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[fantasmagoria]

Back in New York for almost two weeks now, and I have one job and leads on others. Surprisingly, none of my good leads have come from expected fronts, like temp agencies or Apple. Also surprisingly, the Javitz Center hired me on the spot. And Emily too. Look at us and our bad selves

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[maymaym]

Forgive the copious amounts of quotations, and, though I don't intend this to read like an email response, I miss you and can't help myself right now.

Back in New York for almost two weeks now, and I have one job and leads on others. Surprisingly, none of my good leads have come from expected fronts, like temp agencies or Apple. Also surprisingly, the Javitz Center hired me on the spot. And Emily too. Look at us and our bad selves.

Yay! Congratulations! Also, I must admit I am not at all surprised that the good leads did not come from expected sources. That's usually what makes good leads good.

It's very hard to, for example, go home and write a short story, or have a tumultuous night out with your friends, when your brain is currently fried in an oil of complex similes.

I. Agree. One. Hundred. Percent. Strongly. Frankly, I am strongly considering just getting a menial job myself. I have long since denounced that sort of thing for myself because I thought it meant a sort of failure, but it's a funny thing what success will do to you. Now that I know I can land a major, high-paying corporate position, I'm far more okay with accepting something low-paying and easy so that at the end of my day, I can still go out and party like it's my birthday (which is kind of a bad example for me since I never partied on my birthday, but you get the idea).

Will I turn them down if they call me? I think it depends on the pay scale. But you know? I might.

Good! I think if they offer you something with a not-so-great pay scale, don't turn them down immediately but instead start to negotiate. Even if you don't believe they will come up in their offer, this is the perfect chance to practice this kind of negotiation, because you have nothing to lose. I wish I had that opportunity. I've never successfully negotiated a starting salary or hourly wage like that.

But I have made some choices, and some changes, and some of them are good. One of them is (this will sound strange) that I have decided to stop caring as much. Not about writing, not about being a writer, because I have to care. I want to do something in which caring is a factor. But instead, about the individual pieces.

Also good. I think this is very hard to do for people like you and me because we are typically so fervent in our desires when we know what they are. Yet, a degree of detachment, or perspective, or uncaring, or however it can be described, is always a good thing. It's a tough balance to get right. I struggle with that all the time.

I wonder if [Ayn Rand] thought of herself as a philosopher, and considered that her expertise rather than the craft of writing?

Actually, yes, she did. She considered herself first and foremost a philosopher who expresses her ideas as a novelist. Note novelist, not a writer.

Also, I get the impression from the Fountain Head that Howard Roark is not born knowing his trade specifically but rather being born into his attitude. It doesn't matter that he's an architect, his attitude is transferable to any discipline he would have chosen to pursue. He does learn, as you mentioned, but he doesn't ever second-guess or doubt himself in any way. Even though he may understand that what he is doing at any given moment may not be as good as what he will do in that situation with more experience or education, he doesn't care, because that's not the reality he found himself in. Roark is a realist, with impenetrable values, in the truest sense of the word.

Mei is away this week.

I can't say this trip was all bad, but I know for a fact that it is not all good. I would not have regretted missing my plane. I'm very good about being able to not regret things.

I'm glad you're feeling like you're catching up with social plans. Certain social plans, as you know, are making me restless and are giving me moments of pause because we are more than 2,000 miles apart. And we just can't really be present, in any way, when we're that far apart....

...okay, the rest of this stuff should not be posted in a public LJ comment. Maybe I'll write up an email to you now. Either way, you already know I want to talk.

Love. So much love.