Let me go home....and find a job.

I can't focus today! Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!

I need a job! I put my notice in at Fox yesterday, for March 21st. I know that's a month away but I really would like to have some job leads. I do have CVS and as soon as I call the stores, I am sure I can just work there until I find a solid job. I will probably have to work two jobs, but I'll do whatever I have to to be in San Diego again. This is just the nervous/anxious stage.

I am up for suggestions and DEFINITELY any help ANYONE can give.

Oh PS - Kim may be flying out here to join me on my roadtrip back Easter weekend. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I NEED A JOB!

One of those "I wish I'd thought of that" ideas

I always really admire people who are fearless, especially on the Internet. Check out the blog of one Sean Aiken, who is doing a new job every week and donating his wages to charity. So far he's done all kinds of cool stuff: baker, fashion buyer, photographer, aquarium "host" (?)...and these are just the recent ones. He's somewhere in the Week #30-ish range--head to his website to check out the latest, read the blogs, watch the videos...even offer him a job as your personal masseuse? Chauffeur? Cook? The possibilities are endless.

Oh, and also, I'm a celebrity on the internets! Just kidding, but my profile is up on the website, so take a look.

Things are lookin' up!

So I've been calling people steadily over the past hour or whatever, but I figure I'd just send out a blanket announcement: I GOT A JOB! It's at a company called The Book Report Network, and it's an Internet marketing job, which is probably not exactly what I want to do long term (although I don't know that for a fact, as I have very little job experience, comparatively), but it's great experience and I think I could do a lot of cool stuff for the company--plus, free books! The perks are amazing, for people who are obsessed with (read: addicted to) books. Thanks for the prayers, chaps--they worked!

Now, of course, I have to find a place to live so that I don't completely alienate Cambria's roommate forever (I officially move to NY next Friday; I start the job on Nov 12). I wasn't worrying about that because I was all, "One thing at a time, or your head will explode," but now that the job thing is taken care of, I kind of have to deal with this. Especially before Kim and Carrie get here, so nobody has to sleep on the fire escape (could be fun, though--think about it and get back to me).

I don't really have any other news, although I would like to say that I'm glad our SoCal members are safe and sound (and, apparently, have mandatory vacay--way to go Kim). I'll leave you with this bit of drunken convo from Jenny and my night on the town when she came home on Tuesday (it's has explicit lyrics):

Jenny: I was dating this guy, but I had to break it off with him--he had a choad.
Anna: Uhhhhh...what's a "choad"?
Jenny: It's (lowers her voice) a really short, thick dick.
Anna: So you're not a girth person?
Jenny: Well, I am, but I'm also a length person.
Anna: So not too long, not too short, not too wide, not too thin--you want it just right?
Jenny: Exactly.
Anna: Jenny. You're Goldicocks*.

You're welcome!

*Okay, so at the time I was a little drunk and the best I could come up with was "Goldifucks", but "Goldicocks" (which I came up with the next morning) is so much better. So that's how I'm going to tell the story from now on--deal with it.

New York, New York

Sorry I've been out of touch for a little while, but I spent all last week in New York City, and I didn't really have the time or the energy or the desire to blog. God, moving to such a scary city, and for the first time being in complete control of my own life, and having to take responsibility for my own choices, is so overwhelming. I don't know where to start explaining the ups and downs of my emotional state over the past seven or eight days. First of all, I was really excited to hang out with Bri, so that was a good thing. And I really do like New York for a lot of reasons, not least is that subway, which I found much easier to navigate than I did last November. I saw a lot of things I hadn't seen before (Central Park, for instance) and went to places I'd never been before (the Village, Queens, Jersey). Sadly, a lot of the plans Cambria and I made before I came (see her cousin's play, see Legally Blonde: The Musical, go back to Vol de Nuit and steal a Delirium Tremens glass) did not materialize, but there is plenty of time for that when I move there. WHEN I move there. It's going to happen. I've decided. It might take me a month or so, but I promise, Kim--by Thanksgiving, I will be there! I'll be living with a total stranger and temping, most likely, but I will be there!

I accomplished a few things while I was out there. Firstly, I had lunch with Julie from Random House, who promised to give my resume and cover letter to the woman who is hiring an assistant at Three Rivers Press, which is an imprint of the division (Crown) where Julie works (I think for the Publisher). She gave me a lot of great insight into the job, the company, and the industry in general, and she was really funny and kind to me. I really hope I get to interview for the job, and I plan on staying in touch with her, because she seems like a great person to hang out with and learn from. So maybe I'll get an interview for that job--they haven't called yet, but I'm sure that has little to do with anything. My experience working for a publishing house is that when an assistant leaves, they really do need to fill the position right away, but instead of doing so immediately they instead pile tons and tons of work upon the remaining assistants and take their sweet time hiring. There are many reasons for this, probably one of which is that hiring people is time consuming and annoying, especially with the turnover rate in these positions, which practically guarantees that even the lowest-rung editor is hiring a new assistant at least once every year and a half, if not more often. That's how it was at Thomson, that's how it probably is everywhere else. So I'm not freaking out yet--if I have any chance at all of getting an interview for a position, it's this one. If I don't get a call from them, I just don't know what I'm going to do.

I also meet with Jessica, who works for Penguin. She didn't have a lot of helpful leads, but she did weigh in on Mary-Kate Olsen's appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brian and Britney's disastrous VMA performance (which, way to stop being either relevant or respectable, MTV). She also told me a lot of stories about her time in the industry that are interesting to almost nobody but me, and she told me about a lot of the books she's been working on and acquiring, all of which sound really great. There's this whole book about body image written by a former Miss USA/America (?) pageant winner that has pictures of real women's bodies in an attempt to show young girls that they don't have to look like porn stars or supermodels to be beautiful. It sounds trite, but the way that Jessica described it to me made me thing it's going to be really awesome--maybe a bit controversial, but awesome. She said she'd keep an eye out for positions I can apply to. It's getting to be that, while I'd still like to work in fiction, I think I'd be perfectly fine with working with nonfiction, and even more than that I think I'd probably enjoy it better in the long run because I only read selected nonfiction, so I wouldn't feel as though my entire life was consumed by the same thing--and I wouldn't run the risk of losing my taste for fiction just because I sit around editing it for a living. So, in other words, this RH position is perfect for me. I hope they take my experience and enthusiasm into account, because I would die to work there.

Um, what else? Oh, I kind of, after much tooling around the metro area looking at apartments, decided that I'm going to have to live with a roommate (makes it less likely I'd have to take any responsibility for fulfilling a lease--I can just pay my rent and utilities and have that be that), and I only want to live in Astoria (Queens) or Manhattan. Also, I only want to live with women in their twenties, and hopefully only one of them. So that should give me someplace to start when I go back at the end of the month. I overheard this girl talking on her cell phone over by the Bloomingdale's where Bri works, telling her friend that she applied to about forty places (looking for roommates, I'm assuming), heard back from about four of them, and only about two were acceptable to her. So it looks like if I want to find the right living situation, I'm going to have to really widen my net (within my set parameters) and hope I get lucky. It'll probably take time, but while I'm there looking for a place I can also be applying to/visiting temp agencies, and hopefully something will come of that as well. I'm actually pretty upbeat about it right now--I wasn't a few days ago, when I cried practically every time I got on the subway. But on Tuesday I didn't want to go home, which was a good sign that I'm ready to stay, and now that I have a plan I can get things underway as soon as I go back. Poor Bri and Jessica (her roommate, not the girl who works at Penguin)--they're going to have to put up with me for at least another week sometime in the future.

sounds promising

Okay, I'm totally afraid to post about this so as not to jinx it, but in an effort to be less superstitious overall I'm going to anyway. So I started sending out query letters for the novel none of you have read (no pressure! It's too late for your feedback, anyway) last week--I sent out ten email queries, figuring that no matter where I live, my email address doesn't change, so it's the safest route at present. Anyway, I got a couple of rejections (completely par for the course, and while it doesn't feel good, I know the drill and am trying not to take it personally), but this weekend I did get an email from a new agent at a fairly new New York agency who wanted to read the whole manuscript. I sent him the MS and a little thank you, and I got an email this morning saying that he'd read the first two chapters already and really enjoyed them--"the writing is fantastic". I'm trying so hard not to get my hopes up, what with this week and next week being kind of important re: the job search, which I'm already nervous/stressed about, and I really don't need to be vainly hoping for something else good to happen to me, but I still can't help it. He might not end up digging the whole manuscript--I know it has flaws I've yet to find or don't know how to repair--but just the fact that somebody in the industry thinks my writing has promise is encouraging. I'll keep you updated, but it'll probably be a while before anything materializes, if it does at all. Oh, and so far no interviews yet, and I go to New York next week, but I do have some lunches/drinks scheduled with some contacts at Random House and Penguin, so those will be fun and hopefully illuminating. I'm applying to a few new jobs today after Lesley at CAPS (the U of C career center--she's kind of my personal cheerleader) takes a look at my resume and cover letter, so maybe something will happen with those? I don't know, but pray for me. Miss you!

Oh, and I don't know if anybody's noticed, but Mandy Michel is back in Dublin, working at a pre-school or something. Laters!

"A" "little" "precipitation"

Oh, Maggie. You want some preciptation? Check it out: we had the BIGGEST storm last Thursday. I mean, insane. I didn't really notice that much because I was at work, and for some reason (I think it's lake effect) the weather downtown is always different than it is other places in the city--I mean, it rained here, a lot, but it was nowhere near the kind of stuff I saw later when I went further out.

The storm was like a symphony (multiple movements). One happened while I was at work. It was particularly bad out in the suburbs where my aunt lives (and where I grew up), and on the northwest side of the city (where I live with my grandmother). Trees--big, old, stable trees--just crumpled and cracked open, blocking roads and falling on roofs and balconies (my friend Paul told me, "You step out on my balcony and immediately your face hits foliage"), etc. Power lines down, twisters, basement flooding--you name it, we had it. My grandmother's basement didn't flood, thank God, but there was a little bit of water in one small area, so of course she promptly freaked out.

By the time I left work, it had stopped raining. I got on the Blue Line to go home and, fortuitously, when I reached the California stop (the last elevated stop before the train goes underground for the Logan Square and Belmont stations) my friend Sandra called me, saying she was home (she lives about five blocks from the Belmont station) and did I want to hang out? I did, so I got off at Belmont and she picked me up and we were on our way to Target when another storm front moved in. It was raining so hard we couldn't see--buckets of water, and completely flooded roads. I was so glad I was in a car instead of having to wait the storm out in an uncovered transit center, looking in vain for a bus that would not come. Sandra drove me home, too. How awesome/coincidental is that?

In other news, my job hunt is still floundering. Many of you may remember me talking about that Mike guy (Kim, Bri, Scott, you met him briefly) who lived in my building and did the same internship as me at Ivan R. Dee? He was nice to me at work, but kind of a douche when we were around his friends? Anyway, he also wants to be in publishing, and he just moved to New York (he informed me on the email) but still hasn't heard back from any job prospects, same as me! So at least we're in the same boat. It's a leaking boat, but at least we're keeping each other company. I'll probably see him when I'm there in mid-September; I'm pretty much living for that trip right now.

I had a long talk with my mom yesterday and she said that if things aren't looking up after I get back from New York she will fly me home so that I can spend some time there (free of charge, free of grandma-related guilt), figuring I can apply for jobs from there same as from here. Which is so nice of her, and I appreciate how she's trying to be on my side about this New York thing now (she slips every once and a while, but she's been pretty good lately), but it's probably not the best thing for me to go home this early in the game. I feel like I'll just be sucked back onto the path of least resistance and start looking for a J-O-B in the Bay Area because I can (not that it's that easy there, either). But I know I won't be happy if I do that, even if most of the people I love live in California. So I don't know. Can I go out for a visit only? Will I be able to crawl back out of it if I do, or will I just cave to family pressure and move back home permanently? God, I hope it won't come to that--I hope things start picking up on the job front--but it would be nice to go home for a while. I don't know--torn! Like Natalie Imbruglia.

I actually disagree about The Nanny Diaries. I really liked it--I mean, I didn't read the book (wow, those words hardly ever escape my lips), but it seemed all right to me. I mean, I liked Scarlett Johanssen in it, and that's amazing, considering how much I've decried her acting talents and general likeability since Match Point. Plus, I mean, isn't Laura Linney amazing? The first thing I ever saw her in that I remember was The House of Mirth--remember when we went to see that in Berkeley? Wasn't Maggie on crutches? Good times! I mean, not the crutches part, but that was a good movie and it was fun to go see it together. Oh, but how gross was Paul Giammati in The Nanny Diaries? Ugh? He should not be cleanshaven, and I almost never say that about men. He did a great job acting--his character was supposed to be hiddeous--but still, when he leered at her? UGH. Anyway, I thought it was pretty good, although bogus stunt casting with Alicia Keys--that girl could not act her way out of a paper bag. Which is an expression I've never full understood.

I should stop blogging now. Even I'm getting sick of myself. Laters!

Keep on keepin' on

I applied for three more jobs today, all at Random House, all basically editorial assistant positions (one in children's, one in film, and one in audio). All are totally something I'd be able to be passionate about, and how cool would working in the film department be? Anyway! Not to mention that Random House is, like, THE publisher I'd love to work at, and they have a reputation for starting off entry levels at a decent starting salary. Plus they're big and have a lot of turnover, so I'm thinking advancing might be easier at the lower stages. So say your friggin' prayers, kids, because it's getting closer and closer to August 23 and I have yet to hear anything from anyone. I'm also going to email that other girl at Random House that Joanna told me about; the one I emailed last week hasn't responded. Nor has that girl from college that works at HarperCollins who I facebook messaged two weeks ago. Whatever! Feeling spritely. Had a good weekend. Went for a long walk in the forest preserve, did a lot of work on the novel (sorry, people who might've printed it out, it's an organic process and I did do some extensive revisions on the ending--rewrote the whole final chapter, actually), mostly just making sure it was okay. Went over parts one and two last night, so it's just three and four I need to look through and then I should be ready for FEEDBACK!

No news is bad news, but hey, that's what my life's become

So literally not a scrap of news on the job front, except that I applied for another one today. It's not an editorial position at a big house--it's a book scouting position for the company that scouts books for Harpo (that's Oprah's company, for those not in the know) and for foreign publishers, which I think I'd really like. I'm actually dying to get this job, and the company's probably pretty small, so at least there won't be a long drawn-out HR process, but it probably doesn't pay very well, so who knows? Even if I get the job I might not be able to take it, if I can't live on what they offer me. Anyway, let's hope they at least give me an interview--it'd be interesting to see how that side of the business is run. I mean, I have some experience in subrights just from my internship now, but it'd be interesting to hear about it from someone who only does that. Plus, it'd be nice to have a reason to go to New York.

In other news, I saw Alpha Dog last night, and let me tell you, that's a fine film. It's a really sad story, based on the true story (and not just "based on", although that's how they have to say it to keep from being sued, but really it's basically an exact transcription with names changed) of Jesse James Hollywood and the murder of Nick Markowitz. The movie stars Emile Hirsch (who, whatever), Justin Timberlake, and my new new fake boyfriend, Christopher Marquette (whose hair is HORRIBLE in this movie--total Snape hair). Justin Timberlake is so good in this film, which sort of blew me away, because I was like, "Yeah, right, Justin Timberlake can't act," but whoa, he so can. Another interesting thing about this movie is that Ben Foster is in it, playing the messed-up drug addict brother of the victim. Okay, the last thing I saw Foster in was freaking Get Over It, that high school romcom with Kirsten Dunst like a hundred years ago. And I was like, "Seriously? Same guy?" He's scary in this movie.

If you're looking for some good rap/hip hop music to put on your iPod, may I suggest "Night and Day" by T9ne (it plays over the credits and is really catchy) and "Say Goodbye Hollywood" by Eminem (off the Eminem Show album). Speaking of music, I'm annoyed that I cannot get the new Matchbox Twenty single, "How Far We've Come", legally on iTunes or illegally on Limewire. If anyone knows how I can get my hands on it, let me know, will ya? It's my new music obsession.

That's my life! Don't be jealous.