I GOT A JOB!!!!

WOOT! After six months, five interviews, a very extensive background check, and a lot of nail-biting, I have a new job. I am the External Communications Manager for a religious order that I will not name here other than to say there is a band also named this and a Leonard Cohen song. If you can’t figure it out, well, I am sorry for you. You really should know the Leonard Cohen catalog better than that. He’s a poet!

So me and the sistahs are going to be hangin’ on the South Side. The office is like 102nd and Central Park and until Big A and I can swing buying a car (which is both a YEAH! and a BOO!) I will be taking the bus to the El to the Metra to the bus and then walking five blocks, and then back again at night (though my mom offered to drive me home. It must be nice to be retired and have so much free time.) Hey, at least it’s summer. I wanted to get a beater and drive it into the ground but Big A is adamant about a new car or new-used car, but he won’t be paying for it so let’s see how that goes.

Anyway, what does an External Communication Manager do? I will be handling all media, social networking, press releases/conferences, website, newsletters, and writing stories about the Sisters and their doings. I get an office with a real window and door and walls and I am also going to be traveling to exotic locations like sunny Detroit, tropical Omaha, and exotic Cedar Rapids as well as attending conferences in San Fran (!!) and there is another office in Burlingame CA that I may be visiting. I am also fairly certain that I will be the youngest person in the room for the rest of my tenure there. The Sister’s average age is 76. There are many secular people working there as well, of course. It’s mostly women, they decide everything by committee and they are all very very very nice. It is going to be such a change from the last two jobs I had.

What is an atheist doing working for a religious organization? Well, they never asked me about my religious leanings. They did ask if I was familiar with the Catholic Church and had any experience with clergy. Of course I was taught by the Benedictine Sisters and Brothers at St. Joan of Arc and Benet Academy in good ole Lisle, so I told them yes. I can do my best for the Sisters and not have to believe what they believe of course. My friend A used to work for a retirement home that was run by nuns and she found the nuns to be pro-euthanasia and generally anti-priest and lots of the Church’s teachings. But all quiet and subversive, of course. My mother is horrified that I am going to be surrounded by nuns. She and her niece Christine have a deep and abiding hatred of the nuns from their experiences at Catholic School during the Baby Boom when there were 50 kids to a class and one very angry, slap-ready nun in charge.

My friend IOB called this an “awesomely bizarre new job” and I think that sums it up. Big A and I are saved, for the time being, because they are going to pay me more than 2x what I am currently making at my reduced rate. I can afford our life while he continues to look for a job. I am happy to help. He has been carrying me with his severance for the last few months, and it is my turn to chip in. I am excited for the new challenge; less excited about the new commute but it will be totally worth it if we don’t end up living under and bridge with a shopping cart full of our stuff and the three cats yoked to it, pulling it along.

“O the Sisters of XXXX, they are not
Departed or gone,
They were waiting for me when I thought
That I just cant go on,
And they brought me their comfort
And later they brought me this song.
O I hope you run into them
You who’ve been traveling so long.”

-Leonard Cohen

So Slate has a new feminist blog called doubleex.com and I have read it from time to time. It has been hit or miss I’d say. They keep getting in spats with Jezebel.com which I love unabashedly. Anyway, when I first checked out XX.com I read this article by Katie Roiphe about women who use their children’s pictures in Facebook. I refrained from writing about it at first because I was sure I would alienate my blog reading audience, but I keep thinking about it.

Roiphe, who is a writer and feminist of some note, bangs what I would say is kind of an old drum here. Her thesis is a little tired, but it is about a newish phenomenon so she has another crack at it: women are subverting their personalities, sexuality, intellect etc. for the sake of their children’s upbringing, and the symbol of it all is the woman who uses her child’s picture instead of her own, on Facebook. I have to admit, this annoys me. Your kid is cute, but they are not my friend on Facebook; you are. I looked at my 330 “friends” on Facebook (not bragging here but it feels like it and it makes me feel apologetic): 7 women and 4 men had pictures of their kids and not themselves as their profile pic. Does that mean anything? I kinda don’t think so.

Roiphe goes on to tell a hypothetical story about a dinner party where an old friend who used to drink until 5 am and wrote her senior thesis on Proust talks at great length and in detail about her child/ren. We have all been trapped by that person, but it is such an easy cliche. She goes on to say that the men are over in the corner, having fun grown-up talk because men just don’t do that kind of boring thing. I call bullshit on that. Dads wax just as poetic and boring about Little League and potty training and nursing.

A bore is a bore is a bore and yes, parents can get too involved with their children, and yes, no one agrees with what everyone chooses for their children, and it can seem overwhelming to have these little people depend on you and what the hell else are you going to talk about since it is certainly what you think about the most. But, c’mon. It’s too easy. Maybe my friends, both men and women, who have kids are just particularly fabulous. They run 5Ks, and second businesses out of their garages, and get MBAs, and read books, and see films, and still are raising some pretty cool little people. Yes, every single one of them has talked too much about their kids. So what? I’ve talked too much about my bf, or crew, or my job, or whatever it is.

I’m an unapologetic, humorless feminist and I think we should question the status quo and ask questions like “why are so many women using their kids pictures instead of their own on Facebook?” I just don’t think the answer to this one is all that dire.

I am still waiting to hear about the job. Still. Waiting. Everything is on hold, kind of, while I wait. I am waiting to see the results of a background check that I, ironically, may not pass because of my financial issues because I have been underemployed for more than six months. We’ll see how forgiving the place I am interviewing is. It’s nothing terrible. No arrests, no jail, no suing of past employers, no drugs, etc. Just some credit stuff. Still, I am worried. I worry. I grind my teeth. My stomach hurts. I comfort-eat. I sleep a lot or not at all. But the sun is still free, my friends are wonderful (Doc Scooter, La Jew, I am looking at you…), I have a lovely partner in all this and the cats are healthy. What else can I really ask for?

And Big A is worried too. We need a break here, pretty soon. My father, ever-helpful, said Big A should apply to be a temporary auditor for one of the big accounting firms here in Chicago. Graphic Artist/Art Director who dislikes math=auditor in his world. Well, it must be nice to be retired. I may be able to retire in 2049. Maybe.

So, we are looking for cheapy outings for the summer. We’ve done two concerts in the park, which were great (St. Vincent, The Dirty Projectors, and The Sea and Cake). I really enjoyed St. Vincent and Big A is a huge Dirty Projectors fan. Check these acts out if you haven’t heard of them! The movies in the park start soon, so that’s good. We like to get a sixer and head to the beach on the weekends.

I’ll let you know either way about the job. Hopefully soon.

I recently went through a kind of grueling day of two interviews and a writing test at a place I am hoping to work. These two interviews were my 4th and 5th with the company so I was mightily tired of talking about myself in that way you have to in an interview. Whatever, that’s the game and I am a pretty good interviewee; able to discern both what in my experience is the most relevant, frame it well, and then figure out, essentially what they want to hear and tell it to them.

But there are so many other things I can do, other than project management, stay on budget, write copy, work with internal and external customers, blah blabbity blah…

I can: French braid hair, embroider, knit, sew, crochet, mend, darn, patch, let out, take in, let down, take up, do make-up, sing camp songs, teach your kid to swim, save a life, braid a friendship bracelet, do CPR, give an excellent back rub, foot rub, hand or face massage, read your palm, read aloud exquisitely, recite lots of poetry both high art and doggerel, sing a bawdy song or a sweet show tune, give myself or you a French manicure, recite movie dialog for hours, empathize, do an impression of a three-toed sloth, talk in many accents, recite the kings of England, shot put, row, canoe, hold a brick above my head for 5-minutes while treading water, make Challah, swear in Polish, French, Yiddish, Spanish, and of course English, think of that word, you know that word that is on the tip of your tongue and you just can’t remember it, do a cartwheel, remember the names of faces of almost everyone I have ever met, ice skate backwards, throw a mean yo-yo, fix your toilet or disposal or clogged sink, read a book a day, explain Twitter, make you laugh, sing the Benet fight song, the Iowa fight song, and a song about pirates that is essentially a fight song, almost juggle, remember what you said about that thing, beat your ass in Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit, relate, remember where you put that thing you are looking for, help you un-pack, drive stick, rarely be lost, paint, draw, decoupage, throw a pot on a wheel, sculpt, do a tricep pull down the right way, and make your cat who hates everyone else but you love me too.

Of course there is more, much more, and everyone can make a list like this. There is something about the application and interviewing process that dehumanizing, oddly, and does battle with your soul, so just making this list (and French braiding my hair today) made me feel better; less like an applicant and more like me. These are some of the traits that make me a good employee but you aren’t allowed to talk about this stuff in an interview. Having someone who is “well rounded” (what a bad description of what people are) working with you is what you need and want. But what gets asked is about work experience and rightly so. They are hiring you for your experience in an office at a job. I really feel, however, that a resume like the one above is almost as important, on some level, as the one I have listed on LinkedIn, Monster, Careerbuilder, SimplyHired, Jobster, etc. Maybe I just want to think that today as I wait for the results of the interviews.

The website is up! And it looks fabulous.
wearetheink.com

Does anyone need an Art Director in Chicago? Or an experienced Project Manager, for that matter? Help a sistah out!

Ya’ll, I’ve been hiding out the last few weeks. I am overwhelmed with the amount of poor I am right now and Big A is working on his website and not sleeping and it is a bringing me down a little.

It’s not just that he is working on his website; he is learning Flash and Dreamweaver and XHTML and a whole bunch of other crap and BUILDING a website while learning how to do it. He has been doing this for awhile. I don’t know if this is a legitimate amount of time to learn all this crap on your own and build a website that represents his design aesthetic and whatnot. I feel like, as a designer, he may have a little more pressure on him to have it look good than just a Joe Schmo who needs a website. So it goes like this: Big A decided in January to take the buyout at Sneerglaw, and by February 28th he was out with his big fat check. He took three weeks to do nothing much and then started learning the stuff he needed, so now we are mid-March. We took five days in Sanibel in early April. Other than that, he has been, as far as I can tell, diligently working on learning this stuff through online tutorials and then practicing it himself, and building his website. He has refused to apply for any jobs during this time because he says (and it seems accurate) that designers have to have an online portfolio to be considered. Okay, so for the last week everyday was the day the website was going to go up. It might actually happen today! www.wearetheink.com But maybe not. What I have seen of the website is AWESOME. He learned all that stuff and then created something so cool. I’m really proud of him! When the site goes up, check out the flash intro of pics. I think you will enjoy them.

During the time this was happening, I lost 50% of my paycheck. So now we are in pickle and I am looking for a job aggressively. There is one place I have interviewed three times since January, and they are still trying to schedule a 4th interview, so that is frustrating too. I didn’t get an editor gig that would have given me some fun stuff to think about (it was a labor of love, not money) and I found that unaccountably depressing. I think I was too old. Well, maybe it isn’t so unaccountable after all.

So I have been hiding out, watching DVDs of Veronica Mars and reruns of House, playing with the cats, cleaning obsessively, eating too much dairy. I’ve been trying to stay social but it is hard without any dollars and somehow not having a car seems like a huge burden right now. I grind my teeth so hard at night, I think I almost cracked my $500 mouth guard. I went to library to get some books. This whole dependent on someone else thing isn’t sitting really well with me, so I spend a lot of time trying to make myself useful around the house so I don’t feel like a leach. I know he doesn’t think I am a leach, but I feel like one. I did the same thing when I lost my job and was living in GE with my dad. I can still pay my half of the rent, for now, so I am sleeping at night. I don’t know what to do when that stops being possible.

My point is that if I have been distant or weird or avoidant or want to go home right away when we go out, this is why. We’ll figure it out, but right now, all I want to do is sleep.

This Sunday was the 4th Annual Memorial Day Urban Golf Outing. Big A and I made t-shirts and went to play our third game of golf.

Urban Golf, for the uninitiated, is played in urban alleys with a group of argyle-clad (and this time a gorilla suit too) miscreants. You have a tennis ball, a golf club (or Polo mallet, or large stick, hockey stick, mop…etc.) and you try to get your tennis ball down the fairway into the “hole” which is usually just the end of the alley. This is much harder than it sounds. The tennis ball is very light and seems to have a mind of it’s own. The other players grow increasingly drunken and raucous, and cars keep trying to drive down our fairway and get into or out of their garages. Whatever cars!

They have a website, but the woman who updates it is apparently in Argentina, so there was little notice about this year’s events.

Big A and I (and Randy since his partner bailed) were We Prefer Hot.

On May 19th, 2007,  first year we did Urban Golf, we joined forced with  826 CHI and CUDGEL as a fund raiser (even though I hate David Eggers and am no longer speaking to him, this was a good cause). We had the best time. When they gave us a tennis ball, to name for our team, we decided it was called Bartleby, like Bartleby the Scrivner which is a story that everyone in the Fiction Program at Columbia reads. Bartleby’s thing is that he never says anything other than, “I prefer not” and is a wretched employee. Adrian wrote “I PREFER NOT” on the ball, but it was with a ballpoint pen so it looked like “I PREFER HOT”. They kept calling our team, “I PREFER HOT! I PREFER HOT its your turn!” and we ignored it and kept chatting because it wasn’t our team name. We finally figured it out. Later on as the crowd thinned out (Urban Golf takes HOURS to play, and as chaos ensues later on, many people bail), we were chatting with some of the other players about the name of our team and one girl said, “Oh that’s a great story! I love Kafka.” I love Kafka too, but Melville wrote the story, and we thought that was great so we just went with it. We were also very over-served.

This year, we stuck it out the whole game and we TOTALLY WON. It was bittersweet because though we had played extraordinarily well (because I stayed mostly sober) we had to miss a BBQ I was very much interested in going to. However, we did win THE GOLDEN CLUB and totally beat all those other teams! A shout out to Blue Collar Nipples for being totally cool and fun! Big A took his good camera so there will be pictures soon.

Urban Golf is about cheating as much as it is about playing any kind of a game that vaugely resembles golf. It is also about bribing the judges and getting style points. For example, I lost two strokes because I knocked over a bunch of bottles, so Alexis, the judge wrote “Knockers” on my card. Last year Big A got -1 because the judge ashed on his shirt and made a stain. The year before I played a ball off an abandoned door and got -1 style points.

I have a hard time playing any game and not playing to win. I blame my parents because my mother never let me win any game ever. I had to beat her fair and square. Boo. And my dad who competed with his four, five, six, ten, fifteen year-old child, making sure I knew he was better than me at…whatever it was, until I was better than him, and then he invented new things to compete at so he could still be better. So urban golf can be difficult for me for those reasons. It isn’t fair, it isn’t meant to be, and anything might happen.

Alexis mentioned there might be a bookend game on Labor Day. I am waiting with baited breath. Anyone up for nine holes of Urban Golf?

Hey guess what? The company I work for is going under! Hey! That sucks!

Yes, it does suck. Of course this has been a long time coming and I am no way shocked, but, when push comes to shove, I find I am kind of surprised it finally happened.

First they cut my pay $10K. Then they cut it about 25% more. Then 45% total. And now I am down 50% from where I started, being forced to take one day off a week unpaid, our insurance was replaced with something that looks like insurance and costs like insurance but isn’t, our 401(k) is gone, and we have to bring in our own kleenex. I am now making less money than I was when I moved to Chicago. 10 years ago.

Of course, this is what happens to me and jobs. The first job I had, when I moved here, was for a small data provider. Six months after I started, they shut down my branch. I went back to my previous employer who had opened a new branch in Chicago. I worked there for another two years and moved to Worldcom. You remember that? It declared bankruptcy and I was let go. Then I went to work for a CRAZY HR firm. That just plain ole didn’t work out. They had 60% turn-over, and were the aforementioned CRAZY. I went to work for a non-profit and a year later my position was eliminated. I went to work for a trade show company, and I quit that after a year to go and work for the rock solid financial services industry. Bad bad timing all around.

We apparently have 2-3 months to pull this out but I have little confidence in that considering the financial market right now.

I must find a job. I have done so many job searches I am pretty good at it by now, however I loathe it in a way I can’t explain. And of course, Big A still doesn’t have a job. Woe is us. Apparently we will make it. I’m okay with me going down in a fiery ball but I am not used to having someone else along for the ride.

It’ll be my two year anniversary next week. I actually liked this job.

Le sigh.

My lovely cousin Shanny got married this last weekend and Big A and I made a trip to the ‘Burgh to witness the blessed event. It was the first time Big A had been in the ‘Burgh and really the first time I had hung out there as a tourist. I spent a lot of time there as a kid but that was visiting family and we did kid stuff. It was really fun. We saw the Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Art Museum, the Strip District, Oakland, got a sandwich at Primanti Bros., went to Shadyside and most of all we got to hang out with my cousins.

Overall, it has been really fun getting to know my family as adults. My cousins are all really cool and smart and fun people. So are my aunts and uncles. So that was really great. I also introduced Big A to my grandma who said, “I don’t think we have met before. I would remember that hair” and then asked my dad if Big A was French. Huh. She seemed to like him and had a good time at the wedding. Big A brought his new fancy camera, so we will have lots of pictures.

In a move that surprised exactly no one, the weekend trashed my new resolve to lose weight and be healthier so I am almost starting from scratch. Oh well, it was totally worth it.

Another thing Big A and I found out is that I am not a good navigator, don’t like being lost, and have a Tourettes-like response to the Pittsburgh drivers, who are horrible. When we were in the car trying to go somewhere, it was a total crap shoot whether or not we would be sniping at each other or calmly talking. It was stressful. I am working on all of it, but I have a whole childhood of horrible vacations where my dad yelled at my mom and me for not reading the map right or getting us lost to get over.

Big A went for a physical, got some blood work done, and found out his blood is almost a solid his cholesterol is so high. Mine is a little higher than it should be but not horrible. On top of that, and several other changes in our lives, we are making some big changes in the way we eat and live. Like Big A can’t eat eight eggs for breakfast any more. And I can’t console myself with Pepperidge Farm products.

We eat too much cheese, drink too much, and enjoy too many burgers. I don’t like fries as much as Big A, but I do like a sweet treat now and then.

We have embarked on a low fat, low sodium, and low carb diet. And, to do my part, because I don’t have the metabolism of hummingbird like some people whose initials are Big A, I have joined Weight Watchers.

(Sigh)

I have joined Weight Watchers before. Several times, actually. And it always works, until it doesn’t. But I was inspired by the Bridges Sisters and they have some really really nice online features now so I don’t have to go to an f-ing meeting to weigh in, etc. I loathe the meetings. I don’t need a cheerleader. Anyway, I’ve only been doing it for a week and not even really trying because I wanted a week of baseline eating to compare against. I lost 9 lbs. Something about that seems wrong. I do feel better already, but not 9 lbs. better. Huh. Well, I’ll take it. I blew my points every day except one, and didn’t workout at all and I lost 9 lbs. Water weight? Was it the weight of my 2nd Story Performance weighing me down? Who knows, but its a nice start.

So, Big A and I went shopping for low sodium foods and lots of veggies (Stanley’s rules!) I know that I am going to get annoyed with Big A during this process. He is all pissy because he went from a 30″ to a 31″ waist and if he stays away from carbs he will drop the weight very quickly. I will be struggling for each pound from here on out. He will stuff himself with chicken breasts and brisket and get thinner. I will hate him a little for that.

I lost enough weight that I also lost a point (for the uninitiated, that is one less thing I can eat in the day, basically) so this week when I will actually try and stay in my points, that makes me a little sad. We’ll see how this goes.

I have been getting more involved with the fat acceptance community but their deal is healthy at any weight, and I am not healthy right now. My cholesterol could be lower. My blood pressure is high (genetic, but still, I can do more) and my first goal is to get off of blood pressure meds, which I may never be able to do no matter how much weight I lose, but my really big goal is to row again. Maybe with the Lincoln Park Boat Club.

I loved rowing, and the whole team dynamic. Right now, my ass won’t fit in the boat. That is not an exageration. The boats are very narrow. Rowing was how I messed up my knee to begin with, but it is also how I learned to work hard physically, stand up straight, be proud of being so tall, and how I got my BMI down to 23.  I am not 21 anymore, so my goals aren’t quite so lofty as to achieve the numbers I had when I was 21, but I think I can get back in a boat and be a good member of a masters team. The training starts in May and I don’t think I will be ready to join by then, so my plan is to lose the weight over the summer and fall and start training for rowing this winter. It is good to have a training goal. Again, this is all a pipe dream at the momment. But I have Big A helping me so it should be easier.