Pretty Pretty?

My desk at the end of my first day of work, complete with a welcome bouquet of balloons. I feel like the prettiest girl at the dance!

(In case you didn't guess from the plethora of small, bad photographs, I have recently gotten a cell phone with a camera in it, courtesy of Friend Eric. My old, camera-less phone died a painful, painful death before I moved down here, and F.E. was kind enough to Express-mail one of his cast-offs. Yay, the inexorable march of outdated technology inherited from other people!)

FINAL-FREAKING-LY!!!*

Yes, I have finally been offered a job. As a librarian. In Virginia. To say I'm ecstatic doesn't quite begin to express what I'm feeling, although right now I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of setting up a new life, after I've spent the past week moving back in with my parents' house in upstate New York.

For a long time now, I've secretly believed that this blog has been sort of working against me in my struggle for independence. I've done my best to remove my surname from it, although the link still comes up if you know what you're googling; I have also severely reduced my posts here, which you may have noticed. This was partly due to not having anything much to say, but it was also because I was afraid that I might say something that would limit my chances to be hired somewhere. My logic runs that, were potential employers to see how my mind works, or where my interest lies, they might think twice before offering me a job. I don't know exactly what it is that I'm afraid of employers finding out, although the sexuality thing is a big part of it. Which is patently stupid, since I haven't been closeted since my teens, and I'm not particularly anxious to start denying who I am now.

So I get the call this morning -- I drove to Virginia last week with my cousin for the interview -- and the first thing she asks me is about the title of my blog. My heart sinks: I'm finally getting confirmation that this thing is an albatross around the neck of my professional career. I do my best to explain, it is a character from one of the Gamera films ("Gamera vs. Guiron," to be precise); I saw it on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I just liked the name. She expresses relief, and tells me that a search online had come up with a definition that is not even remotely what I had in mind -- for the painfully curious, you can look it up at urbandictionary.com, but consider yourselves warned. It is listed as "corn job". Considering what the definition is, she was remarkably sanguine about it. By the way, my blog? The name is changing. Feel free to offer suggestions -- basically, this means you, Roy!

Long story long, she asks me if I'd be interested in accepting the job, and at that moment the word "yes" just didn't seem affirmative enough. My mom was in the car next to me, pounding the arm rest -- she knew what was happening -- and my grin couldn't have gotten any bigger without wires and extensive cosmetic surgery. It's a moment I've waited a long time for, and even now I am wondering if maybe something will go wrong. But I need to work harder to silence my inner Eeyore.

Anyways, after that she tells me that she had found my blog before I even showed up for the interview, and that, name aside, it was a major factor in her wanting to interview me in the first place! Who would've thunk it? She said that she liked what she saw, and I found myself wondering, what did I say? I look at the main page now, and most of it basically seems to be a holding pattern, brief updates, and whatnot. But then I look closer, and there are bits of me here, a bit dispirited, but unmistakeable. It's entirely possible that this blog has been a negative factor in some of the instances in the past where I've applied for jobs, but wouldn't I prefer to work somewhere that my boss can look at it and say, This is a man we think can work well here? Hell yes! I'M SORRY FOR EVER DOUBTING YOU, BLOG!!!

What is ironic is that, when her phone call came, I had just been told by the people at Target that they had finished all their hiring for the holiday season, and would I want them to call me in the new year if any positions open up? And I was on my way to a job fair to apply to work as a technical troubleshooter over the phone for tax-preparation software, which was essentially the sort of work I did before I got my graduate degree. Oh, and yesterday? The three year anniversary of my graduation with my library degree. What a long, strange trip it's been. I remember hearing in library school that the average amount of time it took a new librarian without experience to get hired was six months. I think I may have just single-handedly raised the average.

Oh, and congratulations to Eric for receiving his business degree at the same time I received my wonderful news. At least I found a job before he did!


*See what I did there in the title of the post? It's called tmesis. I learned that from a comic book, yes I did!

Please. Please, Please

Let me, let me, let me get what I want this time.

Details will be forthcoming, depending on the outcome. Which will, at the latest, be determined on Friday. Wish me luck!

I'm Happy It's Done, At Least

So yeah, I'm on the other side of the state now. Oddly enough, as much as I was dreading it, as hard as I was trying to not have to move, I'm a bit relieved now that it's over. I had been dreading the process, for one thing, and had myself convinced that everything would go horribly wrong. But, honestly, everything went pretty well. Surprisingly well, actually, considering that I only had one friend who gave enough of a shit about me to bother showing up to help me move what furniture I had into storage. Eric, you are a peach! He hates driving any distance at all, and he had to drive all the way from the southern part of Miami. Considering that and how much work he ended up doing, it was sort of hard on him. I had intended to take him out to an actual dinner, partially as thanks, but also in celebration of my otherwise unheralded birthday, but the work for us ended up being enough that we ended up just calling out for pizza. He didn't complain too much, which I appreciated.

I had to put a lot more into storage than I had originally intended, which was surprising to me. I kept heading over to the storage facility with three more items, just to give myself a little extra room in the car for when I drove over here. Eventually everything fit into my car, and Goodwill showed up on time to cart away my bed and sleeper-sofa. I had to stay at a Holiday Inn that night (Monday night), since I had a doctor's appointment Tuesday morning. The hotel was actually pretty nice, all things considered, and I had a good time just sitting on the bed watching cable for the first time in months. I found out that "The Simpsons Movie" did not suck after all. So that was good. And I nursed my plant back from the brink of death: I didn't realize plants don't like hot cars. I should have known, but in my head I was thinking, Well, they like greenhouses! It seems to be recovering reasonably well, but it seemed sulky and withdrawn on the ride over here.

Well, after the appointment on Tuesday, I made an uneventful ride across the peninsula. The odd thing is that it felt -- pretty ok. There isn't much left over there to keep me there, and I wasn't much upset to say goodbye. I'll stick to this side of the state for a while, and if nothing ends up developing, then I'll move back to New York. My dad did find a listing for Librarian I on the island, right down the street about half a mile. So I applied to that today. We'll see whether I'll need to get another menial job to make ends meet: with rent and utilities no longer an issue, the reason I'll want a job will most likely out of a feeling of isolation and boredom. But we'll see how it goes.

New Plan

I have not secured a job, and with my lease ending next week (October 8 -- two days after my birthday! Send presents!), I decided that I needed to get out of dodge. So I will be moving into my family's -- my extended family's -- house on Anna Maria Island, about an hour outside of Tampa. I will continue to send out resumes and whatnot, and I will probably get a job there, maybe at Target. I have enough money so that I should probably do OK. I will have consistent internet, and cable. It sort of puts a monkey wrench into the romantic garbage, which I'm none too happy about. But anyways, if, after the end of a couple months, I don't have a job, I will head back to where my parents live in upstate New York. I'll keep you abreast of any further developments.

Good Morning, Baltimore

I have an interview with a junior high on the other side of town on Wednesday. I'm still a bit reticent about taking a teaching position after the school year has already started, but, as they say, beggars can't be choosers. We'll see how it goes.

In an effort to get my mind off my own pitiful drama, I went to go see "Hairspray" tonight. It's actually the first time that I have been to a movie since the beginning of summer. Unfortunately, may Divine forgive me, I actually enjoyed it. Once you get over the fact that John Travolta sucks in the role -- he wasn't convincing as a woman, as a Baltimorian, or even, oddly, as being fat -- it actually works really well. The songs were, by and large, enjoyable, and the entire thing came was cinematic enough to justify the remake. It started particularly strong, with the songs gining it momentum; eventually the plot starts to slow down, and the songs became a bit less enjoyable and irreverent. Other than Travolta, I found myself quite pleased with the rest of the cast, and I have a crush on Elijah Kelley, the young man who played Penny Pingleton's beau Seaweed. He was frankly beautiful, and just lit up the screen with his enthusiasm. Some bits of the movie had me thinking to myself, "That's not how it happened!" But by the end, I just accepted it for what it was, as something independent of its source material. After the disappointment of the recent cinematic adaptations of "The Producers" and "Dreamgirls", it was nice to see a confident, well-crafted musical that I genuinely enjoyed.

Unfortunately, before the year is out we're going to be faced with Tim Burton's re-imagining of Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd," something which I find myself less than enthusiastic about.

...Say A Prayer To The Man Above

I'm in a much better place now. I contacted The Man yesterday, asking for a chance to explain myself to him. He messaged back to let me know that he understands where I'm coming from, and that we will get together this weekend to hash it out. It doesn't mean I'm out of the woods yet, but it does suggest that whatever damage done isn't irreparable, and that he maybe sees where my frustration came from. I must add at this point that he knows that my history with relationships is a relatively brief one, and, not to put to fine a point on it, he hasn't had a whole lot of luck in that arena, either. So it does tend to get a little "blind leading the blind": we have a general idea of how things are supposed to work, but never seem entirely sure about how to get there. Which, if nothing else, makes the endeavor somewhat egalitarian. But anyways, the pervading sense of romantic failure that hung about me like a toxic cloud when I wrote the previous post has dispersed a bit, and right now I'm just curious about what will happen next.

I'm using bigger words than usual, and I have no idea why. Except that I've been awake all night.

On the job front, I was granted eligibility for a temporary teaching certificate in Florida yesterday, so, even if no library will hire me, I should be able to start looking for a job as an English teacher in Miami Public Schools. So we'll see. It isn't ideal, of course, but in my life I've found it necessary to remain flexible in my plans. I just sort of see how new paths might contribute to my ultimate goal -- i.e., a career as a librarian -- and just go with it. That's what convinced me to accept the position with both AmeriCorps and with Even Start, both of which I think have made me more attractive to libraries. I may not have a job as a librarian yet, but over the last month I have had four interviews, which is more than I have ever had before. Eventually I'll hit the tipping point; until then, I just labor on.

If You Find Yourself Caught In Love...

Ah, what a difference almost a month makes! Well, OK, so not that much is different. I am still working at Target, still interviewing for library jobs. One interview went particularly well a couple weeks ago, and I have an optimistic feeling about it, but I'm trying to not get my hopes up too hide. They are still doing interviews, as well, and hope to make the hire by October. We'll see how that goes.

Um, other news? I almost had romance. We'll see, but I think I might have said too much, and gotten too possessive too early in our... well, relationship isn't quite the right word. I don't fault myself for how I feel, because, not to go too deep into it, I sort of feel justified in my reaction; I made the mistake of confronting him about it in anger, which I do fault myself on. Instead of discussing it calmly in a way to make my feelings known, I let myself get whipped up into a frenzy of insecurities and basically dumped it all on him without any warning. And then, my timing being what it is, I had to go to work. I managed to get him to agree that we needed to talk about it further, and not to write me off completely -- even as the discussion was going on, I immediately regretted what I was doing, and tried to mitigate it without backing down.

The problem is, and this may in fact come as no surprise to anybody who has read more than one of my posts, I have very little experience in matters of the heart. Now, this is not to say that I don't give wonderful advice: a lifetime spent watching relationship-oriented TV dramas have given me a remarkable knowledge about relationships, at least theoretically. And not to blow my own horn, I have a pretty good capacity for empathizing with other people, and find it easy to give advice based on my own feelings and reactions. But I have not actually dated someone in years. What this essentially means is that when I am faced with the opportunity for romantic entanglement, I react not unlike I do when I am faced with a job interview: I begin to panic at the prospect of screwing it up, and thus become panicky and desperate, which undermines my efforts completely.

It's not that I think I would be a bad boyfriend, any more than I think I would be a bad employee. I have a lot to offer in both positions. Rather, my history creates the desperation: it's been so long since my last opportunity that I fear that I may never have another opportunity again. And let's face it, what people want to see, both in prospective amours and employees, is confidence. I have never been able to fake that with any ability. I had hoped I had turned a corner, that I might be able to play it cool and approach this with maturity. So as surprised as he was by the outburst, I can assure you I was just as surprised.

Nostalgia For An Age Yet To Come

I went to the AmeriCorps graduation ceremony today, and I had a really good time of it. To be honest, this is in part due to the fact that I have not socialized at all since I last saw Eric, three weeks ago. I mean, I've seen people through Target, but that is hardly a social situation, and the fact is that most of my co-workers speak Spanish or Haitian-Creole. So it was good to see people who I know, who I work with, who I like.

I had wondered what Ray and Daron would be doing next year, since I know neither of them is particularly happy in south Florida. Apparently, they have decided to continue to live together down here, which is good, since they are my friends, and I like them.

Anyways, I'm not going to get too into it, but it was just nice to be reminded that people still cared about me and whatnot. It was nice to know that they were interested. And it also gave me a lot of closure that the mass firing did not: I was able to talk to the other people who work in that community, and it came across as much of a surprise to them as it was for me. It was just a badly-coordinated conclusion to a badly-run program, and it heartened me that everybody in the community knew just what I was enduring in that office.

The event also (predictably) made me nostalgic about my AmeriCorps year. Not that I'd ever go back, but it was a lot of fun, and I made some good friends. So now, thanks to the wonder of the printer-scanner that I've recently brought, I present random pictures featuring my friends from that year.

Brianna, Sandra and I at the old De Porres P.L.A.C.E. Brianna and I worked as teachers at the site, and Sandra was a student there who eventually became the secretary and office coordinator. I think this picture was taken when we were celebrating my birthday.

Dawn being harassed by the Catman during my one and only trip to Key West. He came across as a faux-French pervert, and his cats kept trying to make a break for it. I still have the sticker that she is holding, too.

This is Dave and I from the very first week of AmeriCorps, in front of the fabled sculpture, "Sister, Your Mask Is Showing". This is indeed the sculpture that inspired Dave and I to write poetry while waiting for our appointments to get food stamps, which my cousin and I later recorded as a "song". The stain on the crotch is on the print of the photo, not on the shorts that I am wearing. I swear.

It was a very good year. This year will be even better: that's what I keep telling myself, and that's the story I'm sticking to.

What? Me post?

Still just working the midnight shift at Target and trying to get a job. I should have a couple of interviews over the course of the next couple weeks. We'll see how that goes. But, for the near future, at least, I probably won't post a whole lot, mostly 'cause there ain't too much to post.

Nobody Knows...

I'm unemployed.*


Sigh.


I'm sadder than I expected; I actually cried when I was leaving. Of course, that's mostly because I felt bad because my students were hugging me and giving me their phone numbers. I felt bad leaving them. I'm dealing with it through the judicious application of apple-tinis, and watching the second season of Twin Peaks.







*Except for Target

Oh, Yes I Did!

Last Friday I sent out two cover letters with the following paragraph:

Let me be blunt: as far as I’m concerned, if you do not hire me, you are an idiot. I have labored for two and a half years to try to get a library position, and have been consistently overlooked. I am smart, curious, and capable, and I have instructional and customer service experience to spare. I will be an asset to the library that finally hires me, and I can only hope that you will be that library. Thank you for your time.

OK, so it may not have been the wisest move -- and I do admit that I did it mostly because Dave dared me to. But it is, more or less, how I feel, although perhaps the word "idiot" is a tad harsh. Both the institutions I sent the cover letter to are libraries that I have applied to before, and never gotten much in the way of response back, so I didn't expect to hear back from them anyways.

UGH!

I was awoken this morning by a routine test of the fire alarms in my building three hours after I went to sleep. Am I the only one who doesn't work traditional business hours? The inhuman screeching was so, well, alarming, that there was no way I could fall asleep after waking up.

All That I Ask Is That You Dance With Me, Dance With Me

I had an interview this morning with a public library in the area. It went fairly well -- the weird thing was, I wasn't that nervous. I mean, I was nervous, but not to the extent that I frequently am before an interview; I suppose this is a product of the fact that I am, in fact, currently employed. I stammered a bit, especially at the beginning, but I improved a great deal, particularly when they asked questions related to customer service. Frankly, that's where my experience is. The one question that completely threw me asked about what was on the best-sellers list -- I had completely no clue. I ended up laughing and said the only thing that came to mind was The DaVinci Code, which I knew wasn't right. But I guess my feeling is that if that's all it took for me to be passed up for employment, I didn't have much of a chance anyways. Once I'm hired by a library, I will be concerned with librarian things: as it is now, most of my time is spent trying to describe the English language in the clearest, simplest ways, or in trying to figure out how to get Spanish-speakers to pronounce the 'th' sound correctly. I'm pretty far removed from best-seller lists at this time.

One other thing is that the interviewers were not allowed to give me any feedback on any of my answers, nor were they allowed to rephrase confusing questions. The latter was only a problem with one question, which I think I answered fairly poorly, but I can't imagine how else I could've answered. The lack of feedback, while I understand it, meant that I wasn't able to establish the sort of rapport with the interviewers that I have in my best interviewers in the past. Which, I suppose, may be the point. But it also meant that the questions were standard, and had nothing to do with clarifying my background at all. Which felt a little...off.

On the way there, I discovered that the best "getting ready to be interviewed" song is apparently the 12" mix of Donna Summer's "Last Dance". It's odd, because I never liked that song much, but my iPod was shufflin', and it came up, and all was right with the world. Who knew?