I've always wondered why popcorn bags have specific instructions on which side needs to be facing 'up' when you put it in the microwave. "THIS SIDE UP" it says, in big, bold, angry looking letters. What happens if you put the other side up instead? Will it burn? Not pop? Blow up? I'll get back to you on this one.
I don't have the best luck with microwaves for some reason. My parents have put our butter in the fridge for as long as I can remember.. and for as long as I can remember, every time I pull out the rock hard butter from our fridge and it tears my toast apart, I think, why can't we just leave it on the counter at room temperature like normal people do. On one particularly frustrating day I decided I should just put it in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it up so I could enjoy my toast, and that's just what I did. I also left the tin foil wrapping on it. It started sparking.. and then set on fire.
Here's to hoping I have better luck with popcorn.
So, I've got a question for you guys.
What do you say when people ask you 'where do you want to be 5 years from now'?
When people asked me this when I was 16 I could answer descriptively, thoroughly and without a second thought. This is because I had my life planned out for the next 5 years. I was going to finish high school with honours, I was going to go to college, I was going to do something memorable and life changing after college and people were going to know who I was. I've always been good at planning and organizing things to my liking - although people who have seen my bedroom and car may disagree about the organization thing.
Just as planned, all of the things I had set for myself happened. I graduated high school with scholarships. I instantly enrolled myself into college to take a course that would hopefully get me my dream job of being an entertainment host. I embarked on a life changing journey after college that I will be able to tell stories from for the rest of my life. I made a name for myself, and people know who I am.
There's never been a doubt in my mind what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to work in the entertainment industry. At the end of college, my teachers advised me and my classmates to start working in a small town and at a small company - they told us this way we could pay our dues and make our mistakes there and learn from them. I remember standing in the hallway of my school and being disgusted at the idea of having to move to another small town - something I'm far too familiar with and have had to do all my life. I remember looking at my teacher who told us this and saying "maybe some people will do that, but I plan on making my mistakes in front of the world". That was a pretty big statement coming from me of all people. I was this tiny, quiet girl who hardly spoke unless asked a question - the youngest of my class and fresh out of high school when I started the course. I didn't even know if I was allowed to say that, but I did anyways. He wished me luck with a smirk on his face, as though he expected to see me working behind the scenes of some unknown production company for the next 10 years of my life. It's funny how one look and a cocky smile from someone can be all the motivation you need to get something done.
Fast forward my life a few months.
I knew I wanted to work at a big company and I knew I wanted to work outside of Canada, so the search began. I looked into a few potential places, but when I came across 'The Jerry Springer Show' website I knew that was exactly where I wanted to work. To this day, I don't know why I chose Springer, or why they chose me. We did a couple phone interviews since I wasn't able to just fly out there for an interview. I remember the girl who interviewed me saying 'You sound really sweet.. do you think you're going to be able to handle this job?' I told her I could handle anything.. and the job was mine. If I had any idea what my job would consist of, maybe I would of chosen my words differently. Or maybe I wouldn't of.
About 6 weeks later I was packing up my life to move to Chicago. I wasn't scared or worried about anything - I've never had a problem meeting new people or adapting to my surroundings - that changed as soon as I moved into my apartment. My apartment was in a predominantly black neighborhood. By this I mean, I was the only white girl in my entire neighborhood. Nobody would talk to me, smile back when I smiled at them, and when I'd go to the grocery store, nobody would even make eye contact with me. To the right of my apartment was the ghetto. I don't think you went there unless you actually had a death wish and wanted to die. Or unless you wanted to film the sequel to 8 Mile. And then die. My dad thought it'd be funny for us to drive down there one day when he came to visit. I'm going to assume he thought it was less funny once we actually got there, seeing as he didn't even stop at red lights until we got out of the area. To the left of my place were beautiful, historical mansions like I've never seen before - Mohammed Ali owned one of them. I had a couple weeks before I started work, so I did tons of sight seeing, maxed out my credit card within the first week, and started to believe that maybe love at first sight did exist - I was SO in love with this city.
I felt a tiny bit intimidated walking into the NBC Universal building downtown Chicago for my first day of work. The building felt very sterile and empty as I walked in, however once I got to the Springer offices there were people running around and yelling into cellphones and it felt very warm and bright. I was wearing cute high heels and shorts and had spent an hour on my hair because I wanted to make a good first impression. I met my boss. She seemed super sweet and smiley. She explained that each week I'd be working on a team. There'd be the producer, an assistant producer, and a production assistant. Every week would have a travel day. On travel days we'd go to the airport and pick up the guests. A lot of the guests were flown in from Michigen, Texas, and Alabama. The number one thing was to keep the guest happy. Each show cost them about $50,000 to put on, so if the guests were unhappy and wanted to go home we were screwed. Every travel day we'd get a credit card. We'd take the guests out to do whatever the wanted to do. Literally anything they wanted, they got. We'd go shopping, out to eat, and sight seeing. Kirsten told me to just treat them like you would any normal person, and to be honest, a lot of the guests were pretty fun and somewhat normal. She told me not to ask them why they were going on the show during our time together, and if they asked me any questions about why they were on the show (some of them would be told lies to get them to come on the show) to say I didn't know - which was true. They kept us in the dark about everything until show day.
My first day was a 16 hour day. My feet were actually covered in blood from my high heels, and that was the first and last time I ever bothered doing my hair for work. They didn't waste any time before they threw me into chaos. They made me run around the city looking for clothes for the show that day. It was absolute madness. I never realized that finding a 4XL tank top and cardigan would be so damn hard. I also didn't realize that when I walked into the green room to drop off the clothing I was going to see a very.. very large women being spray painted blue as she stood beside a blow up pool.. filled with creamed corn. She was on the show to confess her undying love for her uncle, Billy Bob. She said she loved him so much that she was willing to paint herself blue and swim in corn - and so she did. At the end of the day I had taken 27 cabs and had 33 calls on my phone from my producer, in which he screamed at me over everything from getting him the wrong coffee, to getting the wrong color of blue jeans. I went home that night and fell asleep wondering how I was going to make it through my next day.
Things never got easier or more 'normal'.. but eventually nothing shocked me anymore and I started to look forward to seeing what each ridiculous day would hold. I hung out with midgets, strippers, tranny's and pornstars on a daily basis. I took limo's with child molesters for them to get lie detector tests to be revealed on the Steve Wilko's show. (I worked on his show half the week as well.) I bought myself Starbucks at least three times a day with the company credit card. I took people with animal costume festish's out for dinner, and took troubled teens out shopping and to wander around the city, trying to impact them as much as I could in a few hours I spent with them. I bonded with hicks from the sticks, pro wrestlers, and Kenny, a regular on the show, who had no legs and scooted around on his skateboard by using his hands. I rode the elevator with Jerry Springer himself on a daily basis. I hung out with the guests after the show, always proud of them for the strangest things - whether it was because they agreed to go to rehab for their drug addictions on the Steve show, because the dead beat dad finally decided to step up to the plate, or because they jumped into their animal suits and confessed their very strange feelings for their aunts and uncles. Only in the Springer world are you rewarded for being weirder then the person next to you.
I wish I could write about everything I experienced in the time that I was there. I grew. Unfourtunately not in height, but I became independent, confident and mature.
One night in the windy city, I got frustrated over being the only one of my friends that wasn't 21 and having to stay in every weekend alone. I went to the craft store, bought $30 worth of paint, pens, and laminating paper, and spent 7 hours on a Friday night making myself a fake ID. That ID got me into every bar in that city, and I never got questioned once. My gf Nikki came to visit and I made her one as well. We went out, she drank too many margerta's at a skechy little Mexican resturant, puked behind a cupcake shop, and then we decided we were going to walk 36 blocks to a tattoo parlour so she could get a tattoo - and she did. One night I got stuck in the worst snowstorm that Chicago had seen in years. The buses had stopped running and EVERY single cab had someone in it. I walked for about an hour, soaking wet, crying and stranded downtown Chicago. Th nearest place that'd be open on Midnight on a week day was about 60 blocks away. FInally one of my girlfriends managed to catch an empty cab and come and get me and save me from possibly catching hypothermia. I met people that contributed to memories that I'll cherish for the rest of my life.
My work visa ran out, and since I'm Canadian, that meant my time in Chicago had run out as well. And that was that. I accomplished the last thing that was on my list of goals for myself.
I think this is when I got stuck, and have been since I stepped off that plane back home. They say you leave a little piece of yourself everywhere you go, but when I look back at pictures, I realize I left a little too much of me in Chicago. I left behind smiles, and laughter, and inside jokes, newfound and lifetime friends, and my newfound self. When I came home, I forgot to make a new set of goals for myself, and since then I think I've just been drifting, hoping one day I'd get to go back to the city that made me so happy. I think it's safe to say that I'm pretty miserable and uncontent with every aspect of my life, the last couple of months expecially, so it's time to start focusing on what's going to make me happy in the longrun, instead of focusing on trying to make sure everyone else in my life is - I don't see them doing the same for me.
1.) Enroll back into college.
2.) Find a job and career that I love more then I hate.
3.) Have someone in my life that cares about me as much as I care about them.
4.) Live in LA.
5.) Have the satisfaction of knowing my ex is as miserable as he left me. Preferably in the way of weight gain, balding, and four children from different girls.
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6.) Be famous. Marry rockstar. Have puppies.
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Hey, I said pretty realistic, not entirely.
Until next time,
xoxo,
Devan.
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The popcorn won't pop right. It doesn't get any room to expand if its placed the other way... so you get all burnt popcorn pieces, and tons of seeds.
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