Working Girl

This is me now:



That's right. A long-shot teaching job worked out and now I have a real job. This heralds the end of my fake job as an Internet content whore (I thought I'd go one level more disparaging than "content farmer," as we're usually referred to by legions of proper freelance writers who've been put out of work). For 15 to 25 bucks a pop, I was pumping out Pulitzer-worthy articles such as "How To Tell If Your Goat Is Pregnant" and "What Is Female Lubricant?" and "Methods Of Hair Removal." I'm a veritable font of random and useless knowledge (unless anyone has a goat you suspect might be pregnant, then maybe it's not so useless). I can also tell you how to help your Maltese through pregnancy and birth, how to get rid of mange naturally, and exactly why Monsanto is evil, how Roundup pesticide will kill you and how Roundup Ready seeds could very well be the death of us all (listen well, Turkey, since you all agreed to allow them in your country). I'm also an armchair organic lawn specialist.

However, if you ever read somewhere how to get rid of ants with essential oils and vinegar, it's complete rubbish and the Internet is a big fat liar. We had an ant invasion shortly before I went to the US, and the essential oils plus the vacuum did nothing. Granted, when I drew a circle around an ant with lemon oil and a Q-tip, the ant didn't go out of the circle for awhile. But eventually it did get out, and then apparently told all its friends that this house was armed only with essential oil and vinegar. I sent BE to the bakkal for the secret illegal poison after we went to Portland.

Okay, so it wasn't a fake job. It was a WAHM job which everyone thinks is fake but isn't really. It's like when your students tell you "My mother is a housewife," when in fact their mother is a tailor or copy editor or something. It was kind of fun, and very low on the human interaction scale. Stranger writes article and sends it in. Money appears in Stranger's Paypal account. Student loans for expensive MA continue to be paid. Stranger splurges on some sweet computer speakers and plane tickets home and weekly groceries. Etc.

Anyway, I'm wrapping my head around the new job, which all came up rather suddenly. Starts next week. We have to find a new flat and fast, since the job is on the other side of the world, in a gorgeous place where empty Soviet-style high-rises and slowly failing or never-opened malls don't dominate the landscape. I'm trying to focus on the moving part to avoid thinking about the working part.

I tried to explain it to LE. I told him I'm a teacher. He was all, "No you're not, Mama. Eda's a teacher. You Mama." and then he had a good laugh. Then I told him we were moving to a new house, and after establishing that Baba and I and the TV would also be in the new house, he got upset because he wants the new house NOW instead of going to bed. Before he fell asleep, he murmured that he would like the house to be big and blue. So maybe he'll be okay with all this and maybe he won't.

Maybe my new job will let me bring him for show and tell.

We'll see what we can do.