Blogging to the Top

We saw that Julia Childs movie last night--the one where a young woman spends a year of her life cooking every dish in her cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," blogs about it daily, gets lots of readers and then a book contract and then the very movie we were watching was made from it. It was wild---her life was just like mine, except the complete opposite: She wrote her blog for a year and I've been writing mine for five, and she had scads of readers and got tons of comments and made a fortune whereas I have few readers and get hardly any comments and have made not one thin dime. So I thought, okay, maybe I will follow her lead and get a weird job for a year and blog about it and then I can have a book and a movie too! So I went on Craiglist for a few ideas.

I could become a Trackless Train Driver at Maine Mall. How wacky would that be! The ad says, "The train is an electric powered unit that requires attention to detail and excellent driving to operate." The requirements for the position include being good with children, having a clean driving record with no major traffic violations, an associates degree or equivalent, and a positive attitude. I nailed all the requirements except that last one, and while I could fake it for the interview, I wondered if my real attitude would ultimately surface, like in the first few hours of driving the train through the crowds of overweight shoppers out wasting their time and money buying useless crap and stuffing their fat faces with empty calories at the food court. I thought it might, so I moved on.

I could become one of the first Wine Consultants in Maine to represent a certified Napa winery. "Now that the laws have passed you can get started on the ground floor! Wine Consultants serve wine and conduct guided private in-home wine tastings. Partner with our winery now and be trained for our holiday selling season - earn trips to Napa and Montego Bay, Jamaica." That sounded quirky enough, but then I imagined total strangers getting drunk in my house, maybe even passing out or God forbid a million times, throwing up. And the whole "holiday selling season" turned me off since I think that's a bunch of bull, using Jesus as a tool to make money. And I hate flying and I know for a fact there is no train to Jamaica, except of course on the Long Island Railroad, so I rejected that one too.

Then a light bulb fairly exploded in my head: I could get a job just three miles from my house, at L. L. Bean! I could see Americans up close and personal! I could have funny, quirky, wacky experiences with customers from all 50 states, Canada and Puerto Rico-- right in my own backyard! I could learn what makes people tick, and how to use modern cash registers, and every day I could write about what the most popular items are and who buys guns and how abusive people are with their kids and how many Bean Boots sell per week. Maybe it could be a documentary. Next stop Sundance, or maybe Cannes--who knows? Of course, I would have to wear that awful green staff shirt with the Bean logo, and green is not my best color.

Back to the drawing board.