Twin Cities Book Fair.

This morning I woke up early to go to the TCBF with Graywolf. I love literary events. Plus, I thought I should be, um, "networking" to people. As in, hi, I work with Graywolf. How would you like to give me a job?

I didn't really network, though. I did meet some important people, or at least watched the Graywolf staff talk with important people, like the director of Milkweed. I did say "hi" to Tom Maltman, as in, introduced myself to him because we hadn't ever really met. We talked BER for a couple of minutes before he read from his new novel. I wished I was at AWP. I wished Christina and Jenny had been there, and we could've walked around to all the publishers, feeling important. Promoting the magazine.

While we were setting up, organizing the table, Mary the marketing executive tried to get me to move to New York. She was actually sort of talking me into it. She said that all interns who'd made that blind move out there found significant publishing jobs within a week. A week! It's weird because I started that conversation thinking: I'm not the kind of person who could move to New York. I'm just not that kind of person. But by the time I was done talking to Mary I was like: I could move to New York if I wanted. I could just do that. How many times does one find herself in a position where she could just go to New York if she wants to, anyway? What's keeping me here?

It's weird how quickly you go from the kind of person who doesn't do something to the kind of person who does. You don't have to actually do it, you're just the kind of person who would.

But if I went to New York, I suppose there'd be things I'd miss here. For example, I bet at New York book fairs, you don't see the sort of people you see at Twin Cities book fairs. You don't see the wide, soft women who walk around like slow-moving Thanksgiving balloons as though their bodies are filled with air, you don't see the men in their 50s that you hope your future husband will age like, who grab book after book after book and hand you their credit card. You don't hear the certain types of book pitches in New York (actually there, they might be more colorful) for books that aren't even close to what your press publishes. You probably do see the New Agey women, though, like the ones we saw at AWP in Austin, in their dyed flowing skirts. You might see the guy walking around in the homemade shirt Be Careful or I'll Put You in My Novel.

But it was good. It just felt good to sit there, listen to people talk books, feel like I was in the middle of something that I'd like to stay in the middle of for a very long time.

to do, unemployment, day 5

• wake up with slight hangover;
• wake up to phone call from former employer, again, asking for more material to be sent to them;
• wake up and, for some reason, realize that there is a chance that the paint picture of "Erotic Desk" may have been saved to the desktop of former-employer's computer;
• first get nervous about that, then not care and laugh;
• search all Minneapolis job boards, again and again for two hours;
• watch Scooby Doo while doing the above;
• sing in shower, loudly;
• eat almost an *entire* "unemployment cake" by standing at kitchen counter and plunging fork into repeatedly for mouthfuls and mouthfuls;
• curse and love Shannon for baking me an "unemployment cake" and forcing me to take it home;
• go to beloved unpaid job for three hours to read full short story manuscript;
• return phone call to former-employer, over-friendly and professional;
• go to Caribou, again, to revise resume and apply for more jobs;
• find Pro Staff job at University registrars office;
• send Pro Staff resume via email;
• 2 minutes later get phone call from Pro Staff, asking me to come in one week from now;
• inquire about University job, get told Master's degree may over-qualify me;
• inquire again about University job;
• get asked about "answering phones, call center work";
• inquire again about University job;
• schedule meeting;
• go to car on street outside Caribou, discover someone has hit the driver's side mirror;
• try to willfully attach driver's side mirror, which is not broken off, but hanging on the car, sort of like optic nerve;
• curse everything;
• curse, curse, curse;
• go home, eat more "unemployment cake";
• curse.

And after all of this happened, he wrapped it in newspaper and put it in the neighbor's yard.

Last night the Good Doctor found a small, gray, soft bird on his front porch. He'd turned on the porch light, and as he'd done it, something fell. He opened the door and it lay there, with its bird legs up in the air. He picked it up, brought it inside. No blood, no damage, no broken hollow bones. But a warm body.

The Good Doctor tried to save the bird by pushing the fingerpads of his middle and index fingers on the bird's chest. He gave the bird CPR. He craddled the soft bird in palm, pet the short-feathered, fuzzy head, pressed lightly on its small body, checking. For something. The bird moved, his black eyes shifted or opened or closed. Or at least the Good Doctor thought so.

But he died, or he remained dead. Depending.

Last night when I talked to him on the phone, the GD said that the bird had flown into the window, but as we continued to talk, as he remembered examining the bird, he thought it might be odd about the no blood or damage. "Maybe he was electrocuted," I said. "His body was warm."

"Maybe," the GD said.

Or maybe he'd ingested the gallons of spider poison the GD scattered around his house. Or maybe he'd just been flying, flying, flying and out of nowhere, he'd fallen. He'd stopped flying-flying and he'd fallen and landed on the GD's front porch. He wasn't meant to be saved, just seen in his last moments--to prove that for awhile, he'd been alive.

You've got to be kidding me. You've. Got. To be. Kidding.

Christina, I said, this just isn't fair. And I know what this is. The other day I was like: I just want cool weather. I just want it to be chilly and fall and wonderful. And what? In return for this, the sacrifice I have to make is I lose my job?

So, in turn for finally getting the weather I wanted today, the higher forces took my job. The life gods are like, that'll cost you. That'll cost you your no-longer-current job. Now you're unemployed. (Now you make exactly zero dollars a week, and since you have no real reason to understand why this is, you will assume it's because you asked for something and something else had to be taken away.)

This is what life is giving you right now. This is what you get.

Thanks to all of you I talked to today. Today would be impossible without all of my amazing friends. If you know of any job openings, well. You know.

Now time for some Lean Pockets. Pepperoni. One snack at a time. (I have to be honest with you, in spite of all the comforting words from my friends right now, it's pretty easy to feel like a useless loser. I was really wanting a car to hit me after my just-lost-my-job run so I could get a decent lawsuit on my hands.)

Marathon Lance.

Today, in the Twin Cities ridiculous heat and humidity, Lance ran a marathon.

I'm so proud of him. Especially because it is October 7th, and it is fucking hot outside.

I know a lot of people who have run marathons now. And, well, they're all pretty neat. And walking around the capital amongst all of those runners--runners crying and sweating in each others' arms, runners whose spouses were stretching out their legs for them as they collapsed on the grass, runners who took gaping hunks out of fresh apples in hunger, runners whose legs wobbled just a bit after the run like newborn fawns--yeah, walking around those runners made me feel pretty lazy. But this isn't about me, it's about Lance, and he's pretty damn awesome. I mean, he ran over 26 miles.

In, like, a row.

I can barely drive 26 miles without getting sick of songs on the radio. I mean, that's almost 5 hours. That's longer than the morning at work before you get to take lunch.

Lance, that's almost 2 Lord of the Rings movies. Longer than the first two Batman movies for sure.

And now, because I've been a lazin' all summer, I'm using you as motivation to get back out there to train for some other sort of race. Because races might hurt, but they make your brain feel good.

Now, come on Lance. Let's go eat a 20 piece McNugget. You know you want to. Come on. I'm buyin'.

Something all of you should know.

So, I took this call at work last week with a lovely attorney who told me that she was a member of AARP. Except I didn't really know what that was, so I asked her. And she said that it was the Amercian Association of Retired Persons.

Except what I seriously heard and wrote in my notes was: American Association of RETARDED Persons.

I'm not kidding. Thank God, I didn't really ask any follow up questions on that. And thank God I googled it. Because saying a lawyer is retarted on her own website just might be the thing that makes your boss fire you. And my reputation at work is pretty shitty right now, and I'm talking lowest of the low. I shouldn't go around claiming people are retarded when instead they are just old.

Although the search marketing guy on the line piped up and said that he "was also a member." Unfortunately, this only concluded the fact that I thought the lawyer had said "retarded" because this guy is one of the most retarded people I have ever met in my life.

The first photo dump of "You Don't Give a Shit!"

I've finally uploaded photos since June.

Let's start with my birthday, June 22nd, wherein I came home to a house filled with western themed decor, a pink cowgirl hat, and a cactus pinata. David and I tried to smash it inside, which didn't work. So we brought it on the lawn.

Then Shannon took me to dinner, complete with creme brulee dessert. It was gone in like two seconds, and it was amazing.

And the next time I took a picture was with Lance, at Guitar Center in Edina. Rocking out.

I played a $1300 Gibson.

And in July, we went to the aqautenniel. Watched waterskiers on the river.

And I drank with Kristin after work.

And David and I went to the Dells for an amazing weekend. This was the only picture we took, in the hotel room, pre Noah's Ark. And after a night of watching "To Catch a Predator."

And I guess I didn't take any pictures in August. I guess August sucked.

But a couple of weeks ago, David and I went to an apple orchard and winery. We had wine samples twice over, even without fake mustaches the second time when we were breaking the rules. And we went to the petting zoo to see a llama, meh-meh-meh's and a very cute sheep with a very pear-shaped nose:


(David explained why their pupils were square. I don't remember why. Something about peripheral vision.)

Then we took a picture in the hay maze:

And of the trees.

Which were used by the Good Doctor to make me a pie:

And that's about it.

And next, we have a quiz:

Who recently got his balls cut off?

a)

b)

c)The poor, poor puppy.

Anyway, to post for real, it's been a rough week. I've been battling post-school demons again and again. I want to be in school. I feel like a fish out of water. I feel like I'm not qualified for anything and that everyone who once told me that an English major was a good idea should be punched in the neck.

I'm so deep in it I can't really talk about it. But I keep falling back on this duck hunt metaphor.

In esssence, I'm the duck. And here I am, a fucking lunatic flying around like crazy, trapped in this blue square of a screen with exactly the same background no matter how much I keep flying, and my eyes are all big and bulgy, and most importantly, there are people shooting at me with plastic guns, and they're cheating and getting really close to the TV (I mean, they're like touching the tip of that plastic gun to the screen) and they're taking shots. And they're going to hit me. I mean, all I've got is the blue square, and it doesn't phase them to cheat.

Anyway, the point is this:

They hit me, they catch me. Nobody wants me to make it.

Okay. That's pretty pessimisstic. My friends want me to make it. But the rest of the world is shooting at my post-graduate self and daring me to succeed in this duck-flying adult life.