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The bad thing about having insecurities is that you always looking at the external world, comparing yourself to others.  Today I skipped all blog posts that were about romantic Valentine’s Days. Was I happy for these lucky bloggers and their contentment with their significant others? Of course I… oh, who am I fooling. Bastards.
No matter whatever good happens, a truly negative person only sees that the next person is better off. I told a friend from film school that I have been taking with this producer about some story idea. He reminded me about our mega-successful friend who is directing a film with Nicolas Cage. Jerk.
Thank God for mothers. Whatever you do, they always put you first.  A mother always makes her son feel like a Prince.  Today I was talking to my mother about my interview post. She is astounded that so many people have gotten involved.Â
“And who’s interviewing YOU?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll probably just put my name at the bottom of the list and let it be random like everyone else.”
“That’s nice.” she said, in her sweet voice. “I’m being interviewed tomorrow, too.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, laughing. “Who’s interviewing you? The Flushing chapter of Hadassah?”
“No, tomorrow, a woman is coming to interview me at work. From “The New Yorker” magazine.”
“The New Yorker?!” You’re joking.”
“Why would I be joking.”
“No offense, Mom, but why would “The New Yorker” — one of the most prestigious magazines out there — want to interview you?”
“Well, maybe you need to re-read your “interview” post again where you say that “everybody” is a “somebody.”
The story:Â
My mother has worked for one company her entire life, starting the job before she was even married.  It is the literary book publisher of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Although she isn’t an editor or someone with much decision making power, she has been working there since the days when the company had just a handful of employees, lead by the firm’s founder, Roger W. Straus.  Since then, the company has published twenty-one Nobel Prizes winners in literature. Knut Hamsun, Hermann Hesse, T. S. Eliot, Pär Lagerkvist, François Mauriac, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Salvatore Quasimodo, Nelly Sachs, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Pablo Neruda, Eugenio Montale, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Czeslaw Milosz, Elias Canetti, William Golding, Wole Soyinka, Joseph Brodsky, Camilo José Cela, Nadine Gordimer, Derek Walcott, and Seamus Heaney.
With most of the original staff having either passed away or retired, my MOTHER is now apparently the longest-active employee of the famous company. She has seen the rise and fall of authors and agents, the birth of the mega book stores, the changes in book publishing, and the inevitable growth of the conglomerates eating up the independents. And The New Yorker wants to ask her a few questions for some general interest article on the firm and book publishing!
Perfect. I’m going to be interviewed by some dumb random blogger, while my MOTHER is going to be interviewed by The New Yorker!  (Mom, remember to tell her about the blog! “Citizen of the Month”)
A Year Ago on Citizen of the Month:Â Â A Merry Tale of Whale Watching
