bizgirl

Firstly, if there's anyone out there who can tell me where I can get good coffee within walking distance of the Canal Street subway station, I'd be most appreciative.

The impression I got from American films and TV was that NY was absolutely awash in coffee, which may be true, but I've yet to find anyone who can make me the perfect flat white (or café au lait, as I've discovered as being the safest bet to get something vaguely like what I'm really after). The Starbucks in the Charles Schwab building is my front runner so far, but, really, Starbucks? Come on New York!

Because I am definitely in need of a tasty and strong caffeine boost after my nerve-racking initiations into the NY subway system. And my new job.

I arrived nice and early, having given myself a decent amount of buffer time should anything go horribly wrong on the subway. I considered taking a taxi, but my limited experiences with NY taxi drivers has led me to believe that they either can't understand my English, they don't actually speak English themselves, or, in most cases, both.

My boss offered me a coffee as soon as I sat down in his office.

I said yes, and he swung around in his large leather chair to reveal a filter coffee dripping into a stained brown jug.

"Sugar?"
"Err, No."
"Cream."
Cream? I didn't even know you could have cream with filter coffee.
"No, thanks."
"You have a lovely accent. Mel said you were a New Zealander?"
"Yes."

The accent thing still gives me a kick. I must have said all of six words to John, my new boss, all of them mono-syllabic, and still I get the 'you have a lovely accent' stuff. I reckon it's the 'thunks' for 'thanks' that gets them.

We chit-chatted for a bit, and he apologised profusely in advance for the job he was about to set me upon. His company's product catalogue has recently gone through a 're-imagining' of some kind, which has resulted in him hiring some advertising firm to write new blurbs to accompany the product line. All 750 items.

So now their website has to be updated with all the new blurbs. Enter me.

John showed me to where I was to do all the data entry. A space had been made for me in the accounts office, where I was introduced to the accountants, and then tucked into a corner. John walked me through the data entry process a couple of times, and all my start-of-job fears evaporated: it was indeed a job of mind-numbing repetition.

The website had a nice looking content management system, but the process of updating a single product entry required going through multiple steps, many of them pointless. Open the record. Confirm the name. Confirm the price. Confirm the meta info. Then update the record. Proof-read. Publish. Check the live site. The process took about five minutes for each record. Two weeks sounded about right.

Gah. At least I'm getting paid.

And what is it with the air pollution in New York? I went for a long sight-seeing walk around Greenwich Village in the evening, and by the time I got back to the hotel, my face was covered in this grimy muck. Yuck.

Still, haven't been mugged yet.

Well, in an effort to catch up with myself, I'm going to skip our Chicago adventures. I'll save them for a rainy day.

Bertel got a call last week from his band's manager telling him that the pre-production sessions were now going to be taking place in New York. We booked airfares and were in the Big Apple the next day, our taste for long-distance cross-country road-trips now well and truly sated by the mind-numbing Memphis to Chicago drive.

My main problem at the moment (well, most of the time, to tell the truth), is a complete lack of funds. I've been living off Bertel's generosity and the seemingly never-ending limit of my credit card for the last month or so, and I don't want to push either resource too far into the red, for fear of irreparable damage.

So, I've decided to get a job. Surely there's something I can do in this city. Land of Opportunity and all that. Unfortunately, the woman at the first temp agency I went to had to stifle a laugh when I told her I was in the USA on a holiday visa. She politely told me my best bet was to leave the country, find a company that was willing to hire me (from abroad), and then get them to apply for working visa on my behalf. In other words: go away. I did.

Thankfully, Mel, the lovely woman I met at the second agency a couple of days ago was much more encouraging and helpful. Having looked at my CV, we sat down together and browsed some of my online work together.

"You've definitely got the skills and qualifications to get something on an H1B," she said.
"I do?"
"Definitely. Only problem is that it will take at least a month to process, and that's after we find someone who wants to employ you. Although, again, I don't imagine that will be a problem. Can you hold out that long?"
"Err, maybe. Although, not really. I'm pretty broke. In fact, I don't even have enough money to get a plane ticket home at the moment. I don't really know what to do."

At which point, for the first time in years, I burst into tears.

Mel was extremely gracious, whipped a box of tissues out of her desk for me to blow my nose on, and came around to me to give me an encouraging pat on the shoulder. After I stopped my blubbing, she closed the door to her office, and sat down on the desk in front of me.

"Natalie," she said, "I know of an opening at a firm downtown. It's a simple data entry job, something well below your station, and only for a couple of weeks, but does pay quite well, and will let you get back on your feet. I know the HR manager extremely well, and he owes me a favour or two, so I'm sure we can fudge the paperwork for a few weeks while we get onto processing your H1B."
"That would be ... amazing. Thank you," I sniffled.
"Don't mention it."

She ushered me into her reception room, returned to her office to make a couple of calls, and then called me back in. I had a job. Just like that. If only things were so easy back in New Zealand. Mel gave me the details of where I was to report to work (the next day!), and bid me farewell, with a promise to ring me again soon once she had a longer term position in line for me.

The job starts tomorrow, and, despite it being 'menial data entry', I'm all a-jitter. Full report to come...

And, on a different tangent altogether, a big 'shout-out' to blog-buddy Zinnia @ Real E Fun who has, along with myself, been deemed 'webby worthy' at this year's Webby Awards. You'll find me on the 'B' page, just down from a plethora of BBC sites, and just above Blogger.com. Yay for us!

Bertel and I had two 'must-do's' on our visit to Memphis: the Reverend Al Green's Sunday Service (Bertel's choice) and Graceland (mine). We must have driven up and down the streets of 'Soulsville' in the south of Memphis a dozen times looking for the church, but it completely eluded us. We did have accurate directions to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, so we traded a 'must-do' for a 'may-as-well' and visited there, instead. Which, it turns out, was a great move. The museum was inspiring, educational, fun - an information resource that the unemployed librarian within me could really admire. As such, it was the complete opposite of the Graceland experience we were to have later that day...

The lines at Graceland were mercifully short; being a Sunday, we figured everyone was still at church. The operation ran with a scary efficiency - the level to which I was photographed (they said for a momento but I'm not so sure), instructed, prodded and directed made me feel a little like I was back at library school: a lot of rules and no time to learn them in.

It's hard to offer a summary of the Graceland experience. Bertel seemed to be enjoying it on some sort of musical level, but I, however, was constantly taken aback with the evidence that with ridiculous wealth one does not necessarily come excellent taste. I suppose most people familiar with the Elvis's latter years know this of course, but to be confronted with it on such a gigantic level was overwhelming. The 'best' part was the racquetball court, with the glass entombed examples of Elvis's 70s and therefore 'fat' sequined clothing.

"Man, this guy was a dandy!" exclaimed Bertel, bringing forth some of scowls from one or two of our tour-group who obviously had a higher opinion of Elvis's sartorial sense.

In fact, those scowls were about the sum level of interaction with our fellow Elvis pilgrims. Although Bertel and I chatted about the exhibits as we wandered around, and other couples whispered the occasional comment to one another, there was next to no intermingling with anyone else in the group. Everyone was listening to the same audio tour via headphones, so we were cut off from each other, but hearing the same thing.

(As an aside, this is something I've seen more and more of while here in the USA. The other day I saw a young couple, walking down the street, hand in hand, both listening to iPods, and both txting on their cellphones with their free hand. Mad.)

Together Alone, as NZ's most famous songsmith once wrote.

Having done our sight-seeing duties, we drove to a restaurant, and encountered some 'authentic' American culture. American English (and, it has to be said, Scandanavian English), continues to surprise me with some brilliant turns-of-phrase. Having made our orders, our waitress sprung this on us...

"Y'all want to a la mode that?"
"Do I?" I asked.
"Do you?"
"A la mode it?"
"Yes. You know. A scoop of icecream on the side."
"Ohh, yes, please."

I think "to a la mode it" is one of the best verbs I've ever heard. Even now, a couple of weeks later, we're still getting mileage out of it.

Anyway, with our vocabularies suitably enriched by our Memphis stop-over, we headed out-of-town for Chicago, and a whole new series of adventures.

Bertel and I arrived in Memphis in the early afternoon on Good Friday. We found an internet cafe and spent a useful half hour on Google Maps, before heading to Goner Records, a store a few miles east of downtown that Bertel (a fanatical vinyl collector) had been informed was the best place to satisfy his vinyl habit. Before too long I was aching from standing around listening to Bertel discuss obscure 7 inches and rare new vinyl releases with the cheerful record store dude. Bertel's a gentle man, in all senses of the word, and generally retiring by nature, but when you get him talking ... Jesus he can rabbit on. After talking music for an inordinate amount of time, the guys at Goner gave us hints where to stay and what to do. As it turned out, we only had a couple of days in Memphis and their ideas proved invaluable. They scrawled the names and directions for bars and restaurants on our laser-printed Google Maps.

Anyway, Tennessee is the 'buckle of the bible belt', a label I found ample proof of. I've never encountered so many religious advertisements in one place: every second billboard was advertising a church or a Christian radio station. Terri Schaivo was literally the only news we saw while we were in town, and opinions on the situation even managed to supersede the usual chit-chat that Bertel and I attract as funny-speaking foreigners.

I ducked out of such conversations, but Bertel, a self-professed secular humanist, got drawn into what was destined to be an epic debate while we breakfasted at the Arcade. Bertel's mostly lucid approach to the dilemma in Florida did nothing but raise the ire of a couple of the more bible-educated men he had got talking to on the issue. In his sweetly oblivious way, he persevered in his efforts to convince the particularly fierce-looking god-fearing duo of the sensible and honorable approach that Schaivo's husband had taken so far, and how cruel Terri's parents were being in prolonging the inevitable. The guys' jaws just about dropped from their faces. Sensing a potential impasse, I left the immovable and unstoppable to it, and slipped outside to enjoy the dewy spring morning air. Spring in March! How bizarre. As I stood on the footpath, my eyes met those of a young duckling sitting forlornly in a cardboard box, in the back of a pickup truck parked nearby.

He quacked at me furiously. Naturally, I suspected the duckling was in some sort of mortal peril. I took a photo, thinking it might be useful for evidence of cruelty later on, and then, as I hummed and hahhed as to what to do, the duckling let out a particularly pitiful quack of anguish, convincing me my initial suspicion of mistreatment was correct. I scooped it out of the box, and ran round the corner to where we'd parked, and stashed the wee feller inside the rental.

I returned to the entrance to wait for Bertel, and to identify (and perhaps photograph) the duck-nappers.

Bertel came out with the Christians, their voices still full of argumentative tones.

It turned out the pick-up truck belonged to the Christians.

"Hey!" yelled the first to reach the truck. "Where's the duckling gone!"

He looked around, and saw me, loitering guiltily nearby.

"Excuse me ma'am, did you see where the duckling in here went?"
"I, uh, he went, that-a-way," I said, pointing him up the street, the opposite direction to where I'd actually taken him.
"How'd he get out?"
"I have no idea. I didn't even realise he'd come from your truck. I just saw him waddling off. That-a-way," I said again, pointing, starting to feel bad that I had stolen some poor Christians' duck, and was lying to them about it. My sins were mounting up.
"Thanks," he said.

The Christians consulted, then one of them jumped in the pick-up and drove off down the street, while the other started walking briskly up the footpath in the direction I had indicated.

Bertel and I returned to the car, where, naturally, my 'liberated' duckling had relieved himself of a quite mind-boggling amount of foul-smelling duck-poo on my seat. I sacrificed one souvenir motel bath-towel cleaning up the mess as best I could, used another to cover the remaining stain up with, then scooped the duck up, and got Bertel to drive us around the block until we caught site of the Christian on foot. I jumped out.

"Is this the one?" I asked, proffering the duck his way.
"Well yes, ma'am, it is. How'd you...? Where'd it...?"

He looked up and down the street, obviously suspicious that we'd come from the opposite direction I had initially pointed him in.

"He must have, um, walked around the block?" I suggested.

I handed it over, the Christian thanked me, and Bertel and I drove away, him laughing merrily at my mis-guided animal liberation effort.

We later learned that giving cute animals (bunnies, ducklings, chicks) to each other is an old Southern Easter tradition. New life and all that. And, as we had discovered, it's a practice that is alive and well. When googling it, I also read how the Humane Society is encouraging people to carefully consider whether any recipient of such a gift wanted to look after an cute furry animal for 10 or more years.

"Unfortunately, each year after Easter animal shelters are inundated with bunnies, ducklings, and chicks relinquished by people who bought them on a whim. Many must be euthanized due to a lack of available homes."

At which point, I must admit, I got a bit emotional thinking about my poor wee duckling getting euthanised when whoever the Christians were going to give 'my' duckling to got tired of caring for it (and, more pertinently, cleaning up after its disproportionate bowel movements). The ducklings sad little quack of anguish came back to haunt me.

Thankfully, Bertel helped me overcome my melancholy by taking me to a nice Thai restaurant for dinner, where, yes, we had a red curry roast duck.

Well, it would hardly be suitable for the self-professed 'International Librarian of Mystery' to jump on the first plane home when the chance to continue my foreign adventures dropped into my lap (so to speak).

So, yes, after probably far too short a time of weighing up the scenario, I decided to head out on the great US road-trip with Bertel, my new Scandanavian rock-star boyfriend. I emailed the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet telling them I'd love the job, but that I couldn't really start for another month or so. Could they hold the position? The reply was quick, and brief: no. Ah well.

Before we left town, Bertel bought me a lovely hippo t-shirt as a reminder of SXSW. Probably not the sort of thing you'd normally consider buying for a woman you were trying to impress, but, as well as the souvenir value, Bertel also told me it reminded him of the Moomin stories he had been bought up with as a child. I had to laugh when I actually looked up the Moomin characters on the web to find out what he was on about, and found this character, Moominpapa, who is, and I quote: "...innocent and boyish, but still quite proud of his masculinity. While he is enormously loyal to his family, he is a dreamer partial to dubious individuals and whisky." This summed up Bertel so beautifully as to make me change my attitude to the t-shirt from one of bury-at-the-bottom-of-my-bag to one of worn-with-pride-everywhere-I-go. It's now my favourite bit of clothing in my admittedly limited travelling kit. Except the World dress, of course.

Bertel and I drove out of Austin in the early morning to get to Memphis in good time. After some cursory glances at the passing scenery, I decided I wasn't much interested in Dallas or its surroundings in the middle of the night, and I slept most of the way through. The drive usually takes ten hours, but Bertel got us there in about nine. It came as no surprise to me that he's usually the van driver for his band when they go on tour.

We eventually hit the Mississippi and followed it northwards. I wasn't quite sure what to expect of the near mythical river, and, well, what can one say? It's big. It's brown. It's muddy. Even still, it does have a certain power, and, without wanting to get too philosophical on it, you can nearly feel the divide between East and West. I can honestly say that seeing Ol' Miss and hearing the odd lonely train whistle in the distance when we stopped for occasional food, gas (as they say), and comfort stops, made me understand a little better the call of the road and the wide open spaces. It was exhilarating and, for a small-town kiwi girl in a hired car with a barely known Scandanavian musician, a little scary. My decision to kick back the DPMC job came back to haunt me at this point, and, for a moment, I longed for the claustrophobic comfort of familiar bookshelves and my morning tea cup of Milo.

The moment passed, aided by another scene-setting tune from Bertel's iPod. He'd loaded up a heady mix of atmospheric spirituals, country blues and hillbilly music from the territory we were traveling through. It was providing a (not so) surprisingly effective soundtrack for the landscapes we were travelling through. He also had some demo versions of the songs that Bertel's band are planning to record, and these were on high rotate for most of the trip as well. Having heard the demos about, ohhh, a hundred times now, I reckon his band's album has the potential to be fantastic. Really.

Anyway, when we weren't listening to the iPod - or 'Baby' as Bertel had curiously named it - we caught bits of the local radio stations. There was a lot of religious programming - there was no mistaking we were in the bible belt. We also found some rather sweet country stations as well. A couple of songs stuck with me, not so much for their musicality (to be honest they sounded pretty much alike) but for their lyrical view of the world. The plaintive song - "I'm gonna hate myself in the morning but I'm gonna love you tonight" - was sure something. It was topped, however by this one - Red Dirt Road. Here's some of the lyrics...

It's where I drank my first beer,
It's where I found Jesus
Where I wrecked my first car, I tore it all to pieces

First of all - it has to be pointed out that if you speak 'Southern' then 'je-sayus' and 'pee-sayes' rhyme perfectly. The song evoked memories of youthful revelry and blessed sanctification and made me think fondly of a boy I met over New Year's at Mount Maunganui, but then lost as he was due at bible camp the following week. Ah, memories.

Also blogworthy is the discovery that on some Christian radio stations they run a competition where you can win concert tickets of your choice for 'you and your pew'. That's right - your and your evangelical (usually) posse can "git along" to the gig of your choice.

Ahh, how I was falling in love with America!

To be continued...