What do you like about the city where you live? What do you dislike? If you could, would you choose to live somewhere else?

What I like: Lynchburg, like most of central and southwest Virginia, is beautiful pretty much all year long. There are some good restaurants here, and a surprising number of outdoor recreation areas considering we’re not a major metro area. There are also some good people here. The cost of living is very, very low.

What I dislike: Jerry Falwell’s apparent stranglehold on the city. The hideous traffic and poorly planned development on Wards Road. Personal property taxes here are high compared to surrounding areas. There’s not a ton of things for young people to do. Public transportation is useless and virtually nonexistent, and trying to walk or bike in most parts of town is pretty much a death wish since we have narrow roads, lots of hills and curves, and few sidewalks.

1. I am craving sushi every day all the time. I would actually go and get some sushi if I had more than $2 in the bank. I am trying not to die from my sushi cravings before Friday, when I will get paid and have money for sushi.
2. I joined a book club on the internet and was insanely excited about it. I totally recognize that this makes me a dorky little old lady and that pretty soon I’ll be buying a Hoveround from QVC.
3. Mom, Sammi, and I went furniture shopping last weekend and Sammi and I decided to make a game out of bouncing like kindergartners on the ugliest, plaidest sofas we could find in a successful attempt to annoy my mom into saying something funny. What she finally said, with complete Our Mom Death Stare, was, “Dead daughters don’t wear plaid.”
4. Classical Baroque singing is really very different from what I’m used to, but it’s different in a way that’s mostly fun. Bonus: I have had All We Like Sheep stuck in my head for days now.
5. I have now had at least three dreams about seeing Barenaked Ladies concerts in unorthodox situations (nearly-empty high school auditorium, interactive parking lot).
6. My marching band alumni newsletter notes that the band “is resuming a tradition we haven’t seen for nearly two decades: a championship-caliber feature twirler….” I would just like to point out that the tradition was dead for two decades because feature twirlers are gimmicky and sucky.

Even though I studied film in college, and earned my degree in RTVF, I haven’t done a thing in television or film since leaving school, and I doubt I ever will. I left most of that behind. I don’t keep in touch with most of those people. But a continuing surreal thing that happens is that every now and then I see someone I know/knew/vaguely remember from school in a role on TV or in a movie. It’s weird for me because it’s usually a small role, it’s TV or a movie, and I have a terrible memory for names and a mediocre memory for faces, so sometimes I think I’m just weirding out. Usually, though, if I remember enough of the person’s name to do a search, it turns out I’m right.

Last night I finally got around to watching my TiVoed pilot of Six Degrees or 6 [degree symbol] or whatever it’s choosing to call itself these days, and as Carlos got a cupcake for his birthday, I glanced at his coworkers behind him and one of them looked very familiar. I zoned out on the show for a second, remembering how that girl was from Boulder and had a really unusual voice and trying to think of her name, when off-screen, someone said something to Carlos – just a quick line – and it was that really unusual voice and hey! it’s got to be that girl!

She was in my Analysis & Performance of Literature class (forever to be known as Anal Perf) during the fall of my freshman year. She had cool vintage clothes and that weird voice and her performances were always very good. I still can’t remember her damn name, though. Kristen, maybe?

*at least, if I’m the hiring manager.

1. Spell my name wrong in your cover letter. You would have gotten bonus points for doing the research to find out that I’m the hiring manager, but you just lost them all by addressing your letter to Mrs. Lori Hover.
2. Send an email “cover letter” like this one: “hi i wold like 2 apply 4 the job thx.”
3. Include your picture on your resume. I don’t give a crap what you look like, as I am not hiring actors or models. The only thing your picture will do for me is make me think you’re weird.
4. Include your interests, hobbies, or personal information about you or your family on your resume. In a continuing “I don’t give a crap” theme, I don’t give a crap about what church you attend, what schools your children attend, or that you like needlepoint and watersports. For one thing, your choice of the word “watersports” makes me wonder if you’re a fetishist. Although, if you were, I guess I still wouldn’t care except in a train-wreck fascination sort of way. Also: are you hoping to get a job doing needlepoint? No? Then I don’t care that you enjoy it.
5. Include your personal website address on your resume. Especially if you’re a total nutjob with a tacky-ass Geocities site with that horrible blue-and-black patterned background and a bunch of animated Jesus GIFs and links to your absolutely, positively hideous short stories and screenplays. Oh, and extra bad karma for you if your stupid website has a picture of you that makes you look like a child molestor. Not that I’m still annoyed by that experience or anything.
6. List every single job you’ve ever had in the history of your life, including odd jobs you had in elementary school. I don’t care, and I hate you for overloading my inbox with your stupid 20-page resume and making all of my other emails bounce.
7. Send me application materials that give me no indication that you know what job you’re applying for. I can smell shotgun theory a mile away, and I know when you’ve just sent the same resume out to fifty companies. Take two minutes to add a line or two into your materials that tells me that you’re interested in this specific job and why you want it.
8. If we’ve listed a job that requires, say, a bachelor’s degree, and you don’t have one, that’s not necessarily a deal breaker. But you’d better have a damn good explanation IN YOUR COVER LETTER so that I get an idea of whether or not you can do the job anyway.
9. Send me a resume in all caps. I hate you now and want your fingers to break.
10. Send me a resume in Comic Sans or a script font.
11. Have poor spelling or grammar anywhere in your letter or resume, but especially in the paragraph where you claim to have strong attention to detail.
12. Tell me, during your interview, about how you need a flexible schedule because your parents are demented and often escape the house and poop on the lawn.
13. Tell me, during your interview, about how you’re really tired because your drunk-ass ex-boyfriend called you at 3 in the morning to try to get you to go over for a booty call.
14. Waste our entire afternoon by coming in for an interview and then announcing at the end that you’re not interested because you’ll only take a job that pays $xx,xxx – which happens to be a good $15,000 above our budgeted salary range. We tell you the range in the phone interview for a reason – we’re bound to it. Don’t say you’re okay with it on the phone if you’re not. We’re not flexible. We can’t help it.

I’m guessing that not all hiring managers will agree with me on all points, and some people will think I’m incredibly anal. And I am, in fact, incredibly anal, which is why I’m so picky during the hiring process. Besides, when I get, literally, hundreds of resumes for a given position, I have to find a way to narrow the list down somehow. Kicking out dumbasses seems to work well. Thank goodness I haven’t had to hire anyone for a few years now.