Part diary, part therapy session, this is a self-deprecating account of the author's adventures in taking ridiculous jobs, and in walking away from amazing opportunities.
The story is a road map of all those dark alleys and sinister places your parents warned you about; where all the fun exists along with all the danger that is the dark twin of adventure. It is a series of outrageous stories strung together by my search for success in both gritty and glamorous places.
29 Jobs is a trail of silly and exciting events littered with dramatic, chaotic, and hilarious failure, like when I inadvertently locked the keys in a borrowed apartment in Paris while and needed the fire department, a burglar, and the screaming, cursing Portuguese superintendent to open the door.
I pulled cables and hauled boxes through film and television productions chock full of freakish characters; and then started my own punk rock record label despite the tenable adversity of doing so. The label crashed, with hundreds of surplus CDs landing in the East River one frigid night. Next up was the cramped, grimy, downtown restaurant I cooked in for a megalomaniac chef. And I walked away from that, too.
When joining the Navy became my objective, I had to ask, What’s a nice girl from the suburbs doing all of this dirty work for, anyway?