This morning I awoke with foggy vision, as usual, and went to grab for my eyeglasses, also as usual. But the glasses were not on my nightstand where they ought to be. So I spent almost a half hour ransacking my bedroom with blurred sight to find them pushed into the corner of my room, underneath my bed. The cat is to blame. Needless to say, she won't be getting fed for the rest of the week. Happy Thanksgiving, Mexico!
I had another interview last week. After which, I was given an editorial assignment: a 400 page manuscript to read and write a reader's report on. I did this magnificently -- I even missed a good friend's going away gathering to spend an entire evening crafting the report. It was top-notch. And the editor thought so too, calling it "excellent". She said she'd be back in touch with me soon (this was on Thursday). I'm hoping to hear something today or tomorrow.
But in the past, other people who interviewed me have used similar terms that induce a sense of hope, but I later realized that it was a false sense of hope, as they didn't hire me. I've been told that my ideas were "fantastic" only to get a call a few days later saying, "we've decided to go with another candidate." What, I wonder, did they call the other candidate's ideas? Remarkable? Absolutely amazing? Scrumtralescent?
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Some things I cannot change
Just two weeks ago I had the most self-assured positive feeling after leaving an interview. As I walked through the doors of the office building and onto the street I knew that the interview had gone splendidly on my part. And I was right, because that same day I got called back for a second interview. It was a good day for my wayward, jobless soul.
What was it that allowed for me to triumph so? It could simply have been a natural chemistry and shared inclination of interest between myself and the two women who interviewed me. It could have been the rejuvenated energy I felt, having just recovered from an exhaustive, debilitating cold. Or it may very well have been the extra jolt of self-accomplishment I felt that only glows around those who have just been mugged and punched in the face, the experience I happened to encounter only a mere twelve hours before this interview. (Note: If you know my mother, father, brother, or sister-in-law, please do not tell them of this. I have decided to keep it from them in the hope that my mother will continue to be able to get a full night's sleep.)
Let me set it up with a preface first. I've lived in the same apartment in Brooklyn for the last two and a half years and have not had a single brush with violence or crime. There have been some crazy car crashes on the street three floors below, and a very long time ago a man bumbled about the area with a thin razor blade in his fist, which he used to cut his face as he screamed about how he wanted to die. While the latter initially frightened me beyond belief, it also terrified everyone else in my neighborhood who witnessed it, and they called the police and attempted to wrest the blade out of the man's hand. My neighbors' responses comforted me, and led me to believe that things of this sort were not of regular occurrence.
So last Tuesday night I was in Tribeca and I said goodbye to my friends, who were getting in a cab after watching our film play at the Big Apple Film Festival, and headed to the subway alone. I rode home, getting off the train at Gates just before 9:30pm, and began walking the two blocks to my apartment. I had my hand clutched on my purse strap, as I always do, and first awkwardly jumbled through a small group of teenage boys who made some lewd remarks in my honor. I dismissed them and continued on, past a young woman about my own age who was out walking her tiny dog. I'd seen her several times before in the neighborhood. I kept up my stride and next noticed a young man on one of those small BMX bikes, making small circles in the street a few feet to my right. He jumped his bike over the curb and onto the sidewalk, which worried me a bit, but I wanted to act like I didn't notice him, so I kept on a straight path at my regular pace. The man then rode his bike directly into me, cornering me against the wall of my very own apartment building. He jut his arm out on one side of my body, firmly and at the level of my neck. So with his bike and his arm on either side of me, I found myself trapped.
Give me your money, he said.
No. I retorted, surprising myself for refusing.
The man now looks wildly around to see if anyone is coming. I also look around and find the street suddenly vacant. The several people who I'd just encountered must have simultaneously rounded corners and stepped inside doors.
Give me your money, he said again.
No. Let me get it out. You don't need my whole purse. This is what I said, though I didn't move to reach for my wallet.
I'm going to punch you in the face.
I let out another feeble, No.
Then, wham. He punched me on the left side of my jaw, during which I saw a bright white light and fell so hard to the ground that I tore my stockings and my knee began to bleed. My arm went limp and the man easily slid my bags off my body and pedaled down the dark and (still) abandoned street on his bike.
I stood up, not even bothering (let alone thinking) to pick up the stocking cap that had fallen off my head and onto the dusty, leaf-scattered sidewalk, and reached into my pocket. I still had my keys, i-pod, and cell phone hidden in the depths of my coat. (Thank God for winter weather.) I called 911.
The cops came and we drove around trying to find this asshole. We didn't.
All my mugger got that was of any value to him was $26, a recently purchased monthly Metro card, and eight cigarettes. Everything else I lost was only an inconvenience to me (ID, some make-up, my Moleskine notebook that I'd been writing thoughts down in for the past year, my ATM cards, etc.) He also left me with a blue and yellow bruise on the side of my chin, at the point of contact where his knuckles collided with my face. The other side of my jaw was also terribly sore for a week. And the brand new stockings I was wearing now had more runs than a lactose intolerant kid who's just devoured an entire wheel of soft cheese.
I told the twelve year-old I babysit for about this incident, admitting my fear that the mugger may return and try to break into my apartment, as he now had my ID with my address. She responded by saying, "But he knows that you're poor now. So why would he bother?" (She's amazing, by the way.)
So, unhappy ending -- I didn't get the job, despite all the shitiness that preceded the interview. I deserved it and should have gotten it. But I have another interview on Tuesday for a different job.
The woman who owns the new book store in Ft. Greene came into my restaurant tonight and we were talking about young recent grads and their pursuit of entry-level professional work. She put the pursuit in blunt, relatable terms that tickled my fancy and lifted my spirits. She said, to get a job in New York you have to hustle. And that's what I'm doing and will continue to do: hustle. Hustle just like a hooker. A fucking classy hooker.
What was it that allowed for me to triumph so? It could simply have been a natural chemistry and shared inclination of interest between myself and the two women who interviewed me. It could have been the rejuvenated energy I felt, having just recovered from an exhaustive, debilitating cold. Or it may very well have been the extra jolt of self-accomplishment I felt that only glows around those who have just been mugged and punched in the face, the experience I happened to encounter only a mere twelve hours before this interview. (Note: If you know my mother, father, brother, or sister-in-law, please do not tell them of this. I have decided to keep it from them in the hope that my mother will continue to be able to get a full night's sleep.)
Let me set it up with a preface first. I've lived in the same apartment in Brooklyn for the last two and a half years and have not had a single brush with violence or crime. There have been some crazy car crashes on the street three floors below, and a very long time ago a man bumbled about the area with a thin razor blade in his fist, which he used to cut his face as he screamed about how he wanted to die. While the latter initially frightened me beyond belief, it also terrified everyone else in my neighborhood who witnessed it, and they called the police and attempted to wrest the blade out of the man's hand. My neighbors' responses comforted me, and led me to believe that things of this sort were not of regular occurrence.
So last Tuesday night I was in Tribeca and I said goodbye to my friends, who were getting in a cab after watching our film play at the Big Apple Film Festival, and headed to the subway alone. I rode home, getting off the train at Gates just before 9:30pm, and began walking the two blocks to my apartment. I had my hand clutched on my purse strap, as I always do, and first awkwardly jumbled through a small group of teenage boys who made some lewd remarks in my honor. I dismissed them and continued on, past a young woman about my own age who was out walking her tiny dog. I'd seen her several times before in the neighborhood. I kept up my stride and next noticed a young man on one of those small BMX bikes, making small circles in the street a few feet to my right. He jumped his bike over the curb and onto the sidewalk, which worried me a bit, but I wanted to act like I didn't notice him, so I kept on a straight path at my regular pace. The man then rode his bike directly into me, cornering me against the wall of my very own apartment building. He jut his arm out on one side of my body, firmly and at the level of my neck. So with his bike and his arm on either side of me, I found myself trapped.
Give me your money, he said.
No. I retorted, surprising myself for refusing.
The man now looks wildly around to see if anyone is coming. I also look around and find the street suddenly vacant. The several people who I'd just encountered must have simultaneously rounded corners and stepped inside doors.
Give me your money, he said again.
No. Let me get it out. You don't need my whole purse. This is what I said, though I didn't move to reach for my wallet.
I'm going to punch you in the face.
I let out another feeble, No.
Then, wham. He punched me on the left side of my jaw, during which I saw a bright white light and fell so hard to the ground that I tore my stockings and my knee began to bleed. My arm went limp and the man easily slid my bags off my body and pedaled down the dark and (still) abandoned street on his bike.
I stood up, not even bothering (let alone thinking) to pick up the stocking cap that had fallen off my head and onto the dusty, leaf-scattered sidewalk, and reached into my pocket. I still had my keys, i-pod, and cell phone hidden in the depths of my coat. (Thank God for winter weather.) I called 911.
The cops came and we drove around trying to find this asshole. We didn't.
All my mugger got that was of any value to him was $26, a recently purchased monthly Metro card, and eight cigarettes. Everything else I lost was only an inconvenience to me (ID, some make-up, my Moleskine notebook that I'd been writing thoughts down in for the past year, my ATM cards, etc.) He also left me with a blue and yellow bruise on the side of my chin, at the point of contact where his knuckles collided with my face. The other side of my jaw was also terribly sore for a week. And the brand new stockings I was wearing now had more runs than a lactose intolerant kid who's just devoured an entire wheel of soft cheese.
I told the twelve year-old I babysit for about this incident, admitting my fear that the mugger may return and try to break into my apartment, as he now had my ID with my address. She responded by saying, "But he knows that you're poor now. So why would he bother?" (She's amazing, by the way.)
So, unhappy ending -- I didn't get the job, despite all the shitiness that preceded the interview. I deserved it and should have gotten it. But I have another interview on Tuesday for a different job.
The woman who owns the new book store in Ft. Greene came into my restaurant tonight and we were talking about young recent grads and their pursuit of entry-level professional work. She put the pursuit in blunt, relatable terms that tickled my fancy and lifted my spirits. She said, to get a job in New York you have to hustle. And that's what I'm doing and will continue to do: hustle. Hustle just like a hooker. A fucking classy hooker.
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