Dollface

Twenty four years ago tomorrow, at around four in the afternoon, Courtney dollface was born and I learned the difference between happy and complete.

I had the first of my three or four thousand heart to hearts with Courtney less than twelve hours later when I propped her up against my knees, looked her over as though she was a creature who'd been dropped from the moon, and thanked her. I promised to do my best, and asked God to give us both patience. I wondered if she'd be a little like me. I wondered if, in a couple of decades, we would have anything in common.
For the next twenty-four years, I watched my beautiful girl grow up before my eyes, move away, and become her own woman - smart, wise, funny and kind, with a heart that wraps around those lucky enough to have earned her love. She grew up with my guidance, and sometimes in spite of it. We're not the same people it turns out, but we've both been enriched by the differences between us. We'd run into traffic for each other.

I am stunned by the moments I catch myself seeing my dollface the way the world probably does. Or when I realize the decisive, independent person she is -even as the sight and sound of my daily influence has fallen away with time and geographical separations.

God came through with the patience we needed to go through almost two decades together and still plan lunches together at the Cheesecake Factory like long-lost college roomates. As her next chapter begins - love, career, marriage, children - I will stick my bossy mommy hat in a place where she'll find it if she ever needs to borrow it. I will be enjoying my softer hat which I borrowed from my own mother. It says across the front, in letters only we can see, "mentor."

Now there is a different word to describe the feeling of having any part in launching such a wonderful spirit into the world - and it is joy.

Happy birthday dollface, it is the easiest thing in the world to love you.

Mommy

Grateful

I'm grateful up here in the attic. I need to send God a thank-you note.
Grateful, always.
For my children, for my job, for my home and view of the front yard after it's snowed. For my family of parents and siblings who knew me when my teeth were too big for my head. For my husband who found me when I was a Barbie doll but told me I've been more attractive since fifty. For my health and ability to put pen to page. For my cat who would be a butler if he were human, he's so elegant and knowing. For classical music and the people who keep it alive because of how it loosens and deepens my soul. For my co-workers and boss who are the most gracious and earnest people I've met in a long time. For my friends who love me enough to tell me when I'm annoying but will cancel hair appointments if I ask them to come to the doctor with me. For my spirit which is even stronger than the human thigh bone. And for every single day that comes up like a shade.

Beautiful stories take on their life in the light of every day; the rainy, late-for-work ones as much as the bright ones that greet us like a happy child.

I'm grateful. I owe God a thank you note. So in 2010, I will find someone who has turned from the light, and make them see things as I do from the attic.

God willing.

Yes

Somebody I love said this: Looking for a job is like reading a book, on which every single page is written the word "no." You think you've read the story, you're ready to put it down and at the end of the last page suddenly appears, by itself, the word "yes."

Nonononononononononononoyes.

As most people who have ever met me now know, I got the job.

Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes.

Over, maybe

It is possible that I will never have to write a cover letter again, or lose sleep over a morning interview. It is possible that I will be in a position where I work with people I like and admire, and work for a director who is balanced, upbeat and respectful. It is possible that I will recover the confidence which got swallowed by companies who never wrote back, or who said, "thanks anyway," because I don't care who you are, the longer you're on the market the easier it becomes to see their point.

I had a second interview today with the organization I just bloggedy-blogged about. It went so well, there was actually laughter in the meeting and that glorious question at the end: "How soon could you start?"

I hope, I hope.

Pick me

The only thing worse than a discouraged job seeker is a jaded one. Here's how they're made:

As I expected, there were others who attended the group interview I bloggedy-blogged about the other day - all of us in our pumps and suits and portfolios thinking we were there to be interviewed for an admissions counsellor position for a local college that caters to the "economically challenged" college student.

Forty of us.

It was not a group interview, it was a mob interview.

Herded into a little employee cafeteria, we were shown a PowerPoint presentation of the position particulars and before the second slide was clicked, were advised to "make no mistake, this is a sales position and you will be expected to make 80 to 120 phonecalls A DAY to recruit those college students, who, oh yeah, will also need a little counselling once you get them in the door."

Those of us not interested in this opportunity were invited to leave at the break. Some, like me, didn't wait that long. Some talked about the distance they'd come. They wanted to get a jump on the ride back.

There is a perfect word for any employer who would pull a bait and switch in times like these and exploit the already discouraged, and in the case of those who remained in that room, desperate, job seekers out there. The word is cruel. I'm luckier candidate-wise than many so I converted my anger to resolve, but the ones who stayed...

Luckily, candidate-wise, I interviewed for a position today that I would love so much, it was all I could do not to blurt out in the middle, "Pick me!"

Unfortunately, my interviewer was so complete and thorough in describing the position and organization that I had only skimpy questions at the end which Google says is bad. I could only sigh and say, "It sounds wonderful," which it is.

Not the punchy closing I'd planned, but a great interview anyway that left me with hope and optimism on the heels of Monday's experience which only left me in want of a bright room and a shower.

Brain space and breathing

I have a group interview later. I'm intrigued. It could be a panel I face, or I could be part of a panel. But here is what I will not be doing today:

Googling "group interview" again.

Like anyone interviewing these days I'm already antsy and over-focused on "my game." But as I've told every member of my brood at one time or another, "your task isn't turning into someone worthwhile before the interview, your task is to get through thirty or sixty seconds of anxiety without crumpling to the floor because you've forgotten to breathe."

So I've prepared my speech, and can now discuss myself with poise in under two minutes without saying "and, um, let's see," and my outfit is on a hanger next to my pumps. If I Google anything else about "group interviews" I will learn about the "NUMBER ONE QUESTION YOU MUST BE PREPARED TO ANSWER BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE WILL BE" and it will be something I've somehow missed until now, and my insides will freeze, and I will have lost the opportunity to weave it into the speech I practice each morning after I drop Sam off and drive home pretending to be on Bluetooth.

No, I'm closing the book. No more cramming. I'm going to the treadmill where I will work on the presentation of me until it sing-aling-dings. Later, I'll go to my group interview and there will be some twenty-four year old there who's nervous and uncomfortable and I'll think of one of my children and forget about the treadmill and say what is truer than anything: You're better than you think you are before an interview. It will only take a moment or two for them to know it.

She'll get that job or maybe another one if she buys that, and so will I.

I have yet to see that kind of advice on the Debbie-Downer internet.

Unpack the Everything

My suitcase of Everything wouldn't zip recently so I unpacked my Advanced Cognition class. I regretted this decision for a surprisingly short period given my Everything-thing.

Now I'm hanging out with the Video Professor ("Try my product?") learning Microsoft Access because in my job search I'm finding that if you don't have Access don't even try to bag at Hannaford.

It's a nice tutorial, and I zipped through the beginning and got 100's on the "video quizzes," because I'm an Excel user, but I soon had trouble paying attention in my home classroom. First, the Video Professor's voice reminds me of a neighbor I had when I was small and I began to wonder if he (the neighbor) was dead or alive while the VP was talking about the difference between changing fields in tables and I had to arrow back. Then I began to feel hungry and wondered if the cantelope downstairs was any good, and then I clicked on Janet Reid's website to see if she was posting again, and then I was wondering if it would be okay to wear boots to an interview while the VP was talking about the "view" tab and I had to arrow back again. Then I was wondering if I should make Sloppy Joes for dinner and what the interviewer would look like, and if black would be a bad color for a top and then it was time for another video "quiz," and I had to arrow back even further. Then I got a 50% on the quiz which made me feel UnSerious about my Goals, on top of being hungry and conflicted about interview attire, and finally, I abandoned the task to play hide-and-go-seek with the cat which he learned as a kitten using Video Professor.

As for Everything-ness, I've learned something in the aftermath of breaking up with Advanced Cognition. It's that law of diminishing marginal utility again, that concept from college days of olde that even I couldn't believe I understood the first time it was explained. It's heady to think you're finally doing Everything you want to, until the exhilaration becomes stress, the overscheduled days become short, and the want to becomes "have to" so that soon, you're feeling so robbed of fun, you're breaking up with Everything and sitting under your desk hiding while the cat counts.

So this month, I didn't learn Access, but I did learn limits and I'm wearing a lavender top with a black skirt and not eating the cantelope and picturing a great interview with someone who has his or her own Everything to worry about, and that's Everything enough for now.