Today Is a Good Day.

I'm sitting in my living room entering books for sale into Amazon.com beside my cat Sam, who is curled up on the top edge of the couch, right by my head. He's looking out the crack in the blinds over my glass front door, just in case he needs to defend me from intruders. I feel loved.

I sent Collin sunflowers at work today. I never sent flowers to someone before but it felt really good. Also he liked them.

I need to apply for jobs today but I also need to make dinner. I've been meaning to do so since I got home from work, but Without a Trace keeps coming on. What to do, what to do...

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face
And the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.
-Traditional Irish Blessing


I hope you're wearing green.

Writing the Stories of My Life.

Another musical communiqué:


I am still trying to get a job, and I'm still trying not to let anything break-a my spine, but I have gotten a couple more rejections now: from Berkeley and USF. It just highlights how dreadfully long this process takes. I applied for those jobs in early February. So the next wave will be the Atlanta jobs I started submitting my resumes to after Collin and I broke up.

I've had several people putting in good words for me at Turner, and basically I've been told that it's easier to move around in Turner than it is to get into Turner. This fits with what most of the comments on the job search boards say, too, so I wasn't surprised. But I have been pretty disappointed and discouraged about the whole thing.

Finally will come the rejections from the jobs I'm now applying to - in San Francisco.


Ok, so I don't know where to start, and I guess in that case it's best to just start. This past weekend my relationship with Collin got much more complicated. We began by becoming friends again last week, and at this point, it does look like I'm going to go to San Francisco at some point in the near future. I don't know what that means anymore, for me, for us, for my career, for anything. I just know that if I don't go now, I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life. Collin is my best friend and I just can't accept the thought of living without him in my life in some fashion. He apparently feels similarly about the situation. Finding this out was what has really made this complicated, for both of us. I'm going out there at the end of this month, and we are basically going to have a long-weekend-long discussion and come to some conclusions. We both hope it works out, but we also both know that our relationship is... complicated. At the end of the day, though, we love each other, and we really have a good time when we're together. I think those two things generally go a long way.


(I really wish I could have been at this show.)
I'm absolutely terrified of what I'm going to do when I finally get out there. I'd like to be a writer. I've been trying to learn about how to "be" a writer, other than writing a best-selling novel (since that would take a little too long and I'd *probably* deplete my savings by the time I finished it, especially considering I have no savings). It turns out there are a lot of different ways. I mean, when you look around you, writing is everywhere; someone somewhere is paid to write it.

I have seen several writing jobs in SF, but the pay is abysmal, and most of them are only part-time or temporary anyway. Eventually a writer can piece together a satisfactory income from freelance work, but that takes time. Part of me - actually quite a large part of me - wants to get a job in a hotel or restaurant or something and just work my butt off in my free time building a portfolio and sending out pieces, and query letters, and calling people, and volunteering my services, and basically just begging for work. Eventually I know that would pay off.

It's very scary but also very exciting. It will be really nice to accomplish something based on hard work, though. Up until this point in my life, I've mostly just relied on my good brains. Great love and great achievements require great risk, as anonymous said, and I'm ready to take those risks.

So yeah. I'll keep you posted.

By the way, I figured out where most of my nightmares originated: this video.

Up, up, and AWAY!

Biplane ride with my friend Allison = Much needed FUNventure!! And what's more, I finally saw Stone Mountain after only 12 years in Atlanta! I feel like I got a lot done today. Even though I really didn't do anything.

This weekend has been a major diet CRASH/cheatfest. I've had pizza, beers, nachos, chips and salsa (separate incidents) and hardly any fruits and vegetables all day. I feel bloated and gross. Tomorrow it's back on the diet-wagon and I couldn't be happier about that.

Seeds and Eggs.

I met up with a friend today for coffee and conversation, and after cake the conversation turned to gardening. We had been discussing my recent experiences, and my frustration at not being able to know where I'm going or what I can do to make the pain and confusion go away. As an analogy for life, she explained that all growth in life needs to be organic. You can't force anything to happen, she said. You can only plant the seeds, give them what they need, and wait for growth to occur.

What if the seeds don't grow? I asked.

That's why you plant lots of different kinds of seeds, she responded. Because some of them won't grow. You plant them anyway and wait to see which ones do.

After coffee we went to her house. She let me pick some arugula from her garden and gave me some eggs from her chickens. As I looked down at the eggs she handed me, I noticed that they were different shapes - some were more round and one of them was tall and thin. And one of them was actually green! There were two brown ones of different shades and an off-white one, too.

Do they taste different? I asked. Not really, she said.

They are shaped differently, they are different colors, and they come from totally different types of chickens, but when it comes down to it, despite their beautiful uniqueness, they are all eggs. And they would all make equally wonderful baby chickens (or delicious omelettes).

I guess I was struck by that because I feel like my life is really throwing me for a loop lately. Everything I was counting on disappeared. I've been waiting for help finding my path, but instead I'm finding out that there is no path. There is only now. And no matter what "now" looks like, life will work out just fine. I will make beautiful baby chickens or a delicious omelette, no matter how different "now" is from the "now" I wanted or expected.

My friend suggested I listen to Pema Chodron, which I find quite fortuitous. I'm trying to be mindful of the present. I'm trying to be accepting of what I feel, and of what is, no matter how painful. I'm trying to be loving of who and where I am, no matter whether I understand or not. I'm trying to be patient, and let life unfold organically without forcing it. It's been difficult, but it's a struggle worth facing.

Collin and I made a tentative peace, thankfully. I am glad that he will be back in my life, but I'm having a difficult time accepting that our relationship will be different from what I expected, and at this point, very different from what I would have preferred. Our relationship is the green egg in my life right now. When it comes down to it, it's not the egg I expected, but it's just as good in the end.

I also told my landlord I'm staying in the apartment. I was going to move anyway, but the fact is, my apartment is cheap, and moving sucks. Either I'll get a low-paying job and be thankful to not have to pay higher rent (not to mention utilities hook-up charges), or I'll get a decent-paying job and be able to pay off some of that pesky debt! There's no need to spend hundreds of dollars I don't have to spend. I don't know which egg that is. The cheap one I guess.

The smart one. :-)

Glad Tidings!

Today I found out two more people that I know pretty well (and more importantly, who both know how super I am) know people who work at Turner! I'm very excited about the possibility of getting an interview there. I think that would just be super.

I mean I know that this is Atlanta, and CNN is in Atlanta and all, but it does seem neat that almost everyone I've told about this knows someone who works there and wants to put in a good word for me! I sure wasn't getting that kind of reception in SF.

That is just the feather fluffing I have needed for the past two weeks. I've been smiling all day. Unfortunately, my appetite is back too. But oh well. I'd rather be happy and fat than skinny and sad. That seems like a no-brainer, actually.

So, do any of you know people that work at Turner? :-)

Addendum 1:
I'm sad. It's hard to lose a friend, even if it's during a messy break-up. I want to call him and talk to him about all this. Although I guess if he was really interested, we'd still be communicating. I just think it's terrible that break-ups have to happen. On this end it feels like such a waste.

Addendum 2:
For some reason I just looked at the salaries for these positions I want so badly at CNN. I don't know if I can afford these jobs, even if I'm lucky enough to get them.

The above addenda are collectively pushing me quickly and steadily towards an early bedtime tonight. I'm sad and scared now.

Addendum 3:
I'm at the point right now where I can't find even one job in Atlanta that I want, and on top of that I keep thinking about what a small percentage of jobs are attained through postings, anyway, and thinking about how I haven't heard of any jobs aside from the ones posted and I'm freaking out. I should have gone to bed earlier, but it's too late now. I'll probably be awake all night worrying. It's no coincidence that as my freak-out about the job search builds, my sadness about the break-up builds, too. It's easier to worry about that than to worry about how I'll ever get another job in my entire life.