A text message conversation:
Me: Thing I have learned: if you go to a bar alone they give you liberal pours of wine
Boyfriend: Certainly with an ass like that
Me: They can’t even see my ass because I’m sitting behind the bar
Boyfriend: That ass surrounds the bar (something to do with relativity)
Me: Hey! No need to be mean…
Boyfriend: I meant in a good way!
And then the check arrives…
I am in the market for a new job. I have been neglecting this blog. The two are not unrelated.
While I was abroad this summer, working a job which is a 24-hour-a-day commitment (the workday goes from 6:30 AM - 10:30 PM and it’s not unusual for us to get woken up in the middle of the night by sick students) there was no time to compose pithy musings. When I got back, it seemed too monumental a task to sum up two months abroad in a few paragraphs.
And then I found myself eyeball deep in the search for a new job.
What’s on my mind these days? Looking for jobs, applying for jobs, and interviewing for jobs. I have stories about all of these things, stories that might actually have some entertainment value, with insights into the current job market & economic crisis and the general state of employment and being a 20-something in America today.
The problem is, I do not keep an anonymous blog. This humble tumblr is the first thing that pops up when you type my name into Google, and I therefore do not know who’s reading. If I gloat about getting an interview for a position I’m excited about, does make the next company less likely to call because I don’t seem as needing of a job? If I then rant about said interview, does that make me look bad to future employers? If I write about job searching and then still do not have gainful employment two months later does it make me seem unemployable? I just don’t know. In this economy, you don’t want to do anything to hurt your chances. So, until I actually get a job I feel like I have to keep my mouth shut. Which may mean a dearth in posts, because I have little else of import on my mind these days. That doesn’t mean I won’t find some ridiculous animal videos to post, though…
And if you’re a potential employer who happens to stumble across this blog: Hi! I’m awesome and will work hard. You should hire me!
I did not grow up in a very religious family; most of my knowledge of the bible comes from my freshman year in (public) high school, when we studied the old and new testaments as literary texts. Yet every Christmas Eve of my childhood, my sister and I were dressed up in ribbed tights and whatever semi-formal dress we hadn’t managed to outgrow, and carted down to the Methodist Church in Estes Park, Colorado; my mother liked their bell choir.
The church had wood paneled walls and high, swooping ceilings that were buttressed by thick beams. The pews were long benches of creaky oak, slightly curved to fit a human spine, with bibles and hymnals tucked into wooden pockets on the backs of the anterior rows. The floor was carpeted in dark, burgundy patterned berber and the pulpit and aisles were lined with potted poinsettias. Most of the parishioners were older, slightly frumpy men and women in ill-fitting outfits from the previous decade. They managed to smile sweetly at us, while still giving us the stink-eye-of-guilt for our regular church-going truancy.
Every year the sermon was the same: the preacher would recite the story of the birth of Jesus, interspersed with classic Christmas carols played on the choir’s multi-sized silver bells. Women in white gloves would jingle teacup sized bells to hit the high notes, and a bald man with a copious belly would swoop his arms in sinuous, robed arcs to clang out warm, sonorous, low tones. It was easy to get lost in the sights and sounds of the church, allowing the melodic, familiar story to waft around you as you concentrated on the tights bunching at your waist or the off-kilter toupee of the man two rows up. That’s exactly what happened to my sister, the year that I was ten and she was eight, and the church decided to change things up a bit by offering the eucharist.
Methodists aren’t known for being particularly strict in their devotion to religious traditions. Some churches devoutly offer eucharist services, while others do not. Most of the time they use grape juice instead of the more traditional wine, and the type of bread is unimportant. It had never been given out at a Christmas service before, but that year, it seems the ladies of the church committee must have had a couple extra loaves of Wonder Bread sitting around and figured why not. They cut the slices up into little, soft foamy cubes, and passed them around on a tray, along with dixi cups of Welch’s grape juice. As my family sitting relatively near the front of the church, we had to hold onto our bread and juice for a while as the rest of the congregation was served. The minister kept speaking and the choir kept playing.
That’s when I looked over and noticed that my sister, Shannon, had absentmindedly flattened her cube of Wonder Bread into a disk. Just old enough to begin to understand the significance of the ritual, I leaned over to my mother, and half in horror, half trying to make a joke whispered, “Mommy, Shannon smushed Jesus.”
My mother has a laugh that sounds somewhat like the call of a carnivorous bird, and more often than not it is preceded by a low, rumbling snort. When she tries to hold it in, her whole body shakes and she makes a sound like a deflating pool toy. And when a person is shaking, trying to hold in laughter, and they’re sitting on a creaky, oak pew, the entire row knows something is going on.
The minister held up his cube of bread, “On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: ‘Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
My sister looked at me in horror, just starting to comprehend the symbology.
“You smushed the baby Jesus,” I reprimanded her.
All around us, fellow parishioners were swallowing down their cubes of Wonder-Christ.
“This is Jesus?”
I nodded, “And now you’re supposed to eat him.”
She nibbled on the crust of Jesus. I couldn’t hold it in any longer and started to laugh as well.
The minister continued: “When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: ‘Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”
And that’s when the bell choir started playing The Twelve Days of Christmas. It was the absolute worst song, at the absolutely worst time. You see, just a few days prior the local Oldies radio station had played their own version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, except instead of being about gifts given, it was about the twelve things that happened to a poor guy who accidentally went into the women’s bathroom at a restaurant. Instead of a partridge in a pear tree, this poor sap was left with a high-heel up his behind.
We couldn’t contain ourselves any longer. My mother’s full snort and squawk ricochetted off the buttresses, I was shaking so hard I accidentally kicked the row in front of ours, repeatedly, and my sister was doing her best to keep from accidentally spitting the blood of Christ out of her nose.
Needless to say, we didn’t wait in line to shake the preacher’s hand and the end of the service that year. And as far as I recall, that was the last time we were ever forced to go to church on Christmas Eve.
Merry Secular Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
“The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleander thrived, their delicate, poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves.” — Janet Fitch, White Oleander
It’s unseasonably hot in Los Angeles right now. November and 95 degrees. When I look into the hills, the glassy straight edges of the modern homes are crisp and sharp, not masked in the quivering haze that usually drapes leisurely over the LA Basin; the Santa Ana winds have swept into the city, bringing with them not only a change in temperature, but also an off-kilter sense of anticipation. Unease.
I can feel it on my skin. The heat doesn’t stick like in summer, coagulating into droplets of sweat, but rather hovers, vibrating, making the slender blonde hairs on my arms stand erect.
The Santa Anas aren’t like the warm breezes of an English spring. They take you by surprise. They accost your body without you ever knowing. They make you do things you wouldn’t normally. They clear the air by pushing all the vaporous Angelus pollution into your head. They’re like a drug that you can’t say no to.
But you can’t blame the wind. We don’t live in a society where weather is an acceptable excuse for unusual behavior. You take what the wind blows your way. And you hope that it calms before the Oleander has a chance to spread.
I had a creative writing teacher when I was a kid who used to tell us that there was no such thing as writer’s block. I’ve lived by this mantra ever since; sure, sometimes you don’t know where a piece should go, but if you just sit down and put a pen to paper (or fingers to a keyboard) it will go somewhere. If you don’t end up liking it you can throw it away or fix it in the second draft.
It’s that second draft part that’s posing the problem. A first draft is allowed to be junk; it’s just words on paper, explorations in character and theme and voice. You shake all that good stuff out of your brain (along with a fair handful of crap) and just let it lie. Then in the second draft, you shape it into what you want. With the second draft comes expectations.
I finished the first draft of my novel the last week of July, and told myself to take August off to get some distance, planning to jump back in the first week of September.
That didn’t happen.
In the intervening 7 weeks I’ve had several trusted writer friends read it for me and give me feedback. I now have a pretty good idea of what’s working and what’s not working. The problem is I really really want to write something good. I want to get published, and I feel like I need to represent myself with the strongest possible work because there aren’t many second chances in this industry. This, of course, means my second draft has to kick ass. And while I have a few ideas on how to make it better, I’m yet to convince myself that any of them are New-York-Times-Bestseller-List-worthy.
And yes, there’s always the possibility of a third and fourth and fifth draft, but I’ve never been a third, fourth, or fifth draft writer. I’m a second draft writer.
Draft One: Barf out ideas
Draft Two: Sculpt barfy ideas into “art”
Draft Three: Polish and glaze
The manuscript is sitting on my desk, it’s fat pages wrapped in an orange rubber-band. I know I just have to do it. I have to pick it up and write. I have to let go of this second-drafter self-image. I have to stop thinking that whatever words next come out of my mouth have to be simultaneously comparable to Faulkner and Isabelle Allende and David Sedaris. I just have to get out of my head, put my fingers on the keyboard, and write.
Here’s to hoping putting these thoughts down in cyberspace will be just the kick-in-the-pants I need. I still don’t believe in writer’s block, I just need to recover from it.
Here’s a list of things I have to do in the next couple weeks (in addition to the normal thirty hour work week, going to class, working on my thesis, and skating):
Bring it.
Last year I resolved to eat healthier foods (for both me and the environment), work on this website more, and (as per the last decade) to floss more. I think I have finally mastered the flossing! Resolutions really do work! Scratch that one off the list. I did okay with the website — still have some empty sections but I did blog on a fairly regular basis… It just gets put low on the priority list with all of my other commitments. Again, I did alright with the eating healthier thing, but I didn’t always live up to the only-one-meal-with meat thing. Think I’ll keep that one on this year’s list:
1) Healthy Eating:
Only one meal a day with meat, and eat beef a maximum of once a week (hoping to cut down my environmental footprint.) Lots of fruits and veggies!
2) Go to the Dentist:
I finally mastered the flossing… now to face the scary truth of what sort of shape my teeth are in after a long hiatus in my regular checkups. Think there’s any hope I’m still cavity free? I’m so glad my Christmas money is going to go towards such exciting things…
3) Learn from my Mistakes
I think this one’s pretty self explanatory. I don’t know what the solutions are to everything, but hopefully I can find them.
4) Finish my first novel!
Well, at least a good first draft.
Today, despite warnings to avoid athletic activity outside (due to poor air quality caused by the nearby fires), I decided to go for a hike up to the Griffith Observatory. The skies looked clearer than they had in a few days and I just needed to get outside and get some sunshine! All seemed well until I got home and decided to hop in the shower… turns out I got a nice little ash-tan. The best part? It didn’t come off in the shower.
I think gray is a good color for me
Do I even want to know what my lungs look like now?
I found out a few days ago that the last of my childhood pets, a cat named Spice, has died.
Spice, the Fatcat, and Yoda, the Mopcat at our home in Denver
Those of you who were privilaged enough to meet her will know what a loss this is for cat-kind. Despite her obesity and abnormally short legs (which gave her the look of an adorably fuzzy cement truck) she was one of the most bad-ass cats on the planet, loving to all humans and feared by all dogs. Every morning she would go on a walk around the block with my mom and our dog, Cheyenne.
My parents moved from our home in Denver to a more rural/suburban house in Broomfield, Colorado a few years ago. Spice loved the new place, and somehow managed to hunt about a half dozen baby bunnies so far this spring. Our theory is that she pretended to be a lawn ornament to lure them into a false sense of security (she does look abnormally like one of those really round cement frogs people have in their gardens) and then she’d pounce.
Life in the suburbs was not always idyllic for Spice, though. She almost got my parents into a lot of trouble last year. My mother explains:
We had one of our first inklings last night that we may not be suited for the suburbs. We listened to a telephone message we had received from a neighbor down the street upon returning from dinner. Apparently he was very upset – he said our cat attacked him and his dog when they were walking by our house. (He has a two-year-old 50-pound Wheaten terrier – our cat is fat, slow, and 13 years old). We at first thought it was a joke – he didn’t appreciate our chuckling over the matter. I guess we’ll have to sit Spice down for a good long talk…
In the end, despite her ferocity, we think a Coyote was just a little more wily than our beloved Fatcat. Rest in Peace, Spice, you were an awesome cat and will truly be missed.
My dad was modeling the chain mail I made for HL art in highschool and Spice decided to get in on the photo opportunity
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