Magic words and mondays

I love Mondays.

Mondays mean quiet. Mondays mean recuperation and rest from a crazy weekend of waiting tables. Mondays are my time, the time I sit down, coffee in hand, and remember who I am.

Signs of spring

A recent weekend was especially hectic. A few Saturday nights ago, the restaurant I work at closed for a private wedding reception, which left me conflicted. I knew the moment would come, and I braced myself for it: the moment the photographer walked in the door.

I would watch him or her scrupulously, critiquing every shot, envisioning how it would look in my mind, criticizing. But it's only because, for this night, I was on this side: serving Prime Rib and Chicken Marsala instead of being where I love to be - my second favorite place in the world to be besides behind my dog team: behind a camera.

As the night went on, while tending to my tables, I couldn't help but focus on the photographer. At one point, a gorgeous halo of light fell right on the bride and the groom sitting at the head table. I walked over to the photog, who was sitting at the bar, drinking a beer and eating Prime Rib to tell him about the moment begging for capture with his Canon Mark IV. He shrugged and took another bite, indifferent to the golden light of the setting sun.
 
My favorite magic words these days are these: "you're phased."

Those of you in the service industry are undoubtedly familiar with this phrase. For servers, these words mean you are slowly being phased out of actively taking tables. Things have died down enough that you stop taking tables in your section and can begin your side work. It means you will soon be leaving work. 

Before long, I was phased. Once I finished my side work, I felt especially downhearted. I left the photographer and the reverie of the reception and wandered outside. Where I work is a bustling area in a college town, a block full of bars and taverns, restaurants and studios. I walked across the street to another pub for a beer. Such a relief to sit down, the beer went down all too easily and I had another. I decided to leave before I was tempted to have another.

As I walked to my truck, eager, hopeful faces of college kids passed by in all directions. One young man with a vaguely familiar face stumbled up to me, clearly already quite drunk at only 11:30 p.m.

"Hey!" he said, slurring his speech. He touched my hand, his blue eyes sparkled with a youthful exuberance. He was tan, with sandy brown hair and an aqua green button-down shirt. "You were my server!"

I smiled. I didn't know whether to be flattered or startled by his simple recognition; I think I was a little of both.

"Yes," I replied, returning his touch by steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. "Yes, I was. And it seems like you made the most of that open bar!"

"Can I give you a dollar?" he asked. Now I was taken aback.

"No, you can keep your dollar," I laughed.

"What if I give you twenty?" he asked. He reached for my hand again, this time cupping the crisp bill between his and my own palm.

"What?" I said, flabbergasted. "Why would you want to give me twenty?"

"Because you did a great job ... and I know how hard it is." He said, at 22 years old, he had recently started his own landscaping company and "rakes in two-thousand dollars a day." I don't know that I believe him, but he insisted I keep the 20-spot. He was so drunk, I doubted he would remember giving it to me, but I was quite thankful for his generosity. He hugged me before stumbling further down the pub-lined sidewalk. He smelled like Old Spice Swaggar and Bud Light.

Who wakes up and thinks to themselves, "I want to be a starving artist when I grow up?" I sure didn't. But somehow, I feel fortunate and grateful for the random blessings of strangers, and the lessons of this time period.

I am the sum of all of these parts: mother, sister, daughter, lover, dog driver, writer, photographer, and yes, server of Chicken Marsala. I am not too proud to accept the gifts of random strangers. And I am pulling myself up by my bootstraps, one boot lace at a time.

Thank you, handsome young man in the dapper aqua green shirt who handed me a 20-spot that night on the sidewalk. I hope karma returns your generosity one-hundredfold. Namaste.

The time I was a nomad: how I discovered horses, maxi pads and pornography

The year I entered sixth grade, my parents moved four times. As if sixth grade isn't difficult enough, try being the "new kid" on perpetual repeat. My family’s semi-nomadic lifestyle was spawned by a dream.   

Mom and dad had honeymooned in Naples, Florida in 1970, and ever since, dad dreamed of living there. So, in 1984 dad sold the family business and headed for Naples. Life in Naples was fascinating for an 11-year-old girl from Ohio. The Gulf of Mexico was a veritable playground of wild creatures not at all like anything I encountered in Ohio. One evening, after returning from dinner, the peaceful trill of crickets was thwarted by the startled screams of my mother from the family room. 

I accompanied dad into the family room to discover mom in near hysterics over a bright green tree frog stuck to the wall.  There was much clamor about how to capture and transport the thing back into the wilds of our tropical backyard. We opted for a large bowl, about the size of a Cool Whip container and threw it over the frog. Slowly, heroically, dad slid the lid of the container between the wall and the opening of the bowl, trapping the frog safely inside. 

Then there were encounters with black snakes.  

For the sake of clarification, Florida's "Black Racer" is non-venomous. But try telling that to an Ohio transplant.

My dad was trimming hedges in our Naples backyard one sunny afternoon when mom and I saw him suddenly flinging the hedge trimmers wildly into the bushes. In a matter of seconds, he hacked the neatly-trimmed hedges with irrevocable damage. Mom and I ran out to see what had prompted such a spontaneous fit of flailing, only to discover a large black racer lounging deep within the shadows the the hedges.

Dad managed to kill it, but not long after, a dozen or so mini-black racers hatched in our backyard. Every time mom went out the sliding door to hang laundry, she stomped her feet with each step in an attempt to get the snakes to clear out of her way.

It seemed we had just settled in when we were whisked off again: this time to Orlando. I was sad to leave our stucco three-bedroom ranch in Naples. Mom dragged the boxes out, which were still labeled "bedroom" and "kitchen" and I knew there was nothing I could do. Protesting was futile.
Things weren’t going as planned for dad in the insurance sales business, and when the going got tough, my parents got packing.

I learned to pack boxes with precision, wrapping fragile items in newspaper. Each city seemed to offer hope for a fresh start, but whittled away quickly. After a brief stint in Orlando's "Chickasaw Woods," an upper middle class development, we landed at the home of my mom’s sister in Melbourne. It was here that I discovered, among other things, how to ride a horse, what it meant to have a period, and pornography.

My three older cousins were all boys. The youngest one was 17 when we moved in. They didn't talk to me much. All I knew of them were that they were all into older muscle cars, and the youngest had a giant poster of Farrah Fawcett in a bathing suit on his bedroom wall.

Chery Teigs was on the opposite wall.

I was 11 years old, staring in the buxom bosom of these voluptuous women. Their flowing 80's feathered hair and glowing skin seemed to embody what a woman should be and what boys liked. I struggled to find my place in this world.

I had always been a shy, tomboyish-type with too much belly flub, what my mom called "baby fat" even though I was 11. My favorite thing in the world was my hamster, Critter. The year before, when my pre- pubescent breasts started to blossom before any of the other girls in my class, I wore a light weight jacket to school every day, all day, in an effort to hide the cone-shaped breasts that had become my shame.

And yet, my body kept changing, stirring within me new feelings. My parents' money problems and career struggles became muted to the hum of my own thoughts and concerns: like, about boys in the new school in Melbourne, why I had to start wearing a bra, what the aching cramping feeling was in my stomach, and trying absorb life in a bi-lingual school where I was a minority among African American, Hispanic and Puerto Rican children.

One Saturday, my youngest cousin's girlfriend, Darlene, asked me if I wanted to learn how to ride a horse. She lived in an orphanage nearby, and the kids in the home had horses. I felt bad that she had no parents, but having horses seemed like kinda a trade off.

Darlene introduced me to Cassy, an 18 year old gentle dappled grey mare Quarter horse. We spent the day riding around the arena. Darlene taught me the basics of Western (heels back, straight back, relaxed shoulders) and showed me the difference between a Western and an English saddle. The difference was clear to me: English was just way tiny and more uncomfortable looking. She then asked me if I wanted to try riding bare back. I was nervous, but jumped in, reassured Cassy's gentle demeanor.

Darlene led us around the arena walking at first, until I became used to the gait of the horse and how to hold on with my thighs. Darlene showed me how the horse read my body language through the contact my body made with her back.

"Keep your legs in the same position you would if you had your feet in stirrups," Darlene instructed. She told me to keep my back straight and sit forward in order to maintain my balance. She then let go of Cassy and I walked her around the arena myself, proud of my accomplishment.

I squeezed her sides a little and called her up into an easy trot. At first, my butt collided with her back, bumping up and down. But then I caught onto her gait - which was nice and smooth - and learned to move with her movement.

That day started the beginning of many years of a love of horses for me. As Darlene drove back to my aunt's house in her little MG sports car, I felt somehow like I had crossed over into some new realm of adulthood.

I didn't realize how very literal that was when, to my surprise, I found blood in my underwear when I went to the bathroom back home. I fastened a maxi pad into the clean white crotch of a new pair of underwear. I came out into the den feeling like I had somehow arrived, like I was a woman, akin to Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Teigs after all.

Later that night, perhaps out of boredom, curiosity or a combination of the two, I started rummaging through bags of things in the back half of the room I stayed in. The room had been a later addition to the house, added right off of the den, and my middle older cousin had previously lived in the room. There were bags of his things left behind. I had no business searching through his things. But nothing could have prepared me for what I found. 

Tucked under a sheet I found a plastic bag of the grocery variety. Nosy, I pulled the bag out from it's hiding place and started to unwrap its contents. Imagine my surprise when I saw, on the cover of a stack of magazines of the same variety, a nearly naked woman. Her head was thrown back in ecstasy, her breasts exposed with a man's tie wrapped around her neck. She wore a black lace garter belt, and nothing more. 

I felt a mix of shame and curiosity come over me. I couldn't resist but to pull the rest of the contents out of the bag. Names like "Dirty Girl" and "Private" and "Penthouse" spilled out. I had never seen a penis before, and suddenly, all variety of penis's stared at me: black ones, pink ones, huge ones, small ones; penis's stuffed in all variety of orifices. I had never looked at my own body in such detail, and now the most private, intimate parts of other people were exposed during intimate activities with other people's private parts. 

Was this why my older cousin's lusted after Farrah Fawcett?

I felt confused, ashamed, and somehow strangely aroused. Is this what people did when they loved each other? Is this what I would eventually have to do? 

Suddenly, I lamented the maxi pad between my legs. Suddenly, I no longer wanted to be a woman, but remain the child I once was. The child I was leaving behind.

Mimosas and martinis: the fine madness of waiting tables

Rejection letters always start off the same. Thank you for your interest. After careful consideration, we've chosen another candidate. blah blah blah blah.

My "stack" - rejection letters

I've started a small collection of rejection letters. Some may say this is masochistic. I thought so, too, when I'd heard of people saving rejection letters in the past. A friend once saved every rejection letter he'd received from the literary journals he'd submitted work to.

Each letter (and a lot of them are electronic, so I don't have hard copies) is a reminder of something I wanted, something I invested and believed in. And, I have to believe that with each rejection comes the possibility of honing my skills, building character, an opportunity to adapt and add grace to my life.

I started waiting tables two weeks ago, and so far, here's what I know: it's a hella more difficult to wait tables at 40 than it was at 25. But, I walked in on a Monday to fill out an application, and walked back into the same restaurant on Wednesday ready to serve. It's a fairly swanky, one-of-a-kind local place where people order mimosas with Sunday brunch and martinis with Porterhouse steaks.

Here's what else I know: you have to be willing. When you are willing, opportunities present themselves. 

Author Cheryl Strayed said in Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, “Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

My small quiet room is a bustling room of mimosas and martinis, of chicken marsalas and porterhouse steaks, of American Express and Visa. And every day I'm hustling.

For whatever reason, this is what presented itself to me at this time. I've chosen to embrace it with love and as much grace as I can muster. I have to believe there is a method to the madness.

I'm lying on my hammock half dozing, lulled by a warm breeze that sways the hammock gently from side to side. Above me, tiny buds emerge from the small stand of dogwood trees that support the hammock cradling me; beyond the branches, the sky is a delicious azure. Bald eagles screech and  red-winged black birds call from trees surrounding the Ranch's seven acres.

I am savoring this day off and have vowed to stay off my feet -- and outside -- as much as possible. I've curled up with a copy of Kathleen Norris's The Cloister Walk,  which seems perfect.

I open the book to a random page, and find this:

“Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.”

Amen. 

Thanks to my friend Jim for recommending The Cloister Walk. 

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

About two weeks ago, I received an email from a recruiter who found my profile/resume on monster.com. Her email explained that she was impressed with the versatility of my skill set, and that my kind of diversity and original, creative thinking  is exactly what her company - a large manufacturer of "over 510,000 different products used to maintain facilities, solve problems, and fuel the imagination" - strives to bring on board. She ended her email with a request for a phone interview and an attachment for a job description that I couldn't, for the life of me, decipher or decode, so thick was the jargon.

Now, mind you, I spent eight years critically reading, processing, thinking about and churning out words. I've waded through an entire year of Shakespeare and all 52 of his plays; slogged my way begrudgingly through all of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; devoured all 800 pages of James Joyce's Ulysses (as well as Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners);  and spent an entire summer with the entire collection of Willa Cather's novels. I also managed within those eight years to produce God-only-knows how many 20-page essays as well as 100 pages of a master's thesis fulfilling the requirement for my creative writing program. 

If anyone knows drivel, I know drivel. And this job description was full of it. 

Still, what did I have to lose.

Wednesday

So, after a successful initial phone interview, I headed to the company headquarters for a three hour interview despite coming down with the first head cold I'd had since I could remember. I stopped at a drug store on the way to the interview for some pseudoephadrine-filled goodness, then headed to the interview. It was a beautiful Wednesday as my gps lead the way through the corporate landscape to the building that would be my destination. The atmosphere was modern, corporate and sterile inside; row upon row of cubicles filled a giant, open room.

A perky older lady with an updo glanced at me through her bifocals at the reception desk. 

"I have a meeting with Cathy at 1:30," I explained. 

She looked quickly at her day planner, then asked, "Oh, are you Shannon?"  

"Yes," I nodded. She smiled warmly and handed me a clipboard with a three-page application. "If you could fill this out, I will let Cathy know you're here." She smiled briefly, dismissing me to a corner of the reception area next to an art-deco looking sculpture of giant rectangles in primary colors stacked in an alternating pattern. 

I met with Cathy, a slightly rotund blond with a button nose in a mundane burgundy cardigan and matching t-shirt. Very "office casual." She spoke a language I did not speak, referring to a large catalog of over 500,000 products. 

"Clearly we care a lot about presentation," she said. "You can tell that by this catalog of our products. The paper is of the highest quality, and even though it is thin, it is superior in strength." She pinched her fingers along the edge of about five pages of the giant catalog and picked the whole thing up by these pages as a demonstration.

She went on, "Our signature catalog contains more than 500,000 of the highest-quality, highest-demand products, and our supply chain and logistics management allows us to deliver those products to our customers quickly and reliably."

I met with Allison, a bubbly 20-something with calf-length boots and blond highlights through her mouse-brown hair. She spoke the same language as Cathy. I asked for clarification about what the position entailed. 

"Your job as a Generalist would be to guide our diverse clientele quickly and effectively through our enormous inventory to the specific products they need to meet their business goals," said Allison without skipping a beat. 

I listened attentively. As it turned out, Allison formerly worked in my field, in health education, and knew a former colleague of mine from the medical school I worked at two years ago. We discussed the struggles with grant-funded positions and why health educators aren't valued more in the medical field over nurse educators. 

I met with Beth, who would be my manager. She explained her vision of the Generalist position. 

"This job as I see it is not only to quickly and efficiently supply customers with the products they need, it is to ferret out more information from them so they do not have to ask the same questions the next time. Our job is to figure out what the customer needs before they even need it."r 

So this is a customer service job answering phones and taking orders. The picture finally began to come into focus. 

"Escape"

I left feeling confident I would receive a job offer.  I thought of the relief I would feel receiving, finally, the first paycheck and how I could finally get caught up financially. 

Thursday

But then, a dread began to fill my heart. My career spans fifteen years in education and non-profit work. I am driven by jobs that do something good for others, give something back. What would this job provide? At the end of the day, I could go home knowing I helped Mr. Jones find the perfect air carbon-gouging electrodes? Sure, I could catch up on my credit card bill, but where is the intrinsic value? 

Friday finds me in near panic mode, convinced I would be locked into a corporate job that lured me in with its compelling salary and sexy predictability. 

So imagine my shock when I opened a rejection letter from none other than the "industry leader in distribution, operations and customer service." A generic form letter, Cathy stated that upon review of my credentials, they had chosen a candidate that more closely matched their needs. 

I sighed with relief, thanking God for narrowly escaping corporate hell. 

Then, I scratched my chin, furrowed my brow and thought, "who the hell do they think they are? Rejection letter! Pfft!"

It's hard to receive a rejection letter, even when it's from a position you don't necessarily want. But I seem to receive them weekly these days. I feel a solidarity with the thousands of unemployed masses seeking to find that golden opportunity, seeking to find that someone who will recognize our talents for what they are and scoop us up into their arms.

I keep trying to understand the lesson I am supposed to learn from all of this. I am trying to accept that I am exactly where I need to be right now, despite the fact that I want desperately to change where I am, both in latitude and longitude, as well as figuratively.

 Monday

Perhaps what I need is another job waiting tables and bar tending.  I put on some make up, curl my hair, and put on something other than a hoodie and sweatpants and head to town to an upper scale restaurant/bar. I meet with the manager who I spoke with on the phone just two days before. He is middle aged, clearly anxious for he is fidgety, constantly looking around, wringing his hands.

By Monday afternoon, I am employed as the newest member of their wait staff and bar tending crew.

Forty years old, a masters degree, and 15 years of experience in non-profit outreach, education and communications/PR and I am a bartender. It might not make a dent in the $85k I accrued in graduate school, I might not find the satisfaction or intrinsic value of "doing good" divvying out martinis and plates of Chicken Parmesan. But maybe, just maybe I can get caught up on my credit card.

Shannon Miller is a freelance writer and photographer from northeast Ohio.  Her worthless resume can be viewed here

Mad skills!

Snow swirls from wind bursts in the parking lot of the airport as I walk toward the double doors. Billy Ocean's "Caribbean Queen" dances over the speakers through the airport. The terminals are crowded with pasty Ohioans eager to embark on planes set for spring break destinations and sunny shores.

I am 20 minutes early, so I duck into the bathroom for one last check. I curse myself when I notice a coffee drip on my blouse. Damned cheap travel mug. Luckily, I can cover it up under the lapel of my blazer jacket. I give my hair a fluff, apply some lip gloss, and head out to the information desk.

A middle-aged woman greets me with a cautious smile. "How can I help you?" she asks politely.

I am here to meet Cindy and David to gauge my candidacy for becoming another cautious smile behind the information desk. I find my way up the stairs to a conference room and sit next to Cindy and across from David at the round conference table. Cindy takes out a sheet of what I presume are interview questions. They both glance at copies of my resume (which they received 10 days ago) in silence.

Cindy mentions the schedules, which vary, and that they can only offer me up to 25 hours, but that some weeks it might be less. She shows me a print out of the current schedule, with names highlighted. We discuss briefly my experiences with customer service and then David interjects. I appreciate his candor. Give it to me straight.

"We put a lot into training the people who work at the information desk," he says. "The woman who this position is replacing was here for 22 years, and another woman was here for 15." He gazes firmly into my eyes. "I'm concerned, given your resume..." he pauses diplomatically, "that we'd just get you trained and you'd leave us for a full-time job. And given the pay rate..." (he continues, and I realize I don't even know what the job pays, but I presume it ain't pretty if he has to preface it like that) "...I'm also concerned about your commute. How long did it take you to get here?"

Forty minutes. 

The pay rate? $9.25 an hour. $1.40 more than minimum wage. And no benefits.

The interview lasts all of five minutes before I'm told in so many words that I am "over qualified."

And this information was gleaned from my resume, which was in both Cindy and David's hands over a week ago. Couldn't they have concluded a week ago that they found me "over qualified?" Before I spent the better part of the morning driving nearly two hours?

I've considered, lately, hiding my degree just so I can get a job - any job.

Today, I contacted the university where I received my degree from - and where I also was a faculty member until 2010 - to request copies of my transcripts. An awesome job opened up nearby, but transcripts are needed to apply.

"It looks like there is a parking hold on your transcript release," the woman at the registrar's office said.

"Oh?" I replied, thinking I could give her my card for the $20 or whatever amount was preventing me from obtaining my transcripts and be on my way. "How much is it for?" I asked.

"One hundred and forty three dollars..."

"What?" I exclaimed.

The hurdles of achieving employment seem impossible. This is the modern day Holy Grail. At least for me. I spend half my days looking for and applying for jobs that I seem to just miss the mark on; I'm either over qualified, under qualified, "second choice" if the first choice declines the offer (yes, I've heard this twice now), or can't afford to pay some overpriced ridiculous parking ticket to the university to release my transcripts. And now documentation of my college career - eight years of my life - will be held hostage indefinitely because I parked on a slab of concrete for a couple hours without a piece of plastic on my window stating I had privileges enough to park there.

In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, I don't even have any good skills.

While filling out my profile on monster.com, I am stumped by the "skills" section.

Please note how resourceful I am by the tab within the screen shot labeled "Taking screen shots on a Mac OS..."

I have mad skills. I am awesome at Photoshop, pretty good with a camera, fearless in front of an audience. I have great rhythm, am decent with semi-colons, damned resourceful and hella persistent. I'm a great debater, don't ever back down from a challenge, and damn it if I'm not versatile.

So what gives?

Submitted respectfully,
Hopeful (and yet hopelessly unemployed) in Ohio.

Shannon Miller is a freelance writer and photographer from northeast Ohio.  Her mad skills can be viewed here

"In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo."

I picked up my name tag and walked into the reception hall juggling a tripod, two cameras and a video camera. My eyes focused on the open bar, and I made my way across the room. I needed a drink for tonight.

I ordered a run-of-the-mill Cabernet Sauvignon even though I really just wanted a beer. Yuengling didn't seem swanky enough for this crowd, though.

"Do you have your white ticket?" the bar tender asked.

"White ticket?" I raised an eyebrow. "No, I didn't know I needed a ticket. Where do I get one?"

I left my glass on the bar and trekked to the woman in charge of the white tickets, feeling strangely reminiscent of Willy Wonka seeking the Golden Ticket. The woman was portly and looked unhappy that I did not already have a white ticket. She fished in a pocket of her large, elastic wasted pants and handed me the coveted white piece of paper. I trudged back to the bar to fetch my wine.

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

On the way there, I saw at least a dozen people I knew from my "old" life. Colleagues. Movers and shakers of the city. Politicians, directors of non-profits, hospital officials. They smiled for my camera, and we made idle chit chat about life, catching up on the last five years.

I don't dare tell them how four months ago, I abandoned everything to live in a one-room cabin in the northwoods in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, or how I came back because I was busted flat for cash. There's more money in this room than I care to think about.

I clutch my glass of Cabernet and seek out my seat at my assigned table, #18 where a salad of mixed field greens awaits me. The room smells like onions. I sit next to the contact who hired me to shoot videography and photography of the event. Next to the plate of field greens, two forks sit neatly next to each other; another fork rests above the plate like the number 12 on a clock. Rule of thumb says to start from the outer-most utensil and work in toward the plate, but the rule of thumb forgot to mention this third fork. I assume it is for the lavish dessert that is already placed at the 12 o'clock position, above the fork. I choose the outer-most fork and dig into the greens.

Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

As I finish my salad, the person next to me frowns. "I used the wrong fork," she says quietly and looks disappointed with herself. There is prattle about lipstick shades.

A caterer brings dinner ("a spinach and artichoke stuffed braised chicken along with a grilled salmon fillet topped with caramelized onions and a side of potatoes") to my place setting just as the guest speaker is announced.

The speaker is an author. She tells stories about being a reporter, breaking the mold, dancing to her own drummer. Her stories seem to illustrate various ways she is an awesome leader and those around her are lemmings. She speaks of a friend who "has arrived" because she has five houses; she sings the praises of this room full of philanthropists for raising over $2 million for "those less fortunate" and for doing all they do for the community. She encourages us to "live for today."

I am immediately bored with her "carpe diem" spiel. It is so played out. I try to focus on my cameras, but my mind drifts back to my dogs, to winter. It feels like a sort of culture shock to be back here, among faces familiar enough, but strangers nonetheless. I feel alien in these heels instead of my boots.

I have sent resumes off for so many positions just like the ones the people in this room are locked to. I've tried for months to land a "real" job, get my career back.

It all seems so stifling and phony. These same people are inspired by the cliched unique individual who tenaciously clings to their individuality despite pressures to conform, the fictitious protagonist in the blockbuster movie who is revered as a hero. Meanwhile, they go home to their own lives in sub divisions with growing ulcers and fretful brows about the mortgage, the car payment.

In the real world, the one who follows their own path is not the protagonist. The one who follows their own path is the outsider, the antagonist.

I left this dinner tonight with a few hundred photos, an hour's worth of video, and the quiet knowledge that I cannot go back to that life.

As I walked out of the meeting center, about 30 women stood in the foyer of the building waiting on the valet to bring their cars to them. These same women had just spent two hours at a dinner to celebrate the independent pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps woman who makes things happen. Ironic?

I stepped out of my truck after the 40 minute drive back to my seven acres in the sticks and sighed at the swirl of stars, invisible within city limits, but twinkling bright out here. My rooster crowed from the barn, and my dogs - my beautiful, amazing dogs - danced in circles around their houses, elated to see me. Genuine.

Give me real. Give me genuine, even if it's not pretty. Give me muddy boots and a sweatshirt. Give me no forks but my bare hands.

Give me real.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

* The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock  by T.S. Eliot  

Shannon Miller is a freelance writer and photographer from northeast Ohio.

My unemployment journey

I walked into the cabin to find a message blinking impatiently for me on the answering machine. It was from Red, the owner of the bar I had put my application in at a few days prior.  He wanted to meet.

I pushed the door open and stepped into the restaurant hopeful. I needed this job desperately. My unemployment from my job at the medical school in Ohio was about to run out, and this tavern was the closest thing to the cabin in a very desolate, remote area.

Built like a large cabin, the room was warm and rustic. Red's intense blue eyes met mine, and he immediately made me nervous. The back of his black t-shirt said, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." Quick on his feet, he began showing me where jars of mayonnaise were kept, how he made a Long Island, how to do prep work. He hired me on the spot. Before I knew it, I'd made $50 in tips.

But just then, the eastern U.P. decided upon a fluke heatwave, with temperatures soaring to nearly 50 degrees in December. The snow melted rapidly, and along with it, the snowmobilers disappeared. And so, almost as quickly as I found myself employed, I found myself unemployed. Without snowmobilers, there is no economy in the winter in Deer Park.

I was back to square one.

6.7 % of the workforce in Ohio is unemployed as of December 2012. In Michigan, at the same time period, it was 8.9%, putting it in the top seven out of all 50 states.

I dabbled in freelance articles about obscure topics such as "How to raise a pet mongoose" for $25 an article. I sold some of my photography on etsy. I helped at my friends' Tasha and Ed Stielstra's kennel hooking dog teams for tours with eager and bright-eyed tourists from Indiana. I stopped into a cutesy tourist shop to sell some of my artwork on consignment; the owner humored me, but then said they didn't sell much photography. I checked the Ace Hardware in town, as well as the two grocery stores, the feed store, the hospital, the health department and a handful of gas stations. No one was hiring.

Gradually, my means of survival narrowed.

One Friday night, while sitting at the bar commiserating with my also-unemployed friend, Mike Betz, I noticed Larry, the owner of the Pine Stump and Robert, his pizza cook, eying me from the other end of the bar. Betz and I had frequented the Stump regularly all season, and had come to know Larry, Robert, the 19 year old server, Marissa, and her mother, Debra who was also a server quite well (there will be other stories about the Stump and my adventures with Betz soon).

If there is one thing I am, it's persistent. I had become known as "that girl who wants a job" to Larry and the crew who ran the Stump. My number was tacked above the bar. I asked him nearly every time Betz and I went there to hire me. Finally, one night, he succumbed.

The night I sat there with Betz, the Stump was crawling with half-drunk snowmobilers, the sounds of their revelry a constant drone that swelled occasionally with laughter and the clank of their beer steins. Larry and Robert continued to talk and look over at me. Finally Larry approached me.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" he asked. I smiled triumphantly.

"What do you want me to be doing tomorrow?" I responded with a smirk.

"Can you be here at 1?"

But of course.

I rolled into the parking lot of the Stump in a way that would likely seem off-putting to a non-Yooper but which seemed perfectly appropriate for Deer Park. The bed of my truck was half-full of firewood, half-full of snow, and there was frozen deer pelt at the end of the bed. Betz had hit it with his Jeep a month prior, killing it instantly (and doing significant damage to his Jeep) and brought it to me for dog food, the fresh, young buck still warm. He'd taught me how to hang and gut the deer, and we stripped it of its soft cape that was just thickening up for winter. The cape lie frozen in the back of my truck.

I walked into the Stump, which was also built like a large log cabin, rustic and warm. While some found Larry intimidating, I felt at ease with him. He was tall and always donned a pair of black Wrangler jeans and a neat, button-down shirt and cowboy boots. His blue eyes were sharp but softened behind his glasses, and his brown hair fell in feathers on each side, and probably hadn't changed much since 1985. Larry didn't pull any punches, and I respected that. I went to work in the kitchen, stocking the cooler full of beer that seemed to disappear into the bellies of thirsty snowmobilers almost immediately. I also had the insurmountable task of washing dishes. By hand. For nine hours. On a standing-room-only day at the Stump.

After several hours, I left the mounting stack of plates to relieve myself, looking forward to the brief respite in the can. As I walked through the dining room, a snowmobiler grabbed my arm and pulled me next to him for a photo. He had stripped down to only his black winter bibs, the suspenders pressing softly against his salt-and-pepper colored chest hair. He smelled of Bud Light and pepperoni. I feigned a smile, then quickly headed to the bathroom.

I sat on the cold toilet seat and exhaled, relieved to be sitting for a moment even if only to pee. As I washed my hands at the sink, I startled at my reflection in the mirror. My own eyes searched to find the person behind them.

How did I get here? Interest grew daily on my student loan from eight years of college and a master's degree that seemed to garner nothing. An 11 year marriage to the father of my child had ended. My kids were back in Ohio, and I missed them with the most debilitating ache I'd ever known.

I brushed these brooding thoughts aside. I had to get back to work.

As I washed dishes and chopped onions, I talked to Debra, who was 49 years old, but looked older. She had a cigarette-stained voice and a cackling laugh. She gave me Advil when my back hurt from standing on concrete bending over a sink for hours, and a can of Keeweenaw "Pick Axe Blonde" beer to ease the pain. She was shocked to learn I had a master's degree.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Trying to make a living," I said, referring to washing dishes, although I knew the "here" she was referring to was Deer Park, Michigan.

That night at the Stump, I made $80 washing dishes for 9 1/2 hours and received free beer and dinner from Larry. I also sold the deer pelt for $20 to the fry cook, who used it to bait for coyotes. And I was extremely grateful for it all.

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After living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan - where jobs are even more scarce than other places in the country - I finally had to throw in the towel and crawl back to Ohio, penniless. I've been on four interviews in the last week, and have sent my resume out to half dozen or more potential employers.

This week, I met with a staffing agency. The lady at the staffing agency glanced at my resume, then looked up at me as if in disbelief.

"I can get you a job in a rubber factory for minimum wage," she said. "But it's dirty. Your resume is quite impressive. I wonder why you're not getting anything in your field?"

Because my "field," which is full of like-minded, talented aficionados of creativity - Writers/Photographers/Multimedia Specialists/Public Speakers/Educators/Marketing Communications Specialists/Event Planners - is completely saturated. The last two jobs in my field I interviewed for, I was one of 500 candidates. 

My friend Meg said it best: "The challenge for people like you and I (creative individuals with multiple skills and talents) is to figure out how to plug in to a world of very 'defined' positions."

I recently had two interviews in the service industry, and was offered a job at a popular coffee house chain 45 minutes from my house.  I was offered a whopping $7.85 an hour.

It only took me a quick minute to calculate the math: driving a V8 truck 45 minutes to said coffee house would cost me roughly $11.80 a day. I was offered 30 hours a week, which is about $280 before taxes. Subtract from that $50 in gasoline to and from, as well as probably $75 in taxes, and voila! I'm bringing home a whopping $110 a week.

Seriously?

Hank Williams said it best (and thus, is the title of this blog): my bucket's got a hole in it.

"Well, there ain't no use - of me workin' so hard..."

No thanks. I think I'll keep pounding the proverbial virtual pavement for a job in my field.

Shannon Miller is a freelance writer and photographer from northeast Ohio. Her professional resume for those who might have a job that pays more than minimum wage is here: www.linkedin.com/pub/shannon-miller/30/a23/306/