Bizarro Danielle

03Nov09

N.B. A friend read this and emailed frantic that I’d quit my job. My answer: God no. Any editor want to point out where I can make that clear?

Now that Magen and I are expanding our august academic institution’s blog presence, I often tell people blogs are easy to start but hard to maintain. Then I point to the good ol’ Daily Reason. The challenge isn’t time or ideas or inspiration: It’s maintaining the appropriate personal-yet-professional demeanor. Dull topic, makes me sound like I’m wearing a skirt suit walking in Reeboks with a pair of pumps in my Le Tote.

—just did a million other things on the internet, frozen by the demands of personal essay self-presentation—

Persistence has never been my problem. Perhaps it’s the opposite of a strong suit. I stayed with my first boyfriend for nearly five years and with my first employer for nearly eight. For good reasons, of course. The boyfriend was a superlative gentleman who liked recipes and Russian novels. The workplace, at a state university, let me create my own job and offered so much time off I worked for WBUR one day a week for eight/nine months still earning full freight. Didn’t leave that job until I had an A-plus replacement. (Which wasn’t the case w/ leaving that relationship, I’m proud to say.)

Today I walked back into those offices armed with a freelance assignment for the state university paper. Overwhelming echo effect. I didn’t realize until that moment how completely I’d put that job behind me. Which is bizarre when you consider that I spent my entire twenties minus two weeks with the same co-workers, the same boss. My constant amidst changing addresses and relationships.

They didn’t expect me to leave. That surprised me. Because towards the end, the last oh three years, I was awfully unhappy. Perhaps they thought I was constitutionally a crab. And it was a golden-handcuffs kind of place. (Sorry to draw out the comparison, but the boyfriend was too. No, not that. Stop that. So objectively good that it’s hard to break away.) Saying hi and catching awkwardly up added a full half-hour to the interview time.

I have the same apartment as I did then (THANK GOD). Same cat. Same superlatively comfy couch one of those co-workers gave me. I looked at the Public Garden through the big boss’s window. Yellow leaves, Red Line. I loved that view. Flipped a coin with my years-long officemate Jeff the Web Guy for it and won.

Two weeks’ notice after nearly eight years. Two days’ notice after nearly five. Good at sticking, good at moving on.
xx
djd

p.s. Learned via verbatim that Rosanne Cash doesn’t like her dad’s “Sea of Heartbreak.” (I spaced during that part of the interview.) What is wrong with that woman?! Does she not know that Benmont Tench is the man?! That whole album (Cash’s second with Rick Rubin) is perfect listening for a dark February night cat-sitting in a cold, no-internet apartment two weeks after you broke up with your first and only boyfriend.

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