Motherfucking Owen got me so good. Remember the intern intro blog last year where Owen made a goofy little remark about there being a Fibonacci sequence of Defector interns? I took this as a joke, obviously, because as he established, this would get out of hand very quickly. But I remembered it. A year later, when I got the email telling me that I was a finalist and would have a Zoom interview with Tom, Alex, Lauren and Diana, I thought to myself: "Oh! The EIC and three other editors—maybe they each take someone under their wing as a mentorship sort of thing. I mean, three is the next number up in the Fibonacci sequence, after all. It does seem like sort of a Defector thing to do, having Fibonacci interns..." This belief gave me some welcome hope: I knew I wouldn't be the best, but top three was definitely not out of the question. "With three, maybe they make one a personality hire. I'm inexperienced as a writer, but I'm a pretty decent goofball."
All hope went down the drain in the interview, where I immediately melted into a sort of obsequious fugue state. I had not read any blogs for a week leading up to it, in hopes that I could stave off starstruck-edness, but it did not work at all. I forgot everything. All my prep, all my personality, all gone. Tom asked me what fighters I liked and I just ... couldn't remember any of their names. After about 20 actual seconds passed, all I could stammer was, like, Michael "Venom" Page. I very nearly started crying when Lauren told me she liked my blogs. It was a mess. Near the end, I managed to pull out a little Stephen A. Smith fun fact, but before I knew it, it was all over. One hour for the opportunity of my life, and like a fucking Democrat I forgot my charisma at home and fucked up what should be the easy part—looking more fun than my competitors.
I'm not sure what exactly happened, but in getting off the couch one day, I managed to wreck my knee pretty good. Every time I did any stretch that pulled my ankle back toward my butt, it felt like there was a balloon behind my patella about to pop. After a couple weeks of waiting for this to go away, I hobbled down to Tacoma General, at peace with the fact that this would be my whole day. At around 11 p.m., they informed me that I had a mild sprain with some fluid in my knee. They gave me a big stupid brace and sent me home. The next morning, I woke up and checked my email. I had a message from Tom Ley, from the previous day:
Hey Lucy!
Do you have time for a quick phone call tomorrow morning? I have 1 or 2 small follow-up questions I wanted to ask you. My schedule is pretty clear until about 1:00 p.m. ET. Let me know what works for you!
Tomorrow morning was, of course, now. I panicked. I had a second chance to show him I was a normal, fun human! I updated Tom on the situation of my fishtank knee and then began scrambling for a legal pad. In the next half hour I put together a full page of notes and jokes, steeling myself for any state that might come over me except for the one that would.
His "1 or 2 small follow-up questions" were "Are you still free to come visit New York, and do you still want the job?"
In the ensuing month or so, Lauren and I spent a lot of time chatting. She would be my primary editor, which followed my theory of each intern getting a mentor. It was only about a week-and-a-half ago, when we were on a call and I was once again bothering her to chat with the other interns. "Didn't Owen and Abigail email you?" she asked, because they had, and she was CC'ed. It was at this point that I finally found out it was just me this year. There was no Fibonacci intern sequence. Obviously.
Anyway. Hi, I'm Lucy. My beats are baseball swings, jazz clubs, cars and anti-car movements, political grappling, regular grappling, rappelling, and evading the panoptic gaze. I write about most sports occasionally and baseball most often.
Look out for me at the Winco Foods out in Sumner, or the Tacoma Boys grocery on 6th Ave if you happen to be up late. Hopefully this website too, as long as they let me.
