You were right about everything

Pretend I posted this on Thursday night…

Thursday I went to the Tractor Tavern to see Erin McKeown. It was a great concert, and I also had an interesting epiphany.

To understand my epiphany, you have to know that in high school, I was convinced that I should go to Brown University. I wanted to go to school in the northeast, and it had a compelling reputation as the Ivy League school for creative people. No distribution requirements! No grades!

But I didn’t go to Brown. Somewhere along the line, I decided that I felt more at home at Emory. Brown gave me shitty financial aid whereas Emory gave me tons of free money and perks. Etc etc etc. There’s no question that I did the right thing going to Emory over Brown.

Then came NBC’s hit television show The Office, and its witty, heartbreaking hero, Jim Halpert, played by John Krasinski. When I read that John Krasinski went to Brown and studied writing, and was but a few years older than me, then I became convinced that he and I would have met there, probably in a playwriting class. Of course we would have dated, and then married/or still be in a stable long-term relationship, and I’d be going to the Golden Globes and having weekend barbeques with Steve Carell.

Anyways, Thursday was Erin McKeown. She went to Brown and studied ethnomusicology, as most articles about her are fond of pointing out. According to Wikipedia, she was born in 1977, so it’s unlikely that I would have known her in my pseudo-Brown fantasy. But watching Erin McKeown, and listening to her clever songs, I again realized that I made the right college choice. If I had to compete with John Krasinski writing his plays, and Erin McKeown and her songs, I would have never left my dorm room. The wardrobe alone of a Brown creative person would have killed me. I would have ended up studying finance or something, too intimidated by the artsy people to participate.

Or maybe I would have been great at the Brown scene and I’d be a published writer by now. But watching Erin McKeown, I certainly didn’t feel I could have made the scene. So, go Emory!