i did it

I had my first ever big-time scary interview today! It only took 6 months after graduation to get one. Considering I've only been dicking around with a small side of actually looking for jobs, this is pretty awesome. Not to mention...in case you haven't heard, the economy sucks, so this is even more pretty awesome. It's not for a job, necessarily, just an internship... a fellowship, if you will. But the best part - yes - it gets better, is that it's paid!! I'm actually going to be paid for the grunt work that I could hypothetically be doing if I do, in fact, get this internship/fellowship/shipship.

I had to be there at 10am in a city an hour and a half away East. We're both on the same path, heading in the same direction, at the same speed. So, the question is, who arrives first? I don't know, but I do know that I had to wake up at 7am to be extra-super-sure that I would be at the interview on-time, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to nail any queery tossed my direction. And the queeries were of or pertaining to queers, too, since the internship was for a non-profit gay rights advocacy organization!! If this all sounds like a dream come true, that's because it is.

I got dressed in my cutest professionallest clothes I could find, since I'm clearly just pretending at this point. I headed out for the long drive and fell asleep at the wheel only 3 times that I could remember, which is not bad. As soon as I arrived at my destination, 30 minutes early, I had the nervous shits. The only problem was, nothing was open or clean enough for me to even consider. So, turns out, I didn't actually have the nervous shits because I never found a bathroom suitable for nervous shitting.

Once I actually entered the building (all big time scary thoughts gone after seeing the closet where these people work) I was only 10 minutes early, which I thought was just early enough. Not overachieving early, and not just early enough that it was probably luck that made you early, but early enough where you planned to be early, planned well, and all your plans worked out for the best and here you are, early, early.

I met with the director, and lied lied lied my way through the interview and got the job! Er, internship. Fellowship. Oh, whatever, I don't give a ship. I didn't really lie, though. I'm lying about lying. To be honest, it wasn't my best, but I've really been out of practice at pretending to be a professional and by out of practice, I mean I have honestly no idea what I'm doing. I just smile a lot and compliment people and things seem to work out for the best.

My first big-time scary interview went well enough and now I'm in my big-time scary job and I love it. I'm learning so much about how fucked up and ass backwards North Carolina can be - like the time a state legislator said on the floor, on the record, that we shouldn't enact anti-bullying legislation because then "the kids who are being bullied won't know what to change about themselves" - and also how progressive and awesome it can be - we're the only state in the Southeast without a marriage amendment banning same-sex marriage. And the people that I'm working for have successfully lobbied to keep that amendment from being voted on for 5 years now!!

What's really awesome is that I am now officially part of the big wheel and process of creating a better life for gays and lesbians and transgendered people. Besides being rich and famous, it's what I've always wanted to be. Well, it's been what I've always wanted to be since about a year or two ago. But since then, I've always wanted it. And now I have it. I better not fuck it up. My gay brethren are counting on me. I like that.