Chicago emerged from the clouds like the place I was meant to be... sun & subway, beached & unbleached, punk chick (pronounced shee-kay) women slantwalking around with their hair vacuumed upwards.

And yet, the feeling caught up with me, perfectly natural for anyone meeting a new locale, of feeling like a complete ass in the unwilds. Way out of place. My clothing closet needs 95% toss. I hate it all. I feel scrungy, bad-haircutted, silly, hopelessly out-classed and out-talented, like I should skip the tucking of tail and simply suck it back into my shrinking spine.

Then again, I still have the nerve to spend a half hour pissed off with a place I applied for a job to, a job that I desperately wanted, mostly because it would pay me to do what I was already interested in, and allow me to focus on writing/editing rather than either a) scrounging around to make a living, or b) teaching (which is wonderful but time-consuming and requires lengthy job-hunting at this point). A few tips for folks who are "hiring":

a) If preference is to be given in-house, make a point of stating this fact in your multiple out-of-house advertisements for the position. I'm not griping about the practice of re-employing current workers--it actually makes sense for a place-dependent publishing--but rather about the practice of not telling us stupidly-hopeful country-bumpkin applicants.

b) If you have already picked the people you are going to interview for a position, use your language directly (we are into language, are we not?) and simply say, "we thank you for your interest, and will keep you in our pool & hope you continue to work with us, but you are not currently one of our choices for the position" rather than "we've picked three applicants to interview and I hope to see all you writers at the group meeting..." It takes three readings to figure out head from tail, leaves room for foolish hope, and is eventually more annoying than the direct approach.

c) Don't rub it in by telling the applicant that your association just doesn't have enough "money," but hopefully we applicatnts don't require "money" (I could actually hear the quotation marks) to make art, political commentary, and a difference in the world. Aside from the fact that I was just looking at the jobs posted, it's rude to insinuate that someone is a money-grubber because they need to make a living, because making a living takes time, and time spent on making a living takes away from time spent on those endeavors that they would prefer to be doing, but can't because they have to make a goddamn living. It's not wrong to want a career in addition to a passion. Aside from that, this is a silly thing to say to someone who has dedicated their life to art and teaching. We ain't here for the money, and we probably have to force ourselves to be responsible about that in the first place.

So, thirty minutes spent internally griping, despite the fact that I'm just a country bumpkin, and truthfully I did feel a bit like an ass for aspiring to a higher position in a publication I've not even been around for too long. But goddamn it, I just don't want to put in a bunch of applications for jobs I'm lukewarm about, and then have to juggle juggle juggle. So maybe the internal gripe is really just my way to reclaim a little control over things. Maybe.

It's just my age-old tendency to partially think: Gee, everyone seems smarter than me. Far more artistic. Creativity flows in their city sass-shey. I should be fishing or something. Planting a garden. Plotting secret attempts to whip P's ass at air hockey. What am I doing in such an erudite city? Will I wear those types of black nicey-framed glasses when I'm done here?

But I'm still forcing myself to walk around like a woman who has fished for seven summers, traveled the world (some of it by herself), taken gambles, fallen on her ass damn hard, and gotten back up again, cares ferocious about her people, and has plenty of spicy thoughts to share with the world. Sass-shey, fon-tay (can you imagine me!). Anyhoo...