If anyone wants to know how it’s going, I’m pretty sure I word vomited the phrase “swimming uphill” during a job interview tonight. I’m also pretty sure I may have sounded as coherent as a certain former president when I tried to explain my affinity for the arts (I was interviewing for an arts based institution). That lack of coherence sounded a little like: “I’ve always been interested in the arts. I write poetry and had my first poem published this year. And it’d be good to get another one published. And I like lots of the arts. When I was young I was fortunate enough to go to museums and Andrew Wyeth was my favorite painter but I also like music which is a good part of the arts. Fun stuff the arts. Really great stuff going on there.” At least that’s what it sounded like in my head a half hour after the interview was over. I’m sure the interview went better than I’m imagining it. Though it was tough to tell because all of their screens were frozen and I couldn’t read facial expressions. I’ll just imagine that they had looks of horror like they were trapped in an elevator with me as puked and farted all at the same time. The thing is, I wasn’t nervous – maybe I was tired. That’s a benefit and curse of interviewing on the west coast. I can do it after work, but I’m doing it after work (when maybe I’m not at my sharpest). I’ll know in a few days if I’m moving on to the next round.
Last night was another night of restless sleep. I woke up around 3 am and was up for about an hour.
This morning, I spent a bit more time practicing Spanish than usual. The app I use is set up like a competition – with each round lasting a week. I’ve been able to finish in the top three every week, and somehow, now in this final round, I’m pitted against sharks. On a good day, I’ll earn between 800 and 1000 points. This has earned me a spot near the bottom of this week’s competition with the leader scoring over 8000 points in two days. For me, that kinda takes the fun out of it. It reminds me of when I played chess against my brother. His only goal was to see how quickly he could kick my ass. Sometimes, when a goal isn’t remotely achievable, it stops being fun and it gets easier to give up. I’m sure that’s not what the app designers had hoped for.
I still need to write my daily fifty-two. I’m tired and I feel like I’m swimming uphill. Uggh… Of all the combinations, I picked the one that made the least sense. Running uphill – fine, makes sense. Swimming upstream – also make sense. Running upstream – makes a little less sense, but there could be a trail or easily navigable banks. But swimming uphill…? Sometimes I’m surprised I can even form sentences and words and thoughts. The arts are good, I like them and music too and writing is something the arts can include as well.
This is what passes for a sleepy blog post on a rainy Tuesday in Pennsylvania.