In case you wanted to read/hear an interview I did with Taylor Wizner from Interlochen Public Radio on Tuesday, the link is below. It includes a recording of my poem "Bigfoot Tries to Fix His Daughter's Broken Heart."
Saint Marty is ready for a restful weekend, full of sun. a good book, maybe a good movie.
Well, Saint Patrick's Day started out with a bang this morning. I received a call from my manager at the medical office when I got to work. She told me that I am required to take four hours of lost time per pay period, starting today. If that doesn't make sense, let me translate it for you: I'm going to be losing four more hours every paycheck.
I was sort of expecting the news, but that didn't make it any easier to hear. I am so tired of having conversations that start out, "Well, I have some bad news for you..." Just once, I want someone to start out a conversation with, "I have some milk and cookies for you" or "I have some cash for you to spend any way you like." That would be really nice.
I can't even stress about this new development. It's like having a paper cut on top of a blister. It's all painful.
Other news: I received a phone call for a job interview. It's for another department within the hospital. I posted for the position last week, so that's a pretty quick turnaround. Either my application was really, really impressive, or the department is really, really desperate. Whatever the reason, I have to dust off my interviewing skills. I haven't had to do this in close to 20 years.
My wife told me, "Don't think of it as a make-or-break interview. Think of it as practice."
That didn't help too much.
My question for Wilbur and friends today is:
Am I going to do well at this job interview?
And the answer from the good book of Web is:
"Oh, it's coming all right," she said lightly. "The plan is still in its early stages and hasn't completely shaped up yet, but I'm working on it."
I don't know how to interpret that answer. Charlotte is talking about her plan to save Wilbur's life. She doesn't sound completely sure, but she does communicate a certain confidence that everything's going to turn out for the best.
It never sounds appropriate to say, "Happy Ash Wednesday!" That's sort of like saying, "Did you have a good time at your uncle's funeral?" Happiness doesn't accompany the start of Lent. It's supposed to be a solemn time, full of reflection and meditation. I mean, the ashes smudged on your forehead are supposed to remind you of death and sin. There isn't a jolly fat elf in red fur coming down the chimney this evening.
I'm not going to a church service tonight. I'm fine with that. I've been in a kind of ashy mood for most of the day, anyway. Thinking about my life, job, career, writing, wife, kids. I will admit that I've been feeling a little sorry for myself. This morning, I bit the bullet and applied for a couple of different positions in the hospital. I've been avoiding this step in the job search process. After almost 17 years, I have to find new employment. I have to interview, sell myself. I haven't had to do that for a really long time.
I think, for the past week, I've been pulling an ostrich. Burying my head in the sand, not wanting to confront reality. Unfortunately, I know that won't work forever. So, here I sit, the clock ticking, not knowing what the future holds for me. Some people have told me this past week, "God never shuts a door without opening a window." Well, at the moment, it feels like God's opened a window on the tenth floor and there's a whole lot of hard, cold cement beneath me.
I know that everyone encounters struggles in life. I am not alone. Even the young E. B. White, future New Yorker essayist and beloved children's author, struggled:
He was often on the edge of sadness and fear. The thought of school especially frightened him. As a small child, he threw screaming tantrums, begging to stay home in his beloved family castle instead of entering kindergarten. This battle he naturally lost...
Like White, I know that I'm going to lose this battle. That doesn't mean I won't throw a few more screaming tantrums, beg to stay in my current job. After all, I don't like what's happening, but I can't ignore it either.
Saint Marty will accept it. Do what he has to do. Find a way to be happy.
I am not E. B. White, and this post is not about taking my young son to a cabin on a lake. No, as much as I love White's essay about feeling the cold fingers of death in the nether regions, this post is about something a little less literary, a little more pedestrian. This post is about an interview I have to do this evening.
I was contacted a couple of days ago by the filmmaker doing the PBS documentary on U. P. writers. She wants to interview me again. That's kind of flattering. So, I'm headed down to Lake Superior tonight to get on camera. I'll probably end up on the cutting room floor. (Actually, everything is digital now, so I'll probably end up in the trash box of some computer, waiting for someone to delete me.) Maybe I'll be able to come up with something eloquent and witty to say. Maybe I'll just point at the waves of Lake Superior and say, "Pretty." We'll see.
Saint Marty has to remember to check his fly before the filming begins.
My interview yesterday evening with the woman making the documentary on U. P. writers went really well. I think. We set up near Lake Superior. It was humid and sunny. (I believe Anne Ramsey of Throw Momma from the Train fame would have described it as "sultry.") The interview lasted around 40 minutes. We spoke about poetry and blizzards and bipolar disease. She made me feel pretty smart. She even set up her camera a second time to record a off-hand comment I made about alcoholism and mental illness in the Upper Peninsula. The whole experience was pretty thrilling. We'll see if I actually end up in the finished product.
It is the fourth Thursday of the month, and everyone knows what that means. Well, at least everybody who reads this blog. Well, everybody who reads this blog and pays attention. Well, everybody who...Oh, never mind. Tonight, my book club meets at my house for our monthly gathering, which brings me to today's Dickens quote:
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise is as his own nephew's and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at the same nephew with approving affability.
What follows this paragraph in the book is a description of Fred's annual Christmas party. Games. More laughter. Singing. Food. Scrooge has a helluva time, so much so that, when the Ghost of Christmas Present informs him that they must depart, Scrooge begs the spirit for more time at the gathering. The spirit relents.
The people in my book club love to eat. To talk. To eat some more. Talk some more. Above all, we like to laugh. This month's read was Michael Chabon's The Wonder Boys. Tonight, we will not just be discussing the book. We'll also be watching the movie adaptation with Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire. And we'll be talking and eating and laughing. It promises to be a really good night. Scrooge would have enjoyed himself immensely.
So, as you may be able to tell, my day is off to a good start. Hopefully, it will stay this way.
The Ghost of Christmas Present is looking at Saint Marty with approving affability.
Well, I changed the stained glass of Saint Marty yesterday afternoon. I was getting a little tired of the Flannery O'Connor peacocks. I wanted a look that was a little brighter for the summer months. Although I'm not a big fan of change, I do get tired of the same old blog design day after day. It's like wearing the same outfit for three months solid. At some point, you have to change your socks and underwear.
Which brings me to today's passage from A Christmas Carol:
His hands were busy with his garments all this time: turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.
It is Christmas morning, and Scrooge has just returned from the world of ghosts. He's a little exuberant. In the movie adaptations of this scene, he looks like he's on cocaine or suffering a manic episode. He actually does violence to his clothing.
I can understand Scrooge's difficulty with clothing. This morning, I walked around for almost two hours before somebody pointed out that my shirt wasn't buttoned correctly. Of course, my garment issue wasn't the result of excitement. It was the result of getting dressed at 4:30 a.m. with my eyes practically closed. I'm having a little trouble getting my brain moving. I'm also wearing a shirt I haven't worn in over a year, and I'm not very comfortable in it.
Tonight, I believe I'm being interviewed for a PBS documentary on U. P writers. If everything goes according to plan. That's the reason I'm sort of focused on wardrobe at the moment. I didn't want to wear something that would look like I just stepped out of an episode the The Brady Bunch. I want to look a little classy, a little eccentric, a little unique. You know. I want to look like a poet. Instead, I think I look like I went shopping at Goodwill. Ebenezer Scrooge ain't got nothin' on me.
One time, I did a live interview on TV. When I saw a playback of the interview, I noticed that I sat for the entire half hour with my pant leg stuffed into the top of my sock. I looked like an idiot. Ever since that time, I've been paranoid about my clothing at public events like poetry readings and interviews. I don't want to appear on television with my fly unzipped or my shirt turned inside out. (I've done both of those things in front of audiences.)
That's the extent of my wisdom today. Make sure your fly is zipped, your shirt is buttoned correctly, and your underwear isn't visible.
And, above all, don't pick any wedgies out of your butt. Trust Saint Marty on this.
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping his terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.
Scrooge, confronted by the ghost of his dead business partner, is terrified. Instead of pissing his nightshirt and fainting, which would have been my reaction in the given situation, Scrooge uses another defense mechanism: sarcasm and humor. He makes fun of Jacob Marley's ghost, even taunts him. Of course, Jacob doesn't take very kindly to Scrooge's barbs, and he soon has Scrooge cowering in his chair.
I'm very much like Scrooge when I find myself in uncomfortable places. I use humor to deflect my anxiety. The more nervous I am, the funnier I try to be. Thank goodness, I am blessed with the ability to think pretty quickly on my feet. I use this talent in the classroom, in social situations, in more formal events (like poetry readings or panel discussions), and in interviews. If I start making fun of myself, I'm nervous.
I have to do a podcast interview this afternoon. The interview is to promote the 2012 U. P. Book Tour, of which I'm a part. I'm supposed to talk about the Book Tour and myself, and, I guess, attract/entice people to come to the events I'm appearing at. In the process, I'm also supposed to be witty and charming. It's kind of a tall order. Needless to say, I'm a little nervous about the whole prospect.
The only bright side is that the person doing the interview is someone I know (the brother of a old friend of mine). That makes the process a little less nerve-wracking. That's not to say I won't be a stuttering mess, but at least I'll be stuttering mess with someone I know.
I'm currently dosing myself with caramel-infused brownie, which does absolutely nothing for my jitters except provide a pleasant, sugar-coated caffeine buzz. I contemplating eating two or three more of them. If I do that, I'll either sound like a coke-addict during the interview, or I'll slip into a diabetic coma and miss the entire thing.
Saint Marty needs to find his inner-Johnny Carson today.
