cellini's Diaryland Diary

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My stock is high and I would like to sell, please

I am on a big career push for the last few weeks. Applying for shit.

First, for the Harvard fellowship. Then for other fellowships so long as they have a reasonable living stipend. Then for a few other jobs, including Propublica in NYC and something similar in DC. This prompted me to get my Linkedin profile in order.

The very next morning after dusting off that profile, I got an email from a headhunter from UVA asking if I would please be interested in being the new associate editor for their alumni magazine right here in Ch@rlottesville.

Yes, please.

She looked over my resume and then we did a phone interview the next day and she seemed to be impressed. Said it pays $70k (!) and she'd like to set up a video interview in the next week or so with me and some magazine staff and that they want to fill this quickly.

Then I saw that the W@shington Post is hiring a staff science journalist. I freelanced for them for a couple of years in the science section, and magically my old editor from when I freelanced for Slate is now the science editor who is looking over applicants. She is also the person who started me off as a science journalist 5 or 6 years ago, liking my stuff and asking me to start pitching to her. She was also at Sm1thsonian Magazine before Slate and I later went on to write for Smithsonian for two years.

Anyway. I'm at a point right now where my resume as a journalist is suddenly really fucking good. Because not only do I have long runs of hugely successful freelance work at Slate, the WP and Smithsonian, plus two books so far, but now I also have the fact that I am arguably the world's foremost expert on the events on and surrounding August 12th in Charlottesville. I have totally proven myself as a journalist. And then I also kinda made a really good feature documentary film about 8/12 (with equal help from an awesome partner on the project).

Career-wise, my star should be ascendant. I have paid my fucking dues. You want an experienced journalist who produces accurate work that consistently gets the world's attention for a day or so? Want some prestige in your organization? Want a guy who can do hard-core science stuff? Ok, now I'm that.

So I'm going full-ahead on trying to get an actual salaried job or academic fellowship, which has also meant not pitching or writing new freelance work. And that means that I am almost broke and have precious little money coming in during the near future. I'm gambling everything on this idea that I am suddenly worth hiring for more than starvation wages.

It has been really tough to get into this spot because I have never worked in a news room, did not go to journalism school, was not an English major, and am technically a college drop-out who also never earned a high school diploma.

So in spite of the life difficulties that would be presented by taking a job in DC, I am tickled pink by the prospect of this high school dropout ascending to the 99.9th percentile by getting a job as a science reporter for The Washington Post.

My old editor, now at the Post, responded today and made it clear that I am in the running and ash asked if I would definitely be willing to relocate up to DC for this position.

And that would be fucking tough, but I wouldn't say now.

I have two kids and an ex-wife, which is the only reason I have stayed here for the last five years or so. But my son is about to turn 11 and my daughter is 14. They are old enough to make their own decisions about where to live and it wouldn't be quite so awful if I was to have to spend a year or two being in DC five days a week and back here the other two.

Putting either them in school in DC seems like a bad idea. Those are not great schools. Maybe if I was in NoVa, taking the Metro in to work every day. I feel less iffy about the Harvard prospect. If I get that, I think the schools in Cambridge would be fine. My son would love to live that close to Fenway and already said that he would want to come. My daughter would likely stay in Ch@rlottesville because of her involvement in theater, music, etc. And it would only be for two semesters.

But I won't likely be able to choose between more than one option at a time. The alumni magazine will probably want to make a decision in the next two weeks. The Washington Post would probably want a commitment next month. Harvard doesn't announce their finalists until April. So in real terms, Harvard becomes my back-up if I don't get an offer from the Post or UVA.

Dangerously, I'm already indulging in imagining how I would decorate a real, permanent or semi-permanent home. I don't ask much. I just want enough to eat and my bills paid without visiting pawn shops and a proper place to live. I want to feel like a real person again. Like I'm not a sub-human leftover doing work that the whole fucking world applauds but never tips.

These last 6 or 7 months have been so, so hard. I've done all of this incredible journalism but the cost has been so high. I'm burned out from dealing with Nazis and the weird, tip-toey politics of dancing with the extreme left and Antifa and all that. I have worked very hard to find and report these stories that the rest of the world seems to see as being historically important. Isn't it ok to expect *something* at the end of all of that? Can I please just have a home? A place to live and food to eat and a safe car to drive? I've done my bit. I've done it a lot. I've had stalkers and people trying to kill me and running off in the middle of the night and keeping secrets and doing an insane amount of work and reporting that I was never even paid for just to put the information out on Twitter and other social media. And I just want to go home.

10:39 p.m. - 2018-02-08

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