👾 "I'm an alien," part one
“It brings to mind the ways in which really painful experiences in life can make people much more human. It can. I have often thought that. I have often thought that, if you’re lucky, you go through something that just cuts you off at the knees, and you’re humbled. As a result of that, you’re going to be a bigger person—that’s the best-case scenario. As opposed to becoming bitter. So yeah, to be humbled, I think, can be a very good thing ultimately.”
—Elizabeth Strout, author of Tell Me Everything via Otherppl with Brad Listi
“That’s not open yet,” the team member snapped as she walked briskly by. Was it served with a side of condescension? I couldn’t tell. “You’ll have to wait until the event starts.” (In ten minutes . . . okay, fine.)
I turned away from the vending machine that, apparently, ten minutes from now, would dispense a choice of four mediocre tchotchkes for attendees: two small white plushies in a plastic canister, a branded collapsible mug, a pill carrier, and one other piece of unmemorable schlock. I eyed the plushies as a souvenir for Ryder. I love bringing him one from every city, for when he inevitably rifles through my suitcase searching for fresh travel smells and anything new he can investigate.
I felt scolded, grasping, like the claw in the machine.
She didn’t know I was part of the event, that I would be coaching her attendees in ten-minute office hours segments after someone else delivered the main-stage keynote, or that I had flown cross-country from New York City to Seattle to help out for no fee— just the aspirational labor of travel reimbursement and the hope of getting on her team’s radar for next year.1
