Greetings from Kirtyword's room, where Kirty, Stonito and I have locked ourselves in to survive the winter. Truly, this is the land that God has shunned. Kirty and Stonito are bundled up in bed - I think last night nearly killed them. I'm not doing much better, myself. What can you expect from a mini-J-school reunion bar crawl that featured the following quotes?

1. "That was four years ago, and I've brushed my teeth a lot since then."
   
   
2. "It's 10 o'clock and I'm the drunkest bitch in the city!"
   
   
3. "Piss on my shirt! "
   
   And then, the following morning:
   
   
4. "I love being hungover - it's like being pregnant, except you don't have to have the baby."
   

(Obviously, sources on this are staying anonymous. Funny how "Deep Throat" actually makes sense here...)

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So yesterday's interview at anonymous paper went well - possibly too well. No, literally: "Too well."

I threw my best stuff at them, a Gagne-esque 9th inning closer performance like my life depended on it. But not in a, you know, visibly desperate sort-of way. I had 10 of my all-time-best clips from the past year, told them stories of flying out of dangerous areas on doorless military choppers and bringing down Enron in Washington state and how much I frickin love to report and write and please give me a goddamn job.

Their response:

1. "Um, ...why are you here? "
   
   
2. "We're scared you're gonna be bored. "
   
   
3. "Do you actually like city council meetings?"
   
   
4. "Why isn't the AP hiring you?"
   
   
5. "What happens if [Large Paper A] or [Large Paper B] try and hire you in two months?"

Seriously, look at any of those questions and tell me how you're supposed to answer? They consider me a flight risk. I tried to set the bail at "but look at my resume - there's tons of cool stuff on it but it's all just a couple of months at a time."

Basically, what I learned yesterday is that this J-school thing might have put me in an interesting, complicated limbo: my qualifications land me in-between Triple-A and the Big Leagues. Which means nobody's gonna want to draft me - they'll just say "you belong with the other guy."

Here's the thing though - this place I interviewed at yesterday is a really important paper. I don't get their surprise at me knocking on their door: They're offering the desk that would be read by the two major league teams just 40 minutes north on a daily basis. They would know my byline, if and when I come knocking for a jobby-job in several years.

These major league teams also happen to reside in the city I'm inexplicably fascinated with. It's a great place...but it's freezing and inhospitable 9 months of the year. I dunno...maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I honestly think I could live out the rest of my life there and consider myself happy. It's sort of like when you had that grammar school crush on the sweet but not entirely hot girl in your class. Or maybe that's just me.

I have another interview on Tuesday. In God's Country. For considerably more cash. In a city where you can go outside in January and, you know, not die. So I'm totally interested, but on the other hand this second place could easily pidgeon-hole my writing career for the rest of my life, in a field that's not exactly my passion (yet?). So I might have some serious soul-searching to do...maybe. We'll see.

Comparing the two media outlets, strictly in terms of cash and prestige, place no. 2 wins. But if this were about cash, I probably wouldn't even be in this business. And to quote Denzel, "The shit's chess it ain't checkers." I need to think about positioning myself for my long-term goals...and all that shit.

(Incidentally, I saw my grammar school crush years later, when we were about to graduate high school and she had totally turned a corner and was pretty smoking hot. So I guess my point is...I should always follow my instincts, even when it's questionable.)