giving up is a crime.

I would like to drop at least one of my jobs off on the front steps of a church, though. See how the nuns handle SEO-heavy web copy.

Oh, and if I were to write a fourth tip that I’ve figured out, it’s to read Elements of Style. After all, my coworker is insisting on it, and I’ve got plenty of time to kill in the waiting room.

Drop me a line: AinsleyDrew at the gmail one. Thank you to everyone who donates. At this point most of it goes toward magazines and my mother’s ice cream sundaes.

Hire us. Put our process in your prognosis.

If, unlike me, you don’t feel like the path to giving up is pretty fucking clear, you can check out 101 Reasons To Stop Writing. Or you can take what some gray haired math nerd said and scrawl it in your notebook in place of shitty:

“Three rules of work: Out of clutter find simplicity; from discord find harmony; in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Einstein

Yesterday, after hearing that two of my older, most-respected friends and mentors are entirely out of work (“There is no work. It is just unbelievable. Everyone I know is freaking out.”) I finally started to panic. Sure, I’ve been making less money than anyone I know for over a year now. But as I sat there in sympathy, clutching fistfuls of my hair, I knew what I had to do. It’s like that Bing Crosby song. Accentuate the positive.  (Warning: If you click through, it leads to Bette Midler.)

So I now present to you a list, on yet another Friday of our recession. I preface it saying that I know nothing about money, the economy, or the workforce. I’m just another poor schmuck trying to make it in a growing ocean of poor schmucks, many of whom are far more talented than myself. I’m just offering some suggestions of things you can do to supplement your income. Or resume having an income, if you’re one of the notorious 8.1%.

Jobs That, If You Squint, Can Make You A Silver Lining:

Run a convenience store from your basement. Sell pickled or frozen food.
Studies are showing that people are reverting to simpler times when it comes to cooking. Spam sales are up. Frozen foods are flying off the shelves. People are relying on Depression Era cooking.  Convenience stores aren’t suffering nearly as much as specialty stores, and those selling cheap wares whose shelf-life is longer than Cher are making a bit of a profit. I say learn how to pickle and can, and start selling homemade pickled radishes and white bread to your neighborhood. You’ll probably do better if you live in an area where people would want to avoid driving a long distance to get to the store, or where they would want to be desperate to save money on gas, or an area where people really like pickles, such as near a convalescent home or an OBGYN clinic. Just be wary of botulism.

If you’re not going to an online university, get hired by one
University of Phoenix must be soaring. Online universities are actually doing well during this recession, as people shy away from those “traditional” (read: extremely fucking expensive) degrees. So make lemonade out of your lemons by getting hired, and, if you’re willing to relocate, you can even work near us, in lovely Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Deal drugs. Host a speakeasy from your living room.
Who the hell wants to be sober during the shittiest economic climate in recent history? Not me, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, I’m an alcoholic, but you, moderate drinker and recreational drug user, you can turn your hobby or your habit into a lucrative career in libation and intoxication. This might not have been what your mother meant when she told you to influence people, but, hey, with alcohol being considered “somewhat recession proof,” why not start brewing your own beer, or bathing in gin? Worse comes to worse, you can always peddle pot.

Put cold, hard cash in your cold, dead hands.
You would think that with people pawning so much shit there would be less to protect. But no. Apparently people still want the right to bear arms, even if it’s just to protect their last can of peas and their HDTV that they’re in debt over. So get into the gun business. Hey, it’s worth a shot! Go to a gun show and ask some of the grizzled old timers there how to get hired at an existing shop, or how to start your own, ’cause I have no idea. Guns scare me.

Offer relationship advice for a price. ‘Cause divorce is expensive.
Breaking up is hard to do to your wallet. People, especially people across the pond, are opting not to walk out on marriages, in part because of the legal fees associated with breaking this most sacred bond. (Sites that cater to cheaters are also benefiting from the bust.) While I wouldn’t condone going back to school for your degree, maybe just put up a shingle, like Lucy, and find the good in “Good grief.”

Fix shit.
From cars to shoes, people are opting to repair rather than buy new. If you have any skills — sewing, welding, painting, unlicensed HVAC clout — offer them. You can go to work during the day, if you still have a job, and then offer sock darning out of the back seat of your sedan at night. Bonus marketing points if you find a way to integrate the trend of “going green” into your new endeavor.

Oh, and I’m kidding about the HVAC thing. You always need a licensed professional to do stuff like that. Or you can just be like my mom and use duct tape and a sweater.

Go freelance!
(Unless you’re a writer!) These days, companies are downsizing, outsourcing, or just giving up. If you can sell your skills on the side, you might be able to make do. Of course the current trend is for businesses to try to keep everything internal. But as more and more people are laid off, and the remaining workers find themselves doing too many tasks, companies will hire someone from outside…and you can bet your last dollar that these won’t be full-time positions. What I’m trying to say is that if you were recently laid off and you have any talents that can translate in the corporate world in the form of a short-term gig, now is not the time to try out that mowhawk you’ve been wanting to have since you bought your first Germs record.

If you do go freelance, welcome to our world, where day-to-day living, even in the most booming of economic climes, is pretty much tantamount to a recession. Good luck, and pass the pickles.

Drop me a line: AinsleyDrew at gmail dot com. Do it! I write back!

Or drop us a dime. (Thank you to everyone who donates! Seriously, I understand how hard it can be to throw a penny in a cyber-hat these days. You are appreciated.)

You can always hire us.

Or just watch Simon and myself masturbate.