erin!balser

I need to come to terms with something. That something is that I no longer ironically love the Olsen twins. I genuinely love them. I emphasize with them. I want to be their best friend and dress like a homeless person while wearing sunglasses and vacant expressions, Starbucks latte permanently affixed to my right hand.

I’m not entirely sure how this happened. I loved Full House when I was younger and enjoyed my fair share of Mary-Kate and Ashley straight to DVD movies, but never with the same hyper-teenage-girl enthusiasm my sisters did. Then, as I got older, the concept of being their fan became funnier and funnier. In college, I loved the Olsen twins the way we loved Much Dance 1997, Armageddon and that french sing-along game show on Fridays. It’s so bad it’s good. But in a real, intellectual conversation about our likes and dislikes, they would never come up. We were college students. We were better than that.

This attitude spurred my application (and subsequent acceptance) to become the writer for MKAshley, a fan site dedicated to all things Olsen. Telling people “Oh, I write about Mary-Kate and Ashley. For a living.” would be hilarious, I thought. The jokes I would tell! What an antidote for parties! What better way to encapsulate my disinterested-yet-on-trend approach towards all things popular culture!

That was 18 months ago. Along the way, something started to happen. I started to like the Olsens.

I can’t explain it. Their interviews are horrifically boring. Their fashion sense has gotten worse over the past few years. They shun the limelight. Their acting is wooden and repetitive.

Yet, I’ve somehow developed a begrudging respect and outright fascination with these troll-like fashionistas that has evaded the other celebrities I write about (Nicole Richie and Victoria Beckham, respectively). I like writing those blogs. I like the community those blogs have. But it’s not the same. I didn’t pre-order Nicole Richie’s book three months in advance. I probably won’t buy her CD. Or her jewelry line. But I suffer daily wanting everything Elizabeth & James produces, even though I can’t afford it.

Maybe it’s because they seem truly involved in their fashion brands. Or because I feel like I grew up with them. Or because their new book is freaking awesome.

Or maybe it’s because, deep down, I was always a giant fangirl. I just didn’t admit it to myself.

And it hurt. But mostly it made me sleepy.

I wish I had a real excuse for why I’ve ignored this blog thing for as long as I have. The excuse is that I have a job now. Since March, I’ve been working as the Sales Assistant at Kate Walker & Company, a sales agency. It’s a bit hard to explain, because we sell books to book stores, not people. And the books aren’t ours. And my personal job is sales-free. It’s been going really well, I’ve learned tons, I like it a lot, but it’s made me sleepy. The change in schedule has nearly killed me these past three months (and it doesn’t help that I’m still blogging near full-time over at my other blogs). But I’m adjusting. I’ve actually started to do things during the week! So this is an exciting development that’s inspired me to actually use this blog again.

I doubt this will last very long. And I’m still not entirely sure what to do with this blog, whether it should be personal, publishing or somewhere in between. But I’ll figure it out.

On a side note, I’m working up the courage to submit a completely unsolicited “why Kate Walker & Company needs a blog” report. We’ll see how that goes.