I have a job interview tomorrow. I have been searching for a job in Minneapolis for almost five months now, and this is my second interview. ( Sarah, if you're reading this, I would advise you to stick with your job for a few more months, no matter how terrible that may be...)

I'm gonna break it down for you. I interviewed for an executive assistant job at my old high school, which is a kick-ass public school focused on the arts. There were four people on my interview panel. The decision for the position eventually came down to me and one other person, and (as these things always work out), the other person got it. However, one of the people on my panel liked me and, since her executive assistant was leaving in November, she invited me to apply for the job.

Now, this being a position with the state, it had to go through all sorts of proper channels before trickling down to little ol' me. But the lady said to me, and I quote: "If nobody from the state claims the job, I would love to have you in the position. We would conduct interviews, but we would only interview one person, and that person would be you." In other words, I was essentially promised this job if some laid-off person from the state didn't gobble it up first.

So I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Now it has been almost two months of waiting. And finally I found out from the human resources department that nobody has claimed the job. Reason to celebrate, right? Wrong. Because a few days later I received a call from the lady who had originally encouraged me to apply for the job, saying, "Well, we received 24 applications, and we're going to be interviewing people next week. It looks like I might be able to fit you in next Friday..."

So suddenly I went from being the "chosen one" to being just one of 24 random people who might get this job. What happened? Your guess is as good as mine.

Did she hear some gossip about me? Did one of my old teachers tell her about that awful paper I wrote about Toni Morrison? Did a dorm staffer leak to her that I was suspended from the dorm one night my senior year for having girls in my room? Did my delusional fear of Freemasons reach her ears?

Either way, something happened between September 12, when she received my official application and last Friday, when I was coldly asked if I was "interested in interviewing."

Grr...

So I am going to the interview with as much of a positive attitude as I can muster. I will try to be charming and congenial to whomever I meet; shaking hands, memorizing names, mentally drafting thank-you notes. As much as I am jaded by this mess of a process and by the lady's sudden change of heart, I need this job. If you have read my past entries, you know that I desperately need this job. And I swear here and now that I will summon whatever energy that I have left in my flagging body to fight, scramble, and claw my way into that damn cubicle chair, so help me God.

But if that lady calls me to tell me that it was down to me and one other person.... She'd better get out the utensils, because I have some choice words cooked up for her.