Where You Sit Is Where You Stand (And Wag) Haiku

When I'm back to work -
When I get up, shower, leave -
The dog will be sad.

Hire Him

This guy has posted a bunch of flyers all the way up a local phone pole which also has a giant DEAD END sign on it. But if I get the DEAD END sign and the flyers, it's a really ugly shot.

How do I know he's a guy? If you check out the flyers, there's a url. He's a graphic artist with a lot of talent (and a lot of prominent clients). So the DEAD END thing is just a visual joke, and it appears he's doing quite well.

Myth

On Friday, I had an informational interview at a prestigious local private college. It was a miserable day, with slashing rain and hail, but I left with so much extra time that I was able to stop near the college, have a cup of coffee, and mentally prepare. Then I drove over and discovered, when it was time to buy a parking permit, that my purse was left at the coffee shop.

Oops. Back, grab purse, back to college, park blocks from where the permits are sold, never mind, risk the ticket because being late to an informational is rude, race all the way across campus through the rain and hail to the President's office, drippping and bedraggled but still, miraculously, on time.

And the President is grace personified - finds a spot to hang my dripping coat, seats me in a big brocade chair in front of her fireplace, which is merrily dancing away, offers me tea, and spends an hour helping me imagine how I might serve higher ed. The President and I have two friends in common, which is how I have managed to meet her, but I don't deserve this luxury, this kindness, and all this time. It's lovely. It's the hidden treasure of job-hunting - sit in beautiful offices and talk to fascinating people about what they do - and this time there's a fireplace.

When I left, it was 11:30, and I realized if I tried, I could make it to a noon Good Friday service at my church. Why not? I raced back through the rain and hail, all warm on the inside, and drove across town.

Four blocks from the church, I was lined up to make a left in an intersection, and on the sidewalk was a man holding a cardboard sign. He was wet, dirty, and no doubt very cold, and his streetcorner misery in the weather was far from my residual fireplace warmth, or even just my dry car. I felt sad, and guilty, and unfairly lucky. And then there was his baffling sign, which read, "MYTH."

I had to think about that. The sign had not always said "MYTH." It had once been bigger. In the rain, the carboard was disintegrating: the bottom had fallen off, as had the sides. There was part of a letter buried beneath each of his hands. At some point there'd been a word with "MYTH" in the middle of it.

I couldn't think of one.

I made my turn, and got to church. I lacerated myself as a lousy Samaritan, in the bitter certainty that Jesus had been pretty darned explicit about not wanting anyone to drive past a cold, wet, poor man in order to go to church. I realized I'd misread the first letter. The sign had once said: ANYTHING.