Week 'o' Scandalous Revelations, Part 1: An Uncensored History of This Blog

As you may know from Friday's post, INTERN's days as an anonymous blogger will soon be coming to an end. In approximately a week's time, INTERN will be forced to step out from behind her Wizard of Oz smokescreen and reveal herself to all of you as the lowly Helga von Spinklehorn, hunchbacked, far-sighted, and possessed of the most enormous set of fangs you've ever seen.

INTERN is scared shitless. But also a little relieved. Because while anonymity bestows many freedoms, it can also make things feel a little, oh, impersonal after a while, and for a long time now INTERN has been craving the ability to share herself in a way she has so far been unable to do.

But first, INTERN promised you Scandalous Revelations. So here is the first one.

Scandalous Revelation No. 1: What's the Deal With That Photo?

If you've been reading INTERN's blog for a while, you may have noticed this photo in the upper left hand corner:



The appearance of this blog has remained unchanged for so long that INTERN has long stopped noticing it herself. But the truth is that this highly undignified photo contains the scandalous backstory of how INTERN ended up dabbling in publishing at all.

A few months before starting her first publishing internship (and this blog), INTERN was an itinerant hitchhiker seeking her fortunes in the USA post-university. She had recently landed in a certain illustrious City and commenced a whirlwind romance with Techie Boyfriend, and was now in need of both Funds and Gainful Employment.

After searching unsuccessfully for Real Jobs and failing to hear back from several internships, a fed up (and slightly manic) INTERN saw a job posting on craigslist for actresses for a (quote) respectful, safe, and all-female Adult Movie company. The pay? A thousand bucks per six-hour session.

"WHY NOT?" said INTERN, barely twenty-two and hungry for adventure. "Beats temping at some boring office!"

She ran across the street to the payphone and set up a meeting with the director, then ran back to the apartment and enlisted an extremely reluctant Techie Boyfriend to take a few photos proving that she was more or less female and not so hunchbacked as all that.

The very next day (these things move FAST when you're twenty-two and recently off meds and very, very gleefully stoked on life) INTERN met the Adult Movie Director at a pizza place, then went for a tour of the Studio. The director was a barrel-chested European man with long curly porn-director hair (conveniently the only non-female member of the company). INTERN, being a curious sort of person, asked a million questions and was generally delighted just to get an inside glimpse of the Adult Movie world, even though she had no prior interest in or experience with Adult Movies and hadn't thought any of this through for a single nanosecond.

That night when INTERN checked her e-mail there were two messages.

One was from the Adult Movie company offering INTERN a thousand-bucks-a-session job.

The other one was from a publishing house offering INTERN an unpaid internship.

Hot damn!

Opportunity was really knocking now. Was it going to be brains or booty? Had there ever really been a choice?

INTERN wrote to the publisher saying she'd come in on Monday, and to the Adult Movie company saying she'd had second thoughts about her career.

But the whole experience made INTERN think. If people were willing to pay top dollar for her scrawny, snaggle-toothed body, SURELY she could find a way to make a living off her brain.

INTERN started this blog as a way to keep that promise. The photo in the corner was INTERN's idea of an inside joke—a wink to all the crazy, impulsive, gloriously irresponsible whims at the heart of every adventure.

**

Stay tuned this week as the Scandalous Revelations continue to fly. And, um, please don't tell INTERN's mom about the real reason she ended up in publishing.