Have you met my dog?

Seriously. While I'm introducing myself to the blogosphere, I figured I should introduce the furry creature that takes up 95% of my time - wait, no, Job Search... that's you. Let's say 95% of my thoughts, then.

Her name is Phoebe, but I call her Gurgles, Peebles, Jiggles, or Borgin-and-Burkes (really? Have you ever heard of someone nicknaming her dog after a shop in Nocturn Alley that sells objects of dark magic to the wizarding world? I think not). She, however, is NOT an object of dark magic, though she is admittedly magical.

I have the sneaking suspicion that she will be referred to now and again while this baby blog continues to grow. And especially while I live the recent grad's dream of living at home with Mom and Dad instead of in the city with real friends... I mean human friends. Here she is!

p.s. One of my favorite break time activities from JobSearching is Photo Booth photo shoots with P. Can you tell? Usually she doesn't like it when I disturb her nap.

Where does a platypus learn a word like "hodgepodge"?

The Job Search is a horrible monster. It’s menacing, with huge, ugly, gnashing, yellowing teeth and big bulging eyes. Suffice it to say, we don’t get along. Among other things throughout this process, I have been asked to evaluate myself. Here’s a question that is surprisingly hard to answer: “If there were one word to describe me, it would be…”

What would it be? At the heart of my problem with answering this question has to be my lifelong confusion with my name. I was named after my grandmother: Harriet Elizabeth Strumolo. I was Elizabeth for several years of my life until, much to my mother’s chagrin, I became Lizzie because I was simply too small to handle any other name. Here I am, a fully-grown adult, standing at a whopping four foot eleven-and-a-half, and I still have no idea how to define myself in one word, let alone one name. Legally, and on all job applications, I am Harriet Elizabeth. Every year on the first day of class, the teacher would call out "Harriet?" while taking attendance and I would answer "Here. I go by Lizzie." So is it Lizzie? Or is it Harriet?

The truth is, there are a lot of words that describe me. I suppose you could say I am kind of a hodgepodge. And then you have to ask: where does a platypus learn a word like “hodgepodge”?

I asked one of my best friends to attempt to answer this question and her response was fantastic:

The conversation began with her saying, “I wish I could be there in 200 years when someone is going through your archive. They’d like, try to write a biography about you and then just be stumped: ‘IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.’”

So then I asked the use-one-word question to which she responds (5 minutes later), "Chimerical: created by or as if by a wildly fanciful imagination existing only as the product of unchecked imagination; fantastically visionary.”

So we’ll go with that for now.