walk along the highway
So the oblique references were leading to this: I got a new job this week. I've been avoiding writing about any of it because a) I am extremely paranoid, which is also why I'm not telling you the name or details of the new place out here in the wide wide web world and b) because I've sort of been avoiding it in other ways, too.

Most of you know this, but I'm not much of a change person in any aspect of my life. I think and work and do everything best, pretty much, in places where I feel secure and where I don't have to prove myself all the time. My noncompetitive nature works against me in situations where I am being overtly judged, and it makes me defensive and petty and distracted, and definitely not at my most creative and interested and interesting. I can fight the good fight sometimes, but only if I feel safe.

I am totally excited about the new job -- really, I absolutely am. I think it will be a fabulous job. It's tailored very much to my interests (politics, writing and editing, online stuff) and I can WALK there (only 15 blocks) and I think I can wear jeans every day to work (hurrah). I had to take a really complicated test to get the job, and it makes me feel good that I did decently on it. It's an exciting time to be working for the website of a political paper magazine, I have to get used to saying that. The people seem laid-back and friendly and smart. This is a really good thing for me.

But -- and you knew there was one -- I am so sad to leave my current old job, I have to get used to saying that too. It isn't perfect, especially recently, but I've been working there forever and I love it there. Telling my direct editor-boss was especially difficult and surreal, because I basically think he's the best person on the planet and I knew he'd be unpleasantly surprised. (He was, but he was also very supportive and kind and great.) And I was so focused on telling him and the couple people that I'm closest to -- most of whom knew anyway because they, especially one in particular, had already been listening to me freak out about it for weeks -- that I didn't really think about telling anyone else. For whatever reason, the random people I probably won't ever see again have been the most difficult for me to deal with, the ones who are making me the most sad. I'm sort of lying about that, though. The ones who make me the MOST most sad are the people like my boss and another of the editors, whom I have no idea how to be friends with outside of work, and don't, in fact, think that it's really possible.

And, see, this is why I wasn't talking about it here. I'm terrible at goodbyes even when I'm excited about what's coming next, and I'm all melancholy and melodramatic and dumb and I don't have anything remotely profound to say about it. I know this is going to be fine, but it-- whatEVER. I'm stopping now. You're welcome. Here is a poem.

where we are, by Gerald Locklin

I envy those
who live in two places:
new york, say, and london;
wales and spain;
l.a. and paris;
hawaii and switzerland.

there is always the anticipation
of the change, the chance that what is wrong
is the result of where you are. i have
always loved both the freshness of
arriving and the relief of leaving. with
two homes every move would be a homecoming.
i am not even considering the weather, hot
or cold, dry or wet: i am talking about hope.