And because it's still National Poetry Month, I present to you a beloved poem that Judith Viorst wrote, a couple decades before I had the chance to myself:
With all I know about Mr. D. H. Lawrence,
I visualized something literary,
Something full of pipe smoke and good English tweeds.
Where editors were stunned by my perception,
And grateful novelists put me in their books,
And Nobel prize winners, over double-martinis,
Confided their deepest Nobel prize-winning thoughts
To tender, reflective, wise-beyond-my-years me.
With all I know about Mr. Stanislavsky,
I visualized something theatrical,
Something full of false lashes and empathy.
Where directors were stunned by my perception,
And grateful playwrights put me in their plays,
And leading ladies, over double martinis,
Said tearfully if only they had half the talent
Of stirring, memorable, charismatic me.
Instead of which
I am sharpening number two pencils,
And buying the coffee and Danish
At 9:45,
And taking my boss's dictation,
And my boss's wife's blouse back to Henri Bendel,
Hoping that someday someone will be impressed
With all I know.
-The Job, by Judith Viorst
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