My first job out of college was writing TV commercials for Jack in the Box. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I pretended I knew exactly what I was doing. I couldn’t admit I didn’t know anything because there was another girl who started around the same time and she seemed to know a lot. She was married and didn’t have any student loans, so I hated her upon finding that out. We were the same age, looked alike and had similar-sounding names (hers: Leah). Yet, she was all put together. Her clothes matched. Her skin was clear. She had a car.
I had a bicycle from Target, one suitcase, a ball of frizz on my head, a face full of adult acne, and a sneaking suspicion that I did not want to be in advertising. It was not a fine moment for me, and this chick’s surface perfection reflected back to me how big of a mess I was.
I figured I could prove that I was better than she was if I just made more TV commercials than she did. And so it was born: fierce, catty, female competition, the silent kind popular in sorority houses, the kind that kept me scheming at night and kept her pointing out that I had a string hanging from the stitching on my shirt. Every. Day.
After a few months on the job, Leah produced her first TV commercial. BEFORE ME. Seething with jealousy, I wrote my ass off. And I tried harder. I finally sold one right after, keeping us neck and neck (they’re here and here if you’re really that bored). Still, we competed in every area. She’d tell me about her perfect husband, and I’d brag about how I figured out all by myself that my cable TV wasn’t working because of a big lint ball stuck in the receiver box. Then she’d remind me that she didn’t have a TV. There we were: Twenty-five-year-old bitches, both vegetarians, defining ourselves by how quickly we could convince people to eat hamburgers.
Four years after we met, we both found ourselves in phases of uncertainty. Her husband was to take a job in New York, and I had no idea what to do with my life. I decided to travel alone for a year and start this blog. She decided to stay in Los Angeles and began writing thank you notes. She filled up boxes of gratitude and realized that thanking the things she appreciated was a way of staying in the moment and giving her life a constant. She posted them on her blog, thx thx thx. That’s how we actually got to know each other- by secretly reading each other’s blogs. Leah says it was when I started to write about my father that she realized I was a real person and not the shell I would only let her see before. And I learned about how fragile and funny she really is by reading things like these:
I guess you can say we really met online. And then we started to respect each other. And then we became friends.
It felt so much better than competing.
Now her blog has become a book, a book that’s for sale in real bookstores. YES, SHE PUBLISHED A BOOK BEFORE ME. Even though I have been wanting to write a book since the moment I realized I didn’t want to be in advertising (the first day), I am not one bit jealous that my friend has just come out with one. (Swear. For real. Seriously. No, really. Not me.) I’m PROUD! And amazed. And inspired. Because it’s good. Because it’s beautiful. Because it’s vulnerable and funny. Because she’s my friend and I want her to succeed. Six years ago, I would have fake-barfed if I’d heard Leah was going to publish a book and then I would have probably gone home and created a voodoo doll. But here I am telling you to buy it. Our blogs and this book symbolize how much we can grow in short periods of time.
Dear Laurenne & Leah, Thanks for not being catty bitches anymore.
Dear Cats, Thanks for letting us use your name to describe something negative.
Leah also thinks humans are funny, and she wants to give away one of her books here. If you write a thank you down below (to anything or anyone), we will put your name in a hat (Really a hat. We’re not just saying hat and then planning on using a bowl.). And we will draw one name and that winner shall receive a copy of thx thx thx in the mail. We’re doing a raffle because we don’t want to judge the entries. That’s how far we’ve come. We don’t even judge anyone anymore. Except ourselves. And that guy over there. What a douchebag.
Ok, your turn:
