Resting on Laurels I Don't Have

An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied. ~Arnold Glasow

***

"So, why are you still working here?"

That is what one of my coworkers asked me today. She was very direct. She even had her hands on her hips, in an insistent stance. She meant the question in a nice way, though.

As much as I might complain and whine about my job sometimes, I do work with some very talented, bright and very funny, cool people (except for one, and that's all I'll say about that). For almost two years, I have played jokes on some, shared snarky emails and daydreams of where the nearest Sugar Daddy store is in town, and gone out for drinks, movies, lunches and dinners with even more. When I would walk in a little late in the morning, looking frowsy from a late night of tango dancing, some one would always ask with a smile, "Oh, tango again last night?" Or when I had my flamenco skirt and shoes in my bag and was on the way out the door, people would want to know, "How's that flamenco coming along?"

It's nice to be noticed.

Now, when they see me with my camera around my neck, maybe having just come in from lunch, they say, "Take any good pictures today?" And they mean it. I get little congregations at my desk to see one of my latest achievements. It's very sweet of them.

I've already sold seven books at work.

So someone who hadn't seen my book yet came over with a copy in her hand. Three of them had been pow-wowing at another's desk, and she had been flipping through it. She marched back to my desk and said, "So why exactly are you still working here? I can't believe you took these pictures! You should be in a gallery. You should be selling these books all over town!"

I babbled. "Wha..wah...wh--"

And another one piped up on the other side of my desk: "You need to get a grant. Seriously. Apply to the Getty Foundation and get out of here."

They already have all of these ideas. Go to this store. This museum. This hotel. Oh, the tourists here. And here. My head was spinning and my insides were saying, oh please, can't you do this part for me?

So now I have to give myself a little bit of a kick in the pants. I made my book, and I adore it. I figured out how to make prints I like and I can sell them, too. I show my book around and people love it. I have copies sitting on my desk (the stack is dwindling rapidly), all with the idea that I will take them into shops and hotels and show them and see if I can drum up some orders, and instead I've done nothing so far.

I'm resting on laurels I don't have. I need to cut this crap and get out there and show my stuff. But then I think about me trying to apply for a grant with the Getty Foundation and my mean little Dorothy Parker self just laughs (Just learned to use a camera at Easter, this year, for god's sake! Still uses the Auto function on her camera because she doesn't even know all of the settings yet. Who does she think she is, anyway?!).

This post is not a pity party for me and I know what I have to do. But I still want to have the world come to me, to be like Lana Turner at the soda fountain at Schwab's and get discovered and instantly become a star (even though that story isn't true, isn't it what we all want?). Isn't that what reality tv is all about? Someday I'll be discovered? That diamond in the rough, the one that only needs a little facet here and a little polish there and voila! Now I can show them all I'm not a total phony?

Wake up, tangobaby. You've got to hit the pavement and get to work.

Please help kick me in the pants. I need more feet.

***

Just so you know, up top are what the MOO cards look like, what I was telling you about here. They are insanely cute and I think all of you should get MOO cards. (See, I'm so good at promoting other people's stuff.)

On the other side, they say:

julie michelle
photographer

Okay, MOO cards. I know.