ACCOZZAGLIA

so, like, the face-to-face sorta just, well, went. okay, i guess, but nevertheless, i’d almost be happier up in Everett today. this banh mi in front of me, though, is an inexpensive but tasty reminder that there really is life worth living out there.

i went through the interview with “H” as scheduled. i swear that she must be younger than me by at least two to four years, though i could very well be wrong. it was otherwise a forgettable experience. i felt like i rambled incessantly. “H” is the kind of person who listens quietly but is in no way conversationally interactive.

this led to some initial and uncomfortable pauses. evidently, the market here is worse than even i originally thought. where once a client would ask the agency to find someone with “X” experience, they now demand that a creative candidate have nothing but dedicated experience in “X”.

this in part explains the initial reaction i got from the client out in Bellevue the other day, and it also explains why i’m getting nothing anywhere. because i don’t have a singular dedicated skillset in just graphic design or copywriting or art direction or even traffic coordination, it’s apparently harder to sell me — even though my experiences in each seem to be impressive on their own. or so i’m being told these days.

so, it won’t until after 12:30p until i can hike it on home to the “edge of EVERything forgETTable”, or “Everett” for short.

* * *

once i get home, i have to write back this person with whom i’ve been professionally courting out in Chicago. specifically, Belmont & Kedzie (see why i asked?). since Monday morning, we’ve engaged in three, going on four rounds of mail between us. she wrote this morning, just before i had to catch the rare bus at 7:20a.

turns out that she’s the creative director of the agency, and from what i can gather, also the owner, even though she had no connection with the name of the company, which sounds either like some guy’s name or two last names concatenated. the company started in 1978, and she noted that the size of the agency has ranged between two and ten people at any given time between then and now.

the odd thing is, i can’t tell to save my life whether she’s seriously interested in me professionally. i mean, maybe it caught her attention that my visual style shares many of the same qualities her agency’s present and past work reflects. she’s also been pretty nebulous when it comes to defining what exactly she’s looking for in a suitable candidate, and whether she feels like i possess any of those qualities.

fortunately for me, i nailed one thing she wanted right on the head — that being the desire to find a candidate with maturity and strong hindsight for the whims of this industry. but otherwise, it’s like this whole affair is some professional or creative mating ritual of sorts. or maybe like a round of poker — if only i knew how to play. our faces show little behind our hand.

i retain interest here because this may be the last chance i can forsee for a long time — perhaps forever — whether i’m worth something in the industry which i adopted as my profession almost a decade ago. or not.

clearly i would have to move there, and i am willing to do that, even though this would take me away from sparkle_vixen, something which i truly want to avoid, really. but i need money and the ability to look towards my future, i need to keep my career current and i need to be active, cos this extended unemployment is killing me and whatever hopes i may have left.

the other caveat is the small size of the company. i was employed by a design agency once that was comprised of two people. as the art director, i was slated to play many roles. but six weeks after i joined, the agency folded due to reasons beyond my control or purview.

and mind you, this wasn’t 2001. it was early 1998, just when one would think that such things weren’t possible then.

it’s the story of my life, really.

so, of course i’m cautious. of course i’m skeptical. and of course i have a lot to lose if the relationship ultimately didn’t work out, should i be brought into their fold and have to move out there alone.

not a good situation. i’m sick of moving to new cities and being pitted with adversely bad situations. somthing hard or bad has occurred in the four times i’ve moved from city to city, without fail, it seems.

with such a track record, one may think that i’d be happier being stuck in the house, agoraphobic to the world.

it’s crossed my mind up there in Everett, and sparkle_vixen will attest to my reluctance to leave the house on several occasions. it’s antithetical to my life in Minneapolis.

i just want something good to happen for once, that’s all. otherwise, what’s the point?