1.18.2015

rainbows of neuroticism.

Today, I tried to read WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? because I'm trying to figure out: what color is my parachute? The beginning of the book is completely overwhelming--it goes into great detail about creating your Internet Presence, your Google resume, your online portfolio. And then there's your regular, old-fashioned resume to create and regular, old-fashioned offline portfolio. And how to write a gripping cover letter. I couldn't even make it past page 2 of the part about interviewing. The interviewing part blew up my brain and made me want to find the nearest wine bottle to curl up in a corner with. You guys! I haven't done a job interview in almost two decades. No, seriously: TWO decades. That equals twenty. Twenty years. Two decades of practicing not doing job interviews. And no resume, online or off. I keep meaning to make one--well, two, actually: one for teaching and one general, please-oh-please-just-hire-me-I-promise-I'm-a-fast-learner resume. But I keep forgetting to create these. Because naps. And the Internet. 

I'm really not selling myself, am I?

At any rate, I Googled me. And Facebook and Twitter searched my name. Here's what I found out:

Google: The top person in the Google search was someone on Twitter whose handle involves the term "wee." Weeglamson. There are 25 LinkedIn professionals with my name, the most popular person is in the Netherlands.  There's an Amy Samson who got featured in Forbes magazine, because she's a top rated CEO. There's a photographer Amy, an Amy who does yoga, and another person with my name is in the music industry. And some other Amy S. has a Vine account and apparently likes to watch brief educational videos on how to scare pigs. This was just the first page's results. But basically, THIS Amy Samson you are reading about right now? Totally obscure. A person of vague and indeterminate existence. A girl hidden from the known world, shrouded deep within the bowels of all that is and ever was! 

How do I feel about this? On the one hand: Phew! Thank God! I don't want any weird people following me around, asking for selfies or money or whatever.

On the other hand: I don't officially exist, if the Internet gets to give an opinion, and according to the What Color is Your Parachute? book guy that is very, very bad. And so I don't want that; I want my parachute to stand out, and if I get to have a say in its design at all, I'd like there to be huge swaths of spangles and glitter, with some lush velvet and silk here and there. And as my parachute flies by you, I'd like it to gently brush your face and leave you floating in a cloud scented like sandalwood and patchouli, as images of dolphins and mermaids water dance in your head.

Facebook: There's a photographer with my exact same name, and she's more popular than me on Facebook. I have 19 "fans" of my Facebook Writer page, 3 of whom are family members and the other 16 are supportive friends. She has two photography business pages and one is liked by 52 people, the other by 77 people. 

Twitter: weeglamson manages bands...there are a lot of British women with my name, and they love cats...someone with my name wants you to know, via her bio, that she's wearing a white bra...there's the much more popular than me photographer Amy--she's got a Twitter...and there's a South African version of me...and a lot of egghead Amy Samsons who couldn't be bothered to find even a picture of a cute kitten or whatever to stick in the picture box (what up with that, people? Get a picture, yo) (on Facebook, my mother still hasn't uploaded a picture of herself five years after joining it--I think people who do that look stalker-y...it probably doesn't help that my mother uses Facebook to, well, you know, stalk people. But don't worry--she just stalks her children). 

Also, some chick with the handle @amysamson got it in 2008, one year before I found Twitter, and then proceeded to tweet just two times, both times in 2011 and only at the insistence of another person who she probably doesn't even know now. But she has more followers than following (which is a THING on Twitter and I still can't figure out the Matrix formula). 

Really, I think if you're not going to use your Twitter account, and you have someone else's @firstnamesurname handle, you should let the other someone who also has your name and IS using Twitter actively to have that handle. Be gracious and share; there are apparently so many of us, yet we aren't allowed to replicate. (Except if I change my twitter handle, then I lose the 341ish--the number fluctuates--followers I have grown since this summer. I don't know how I've grown them to over 300, but I'm glad for them, because it's been an arduous process. I don't even pay attention now to who unfollows me--I just hope I didn't say something that offended them and if I find out that I still follow them after they unfollow me, I still unfollow immediately with a fervent prayer they end up ostracized and alone in the corner of the great Twitter party.)

My point with this is that there are a lot of people with my name in the world, and I'm supposed to make myself stand out. I don't want a potential employer to prefer weeglamson or the photographer over me...I want a potential employer to want THIS gal. This shiny, sparkly gal.

Other things about finding my parachute's color:

Blogging. If I have a blog (say, such as this one), I should make it content-rich, driven in the direction of the career I'd like to go. Right now, and I bet you'll agree with me, this blog has no direction. This blog is like a road map drawn by a monkey on meth. This blog flies all over the freaking place, directionless, without a driver. A runaway blog. A freight train off a cliff. Gary Busey's brain imagining his dog's brain after a hit of bad crack.

The solution to rectify this unfortunate blog situation? Start another one, but this time give it direction and possibly a better title. 

Sigh. But those blogs are so BORING. Aren't they? I mean, have you been on them? They're all about the same thing...X Content, serious talk, more X driven content, a link to another X Content blog with more serious talk, a picture of an interesting but very somber infograph. People in the comments sections leaving serious comments with no appreciation for irony or a good romp in the rain. That kind of thing.

Snore. I like adding rainbows to my content, blurting out all my neuroticisms for all to read, and generally just telling stories about whatever's in my brain. Rainbows of Neuroticism is what I like, and who I am. That's probably my parachute's color: one large, neurotic rainbow of directionless content. Just like me.

Tomorrow, my plan is to fill in the flower part of the book. The flower part is supposed to tell me EXACTLY who I am (neurotic rainbows!) and what I should be doing with my life, so I can live and work my passion. (I hope my passion turns out to be a job that involves lying on the beach with a margarita next to me while a Channing Tatum lookalike gives me a massage before I head out to dinner with my boyfriend Clive Owen. And I hope this passion pays me $150,000 a year. That's not that much, is it? $150,000 per year? Plus nice healthcare and insurance benefits. I just want a house on the beach, to be able to afford Whole Foods groceries, and some nice trips to Europe each summer. Is it too much to ask?)

I think it's pretty fair to say that any potential employer stumbling upon THIS content in my blog is going to want to conduct a very thorough psychological exam before even discussing salary requirements. If I make it past the interview phase. Since I haven't had to even set foot in the interview phase for 20 years. (Inside, I only feel 14. When did I turn 14+20+18?) (It is also fair to say I will NOT be interviewing for jobs that require any amount of math skills.)

Other things in my head right now:

Why do I even have a passport? It has this many stamps from other countries in it: 0. 

I like my passport picture far better than my drivers license picture. My current drivers license picture was taken after I lost the license with the good picture, the one in which I was tanned and young and wearing a halter top so it looks like I was at the DMV naked. This drivers license picture was taken after a long day of work, after waiting 6 hours in a holding pen with 10,000 other people who also just worked a long day, and I had a busy 3 year old with me who kept trying to "help" me grade papers. My lips were chapped and my hair was flat. I asked for a do over when I saw it and the woman looked at me like, "Grrrrlllll, you crazy!" and said NO. And now I have a hideous drivers license picture. I wince every time I have to whip it out to buy wine.

At some point, they stop asking you to show proof of age, don't they? I could let my hair go its natural poopy brown with a lot of strands of grey, but I am too vain. And having more fun as a blonde. (I'm not having any fun--I go to work, come home, cook/eat/clean dinner, collapse exhausted. But my hair looks GREAT.)

I hope I get to use my passport before 2015 comes to an end. I hope my flower graph tells me I should be in a job that requires a lot of passport whipping outage, and that Clive Owen needs a new manager and I'M HER, and that a life on the beach is in my near future. This feels just like I'm about to call 1-900-PSYCHICS. I hope my palm has a famous line on it somewhere. (Actually, I don't want to be famous--I just want to be slightly well off, with a small troop of adoring fans who send me chocolates and wine now and then and tell me how fabulous my hair looks. .......everybody wants that, right? Right?)

This is all I have tonight. Tomorrow is Dr. Martin Luther King Day, and I'm going to honor his memory by sleeping in late and pondering my navel area. I'm sure he'd be so proud.

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