Middle Class

I'm at a weird place in my life right now, transitioning between two internships.This semester I was offered an internship with W Magazine in their features department, and so of course I leapt at the opportunity to join the sinking ship that is Conde Nast (or so other bloggers like to say). Because I'm an intern, I do the typical menial things in exchange for the occasional actual assignment- I sort mail, I photocopy, and last week I had to go out and get someone a newspaper. In the office, I barely register on the food chain. Our conference room is full of clothes I will never be able to afford for photo shoots, and our articles revolve around high society events, successful businessmen/women, and celebrites.

After work this past week I went to the film forum that I've organized for my old internship, a non-profit for families with incarcerated family members. Despite the fact that I have curated the event, I still carry connotations that members of the audience are against. I am white and in college at a prestigious unversity, but what these people might not know is that I will be paying for that education for a long, long time. Though no one is directly mean to me, half of the film forums are often spent yelling about racism, oppression, the targeting of communities, all of which I know nothing about from personal experience. I started working with them while taking an art and public policy course, and I spent a long time talking with my class about the ways to convey support without alienating a group that you don't actually belong to. Of course, just by being there are creating these forums I am showing my support, but I still get looks of skepticism from audience members at each and every screening.

So at one internship, I am begging for scraps in the form of interviews while at the other, I am the elite, the lucky, because of my circumstances and for the fact that I happen to be middle class. It's quite a shift all in one day.


In other news: I really want to just go away for awhile, live on a house in the beach or the mountains and read and write and hide. Is that sad? I'm in the middle of two really good books right now though and with no time to read them all I can dream about is escaping. I guess you can have too much of a good thing though- perhaps my goal should be less running away from my life and more just learning how to live it, learning how to make enough time so I can spend twelve hours reading or escape for a weekend. Does anyone really get to do that, once they grow up? College and travel have spoiled me.


In other other news: Just saw Where the Wild Things Are. Will have to sit on it for a bit, all I know is that it made me want to be a kid again, to see things in that light, even if it does mean the occasional temper tantrum. I still have a hard time controlling my emotions, so where'd the fun part go? I want to sleep with my friends in a pile and have dirt fights and roll down hills...for now my childish fantasies will have to be fulfilled by Tilly and the Wall, who I haven't listened to in awhile and who seem to capture it best.