Random Thoughts

• Interview
I had my second interview with a potential employer today. It went well. I met with the Dir. of Marketing and Art Director again, then they took me on a tour of the office. My area would be nice, but open… NO walls. Hmmm, I’ve never worked in a place like that before. Any of y’all? How does it affect you and your work, having no privacy?

Then I met with the HR guy. He did the most throrough HR interview I’ve ever had! Most of them are like, “Hello. Are you a serial killer? No? Let me introduce you to the creative people.” And then they’re on their merry way, only later showing up to talk about insurance options until my eyes glaze over.

During the interview, I mentioned that I have two more interviews this week. As I was leaving, the DM said, “If you get an offer from someone else, please call me first before accepting it.” I took that as a very good sign.

• Rain! Blessed rain!!!
Doesn’t it just figure that my first year in Georgia is spent enduring the state’s worst drought in its recorded history?! It was sooo nice to enjoy the sounds and smell of the rain as I sat on my back porch. Had it not been for the intense lightning, I might have just stood in it and let it soak me down.

I was standing there listening intently, trying to “dissect” the different sounds the rain was making. On the leaves of the trees, it sounds like applause. On the deck, it sounds like something crackling as it fries/sizzles. On the grass, I couldn’t really hear it, but I’m sure the grass was singing with delight!

• Dogs
Scout has barked toward the back fence several times in the last few days. Every time I go out to see what’s what, I can see a figure or two though the slats of my privacy fence, and they’re walking the length of the fence back toward the condos behind my yard.

I have no idea what they’re doing back there, because it’s definitely not a pleasant place to be due to the discarded varmint carcasses I’ve thrown back there. From my understanding of the survey, part of it is my property, and part is an easement/right of way between me and the condo property.

After a particular scary-sounding barking session, I saw four figures walking along the fence and then they disappeared back into the woods by the condo. I decided to hoist myself up onto the privacy fence to see if I could see signs of drinking or smoking back there. I didn’t see anything unusual, so I’m not too concerned about nefarious goings on.

What I am concerned about is that these frequent visitors might get tired of Scout barking at them and poison or otherwise harm him. He is totally just protecting his territory, and I love having him do that, but since I think these are youths hanging out back there, I’m afraid for his safety. I’m not quite sure what the solution is. Bringing him inside is not really an option because of my own cats, and also, then he wouldn’t be able to be a guard dog. I’m certainly not going to chain him.

Maybe I’m just being too paranoid. He’s been here over a month, and nothing’s happened yet. Maybe since they know he can’t get to them, they’ll leave him alone.

• Coming Out
I’m enjoying reading the blog of a woman who just came out to her folks as a lesbian at age 34. Her writings are eloquent, witty, thoughtful, and insightful. Besides being a lesbian and being close to my age when I came out (33), she also has very religious parents (her dad is a pastor), and she wrote a letter to them as her means of coming out.

I wrote a letter as well. It felt like such a weaslely way to break that kind of news to someone, but I wanted to make sure that I got out everything I needed to say, AND, knowing it would turn their world upside-down, I wanted them to have time to digest the news before we actually spoke.

What prompted my coming out was that I was about to buy a house with my partner. I was tired of living a double life anyway, and I thought, “There’s no good way to explain why I’d buy a house with a ‘friend,’ so I might as well get it over with.” So one Friday in October, after I got home from work, I started composing my letter. I worked on it all that weekend, and by Sunday night, had it as good as I knew how to get it, and it was about three pages long, single-spaced.

So on Monday morning at 8:00, I went by the admin’s office where the mail bin was kept. Every afternoon around 4:00, one of the truck drivers would pick up the bin with the day’s mail, and deliver it to the downtown post office. The admin was a friend of mine who knew of my struggle about wanting to come out to my folks, so as I put the letter down into the bin, I told her, “Well, this is it. I’m still pretty nervous about it, but I figure I’ve got all day to fret over it and change my mind.”

I went back to my office to work, and about 10:30, the admin came by and said, somewhat sheepishly, “Cheryl, Ed (the driver) just came by to take a certified letter to the post office, and he took the mail that was already there with him. Before I thought about getting your letter out, he’d already gone.” Well, I absolutely panicked!! The letter was on its way!!

Of course, then I got to realizing that I had no idea how long it would take to get there, so I wasn’t sure when they would actually get the news. When sending mail, I’d gotten cards from my folks a day after they sent it, and other times, it would take a week! So I was a nervous wreck for the next few days.

On Thursday, I got a call from my weeping mother saying that they wanted me to come home that Saturday morning. She couldn’t really talk much other than to ask me to come home. That two-hour drive was the hardest I’ve ever had.

When I drove up, Mama and Daddy were waiting outside, and we all fell into a big group hug, crying. For the next four hours, we had the most heart-felt, honest conversation we’d ever had. And it wasn’t about just my being gay, but about a lot of other stuff that had been standing between us having adult relationships. The two-hour drive back felt like I floated, the weight of a lifetime of hiding having been lifted.

It wasn’t easy for them, and I know that. They have accepted me and my partners in the best ways they know how… Mama’s done a much better job than Daddy, but still, they have been surprisingly accepting, especially considering their religious beliefs and very limited exposure to any way of living other than their own… rural, southern, conservative. Daddy still has to warn me about hell and AIDS every now and then, but after one particularly firm conversation with him about how he’s only damaging our relationship with that kind of talk, even he’s toned down the rhetoric.

Anyway, it’s been so interesting reading how someone else is going through very similar experiences… feeling the same fear and frustrations, wondering how to handle volatile family issues, wrestling with the religious issues, etc., but she gives a very eloquent voice to those feelings in ways I never imagined.

I love the Internet. 🙂