I look at the time stamp of my last post and on one hand am surprised that it has nearly been a month, and on the other, not at all. A lot has happened! This summer is quickly deteriorating, giving me that creeping melancholy associated with early Autumn. This feeling is usually a mixture of anticipating the winter months and an anxiety about the resumption of school. I am graduated, and am for the first time left unsure how the seasons will change without the dependable lense of school to view it through. As a lifelong student, my year has always begun in September with the school year. The idea of a year unbroken by Summer-, Winter-, and Spring-breaks has always seemed odd and frustrating to me. But here I find myself within this reality. The reality of having a job. Of having a job not proceeded by the words "seasonal," or "part-time."
A Job of that nature is what I now have. About a month ago I started working for a man who I have known off and on for about fifteen years. He runs a small, but serious, contracting company of the home remodeling type. Roofing, painting, plumbing, drywall, electrical work, &c. is all in my future. The job also entails certain personal assistantry duties ranging from office type work to defrosting the man's freezer. I did not expect to find myself with a good, well-paying job so soon after graduating from college, a job that I am grateful and lucky to have. I hope, however, that you will pardon me for being slightly disappointed with myself in this occupation. I should expect no better than a manual labor job with my Fine Arts degree and paltry resume. However, this is a
skilled manual labor job of which I have no skills in. So, in this fine and desirable job, I am dually disappointed, on the kind of work it is, and my inability to actually be good at it. I suspect that both of these, with time, will remedy themselves and I will be a happy and helpful worker.
About the time I started this job I also had an art show. I displayed prints from my Nikkei Grocery project in a small space called Carole Zoom Studios in the Pearl. The night was a huge success! Many of my friends stopped by and I sold three prints. In contrast, I had spent many hours earlier in the day arduously shoveling gravel in a basement. I hope this makes clear the misgivings about my job I stated above. I went from grueling, dirty, sweaty labor to making nearly two months rent by standing around, talking art, and sipping wine. It does not escape me though that a night like that does not come around very often.
