On Job Interviews

“Besides getting several paper cuts in the same day or receiving the news that someone in your family has betrayed you to your enemies, one of the most unpleasant experiences in life is a job interview. It is very nerve-wracking to explain to someone all the things you can do in the hopes that they will pay you to do them… In most cases the best strategy for a job interview is to be fairly honest, because the worst thing that can happen is that you won’t get the job and will spend the rest of your life foraging for food in the wilderness and seeking shelter underneath a tree or the awning of a bowling alley that has gone out of business.”

-Lemony Snicket, The Carnivorous Carnival

I think this sums up my feelings on job interviews pretty well. I have a little bit of a nervous giggle, and I dread having to shake hands because I know mine will be colder than the other person’s, which probably isn’t the greatest sensation for them, and no matter how eloquently I speak (if I can manage that, somehow), that’s going to be their most lasting impression of me.

That said, I still really, really want one.

Postcards

Every time I read Griffin & Sabine (and this happens a couple of times a year) I get this urge to make my own postcards. If you haven’t read it, Griffin & Sabine is an epistolary story, and a lot of the correspondence is written on beautifully illustrated postcards. The story itself is intriguing, and has some supernatural twists that I didn’t see coming.

I love receiving mail, and I’ve always secretly wanted a stranger from the other side of the world to send me a letter (though if it turned out to be something like Sabine’s first postcard to Griffin, I would completely freak out). That said, receiving mail from friends is fun too. And we all know that the best way to get mail is to send mail.

So I bought a sheet of posterboard, cut it up into 4 x 6 inch pieces, and started to draw.

I miss living close to my bestest friends, who are now all over a thousand miles away. Facebook is great for keeping in touch, but I crave to hold something that they held and scribbled on. Something tangible and not in Helvetica.

And hey, maybe I’ll find a handmade postcard in the mail one of these days.