It was the first to depict a lesbian couple openly proclaiming their relationship. That was the week I won an award for a commercial I wrote. It wasn’t for another few years that he sat me down, pressed his thick hands firmly on my shoulders, and with teary eyes, whispered “I understand now. Things that destroy the rain forest and kill baby seals. We all just spend our days with our Gucci shoes up on mahogany conference room tables, wondering how to make people feel bad about themselves so they can buy things they don’t need. Or more accurately, I could not possibly have any values. There was the assumption that if I wrote commercials for a living, I could not possibly be living my values. I think his line was “How do you sleep at night?”
Not like clearing brush and chopping wood and working the land and eating fish you caught.
Two years out of college, evidently working my way up the corporate ladder wasn’t noble enough. The accusation had to do with my profession of choice. We weren’t nearly as close then–he was older, grumpy and closed-minded I was young, brash and closed-minded. I stood in the front entrance of my mother’s house, jacket still on, barely settled when my stepfather started in on me.
