Everything happens for a reason.

That is such a cliche, but I totally believe it.

Back when I was weighing two job offers--one full-time with benefits, but in New Jersey; the other a long-term freelance contract in New York--I opted for the gig with health insurance and a 401(k), even though I was more excited by the New York gig. How bo-ring of me, right?

Now it seems that, for once, my practicality has paid off, as the New Jersey gig has since moved back to New York and the Web site of the freelance gig just shuttered.

But I guess hindsight is always 20/20, huh? (Hey, they're cliches for a reason.)

Hi!

We haven't forgotten about you, dear readers, it's just that we're in the midst of 20 straight days of visitors, with whom we've been traveling around Spain; plus our bosses still expect us to work during the week--if you can believe that audacity--so please forgive the sparsity of posts as of late. The good news is, all of this has produced a wealth of material--that is, once we have the time to actually write for fun. In the meantime, here's the lazy blogger's antidote to too much going on, with too little time: a listicle of recent happenings.

• If you're traveling at all in the next few months, you might want to make sure you arrive at the right terminal or even that your chosen airline still exists.

• I've got a new blogging gig, turning celebrity hijinks into valuable parenting lessons. Check it out and comment--just don't mention that I don't have children.

• You can get a little insight into my Andalusian travels by reading some of my recent posts on HotelChatter. Come next week, not all hotels will have fared so well in their reviews.

• Speaking of HotelChatter, the site was just acquired by CondéNet, the online arm of CondéNast. I wonder: Does this now make me a Nastie, once removed?

All work and little pay makes Jenn an angry girl.

Ed. note: This is my last whiny media-related post, I swear. Well, at least for a while anyway.

It ain’t easy freelancing. Those of you who are successful at it, I salute you, because honestly, I do not know how anyone can earnestly earn a living at it anymore, given the inconceivably crappy pay days I’ve come across as of late.* To wit, a recent smattering of compensation rates I’ve been unfortunate enough to actually click through to: $15 for 300 word articles, $20 for 300-500 word articles, $25 for 500+ words. Granted these are small articles, but it only gets more pathetic as the word counts get higher. I want to tell these people, are you effing kidding me?! And I rarely use exclamation points, so when I do you know I mean business.

And you know whom I blame for this rapidly descending pay rate? Bloggers. (Oh, the irony.) Those scores of wannabe writers who link to their blog posts as writing samples and will take any rate at the sake of having been published somewhere other than their self-fashioned web site. And you know what I want to say to these people? This “hobby” that you’ve taken up as a way to obtain some fulfillment that lacks in your career as a human resources manager—which likely pays you $80,000+ annually—is detracting from the fulfillment I’m striving for, namely, being able to, oh—I dunno—buy an apple every now and then.

The fact that I went to school for four years laboriously learning how to construct a lede, the time I spent debating the use of series versus Oxford commas, means nothing. Basically, I spent thousands of dollars learning a craft that you’ve managed to destroy with the advent of Blogger/Wordpress/Typepad et al.

God help me if Tumblr really takes off.

OK. Rant. Over.

*Chris, Gina, Ysolt, this post is in no way directed at any of you. Your regular use of my skillz helps me pay the billz, yo.

Meet My New Hero

Perhaps this is only interesting to my fellow travel writers, but here goes...

"Skyrocketing fuel prices. Unmanageable airline budgets. A declining U.S. dollar. International instability and America's increasingly dismal reputation abroad. The new age of travel is about more than waiting in line so that a sixty-year-old TSA biddy can wave a security wand in front of your crotch. In coming years, the way we travel will change significantly. Where all this leaves travel writing is an open question, but one thing is certain: the overly sentimental, cautious, and commercial tenor of travel writing is satisfying to almost no one beyond the navel gazers who write it and the 'hospitality' advertisers who sponsor it." --Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer by Chuck Thompson

While I'm loathe to be called a naval gazer, I know all to well the b.s. of which Thompson speaks--and I've only been in the travel industry for two years, compared to Chuck's 10. It's a sad day when you realize how disgustingly the rest of the industry looks down on the genre you once so badly wanted to be a part of, not only because you wanted to travel the world, but because you wanted to tell stories, for better or for worse, of the things you saw. Instead, you're assigned to write articles constructed of sentences that end with, as Thompson points out, "a phone number, web address or other transparent plug for whatever tourist board happened to be picking up the tab."

Because today's travel "journalism" articles are mostly fluff pieces written by aging freeloaders who will put the entire contents of dinner's bread basket in their bag once you're not looking, I will never feel at ease being called a "travel writer." I sometimes wonder if pursuing this path did nothing more than brand myself as a talentless hack.

Photo: New York Times

UPDATE: Doree Shafrir manages to pull together everything I've been whining about this past week much better than I ever could. Please read. 

OMG!

This is the best thing my cable-deprived self has heard in a very, very long time:

"Rich kids are back: CW plots '90210' spinoff"

In other good news:

"Trouble Cooking for Ray Show"

Try as I might, I cannot understand why this woman has the career that she does. I've never met a single person who enjoys her dumbing down of "EVOO" and "yum-o."

My Mom's Better Than Your Mom

...because she's on ABC!


You'll have to go here to see the actual video (seems ABC isn't quite as technologically savvy as CBS' Andy Rooney). She was selected for the segment based on her outstanding volunteer work with the New Jersey chapter of the American Chronic Pain Association. (She also has her own alternative therapy practice.) Moms has become quite media savvy over the last few years; so much so I think her industry contacts are now far better than mine, as is her forward bend.

Oh well. Yay, Mom!

The dude sooooo got grammar hammered

The New York Times writes a laudatory article about a subway ad that properly uses a semicolon (a lesson we know a few of you need to revisit), only to have to later amend the story with this correction:

Out With The Old

Does anyone actually enjoy Andy Rooney on "60 Minutes"? If you do, please tell me why, because I'm having trouble understanding how this dated, unfunny old man still gets paid. To wit, his recently aired segment on the Super Bowl:

Exclusive! Media Use of Exclusive is Spiraling Out of Control

A magazine I used to work for tended to get a little out of hand in its pursuit of the "exclusive" slug, tagging it on items as meaningless as some exec saying they might maybe do something about that thing soon. But none of that matters, because this Us Weekly "Exclusive" takes the cake, and makes me so happy that I am not required to be that inane for a living.

The New York Times has my number

Although unfortunately, it's not for an interview. This is the second time now that their travel section has graciously prepared one of their "36 Hours" pieces about a place I'm traveling to. First, Scotland, where Jay and I will be off to live in the lap of luxury for four days come December, and now, Budapest, where I'm headed this weekend, quite appropriately, for roughly 36 hours. It's almost like the editors there have a dossier in my head (or more acurately, in my trip log at work).

It's happened again

Another equally boring writer lands a coveted (at least by me) gig at an online media gossip rag. This is a girl who once earnestly blogged about why she joined one bank over another. Seriously.

Meanwhile, I can’t score a call back no matter how much I tailor my cover letter, and am left to languish at a job that values plagiarism over original reporting. Not that I’m the next big thing, but I like to think I can at least construct a few interesting sentences. I guess I just need to follow my 21-year-old, still-in-college sister’s arrogant advice and just “put [myself] out there.”

As I told Corrie, who relayed this latest news, I’m either going to kill myself or quit journalism altogether. I’ll decide later. It's all just too much right now.

See Jane fold

The reason I do what I do is no more: Condé Nast is shuttering Jane magazine. Unlike other fallen mags, Jane won’t even see a life online.

The writers at Jane are the reason I got myself into this underpaid mess known as journalism. (Although granted, it's a far cry from where I am now--and now I'll never be able to recoup that loss. Sniff.) I wanted to possess their wit, frankness and penchant for snark (which, yes, actually existed before Gawker).

Even as a youngin' completely unknowledgeable of media dynamics, I was well aware of Jane's digressions the from mainstream: I subscribed to Jane because rather than badgering my impressionable teenage mind with 10 Ways To Lose Weight Fast!, Jane hosted columns called “Eat” and, unlike other women’s magazines, didn’t spew the usual drivel in their celebrity profiles (I particularly recall the Britney interview as a killer). You just can’t find that today—even in the magazine’s reincarnation under Brandon Holley, who replaced founding editor Jane Pratt after she left in 2005. (In fact, during my last mani/pedi, I read the issue with Zooey Deschenal on the cover, and while I appreciated the effort, the overall feeling was bleh.)

Which is why I’m ambivalent about Jane folding. Its glory days were over a long time ago, having succumbed to that wily devil otherwise known as Corporate America. I’m just a little sad at having lost the one magazine I once aspired to, as well as having one less semi-decent non-Cosmo-ish magazine on the rack to read. (Nylon, here I come.)

Once I win the lottery, I’ll be sure to restore Jane—and maybe even Sassy—to all its former radness. Until then, RIP.