Back on the roller coaster

There's been a flurry of interest in me suddenly from various government agencies in Santa Fe - two interviews lined up for next week. I'll put on my suit, plaster a smile on my face, and spend twenty bucks per interview on various breath neutralizers and skin softeners and teeth whiteners and eye drops and shoe polishes and overstarched dress shirts and 25% cotton rag resume paper and gasoline and parking, all so that some preselected candidate for the job can be said to have competed with me and the other benighted dolts who think we have a chance.

Whatever.

I also had a great interview yesterday for a university job with oodles of bennies, including paid winter break and free tuition. The person interviewing me was a kindred spirit, a professional seen-it-all done-it-all administrative type who totally "got" me. We liked each other immediately. She said I would fit in perfectly with the university culture and declared, "You rock!" at the conclusion of the interview.

Probably won't get it.

I heard from the national corporate sales director for the language school empire I work for, that is, until the end of the week. He said that it was a total joke that they didn't snap me up and hustle me off to Princeton, NJ, to run some big-ass component of the company. He said that my background, not to mention my recent experience here, would've been invaluable, and that he planned to kick the ass of the people who didn't jump at the chance to keep me.

Whatever.

I've been told that the Santa Fe museum I was very interested in working for had to give the position I wanted to someone "recommended" by the governor's office. They say those sorts of appointments usually don't work and that the position will probably be vacant again in a couple of months.

As if.

Maybe you just have to be pounded into submission by the process of looking for work before you exude the whatever vibe that says to prospective employers, "I have no expectations that I'll get this job, none at all, so don't worry about disappointing me, just make your damned decision and get on with it. I accept it. I don't agree or disagree with your decision, I don't think you and the available position are wonderful or horrible. I'm just a nameless, faceless rider on this roller coaster, and eventually I'll either puke, be thrown to the ground, or ride it out to the end and be standing, slightly disoriented, on the exit platform. No worries, dude. Just point me to the pretzel cart."

Where the hell's my turban?

Four more days of teaching English, then it's reading tarot full time. Jesus.

I've gotten a jump start on my fabulous new career by doing a few hours of reading every evening, just to get in the swing of it. The good news is it pays well - about twice what I've been making. The bad news is, I get all these people who ask me impossible-to-answer questions like, "When is he going to call me?" I'm always tempted to say, "Thursday at 7:14 pm." But what I usually say is something along the lines of, "Time is a human conceit and the universe does not obey strict time and space grids placed by man upon existence." How's that, Carl Sagan? Another good one is, "I cannot say, because the thoughts and feelings and experiences the two of you have between now and then may change the outcome, not to mention the impact of the thoughts and feelings and experiences of everyone else on the planet." I supose that's better than, "How the hell should I know, lady? Who do you think I am, Jennifer Love Hewitt? If I knew detaily crap like that I wouldn't be wasting my time sending out a hundred resumes and cover letters for jobs that have already been pre-selected, now would I? I'd just lift up the phone and tell my soon-to-be employer that I'll be able to start on Monday and require a kick-ass 401-K."

Actually, I'm a hoot during a tarot reading. Chatty, uplifting and insightful as hell. Need to know what numbers to play in next week's Lotto? I'll tell ya. (11-19-31-43-52-60. These are the numbers to play, they may not be the winning numbers, but . . . ) Need to hear soothing words from the grandma who died last year? No prob. (She sends her love, she's smiling, there's a little tear in her eye, and she says everything is really nice where she is now - lots of flowers.) Wanna know what the future holds? Easy - there's gonna be a few bumps and bruises along the way, but eventually the sun is shining for you, little darlin. Keep your chins up, sweetie. It's all gonna be all right - your luck is changing and the angels are smiling down on you. You are a special special person, the Universe recognizes that, and there's every reason to be optimistic about the future.

Well, I'm right, aren't I?

Bummer Trails

What a day I had yesterday.

First I get a phone call from the head of my company saying that I was doing a helluva job for them, but the two management trainee positions in Manhattan and Beverly Hills, which they had told me were "pretty sure" going to be offered to me, instead have been put on hold until Mid-March. He then said that the position I hold here in Albuquerque is dissolved effective September 5th. He would, of course, keep me in mind for the Manhattan and Bev Hills positions when they reopen in March, because I was a helluva piece of manpower, etc.

Then I got home and found a thin envelope from the museum. Seems the director is "truly sorry" and that I was almost selected for the position, my experience certainly was impressive, and everybody liked me, but . . . .

I saw the weather report yesterday morning but I didn't see anything about a shit storm.

I watched Good Night and Good Luck with my housemate last night but honestly, I don't remember a thing - just kept thinking self-pitying thoughts and taking mental inventory of the refrigerator, pantry and kitchen cabinets. Since I figured I wouldn't be sleeping much, I got onto the psychic hotline and did about four hours of tarot readings. The ironic thing is that I'll make twice as much money doing readings over the phone as I woud if I were a management trainee or a museum development associate. Go figure.

So now the plan is to go back into hibernation, drop another 100 pounds, exercise a helluva lot, read tarot while on the Gazelle, go for walks along the river with the dogs, cook lovely little low-cal meals, read uplifting books, and lick my wounds.

Damn.

Good news about the museum job

Well, I'm just delighted to learn that I have a call-back interview for the museum job in Santa Fe! When it rains, it pours, etc.

So I spent last night making various lists, charts, and statements comparing and contrasting the New York/Bev Hills Language career (see post below) with the Santa Fe Museum career. This, of course, was in lieu of sleeping. And although there are innumerable ways to look at it, it all boils down to EXCITEMENT and ADVENTURE versus PEACE and TRANQUILITY.

I cannot set aside the scintillating possibility of meeting Sheila and Alexandra and Beth and Tracey and Mitchell and Chrisanne and Jackie and others the thought of which, admittedly, has a WOW factor of 10. I cannot set aside the tendency I have to turn these career and location decisions into, "What would my friends think of this choice/how good a story would this make?" I cannot set aside that, as a single, not-so-very-old-yet, chubby/healthy, relatively ambulant, childless and mortgageless American, I have the freedom (and the tacit duty) to pursue Excitement and Adventure for the sheer fun of it.

But if I REALLY REALLY REALLY look at which choice is most conducive to my health and happiness, which choice supports the efforts I've made in the last year or so to change my core beliefs, I have to say that Santa Fe is the right one. If I were a species of crustacean and an aquarium curator had to choose which display to put me in, she would choose the sunshine-filled, peaceful, tranquil tank with the pueblo-style diarama. The potential to thrive in that environment is simply greater. Besides, the curator can put me in the Dance Fever disco-ball tank for a week or two each year so I can experience a dose of excitement and adventure.

I suppose we'll see . . . . . .

Scary delicious news!

Drumroll please . . . . . .

The language company has said that

THEY WANT ME

- sorta for sure -

for the management trainee position

(woo hoo!)

and I will

MOST PROBABLY

be sent to either

Beverly Hills or New York

for my six-month training!

I will know for certain in two weeks.

Or three.

Can you dig it, blogpals?

I'm either going to:

O'Malley Valley

--- or ---

Billings Hills!

Talk about HIGH ALERT!

I can feel the synapses clickety-clacking in my brain

and my heart's a-pounding!!

Okay, that's it for now.

Ready or not, ladies, here comes Stevie!

(maybe)

Worry Wart

I'm a worrier.

My Grandma, who lived next door to me from the time I was eight, was this upbeat, hilarious woman with a piercing voice, a razor-quick mind, and not a mean bone in her body. She sang at the drop of a hat, funny tongue-twisting big band ditties from the 30's with crazy lyrics guaranteed to make you laugh. She cooked like a fine chef, kept an immaculate house, ironed my Grandpa's briefs, for Gawd's sake, and watched an inordinate amount of Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin, but no soaps. She was constantly entertaining, and I don't mean she was always throwing parties, although when she did there was nobody who could make a stranger feel more at home - loved, even - but I mean that she had something bright and funny and interesting to say about everything, and kept the chatter going from the moment you walked in the door to the moment you left. She was entertaining, like Selma Diamond on Merv, or like Moms Mabley on Mike Douglas. She had stories - - - ahhh, did she ever have stories! Great big hilarious stories about growing up in New Yawk and the roaring 20's and the boarding houses she ran and the time Gertrude Stein spoke at her Ladies of Haddasah meeting.

And she was a worrier.

First and foremost, she worried about my mother - about her weight problem, about her unhappiness (clinical depression is what we'd label it nowadays). She worried about Nixon. She worried about my cousins Katy, Carol and Patty - there was always one of them in the throes of some sort of crisis that Grandma could gnaw on. And there was me to worry about, of couse. "Poor Steve." So smart, so talented, and so fat. So effeminate. So destined for some sort of humongous unspecified disaster.

It was like the worrying was the default position. Channel One. She could be completely distracted by telling me some big story about the diving horse at Coney Island, and I had a knack for prodding her for more details, more stories, but in the end her brain jumped back to fretting. It never seemed to get her anywhere. I saw that. I saw how the worrying never lead to some sort of conclusion or resolution. It just existed, a way to fill the time.

Of course, I was a worrier way before I lived next door to Grandma. My mother's sometimes erratic and withdrawn behavior had me in a constant state of anxiety - "Why doesn't she love me? What did I do? What can I do to change this?" I was also worried about my limp wrists and my high-pitched giggle and my fat face and my next piano recital and a foreboding sense that I could never be the normal kid everybody expected me to be.

But once Grandma appeared as a worrying kindred spirit, things really took off. Whatever incipient proclivity I had for worrying was well entrenched after ten years of hashing it out with Grandma. We worried about everything. We talked, debated, analyzed, assessed, predicted, and proposed solutions for a million and one issues, yet they never went anywhere. They were about things that were out of our hands. Katy's boyishness. Carolyn's crossed eyes. Patty's freckles. Cookie's weight.

I think we both used worrying about others to avoid getting down to business and doing for ourselves. It was like I was in co-dependent grad school, going after my doctorate in fretting.

I operate under the false delusion that spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about something will lead to a revelation or a resolution, that suddenly a light will go on and the worrying will pay off because it produced a brilliant idea that solves everything. So I take whatever's uppermost in my mind and chew on it. Sometimes the plate's so damned full that I have a hard time choosing the worry of the day.

Right now, of course, I'm worrying about my job, about the future. About the Middle East.

The thing is, I do the footwork. Man, do I ever, as far as the job search is concerned. I send out two or three applications every day. The resume is honed to perfection. There are six basic cover letters allowing for infinite customization. I've trimmed the nose hairs and fought back an incipient cold sore with copious amounts of Lysine. Honey, I'm ready for anything.

So why not stop worrying? Why do I love it so much? What is it about worry that (apparently) gives me comfort while giving me angst? Is it just because it's familiar, as habit-based as a dog chewing on an old slipper? Am I using uncertainty to distract me? Or is it just the conceit of the brain run amock? Why not drop it, you know?

I do the footwork in my life. But I also do the fretwork. I think it's time to let go of it.

Living in Santa Fe?

I'm interviewing for a great job in a wonderful museum in Santa Fe next week!

I applied about a month ago and figured the position was filled by now, but the director of this museum sent me a charming hand-written letter last week apologizing for the delay in contacting me, explaining they were all so busy preparing for the huge, world-famous public event they sponsor every year in the Plaza. I immediately send a hand-written note thanking him for his refreshing courtesy, the high point so far in what has been a demoralizing and depressing job hunt.

When I mentioned the possibility of working in Santa Fe to a friend of mine, one of the people I supervise teaching English, he told me that he owns a quaint little adobe five-plex in a prime area just a short walk to the plaza in downtown Santa Fe, and that he would be delighted to rent to me - at a bargain rate! - whenever an apartment becomes available. Like me, my friend is an English instructor by default, having burned out on a great big guv'mt career, but unlike me, he picked up and retained some prime real estate along the way. He told me the location, and it's fabulous, along a road that runs by a river park, all shady and babbling brookish. And only a half-mile to the Plaza!

Now, folks, talk about having a gorgeous hand-painted Acoma pot dropped in your lap!

This is a scenario I can live with: a delightfully spare but sweet little adobe apartment on the river park, a brisk half-mile walk to the plaza each morning along the river, a cafe americano and a biscotti in a charming plaza hole-in-the-wall while I peruse the paper, a short scenic ride to Museum Hill (three miles away) on the open-air tourist shuttle, a productive day helping with member development for an important cultural organization where I would work with all sorts of artsy and creative people, and at the end of the day, the reverse (substituting a decaf iced tea for the cafe americano). Weekends could be devoted to practicing intricate pottery painting in the tradition of the indigenous peoples of the area, at which I expect to become brilliant, or for that matter, donning a turban and doing tarot readings in the plaza for gullible tourists. Ahhhhh. This is nice, eh? I can smell the roasting peppers now . . . .

Funny, but when I imagine this scenario I look just like Ann Sothern in A Letter to Three Wives - peppy and vivacious in a navy cashmere fitted jacket over a tailored grey wool skirt, wide patent leather belt and white blouse, a pair of kicky pumps and sparkling white gloves, my curls bouncing with every jaunty step.

"Good morning, Manuelita!" I cry as I enter the colorful plaza cafe.

"Buenos Dias, Senorita!" says Manuelita, obviously pleased to see me. "I make fresh sopapillas today, chiquita, just the way you like!"

"Oh, Manuelita, you darling angel, but my tiny waist won't hear of it!" And a shimmering cascade of laughter fills the air, like iridescent bubbles bouncing along to a steel band polka.

A distinguished man in shades, dressed in creamy linen slacks and a comically touristy embroidered hermanito shirt, sits alone at a tiny table, an exhorbitantly expensive camera around his neck, and a straw Panama hat on a wall peg nearby. He looks astonishingly like Cary Grant, because, well, he's being played by Cary Grant.

The man fleetingly sees just a glimpse of well-toned calf [close-up of well-toned calf] as I turn from Manuelita's tile-covered counter with drink in hand and comically slip on a coffee spill. The handsome stranger deftly jumps up and gracefully catches me around my tiny waist, then effortlessly sets me right (I'm such a petite thing) but in the tussle I've drenched the front of his shirt with my cafe americano.

"Oh dear!" I cry, "Look what I've done!"

"Don't worry about a thing, Miss," he says, finally releasing his grip around my tiny, tiny waist (did I mention it was tiny?) and removing his shades to reveal piercing blue eyes. "I don't mind a bit. This touristy get-up is all wrong for me, anyway. Permit me to introduce myself - I'm Buck Wheaton, roving reporter just blown in from the windy city."

"How do you do, Mr. Wheaton!" I say as I put my demure little white-gloved hand in his big manly paw. We shake hands vigorously and stare into each other's eyes just a little too long.
"My name is Jacqueline Brisk. Miss . . . Jacqueline Brisk, Curator of the Pancho Villa Museum of Art."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Brisk, a real pleasure! Say, I was wondering if you might be able to recommend a guide, you know, someone who could show me the sights around here, someone who knows all about art, someone . . . refreshingly charming . . . I mean, oh, I don't know, someone . . . [deep blush showing through his tan cheeks] . . . a little like . . . like yourself?"

My nipples harden.

"Well, no one knows Santa Fe better than Manuelita here, Mr. Wheaton!"

"Oh, Chiquita!" Manuelita says, giggling and holding her colorful apron in front of her face. "I couldn't leave my sopapillas - they are in the kiva right now!"

"I'm afraid you're out of luck, Mr. Wheaton . . . . unless . . . . "

"Yes?" says the dashing stranger. Towering a foot taller than me, he looks down as I look up, the angle so flattering to my chinline. He smiles, revealing a dazzling set of choppers, his jaw quivvering with manly strength, his chin dimple provocatively deep and dark.

"I suppose I . . . ." Why is my heart beating so? "Well, what I mean to say is . . . . "

Sensing my hesitation, Buck quickly hatches a plan.

"If you wouldn't mind accompanying me to my hotel across the plaza, Miss Brisk, so that I may change into some dry clothes? It would take just a second, and there's a rare hand-carved bunterero in the window of a dusty little tourist shop in the lobby that I'd like your opinion about. You see, I'm conducting an investigation into counterfeit goods, and . . . "

"As it happens, Mr. Wheaton, I'm somewhat of an authority on buntereros!" We laugh, just a little too heartily and too long, then stroll smartly together through the dappled shade of the plaza.

The music swells.

Cut.

Job Search Update

Hey, everybody! I've got an interview at this leather book binding co-op in Santa Fe, turning out things like this:

Actually, I'll be in charge of burning pentagrams onto leather bookmarks to start. Following an extensive apprentice program, I will graduate to intermediate gothic weavery.

I suppose it's unlikely I'll get the job; according to the job ad, they're looking for someone more hirsute and possibly cloven hooved.

Anyway, it's official: I got the gig reading tarot cards over the phone, so I can limp along financially until I get a "real" job. That's good, because it's starting to feel like the language center is gonna close down by September 1st, at which point I'm out on my multilingual ass.

As far as real jobs are concerned, I've got a call-back interview later this week for the language center management trainee position, the one where they'd send me to an exhorbitantly expensive city for six months, then transfer me to Cumquat, Kentucky. Fingers crossed.

Fed jobs? Nada. What's wrong with those people? I tell them I'm willing to single-handedly mop up the administrative mess FEMA caused in the wake of Katrina, live in Mont-fawkin-gomery, Alabama, fer Gawd's sake, and they don't even send me a postcard saying screw you?

State jobs? Two interviews, both for positions involving lots of copying - didn't get either one.
Guess they're saving me for the custodial job in the nuclear experiments lab.

I had a nice turndown from the Georgia O'Keeffe museum - they sent me a no-thanks vagina that looked an awful lot like a lily.

Reading tarot for lonely ladies is starting to sound like a good career move, but I tend to be a touch nihilistic - "No, ma'am, according to this seven of wands, he's not gonna leave his wife for you, but the spirits and guides are telling me that the bitch has impetigo - yes, just like Michael Jackson! Oh, and you're pregnant. Or is it your goldfish? Not sure. Wait a minute . . . it IS you, according to this card. See, the five of disks mean five months pregnant, and everyone knows goldfish don't gestate that long. Looks like a Christmas baby for you! Definitely! No, the tubal ligation didn't take. Happens all the time. Yeah. So anyway, in about six weeks you're gonna have a BIG surprise! Yes you are! Really! The guides are telling me I can't tell you what it is, but when you get it, BOY, will you think, "Gawd, that's what my psychic friend predicted!" Let's put it this way - you totally deserve it. Totally. Oops, our time is up."