What Do You Do With a BA in English? Pretty Much Everything

When we first got to Vermont, I spent the week unpacking and relaxing and generally just taking a vacation. Then of course, I remembered that somebody had to pay the exorbitant UHaul bill at the end of the month and I better find myself a job.

I cost more than your rent! Plus gas!

I'd been applying for stuff since last spring, but there's been a drought. Like, not even a "no thank you, thanks for applying" cursory email. I sent some applications out before we came out here this summer to look at apartments. Nothing. As someone who has basically worked at the same place since high school, this was a bit of a shock. Like, I get it, recession, no one is hiring blah blah blah. But I'm not an engineer. I'm not a computer programmer. I just want to work in your shitty little store or your dumb national park or whatever. This is why, when the consignment shop called me back within a day to set up an interview, I pounced. This is why I work six days a week, trying to get while the getting is good. At the same time, however, they encouraged me to take on a second job. The other girls at the store have second jobs. I've kept applying to places, and it's finally starting to rain.

The Co-Op called back. You may be thinking, really Marlene? You went to college. You GRADUATED from college. You speak three languages. You're smart and funny and you want to work in a snooty grocery store? Yes, yes I do. Badly. I can sum up why in one word: benefits. Yes, it's super close to my house (three block commute!), it would nice to get a discount on food, the people seem cool etc. But really, my health insurance runs out at the end of the year and I need to get on that. Plus, paid time off, paid breaks, union stuff. But mostly health insurance.


Here's the thing though: it's crazy hard to get a co-op job. My application was eight pages long with six references. The interview I did last week was only the first. There may be a follow-up. All for an on-call/substitute position as a grocery stocker. The lowest possible rung of the co-op ladder. Which of course, leaves plenty of room to work my way up, but only after they call me at 5:30 AM to cover people's asses for who knows how long. It's going to be a slog.

The chocolate factory called back too. I applied back in July. JULY. But now of course, they need someone part time in Burlington. I wasn't going to call them back, but Ben reminded me that chocolate was one of the reasons we moved out here in the first place. I could be Willy Wonka!

I will get so, so fat. Worth it.

Or at least, the retail version. I don't know yet if they want me to lead tours at the factory or just hawk their wares at the tourists on Church Street. It would be a 45 minute commute each way on the bus. But it would smell so good! Plus, last time I was at the factory, someone had parked a gorgeous All-City bicycle at the rack outside. That's a good sign, right?

Their factory is chocolate brown. Get it?

There's a chocolatier opening in town this fall, and if the commute is too much, I could go to them with my experience, right? Or move to Boston and work with the guy from Rogue Chocolates. You guys know Rogue right? It was started by this 20-something down my street in Minneapolis. The smallest scale chocolate shop in the world. He moved his operation to Massachusetts and I kind of want to be his best friend. Maybe if I get some chocolate expertise he'll let me hang out. We could talk about hotdish and snow emergencies and stuff!

These are Rogue Chocolates. You've seen them around. 

This is Colin. He IS Rogue Chocolates. You see my point? Foxy. 

We'll see how it all works out. I'm still waiting to hear back from the mentorship program I want to do. I'm hanging on to my application for History Helper docent at the Historical Society. There's a lot of balls in the air, and we'll have to wait and see which ones I can catch.

A Mansard roof! How very New England.

Oh, and if you're not up on your puppet based musical theater allusions, the title of the post refers to this song:

Now it's stuck in your head too. 

Running in Circles

After my half marathon in June, I basically sat on my ass the rest of the summer. I mean, I still biked to work and stuff, but mostly I used the unusually high temperatures as an excuse to hangout inside instead of strapping on my shoes and pounding the pavement. Plus, my gym doubled my membership fees and I quite. And frankly, if I ran around Lake Harriet one more time I was going to kill someone. So I stopped.

Band shells drive me bat shit, evidently. 

Now that we've settled in here more in Vermont, I've tried to get back into the swing of things. I was never a morning runner in Minneapolis, but I also had to be at work at 6. Now, I don't have to head out until 11 or so, and it's only a five minute commute (par vélo, bien sûr). In the mornings, I like to go to Hubbard Park. I get to take the Vermont equivalent of the Greenway! It's one mile long. It's pathetic, but it's a start. And it leads to what's basically a mountain to a girl raised in a part of the country leveled by glaciers.

Everything green behind the capital is park. Hubbard Park.

Hubbard Park is rad. I get lost all the time. There's a lot of paths and picnic stuff and I'm pretty sure there's a Park Ranger somewhere, telling people not to start forest fires, but I haven't run into him. I only saw people have sex once. (I giggled. They did not.) The only problem is that Hubbard Park is, like, wild, so there's no lights and my pathetic headlamp doesn't have the lumens for me to wander into the wilderness. So sometimes, in the evenings, I run around the neighborhood.

Hubbard Park has this famous tower, but the park is so big I still haven't found it. Or even seen it from a distance. Hence the postcard. 

This is ostensibly for fitness but it's mostly just me ogling people's gardens. Vermonters have kick ass gardens. Barre Street is lined with poor people who all grow tomatoes. Everyone has kale. Montpelier is really, really into kale. There's a house three blocks over with two kinds of kale, plus chard growing along the sidewalk from the house to the mailbox. There are two (2!) neighborhood gardens (or maybe just people snatching up open lots?) down my street. One of them has grapes growing literally fifteen feet high.

Tonight, I saw someone was growing butternut squashes! I need to make friends with them in roughly the time it takes butternuts to ripen.

The other has a basket of squash outside the fence. This either means, "Seriously, we grew too much squash, please take some," or, "I can't carry all this squash. Let me take two trips and I hope no one steals some while I'm gone." I assumed the later, took two and sauteed them up. Delicious, with a hint of danger.

Nefarious, yet satisfying.

I run by the Vermont College of Fine Arts, which has a garden adjacent to one of it's classrooms. The restaurant associated with the culinary school in town, which everyone just calls NECI (pronounced "neck-eee") has herbs growing alongside it's patio. They're labelled, in case you didn't know what sage looked like in the wild.

New England Culinary Institute, on Main Street

Vermont was rated the healthiest state in the nation last year (MN was sixth--suckers!). I've only seen a few fellow runners out, but everyone here seems to be into veggies. Me, I just like to admire the gardens as I shuffle on by.

This was the picture CNN used to symbolise Vermont. It's basically spot on, except that should be a covered bridge, not a regular one. Also, half those buildings are haunted. (http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/06/health/list-healthiest-states-2011/index.html)

Addendum: I've been listening to a lot of Chubby Jones' podcasts in her couch to 5k series. It's basically intervals with music and compliments, and it's the best thing ever. She's on iTunes and it was honestly what got me to the point last year that I kicked the ass of that all-lady 10 miler (which led to my half marathon which led to me sitting on my ass which led to me starting back at the 5k level but still). Highly, highly, recommended. Here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-chubby-jones-podcast/id286596177

Getting Checked Out

One of my jokes about Vermont is that, although I have no friends or family here, I also have no enemies. I still haven't made any enemies, but I am making a friend. He's probably twice my age and he works at the library. His name is George.

Go figure he's reading a book in this picture. 

Montpelier only has one library. They still stamp the cards in the back of the book with a due date. Those of you who know me well know that I've read a book or two in my time. Sometimes a book or two a day. When I got promoted to head up the Children's and Young Adult departments, I read over 150 books to reacquaint myself with the genres. I still read a lot. I read stuff online, I get the New Yorker and Newsweek, and I go to the library. Often.

Kellogg-Hubbard (or just "the library" since the Vermont system isn't unified statewide)

Admittedly, I don't own a printer, and so sometimes my trips to the library are just for their services. I also go to volunteer at the book sale (you'd think selling books for seven years would've gotten it out of my system). But mostly I go to get books. Most of my after work time is spent reading. I miss my couch, but I get by with my rocking chair and my yoga ball (and my floor and my bed). I read until I want to read something else, which I read until I get sleepy. Then I go read Bryson.

Smart guy, smart dresser

Bill Bryson is one smart cookie. I read his "Brief History of Everything" in Minneapolis, and the first book I checked out of the Montpelier library was "At Home."It's perfect bedtime reading because it's so segmented. I read a room, maybe two, then go to bed. Sometimes when if I wake up before Ben, I'll read another room or finish the one from last night if it was too long.

Mostly though, I read other books. I read non-fiction about bicycles and Vermont. I read George Orwell and Roald Dahl and then I fake a British accent in my head. I read Haruki Murakami and Gary Shteyngart and wish that I had written their books. Today I picked up Jasper Fforde's "Nursery Crime" series. My new librarian best friend, George, told me that he liked this series even better than the Thursday Next series (which was so good I put on the audio book driving from Vermont to Minnesota and had to catch Ben up so he could enjoy it too).

Someday, I could be this great. Maybe. 

George also put me on the hold list for the new David Foster Wallace biography. More importantly, he didn't make fun of me when I screwed up the title ("Every Love Story is a Ghost Story"). I'm second in line when the book arrives. He put me on the list for "Gone Girl" last week and we chatted about literary blockbusters. At my library, you can check most items out for two or four weeks. George knows to only give me two weeks, since I'll be bringing them back in a day or two anyway. When I checked out a book of ghost stories on a Saturday,we joked that two weeks was plenty--two days would be more like it! (The library is closed on Sundays.) One of the librarians hassles me because I provided a Minneapolis employer when I signed up for my card (I'd been in town less than 24 hours! No, I didn't have a job yet! Yes I went to the library that soon after arriving!). George doesn't. Neither does the cute girl who likes my owl wallet.

Yesterday, I hated Montpelier. Today was better. I think the old man with the pony tail who checks my books out for me is the reason why. Plus, I got new rain boots.

Surprisingly handy when you have to walk home from work and it's STILL down-pouring. 

Working Hard for the Money

My unemployment lasted just under two weeks. Frankly, that's long enough for someone who thrives on a schedule and actually having money coming in to her meager account. It would've been different if I qualified for unemployment, but neither Minnesota nor Vermont was having it.

Today was my first job at a vintage/consignment shop in downtown Montpelier. The owner seems nice and the girls I've worked with seem pretty cool. It's nice knowing I'll be getting paid (at some point. Don't they need my SSN and stuff? Whatever.). Frankly, it's not that hard. I've been doing retail since high school, and it's just more of the same, but with clothes. And I like clothes! I can talk intelligently about fabrics and patterns and knitwear vs knits! I think it'll work out.

This is my new store! Yes, I do get the Daft Punk song stuck in my head all the time. 

Most importantly, it's a flexible part time schedule that allows me to pursue my myriad other interests. I'm waiting on my approval to mentor an at-risk kid by reading to them once a week at lunch. I really want to get it. It sounds like a great program, and right up my alley. I'm also in contact with the Vermont Historical Society to do some volunteer work with them. Would it be nice to get paid to spout interesting historical facts all day? Of course. But I'll take the experience and try to parlay it into something bigger.

During my interview for this job, she asked me why, if I finished college, I wasn't doing something in my field. I was flummoxed at the time (but managed some kind of joke that moved the conversation forward). What's the right response to this question? I studied two languages and science, what the hell am I supposed to do with that? Do biological research in English and French? Work for the Olympics? The truth of the matter is I'm a writer, but a writer with bills to pay. I need a job that pays decently while leaving me enough creative energy at the end of the day to sit down and put some words on paper. No, my stories don't fund themselves, but they're critically important to me and to who I am. Am I going to sell old clothes forever? Of course not. But I need to come up with some cash by the end of the month so my landlord doesn't throw me out on my ass. (He would not do this. He's a nice guy and frankly it's too much work to evict us. But he'd pester me for the money for sure.)

What am I going to do with my life? The plan had always been to work for a couple years after college, have some adventures, and then go back for my MFA in creative writing. I'm not an engineer. A good friend told me that people who go to grad school right after getting their BA come out ready to write their first novel. People who get a little life experience and then go back come out having written their first novel. That really stuck with me. I'd been in a rut in Minneapolis, which is part of the reason for the sudden change of scenery. I needed to shake myself loose a little. I still want to be a writer, but as I watch the publishing and book sales industries collapse on themselves, I can't help but be a little wary. Girls like me would normally go to New York and become editors for a couple of years, but those jobs barely exist anymore. It seems much more feasible to be a writer on the side and something else for my day job.

I know I want a Richard Scarry job (i.e. a job that a boa constrictor or pig did in a Richard Scarry book. Basically, a job I can explain to a five year old without their eyes glazing over. No offense to all the marketing analysts out there.). Possibilities:

1. Teacher

Jess from "New Girl" and I are basically doppelgangers anyway

For the longest time I wanted to be a professor, but I've seen what a slog it is. You basically sell yourself into academic slavery with no guarantee of a tenureship at the end. A life of being an adjunct is hardly worth it. The more I think about it, the more I think high school might be the place for me. Yes, high school is awful, but everyone loves a great HS English teacher. I could change lives! Or at least boss people around and tell them what to read. Also, summers off.

2. Doctor

My life would be "The Mindy Project"

When I started college, I thought I was going to be a scientist. I entered as a biology major with English as my minor before I flipped them around. We're going to be facing a shortage of doctors as the Baby Boomers age. Plus, it seems easy. No, easy isn't the right word. It's straight forward. You go to med school, you do your residency, you're a doctor. None of this starving artist bullshit. Downside: it's a lot of work, long hours, you get jerked around by bureaucracy all the time (and teacher doesn't?).

3. Fireman

There's no Fox sitcom about lady firefighters (yet)

I like being on my feet, doing something active. I'm also surprisingly strong. You get to go to the gym and eat chili all the time, plus you save lives. And you get a dalmatian.


So we'll see. For now, I'm just another underemployed English major in a shitty economy trying to pay her rent on time. Ben made a joke about me writing the next Harry Potter, but who knows? Stranger things have happened. Just ask E.L. James. Terrible, awful, borderline illiterate E.L. James. A millionaire.

Why Vermont?

I've been asked this question a lot lately. Friends back home wanted to know why, after two decades in Minnesota, I'd want to cram everything I own into a (surprisingly expensive) U-Haul and schlep it halfway across the country. Now that we're here, potential employers inquire too. Am I running away from something? Am I some kind of tourist who's going to duck out as soon as it gets cold?

The best answer I can give is that Vermont has mountains but not earthquakes. Earthquakes are scary. Tornadoes have sirens. We can see hurricanes coming literally hundreds of miles away. But earthquakes? You get maybe a second of warning. So the Pacific Northwest was out. (But I quite like visiting! Here's a dorky picture of me on the Space Needle to prove it!)

Seattle, WA

I've spent some time in the New England area. I rode the train to Maine my senior year of high school.

Portland, ME

I fled to Boston last summer when I needed some alone time far away. I've been to New York and Montreal and have family in DC. I like it out here. Vermont is close to everything. We're three hours from Boston, five from New York, and a little over an hour from Quebec. (Fun fact: the last un-secured border crossing between the US and Canada was recently sealed. With flower pots evenly spaced across the road. Quebec-Vermont relations seem quite friendly.)

The better question is, why not? I'm a college educated lady in my twenties. This is exactly the time to move cross country and figure some stuff out. If I can do that in the smallest state capital in the union, then so much the better.

Plus now you all have an excuse to come visit me!