I was lied to. My parents didn't lie to me. Maybe my teachers didn't lie to me either. But somewhere I got the idea that the most important thing was to get good grades. If I got good grades, everything else would just fall into place. When my grades were up around a 4.0, my parents gave me lots of freedom. When my grades fell at all, my parents would offer to budget my time for me if I could not independently budget it well enough to do well in school. So I excelled in school and I made out with boys at bonfires on the beach, and I drank in smoky bars, and I dated the sort of drug dealers who break bones for fucking up. And when I was sixteen and hated my new high school, I had the academic background to graduate early. At this point, my folks tried to impress upon me the importance of skills over raw learning. But no way was I going to a state school after all those years of being pushed so hard to make the grade. Both my parents went to Harvard. The least I could do was go to Wesleyan. So I graduated with Honors, degreed in English and social psychology.

I've been a sex shop manager, a stagehand, a rock journalist, a nonsexual escort, an executive secretary, and a bill collector. Today, freelance graphic design puts food on my table and sex publishing is my hope for the future. Only the escort job required a degree. I thought I would just graduate from college, and I would work hard, and I would make weird but intelligent hard-working friends. WELL IT DIDN'T WORK OUT THAT WAY AND HUNGER AND MEDICAL BILLS AND PERSONAL BETRAYAL HAVE MADE ME PRETTY DAMN ALIENATED. But then our generation is the first in eighty years that can expect to enjoy a lower standard of living than our parents. So it is no surprise we are surly. Welcome to the careers issue of BLT and have a nice day even if you are not on a career track and are starting to think maybe you never will be and you can't afford to get your teeth fixed and you think your job is beneath you and you wish you had some real responsibility or at least a vacation and you'd like to get laid but everyone your age you meet seems so fucking negative.

Next time we are doing a special BLT Summer Fun & Romance issue. Deadline for art and articles is April 15, 1993*. Sure as death and taxes. Make it funny and keep it under 300 words or we'll put Vasopressin in your insulin. Send submissions to BLT, 3 Calabar Court, Gaithersburg, MD 20877.