There but for the grace of God go I, Part One.
I am thrilled to be back in a position to write more blog entries. I was involved in a pretty big misunderstanding in Kansas City, Missouri. Before the Kansas City fiasco will make any sense, though, you will have to know who Natalie is.
Last week, Natalie cut my hair at the local middle-brow hair salon chain, and we got to chatting the way stylists and clients will do, and I realized about five minutes into the conversation two things: (1) most of what was coming out of my mouth was utterly false; and (2) Natalie was interested. I told her that I was on a medical leave from my job in Houston, at NASA.
"What do you do for NASA?"
"I'm an astronaut."
She pulled the scissors away.
"Psha! Shut up!"
I shut up.
"Seriously?"
"Well, no, But it's not as ridiculous as it sounds. I do work for them, for NASA, on a contract basis. Mostly p.r. consulting, which is a year-round thing but gets especially hectic whenever there's a launch or a landing or anything. At more off-peak times, I call my friends at the newspapers, magazines, and the wire services and feed them 'feel-good' stories about the space program. Seriously."
"That's awesome."
"What I tell people is that it's basically 40 hours a week trying to make the general public like rocket scientists."
"I don't know, rocket scientists seem pretty likable to me as it is."
"Well, obviously I'm good at what I do, then."
Last week, Natalie cut my hair at the local middle-brow hair salon chain, and we got to chatting the way stylists and clients will do, and I realized about five minutes into the conversation two things: (1) most of what was coming out of my mouth was utterly false; and (2) Natalie was interested. I told her that I was on a medical leave from my job in Houston, at NASA.
"What do you do for NASA?"
"I'm an astronaut."
She pulled the scissors away.
"Psha! Shut up!"
I shut up.
"Seriously?"
"Well, no, But it's not as ridiculous as it sounds. I do work for them, for NASA, on a contract basis. Mostly p.r. consulting, which is a year-round thing but gets especially hectic whenever there's a launch or a landing or anything. At more off-peak times, I call my friends at the newspapers, magazines, and the wire services and feed them 'feel-good' stories about the space program. Seriously."
"That's awesome."
"What I tell people is that it's basically 40 hours a week trying to make the general public like rocket scientists."
"I don't know, rocket scientists seem pretty likable to me as it is."
"Well, obviously I'm good at what I do, then."
posted by davy at 1:54 PM
7 Comments:
I'm laughing because you ARE good at what you do. Too bad what you do isn't actually PR for NASA.
Can't wait to read Part Two--what in the hell happened in KC?!
yeah im with dguzman....fill us in.
Maybe you should do pr for someone. You can bullshit with the best of them.
Thank goodness you've returned. I was getting worried. Looking forward to hearing the story. Wondering just how long you will make us wait.
You know my brother does that on airplane flights. He just picks a job out of thin air and just BS's his way through the flight.
Love your blog, btw.
do her now, you asshole-naut
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