Songs of Youth

Passion was set on a rainy afternoon
to the music of Offenbach.
The curve of her back ached for
touch - he called it his Stradivarius.
When rain whispered its last drops
down the window, she turned
her lips to meet his smile.
This would be the moment to
remember by the favorite songs
of their youth - where
fields of gold met happy together.

Social Strip Search

Employers checking a candidate's social presence instead of their resumes has been in the news before. For folks like myself who make a concerted effort not to have any kind of social presence, it could put  us out of the running for the position. There is an opportunity cost to keeping your privacy these days - be it a job or a getting the best prices at the grocery store.

Resumes are tedious things - I can't stand mine and am amazed at anyone who can read through it. I have never come across one that got me excited about the candidate to the point that I wanted to meet and chat with them. I love to hear about someone from current or former co-workers who can't stop raving about them, bosses who say they would love to have them back and so on. You are intrigued and want to meet this person and see if there is mutual interest.

This is social presence too but there are real people involved in the process and that makes all the difference. It is completely different than doing a search on the candidate and checking out their Klout score to see if they are minnows or whales in their line of work. I am not sure how much that helps in deciding if someone is right for the job and will work well with the team.

But to have a prospective employer ask that be able to peruse your Facebook account before they make you an offer is outright offensive - this is no different than asking to go through your trash, mail or laundry hamper to get to know the real you. Before there was the internets I don't recall employers making such demands of job applicants. Why do we have to be subjected to a strip search now ?

I am so glad I am not on Facebook and never will be. I started indoctrinating J on the why she should steer clear of social media a few years ago and I am not about to stop anytime soon.

Honing A Craft

It is a slow Sunday morning and we don't have any plans for the day. DB, J and I are fighting the remnants of a cold that has knocked us out to varying degrees in the past week. I happened by the NYT as I do on some Sundays and read this essay by Jhumpa Lahiri that was ever so perfect for my mood today.

Her devotion to perfecting her craft is palpable in every sentence. It seems to me, pieces like this one reveal Lahiri's personality so much more than her autobiographical novels. Without having shared anything about her life, she is able to spark curiosity - a reader wants to know more about her and how her mind works. 

She writes "I hear sentences as I’m staring out the window, or chopping vegetables, or waiting on a subway platform alone. They are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, handed to me in no particular order, with no discernible logic. I only sense that they are part of the thing."  

I know for a fact that I will remember these lines when I look out the window of the kitchen watching a couple of raucous cardinals only a few shades apart from my bowl of red bell peppers. I may pay more attention to gathering my thoughts instead of letting them drift away unattended.

Warmth

They shiver like birds caught in 
sudden winter rain.
The day is warm and her skin
feverish against aubergine silk.
This will be the time when
things past will collide with
that which is yet to come.
The moment will flee them
like it never happened.