Laughter

It doesn't look like I will get this job. After our initial conversation with the man that I would be working for a couple of weeks ago, I was led to believe that I had "good chances." I had no idea what that meant, of course, but now it transpired that there are "many strong candidates" and he said that I "shouldn't get my hopes up too much." He said some good things as well, but I couldn't hear those. Naturally, this upsets me. I would - will - feel humiliated and incompetent, even if it is likely that, at least on paper, there could be many candidates who are, indeed, more suited to the position simply because they have spent years working in this area, whereas I have only been here for a couple of months. (I actually, completely inappropriately, looked at all my competitors' CVs, but there has to be some benefit to having your foot in the door. There are a couple that are better than mine but for the most part I wasn't impressed. Sadly, I don't get to decide...) This won't make my feelings of inadequacy go away, and the worst part is that although I need this job, I don't even really want to work for this man. I still think that it is a good organization with many smart, competent, and impressive people, but he does not happen to be one of them and that is a huge problem. I want my bosses to impress me, I want to think that they are what I aspire to be. Many of the partners at the law firm were frighteningly sharp and competent, but I never, not for a second, had the desire to emulate them. So I can't even remember what it was like to work or study for someone that I respected and admired.

All day yesterday I was anxious and sad; Romy kept trying to cheer me up saying things like "where there's a will, there's a way" and going on about how I really shouldn't want to be there. (She is leaving in a week's time, her consultancy contract is up, and she will return to her life of "debauchery", i.e. sleeping til noon, getting stoned, playing poker all night with the occasional cat-sitting stints in between.)

In the end, culture saved my day. As a good, self-proclaimed intellectual I bought tickets to various readings and events at the New Yorker Festival. Last night, my brother and I went to a reading by Ian McEwan and Nicole Krauss at the beautiful Angel Orensanz Foundation, which is converted 19th centurty, neo-gothic synagogue that looks more like a church, on the lower East Side. Readings can be disappointing, but this one was exceptionally enjoyeable. The New Yorker is such a professional organization, everything, from the lighting and sound to the number of words uttered by the host, was spot on. And, if not the professionalism, but accidentally sitting next to Ananda, an American woman who spent some time interning at the Hungarian Helsinki Committe a couple of years ago, and whom I know vaguely through Marta and various other friends from Budapest made me feel at home.

McEwan was insightful, witty and entertaining speaker, to boot; and Krauss, who is a successful young writer and married to Jonathan Safran Foer, the young American writer of the day, was funny and sweet. I also got to ask the last question of the night (on behalf of, and encouraged by, my brother, really) about his opinion of the movie adaptation of Enduring Love, one of my favourite book of his. He gave a long answer, agreeing with me that it is very difficult to turn his books, which are mostly centered around internal monologues on various moral dilemmas, into movies. As I asked the question, I said that I didn't like the movie at all and the audienced laughed. I didn't mean to be funny and I wasn't, it was merely a straightforward statement of opinion.

Then I remembered that a couple of years ago at one of our U.S. Law Group retreats at the law firm, I was asked to be on a panel to discuss the "integration of the U.S. Law Group into the larger British firm" or some such irritating topic. This request took me aback, I had not slept in days due to overworking and was not looking forward to spending some of what little time we had in Rome thinking about what I could possibly say. So I didn't. I just went up and said it as I felt it and the audience, which included every American partner and associate at the firm, was roaring with laughter the whole time. Some partners even came up to me to congratulate me despite the fact that what I actually had said was mostly critical of them. Then, as now, I wasn't trying to be particularly funny; and I think that then, as now, the audience masked its discomfort and surprise at this unusual candidness with inadequate laughter. This is a particularly American phenomenon. For them it is important to paticipate and ask questions, to have a discourse, but it is not necessarily ok to pass judgement on the aesthetic merits of a work of art, or intangible integration policies for that matter.

The Best Offer

My office mate, Romy, plays poker. She is really good at it too. A couple of weeks ago she won about 1,500 dollars in Atlantic City and topped this achievement with another thousand-dollar win playing online. She is also a lawyer, with a law degree from Yale. And claims to be a lesbian, although that assertion has been refined over time and her identity is more aptly defined as a "bisexuals homo-romantic", i.e. someon who likes cock, but cannot comprehend why any female would fall in love with a man. She is sharp and attractive - Italian looks, with long, dark hair and pretty almond-shaped, brown eyes - with a quick wit and an even quicker temper. When she first told me she was a lesbian I totally inappropriately blurted out a "but you don't look like a lesbian", which I instantly regretted, but sometimes the Hungarian in me just wants out, I guess. She has become my best friend at work - in addition to the fify-two-year-old, black mailroom boss, who would be considered as a sexual harrasser if he was not a mere mailman; and the receptionist girl. (I am clearly not very good at making friends with the "important people" - HR head, lawyers, etc.)

The other day she also made me an almost irresistible offer. She told me I should marry her and we could have babies together. She would support me and I was free sleep with whomever I wanted to. This was truly the best offer I ever got - no man would ever suggest anything nearly this enticing. Of course, I like men (and there is one that I like in particular these days), but the real dealbreaker is this: she loves cats, and wants to have plenty of them. And I just can't do that.

Why become a Jew?

New Yorkers don't trust something (or someone) they don't have to pay for. I read this in a piece in The New Yorker about a young woman whose passion is to install baby's car seats safely and properly. She started off as a do-gooder, but begun charging 45 dollars per seat because people wouldn't take up on her offers to help if no payment was required.

This worries me a little. I have been working here for free for almost two months. They have just started advertising the position I have a "good chance" of getting according to the man in charge of the project. I may have undersold myself by volunteering, but I really do not have a choice right now and I presumed that this would show "commitment". I might be totally off and not get a job... What I did get is a babysitting job for 13 bucks an hour. I get to go and take care of my colleague Cynthia's kids for a couple of hours while she is in her"jew class", as my office mate and (other) new best friend, Romy, calls it.

C. is a divorced, slightly neurotic, thirty-six-year-old, a strict Catholic by birth and upbringing (which she hated), who has decided to convert to judaism recently. That is no easy task and she has no apparent reason to be doing it. Unlike Charlotte in S & C, she is not marrying some rich Jewish lawyer, although that transpired to be the ultimate goal. She is very devoted, learning to bake latkes and other Jewish specialties I never even heard of; going to her classes every week; volunteering at a Jewish soup kitchen; hanging out with old Jewish ladies at the synagogue. Initially, I was puzzled at this. Where I come from, you don't want to become Jewish and you cannot choose not to be Jewish. Then she told me how, through her class, she got invited to a wealthy couple's Sabbath dinner a couple of weeks ago. She was describing the Fifth Avenue penthouse, the expensive china and the fabulous catering with such excitement that I understood that she just wants to belong. Yes, she might want a Jewish guy to marry, but, more importantly, she feels that it is nice to be part of a culture, tradition, group and Jews are almost the majority in this town. (To say the least, they are the majority in these non-profit, human rights circles for sure...) I am fascinated by this desire to belong to something that is not naturally yours. I don't think I ever desired that because I am satisfied with what I have. On second thought, I am not really sure what it is exactly that I have in this area...