Saturday, November 12, 2005

The Big Picture: Another Dragon

We past a major landmark in "officially" becoming parents: Our first parent teacher conference. Maybe I was lashing out with my rather spontaneous abandonment of my job; combatting adulthood.

The conference went exactly like I described in my very first entry. Ethan is very smart but does not pay attention to the teacher. And he's shy in large groups. The teacher told us this like it may be something we may want to medicate him over. It sounded normal to me. I stand firm: If you don't want a folder full of unrequested dragon pictures then stop giving lame assignments like "draw your clothes."

Eleanor helped out in class a couple weeks ago and told me about one little girl who was a coloring prodigy. She colored every space in solidly and rarely went out of the lines. Of course the teacher chose that girls folder to compare Ethan's to. I don't think the teacher made eye contact with me once, either. She talked to Eleanor like I wasn't in the room. I think any shortcoming Ethan has in school is rooted in her inability to connect with him. The answers are there, she just can't get to them. He was hiding behind us for the entire meeting and wouldn't talk to her.

That's alright. I'm not expecting miracles from the schools. Ethan is learning more words all the time. He came to me and kept repeating R-F-E-E. R-F-E-E, dad. I said, "Are you teasing me?" He said yes. Lesson learned: If freedom is a joke, you may as well have a sense of humor about it.

On Halloween, Ethan wore his ninja costume to school. One of his assignments read "For Halloween I was..." and Ethan wrote "a monster." He drew his costume as a round frowny face, colored green, with a lightning-bolt crack at the top with red crayon coming out. He told me his teacher was an M&M for Halloween. I asked "What color?" When he answered "green" it was everything I could do not to say, "That's the sexy M&M."

Okay, so this isn't really going anywhere. Here are some other notable things that happened this week:

The neighbor's "storage" van got towed under the ordinances the city imposed to run off the poor people. They were able to get their things out. They just piled their junk in the driveway. Their fake Christmas tree was lying in the street like it was January 2006.

I accidentally stepped on a black widow with only a sock on my foot (it didn't bite me). That makes three I've killed just outside of our doors in two years. I wouldn't mind them so much if they would run in fear. They just sit there thinking they're tough or something. Squish!

I quit my job. Every time I say it, it's like the first time. There were some nights I would go on my lunch break and when I'd get in the car my hand, of it's own accord, would raise and flip off the building. When I got home the night I quit I had a similar urge, but I thought "what is the equivalent of giving the world 'the finger' except having it mean something good?" Is there a "life is good" finger that hasn't hit the populace yet?

I put in two job applications today. I had an interview with an advertising agency. They called me for a second interview on Monday. They said the second interview consisted of spending a day with someone, watching them do the work I would be doing to make sure that me and the job are a good fit. The pay varies, but the guy who interviewed me said he made $650 the first week he did it. I'm assuming something will go wrong because no job seems to come without a little suffering first and I haven't suffered yet. But wouldn't that be cool if I made a good transition in under a week? Yes, it would.

6 comments:

Gordon said...

The pay varies? The interviewer telling you how much he made "in a week" when he did it. I smell a sales job in disguise. Will you be selling vacuums? The world's greatest vitamin? This is going to be good.

flieswithoutwings said...

I know, I know. The interviewer made it sound like all they did was hand out free Jazz tickets all day. He said they just promote events for businesses throughout the valley. He's in the business of talking smooth so we'll see what how it turns out.

ShootingStar said...

so I hate to be a wet blanket (but not someone who uses cliches), but an advertising job sounds perhaps as unfulfilling as your last job. What am I missing? Please don't take this as unencouraging in your search for a "good" transition. I hope only for your future happiness.

Gordon said...

I'll be shocked if it's actually advertising, and not sales. I'm betting sales. But the good news is that the process of finding out the real nature of the job will make for a good blog entry.

The next job he gets might not be fulfilling either. But it'll be a different kind of unfulfilling, and maybe even less unfulfilling.

A leech on the leg seems positively glorious when you've just pulled a lamprey off your neck.

Native Minnow said...

I'm betting it has something to do with dressing up in a gorilla suit and holding a sign on the side of the road trying to get people to shop at K-Mart.

I've always thought you'd be good at advertising. You're certainly creative enough, so hopefully you can find something that allows you to use that. Whether it's this job opportunity or another.

Anything is better if it gets the look of death from behind your eyes, but I'm going to go ahead and suggest that you keep UPS off your list of options.

ShootingStar said...

No offensive to nativeminnow, but I suggest you keep the gorilla suit off your options as well. Just think of the summer heat!