Famous

I will never be famous. But it is my pleasure to help others rise to fame. They are smart, talented, funny, kind; and I help them get the love and respect they deserve. I am a publicist, and a good one too. I help them rise to be the stars they should be. They are the stars and they deserve it. They deserve it. They deserve it...

Oh crap, who am I kidding? I know the kinds of people from whom I work. Everything you ever thought to be wrong with stars? Yeah, it's true. Every day I deal with the most inept people it's ever been my displeasure to know. Sure, they have to be talented at something to make it this far, but for most, their talent is just being load and obnoxious. That's how they get heard. Or maybe daddy was a star and bought their stardom with his billions of dollars. Whatever the case may be, these people are the most ungrateful, selfish, and stupid people I have ever met.

Sure, maybe once upon a time, there as real talent in the world. I can't imagine that people like Frank Sinatra or John Wayne ever acted like this. Maybe there are even some "good" people out there today who have risen to stardom. I can think of dozens that must be better than the lot I've put in with. At least, I hope for the sake of all the other publicists that they are.

I guess my problem is that I am too good at what I do. None of my clients really deserve stardom. In all honesty, that's probably why they come to me to begin with. I can make just about anyone into a star, except myself. I just don't have the quality it takes to stand in the starlight. Call it talent or class or bitchiness. Whatever it is, I don't have it, but they do, and I know how to draw it out so much that no one even notices what's really there... which at best is nothing and at worst is a wretched human being.

Maybe I'm just jaded, watching all these other undeserving slobs rise to power while I work my butt of covering up their mistakes. Every single one I work for is not even a tenth of the angel they seem to be. Maybe all the others that don't work under me really are the same... if their publicists are even half as good as I am.

I don't know what makes them all such whiny brats. The upbringing, I guess. Most of them have celebrity parents, or at least friends. They weaseled their way into stardom. Not a one of them earned it. Not like me. I earned this miserable job all by myself.

I used to think I would do great things with my life. Before I got this job, I thought this would be doing "great things with my life." Boy was I wrong. I hate getting up every morning, but I get paid well and there is no one better than me. I can take any negative comment made by one of my nitwits and spin it into something positive. That is, if a negative comment from them even gets out to begin with. Any dumb or insensitive thing one of them says to the public is a failure on my part. I tolerate very few failures. In fact, if you consider how often the idiots open their mouths and how often something inappropriate actually gets out, my success rate is about 99.999%.

In all fairness though, they really aren't that bad. They have good hearts, after all. They don't complain too much when I encourage them to publicly support charities. Some of them are even willing to show up at the charity events themselves. Mostly it's because they want the publicity (which, let's be honest, is obviously why I have them do it to begin with), but at least it's a start. Maybe there is hope after all.

I should have been the famous one, though, if only I were good at something other than making other people look good. If I had just one other talent, I could be my own publicist and be the most well-liked celebrity in the world. I wouldn't need a sane person to tell me not to say this or do that. I have common sense, so I would already know these things. Sometimes I just want to scream at my clients, "why don't you already know these things?"

But that's not fair. Maybe they really don't. Maybe that's just what happens when you come from a celebrity home. Sigh. Oh well. One of them is screaming for me so I'd better go. I wonder what mess they need me to help them out of this time.

Gone

Nothing ever seems to last.

When I was young, I used to love the snow. Every white flake that fell was the hope of a day off school, a day spent making snowmen and snow angels and sipping hot cocoa in front of the fake fireplace. When I was really young, I didn't even realize it was fake.

Now that I am grown, I dread the winter. I hate having to shovel the snow from my driveway, and I hate it even more when the snow melts and leaves pools of mud and sludge behind. Most of all, though, I had that now when I try to sit in front of the fake fireplace sipping hot cocoa, I'm reminded of how things used to be.

Nothing ever lasts. I know I was happy once, I just can't remember how everything got so messed up. When I was young, I had my parents and my brother and sister to keep me company. When I was in high school, I had boyfriends from time to time and close girlfriends that would chat with me for hours about nothing and everything. What happened to all those people?

My family lives a thousand miles away now, and my best friend from high school is dead. All my other friends are scattered. I haven't talked to them in years. Most people would just make new friends, but I've seen enough people come and go that I don't know what the point is. All that's left behind is a pool of sludge.

Everything was so beautiful to me one, well, many times. The first time I went to daycare, the first time I had a pet, the first time I kissed a boy, the first time I fell in love. The thing about the first time is that it can never happen again. All those moments were beautiful, like the first drop of snow falling from the heavens, but they can't last forever. The moments build up over time but then slowly, one by one, they melt away.

The problem with kids today is they don't even seem to savor the moments they have. They don't realize that when they turn into me one day, those moments will be all they have. I know the moments cause me pain, but I wouldn't even know what beauty was, or be able to occasionally hope to find it again, if I didn't have those moments.

Last week we had the first big snowfall of the year and a little boy, maybe 13 or 14 years old, came to my door asking if he could shovel my driveway. I just stared at him for a moment and then said, "Absolutely not. That's my job. You go and play."

I'm sure he thought I was being very rude, just continuing on my status as the grumpy old woman who lives down the road. He didn't understand that I was doing him a favor. Worrying and fretting about cleaning things up is the work of adults. Children need to enjoy life while they still can because they don't realize it, but all too soon it will be melted away. Gone.

I'm not really a depressed person. I had a nice house and I'm on the third pet dog of my lifetime. I take pleasure in the work I do, and I have nice acquaintances, and even go on a date from time to time, but nothing will ever be like things used to be. I've graduated from snowflakes to mud puddles. They aren't pretty, but they're what I've got and I learn to deal with them and make the most of things. Maybe someday those will be gone too, and what will take their place? Nothing? Is that really better than mud? I don't think so. Even mud can be sculpted into something, if not beautiful, then at least interesting. You just have to try hard enough, and do what you can before it's gone.