Letters to the Editor

Hello,

I've been having some health issues lately and therefore been away from my computer. But today I spewed some opinions in various directions, including a couple of letters to the editor.

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Dear PBS NewsHour,

I think it's past due for you to bring in a woman commentator as one of your cornerstone pundits. Currently you have Mark Shields and David Brooks; you used to have Paul Gigot; occasionally you have E. J. Dionne. Jim Lehrer and his buddies; it's overly male.

I was moved to write you today about this because of last night's show (Feb. 1st), in which you had Shields and Brooks discuss the presidential candidates, particularly Clinton and Obama. Shields closed his commentary with the punchy line, "If you want information, you go for Clinton; if you want inspiration, you go for Obama."

Well, I'm tired of male pundits insisting that Obama is the one who owns inspiration. For many, many women - and not just Democrats - Hillary Clinton is darn inspirational. Representing our first hope for a women president, she symbolizes inspiration for countless American women. The media's overwhelming majority of male political pundits seem to be completely oblivious to this fact.

Sincerely,
...
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Dear New Yorker Magazine,

I waited until having watched the first week before reading Nancy Franklin's review of new HBO series "In Treatment" and was disappointed that she didn't touch on what I find to be the show's most egregious failing: the patients' totally unbelievable aggression and anger toward their therapist. Each of the first five episodes becomes a confrontation of patient and therapist. Using similar if not the exact same words, the patients - including the protagonist therapist with his own counselor - make unreasonable demands and accusations, spewing hostility at the psychologist almost from the getgo: "Listen to yourself!" "You're twisting what I'm saying!" "I just want a simple yes or no!"

This type of direct confrontation with one's psychologist is as rare in reality as it is overwhelming in these five first episodes. Instead of being about the patient, "In Treatment" makes each session about the beleaguered therapist. The continuous angry outbursts are repetitive and boring and undermine the series' credibility. Rather than giving the HBO viewer a compelling inside peek at what goes on in psychotherapy, first-week writer Rodrigo Garcia seems to be working out some issues of his own on "In Treatment."

Sincerely,
...

gertrude

Love

I've been crying the last few days. It's unusual, in the last year or so, for me to cry. I think it's the medication; it numbs me, frustrating, because crying can feel like a relief. Even these few times, I've just managed several sobs and some hot tears, no real crying session. It's the holiday season, which I like to say I don't mind but actually upsets me terribly.

It's Christmas Eve, Heiligabend, and I just opened the presents sent to me from my mother and my sister, who are in Berlin. I've been so angry at them, felt so used and taken for granted, been so bitter. I've been reading two books, too, that have brought out deep, gut feelings - Laura Lippmann's new mystery, "What the Dead Know," about two sisters, and Alice Sebold's new book, "The Almost Moon," about a woman who kills her mother. There's so much pain and resentment inside me still, I don't know what to do with it, I almost never think about it.

I just opened the two packages, and their cards are so sweet, and the presents are so wonderful, and I don't want to be angry at them, I know they love me. Everybody is supposed to do what they need to do to survive, physically and mentally and emotionally, you can't blame them for that. Except when you're taught not to look out for yourself. When you're taught to measure your self-worth by whether you make others happy.

Puck is curled up asleep on my brand new black velvet pants that I laid out on the bed, planning to try them on. The cats do exactly what makes them happy, totally oblivious to the hair they shed, or how they hog the bed, or whether I'm trying to read the item they just stretched across. I know they're unaware of it but I still admire that completely effortless display of "You love me no matter what I do." And their unselfconscious communication of "Love me." If only it were so easy for humans to just ask for love instead of trying to win it in ways that are indirect, subtle, and often not understood. I want to make my sister happy, I want her to love me because I made her happy, and when she doesn't recognize what I did or why I did it and isn't happy with me or because of me then I resent her. I wish I could just say "Love me."

I do things I don't want to do because I think others will be grateful and, because they're grateful, they'll do nice things for me and care about me. What I'm learning is that sometimes, or some people don't like being grateful; they resent it. And I wish I could learn that love isn't something you should have to earn; it may not even be something you can earn. But when you grow up being taught that what you do will affect whether you are loved or not loved, that's what you believe.

Love me.

gertrude

ruminations

Much as I treasure the experiences of riding the NYC subway, I was reminded this week that the joys of the commuter rail are nothing to sneeze at. Firstly, I realized what a blessing it is that the subway is under ground; this means that there is NO CELL PHONE COVERAGE. Commuters are not shy and will go on at length about the most personal details of their life on their mobile phones - naturally, at a higher volume than inside speaking voice because, of course, they're on the phone. They seem to have factored in their commute as "personal time" during which they take care of calling mom, sweetheart, kids, shrinks, doctors, babysitters, drycleaners, banks, and old college friends. Then there's the fact that people from New Jersey - like people from Long Island - are savages. They smoke on the station platform (I don't care if it's outside) and play music on boomboxes. Nobody complains, not even the ticket guy, who walked past two teenagers blasting crappy hiphop at each station stop without batting an eyelid. And finally, while the subway seats are by no means comfortable, at least you don't have to suffer people digging into your backside every few minutes with their knees or feet or I don't know what.

My new consulting gig makes me go to New Jersey twice a week, which takes me two-and-a-half hours door-to-door each way. I get to enjoy the subway AND the commuter rail. At the end of the second day I was really crabby. Some people there do it every day. Unfathomable.

In other news, I discovered the new HBO series "Tell Me You Love Me." It's a drama show about four couples: a couples counselor and her husband and the three couples she is counseling (though one "couple" is just the woman). It's really engrossing. One couple is trying to get pregnant, one couple has stopped having sex, and one couple has just broken off their engagement, while the couples' counselor (Jane Alexander) has to deal with the reappearance of a former lover.

What baffles me is how much the two main couples - the one trying to get pregnant and the one not having sex - are in love with each other despite the huge problems they're having. They're constantly telling each other how much they love the other, for one. They're very tender with each other. The couple not having sex works together as smooth as butter, parenting their kids and taking care of the household. The couple trying to get pregnant has sex all the time, and each time it's full of kissing, lots and lots of slurpy kissing, and fondling and stroking etc. I'm just so surprised - my last relationship involved tons of sex but the kissing grew less and less, sometimes we had sex completely without having kissed. That's happened in other relationships as well. You kinda start shortcutting the foreplay and get straight to intercourse. Also, the three couples having sex keep having sex the same way. In the five episodes so far, with each episode having numerous extremely explicit sex scenes, it's always been either missionary or woman on top facing man. I keep waiting for some other scenarios. And the women seem to come each time, during intercourse. Is that realistic? I haven't come during intercourse - without other stimulation - once ever since I went on medication. I used to be able to come sometimes when on top, but never missionary-style.

Anyway, it's been interesting, watching the show. I must have had really bad luck with men, or these couples are not fully representative. Even when they have bitter arguments they make up almost right away and are all sweet and tender and horny again. Not much of the silent treatment or the overreactions or the nasty sarcasm or just plain boredom of relationships I've been in.

Must get back to work.

gertrude

this and that

It's my birthday on Tuesday. Boy am I getting old. Things have been rough lately. But good things too. Therapy has been really good; I feel like my therapist and I are really connecting and he's been more directional, guiding me toward issues that are significant. And I got a consulting offer doing user interface strategy and testing, which is my thing. I'm excited about that. A little worried about working full-time at home, because that can be so isolating, and also distracting, but I'm optimistic. But it seems you can never just have a good experience. By accepting that offer I had to neg another possibility and those people got mad.

I went nuts and bought the first three seasons of "Rescue Me" on DVD and have been watching it a lot in the past few days. The show is so good. Of course, it's also sad and disturbing, and I've been super depressed lately, so that may not be best for me right now. I also went to my first class of the beginning art course I signed up for at the New School. It was pretty cool. We're supposed to keep a sketch journal and draw something every day. I still have to buy the charcoal required, so I'm behind.

And I've been enjoying the cats a lot. They're so snuggly and cute.

gertrude

Friday disorder

Tonight I did something for the first time: I went to a support group for depression. Well, I actually had to attend the "newcomers" group, which includes depression and bipolar disorder. Next time I would be able to attend the group for depression. I learned that the facilitators of the different groups are not therapists, psychiatrists, or social workers, but rather just people who suffer the disorders themselves. Our facilitator wore cargo shorts and among his many tattoos sported the numbers "666" on the back of his hand. Not really exactly what I think is appropriate as a first impression. After telling us all about the organization's history, purpose, and activities (all of which is on the web site and also in the handouts we all received upon arrival), he then regaled us with the highlights of his own history. On the rare occasion that one of the four group "participants" said something, he answered with another extended excerpt from his own life. Not really what I think is appropriate for a facilitator. I was having a tough time not just walking out.

Before that I had had my own therapy, in which we talked about good stuff but I didn't bring up something that is foremost on my mind. For the first time, I emailed my father that I found his wife sometimes overwhelming and draining. This was in the context of not wanting to have brunch with them and her kids, who are visiting. I've been very depressed lately and told him I wasn't up for crowds. Then he wrote back that I should force myself to get out, and I wrote back the stuff about his wife B.

It's not exactly news. Before they were an item - when my parents and her and her husband were all still together and good family friends, and I had to spend holidays with them along with my own family when visiting from college - I would always rant to my father about how much she drove me crazy, how she never stopped talking, how annoying she was, how obnoxious. Daddy would always laugh.

When he was see-sawing between leaving my mother for B and staying with my mother out of a sense of obligation, he would call me nearly every day, asking me whether my younger sister would still love him if he left. Whether she would forgive him. Whether she would understand, still talk to him. He never asked me how I felt about it. He never acknowledged that this was the woman I loathed. And he's never acknowledged it in the many years since - that I may have any feelings about her whatsoever, except for positive ones, I guess.

So when I emailed that about B., I was anxious about what he might respond, and hoping that he might express some understanding. I've been doing my damndest for over a decade to hide how I feel about her. I've asked my therapist, my sister, family friends, my own friends whether there was any way I could tell my father how I felt so that he wouldn't always assume I wanted to spend time with both of them. Everyone always advised against it. I think I've believed, deep down, that if I let him know how I feel about her, that he would reject me. Her or me. So I've been doing my best to keep up the game. I resent that he conveniently forgot all the things I would say to him about her once he decided to spend his remaining life with her. I think that somewhere he does know how I feel about her, but he expects me not to feel that way.

He responded, "Sorry you find B so overwhelming."

I feel betrayed. Way before there was her and him, there was me and him. I'm not asking him to change his feelings about her, just acknowledge mine.

gertrude

Hot Saturday

My friend Amy set up a newish blog, "Inconceivable," which I've been having fun posting to. You should check it out. People are so dumb.

The past couple of weeks have been rather eventful - I went to the U.S. Open twice, attended the U.S. premiere of the Royal Shakespeare Company's new production of "King Lear" with Ian McKellen at BAM, went to Fire Island for a few days, spent lots of time with my sister ... I also upgraded my old Sidekick to a T-Mobile Dash, which I'm not thrilled about. It's no Sidekick. I probably made a mistake choosing it over the newer Sidekick model. But it does have a camera (see above).

I've been browsing the career counseling books of the firm, The Five O'Clock Club, and found the following advice:

"Don't fix things or do anything "big" for the first three months. That is one of the biggest mistakes people make. ... Learn the corporate culture. People new to jobs lose those jobs often because of personality conflicts rather than a lack of competence."

Too late.

gertrude

Bumping into a wall

It's funny that just as I thought I'd turned a corner, I got steamrolled. After cancelling every other therapy session for weeks and dithering about whether or not to continue at all, I decided to jump in full-force, go twice a week, and not talk about work - which I thought was a waste of time - and focus on bigger, or deeper issues. It was a great session. And after doing a round of user testing at work and getting great feedback both on the testing itself as well as on the recommendations I put together, I thought I had gained some substantial support among the team, more credibility, and so on. And then I got fired, the very next day. Strange timing. Perhaps it had already been decided before the usability testing. I will admit that part of me is relieved; it was a tough situation, not the one that was painted for me when I interviewed. I get that often: people hire me to make improvements, to make decisions, to optimize, to change - and then it turns out nobody really wants change.

After days of chilly rainy weather, it's a zillion degrees today. My sister arrives today from London for two weeks, which is wonderful. There are very few people I feel myself around - a theme I want to deal with in therapy - and she is one. Most people seem to find me abrasive, intimidating, sarcastic, when I feel completely vulnerable, caring, shy, and embarrassed.

Turns out my great-aunt is not suffering from dementia, thank god. She was just dehydrated and desalinated, or something. I was very happy to hear that. I finally wrote them a letter, a real paper letter that I just stuck in the mailbox.

I guess that's all I can think of today.

gertrude

Weekend blues

It was a tough week at work; I'm hoping things will get easier from next week on. We had our company "offsite" at the Chelsea Piers, which was really just a day for socializing; there were no organized sessions or anything work-related. I'm not the best at schmoozing and I still don't know most people at the company. I was impressed they served veggie burgers.

I also got some bad news from my mother: my great-aunt has been hospitalized with signs of dementia. That made me very sad. I've always really liked my great-aunt and great-uncle and wanted to spend more time with them. The last time I saw them was two years ago when I visited them in Cologne on my way from Berlin back to New York. She was great then. She's my grandmother's younger sister. My grandmother died 7 years ago this summer. I went to her funeral and that's the last time I saw my grandfather, who died just three months later. For a long long time I felt terribly guilty that I hadn't written them more often, stayed with them longer each visit, called them more regularly. I guess I still do. It's just they weren't that easy to be around. Unlike my great-aunt and -uncle, whose company I always enjoyed.

And then I got an eVite from an old high school friend about a possible reunion next year in Athens, and that touched off a bout of nostalgia and sadness for days past. Growing up in Athens was possibly the happiest time in my life. That's kinda sad right there. So I've been pretty blue this weekend. Today I watched episodes of the "West Wing"'s first season on DVD, with the cats smushed against me, their tails across my chest. Which is lovely except that it's hot and humid and their fur is coming off in waves on my sweaty skin.

gertrude

On the waterfront

Three weeks into my new job. This is what I see on my way to work - what you can't see in this shot is that the feet of the bridge actually frame the Empire State Building. I hope to get a clearer picture and replace this one so you can see.

Had coffee with one of the editors who is also a dietician and asked her whether diet affected one's complexion (my skin has been bad lately). Is it true or not that chocolate causes pimples?? She said it depended on the individual, but that eating sugary food definitely wasn't good for one's skin. So yesterday I did not eat any ice cream or cookies for the first day in months (ever since going on that drug that stimulates appetite) and was dying. I ended up having some toast and jam to alleviate the craving. Meanwhile, since being on Remeron, I have gained at least 10 pounds. But at the same time, as I mentioned, my skin has gotten bad.

My friend A always tells me to eat what I feel like eating just so I gain some weight. Any eating is good eating. I think that needs to change now that I have gotten to a more normal weight ... the other 2 times I was on Remeron I had to quit after several months cause I couldn't stop gaining weight. Ugh. I wish I craved more healthy food.

In other news, I finally gave up on Mark Twain's autobiography, Life on the Mississippi, via DailyLit. I couldn't stand the minutiae about the goddamn river anymore! He told nothing about his writing or his journalism or anything bloody else besides visiting the Mississippi. Now I'm getting started on Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

gertrude

fourth of july

Bush is un-fucking-believable. Also his speech writers. Today speaking to military personnel in Virginia, he incredibly draws a parallel between the current war in Iraq and the war for independence from England. You have to have heard it yourself to experience the proper amount of incredulity and outrage. But here's an excerpt:

"Our first Independence Day celebration took place in a midst of a war -- a bloody and difficult struggle that would not end for six more years before America finally secured her freedom. More than two decades [Yes, that's what he said] later, it is hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming out any other way -- but at the time, America's victory was far from certain. In other words, when we celebrated the first 4th of July celebration, our struggle for independence was far from certain. Citizens had to struggle for six more years to finally determine the outcome of the Revolutionary War. ...

You're the successors of those brave men. Those who wear the uniform are the successors of those who dropped their pitchforks and picked up their muskets to fight for liberty. Like those early patriots, you're fighting a new and unprecedented war -- pledging your lives and honor to defend our freedom and way of life."

I can't bring myself to copy his mentions of September 11, they're just too sick. In fact, I may gag. Un-fucking-believable.

gertrude

P.S. The whole idiotic speech is here.

quiet riot

I hate him. How could he commute Libby's sentence?! How dare he? Even I did not expect him to do that. Where is the outrage? We should be stomping the streets. We should be rioting.

I hate him.

gertrude

Literary lions

There's an event series at New York's Public Library on 42nd Street of conversations with newsworthy authors and personalities called NYPL Live, launched by the fairly new and endlessly enthusiastic Paul Holdengraeber. I've been to a few of the events, each introduced by Holdengraeber, who always reminds the audience of his ultimate goal: to make the public library's two lions, who guard the entrance, roar. Last Wednesday was the final event of the season and Holdengraeber, in his introduction to the evening with Guenter Grass and Norman Mailer, shook his fist and proclaimed that, "Tonight, we have made the lions roar!"

Indeed, I got goosebumps when Grass stepped up onto the podium to be interviewed by Paris Review editor Andrew O'Hagan. He is a living legend, and he looks just as you picture him from all his book covers. The impetus for his appearance was the recent publication of his memoirs, Peeling the Onion, in which he writes about the 3 months he spent drafted into the Waffen SS. There has been an inordinate amount of uproar about his membership - though involuntary - in Hitler's SS, in light of his oeuvre criticizing the German government and fashism/totalitarianism in general. Whatever. Grass was 17 at the time he was drafted, he was sent to fight at the front, where it didn't matter what outfit you were in, you just got shot at and were extremely lucky to survive. Unfortunately, the designated interviewer O'Hagan focussed on this brief episode in Grass's life in his first, oh, 7 questions or so. Why hadn't Grass admitted to this sooner? Well, he had. He told the public in the 1960s, but nobody cared. It wasn't a secret, though people are making it out to have been.

It was more interesting to hear about the other things that Grass had been silent about. He told the audience he'd had a cousin in his hometown Danzig, which was Polish and German at the time, who worked at a Polish post office. One day, German military rounded up all the employees of the post office and shot them. The incident was never discussed in Grass's family, and Grass never asked about his cousin. He called it "opportunistic silence"; not wanting to be associated with those less fortunate. This, I think, is far more interesting and gets to the core of how the German population during the Third Reich shared the guilt of the Nazis. It was more convenient to be silent about unpleasant things than to discuss or even confront them. This is universally true, I think.

Grass also made the fascinating point that winners never have to think about their mistakes. "This terrible defeat [in World War II] gave Germany the chance to think about itself," he said. This is the "irony of history," he explained. The U.S. has never had to question itself; it has always won. He didn't mention Vietnam.

Asked about the perception of the U.S. today, Grass sighed and said that America had always been a source of inspiration for Europe, especially in the 1960s, with its battles for civil liberties and free expression. Today, he said, America offers no more inspiration.

Norman Mailer, interviewed after Grass, seemed to agree. Bush is the worst president in U.S. history, he declared flatly, reducing Reagan to Number Two. Mailer suffered a bunch of interview questions from O'Hagan - including whether he thought that he hadn't won the Nobel Prize on account of stabbing his wife (?!) - before stopping him and stating that what he, Mailer, really wanted to talk about was his relationship to America versus Grass's relationship to Germany. "America is like a wife to me, she's my lifelong wife," pointing out that he'd also had 6 real wives. You love a wife but she can disappoint you deeply. Grass understood this when the two literary lions shared the stage in the third portion of the evening.

And Mailer refused to be baited into condemning Grass for not having written about his SS time sooner. He had thought about it, he said, and thought about what he himself hadn't written about and might never write about, and cited the stabbing of his second wife. Both authors later agreed that it has to be up to the writer to determine when to write about something. "I wasn't ready until now, I didn't have the distance" to his childhood memories, said Grass.

At the end, both authors admitted that there is no retirement for writers, they would continue to write until they were dead (though Mailer had announced earlier that due to his disappearing faculties this might be his last public appearance). And Grass confessed: "In German, and probably many other languages, there is a saying that with age one becomes wise. Well, I am not wise because I am still angry. I am still angry at politics, at the world."

gertrude

the job interview

I've been meaning to write this out of my system, so here goes. It involves a recruiter we will call Anne, an agency we will call Interactive Media, an HR person we will call Stacy, and a hiring manager we will call Fred.

You will not remember, because of course I couldn't post it, that I was getting miserable under my new boss and decided to post my resume on Monster. I got zillions of calls and emails. The market is quite good right now, all ye job seekers! One of the few calls I returned was to recruiter Anne. We set up an interview for 4/22. [By the way, job seekers do not necessarily meet with recruiters in person. In my experience and that of my cohorts, the relationship with the recruiter is via phone and email. However, it was my first move in the new job search, so fine, I went to her office.] She told me about a spot at Interactive Media. This is a company I've known about for over a decade and always admired, so I was eager to pursue it, even though the job itself wasn't exactly what I wanted.

Anne calls me two days later saying Interactive Media wants to do a phone interview at 10am, 4/26. Of course, sure, I'll schlep out to a Starbucks so I can do a phone interview during business hours. So that's what happened. I knew the first name of the person who was calling me but I did not know what she did or how she might be related to the open position. She fires questions at me for about 20 minutes and then finishes off with the unexpected, "What do you do for fun?"

I call Anne right afterward to tell her I thought it went fine. She calls me back later to tell me that IM wants to meet with me in person. She calls me even though I have asked her to email me as I can't talk on the phone at work. She tells me I'll be meeting with 3 people and gives me a time. I email back to confirm and ask the names, titles, and relevance of the people I'll be meeting with, and also who it was that I spoke with on the phone. It takes an additional exchange to extract this information.

May 3rd I go to IM and meet with Fred and another VP. It is not clear at this point to whom I would be reporting but it is clear that these are the decision makers, and that I aced the interviews. Indeed, Anne emails me that I did very well and that IM wants me back the following Thursday, May 10, for the "final" interview. Again, two hours out of the business day. I meet with two people I would be working with. Both treat the meeting as an interview and have prepared interview questions. I find this a little tiresome. Shouldn't it be more of a conversation, an exchange of information?

One of them asks me to send him work samples. I'm a little surprised by this but in my thank-you note attach a few files. Since I had just guessed at his email address, I emailed HR Stacy to confirm it, mentioning that I was sending him some work samples he requested. Stacy confirms the email address is correct but tells me that all samples should be sent to her. This is the first weird vibe I get.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Anne is the only person in the universe who cannot receive email I send from my Sidekick. She also continues to call me at work, using my cell phone number, as if that makes a difference.

May 12 Anne asks me for references. She also asks me to send them work samples, "please call me so we can discuss what to send!" Uhm, I don't think so. I'm not going to run my work samples by the recruiter for permission. Anyway, I tell her I already sent IM samples, and I send her my references. She calls me and asks me what other jobs I'm looking at. Stupidly, I tell her. She pushes, which job would you take? I say, I haven't even gotten an offer, how am I to know? She says, what do you need to know? I'm stunned.

Anne explains that the way IM works is they want to know that I will accept their offer before they make the offer. I tell her this makes no sense. I need to know the content of the offer to make such a decision. She presses, "you need the number?" [meaning the salary amount] I say I need more than that - the benefits, who I'd report to, the title ... She emails me the PDF of IM's benefits. She also calls my references.

Anne calls me May 15: IM wants a sample of writing I have done for the Web and also wants me to come in to "meet the rest of the team," including Fred, to whom I'd report. I tell her I've already met Fred and that it's really inconvenient to have to miss more work for yet another interview.

For internal reasons, IM pushes the third in-person interview off and I meet with them again May 24. I am interviewed again by Fred, the hiring VP, and the information architect, who also has a list of interview questions to fire at me. Once again I wrap up with Stacy, having to muster enthusiasm when I'm feeling worn out and annoyed. Turns out they want me to meet with yet another person who is on vacation, who has been filling in for the position I'm up for. I manage to negotiate via Anne to make this a phone call.

It's Memorial Day weekend. I have taken Tuesday and Wednesday off to spend with my sister who's visiting. I'm expecting this last call to be scheduled for Tuesday. Instead, IM now wants me to talk to an additional person, someone who's not even in the group I'd be working in. This interview takes place over the phone on Wednesday, and it is, again, an interview. The same old questions fired at me again, What was your biggest challenge? What project were you most proud of? What do you do when the client changes their mind? Blablabla. I've kinda had it.

The fill-in person I'm supposed to speak with is on vacation until Friday, June 1st. I manage to press Anne to insist that this call take place at 9am, so I can take ti before the work day officially starts. Thursday Stacy calls me herself and lets me know that the interview has to be moved from 9am to "anytime" else that day. I pick 2:15pm and she promises she'll be able to turn around an offer by end of day Friday. Friday I make the phone call to this last person, who grills me with the standard scenario questions, and I am so sick of it, but after a half hour it's over. I email Stacy that I spoke with the person and she emails back, "I'll get in touch Monday, have a great weekend!" Great.

Monday, 6/3, rolls in. Anne calls to tell me that Stacy will be getting in touch in a couple of hours. Two hours later, Anne merely forwards me an email from Stacy that says she'll get in touch by end of day. A couple of hours later, Anne tells me that Stacy will get in touch on Tuesday. I have long started having doubts about this job/company/process. It had been clear to me after I first met with Fred 5/3 that he wanted to hire me. What was going on over there?

Tuesday, June 5, I have a migraine, and stay in bed. The phone rings in the early afternoon and it's Stacy. "Anne?" she says. I say no, it's me. "Oh, I meant to call Anne. Well, now that I have you on the phone, I might as well tell you - we're prepared to move forward with an offer!" She says this like she's telling me there is a Santa Claus. I say, "That's great!" with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. But if you thought that at this point she would tell me what they're actually offering, you were mistaken. "So we want to get back to you tomorrow! Does that timing work for you?"

I'm not even sure what she's asking me. Work for me how? What timing? I say, "I guess so." She says, "What's that supposed to mean?" Me: "What's what supposed to mean?" "What do you mean, I guess so?" "Uhm, tomorrow is fine. I thought I'd hear from you on Friday but it's no big deal, tomorrow is great." She starts explaining how my phone conversation with that last person took place too late on Friday to turn around an offer by the end of the day (even though she had promised it - not to mention it was Tuesday afternoon now), and then she asks me, "by the way," for a client reference. I tell her I don't know if I can give her one. She says that would be a problem. I tell her I can't give her a client I'm currently working with. She says why don't you think about it. We hang up.

How could they be ready to make me an offer if she still needs a reference? How could she need yet something else after all I'd already provided?

Anne calls. In panic. "Stacy told me you don't sound like you even want the job." Unbelievable. Anne and I argue. I send Stacy an email saying how thrilled I am to be considered for the position, of course I'm excited. Thanks very much. A few minutes later, an email arrives from Anne: I should not contact IM directly in the future, only through her. I'm nonplussed and call Anne. "Did Stacy say that? Did she tell you to tell me not to contact them directly?" Anne confirms. I sigh. "I think you should tell Stacy that I'm no longer interested in the position." Anne hangs up. I cannot believe this. But I am strangely relieved.

The next day Fred and I spoke about what had happened, which was good, because I had liked Fred and he was the main reason I remained interested in the position despite it not being exactly what I had set out for. In the end, we agreed to stay in touch.

I'm glad I'm starting the job I am on Monday.

gertrude

weighty issues

The first time I had an eating or weight issue of any kind was deliberate, when I was 14. I had a terrible relationship with my mother and I was depressed, and I had started losing my appetite. I lost weight. I was very close to the parents of some of my friends and they noticed and became worried about me being so thin. I thought, wow, this gets attention, and continued to barely eat at home at family meals and complain about not being hungry, even mentioning that people were pointing out my loss of weight. No use; my mother did not notice or acknowledge.

The next time was the year after college; I was doing a teaching scholarship in Vienna and was terribly lonely. That - in combination with the fantastic markets of the city where you could get 50 kinds of grains, hundreds of types of tea, endless amounts of cheese, and olives, and flowers, and pickles, and and and - led me to gain as much weight as I've ever maintained: I spent a ton of time shopping at markets and cooking and preparing salads and polenta dishes and vegetable stirfry and eating the most amazing breads and pastries. I burst out of all my clothes; my face in pictures is a pancake.

Since then, it's been the loss of appetite and weight that kicks in periodically when I'm under stress or having a particularly bad phase of depression. Three times now my doctor has put me on Remeron, an anti-depressant that causes appetite, and how. The last two times, within the past 10 years, the Remeron made me eat like a pack of wolves, obsess about eating, not be able to think of anything else. Both times I had to go off after about 5 months and 25 new pounds. I'm on it again now and have gained, again, to the point that within 2 weeks my pants and jeans are squeezing me and I inevitably feel fat. So I just went to Old Navy and bought some size 4 jeans and put away the size 2. I feel better.

I never thought I had any "eating issues" - just the lack of appetite when I get very depressed or stressed out, usually over work. One of the most amazing movies I've seen and recommend to everyone is Eating. The setting is a triple birthday party in a big Los Angeles house full of women guests, and, as is usual at parties, the centerpiece is food. The viewer is allowed in to see how each of the women relates to food; for every one of them, food is part of a relationship, and every woman relates to it differently. I saw it once in a theater with a friend who cried the whole way through. I saw it years later with another friend at her home and she was upset for days. Even if you think you have no issues with food, you're likely to relate to one of the women, and it's so powerful, so intimate, that it's likely to haunt you.

gertrude