Please ignore my icon until I change it

[rinue]

"Hopes to obtain an improved position and greater prestige, so that she can procure for herself more of the things she has had to do without." - Color Quiz

Applying for jobs is always a little weird for me because I'm never looking for money; I'm looking for self-definition. The question I ask myself is never whether I have the job skills, because I can pick them up at the drop of a hat; instead I go through a long process of visualization concerning what my conversations would be about, when I would sleep, and how I would be expected to dress. I can always play the role, but sometimes . . . I don't want to.

I've been doing a lot of film and theatre stuff over the past year, and I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't actually like film and theatre stuff, at least not on the lower levels. I like directing, and I love photography. I'm quite fond of production design. Hanging lights, prepping shot lists, disappearing for weeks to work from 8 A.M. to 12 Midnight? Not really my style.

This realization coincides with a resurgence of interest in Romie-as-musician. I don't know how this keeps coming up, because I don't usually mention it, but I've been asked to do the score for a film and am being solicited to join a band that's part of an experimental theatre troupe. The reason I think this is odd is that I've always known musicians who are much better than me, and I gave up performing more than seven years ago. I kept practicing just for myself, as a theraputic exercize, (which, incidentally, doesn't actually work. I always think it's going to calm me down, but it usually gets me more riled up). So now, I look around myself and see the musicians who are better than me . . . and they've gotten regular jobs and don't have time to play anymore. Effectively, I've stumbled into being an in-demand professional musician simply through outlasting everyone else.

Meanwhile, I'm pursuing a concept artist job at a video game company, (the same one that marveloustrick didn't get,) which is forcing me to remember that I have a hell of a lot of artistic training. Oh, don't get me wrong, I do art all the time, (which very few people ever get to see,) but it's not my niche. In the family, I mean. My sister and I took the same art lessons and the same piano lessons, and we agreed a long time ago that she would be the artist and I would be the musician, mostly because she was bad at music. Only . . . now I don't live with her, and haven't for 8 years.

As for the "video game" aspect . . . I desperately wanted to be a game designer from approximately age 4 to age 20, and I actually produced a first-person graphics-driven puzzle/adventure game in elementary school, years before Myst and 7th Guest came out. I wrote papers about how Roberta Williams (of Sierra) was my hero. I dabbled in 3-D modeling and animation during high school, and transferred out of George Washington University at least partially because I was disgusted that they were teaching me worthless dead programming languages. About the same time, I fell out of the computer game "loop," (partially because the new generation of consoles came out and really took over); even though I still read a lot of the relevant periodicals, I get maybe one or two games a year.

This seems like just a filler/update post, but it really isn't. What's going on is this abrupt process by which I'm having to resurrect old versions of myself, look at them hard, and then spin them around to see if anything falls out. Doing this never feels like "coming home" or "plesant nostalgia". . . it feels like stepping into an older skin, one that's tight in some places and loose in others. Meanwhile, for interview purposes, I have to pretend that this is what I always wear. But where I am now doesn't fit either.

This is complicated by the fact that the way I get to know people isn't by asking what they like or what they do or who they know; I don't understand people until I find out what they want. (This mode of thinking is a quadruple threat from Psychologist Romie, Economist Romie, Director Romie, and Writer Romie. If you belong to one of those professions, I highly reccomend this method of classification.)

So if I seem distracted when you're talking to me, or I don't e-mail back for several days . . . it's not personal. I'm just not sure who is supposed to answer you.

Comments

[pink-skirts.livejournal.com]

I like this post.

[marveloustrick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but wouldn't be even cooler if you friended her husband?

Hint hint, nudge nudge.

I'd like to read your journal. Pretty please *adorable grin*.

[rinue.livejournal.com]

Thanks. <3

love,
Romie

[rhys-k.livejournal.com]

Personally I like Friend Romie.

And it won't amuse you nearly as much as it amused me... but All I could think of while picturing the different Romie Hats, was "By our Powers combined..."

Being a Jack of all trades definately has its ups... but yeah... the "pull of a thousand directions" gets tiring. Things would be much more simple if you were bound by what you could do instead of trying to find what you wanted to do.

[(Anonymous)]

The notion of personal solidarity keeps recurring in my quest for self-definition, mostly because I get the feeling I won't progress if I don't pick a path (maintaining several fronts simultaneously is exhausting, at best, and carries the possibility that it is ultimately futile). I get a small chill whenever my internal Buddy Ackerman pops up with his, "The only thing you have to ask yourself is, 'What do you really want?'", because of the threat that I might have to excise, when I cannot honestly say that "really" inherently culls the list of any dead weight.

You may have noticed that I don't enjoy the "dynamic-ing" game as much as Chad does, and that I chafe against his tendency to assign labels to people. As innocently and flatteringly as he does it, it leaves me feeling that I am a "character" rather than a person, smaller than I might be left to my own devices. "Hacker advocate/hacktivist", "I.T. Guy", "A/V Tech", "Composer", "Electronica Artist", "Screenwriter", "Film-maker", "Poet", "Fiction Writer", "Photographer", "Digital Artist", "Italian", "Man", "Main Character". . . all these people (as well as those left unmentioned) want different things, and I want all of them.

And perhaps a bit more.

As someone who understands both military mindsets and successful business models, you know the value of centralized authority. Nothing gets done in a pinch if the final say goes to too many people. Consequently, rather than paring down my list, I've made them employees. At my disposal.

So, if ever you wonder who I'm talking to when I address Romie, I want to speak to the woman in charge.

Tzarcasm (http://tzarcasm.diaryland.com)

P.S. This is a terribly lengthy comment, for which I truly apologize. Maybe I was making up for not having made any in a while.

P.P.S. That post, by the way, is excellent.

[achates.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry the dynamic-ing game bothers you so much. I didn't realize. But I also think you're missing the point to a certain extent. Profiling isn't meant to define you as a whole or simplify so complex a thing as your personality. It doesn't even work with the individual really. It's more an exercise in finding the ways in which the group relates to each other and the way the profiler relates to the group.

-C

[narcolepticcat.livejournal.com]

that's one of the best livejournal posts i've read in ages. it's like an essay on self-awareness. bad-ass. :D

[valancy.livejournal.com]

I had forgotten how great this entry was, particularly the last 3 paragraphs. You need to friend and read stakebait (she who wrote for us - you loved her article) - she was tackling America and road trips today.