I am recently returned from what turned out to be more than a skills test, it was a first interview, at the specialty publishing company that seeks to hire someone maybe like me. The editing test was hard, and my hat is off to anyone who can make me say that, since I�m no amateur. The potential job, con: 1. As noted, crappy pay. 2. The company is smaller than I thought, which decreases the possibility of office camaraderie and esp. chick-friendmaking. 3. There would not in fact be any opportunity for a person like me, that is to say a person without academic grounding in the specialty in question, to move up through the ranks � they would prefer to hire a specialty-grounded person who happens to be able to edit but have historically had poor luck at that. You don�t have to be a scientist to conclude that this also suggests they would continue to be stingy on the salary end of things. 4. The job listing stressed that it was a "casual" work environment, which since this is raised-in-a-barn Seattle means that there were people walking around in baggy jeans, fleece vests, and wrinkled shirts. This depresses me and around here it only gets worse in winter. 5. The hiring manager, who interviewed me, didn�t seem all that enthusiastic about the benefits, and usually interviewers really talk those up. The potential job, pro: 1. The office is a 23-minute walk from the bacon shack. 2. It�s a seven-and-a-half hour workday with a half-hour lunch. 3. The offices are nice, with lots of light. Some walls are brick. It�s not a cube farm. 4. Based on experience, I suspect I could do the work faster than they think I can. 5. It�s not a career-ender; I mean, I would not be embarrassed to have it on my resume. 6. Working full-time at such a job, having it as a credential, would enable me to snag the odd specialty freelancing gig, and who knows, the low pay might motivate me to seek them out. 7. The hiring manager said that in the past they have made flextime concessions to people who were going to school � like to get some specialty cred, maybe? Hmm. 8. If a person wanted to take some time, say a year or so, to generally figure shit out, pausing occasionally to sit down and have a soul-searching conversation with herself about what she wanted to do with her life, etc., then a low-stress and evenly paced job like this one would be a fine place to park herself.

Don�t know, we�ll see. Unless I went down in flames on the test, which was tough but I don�t think that tough, they�ll be calling about a group interview for early next week. They�re "looking at a number of candidates," the hiring manager told me, and I hate when they say that because No shit, of course you are; the statement implies that I might have been thinking the opposite, and whenever someone spells it out like that I feel like I am subtly being put in my place. Maybe I�m paranoid though � she seemed all right.

Long Winters were fantastic as ever. They sold out the Tractor on a Tuesday night. I remember the day early last summer when I first heard "Car Parts" on KEXP, I was tooling down the access road to the Arson parking lot and it came on the radio and it was so strange how I just *knew*, it was like This is the song. This is the band. This is the album I�m buying tonight right after work, and this is the show I�m going to � at the moment I had no idea they were from here, I only knew I was going. Who could have imagined then that I�d end up sleeping with each of them? No, ha ha, I am kidding. Now my little babies are all growed up. I sent my sister tour dates so she and Matt P. can go see them when they�re in NYC. (I recommended they skip the one with Jesse Sykes on the bill � friends don�t let friends go to Jesse Sykes shows.) When I got home afterwards I found out something shocking about Steve, which is that unlike me, on a given weekend he would rather go camping than to see the Mountain Goats and that it does not make intuitive sense to him that a sane person, upon finding out that tickets to same were available, would immediately assume that this momentous event negated camping plans and therefore buy two tickets. I am sorry, but I am not sorry, I am not going to get anywhere near an apology for that one. So there was, uh, a spirited debate during which I declined to apologize or act contrite � the Mountain Goats, Steve, come on! � and now the plan is that on Saturday October 4 he will go camping with some dudes from work and I will spend the night planted in front of the Tractor stage, hoping John D. sweats on me. So, Mrs. R., I guess the double-date pre-func is out. Maybe I�ll see if Art or Rich wants to relieve me of my other ticket.

I am going to Bellingham of all places for lunch tomorrow to meet Catharine of all people, who at the last minute finds herself taking a leisurely cross-country weekend. I still haven't quite processed this information. In other possible travel news, here�s one of the most enticing invitations I�ve ever received, for Christmas in Chicago with my sister: "The wind off the lake will suck. We'll freeze to death. We'll buy bourbon and muffins and hole up in our room. We'll get Xmas brunch. We'll shop our asses off Xmas eve." Mary, you had me at "bourbon."