Austin, TX. Breakfast tacos! 2014
Today I had lunch with a pair of ladies I'd never met before at my favorite spot for breakfast tacos. I've got a slight connection with Melizzoz. I interviewed one of the owners here for a video project I did when I first moved to Austin—back when it was just "Izzoz." I was interviewed here myself by a film crew for a project I'm contractually not allowed to talk about. (Very frustrating.) And this photo of me and Molly appeared on my 2012 photo blog. My connection to Rose Marie is through Heidi, one of the handful of readers-turned-friends I made back when I was blogging semi-regularly at TheGreatestYearOfMyLife.com. Heidi, who lives way up in Montana, heard about my blog through our mutual friend Scott, one of the crew members (1st A.D.?) on the DEN.net web series (Frat Ratz) that I created and wrote for back at the turn of the century. Heidi started reading my blog, liked what she read, decided we should be friends and offered to put me up if I was ever swinging through Glacier National Park. And through the power of email, digital photos, mutual respect and Facebook, we've been friends ever since. Now Heidi's gone and told her friend Rose Marie that I might be able to help Rose Marie's niece, Tamara, break into the copy editing world. I realized that our lunch today and my attempt at imparting some wisdom and common sense to Tamara was a direct result of me blogging about my adventures a decade ago. It's crazy to think of the ripple effect these things can have. Which, in part, is what I was trying to tell Aunt Rose Marie's niece. Never underestimate what can result from being proactive and taking action. You want to be a copy editor—with zero experience and a degree in anthropology? Create a blog, post a whole bunch of entries and make sure there are zero typos in your blog! Show the world your blog is the best copy edited blog in the universe. Get out in the world. Have adventures. Do every job you take with a smile and, if you can muster it up, passion. Meet people. Listen. Become the kind of person—interesting, interested, creative, curious—that I'm gonna want to hire. "Thank you for saying all that," Rose Marie told me. "I've been telling her all those things. But, of course, I'm her aunt so she's not really listening." It's just one man's opinion, Rose Marie. What the hell do I know? One thing I do know—I'm grateful for those tasty Mellizoz tacos today. Thanks for lunch!