I started to write a long-winded rant about what a crappy week at work I’ve had, but then (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) the laptop ate the post, and it’s really not worth reconstructing, because honestly, what’s more boring than people complaining about work? The point of it, anyway, was not so much to just bitch as it was to fret that because of various bits of nonsense that I had to handle this week (which were nobody’s fault, including mine; just the fault of the way my company is structured, which might be the most negative thing I’ve ever said about them/us), I’m now in danger of a) not doing as good a job on my current big project as I hope to do, and b) more damningly, running late on that same project. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t fuss too much about being behind schedule; I’ve worked at enough jobs where there were no significant consequences for missing deadlines that I’ve become far too cavalier about making them. But in this job, if I’m off schedule, that messes things up for a whole chain of other people, sometimes at great and wasted expense…and I really, really hate it when my screwups create problems for other people.
All this ties into my previously mentioned ongoing crisis of confidence about my ability to be good at my new career. (I mentioned this in passing to a friend a week or so ago, and for some reason it prompted chuckles and mutterings behind my back and at my expense; I’m still a little miffed about that.) It also ties in to the several odd dreams (okay, the second most boring thing in the world, after people complaining about work, is people telling you their dreams, but this will just be a sentence, I promise) that I’ve had recently about Minneapolis. Something is calling me back there, I think…not sure what yet, but as I’ve said in the past, in some ways, it’s the last place that I truly felt at home.*
I’ve been idly glancing at the Mpls./St. Paul Craigslist for rental apartments lately, and toward the end of the workday today, I looked at my old employer’s Website (not Twin\Tone, God knows—the job after that) and fleetingly considered writing to the two people who are still there to whom I am closest and saying, “I’ve had enough; I want to come back.” The scary (if somehow comforting) thing is that I probably could go back there; it would take some persuading and pleading, and a big pay cut, but it could probably be done. And here’s the thing: no crises of confidence would ensue, because if there’s one vocation I’ve been good at in my life, it’s being a children’s book editor. This is probably just me being a brat; I’ve always tended to duck out of things that don’t come easily to me, and it would be useful for me to remind myself that I’m still very new at a career that isn’t easy to master, one where you can’t just take a couple of classes in and immediately master; I need to stick with it before I can accurately determine whether or not I suck at it. One reason I refuse to give up on knitting—a skill that does not come especially easily to me, as I am arguably the least craft-ish person in the known universe—is precisely to combat that tendency to walk away from things that I can’t immediately master. It’s different, though, when it’s your livelihood, and your avocation (of sorts), on the line; that’s why it’s tempting to contemplate going back to children’s book editing, at which I am quite literally a seasoned pro.
But you can’t really go back, can you? and it would be pretty silly to waste my MLS—still the thing I’m proudest of in the whole world—to leave the library-related professions entirely.
Wouldn’t it?
I don’t know. I don’t know if I have the energy to venture any farther down this path of contemplation tonight; I think instead I’ll go and put some stuff on my iPod that’s been embarrassingly missing for way too long. And soon I hope to write about some especially exciting new music: the debut album by Dirty Pretty Things, the new band formed by Carl Barat, the non-drug-addicted, non-Kate-Moss-dating ex-Libertine of whom I am a massive fan. It’s due out in the UK in early May, and I’ve already pre-ordered it. Plus, my copy of “It’s Art, Dad,” the for-fanatics-only early recordings comp by the Clientele, should be on its way to me shortly. And there’s still Scott Miller to write about. But tonight, I’m going to go put “Rattlesnakes” and “Easy Pieces” on the iPod. Those are the only records I own by Lloyd Cole, which is sort of scandalous; someone who knows way more about him than I do (I have a vague idea that that someone might be known as The Krueg) needs to fill me in on the post-Commotions world of Lloyd Cole. I’ve heard, and liked, “Don’t Get Weird on Me Babe,” an early Cole solo record, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge. I need to be clued in.
*Sort of. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel utterly, blissfully at home when we moved back to Manhattan and then to Park Slope in 1998; thing was, I didn’t stick around long enough to fully appreciate the feeling of being back at home.