Letter to my "Readers"

Sometimes I like to do this thing where I imagine I have “readers” (do I need to say "air quotes"?) And sometimes my “readers” do things like write me e-mails saying that my blog posts are “too long.” To which I reply, “then don’t fracking read them!” (Thank you, Battle Star Gallactica, for this most satisfying fuck replacement.) My insistence on writing my way could very well be the reason I have “readers” instead of readers.

Today an old friend in another city e-mailed me to tell me she wanted to talk to me about my blog posts, "just not via e-mail." Faster-than-immediately, I tapped out a reply stating that in no uncertain terms was my blog up for discussion, explaining that it is my uni-directional delivery channel for whatever the frack I want to write about. I’m happy to report that it took me only two minutes, ten at most, to remember that a blog is up for discussion, that its very essence is about discussion (which I have managed to side-step, publishing only the comments that agree with my views). So I erased my e-mail to the friend and decided to blog instead. Ahhhhh, that’s better . . .



True story: today I returned to the site of my “dream job” from which I withdrew my candidacy (for reasons I still don’t fully understand but trust were right because otherwise I have made the biggest mistake of my life – along with a few other doozies). The job was to be the communications animator at one of the city's coolest nonprofits. I busted my butt to get the job, performing my résumé instead of just listing my experiences and talents in doc form. I developed a beautiful and fun newsletter and then set the org up with an entire web 2.0 program, which I also populated with information relevant to them. After the second interview I could see what made this org so amazing -- passion and vision in the form of a few key people who devote their blood and guts to it -- was also required of the communications animator. I, too, have passion and vision (well, the vision is spotty but it means well), just not for this job. I realized I wanted to save that energy for stuff like writing and painting. Following some kooky “star mapping” idea from a book (that I not-so-secretly love: Steering by Starlight, by Martha Beck), I dropped off of everyone else’s map and created my own, praying I would land somewhere in more Liz-friendly territory. The only reason I have not yet hit the ground is because I’m still trying to locate the rip cord . . .




When I returned to the almost-job site today to meet a friend for coffee, I bumped into my interviewer, who glad handed me while breathlessly intoning that they’d found the “perfect fit” for the job (for which I heartily and sincerely congratulated him because it meant there was no going back for me). The rest of that moment unfolded as if in a movie. And that’s because my interviewer told me that they’d hired a filmmaker to document the interviewing process (What? You mean I could have been on camera?!!) at which point the filmmaker glided towards us, arriving in front of me with his perfect filmmaker hand outstretched to shake mine. He smiled down at me while his cerulean blue eyes (um, my favourite colour?) pierced my innards, sending covert messages to my knees to start the buckling process. It was the kind of moment I’d seen in Ally McBeal: idiot girl blows opportunity not only for dream job, but also for dream man. There was no question this beautiful-man-who-would-never-be-mine was sent as my come uppence. That’s what you get for following your own stupid fracking star.



I tramped home in the snow and then made coffee, which always cheers me up. And then I remembered something that added immensely the cheering-up process. After my first teaching stint at a fancy gallery where I taught a group of adult women watercolour painting (more like a weekly gathering of great conversation and laughter with some painting thrown in for good measure), I was so thrilled with the success of the course that I asked the "students" if they’d write me reference letters. The best was from a woman who thought quotation marks signified emphasis, so her biggest compliments looked like this: Liz is the “best teacher” I’ve ever had. She “taught” me “painting techniques” that have transformed my paintings into "works of art”! I feel like a "real artist" now!