Follow me!

Hi there. Thanks to everyone for commenting on the previous post. It's usually good to use humor in awkward situations that always happen from time to time. Last week I was walking in my neighborhood and a man sitting on a restaurant patio shouted that age old question, "How tall are you?" I replied with a "None of your business" and controlled myself enough to omit the expletive ;) Anyways, I get emails quite often from people who like the blog. Why don't y'all follow me? I put my followers right on the top of the page. You, yes you, should join in! Let's really try to create a community here--and I'm really going to make an effort to post more often. Also, I finally succombed to Twitter, though I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it yet. Anyone have tips on how best to use it??? I feel very un-hip and old not knowing. Speaking of old, my birthday's Tuesday! Yay! Too bad that's the day we lay out the newspaper so I will be at work aalllll day and night. Maybe I'll take a break from InDesign to post.

greeeat question.

I know I know. The guilt is overwhelming! Poor tallgirlwrites.com, sitting here alone, languishing with lame posts and few interested readers. Let's revive this sucker! I got a job! Doing a lot of commuting but it's a REPORTING job, yes they do still exist. It's going well. Let's have some fun now...Someone asked me how tall I was the other day (Shocker!), and I usually just tell them. But it got me thinking about all the replies I've come up with over the years. Please add to this list:

Replies to The Question Tall Women are Asked Most: How tall are you?

--What a great question! I'm 6'4", now tell me how much you weigh.
--Ask me that again and I will squash you.
--Congratulations! You're the one millionth person to ask me that. What does he win, Bob?
(it helps to carry confetti around if you're going to use this one.)
--Oh, are you doing a survey to determine the height of people who are trying to mind their own business?

Another one is: Do you play basketball?

--No. I do enjoy dropkicking short people, though. May I?
--(Mock excitement) Are you a WNBA scout?!?!!! Yes! I knew the only requirement to be a great basketball player was to be over 6 feet tall! (aaaand deadpan.) All me troubles are over.

Long time coming

Hello! Sorry it's been so long since I posted. A lot has happened since the end of January. Spring is finally starting to break through the dreary Spokane winter, which is definitely raising my spirits. I got a part time job housekeeping for a small company back in February. It's definitely not ideal, but I was glad to have a paycheck and something to do! I published a freelance piece in a local magazine here called the Inland Business Catalyst, and it turned out pretty good, but I haven't gotten any more freelance opportunities since then. There's a reporting job open in a small town in Idaho about an hour and a half from here. I'm hoping to get it even though it's quite a commute. Anything would be a great opportunity right now, and it seems like a solid newspaper.
Anyway, I was just feeling guilty about not writing for a while but I'm not much in the mood either so I'll try to write more in-depth soon.

Monday Impressions and a Rant

Happy Monday! I'm never exactly sure what day it is since I'm still out of work, but I'm pretty positive today is Monday. I've been in Spokane now for three weeks and two days, and I feel pretty comfortable here. I've been out and about in the city; I figured out the main roads and found the library, the newspaper office and of course the unemployment office. From what I've heard there are a lot of people out of work in Spokane...maybe that's why I can't get an interview.
I spoke to a local woman last week about jobs and she said that this town was pretty blue collar and she advised me that it's not always good to show off my college degree because it could come off like I think too highly of myself. That shocked me. Shouldn't I be proud of my education? Shouldn't my degree show my dedication, work ethic and ability to overcome obstacles? I certainly won't be taking my degree, or my GPA, off my resume, even though most of the jobs I'm applying for don't require a college education. Since when was education something to be embarrassed about?

Oops!

Sorry readers (a.k.a. Mom)! I haven't lived up to my promise of a post a day. I know it's no excuse, but I really have been busy. I'm really getting in gear with my job search, sending out lots of e-mails and resumes. Yesterday I went to the job services office in Spokane; it was busy. As I was waiting I noticed a man who was striking up a one-sided conversation with anyone who sat near him. Soon enough he was sitting next to me, asking me the age old question. "How tall are you?" I told him, and he proceeded with the usual basketball and modeling comments. He started telling me how he'd been waiting there for four hours to have a job interview, etc. etc. What struck me wasn't so much the generic tall girl comments, but just this guy's inability to have a conversation. I've encountered more than one person lately who will just talk and talk and you can't get a word in edge-wise. Are they aware that by smothering people with information they're being extremely rude and annoying? When the person you're talking to repeatedly says, "Weelll..." and takes a few steps away from you, it's a sign that they want out! I just wonder if this guy was socially inept or just really really lonely and talkative. Either way, my name was called and a career advisor saved me.
I should get back to my applications. I just wanted to post before I forgot.

Leave me a comment if you're reading! What do you want to hear about?

Cabin Fever

Well I changed the look of my blog today, what do you think? I wish I knew more about web design so I wouldn't have to rely on Blogger, not that I don't love you, Blogger! But I'd like to get a bit more creative. Anyway, I've got cabin fever. I spent all day in the apartment sending out resumes and reading local publications.
I sent out letters to a couple of editors in Spokane requesting meetings. There's a fine line between being assertive and sounding desperate. Hopefully I stayed on the assertive side. I think if I can get a meeting it'll be easier to get my foot in the door here. Once someone meets me they won't soon forget. "Oh, yeah. That tall girl!" Yeah, give her the job!
My fiance is at class tonight but hopefully he'll get me out of the house later. In this new city I still don't feel super comfortable walking around on my own. Well, until tomorrow...

New City...New Challenges

Well, here I sit in my new home, Spokane, WA. I moved here a little over a week ago, but it seems like longer. I graduated from college back in mid-December and had a few weeks to enjoy the holidays and spend time with my family in Wisconsin and Iowa before packing my life into my tiny car and driving halfway across the country, landing here in Spokane.
My fiance is going to graduate school here, at Eastern Washington Univ. for creative writing, fiction. So we're a couple of writers...I guess I'd better get used to living on a shoestring! I moved out here with no friends, no family and no job, and it was really scary at first. I've never lived outside of Wisconsin, and although I've traveled all over the U.S. it's always been on a trip with family or a group of friends. I wasn't sure how I would cope. I wondered also if my height would be a big deal all over again, with new people and new attention.
Scotty, my fiance, has quite a few friends from the masters program he's in, and I've met quite a few of them. Sure, there were passing comments about my height, but nothing rude or at all offensive. Scotty read one of his short stories for a group at a coffee house a few days ago, and there's a guy who does all the introductions. This guy called Scotty the night before to see if he could do an intro making fun of me being taller than him (he was going to Photoshop Scotty's head on Yao Ming's body) and he talked to me to ask if it was okay. I didn't really care, but I gave him a hard time about it because I wanted to see how he would react. So at the reading he didn't do the height thing at all; he said I'd intimidated him on the phone and he felt wierd.
This shows me two things: One, people here seem to be much more courteous than Midwesterners about physical differences (so far) and Two, I can still use my height to intimidate large men. Score!
On a more serious note, I'm struggling finding a job. I've been applying all over the place, and haven't heard a thing back from anyone. At first I was really questioning my skills and my marketability. I should have been a nurse, I thought, or a finance major or something that would get me a reliable job! But I know I wouldn't be happy doing that stuff. I could never stick needles in people and I suck at math. It seems there's always something that threatens my confidence. But when I look at it, I know I have skills. I'm tall, I have blue eyes, and just as much as I know those things about myself I also know that I'm a writer, and here I am, in a new city without a network and only my resume and portfolio to convince people I'm right for the job. But at least I have my skills. And I'm going to try to post on here once a day to keep those skills fresh. Coming up will be my reflections on the city, my neighborhood, and differences between WA and WI (It's more than just a letter!).
Anyway, this post is getting long, but there's a lot that's changed recently. Hopefully some of you, besides my mom, Scotty and Gram (Hi guys!) will be reading. Does anyone have insight to add about social difference between the Midwest and the coasts? Get posting!