It was the Summer of 2002 and I was interning in the promotions department at a country music radio station in Columbus, Ohio. I was two months away from entering my final year of school at OSU when I was informed I'd been selected to come to New York and interview for a Fall internship at Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

You see, I had been watching the first half hour of Late Night pretty regularly throughout all of high school and college. I didn't really care so much about the celebrities on the show; it was the desk pieces--the bits before the first and second guests--that would just hit it out of the park for me. These were the good years: Andy was still around for a little while, Conan's self-deprecating was entirely organic, Triumph emerged from his crude beginnings, and 'In The Year 2000' delightfully went from ironic to post-ironic with the drop of a ball. I loved everything about the humor of the show--how it was so pedantic and smart all at once. But I wouldn't say I was obsessed with Late Night so much then, rather, I felt connected by the fact that it was this amazing show that was coming of age just as I was. And I wanted to be a part of it somehow.

Speak memory!
I remember so many vivid, random details leading up to the interview. Stuff like the incoming flash of the 212 number on my Nokia phone, the exhilaration of going to New York City for the first time, and the panic of getting a "How do I get to Park Slope?" line from my cab driver once I actually got here. Cabbies pretended not to know what Brooklyn was back then.

I knew nothing about the subway and had zero conception of the city's layout. The morning of the interview, I rode the F Train with a friend from college who let me crash at her place; she had already graduated and moved here and started a real job. She went to work and I went to potter around Rockefeller Center and practice my smiling and enthusiasm. Dressed in a new suit and blue stripey power-tie, I idled time by loitering at H&M (which was also really exciting back then), slipping into Saint Patrick's for a quick God nod, and ingesting a half-gallon of iced coffee. I wanted to be ON or whatever.

I took the NBC Studios elevators up to 9 and was met by a cheery blonde named Tania, the Intern Coordinator. While chatting, she noticed I had some film experience assisting a script supervisor, so she recommended me to the show's script department for a position that demanded precision, mad copier skills, and the ability to move at speeds of up to 6mph. I interviewed with the two ladies in charge of the scripts, Suzie and Andrea. They both seemed warm and I felt pretty good about the whole experience. I was offered a spot in either the general intern pool or with the script department and I took the latter.

When I came back to Ohio, I felt a certain mix of pride and guilt that came with having to tell my boss at the radio station that I would no longer be able to work there. My days inflating K95.5 logos at Brooks and Dunn concerts were over because I got the internship of my dreamz. She had known this day might come though; she had written a nice letter of recommendation for me. And I was thankful for that.

Sometime in the middle of August, an email arrived with the subject "Conan O'Brien Orientation"

Hey All!

Just a few reminders before you start your internship here.
Start date: Monday September 2
be in the building at 9am, go to the visitor's center, you all will be pre-registered.

You are expected to be in the offices at 9:30am
Bring your Credit letters with you, they should be on university letterhead.
If you have not recieved the forms from human resources, you need to contact
them and have them email them to you. Fax those forms back
ASAP. These are needed for your background checks. If you are not checked in
time, you will have a problem entering the building.
Any questions can be left on my voicemail...leave me the number where you
can be reached.
See you on Sept 2....please don't be late.

Tania
Intern Coordinator
Late Night with Conan O'Brien

To be continued!...