Revised: Essay and Cover Letter 1: Thirty Minutes and One Hundred Dollars

Essay: ThirtyMinutesEssayRV

Thirty Minutes and One Hundred Dollars

“You lying sack of shit”, he murmured under his breath as he tossed my newly printed driver’s license back at me.  I looked up at him with my deep green eyes, smiling the most charming smile I could muster as I slowly pocketed the card.  He looked me up and down a few times, his thick brow furrowed as he tried to figure out if there was the slightest chance that I was born in the decade that I had claimed.  He then pulled two shot glasses out from behind the bar and placing them in front of me, filled them to the brim with the cheapest Irish whiskey in the joint.  A smile poked out from under his auburn beard and he edged the booze slowly across the beer-soaked bar.  I beamed and turned around into the warmest embrace from my partner in crime.  I was no longer a sixteen year old girl celebrating her birthday with best friends, but a young woman turning twenty-two surrounded by her old college roommates.  At least that’s what we told Patrick that night.

*

Earlier in 2004, same-sex marriage had become legal in Massachusetts, a huge step in the country’s continuing battle towards equality and a bright moment for young liberals during the Bush administration.  I was attending school with brilliant young women, ranging from the pearl-clad, Prada-toting daughters of doctors and lawyers to the working class children from the outer boroughs. Upon passing through those oversized French doors, however, we all shed our native skins and formed a united front against the strict law of an all-girls private Catholic establishment.  That fall, my junior year, had been a particularly mild season, filled with morning coffee and cigarettes on the steps of the Met and illicit walks through the park during lunch.  My friends and I were quickly growing up, welcoming the changes of the world with the changes that were going on in our personal lives and moving forward as strong and independent young women.

The administration did a good job of monitoring the school-wide assemblies discussions, for the most part excluding LGBT issues and making the legalization of same-sex marriage a hot topic of hushed discussion around school throughout the year.  During my years spent at this school, I learned which teachers were as progressive as the teenagers they surrounded themselves with, encouraging deep and emotional discussions on topics untouched by other professors.  I learned when to bite my tongue and how to wait for the most appropriate time to bring points of contention to the attention of those who could enact positive change in our local environment.  Though I spent my days challenging my intellect and shaping my morals through interpersonal relationships and experiences, my nights were soon to become a completely different story.

While other girls dreamt of sweet sixteens spent ice skating at Rockefeller Center or gorging themselves in an oversized ice cream sundae at Serendipity, I had only one goal in mind: to indulge in the reckless lifestyle of a young New Yorker.  I had always looked up to the upperclassmen who would cluster around the senior table in the basement of our Fifth Avenue mansion of a high school, poring over blurry pictures on digital cameras and recapping the events of the previous weekend between intermittent rages of laughter.  Their tales of debauchery seemed to be nothing but a pipe dream to me, a baby-faced fifteen year old with little pull in terms of getting permission to spend a night out on the town.  And then, one brisk night in late October 2004, everything changed.

After my birthday dinner at one of our favorite Mexican haunts, my best friends and I headed downtown into the uncharted waters of Greenwich Village, our eyes set on a sketchy basement clothing shop somewhere on MacDougal Street.  I looked both ways before entering the store, wondering what I would say if someone recognized me before being quickly ushered behind a rack of jackets and seated in a cold metal chair.  Thirty minutes and one hundred dollars later, I walked back out onto the street and lit a cigarette, exhaling a breath of smoke with a sigh of relief as we walked under the lights crosstown towards our next destination: Desmond’s Tavern.   The rest of the night was a bit of a blur.

*

The legalization of same-sex marriage conjured up deep emotion from many people my age, a mirror feeling to the rush that came from our rebellious trips to legendary bars.  A nervous excitement mixed with the novelty of each situation, creating a sense of hope for the years to come as a journey into unfamiliar territory had just begun.  These issues were a big deal to us at the time.  The recognition of same-sex marriage was an affirmation, as traditions were questioned and forward progress was made in our lives just as I “came of age” and began to learn about the world that now lay at my fingertips.  They both exemplified an acceptance into a new social circle that had been previously unattainable, and we had finally made it.

Cover Letter: ThirtyMinutesCLRV

THIRTY MINUTES AND ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS

COVER LETTER: REVISION

Dear Reader,

One of the most difficult problems that I have in writing is using language and phrases that show the reader details and immerse them in the situation rather than simply telling a story of my experiences.  Once these points were highlighted and I reread my essay at the beginning of the revision process, it was clear to me that I was selling you short and only giving you the bare backbone of the story.  For example, it was simple to tell you about the bartender and how he was reacting to me, but did you really understand the situation in full?  No, because it is the details like his red-tinted beard and the descriptive smell of the bar that evokes the essence of the situation.  It was the dive bar of all dive bars, and I believe that in further revisions, I could use more tactile details to paint a more detailed picture of what had occurred and where.

I also realized that I hid the important parts of my essay in inopportune places, failing to lead into them efficiently and leaving them in places where you wouldn’t necessarily look for a point of the story.  Some of the more interesting points were developed based off of my original ideas; in my revision, I moved these further developed points into spaces in the essay where they will be more thought-provoking and conclusive.  Another strategy that could be further improved in a further revision would be a build up of suspense.  My writing style tends to stay consistent throughout the paragraphs, only using the final sentence of the essay to build suspense and switch up the patterns.  It could be more effective to use paragraph breaks to isolate important sentences and make solid points of contention clear to you, the reader.

Hutch