And then I became a grown-up. By eating a grown-up. Or hiring a grown-up. One of those.

thebloggess

12 years ago

Six weeks ago I told twitter that I desperately needed an assistant to work a few hours a week, to help me weed through bad pitches and tell me to take my meds. Many fabulous people offered and I promptly ran away because I’m not responsible enough to hire an assistant, and I ended up hiding under the table and wishing I had some sort of an assistant to do this stuff for me. Then Victor yelled at me because I’m making myself sick from working 12 hour day, but it seems sort of self-indulgent and weird to have an assistant when you have a job where you write about porn and giant metal chickens all day. And besides, I don’t really need an assistant. I need a Mary.

A decade ago a sweet woman named Mary helped me learn how to pretend to be good at HR. She told me jokes when mean people made me cry. She took over projects when I got pregnant and couldn’t stop throwing up. She’d crawl under the desk with me (as if that was perfectly natural) when I’d have a panic attack. She was nice and kind to me when I was the lowest on the totem pole because she doesn’t understand totem poles and prefers jungle gyms.

And that’s why this week I broke down and hired an assistant.

I hired Mary.

She’s sweet and twisted and couldn’t care less about social media, but I’ve never met anyone who cared more about people. Also, she’s terrifically over-qualified, but is willing lie around in the gutter with me because she’s bored and awesome. Which is the perfect combination, really.

Meet Mary:

Me and Mary at our last job. And yes, I realize that's a terrible picture but I was pregnant or drunk at the time so it can't be helped. Also, I asked Mary if I should use another picture but she said she liked this one because it's the most indicative of us. Which is a little sad, and also just perfect.

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In other news, you guys really want chicken. I couldn’t even keep up with all the amazing names on the last post so instead I used the random number generator to pick the winners. And yes, I did say winners. Because first place gets the metal chicken, and second and third get desk- sized resin Beyonces from my shop. Plus, all three get an advance-reader-copy of my book as long as they promise not to xerox it and throw the pages off a balcony until after it’s officially released in a couple of months.

The grand prize goes to Heidi, who wins the incredibly well named “Johann Sebastian Buck-BAWK”. Runners up are Michelle S. and Valerie.

PS. You guys are the best. Seriously.