oh what a beautiful morning

oh what a beautiful day. i got this beautiful feeeeling. everything's going my way. hurray.

Woke up this morning reeling with dizzy from a goodbye party we went to last night and too much house wine. Knocked a brand new toilet paper role into pee water, dammit, and couldn't quite figure out how to cut a papaya in half. After B left for work, I sat on a chair and read one woman's entire "life story." I found it on Sam's blog, one of the Other Cool People who Blog (mostly on Blogger) links "a very funny Brooklyn blogger who I randomly discovered one day." It was excellent and took me two and a half hours to read start to finish.

All morning, a little sugar ant was gnawing the back of my brain--I had this interview hanging over my head. Strangely, when Bruce of Lassen galleries called me yesterday, he told me to come over any time between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., just call ahead. I had a good feeling from our conversation on the phone and have never had an interview set up that way where I wander in at my leisure, which is a good thing. After I finished La Ketch's story, I pulled myself together a little, took a shower, ignored the mess in the house, put on some mascara and a polite interview outfit and called Bruce. He said come over in the next thirty minutes. Great.

Grabbed my purse. Made sure keys and phone were inside. Always. How many times I've locked my keys in the wrong place. Grabbed our smelly soggy garbage bag and started down the stairs. Half way down, I realized that I had no clue where I was supposed to be going and the info was still in my other bag in the house, so, still slightly dizzy and a hair slower than normal, I climbed back up the stairs. Left the garbage on the stairwell, though. Sorry neighbor. And even though I'm not superstitious, I like to play along with some of the Jugo superstitions I've been introduced to. One of them is: never go back in the house once you've left. It's bad luck. And if you absolutely have to, sit down for a spell, trick the house into thinking that you already came home. So here I am, suffering back up the stairs mumbling to myself it doesn't matter. i'm not superstitious anyway. fuck it.

I started to unzip my purse to grab my keys but wait! I saw that lo and behold I had left the door unlatched. I had left my door wide open. What good luck to have forgotten something! as it turns out. I guess the house was calling me back and wouldn't fuck with me today, right. So I grabbed the address and the garbage bag and started making my way to the Waikiki Shopping Plaza on Kalakaua and Seaside (which is great because it's right next to starbucks, and I wanted to buy a coffee afterwards, and it's right next to my bank, and I needed to deposit a check for B).

Today is glorious, as the days often are here in the summer. High blue sky fly shimmering greens and yellows with pink and white flowers petals fluttering down on top of pedestrians walking, wandering, shopping, lost in an out of shades and shadows playing games with light, sunny warm hot but windy, hair flinging to the left and the right. Altogether exhilerating weather. Made me think of the song. Oh what a beautiful morning, Oh what a beautiful day. (Or is it wonderful, anyway, that's neither here nor there, because it could only be beautiful today and that's what I was singing, out loud which I don't do often, but who can help it).
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Usually I'm nervous walking into interviews. But I've had so many rejections in the last seven months that I've finally realized it's not personal. Whether I get the job or not. And I'm not a screw up because I can't find a job, I just haven't found a niche yet, right? I think, in the end, what it comes down to, is a first-impressions sort of vibe the interviewer and the interviewee beef up in the five to thirty minute session they have together. So, for some reason, maybe the rejections thing, or maybe because Bruce sounded so kind and laid back over the phone yesterday, I wasn't nervous on my way over and I wasn't nervous when I walked in. I made sure I removed my $3 sunglasses before stepping in and I remembered to smile and look him squarely in the eye as I introduced myself. But I said I was looking for Steve. It rushed out of my mouth before I had a chance to remind myself it was Bruce, not Steve, that I needed to meet. But anyway, Bruce and I awkwardly laughed together about it. Then I sat on a couch and waited while he finished up some emails.

He asked me a few questions. Let me know that he knew where Ivory Coast was, which surprised me for a moment and I didn't have a proper response. Not that he knew where the Ivory Coast was, but that that was the first thing he chose to say to me. After about four minutes, he said, "I don't make the final decisions around here, but I go by my gut, my intuition when I make a decision." (Pause. And there's me with expectant eyes, knowing what's coming next and hoping I'm as smart as that.) "I like you." Uhh...smile...feign surprise. "thanks," humbly. "And I'm going to tell Bossman X of this and recommend you to him." From there, the rest of the interview proceeded as though I were already "a part of the family" he termed it. He even had me pretend to sell to him, as though he were a client and I the salesperson. That was a mistake on his part. Way to shatter your first impression of me. How I flopped that one. See, it's not that I'm a terrible sales person or that I hate to talk in front of people. It's just this habit of fear in front of bosses and a strange paralysis I feel when I'm put on the spot. It was all I could do to clamp my mouth shut for a few deep breaths so I wouldn't spew out excuses as to why I would not do this for him and then to actually convince myself that, yes, I needed to try to pretend to sell this painting to him, so do it, dammit, Anna, speak and sell. Unfortunately, he definitely got the other side of me impression, the natural timid/fear side.

So the interview ended after he showed me around a little and he again said he'd recommend me and I left. That was that. I went to the bank and got a coffee. And I feel grand. I think it would be cool. In the end, it doens't matter so much what you are doing, as long as there is daily challenge involved and mostly, you gotta get a long with and actually like your coworkers and bosses. This seems like its a potential. Plus, I'm gonna have to learn japanese. Apparently Lassen is a rock star in Japan.

I'm not really happy with this post, but I'm not going to erase it. Fuck it.