Too cold to snow.

If I’d been brave I would’ve looked him in the eye and said that I didn’t want to work with people who didn’t value my time but instead I waited and waited. Twenty minutes late the interview was, and there was I, perpetually early. But the best part of all was that I didn’t really want the job anyway, I found out that I’d gotten another job, a far better job, higher paying and in a college, a man from financial aid called to tell me about it an hour before I ventured out into the negative-five-wind-chill-factor Ohio afternoon. I decided to go to the interview anyway, I had already gussied myself up, ironed the suit and curled the hair, and to hell with them anyway. I knew they’d keep me waiting but I didn’t have to take them seriously, I didn’t have to give a fart about what they thought of me, and there was a delicious victory in knowing that but answering their stupid questions anyway.

Before he let me into the room with the questions and answers the secretary announced to him that I was there, that I had been waiting. He looked at her and said in the most condescending voice he could muster that he knew Ms. J was there, that he had seen me. He left for a trifle longer and the secretary looked at me and we each rolled our eyes and laughed and then he finally called my name, all formal-like, and I walked in wondering why we can’t at least be nice to each other on the surface. This is what the kids see, these meaningless little power struggles. So I answered their questions, knowing full well what an ass he was, thinking that he probably wasn’t listening anyway, and at the end I told a joke and everyone laughed. I got up and left, all of us smiling, and me thinking that I never fucking had to come back here.

Choosing what one does with oneself is a glorious and powerful thing.

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For the holidays I will be warm in spirit and in body because I am going to the Bahamas where the sun always shines, the seas are the color of fluorescent turquoise, and the rivers flow with milk and honey. And if ye are good, and love one another, I will post pictures of the magical tropics when I return. May you all write bravely on, in my absence.