Sumpin' Witty

Gravitate Towards Jupiter, Downtown Berkeley, CA Once upon a time, I walked into a bar/restaurant in downtown Berkeley, and handed in a resume. Just back from the obligatory, post-college-world tour, I was broke, over-educated, and inexperienced in any line of work other than serving food. I needed a job and my friend Joanna had taken me to Jupiter on my first night living in Berkeley. Of course I fell in love with the ambiance, who wouldn't love an old barn, with wooden beams running throughout and a beautiful brick courtyard with Christmas lights year round? And the pizza and beer were good, so good that I thought, wouldn't it be nice to get this for free during my shift rather than have to pay for it once a week? So in that moment where my resume passed from my hand to that of the manager on duty, Eryn Blackwelder, magic happened, and I proceeded down a path. There are those exact moments in time where you can trace back how your life would have been different if that ...

It's a funny thing, how tied up your identity can become with your job, your profession, the thing you do to get a pay check. Such a solid question, usually one of the first things you ask someone when first meeting them. You start by exchanging names, then ask, "Where you from?" followed usually by "What do you do?". Now, this question has always annoyed me. What do I do? I do a lot of things. What do I do to make money? Depends on the month. Once you've done something for long enough, that thing you do starts to be part of who you are. Your job is what takes up most of your time, most of your peers and friends come out of your work situation so even when you're not at work, you still end up talking about it or spending time with people associated with it. But then one day, you might quit your job, or get fired. Quitting, for a lot of people, signifies a life crisis of sorts. You wake up one day and you can't take it anymore, you've got to get o...