WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #18
I wasn’t feeling very happy, even though my clients reiterated my good job “as always,” and my business consultants pointed out my “exemplary resume,” and my creative collaborator liked both web designs I showed him so much he couldn’t choose between them. Ron, my compañero, says happiness isn’t the point.
I made a final Friday afternoon phone call to a newspaper to pick up a last-minute ad for Monday’s deadline and their line was busy. Being without an office in town, I drove towards the nearest south side free internet coffeehouse. But in the middle of traffic I got through to the ad rep and confirmed the placement. Suddenly I was done for the week. I was at a loss as to what I should do next, so I turned around and drove to my dream office (the downstairs corner studio at the Lofts) and parked out front, like a stalker.
I was glad to see that it was still empty, though the leasing agent told me yesterday there were some people looking at it. The rose bushes out front have leafed out and I recognized a Russian sage in front of the windows. I counted seven aspen and wondered how long they would last on the south side of the building in full summer sun. I got out and walked past the office, looking for any signs of future inhabitation. The bird’s nest in the light over the front door was cleaned out. A stray plastic bag was caught in the bushes and I pulled it away. I walked through the courtyard of the other buildings, much more lush and community-feeling than my on-the-street sunny office. For once I considered the possibility of a different office, that there could be a better option if 714F was rented.
I drove the back road to Borders to indulge myself in a latte and a chocolate biscotti. Sitting at the only clear table I was directly across from the latest Sports Illustrated cover, the one with 12 models in white bikini bottoms. Lined up sideways and close together, they held their hands or arms over their naked breasts. What, I wondered, do men see in this? Yes, physical beauty of one type, but what is in it for them? My femme brain immediately turned the picture around and had 12 guys all so similar you couldn’t tell them apart except for their hair color posed in a tight line on a beach in white string Speedos. Nope. Doesn’t do it for me.
My muse has a field day suggesting a novel based on a photographer who sets up a bikini shoot as the last cheesy shot he ever does. It sickens him so much he sells all his studio gear and keeps one high-end digital camera, books himself on a flight to record the refugees from Darfur and becomes embroiled in a death-plot, miraculously escaping with his life and a kidnapped peace activist.
Oh, shut up, I tell my muse, leaving the table to stroll through the aisles of books. If I buy you a book will you leave me alone?
No, not a political book, she whines as I pick up Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. How about another book from that Girl with a Pearl Earring writer? Her last name started with a “C” and I walk over to the fiction.
As I look down the rows of books, I see an ambulance out the window, lights flashing, an orange motorcycle on its side in the street. I stand behind two people who say the accident just happened. I am mesmerized by how clean the store window is: not a spot on it, and how big it is: fully five feet across, and how the frame is painted red: matching the trim of the ambulance. The scene outside is completely silent from inside. There are officers walking around and medics with blue plastic gloves taking a stretcher out of the back doors, the legs expanding so the wheels hit the asphalt. Cars stream by in the two remaining lanes, so many of them shiny SUVs.
Soon a fire truck appears, blocking the turned over bike, and reinforcing the red color on the ambulance and the window frame. It is too pretty a picture. I am thinking about Ron’s accident on March 1. Were their flashing lights? Gawkers? I remember he said he first realized the enormity of what had happened to him when they had him on the stretcher ready to go to the hospital for tests.
A tall man with a black hat and silver hatband, black jeans and scuffed boots walks into the frame, watching the scene. The medics are blocked by the fire truck, lifting someone onto a stretcher. A pedestrian is given a thick jacket with logo “rockers” in gold to carry. They wheel the injured man into the back. There is no red blood on him or the blanket covering him.
I turn away from the window. On the endcap of the aisle is a book cover with eyes staring at me. It is the Dalai Lama. He isn’t smiling, exactly, but his mouth is open just a little, mirroring mine, like we had just bumped into each other. The title is, The Art of Happiness. I know a sign when I see it. I pick up the book, find an unoccupied chair and read the introduction.
But I can’t concentrate. Salesmen make jokes and teenagers pass curse words back and forth. I need a library, an office. I have an economic fight with myself to buy either the femme book or the religious book. I don’t win. I decide to be reckless and get both, plus a new journal.
At the cash register, the sales girl asks if I have a coupon. Oh, I do, but not for today, I sigh. She gives me a 30% discount anyway and I have to ask her why. Because you didn’t have yours for today, she says simply. That’s very nice of you, I remark. When I look at my receipt later I am amused: “Art of Happiness, 30% coupon.”
I sit in my car which is facing Cerrillos Road and watch as police hold back traffic with their hands and use their chalk wheel to gauge the accident site. I also notice for the first time a brown pickup and the dent in its driver’s side door. And the driver, a skinny kid with a long tan sweater talking on his cell phone.
I call home and tell Ron I am not in a good mood and that I don’t want to come home and take it out on everyone. He hesitates but says OK. I drive north to finish my banking at the ATM and look up at the hills. The sky is getting dark, but the clouds are moving away and there is snow in the hills. Real snow. Real close. I drive north. My muse jumps up and down with delight. Be quiet back there, I demand.
At first the road is wet and steaming on the way up to the ski basin. The willow and elms give way to rock walls and canyons of ponderosa pine. The scant white dusting turns into mild slush and not long after, heavy boughs hung with white. So recent: fresh, clean snow. I imagine putting my face into the snow, rolling in it, eating it. Maybe this is the feeling men have when looking at women in bikinis: Mine! All mine!
I drive higher and higher. Ahead of me is an ugly pickup spray-painted flat black. We drop gears and snake around curves. I think I will make it up to Aspen Vista, but there may not be enough pine boughs to stand under and shake. The light is fading and the few cars coming down are negotiating the incline slowly. Behind me the bit of sky between clouds is rosy pink. I decide to pull off at the next turn around and then miss it. Next one, I say.
I see it up ahead, slow down into first and look around before pulling off. I cut the engine and lights, open the door and step down into deep snow. I scrunch around to the edge of the turn-off and throw myself down the hill, running through drifts, falling and rolling, eating handfuls of snow from branches, shaking snow down my neck, washing my face in snow, whooping with cold.
I wander through the trees, no animal tracks, just me. I start to worry about finding my way back then laugh: there are my tracks, clear in the blue-white, black-white, serene snow. Under my boot tracks the rich black earth crumbles like double-chocolate cake under wedding-white icing.
I come to the edge of a steep cliff and look down. I look up. So quiet. Pines don’t get excited over snow. I sigh with deep contentment. I’m as happy as Augustus Gloop at the chocolate waterfall. Ha, there’s that word: happy.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Sunday, April 23, 2006
crossing to bordertown
WEEKLY WRITER'S BEND IN THE PATH #17
5/8/05 9:48 AM
[FADE IN. CAR HUMM NOISE IN BACKGROUND. RADIO CHOIR MUSIC.]
It’s May 7th? No, it’s May 8th, Sunday and I am speeding south on I25 to Albuquerque just hitting La Bajada. I’m going to Albuquerque to interview for a position today and it’s pretty exciting but very scary. It is the production secretary for a new independent film called “Bordertown.” I’m going to meet with the production coordinator at 11. It’s about 9:50, it’s about ten ‘til ten. I’m trying to get there early in case I get lost. I will find my way to Studio 41 at 4121. . . is it Carlisle? No, Culver I think.
So this could be a real change for me. From what I can tell talking to Carol yesterday, it is a five week preproduction schedule and an eighteen day shoot schedule which could stretch out to nine weeks. Nine weeks! And the pay is $600 a week. I would get an extra $50 for having my laptop, Macintosh, my “kit.” (I’m so proud it’s considered a kit.)
There are a lot of good reasons for me to be trying to move into this industry and I never would have thought I would have the opportunity to even think about it. One is that my early love was film. I made two films when I was 18. The Ravel film and the one that used the soundtrack from “Ain’t MisBehavin;”, “I’m Feelin’ Black and Blue,” and it was about slush. Chicago slush. I even put in the soundtrack. I spliced in physically actually spliced in with a razor blade the soundtrack and I’ve been interested in film ever since. In 2000 for two years I tried to make “Singing Onegin,” the opera documentary— spent a lot of time with that.
So this position is called production secretary and from what Carol told me yesterday, it is mostly publishing an interactive schedule. I don’t know if it’s online or through software that this media group uses and I guess the feeling is that that is my primary job. The hours are long—12 to 16 hours a day, can be 12 to 16. She doesn’t know if the production office actually needs to be open in the evenings. It depends on if there is a night shoot. All this verbiage is just so exciting to me! I’m thrilled. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to her.
It poses quite a few problems, though, with the family. $600 a week, even if it’s $650 is, let’s see, $1300 a paycheck if I have no taxes taken out, right? That’s gross. Right now I net $2100 a paycheck. So that’s like, two-thirds. But, when I first heard about this job I thought it may be out-of-town, it may be totally free, it may not even be a paid position. But this certainly sounds like a good paid position. Sue Jett is the producer, or one of the producers, and from what I could tell on the internet, “Bordertown” is about a journalist who . . .it’s based on the stories of people dying near the border because of factory illegal chemical dumping? And it stars these famous personalities: J Lo and Antonio Banderas, so, you know, there’s money there.
The fact that it’s . . . wait, I must gross 24, so UGH! It’s not even two-thirds of what I make now. That’s tricky, that’s really tricky. And the fact that it is an ending job and I would be freelancing afterwards is another tricky thing. But I just see this as an incredible opportunity and I would love to get out of Impressions and that’s why I started recording in the first place, to discuss how disgusted I was with my job. So I am on my way to meet Carol at Studio 41 and I will be back with you to tell you what happens.
later . . .
[UNBELIEVABLE: VIOLENT FEMS]
So I kind of fucked up, I maybe fucked up, but hopefully I didn’t. I got to Cutler, to the studio, and I was five minutes early and the gate was locked so I called Carol on my cell phone and she said, Not today! Tomorrow, Monday! And I don’t know where I found the balls to answer her, just honesty, I guess, I said, I can’t come tomorrow, I have to work. But she didn’t hesitate, she just said, OK, well, I’m shopping, why don’t you grab a coffee and we’ll meet you at the studio in an hour.
I found the Rocket café and jittered away an hour, but I didn’t have caffeine. Not long after I got back to the studio, one of those fancy, Chrysler PT Cruiser pulls up with two women in it, one gets out and undoes the padlock and I follow them into the lot.
I apologized to the woman driving when she got out, it was Carol. She waved it off. Carol is short, and I mean shorter than me, wispy red hair, almost freckles, a very straight, no nonsense attitude. Carol is the production coordinator, and introduced me to her assistant coordinator, Barbara. They took a while to find the right key. On the steel door was a copied sign with the “t” in Bordertown a cross like on a grave. It was cool in the building and we sat in an almost empty reception area.
I knew it was going to be fine from those first minutes. Carol explained a little more about the film story—the maquiadoras, factories on the border—and about the position. I showed them the chart of accounts from the agency for proof of how much I could handle, and some spreadsheets I use for budgeting. I got them talking about what would be new to me and they opened up, explaining things in a friendly, teaching way, and so I really got the idea that they would be fine with someone who didn’t know the ropes—they’d show me.
The biggest blow was the timing. They have to know in a day, and the position needs to start in three days. By Wednesday. By Wednesday my whole life could turn around.
I left, shook hands, got out of their hair in less than 40 minutes. I feel good. I’ve had enough interviews—I’ve interviewed enough people—to know when it feels right. So I’m going to the office to grab my books and my pens and all the stuff I personally paid for because Russ wouldn’t and I am going to pack it up. Because if this doesn’t happen, I am ready to get out anyway. Something else will be right on its heels that will spring me, because it just really feels like it is time to go.
6:30 PM
[PHONE RECORDINGS. BUTTONS BEING PUSHED. PHONE OPERATOR’S FRIENDLY VOICE.]
Sorry you’re having trouble. Please try again later. Goodbye.
[BUTTONS BEING PUSHED.]
Please enter your . .
[ BUTTONS. MUSIC FROM OPERA, SOPHIE’S CHOICE IN BACKGROUND. MY VOICE.]
Hi, you’ve reached Impressions Advertising in Santa Fe and the office of Melissa White. I’m not in right now, so please leave me a message and I’ll call you back as soon as possible.
[OPERATOR] Please enter your security code.
[BUTTONS.] I’m sorry. 6 6 1 1 is not valid. Please reenter your . . .You have no unheard messages. First saved message. Sent Friday, March 11 at 3:12 pm.
Hi, Melissa, it’s Eric with American Web calling. I just wanted to get back to you on doing the machine-bound books we actually do not have a way of doing that, my bindery man . . .
End of Message. [BUTTON.] Message erased. Next message. Sent Wednesday, March 16th at 10:06am.
Hi, Melissa, it’s Eric with American Web . . .
End of Mess . . .Message erased. Next Message. Sent Wednesday March 16 at 10:22 am.
Hi, Melissa, this is John Carver. [BABY TALKING IN BACKGROUND.] I came in this morning to . . .
End of Message. Message Erased. Next message. Sent Tuesday, March 22nd at 8:58 am.
Hi, Melissa, this is Shawn Bender from “All Together” Advertising . . .
End of Message. Message erased. Next message. Sent Thursday March 31st, at 1:41 pm.
Melissa this is Dr. Cox. My number is 982 . . .
End of message. Message erased. Next message. Sent Friday, April 1st at 10:54am.
Melissa Hi this is Jennifer Griswold I work for Paul Marcos you sent an email regarding some images he’s got on his AZ Photobook. If you could please give me a call . . .
End of . . .Message erased. Next message. Sent Monday April 4th at 1:02pm.
Hey, Melissa, this is Richard Abernathy. I got that pdf . . .
End of . . .Message erased. Next message Tuesday April 5th at 5:30pm.
Hi Melissa my name is Shannon Royce. I was talkin’ to Russ and he forwarded me to you. I have been in discussion, I live in Scottsdale Arizona and I have been talking to Trish about Scottsdale Seclusions. I wonder. . .
End of. . . Message erased. Next message. Sent Wednesday April 13th at 12:12pm.
Hi, Melissa, it’s Eric with American Web calling. Hey, I’m out of the office for . . .
End of . . . Message erased. End of messages. Main menu. To send a message, press two. For personal options . . .
[PHONE HANGS UP.]
5/10/05 8:49 AM
[TALKING ON CAR RADIO. FADES.]
It’s Tuesday morning on May 10th and I’m driving to work. Today is going to be my last day at Impressions. I don’t know if it’s going to be for two months or forever. Tomorrow I start working on “Bordertown” (with J Lo and Antonio!)
The call came in yesterday. I was having lunch with Ron at Tia’s and we hadn’t even ordered yet, we were just sitting down in a booth and Carol Keith called me and I took the phone outside and said how much I enjoyed meeting with her Sunday and she said, So. Would you like to come work with us, Melissa? And I said I would.
About 4:30 I checked in with Russ and asked him if he was rushing out the door at 5. He said, no he was rushing out the door at 5:30. So at one point during the afternoon, I went to Sav-On and bought a bottle of Gentleman’s whiskey. I had told Russ I wanted to talk to him about Sarah who’s our part-time person and the Chamber Music Program book. When I came into his office at 5, I brought the bottle of whiskey and two glasses and put them on his desk and peeled the plastic off the bottle top and said, I have a favor to ask. so I brought you a present. We drank our shots. I drank most of mine in one gulp and he drank about half of his. Then I said, I need some time off. And he said, well, you know, John’s been here a year and he hasn’t had any time off and we have to think about him. How much time off do you want? And I said, Nine weeks. His eyes just bugged out of his head and he said, Starting when? And I picked up my glass and motioned for him to pick up his and said, Cheers and said, Starting Wednesday.
He pretty much didn’t have anything to say for the rest of that meeting. I explained to him that I hadn’t been looking for a position but this just came up and I interviewed with them Sunday and they offered it to me on Monday and it starts on Wednesday and I wanted to take a leave of absence. This was my brother David’s idea. I called him yesterday morning and I had already written my resignation letter to Russ and brought it with me. But Dave suggested that I do a leave of absence mostly just because the film industry is just not, you know, it might not be busy enough really for me to find something after this one’s done. Although actually I was going to take that risk because I know there’s another film coming into New Mexico in the fall and you have to have a certain number of your crew as New Mexico residents in order to get the full Governor Bill Richardson tax cuts and benefits. So I was ready to take the risk, then I talked to my brother and I thought, well, asking Russ for a leave of absence is probably a lot nicer and a lot smoother and he doesn’t have to tell people I’m gone. And maybe I can come back and maybe that’s how it will work. And I can also bring back tons of information. Now whether Russ really believes me and whether I can come back is what I’m going to find out today.
So . . . I’m pretty excited. I can even wait until we’re out of preproduction before I have to get there really early. I can drop the kids off at 7:30 at school and get there by 8:30 and I think that’s going to work for them for the next 4 weeks.
So today. Let’s see. I guess the good thing yesterday is that he didn’t ask me to turn in my key right then although he may do that this morning and I’m ready. I did have to tell him who offered me the job. When I told him it was in the film industry, I said, It’s Sue Jett’s film. Because what happened was last week, Russ came into my office and he was the one who told me about the position, about Sue Jett’s needing a PA with a lot of computer experience. Well I told him yesterday, I said, Russ, this isn’t just a PA job, it’s not a little gopher job, it’s the production secretary—for the production. Certainly it’s not a big important job, it’s important but well, you know, it’s halfway decently paid. Anyway I talked on and on about how Sarah can work 20 hours and how in two months I’d be back, and when I told him it was Sue Jett’s movie he made this kind of, HUNH! kind of sound almost like Homer Simpson hitting his head and going, Dope! Because really that’s what happened. He was a dope for telling me, I guess is how he thinks of it. And after that he didn’t say a word. He was fuming inside and staring at me with these eyes that were really intense and mad and you know . . . I don’t know.
[SIREN IN BACKGROUND.]
I know it was a shock. I told him I’d understand if he didn’t want to give me a leave of absence. But you know, last night, I was filing my papers and stuff and I went back and I found a file that I had labeled Job Satisfaction and a memo I had given Russ on February 14 of this year and it was really well written and it was very honest and it said, This is what happened two years ago: I had no help, I was working 60 hours a week or 70, and this last year now that John has come on it’s been smoother but there are things that I’m feeling need to improve at my job for me and they were very reasonable things, like I need extra help, the office needs to be cleaned it’s depressing, like nobody ever washes the windows but me. I didn’t put that in the note. But I just listed all these things, like I hadn’t had a raise in two years and the annual rate of raises is 3.6%.
[JAZZ ON CAR RADIO.]
And I also listed what I really liked about my job, too. That it was local clients, I had a great office, it was pretty, and it was downtown. But as I went through the list, the computer upgrades, the necessary help, the only thing I got was an extra person. Russ did OK there, saying Sarah could come in and help me. But nothing else was even talked about or looked at or considered. I mean he never got back to me on any of this stuff. And since that time we’ve had some real big arguments about how much we pay photographers or why is Chris . . . Ron calls her the Doorstop. Why is she still there? He has been making her do a lot more work but only after years of me complaining about it. So I look at what I’m doing to Russ now and I’m like, He got warned. He was totally warned.
So I guess what I think will happen is I will go in today and I’m only like 3 minutes away and it’ll be very uncomfortable and I’ll have to say, You know, I’ve asked Sarah to come in at 1:00 so I can show her what to do with the program book, is that OK? And he’ll just shrug his shoulders, or he’ll grunt or, you know, with his excessively great communication skills he’ll indicate whether it’s OK or not and that’s how it’ll end and he won’t say Good luck like John did. I told John yesterday and he was totally supportive, you know, he knows someone who writes music for the film industry and he knows you’ve got to take it when it comes. You’ve got to take the job when it’s offered to you. If you start turning down jobs, you won’t get any. And he was very supportive. He said, You know, Melissa, I was in a job for 10 years, I was a partner, and I was going to be part owner, and they never made me part owner and they never followed up with all the thinks they were going to do for me and I got tons of job offers during that time because it was when pdfs were just being created and used and administered and he was an expert in it and he kept his loyalty to the company and it did not pay off for him. So he was like, You’ve gotta do what you want to do in this life and he was great.
All right. It’s May 10. It’s 9:00. Time to face the music. Talk to you later.
5/8/05 9:48 AM
[FADE IN. CAR HUMM NOISE IN BACKGROUND. RADIO CHOIR MUSIC.]
It’s May 7th? No, it’s May 8th, Sunday and I am speeding south on I25 to Albuquerque just hitting La Bajada. I’m going to Albuquerque to interview for a position today and it’s pretty exciting but very scary. It is the production secretary for a new independent film called “Bordertown.” I’m going to meet with the production coordinator at 11. It’s about 9:50, it’s about ten ‘til ten. I’m trying to get there early in case I get lost. I will find my way to Studio 41 at 4121. . . is it Carlisle? No, Culver I think.
So this could be a real change for me. From what I can tell talking to Carol yesterday, it is a five week preproduction schedule and an eighteen day shoot schedule which could stretch out to nine weeks. Nine weeks! And the pay is $600 a week. I would get an extra $50 for having my laptop, Macintosh, my “kit.” (I’m so proud it’s considered a kit.)
There are a lot of good reasons for me to be trying to move into this industry and I never would have thought I would have the opportunity to even think about it. One is that my early love was film. I made two films when I was 18. The Ravel film and the one that used the soundtrack from “Ain’t MisBehavin;”, “I’m Feelin’ Black and Blue,” and it was about slush. Chicago slush. I even put in the soundtrack. I spliced in physically actually spliced in with a razor blade the soundtrack and I’ve been interested in film ever since. In 2000 for two years I tried to make “Singing Onegin,” the opera documentary— spent a lot of time with that.
So this position is called production secretary and from what Carol told me yesterday, it is mostly publishing an interactive schedule. I don’t know if it’s online or through software that this media group uses and I guess the feeling is that that is my primary job. The hours are long—12 to 16 hours a day, can be 12 to 16. She doesn’t know if the production office actually needs to be open in the evenings. It depends on if there is a night shoot. All this verbiage is just so exciting to me! I’m thrilled. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to her.
It poses quite a few problems, though, with the family. $600 a week, even if it’s $650 is, let’s see, $1300 a paycheck if I have no taxes taken out, right? That’s gross. Right now I net $2100 a paycheck. So that’s like, two-thirds. But, when I first heard about this job I thought it may be out-of-town, it may be totally free, it may not even be a paid position. But this certainly sounds like a good paid position. Sue Jett is the producer, or one of the producers, and from what I could tell on the internet, “Bordertown” is about a journalist who . . .it’s based on the stories of people dying near the border because of factory illegal chemical dumping? And it stars these famous personalities: J Lo and Antonio Banderas, so, you know, there’s money there.
The fact that it’s . . . wait, I must gross 24, so UGH! It’s not even two-thirds of what I make now. That’s tricky, that’s really tricky. And the fact that it is an ending job and I would be freelancing afterwards is another tricky thing. But I just see this as an incredible opportunity and I would love to get out of Impressions and that’s why I started recording in the first place, to discuss how disgusted I was with my job. So I am on my way to meet Carol at Studio 41 and I will be back with you to tell you what happens.
later . . .
[UNBELIEVABLE: VIOLENT FEMS]
So I kind of fucked up, I maybe fucked up, but hopefully I didn’t. I got to Cutler, to the studio, and I was five minutes early and the gate was locked so I called Carol on my cell phone and she said, Not today! Tomorrow, Monday! And I don’t know where I found the balls to answer her, just honesty, I guess, I said, I can’t come tomorrow, I have to work. But she didn’t hesitate, she just said, OK, well, I’m shopping, why don’t you grab a coffee and we’ll meet you at the studio in an hour.
I found the Rocket café and jittered away an hour, but I didn’t have caffeine. Not long after I got back to the studio, one of those fancy, Chrysler PT Cruiser pulls up with two women in it, one gets out and undoes the padlock and I follow them into the lot.
I apologized to the woman driving when she got out, it was Carol. She waved it off. Carol is short, and I mean shorter than me, wispy red hair, almost freckles, a very straight, no nonsense attitude. Carol is the production coordinator, and introduced me to her assistant coordinator, Barbara. They took a while to find the right key. On the steel door was a copied sign with the “t” in Bordertown a cross like on a grave. It was cool in the building and we sat in an almost empty reception area.
I knew it was going to be fine from those first minutes. Carol explained a little more about the film story—the maquiadoras, factories on the border—and about the position. I showed them the chart of accounts from the agency for proof of how much I could handle, and some spreadsheets I use for budgeting. I got them talking about what would be new to me and they opened up, explaining things in a friendly, teaching way, and so I really got the idea that they would be fine with someone who didn’t know the ropes—they’d show me.
The biggest blow was the timing. They have to know in a day, and the position needs to start in three days. By Wednesday. By Wednesday my whole life could turn around.
I left, shook hands, got out of their hair in less than 40 minutes. I feel good. I’ve had enough interviews—I’ve interviewed enough people—to know when it feels right. So I’m going to the office to grab my books and my pens and all the stuff I personally paid for because Russ wouldn’t and I am going to pack it up. Because if this doesn’t happen, I am ready to get out anyway. Something else will be right on its heels that will spring me, because it just really feels like it is time to go.
6:30 PM
[PHONE RECORDINGS. BUTTONS BEING PUSHED. PHONE OPERATOR’S FRIENDLY VOICE.]
Sorry you’re having trouble. Please try again later. Goodbye.
[BUTTONS BEING PUSHED.]
Please enter your . .
[ BUTTONS. MUSIC FROM OPERA, SOPHIE’S CHOICE IN BACKGROUND. MY VOICE.]
Hi, you’ve reached Impressions Advertising in Santa Fe and the office of Melissa White. I’m not in right now, so please leave me a message and I’ll call you back as soon as possible.
[OPERATOR] Please enter your security code.
[BUTTONS.] I’m sorry. 6 6 1 1 is not valid. Please reenter your . . .You have no unheard messages. First saved message. Sent Friday, March 11 at 3:12 pm.
Hi, Melissa, it’s Eric with American Web calling. I just wanted to get back to you on doing the machine-bound books we actually do not have a way of doing that, my bindery man . . .
End of Message. [BUTTON.] Message erased. Next message. Sent Wednesday, March 16th at 10:06am.
Hi, Melissa, it’s Eric with American Web . . .
End of Mess . . .Message erased. Next Message. Sent Wednesday March 16 at 10:22 am.
Hi, Melissa, this is John Carver. [BABY TALKING IN BACKGROUND.] I came in this morning to . . .
End of Message. Message Erased. Next message. Sent Tuesday, March 22nd at 8:58 am.
Hi, Melissa, this is Shawn Bender from “All Together” Advertising . . .
End of Message. Message erased. Next message. Sent Thursday March 31st, at 1:41 pm.
Melissa this is Dr. Cox. My number is 982 . . .
End of message. Message erased. Next message. Sent Friday, April 1st at 10:54am.
Melissa Hi this is Jennifer Griswold I work for Paul Marcos you sent an email regarding some images he’s got on his AZ Photobook. If you could please give me a call . . .
End of . . .Message erased. Next message. Sent Monday April 4th at 1:02pm.
Hey, Melissa, this is Richard Abernathy. I got that pdf . . .
End of . . .Message erased. Next message Tuesday April 5th at 5:30pm.
Hi Melissa my name is Shannon Royce. I was talkin’ to Russ and he forwarded me to you. I have been in discussion, I live in Scottsdale Arizona and I have been talking to Trish about Scottsdale Seclusions. I wonder. . .
End of. . . Message erased. Next message. Sent Wednesday April 13th at 12:12pm.
Hi, Melissa, it’s Eric with American Web calling. Hey, I’m out of the office for . . .
End of . . . Message erased. End of messages. Main menu. To send a message, press two. For personal options . . .
[PHONE HANGS UP.]
5/10/05 8:49 AM
[TALKING ON CAR RADIO. FADES.]
It’s Tuesday morning on May 10th and I’m driving to work. Today is going to be my last day at Impressions. I don’t know if it’s going to be for two months or forever. Tomorrow I start working on “Bordertown” (with J Lo and Antonio!)
The call came in yesterday. I was having lunch with Ron at Tia’s and we hadn’t even ordered yet, we were just sitting down in a booth and Carol Keith called me and I took the phone outside and said how much I enjoyed meeting with her Sunday and she said, So. Would you like to come work with us, Melissa? And I said I would.
About 4:30 I checked in with Russ and asked him if he was rushing out the door at 5. He said, no he was rushing out the door at 5:30. So at one point during the afternoon, I went to Sav-On and bought a bottle of Gentleman’s whiskey. I had told Russ I wanted to talk to him about Sarah who’s our part-time person and the Chamber Music Program book. When I came into his office at 5, I brought the bottle of whiskey and two glasses and put them on his desk and peeled the plastic off the bottle top and said, I have a favor to ask. so I brought you a present. We drank our shots. I drank most of mine in one gulp and he drank about half of his. Then I said, I need some time off. And he said, well, you know, John’s been here a year and he hasn’t had any time off and we have to think about him. How much time off do you want? And I said, Nine weeks. His eyes just bugged out of his head and he said, Starting when? And I picked up my glass and motioned for him to pick up his and said, Cheers and said, Starting Wednesday.
He pretty much didn’t have anything to say for the rest of that meeting. I explained to him that I hadn’t been looking for a position but this just came up and I interviewed with them Sunday and they offered it to me on Monday and it starts on Wednesday and I wanted to take a leave of absence. This was my brother David’s idea. I called him yesterday morning and I had already written my resignation letter to Russ and brought it with me. But Dave suggested that I do a leave of absence mostly just because the film industry is just not, you know, it might not be busy enough really for me to find something after this one’s done. Although actually I was going to take that risk because I know there’s another film coming into New Mexico in the fall and you have to have a certain number of your crew as New Mexico residents in order to get the full Governor Bill Richardson tax cuts and benefits. So I was ready to take the risk, then I talked to my brother and I thought, well, asking Russ for a leave of absence is probably a lot nicer and a lot smoother and he doesn’t have to tell people I’m gone. And maybe I can come back and maybe that’s how it will work. And I can also bring back tons of information. Now whether Russ really believes me and whether I can come back is what I’m going to find out today.
So . . . I’m pretty excited. I can even wait until we’re out of preproduction before I have to get there really early. I can drop the kids off at 7:30 at school and get there by 8:30 and I think that’s going to work for them for the next 4 weeks.
So today. Let’s see. I guess the good thing yesterday is that he didn’t ask me to turn in my key right then although he may do that this morning and I’m ready. I did have to tell him who offered me the job. When I told him it was in the film industry, I said, It’s Sue Jett’s film. Because what happened was last week, Russ came into my office and he was the one who told me about the position, about Sue Jett’s needing a PA with a lot of computer experience. Well I told him yesterday, I said, Russ, this isn’t just a PA job, it’s not a little gopher job, it’s the production secretary—for the production. Certainly it’s not a big important job, it’s important but well, you know, it’s halfway decently paid. Anyway I talked on and on about how Sarah can work 20 hours and how in two months I’d be back, and when I told him it was Sue Jett’s movie he made this kind of, HUNH! kind of sound almost like Homer Simpson hitting his head and going, Dope! Because really that’s what happened. He was a dope for telling me, I guess is how he thinks of it. And after that he didn’t say a word. He was fuming inside and staring at me with these eyes that were really intense and mad and you know . . . I don’t know.
[SIREN IN BACKGROUND.]
I know it was a shock. I told him I’d understand if he didn’t want to give me a leave of absence. But you know, last night, I was filing my papers and stuff and I went back and I found a file that I had labeled Job Satisfaction and a memo I had given Russ on February 14 of this year and it was really well written and it was very honest and it said, This is what happened two years ago: I had no help, I was working 60 hours a week or 70, and this last year now that John has come on it’s been smoother but there are things that I’m feeling need to improve at my job for me and they were very reasonable things, like I need extra help, the office needs to be cleaned it’s depressing, like nobody ever washes the windows but me. I didn’t put that in the note. But I just listed all these things, like I hadn’t had a raise in two years and the annual rate of raises is 3.6%.
[JAZZ ON CAR RADIO.]
And I also listed what I really liked about my job, too. That it was local clients, I had a great office, it was pretty, and it was downtown. But as I went through the list, the computer upgrades, the necessary help, the only thing I got was an extra person. Russ did OK there, saying Sarah could come in and help me. But nothing else was even talked about or looked at or considered. I mean he never got back to me on any of this stuff. And since that time we’ve had some real big arguments about how much we pay photographers or why is Chris . . . Ron calls her the Doorstop. Why is she still there? He has been making her do a lot more work but only after years of me complaining about it. So I look at what I’m doing to Russ now and I’m like, He got warned. He was totally warned.
So I guess what I think will happen is I will go in today and I’m only like 3 minutes away and it’ll be very uncomfortable and I’ll have to say, You know, I’ve asked Sarah to come in at 1:00 so I can show her what to do with the program book, is that OK? And he’ll just shrug his shoulders, or he’ll grunt or, you know, with his excessively great communication skills he’ll indicate whether it’s OK or not and that’s how it’ll end and he won’t say Good luck like John did. I told John yesterday and he was totally supportive, you know, he knows someone who writes music for the film industry and he knows you’ve got to take it when it comes. You’ve got to take the job when it’s offered to you. If you start turning down jobs, you won’t get any. And he was very supportive. He said, You know, Melissa, I was in a job for 10 years, I was a partner, and I was going to be part owner, and they never made me part owner and they never followed up with all the thinks they were going to do for me and I got tons of job offers during that time because it was when pdfs were just being created and used and administered and he was an expert in it and he kept his loyalty to the company and it did not pay off for him. So he was like, You’ve gotta do what you want to do in this life and he was great.
All right. It’s May 10. It’s 9:00. Time to face the music. Talk to you later.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
what's different
WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #16
Sitting in the sun outside the music building at St. John’s College. A fly. Imagine that. How I would love to be as carefree as when I used to be a student here. What’s different in twenty-five years? Twenty pounds. A laptop computer. That creeping crawl of age in face and step and political leaning. That unruly hair that glints silver from a part of chocolate brown and brassy orange. What’s different? My 16-year-old daughter enrolled in the Shakespeare community seminar, “The Merchant of Venice.”
[So what did you talk about tonight? I will ask later. Whether revenge is worth it. And what did you decide—is it? Not in the end, but it feels really good at first.]
What’s different? All those elastic years in between that accumulate so heavily, then fall away so easily in this gentle spring wind.
Here’s what’s different: this weathered teak table in this sunny spot wasn’t here when I was a student. The enormous two-story library wasn’t built, or the gym, or the extra upper dorms. The scratchy flat leaves of hollyhocks are new, and the twining chalk-white stalks and budding green leaves of this tall bush next to me.
[A couple walking by: We got our Language paper assignment. So did we. Did you decide what you’re going to do? I was thinking about the option of writing a sonnet. Writing your own sonnet might be hard.]
That ponderosa pine was surely here twenty-five years ago. And the chords flowing out of the music building—not the plucked hesitancy of a new student, but a ponderous melody being practiced—have that timeless mark of youth and age mixed together.
[Colin calls my cell phone—which I didn’t have as a student—to ask if I want to go to Blue Corn Cafe tonight for my birthday. We already ate, I tell him. Do you want to come watch us eat?]
A son. Two sons. A daughter. They didn’t exist when Ron and I met, exchanged names for the first time in the cafeteria, his chair turned three-quarters to meet mine. Who would sleep with him first? was the talk then. I did. But more important was who would get him for the long haul. And I did.
Sitting in the sun outside the music building at St. John’s College. A fly. Imagine that. How I would love to be as carefree as when I used to be a student here. What’s different in twenty-five years? Twenty pounds. A laptop computer. That creeping crawl of age in face and step and political leaning. That unruly hair that glints silver from a part of chocolate brown and brassy orange. What’s different? My 16-year-old daughter enrolled in the Shakespeare community seminar, “The Merchant of Venice.”
[So what did you talk about tonight? I will ask later. Whether revenge is worth it. And what did you decide—is it? Not in the end, but it feels really good at first.]
What’s different? All those elastic years in between that accumulate so heavily, then fall away so easily in this gentle spring wind.
Here’s what’s different: this weathered teak table in this sunny spot wasn’t here when I was a student. The enormous two-story library wasn’t built, or the gym, or the extra upper dorms. The scratchy flat leaves of hollyhocks are new, and the twining chalk-white stalks and budding green leaves of this tall bush next to me.
[A couple walking by: We got our Language paper assignment. So did we. Did you decide what you’re going to do? I was thinking about the option of writing a sonnet. Writing your own sonnet might be hard.]
That ponderosa pine was surely here twenty-five years ago. And the chords flowing out of the music building—not the plucked hesitancy of a new student, but a ponderous melody being practiced—have that timeless mark of youth and age mixed together.
[Colin calls my cell phone—which I didn’t have as a student—to ask if I want to go to Blue Corn Cafe tonight for my birthday. We already ate, I tell him. Do you want to come watch us eat?]
A son. Two sons. A daughter. They didn’t exist when Ron and I met, exchanged names for the first time in the cafeteria, his chair turned three-quarters to meet mine. Who would sleep with him first? was the talk then. I did. But more important was who would get him for the long haul. And I did.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
numbers game
WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #15
There is no reason to check my mailbox on my way out for a walk for any signs of agents, publishers or Hollywood producers wanting a piece of DIZZY SUSHI. Or my email box, either. DIZZY has come home to rest for the moment, so I head into the wind and dark grey clouds.
Walking in snow can be bitterly cold, but its sparkling softness dazzles and entices you along. It’s different walking in wind; wind fights you. Wind is a force. The clouds look like a dirty mattress that has been chewed on by a dog, trails of stuffing dragging along the ground.
It’s a numbers game, isn’t it? Getting published. I mean, if you’ve written something that people enjoy reading, and you’ve got color and narrative and poetry and your characters arc or kink or bend, then it’s just a matter of time before it finds a home, yes? I can’t even count how many people I’ve sent my manuscript to, but you’ve heard the stories
Wind season in Santa Fe is followed by hail and lightning season. Per capita, we have the highest incidence of lightning fatalities in the country. The clouds in New Mexico are different from the clouds out there; they’re closer. Yes, those summer storms were pretty regular when Ron and I moved here 25 years ago. We were landscaping North DeVargas Mall and at 4:00 every day gathered under the portale until the clouds tired of raining, about fifteen minutes. Almost every spring now we’ve had hailstorms with thunder and lightening shredding the apple tree just as it’s about to bloom in late April.
I always remember my dad sitting outside on the plantbox in his pajamas, barefoot, watching a thunderstorm come in. We had some doozies west of Chicago. In Santa Fe the thunder rolls in and away in a groundswell. But in Illinois, I remember the huge winds, the cracks that blinded you, hiding in the closet. My mom always opened the door to the front porch and demanded he come in or he’d get struck by lightning, but he never did. Otherwise I would have started this essay, “I’ll never forget the day my dad was struck by lightning. . .” Instead I remember him whooping it up when the big ones came down.
I only dreamed about my dad twice after he died. Once he was sitting in the rocking lounger that was “dad’s chair.” The only other time, he introduced me to a magical gardener I met years later. Here’s what I wrote in my dream journal on April 23, 1986:
I am walking through a greenhouse trying to get away from these "Zen Buddhists." An older woman comes up to me and puts seeds in to my hand. "They’re called 'rabbit’s ears,'" she said. They looked furry and were grey-tinged with pink and lavender. They were shaped like two angel’s wings put together. Suddenly she was gone, talking to someone at the other end in the dappled sun. I tried to thank her but she was too busy talking to someone else and didn’t acknowledge me. Out of this long greenhouse and into another and I meet my father. We embrace for a long time and there is a silver tear in his eye. The two men with him say that he has been sick for a long while, and that is why I could not see him. He is weak and they suggest we all sit down. We crowd into a booth.
My father would have understood this numbers game of submissions and flowery rejections. Being an engineer, building a plantbox to sit on during summer thunderstorms, I think he would understand that it could be the combination of mathematics and physics that brings DIZZY SUSHI home. Or that lights up the night sky.
There is no reason to check my mailbox on my way out for a walk for any signs of agents, publishers or Hollywood producers wanting a piece of DIZZY SUSHI. Or my email box, either. DIZZY has come home to rest for the moment, so I head into the wind and dark grey clouds.
Walking in snow can be bitterly cold, but its sparkling softness dazzles and entices you along. It’s different walking in wind; wind fights you. Wind is a force. The clouds look like a dirty mattress that has been chewed on by a dog, trails of stuffing dragging along the ground.
It’s a numbers game, isn’t it? Getting published. I mean, if you’ve written something that people enjoy reading, and you’ve got color and narrative and poetry and your characters arc or kink or bend, then it’s just a matter of time before it finds a home, yes? I can’t even count how many people I’ve sent my manuscript to, but you’ve heard the stories
Wind season in Santa Fe is followed by hail and lightning season. Per capita, we have the highest incidence of lightning fatalities in the country. The clouds in New Mexico are different from the clouds out there; they’re closer. Yes, those summer storms were pretty regular when Ron and I moved here 25 years ago. We were landscaping North DeVargas Mall and at 4:00 every day gathered under the portale until the clouds tired of raining, about fifteen minutes. Almost every spring now we’ve had hailstorms with thunder and lightening shredding the apple tree just as it’s about to bloom in late April.
I always remember my dad sitting outside on the plantbox in his pajamas, barefoot, watching a thunderstorm come in. We had some doozies west of Chicago. In Santa Fe the thunder rolls in and away in a groundswell. But in Illinois, I remember the huge winds, the cracks that blinded you, hiding in the closet. My mom always opened the door to the front porch and demanded he come in or he’d get struck by lightning, but he never did. Otherwise I would have started this essay, “I’ll never forget the day my dad was struck by lightning. . .” Instead I remember him whooping it up when the big ones came down.
I only dreamed about my dad twice after he died. Once he was sitting in the rocking lounger that was “dad’s chair.” The only other time, he introduced me to a magical gardener I met years later. Here’s what I wrote in my dream journal on April 23, 1986:
I am walking through a greenhouse trying to get away from these "Zen Buddhists." An older woman comes up to me and puts seeds in to my hand. "They’re called 'rabbit’s ears,'" she said. They looked furry and were grey-tinged with pink and lavender. They were shaped like two angel’s wings put together. Suddenly she was gone, talking to someone at the other end in the dappled sun. I tried to thank her but she was too busy talking to someone else and didn’t acknowledge me. Out of this long greenhouse and into another and I meet my father. We embrace for a long time and there is a silver tear in his eye. The two men with him say that he has been sick for a long while, and that is why I could not see him. He is weak and they suggest we all sit down. We crowd into a booth.
My father would have understood this numbers game of submissions and flowery rejections. Being an engineer, building a plantbox to sit on during summer thunderstorms, I think he would understand that it could be the combination of mathematics and physics that brings DIZZY SUSHI home. Or that lights up the night sky.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
drip goof plugs
WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #14
You can’t just drop a seed on the ground in northern New Mexico and expect it to grow; it takes lots of planning and intelligence to have a fruitful garden. You’d think something as organic as soil and water and soft green shoots would have nothing to do with flow rates and zone classification, but living in a high-altitude desert makes nature even more complex than it already is. And sometimes it feels like getting published is just as complicated.
I came home from the local xeric greenhouse with a box of parts to drip-irrigate just a tiny patch of land: 50 feet of ½” polyethylene tubing, 50 feet of ¼” microtubing, hose connectors, 3-way layout tees, tubing holder stakes, a hole puncher, goof plugs for when you put the hole in the wrong place, and of course, an assortment of self-cleaning, pressure-compensating black plastic drippers. Oh, right: and plants.
Ducking in and out of greenhouses under stormy skies, I selected two oriental poppies (one blooming), a Russian sage, two creeping flowery things and catmint. All gallon buckets. My plan is to add these new babies to the spots outside my window where there are already a few suffering lilac bushes, a 2-foot tree of unknown origins, and a lot of hard-packed dirt and gravel.
First I opened the drip irrigation box and discovered something missing. Well, not exactly missing, but certainly not present. On the box is a picture of a grey and black “backflow adapter” under the print that says: INSIDE THIS BOX. But, then in parentheses, the model number with an additional letter “A.” The model I picked did not have an “A.”
Next we took the 50 feet of ½” tubing out and stretched it from the spigot and across the walkway up the small grade to “the spot.” Too short. I sent the dad back to the greenhouses in between his other errands to pick up more supplies. Meanwhile, I set the plants in their containers out in places where I can see them from my window, the orange floppy petals of the poppy like the soft ears of a friendly puppy begging me to come play.
Gardening like this feels like building the massive structure behind getting a simple story published. First there’s the writing of it, then the analyzing of the market, then the push-pull of rejections-sendings of the manuscript. Right now, DIZZY SUSHI is at an agent who requests exclusivity. Meaning I can’t send it to anyone else until she says yea or nea. If she says no, then it goes on to the next agent, also exclusively. So it’s a waiting game, and meanwhile I keystroke other stories, monologues, blogs.
The point of it all? Like gardening in the desert, you acquire the Japanese esthetic of wabi-sabi: the appreciation of imperfection. (Because it’s quite perfect.) My black drip hose is stretching out under the stars tonight, held down by rocks, just inches away from its destination. And until I rake away the deadheaded Maximilion daises, dig holes, add compost, twist in the drippers and plug the goof holes, the black hose will be a reminder of possibilities. And that’s just perfect.
You can’t just drop a seed on the ground in northern New Mexico and expect it to grow; it takes lots of planning and intelligence to have a fruitful garden. You’d think something as organic as soil and water and soft green shoots would have nothing to do with flow rates and zone classification, but living in a high-altitude desert makes nature even more complex than it already is. And sometimes it feels like getting published is just as complicated.
I came home from the local xeric greenhouse with a box of parts to drip-irrigate just a tiny patch of land: 50 feet of ½” polyethylene tubing, 50 feet of ¼” microtubing, hose connectors, 3-way layout tees, tubing holder stakes, a hole puncher, goof plugs for when you put the hole in the wrong place, and of course, an assortment of self-cleaning, pressure-compensating black plastic drippers. Oh, right: and plants.
Ducking in and out of greenhouses under stormy skies, I selected two oriental poppies (one blooming), a Russian sage, two creeping flowery things and catmint. All gallon buckets. My plan is to add these new babies to the spots outside my window where there are already a few suffering lilac bushes, a 2-foot tree of unknown origins, and a lot of hard-packed dirt and gravel.
First I opened the drip irrigation box and discovered something missing. Well, not exactly missing, but certainly not present. On the box is a picture of a grey and black “backflow adapter” under the print that says: INSIDE THIS BOX. But, then in parentheses, the model number with an additional letter “A.” The model I picked did not have an “A.”
Next we took the 50 feet of ½” tubing out and stretched it from the spigot and across the walkway up the small grade to “the spot.” Too short. I sent the dad back to the greenhouses in between his other errands to pick up more supplies. Meanwhile, I set the plants in their containers out in places where I can see them from my window, the orange floppy petals of the poppy like the soft ears of a friendly puppy begging me to come play.
Gardening like this feels like building the massive structure behind getting a simple story published. First there’s the writing of it, then the analyzing of the market, then the push-pull of rejections-sendings of the manuscript. Right now, DIZZY SUSHI is at an agent who requests exclusivity. Meaning I can’t send it to anyone else until she says yea or nea. If she says no, then it goes on to the next agent, also exclusively. So it’s a waiting game, and meanwhile I keystroke other stories, monologues, blogs.
The point of it all? Like gardening in the desert, you acquire the Japanese esthetic of wabi-sabi: the appreciation of imperfection. (Because it’s quite perfect.) My black drip hose is stretching out under the stars tonight, held down by rocks, just inches away from its destination. And until I rake away the deadheaded Maximilion daises, dig holes, add compost, twist in the drippers and plug the goof holes, the black hose will be a reminder of possibilities. And that’s just perfect.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
