The reason for my latest blogging break is this: in February of 2013, I signed a notarized contract absolutely forbidding me to compete with myself in any written, visual or mental capacity for the duration of my tenure as "Lead Lady Lister" at Buzzfeed Dot Com, a colorful website featured on the internet and accessible to readers worldwide.
It happened rather fast. You see, barely two and a half hours after posting last year's much-loved "Evelyn's Best of 2012" blog entry, I was contacted via telegram by higher-ups in The Hearst Publishing Empire. It appeared that some very powerful movers and shakers were quite impressed with my ability to list things for which I hold opinions and notions. I shan't bore you with the legal ins-and-outs of the agreement but suffice to say, "money talks". By week's end I found myself on a private aeroplane en route to the island of Manhattan, the publishing capital of the world.
To say I was spoiled and celebrated by The Hearst Publishing Empire would be an understatement. I was given an enormous office decorated entirely in peach and black, per my wishes, which overlooked Central Park. As an added perk, every other day the office was re-stocked with Scandanavian vodka and fresh chrysanthemums flown in from an old woman's backyard in Biloxi Mississippi.
The job was creatively and financially rewarding too. With an agile staff of young and impressively health-conscious interns, I created a wealth of delightful lists for Buzzfeed Dot Com. A typical day would consist of me thinking of an idea over breakfast and then by afternoon my team and I would "go-live" with "Stars Without Make-up", "Child Actors All Grown Up" or "Continuity Errors In Silkwood." Many of you have likely thrilled to some of these lists without having the slightest clue that yours-truly was the brains behind them. It was intended that way.
Things began to unravel, however, when an attractive young upstart named Angela Jean Krantzmouth was introduced into the equation against my wishes. The entire mood of the office changed. Not only did she request we call her by the ambiguously provocative initials "A.J." in a vague attempt to usurp my authority and sexually ingratiate herself to my staff, but her creative input for list-making was at literal literary loggerheads with my own.
She pushed for stupid quiz-lists like "Which Harry Potter Character Are You" or "Which Game Of Thrones Character Are You" and even went so far as to publish the horrifying "Which Country Should You Live In" quiz behind my back while I was out sick with a strain of melancholia. I felt artistically compromised and betrayed. Things reached a boiling point however when I walked into the office one morning and found Miss Krantzmouth and my closest and most cherished personal assistant Doug in matching New York Knicks souvenir t-shirts, smelling of cigarettes and popcorn. I knew I was being played. And quite frankly, I'd had enough.
I took the first flight I could find back to Savannah and never looked back on my disagreeable time on the Isle of Manhattan, aside from three short meetings with legal counsel. I knew I'd made the right decision to return south when I phoned the young family who were renting my home and told them I was on my way back and they'd need to be out by morning. Their gentle charm and the warm, slow cadence of their voices made me wonder why I ever left in the first place.
With the Hearst Publishing Empire contract nullified and my return to a more simple community, I am once again free to share my thoughts, decorative opinions and ever popular lists with my followers whenever I feel like it.
