Linked In would like me to add a few details to my job history. And it (Linked In) matters(?)
I’m definitely going to have to finesse some things. I had a job or two, before I got the one I have now that people love to say they respect, but kind of think is for no-ambition German Literature majors (answer: secret shopper, online*).  I would much rather post some of my relevant experience, e.g. I taught Alfonso Ribeiro how to hand-splice eight track in New York City in the late 90’s–attn: Mother, that’s not a reference to illegal drugs–and I’ll bet many of my professional contacts would be interested in knowing about that sort of accomplishment. Unfortunately, Linked in is obsessed with dates and employers. And while I would say it took Alfonso longer than it should have, it was easily less than a year. And then I would want to add that I trained that same year as an airline hostess, though the process got derailed (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor) while I awaited results from some tests United Airlines makes you take to see if all your years of reading Goethe and listening to 99 Luftballoons have helped you be able ask Germans what they’d like to have to drink (Antwort:Bier). And then grading the language tests takes three months or so, during which time I read that the stale air on airplanes has a premature aging effect on the skin, and also, during that time, I might have gotten pregnant or something–I have lost track of some of those months. But I did get to go to Chicago several times to be weighed at United’s headquarters, and when I got off the scale, I could go eat Frango Mints at Marshall Fields. Which reminds me I don’t think I was pregnant, even though that would have been a nice excuse for the eating. I couldn’t have been pregnant because I wasn’t married (attn: Mother). I think when I wasn’t in Chicago or New York that year, or come to think of it, maybe also Guatemala, where I learned to say “quiero ser aeromoza” which turned out to be a crock of shit, I was in Washington DC, trying to catch a husband. Because I think I had decided that was looking like a pretty good deal. I’m going to spin this differently on Linked In, I think.

*not true