And Then I Got A Job

Hello friends. I hope everyone celebrated the birth of our nation in
a timely, safe, and socio-economically green manner. I sat in 40 min
of post-fireworks traffic driving back from Wood's Hole (Cape Cod!)
to Falmouth (Cape Cod!) on Friday night, which would've almost
completely sucked if not for the intrepid lyrical hegemony of Hall
and Oates, Steve Winwood, and Michael Jackson's "Dirty Diana" Also,
we had Cheez-its.

Anyway, as promised via the Comments section (before a large chunk of
that section disappeared into the darkness of the Interweb), I'm
relaying the fact that I'm gainfully employed. Here is a short, not-
entirely syntax clean version of that story: during the madness of
the thesis get a call from founder of a website saying I was
recommended to him through a friend of a friend for an editorial
position, he relays the details, they sound promising, I check it
out, and then--in the midst of the thesis insanity-- I apply for said
job. Interviews, resumes, and reference calls happen, writing tests
happen, background checks check out, and miraculously, as soon as I
have left the world of higher education, I actually have a job.
Needless to say, my dad thought/thinks I'm lying.

"A website?"
"Yeah."
"That will pay you?"
"Yeah. Pay is the new free, Dad."
"I'm hanging up."

So, I am the Boston Editor of Thrillist.com, which launched here two
weeks ago. Thrillist is a free (city-specific) lifestyle guide and
daily newsletter, which finds cool "under-the-radar-assuming-the-
radar-is-other-Boston-based-publications" bars, restaurants, clothes,
sneakers, inflatable rafts you can play drinking games on, websites,
candy, animals, gadgets, magic, etc. If you know what Daily Candy is,
it's a lot like that, except slanted more towards dudes. Its got
around 320,000 subscribers nationwide with city-specific editions in
NYC, LA, SF, Chi-town, Vegas, and now Boston. My job is to find all
of that stuff I mentioned, write the editorial content, take the
pictures, hire freelancers, and yell quixotically at the interns I
haven't hired yet. If that still doesn't answer your question, here
is a Boston Globe article about the launch of the site, which
includes several terrible quotes I gave to the reporter while
extremely sick and extremely sleeping.

Part of my job involves walking all the different neighborhoods of
Boston to see what has changed and what might be new, reading all of
the free weeklies including the ones I severely dislike to make sure
I haven't missed something, keeping up relationships with PR people
that rep retail/bars/restaurants, owners of boutiques, buyers for
stores, etc, to encourage them to dial me in whenever they get new
stuff, and to spend an inordinate amount of time using my Google
Reader to read trend blogs that discuss hep new sneakers. This--as
you can imagine-- is cool, yet time-consuming stuff. As part of my
agreement with the site, I'm allowed to keep my freelance gigs, which
is nice of them, but it does make it harder and harder for me to
find the time to fit everything into my schedule. The woe is upon me.

Anyway, the good news is I now have a grown-up's salary and health
benefits (?!), which allows me to pick and choose only the freelance
stories I want to work on, which is amazing. Plus I'm writing and
editing for a living AND I have business cards. The bad news is I now
have about 45 less hours a week in which to pursue those stories, or
re-writes to my book or short story about dating reality stars in
Zurich, Switzerland. But, friends, if I truly want to get these
things done, they will get done(ish). So it just means I have to work
harder, better, faster, stronger.

Ok. There's that story. Now you know what I'm doing betwixt the hours
of 9-6 when I'm not taking tv timeouts to peruse the philosophical
gems embedded in the View. The Comment section is open to the public.
Emoticon away;)

One More,
Time

Daft Punk