A mind of very little matter
When I was a graduating senior in high school, our class published a series of humorous prophecies for each student along with the school's end-of-the-year newsletter. My prophecy was that I would grow up to write a book of Brady Bunch trivia, I guess because I was into the Brady Bunch at the time and clearly had a mind that was better used not toward math or science but the trivial pursuits of old sitcoms. True enough, I couldn't memorize a chemistry formula long enough to pass the final, but I could (and still can) tell you what any of the six Brady kids wore in any given episode or recall the subplots and seasons of any number of ridiculous programs from the 1970's or 80's. (Hello, look at the name of this blog).
More than ten years later, my brain still retains all of that useless information and more. Now that I work not just in the beauty industry but in PR - where all one ever needs to know in life is printed on Page Six - I pride myself on the enormous amount of pop culture trivia that lives in the keppie upstairs. Of course, a sponge has no use without water, and so my thirst is quenched mostly by magazines, dailies, and now daily websites like mediabistro, adrants, gawker, and defamer which conveniently summarize all of the day's news stories (news being a flexible term, here) into digestable bite-sized morsels of trivia.
As such, I am a wonderfully entertaining addition to most any cocktail party. Of course, I am probably a terrible bore to anyone who has a solid opinion on anything serious in the world, but I don't know anyone like that, so that's a non-issue. Everyone at work knows to come to me for the latest in celebrity gossip. (Although sometimes I play dumb just so they don't think I'm playing online all day. I do, but, please, I multi-task.) But while my childhood quirk came easy and natural, what I do now is considered work. And work I do. I have a quickly growing mountain of required reading material to prove it.
Women's Wear Daily is universally considered the Bible of the fashion industry (and, to a lesser extent, beauty). I, to this day, have never read the actual Bible, but boy do I get serious guilt if I miss a day or three of WWD. And because I am neurotic and make myself read them in chronological order, I have a stack of about seven that I have been transporting to and from work for the last few days in an effort to read them, one by one, until I catch up. It's just been a busy week.
The only magazines I read for sheer pleasure are Vogue, Elle, and New York magazine, and it just so happens that they are excellent reads for business as well. I've been working on the September issue of Vogue for over a month now (it's more than 4 pounds!) and I'm a little stressed because Oct is already out and I can't even look at it yet (chronological issues again). Elle always seems to get stolen in the office before it gets to me, but I'm okay with that now because on top of the Vogue's and WWD's, New York mag is a weekly, and I literally have two of them open and half-read - on top of the Sept. Vogue and a random Fitness magazine I started at the gym tonight - just sitting on my coffee table waiting to be finished. It kind of looks like a dentist's office in here, actually.
Does any of this make me a better, smarter, richer, or more interesting person? Of course not. The opposite is more likely to be true. But we all have our thing, and if trivia is mine, then so be it. If 30 years after the fact, Peter Brady can get his own reality TV show and date a model half his age, then I certainly must be on the track to something. "You gotta keep on, keep on, keep on movin, keep on, keep on, keep on groovin, keep on singing and dancing all through the night."
More than ten years later, my brain still retains all of that useless information and more. Now that I work not just in the beauty industry but in PR - where all one ever needs to know in life is printed on Page Six - I pride myself on the enormous amount of pop culture trivia that lives in the keppie upstairs. Of course, a sponge has no use without water, and so my thirst is quenched mostly by magazines, dailies, and now daily websites like mediabistro, adrants, gawker, and defamer which conveniently summarize all of the day's news stories (news being a flexible term, here) into digestable bite-sized morsels of trivia.
As such, I am a wonderfully entertaining addition to most any cocktail party. Of course, I am probably a terrible bore to anyone who has a solid opinion on anything serious in the world, but I don't know anyone like that, so that's a non-issue. Everyone at work knows to come to me for the latest in celebrity gossip. (Although sometimes I play dumb just so they don't think I'm playing online all day. I do, but, please, I multi-task.) But while my childhood quirk came easy and natural, what I do now is considered work. And work I do. I have a quickly growing mountain of required reading material to prove it.
Women's Wear Daily is universally considered the Bible of the fashion industry (and, to a lesser extent, beauty). I, to this day, have never read the actual Bible, but boy do I get serious guilt if I miss a day or three of WWD. And because I am neurotic and make myself read them in chronological order, I have a stack of about seven that I have been transporting to and from work for the last few days in an effort to read them, one by one, until I catch up. It's just been a busy week.
The only magazines I read for sheer pleasure are Vogue, Elle, and New York magazine, and it just so happens that they are excellent reads for business as well. I've been working on the September issue of Vogue for over a month now (it's more than 4 pounds!) and I'm a little stressed because Oct is already out and I can't even look at it yet (chronological issues again). Elle always seems to get stolen in the office before it gets to me, but I'm okay with that now because on top of the Vogue's and WWD's, New York mag is a weekly, and I literally have two of them open and half-read - on top of the Sept. Vogue and a random Fitness magazine I started at the gym tonight - just sitting on my coffee table waiting to be finished. It kind of looks like a dentist's office in here, actually.
Does any of this make me a better, smarter, richer, or more interesting person? Of course not. The opposite is more likely to be true. But we all have our thing, and if trivia is mine, then so be it. If 30 years after the fact, Peter Brady can get his own reality TV show and date a model half his age, then I certainly must be on the track to something. "You gotta keep on, keep on, keep on movin, keep on, keep on, keep on groovin, keep on singing and dancing all through the night."
posted by Lori @ 10:02 PM
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