There are only 87 actual people

in the world; all the rest are imaginary.”

              — Jaelle (judy gerjuoy)

I interviewed for a job at the University of Texas General Libraries today.

The HR manager, who interviewed me, was the same woman who hired me to work at Congress Avenue Booksellers seventeen years ago.

I began noticing this phenomenon when I was a kid; whenever a family member went on a trip someplace, no matter where, they would come back having met somebody who had lived in Comanche, or whose old Auntie came from Comanche, or whose second husband’s sister’s roommate was married to someone from Comanche . . . you get the idea.  It became so common that in the family we called it the “Comanche syndrome.”

Except it expanded and changed once I moved to Austin, so that I couldn’t go anywhere without seeing at least one person, and often more, who knew me in a completely different context.  Eventually I quit fighting, and acknowledged it as some kind of a field effect that happens around me and mine.

So I’m not surprised that someone who hired me long ago is interviewing me for another job now.  I only hope it gives me a bit of advantage in getting to the second round of interviews.  She’s not the hiring manager, so I can’t get lucky in that way twice, but still . . . .

The ACLU hides Gary Shandling in Berlin.  Fnord.