From B.A. to Pay Day

Right now, there are currently 280 people who want my job.
Basically, that's like, 280 people who want to be me.
Craziness.

In the four days that my boss posted the job opening, he's gotten over 280 responses. Part of the beauty of giving one-month's notice is that I get to be part of the hiring process--sorta. After going through the first batch of resumes and cover letters, I get to look through them and give my 2 cents. This definitely makes the last year-and-a-half worth it, because, as you know from my past experience as a grader for an undergraduate film class at my alma mater, there's nothing I love more than judging!! In fact, I'd like to think of myself as Judge Karen--the newest addition to the roster of daytime judge shows. Her tagline: Judge Karen-- she has a flair for justice! I mean, just look at her:

She's a judge, dude! Look at her blonde hair--that's a page from the Beyonce book of flair!!*

Anyway, I digress (I can't get over Judge Karen, I had to share).
As I look through some of these cover letters, it utterly baffles me how many people lack a solid foundation in writing--or, at the very least, presentation skills. I had to learn just as much as any beginning woman of color and writer, but until I got my skills down, I wasn't afraid to holla at some spell-check or have mamadukes look it over before I handed it to the massa!

Check out the top five real excerpts from cover letters sent in to the big boss. As you read, keep in mind that this a position for a writer/editor at a magazine--which makes the mistakes even more of a hot mess!

1. "I'm a recent college graduate interest in starting a career in publishing. I am especially interested in being an editorial assistant."

Note to any young, blog-reading, job hunters: if you say you're interested in something, at least make sure you spell "interested." Also, if you don't mention the title of the magazine you want to work for, and simply say you want a foot in the door anywhere, it doesn't look to hot. And I don't know about you, but this opening line does not make me feel special at all. She just wants to use us as a foot in the door--ew. I feel like the ugly girl the guy talks to in order to get to the hotter friend.

2. "During this time I also worked in human rights founding a Gender Studies Club, the goal being to work towards equality and understanding of all individuals."

So what, you think you're better than me, kid?

3. "I managed the workflow of a 15 person team, which I did through exel reports I compiled and sent to outside counterparties."

Um, guys, what is a counterparty?

4. "My mother is a fine artist and my brother is a graphic designer. I grew up surrounded by paintings, art books, museum trips, and quizzes by my father (holding museum postcards) questioning me about which artist created each piece."

Um, is it just me, or do we think she may be applying for this job to make daddy happy? I feel like their relationship is fraught with tension, and she just wants nothing more than to be loved in her family of artists.

Oh, and here's my favorite:

5 . "In addition, I'm a grammar nerd, I organize my life like a crazy person and I seeing a project from beginning to end. Whatever you throw at me, I'll pick it up quickly and immerse myself in it."

For a "grammar nerd" he totally dropped the ball on this sentence.
Unless, by "grammar nerd," he meant, "really big fan of Frasier actor Kelsey Grammar," in which case, I'd like to call him in for an interview.



*(To watch more of Judge Karen's sass, check out the promotional clip here. Do not let a man validate you--holla!)

Picture Day and Randoms

Today is Picture Day on the plantation.
I kid you not.

For some reason, these people won’t just let me leave in peace. I was hoping to slip out, undetected and escape with several padded envelopes and letterhead. Instead, they want us to take some big group photo or something.

I've been scoffing at the youth as they return to school this week, but it turns out it is the blacktress who is now a student! I thought my days of unflattering photos in poor lighting against a tacky backdrop ended when I left Catholic school—I was wrong. Here’s the email we got from boss man:
I would like to publish a group staff photograph, so I thought that before our meeting tomorrow I would take head-and-shoulders photos of each staff member near the window in my office and then a group photograph by the fireplace.

Please let your stylist know you will be photographed tomorrow.

Oh my god, this is going to be so awkward. Just to give you a sense of the setting, my boss’ offices is covered in dark-wood panel and over his inactive fireplace hang some landscape paintings he’s done himself. It’s got a sorta 1970s-Texan-oil-baron-meets-the-Elk-Lodge vibe.

My attempts to look picture-ready today failed, just I did in my youth. Even though I spent much time achieving a buoyant, adult, and professional anchorwoman hairdo, I forgot to put on my contact lenses, so I’m totes looking like the girl in She’s All That. I’m going to have to take them off for the photos, which will end up with me trying hard not to squint, looking blank-eyed and confused in the general direction of the camera.
Good times.

In other news: The Kiwi I dumped texted me yesterday!! Yesterday afternoon, I get a text from a number I didn’t recognize (cause you know his ass has been deleted!), which says the following:
“Lunch tomoro? We will do subway this time.”

Um, is he slower than Trig, the youngest Palin baby?
What part of “let’s stop this foolishness” didn’t he understand? I mean, I naturally assumed he was catching what I was throwing, seeing as I hadn’t heard from him in the TWO WEEKS since that conversation.
And even if he did want to talk about it or actually try to be friends, what sort of incentive is lunching at Subway? I have never once led him to believe I frequent or enjoy that establishment. I don’t want to sit there and watch him eat a $5 footlong on my off time! He’s so out of control, I can’t handle it.

Can you imagine if a woman did that after a guy had dumped her? What if I just called up The Teacher fellow and was like, “Hey, I got two tickets to a UCB show that I you said you wanted to go to back when we were boning. Meet me outside the theater at 7:30?” I would be instantly branded as a PSYCHO CHICK, and the world would know. It would just NOT be acceptable.

I swear to you, the men have gone mad. This also comes on the heels of the IM I received from the texter. It went something like this:
HIM: Are you ignoring me now?
ME: Your text messages weren’t appropriate, and certainly not worth responding to.
HIM: What, you wanted more romance?

Um, if by “romance” he means “respect,” then yes! I love how my lack of a response to the query “why haven’t I fingered you yet?” somehow implies that I’m high-maintenance, or a romantic.

Between these fools and BabyGate ’08, I may never return from Down Under.

Not My Day

If you happened to be walking on 6th Avenue between 58th and 57th street at around 8:47 am this fine Tuesday moring, you would have had the good fortune of seeing my pink-and-blue striped underwear.

Congratu-fuckin’-lations.

If you were a construction worker on the corner of 7th avenue and 59th street, you would have been lucky enough to get a full-frontal view.

This day is not starting off well.

First of all, the children are back in school. Nothing displeases me quite like the return of loud, inappropriate youth to my already painful morning commute.*

SIDEBAR: I don’t know if this shocks you, guys, but the blacktress is quite the curmudgeon. I fully anticipate being that old lady who sits on her porch with a shotgun, telling playful imps to “Stay off my goddamn grass!!” I’ll be living in a house on the end of the block, and on Halloween night, children will dare each other to ring my doorbell.

Anyway, I manage to get a seat and start reading my latest book on Oz when, at 86th street, the underground railroad is brought to a halt. That voice comes over the loudspeaker—oh, I mean unintelligible speaker--and tells us there’s a “sick passenger” and we can’t move until they “get help.”
Listen, sickie—don’t ride the train if you think you might vomit your small intestine!!!
I’m sorry. I’m bitter.

I get in to work--surprisingly only 4 minutes late--and I try to turn my grimace into a smile. I check my work email and receive the following heartbreaking news brief:

Australia Suffering ‘Man-Drought’

I think I know how Sarah Palin must have felt about her prego daughter (BabyGate ’08—never forget!).

Apparently, it is the cities on the coast that are suffering the man-drought (which is pretty ironic, if you ask me). This comes as a blow to the blacktress because I have great plans to be based in one of the major metropolises. Apparently, all the fellas in my target demographic have been LEAVING THE COUNTRY (take, for instance, my dear friend Wally Balls). It is not, in any way, raining men.

Dubai, here I come!!!

Luckily, the higher-ups are helping a blacktress get it together. Check this:
Demographers have compiled a so-called "Love Map" that shows how the various clusters of unattached men and women are distributed across the Australian continent.

I’m assuming this "love map" will be available at all major tourist information centers, and I will use it to track down my one true love—and Bindi Irwin.

As you may know from my previous post on the state of men in Australia, all the hearty blokes are in the outback, and there they outnumber women significantly. I guess this means I’m going to have to face my fear of nature, natural predators, and potential sexual predators, and head to the country for some bush living—and some bush loving. I thought that watching “Bindi the Jungle Girl” on Discovery Kids would help prepare me for my upcoming adventure, but I could barely understand a word she was saying.

But I love her anyway.


*Did I mention I hate my job?

My Very Own Crocodile Hunter / Total Request BLOG

Whoa, guys. Three posts in one-day. I am putting in some serious over-time.
No, seriously, I'm at work after hours.

As you know, this blog can get rather scandalous. As you also know, some people can’t always handle the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the (Sojourner) truth. And, although I’d love some blog traffic (I do have high hopes of becoming an internet celebrity), I don’t go telling every Tom, Dick, and Hairy Dick about my blog. But sometimes I get myself in serious trouble.
See, I have these biz-nass cards, and they pretty have all the information one could ever need to track me down and internet-stalk me—name, email address, phone number, and blog URL. Sometimes, when I’m trying to appear cool and nonchalant, I’ll give a potential suitor my card, and the next thing you know, I’m getting a call that says, “Oh, so you went out with a kiwi.”

Other times, I’m just being conceited and want to show them something funny.

That’s what happened last week when I was talking to my mate--um, let's just call him Wally Balls—which is Australian for “Cool Guy” (you know, the way Foster’s is Australian for “Beer”). He and I met a while back, and you know how I get about a rugged foreign man with an accent. At first, he was playing me like a game of Chinese checkers, all hard-to-get and disinterested, but I reeled him in with my knowledge of quotes from Anchorman and Dodgeball (I think I sealed the deal when I looked in his eyes dreamily and said "You had me at blood and semen.") Finally, we kicked it old school at a bar (The Australian, of course), and didn’t leave until the house lights came on at 2am on a weeknight.
Needless to say, he had love for a blacktress.

Wally Balls is very down with the brown. He played pro basketball in his homeland, and knows the lyrics to a few too many rap songs—but it’s so cute when he gets all “street tough” ‘cause he has that accent of his!

Sorry, I digress.

I think Australian men may be a bit high-maintenance, seeing as Wally Balls is really giving me a hard time about not getting a shout-out in the blacktress's diary—I think it’s cause I mentioned the Kiwi so many times. So, in honor of my dear Australian mate, here’s some TRUTH:

When the Aussie and I first met, I thought it was behoovy of me to have sexual relations with him—you know, so I could do a test-run of Australian men before I headed down under—but now that I’m a man-hating lesbian, it’s not really in the cards.

The thing is, though, I really like hanging out with him and am drawn to him. He is burly. He is foreign. I can sit on his lap. He laughs at my jokes. Like T-Pain (and Jesse McCartney), he’s quick to buy me a drank. And he can hold his liquor far better than I can. Which basically means that after a couple of hours together, I kind of want him to put his P in my V.
This makes things semi-awkward. But I kind of love it.

But I also know that if we ever consummate our magical, tender, interracial love, we will never speak again and it will go from semi-awkward to more awkward than a middle school dance. And I'm trying to live like Mary J.-- no more drama.

There is nothing I love more than a foreign friend. Okay, maybe I love eating carbs more, but it’s still on my list. And certainly, I think sexual tension keeps things fun.

I don’t know, am I crazy?

There, Wally Balls, are you happy now?

BREAKING NEWS -- The Kid's Got Talent

This press release just came to my general-office email. My god, the gems keep rolling in. I don't really know what to say, but I'll try and explain why I think this is so hilarious--if it's not already clear.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

10-Year Old Boy Crowned
the State Fair’s ‘Most Talented Kid’

Wins 3^rd Annual Kids Talent Showcase

Sacramento, CA – The California State Fair today announced that 10-year old Jerry W. won the title of State Fair’s “Most Talented Kid” at the 3^rd annual Kids Talent Showcase on Tuesday, August 26. Jer won over the judges with a soulful rendition of “Listen” from the “Dream Girls” movie soundtrack.*

J. bested 14 other contestants from all over Northern California to claim the title. In addition to the title, he received a prize package that includes a $250 check and the chance to be King for a Day at the State Fair.**

Each of the 15 finalists performed for 3-minutes and the acts ranged from singing to playing instruments, to tumbling and performing karate demonstrations.

“This year’s contestants really demonstrated the breadth of talent found in today’s youth,” said Assistant General Manager at the California State Fair. “We’ve never had such a wide range of unique talents in this competition, and each year the quality of the finalists gets better and better.”

The top four finalists in the competition will share in the prize pool that includes cash and State fair memorabilia.*** The three runners up included: 13-year old Ally L. who sang “I Am” by Nicole C. Mullen, 10-year old Marly D. who sang “Popular” from the Broadway musical “Wicked,” and 6-year old Gaby C. who did acrobatics and tumbling to a medley of music.”****

* I wish Jeremiah was my son. He sang Beyonce. At the age of 10. At the state fair.

**I also love that Jeremiah beat out three girls and will be KING FOR A DAY.

***By "State Fair memorablia," do they mean leftover prizes from the dart games?

****Um, this doesn't seem particularly talented to me. Tumbling? Isn't that just falling and making it look intentional? She's 6--she does that all the time.

Some People Really Don't Like Spam

One of my duties at work (not for much longer, though!) is checking the general email address and replying or forwarding all questions from artists, readers, and general randoms. As many of you already know, most artists are weird and crazy—and turn down no chance to share their “quirkiness” and “creativity.” Take, for instance, the following auto-replies I received from emails about our online survey:

Subject: Yahoo! Auto Response
Message:

I'm in LA visiting Lindsay.Thank goodness for AirTran's Crazy 8's sale on August 8!! Be back September 6. –Shelby

Okay, I need to know why this person would put so much extra information in their auto-response. Who is Lindsay? Am I supposed to care? Is it Lindsay Lohan? If Shelby is indeed visiting drunky/cracky/currently gay starlet Li-Lo, then I need way more details.

Oh, and is it just me, or does the second sentence read like some sort of sponsored content? Do you think AirTran makes you plug them in all emails until you’ve returned from your flight?

Subject: Re: Art Magazine’s Survey.
Message:
September 5th is my birthday, so wish me luck.


The artist wrote this because part of our incentive is a free subscription; winners for this freebie will be announced September 5.

Okay, I know, this isn’t an auto-reply, but isn’t it strange? Does she expect me to reply to this? Do I have to send her a birthday e-card now?


Here’s my absolute favorite:

Subject: This email address has been closed due to spam.
Message:

Regarding your message, RE: Your email requires verification Art Mag’s Mail:



You are trying to reach an email address which is no longer in use due to the deluge of spam I experienced a few years ago.



If you are a friend who is trying to reach me, check your email messages. I probably sent you a message giving you my new email address. If I didn't, type first and last name with a period separating the two. Then add @gmail.com to the end and your message should reach me. If not, give me a call.



If you are a business associate trying to reach me, read the above. I am very sorry for the inconvenience.



If you are a spammer: Bully for you. Your unsolicited garbage overran my email address and caused me all sorts of problems. You now have a private bungalow reserved in the very deepest darkest corner of hell.




OH MY GOD. THIS CHICK IS PISSED. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE “ALL SORTS OF PROBLEMS” WERE??????

The Beginning of Hump Day

As you know, I don’t believe in working many hours in a day. That is because what I have is a job, not a career—I think you know the difference. For those who are confused, let me break it down:

A career is something in which you learn, grow, and advance. It is a series of helpful stepping stones in which you learn valuable skills and pursue a passion.

A job is something which allows you to satisfy your addictions.

I, my friends, have a job. And with having given my one-month notice on Monday, I have a job now more than ever. This means constant g-chatting.

Today’s first chat somehow devolved into randomness a lot faster than normal. However, my craziness is your joy. Read on.

me: i loved andrew dice clay's outfits
and his cameo in Pretty in Pink
K-Dub: oh i love that cameo
me: that movie is my life
i felt as though i was both Andy AND duckie
K-Dub: haha
me: katie, i think duckie started my love of nerdy awkwards
i had the BIGGEST CRUSH on john cryer!
BIGGEST
K-Dub: ahhhh NO
me: but now, when I see him on 2 1/2 men
he doesn't do it for me
i thought he was a gay
but he got married last year to a blonde chick!
but yes, that was the beginning for me
K-Dub: jon!!!! why do you do this???
me: 1986. the beginning of jon cryer and me
and me and awkwards
K-Dub: that must have been it
now i must pinpoint my the origins of my beef craving*
me: hahahahhaa
think back
who was your favorite MMC character?
did you really love AC slater on SBTB?
K-Dub: i did not love AC
hmm
oh!
my first crush was harry connick jr. in memphis belle
not so much on the beef
me: HAHAHAHA
NO WAY
K-Dub: totes
i lurrrved him
as like a 7 year old
oh also
this is way creepy
i had this disney sing a long tape
and harry connick jr. and an animated baloo from the jungle book sang "The Bear Necessities" together
and i was OBSESSED
i was seriously like 7 years old
and i loved him
and watched that shit all the time
i also watched a ton of raiders of the lost arc, so maybe harrison beef?
then i had funny feelings for chris odonnell in the robin suit
me: HAHAHAHHA
oh my god
you are hilarious
bear necessities!
what a great jam
i was all about Disney sing along songs
follow the bouncing ball!
K-Dub: YES
me: (hmm...that could explain my penchant for testicles)
K-Dub: ahahaha
i feel like maybe bear necessities may take on erotic properties for me now
me: hahahhaa
i heart harry connick jr
he has made many bad films great
K-Dub: oh god
wasnt he in some sandy bullock film?
me: YES
HOPE FLOATS
and my hope FLOATED


*by "beef craving," K-Dub is referring to her love for beefy buff dudes with little to no signs of a neck.