Amy’s Adventures

A wise friend recently told me, “You’re smarter than 98% of the general population.”  She tells me this after I continually bitch about how stupid people are. I just don’t remember people being so dumb 10 or 15 years ago. These people are all around us. They’re the Customer Service Rep at Target who makes you call three people in India to solve a problem that can easily be handled in 5 minutes.  It’s the cashier at The Giant who only knows paper or plastic and freaks out when you have your own bag.  

I complain a lot about these people being stupid, but maybe they have an excuse. Maybe they came up in a poor education system and didn’t have all the resources I did growing up.  This is unfortunate and I’ve accepted that as the US has grown, the ability to provide a sound education for everyone has been diminished.  Now, I’m not going all political and I’m not making excuses. It’s just a fact.

That aside, the dumbest of the dumb are actually those who walk the halls of corporate America.  Many of these have advanced degrees and I’m not knocking the degree. I have one too! What makes them dumb is their insecurity to be themselves. They go around repeating words like “synergy,” “value-add,” “bandwidth” and “alignment” which they think because someone with a bigger degree from a better school said it will in turn make them sound that smart too. It’s a vicious circle where no one wins because there’s always going to be someone smarter than you.  

For most of my life, I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by very smart people. In school, I socialized with the ‘higher-level’ kids and in my professional life I’ve had to work on projects with Harvard Business grads and PhD scientists from MIT; this for a girl who had to cheat in Chemistry to get a D. See, I’ve always known that I wasn’t the smartest and I just didn’t let it bother me. I accepted my limitations in math and science and just gravitated to what I did best.  To me, that’s being smart: do what you do best, be yourself and just ignore the rest.  Do this and you’ll be smarter than 98% of the population too!

Josh and Reva: My favorite Guiding Light love story.

For nearly 20 years, I was an avid viewer of The Guiding Light. This week Guiding Light came to an end. After 72 years, it became a victim of low ratings, but more sadly, a victim of a dying genre.  Some of my first memories were of Guiding Light. I vividly remember my mom taking a break from housework to watch in the early 70’s. I was only 3 or 4 then, but I can remember the characters and how I thought they were the prettiest people. I specifically, remember the character, Holly, who had beautiful, long, flowing red hair. My mom kept my hair short when I was little, so I was envious of her long locks. I even wore a turtleneck on my head to try and replicate Holly’s hair.

Over ten years ago, I stopped watching Guiding Light when I traded a school schedule for a work schedule and discovered that I could no longer build a schedule around the 3 to 4 slot allotted to my Springfield friends.  I tried to keep up through VCR recording, but I found that the 5 hours to catch up on Saturday really dug into my weekends. In 1998, I had to say my own good-bye. Good-bye to Josh, Reva, Phillip and Beth…oh, this was so hard. I felt as if I was giving up on them, on the hope that they’d find each other again and live happily ever after.  Their love stories fueled my belief that love can conquer all, and that some people are just destined, no matter the circumstances.  Sometimes I wonder if my addiction to Guiding Light all those years possibly scorned me or deluded my sense of love?  Crazy, I know, but the Josh/Reva love story was one I was sure I was destined to live out.  

Yesterday, I watched the final episode. Not an overly surprising finale, but satisfying.  I had been tuning in the last few months to try and figure out how they’d wrap so much up in just a short amount of time. Just a month ago, Reva was longing for Jeffrey and recovering from Cancer. How could she get back with Josh when one day in Soap time is equal to one month in real time? It seemed that my 20 year commitment to the show would all be for naught. Yet, yesterday, I finally got the happy ending that I had longed for all those years. All my Springfield friends were happy and where they were suppose to be! No more one night stands, affairs, murder accusations, or illegitimate children eventually claimed by the town’s oil tycoon. Everyone found love—even Josh and Reva, as they drove into the sunset, together.  I’m not sure why I ever doubted this, but I had to tune in, just to make sure they got their happy ending.  After all, I had given them 20 years of my life, I felt I deserved a happily ever after.

And so, Guiding Light is no more. Part of my past is complete. Another chapter concluded.  My Springfield friends have gone their separate ways and the hope for happily ever after is no more. See, what I realized is that Soaps no matter how stupid, delusional or far-fetched, give us hope, they feed our longing for happiness, for the fairytale.  Because in the end, don’t we all just want to live happily ever after?

25 years later and stirrup pants make a come back!

Today as I came out of the GW/Foggy Bottom Metro Station and up the escalator, I thought for a moment I had been transported back to 1985. In front of me, one of the worst trends from the 80’s: stirrup pants. In that moment, I realized I had reached that  point in one’s life that you hope will never happen to you, but inevitably does– the circling back of trends you from those haunting teenage years. 

Yes, I adorned the stirrup pants as a proud JMS 8th grader in the mid-80’s. Even better, I topped it with a big button-down, paisely Forenza shirt with the collar up. Like the other 9 Amy’s at JMS, I was hip! A year later, the stirrup pants sank to the bottom of the drawer in favor of more tailored skirts and Outback Red shirts. (Still from The Limited)

And so today, as I was reminded of the dear old stirrup pant, I wondered about other fashion fads that 21st Century Tweens will find hip and starte wearing again only to remind me that I wore that too, once upon a time.