Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
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DRINK MORE AT WORK<br />
I wanted <strong>to</strong> be a writer since I was a little girl. Actually, I wanted <strong>to</strong> be a writer-actress-direc<strong>to</strong>r<br />
(and, for a brief and confusing time, a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader-writer-actress-direc<strong>to</strong>r). But I<br />
made up my own worlds; I didn’t report on real ones. I never even considered journalism until my<br />
roommate Tara became <strong>the</strong> head of our college daily and invited me <strong>to</strong> contribute. I walked down in<strong>to</strong><br />
a dingy basement where pale chain-smokers argued about school vouchers. A sign hung at <strong>the</strong><br />
entrance. Welcome <strong>to</strong> <strong>the</strong> Daily Texan —where GPAs go <strong>to</strong> die.<br />
I found a home in <strong>the</strong> entertainment section, which allowed me <strong>to</strong> cover any <strong>the</strong>ater production in<br />
<strong>to</strong>wn, while boys in ratty concert T-shirts grappled for <strong>the</strong> latest Pavement album. It hadn’t occurred<br />
<strong>to</strong> me I could write a s<strong>to</strong>ry <strong>to</strong>day, and it could show up on your kitchen table <strong>to</strong>morrow. What a rush.<br />
There are wonderful reasons <strong>to</strong> become a journalist. To champion <strong>the</strong> underdog. To be professionally<br />
curious. Me? I just wanted <strong>to</strong> get free stuff and see my name in print.<br />
And I was charmed by <strong>the</strong> companionship of <strong>the</strong> newsroom. Writing had always been a solitary<br />
pursuit, but winding my way alongside those cubicles full of keyboard clatter felt like being backstage<br />
before a show. I had s<strong>to</strong>pped acting, in part because I’d grown uncomfortable with people looking at<br />
me. Journalism offered a new kind of exposure, like performing on a stage with <strong>the</strong> curtains closed.<br />
At 23, I landed a gig at a beloved alt weekly called <strong>the</strong> Austin Chronicle, and I couldn’t have been<br />
more ecstatic. A real-live salary. Something called “health benefits.” I felt like I was standing on <strong>the</strong><br />
first step of a staircase that stretched all <strong>the</strong> way <strong>to</strong>—why not?—<strong>the</strong> New York Times. Then again, <strong>the</strong><br />
Chronicle was <strong>the</strong> kind of place a person wouldn’t mind staying forever. Staffers wore flip-flops and<br />
arrived after 10 am. A group got s<strong>to</strong>ned by <strong>the</strong> big tree each afternoon, and production halted at 5 for<br />
a volleyball game. Each morning, a woman appeared in <strong>the</strong> lobby <strong>to</strong> sell breakfast tacos for a dollar,<br />
one of a million reasons Austin was amazing: random people showing up out of nowhere <strong>to</strong> hand out<br />
hangover food.<br />
My desk was in front of a brick wall that I decorated with a giant poster from <strong>the</strong> musical Rent. I’d<br />
bought <strong>the</strong> poster on my first trip <strong>to</strong> New York City, where I visited my bro<strong>the</strong>r, who was in grad<br />
school <strong>the</strong>re. He’d taken me <strong>to</strong> a Broadway show, and I sat in those squeaky seats watching a vision<br />
of bohemia I hoped might one day be mine: documentarians with spiky gelled hair, drug addict<br />
musicians, lipstick lesbians in black catsuits.<br />
A week after I started at <strong>the</strong> paper, a scruffy guy from production s<strong>to</strong>pped in front of <strong>the</strong> poster,<br />
pointed <strong>to</strong> it, and shook his head. “Seriously?” he said, and moved on.<br />
I didn’t know Rent had become a punch line of ’90s sincerity and manufactured edge. I didn’t<br />
realize AIDS victims singing in five-part harmony about seasons of love could make some of my<br />
colleagues want <strong>to</strong> punch an old lady in <strong>the</strong> neck. But that day I learned my first lesson in pop-culture<br />
tyranny: Subjective tastes can be wrong.<br />
That Saturday, when no one was around, I <strong>to</strong>ok down Rent and replaced it with Blade Runner, a<br />
film beloved by sci-fi nerds and cinephiles, although I wasn’t certain why. I’d only seen it once, and<br />
fallen asleep.