I started my new job yesterday... Just when I thought I'd seen it all. I am still training -- I haven't actually done everything yet -- so I will save the descriptions for when I have more experience. For now I'll give you this: imagine if you had no feeling or movement in your legs, or both your legs and your arms. Now imagine the various things you'd need help with, and how they might be accomplished.

The job is in Gresham (stop laughing, Portlanders) and it takes thirty minutes to drive there. Since I'm going east I have an amazing view of Mount Hood the entire time, and it gets bigger and bigger as I get closer, and seems to emerge from the clouds.

This is the company I work for, and this is the Gresham building where I work. I'm still not totally sure what will happen with this job -- it is so alien to me there is a chance it won't work out -- but so far I love it. I was so nervous yesterday, changing my outfit several times and trying to get some of the boxes of books out of my car so I wouldn't look like a traveling salesman, but I shouldn't have been so worried. All the employees are nice and not catty at all like at so many jobs.

At first I was relieved that I was by far the skinniest person there, and probably the prettiest. That is definitely not the case normally. It's not that I care so much, but I get tired of thinking other people care. I constantly imagine that everyone around me is thinking about how bad I look. Especially since I got away from Brian, my fear of criticism has reached an all time high, and will probably remain this way until I've had enough experience to contradict it.

But what the other girls lack in looks, they more than make up for in a quality I can't quite name: not really intelligence, but practical knowledge, ability to stay calm, and fine-tuned skills that it would probably take me months to learn. The job has a very high turnover rate, so the ones who have been there for years are certainly deserving of a lot of respect. Not only can they handle it, but they enjoy it.

The high turnover rate makes me scared, plus the fact that I have no experience, but one thing I like about it is there is no performance. I don't have to be someone else. Teaching was definitely a performance; so is political work; and even cafe and retail jobs involve a lot of performing. I'm so tired of having to project an image. So far it seems that other than the actual skills I'm learning, the most important things are common sense, being positive, and staying calm in difficult situations -- all things I'm good at.

I'm trying to keep my expectations low so I won't be disappointed but it's hard not to be excited, driving along in my old beater with pinecones and driftwood on the dashboard, looking at the tall dark trees and thinking "I *live* here!"