After 24 hours of suspense, I can finally talk about my meeting yesterday. Talk is maybe not the right word. Maybe I should say that I can run through the streets waving my shirt around over my head and yelling about my meeting yesterday.

Let me hit the rewind/dreamy flashback sequence button for a second in order to set this up properly.

A few months ago, I had a show at the Mother Community Garden, remember that? At the show I talked to lots of people and handed out lots of my business cards. Needless to say viewership increased here on the website and I got a lot of emails from people. One person in particular, R2, and I have been email corresponding back and forth since the show. He and I share an interest in a lot of the same music, art, food, and whatnot. Anyways, so one day he emails me and puts an idea into my head. He tells me that The City Wire, a local online newspaper, is losing their food and art writer and they are hiring a new one. He pointed out that I like talking about food and art, so I should check them out to see if they are hiring. So, I send them an email asking if they were still hiring for the position and received an email response that contained a link to the “New Peter Contest“.

I wasn’t expecting an essay contest. I was expecting a “No, the position has been filled.” So, I decided to enter. What the Hell have I got to lose? So, I tell Jackie the Mick and Taco Planet about as well. They are both writers and a little friendly competition doesn’t hurt from time to time. So, instead of writing an essay, I wrote a letter explaining why I wasn’t going to write an essay. Ray Johnson has taught me well.

So, weeks go by and I hear nothing. I don’t think anything of it because I enter contests on a pretty regular basis and never anything about it. This was until last week.

I returned from Prob/Stats last Tuesday to find the following email in my inbox:

” when you finish deconstructing the fort, give me a call.

and i like how you took care to show that you lowered the toilet seat.  but i can’t get that second-by-second slap tune outta my head.” – M. T.,  The City Wire

Holy Sh*t!

That was initial reaction. And I repeated it about 73 times before steadying my hand enough to dial the phone. It turns out that they like me. They like me so much in fact that they have changed the rules of the contest from the “three finalists/write off” system to the “you are the winner” system. And they want to meet with me. We talked about meeting times that work for me and he had to talk to one of the other bosses and they would let me know what worked for them. Turns out that yesterday at high noon works for them.

Meanwhile, back in the present.

Let me tell you, it was the longest week of my life. And yesterday was probably the longest morning of my life. Going into the meeting, I was somewhere between 80-90% to having the job. Now I am at the 100,000%. That’s right. I am officially a professional food critic. Booyah.

The job entails writing a weekly review column about local restaurants. I am a food columnist. I am technically a freelance journalists working as an independent contractor for The City Wire, but whatever. They are pretty much giving me total artistic license. I can review any restaurant I want. I can include photographs and video if I want to as well. I get to name my column and come up with a rating scale. Awesome. They even said that they would issue me press credentials. I had to ask.

Speaking of asking, yes, I had the chutzpah to ask for the prize money. I did win after all. And they were quite impressed that I asked. I had to show them what they were getting themselves into. Apparently they already knew.

They flat out told me that my website, this very website, sold them on me. The site gave them a very clear image of who I am as a writer and photographer. And it got me a job as a food critic.

I was thinking about it last night and it dawned on me that this came about because I started taking daily photographs of myself. If I hadn’t started the Daily Photographs, I never would have started this site. If I had never started this site, I never would have forced myself to write everyday. If I hadn’t written everyday, I would not have met R2 and been redirected to The City Wire, who in turn would have never seen my site, and I would never be telling you right now that I am officially a professional food critic. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that taking pictures of yourself is stupid.

My head is still kind of spinning. I have already started laying out my restaurants that I want to review and scheduling lunch and dinner dates. I have got dates lined up with Pancake Land, of course, Teacher Sis, Zaxxon, and the S.A.N.D. crew as well. This is going to be awesome. If you have any ideas about names for the column or the rating scale, email them to me or post them as a comment.

If you were wondering about how this is going to effect my job working Le Duke, it’s not. Except I might be taking a longer lunch breaks. Which I am sure he is thrilled about. Speaking of working for Le Duke, I need to go starting laying tile. My work is never done. More soon. ~SC