Today’s dress is Suzi Chin for Maggy Boutique. Shoes are Kate Spade.
Summer of 2005 I was an intern for People Magazine through the ASME (American Society of Magazine Editors) program. It was a prestigious program and I had landed my top choice, and the most sought after. I had always loved reading People. I would devour it as soon as it arrived at our apartment. The stories were so juicy and I always loved reading about celebrities. I would fantasize about having my picture on the cover. But when I got there, I was disappointed. I wanted to do real reporting, like I had at the New York Post. But they wanted me to fact check, which I despised. People was competing against Us Weekly and they had become more of a tabloid. I had worked at Us weekly the year before, and I’m positive that’s why they chose me at People. They wanted the gossip.
Everything was about Brangelina and various reality shows like “I wanna be a Hilton” and “Being Bobby Brown.” At one point my job included watching several reality shows a week. I began watching them at the office, which made it look like I was hanging out and watching TV all day. “It’s my job!” I would tell the staffers who walked by with puzzled looks. I was stuck in a depressing cubicle when all I wanted was to be out in the field, interviewing celebrities. But they had people doing that already. I finally got a chance to do something cool one hot summer day. It was the Fantastic Four premiere and they were sending me! I asked my friend Caroline to accompany me. The premiere was being held on Liberty Island, where the Statue of Liberty is. As a native New Yorker, I’d maybe been there once, so I was also excited to see it up close. As soon as we got off the Press ferry, disaster struck. I have horrible luck with rain, and it immediately began to thunder and pour. It was epic. There was no backup plan. The entire event was outdoors. No one knew was to do. We crowded into the canteen and snacked on gross fast food while we waited for the rain to calm. Hours passed by. Nothing. Finally it was deemed safe to resume the event. The celebrity ferry was finally on its way. I heard that the movie’s star, Jessica Alba, had gotten seasick. I remember exactly what she was wearing. A sparkly dress with a very low back. I took a few pictures with my cool digital camera. I must have so many memory cards full of old photos I should go through. But anyway. My job was to ask the celebrities very stupid questions, like “what grosses you out?” Jessica Alba said “bad hygiene.” Years later she developed her own skin care line. Caroline snapped pictures of me talking to Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans. We took out seats for the film, but then the screen started to fizzle. They had repainted it after the rain, but it wasn’t working. There would be no movie. At the premiere. It had been 7 hours, and we made our way back to the ferry. The reporters were justifiably angry, but I was pretty stroked I got to meet George Whipple from NY1. It’s not like anyone had anywhere to go. When we returned to the mainland, the after party was happening at Marquee, the coolest nightclub at the time. I went and saw Jessica Biel wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. She was dating Chris Evans at the time.
The rest of the summer was uneventful. The other interns in the program were living in the dorms at NYU. I chose to stay uptown at my parents’ apartment. Why would I pay to share a room in a college dorm in the city I grew up in? But I chose wrong. The other interns became very close through that experience, and I missed out. Some of them have gone on to pretty cool things, like working for Facebook (which I also tried to do, many times). I can’t quite imagine being a reporter again, but who knows. I do love telling stories.
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