dream job drama

Hey all.

Weird week. Got a part-time job, which involves me being published on a regular basis, and I will link to it as soon as all the paperwork's done and my byline goes up. Good thing.

I also applied for a writers' assistant position on a show of which, due to my current job, I am an expert. We're talking frame-by-frame. More to the point, I feel like everything I've done since high school has been leading up to this mathematically improbable moment so that, when hired, I will kick ass at this position. This is, in all likelihood, my greatest shot at an "in". So I wrote a brilliant cover letter and sent it off. Didn't hear for several days (like most jobs I apply for) and then yesterday, incredibly, got a message from a writer on the show.

Didn't get the message till 3 hours later because, somehow, I must have turned my phone off or been in the bathroom when she called. The message said interviews would be for today, Friday, and "maybe next week." So I called back but we didn't make contact till this morning...

I knew I should get up early and take a shower so if and when she called, I wouldn't be in the bathroom, but I waited till around 9:00ish and, knowing how the world works, put my phone on the sink.

And of course, as soon as I started shampooing my hair, the phone rang. Panicking, I turned off the shower, got out, dried myself off as best I could, and answered the phone, breathless. Did I introduce myself when I answered? No. She asked if she had woken me. I said no, because she hadn't, and then lied to explain my breathlessness, saying I had just run to get the phone. I wasn't about to tell her that I was shivering and naked. Then I realized she could probably hear the fan, so I turned off the fan, which meant I had to turn off the light, and continued to talk, dripping on the phone, naked and in the dark.

She tried to explain how unglamorous the job was. I said I didn't care, that I understood that it was a learning experience, and was so in a panic, that I said "I don't have any experience in television," when what I meant was "I don't have any experience on a scripted show." She sounded a little strange, as if in response to my nervous, naked inability to speak coherently, but then said she'd give my resume back to the person who was coordinating interviews...

So somewhere in that I'm afraid I may have messed up, by sounding agitated on the phone, by not calling back early enough yesterday, by accidentally saying I had no experience in television, when I do, in fact, have a little. Why? Because I have not heard back yet. And in that first message those words are still ringing in my ears--"the interviews will be held Friday and MAYBE next week."

They may have already found someone. They may have changed their minds about me. Did I really get this close to have it all slip away?

Now tell me to chill because I am clearly a hypochondriac, and I'm sure it will be fine, and the person setting up interviews will call on Monday and I will have a fantastic interview and a job that is perfect for me in every way. But there's a huge chunk of me, the chunk that was once where hope resided until experience eroded the cliff and hope fell to the rocks below (my toes?), that thinks I blew it already, and if that's the case, well... DAMN IT.

Reading some good books. Edited the first fifth of my novel. Feeling okay about that. So, uh, yeah, that's nice.