But in any other situation, OF COURSE I'd write two paragraphs about the cowboy hats

Recently, I had to get a letter of recommendation from a faculty member. I wanted to ask my writing teacher (who was also my creative advertising teacher last semester) not only because she’s a writer, but also because I was pretty sure she’d write something a little more specific than “bebe Me is a fine student in a fine program.” Of course this is also the teacher who will still look at fifty of my taglines and approve ONE of them. With reservation. Fortunately, she seems to genuinely like some of my other writing – most recently, a humorous essay that she assigned and that I wrote in the style of this blog. Oh yes, that would be a four-paged, single-spaced essay of COTTON CANDY FOR THE BRAIN. But it was her response to my cotton candy for the brain that gave me the courage to ask her to recommend me as someone who could maybe one day have a scintilla of potential to write for advertising.

And the Gods of Advertising must have been looking out for me because she was happy to write one for me. My feeling that she’d write a thoughtful letter was confirmed when she asked me to write two paragraphs for her: one about my greatest strength and one about my greatest accomplishment. Since owning two cowboy hats with attachable tiaras probably doesn’t count as a strength or an accomplishment in this situation, I sat down at my blank laptop screen and tried to figure out my greatest strength.

I’d answered this questions plenty of times for job interviews so I had a short (very short) list of things I usually said: annoying optimism, the ability to see the “big picture,” the ability to see many possibilities for every problem and that I can write pretty well. But as I considered all of my options, I realized that this past year had quite possibly killed all of my strengths and their little dogs too. All I could think about was last spring, when I told everyone that it would probably be best for me and all of my creative partners if I died before critique because I couldn’t think of any more possibilities to solve the problems in our campaigns, because I didn't seem to have even one smart headline coming from wherever it is that any of my mediocre headline writing comes from and because any future for me in the “big picture” of advertising was about as real as a three-headed dragon.

And for a minute or so, I felt a bit sad. But then, like any good eternal optimist, I remembered that this was a different semester and a fresh beginning. Surely, something had changed for the better. And then it hit me - I now thought that any future for me in advertising was about as real as a one-headed dragon. And everybody knows that a one-headed dragon is way more realistic than a three-headed one. And maybe the next semester, it would be a green dragon instead of a spotted teal one. Glorious! So, feeling relieved and much more like myself again, I wrote her a paragraph about my optimism.

It must’ve been believable because my teacher really did write a lovely letter for me. And on the last day of class, when she wished us luck on our careers as advertising copywriters, I’m sure it was pure coincidence that she looked straight at me when she added, “or a career as another kind of writer.” I’m absolutely sure of it. Because I am an unrelenting optimist. Either that or an extremely good blonde. And bloody hell, I’m damn proud to be both.