Out of the Woodwork

It didn't take them long to see my absent relationship status on my facebook page.  You know, the lurker dudes who are on your "friends" list (or not!) who never really say anything but who you know are there, hanging around like cobwebs you might have the unfortunate experience of running into one day. 

The first one wanted to dance with me.  Innocent enough, but a.)  I'm not interested and b.)  I'm not interested, so that one was simple enough to handle.  

The next one was a bit of a different story, because I wasn't interested in him to begin with and was even less interested (a feat I hadn't thought possible) when he admitted in his second note to me that he is married.  Really?  What does your wife think of you attempting to hit on women to ask them out for "dinner and drinks"?  

I figure the third one will be some psychopathic killer who secretly thinks I'm their reincarnated dead and despised mother.  Oh, the joys of singleness.  

No matter what comes crawling out of the woodwork next, you can bet that I will shoot them down with the verbal marksmanship that comes only from having been recently sent on my way.  My heart's compass still points elsewhere.

Goldilocks - That's Me

In my quest for full-time employment, I've begun to truly feel like Goldilocks.  For those of you who aren't familiar with her, she's a character out of a fairy tale who visits the home of a family of bears while they are away and samples their things.  "This chair is too, big, this chair is too small, this one is just right!  This porridge is too hot, this porridge is too cold, this porridge is just right!", and so on.

Today I had a phone interview with the next big company to come out of California, but it wasn't the right fit.  They wanted to use my talents as an intern for 20 hours a week and then MAYBE hire me.  I'm all for gaining experience, but I need to be able to have things like food and electricity while I'm doing it.

So, I Skyped my mom to whine a bit.  She patiently assures me as only a mother can do that the right job is going to come along that will be the right fit.  

I just hope by the time it does I'm not sitting in the dark, eating cold porridge.

In the Still of the Night

Here I am, at oh-my-gosh in the morning, when I should be sleeping.  After a round of job hunting, email-checking and facebooking, you'd think I would be falling asleep at my desk.  Why am I awake?

I drink coffee.  I used to look sideways at people who drank coffee, certain that it was doing horrible things to their bodies (and their teeth!).  Still I loved to stop a perfectly good stroll around the mall to slip into the corner mall coffee shop to simply smell the aroma of all the different flavors of coffee, each carefully packaged yet emanating their scents, invisible promises of reasons to smile filling the air.

I drink coffee in the morning and at night.  I would do well to focus only on the morning, but no, I have fallen strangely in love with drinking coffee at night, which does me no good whatsoever (unless you consider this post a rare positive result of a negative behavior).

I'm just barely awake, though.  I really don't know why I'm here (writing in my blog, that is - we'll save The Meaning of Life for another time). I'll spare you by not rambling further (my mind goes down the oddest corridors at this hour).  What I'd really like to know - if it's late at night or very early in the morning where you are - what are YOU doing here? :)  Go to sleep! 

I Don't Care

It's taken me over 40 years.  I don't know why it's taken me so long, but I think it's a good thing.  (I have deja-vu as I write this...maybe because earlier today I envisioned myself writing this.)  Finally, finally, FINALLY!  (Whew!) - I've come to the conclusion that I DON'T CARE.

There's a lot to not care about, too.  The world wants me to believe that I have to be so much more or less than I am, when who and what I am is perfectly fine.  I need no alterations, improvements or upgrades, thank you.  So I no longer care about most things in life that are basically just dead ends, or fool's gold because they add stress to my life that has no business being there and they keep me from appreciating myself and my life as it is.

This is not to say that I have a smooth, seamless, pothole-and-detour-free life, because that's just not true.  This does mean that I no longer care about things that do not require my attention, particularly in the way that most TV ads would have me believe.

The first thing that came to me to put on my list of things to not care about is my weight.  Sure, I can hop on the scale every day and see the number go up and down regardless of how healthy my eating and exercise habits are, and I can feel horrible about myself for not being able to figure out why eating that salad and drinking that green tea made me gain two pounds in one day.  But WHY?!  Why should I bother?  What a complete and utter waste of time and emotional energy.  I don't care.  I'm healthy, I'm strong.  I'm beautiful and I have lovely, soft curves.  I don't have any desire to squeeze my normal-sized figure into an abnormally small bathing suit only to look like an overstuffed chair and feel like a walrus.  I want to be comfortable and to be ME, so the next time I go swimming, I will wear a swim shirt and shorts.  

The next thing I don't care about is keeping things perfect around the house.  Yes, I'm grateful for where I live and yes, I do keep things reasonably clean.  But I used to hate myself for not having a house like my mother's, who is one of those people who can keep something clean by staring at it - sheer force of will.  She's like a cleaning superhero, or something.  I am reasonably organized, but I am NOT going to be her.  It's just not going to happen, short of a miracle.  I color outside the lines.  My house looks very lived in, and I am not going to berate myself mentally for not being someone else.  

Another thing I don't care about is dating.  Of course if God sends the RIGHT person (not the sort-of-right person, the "Oh, you'll do person", or any other variation thereof), that's another story (and another blog entry or ten).  I think about it.  I ponder it.  I turn it over in my mind all different directions like a 3-D puzzle, and I always come back to the fact that I don't need the stress or the drama.  I'm still on a dating site...just not signed up completely.  If I start to care more about it, I'll take it off my List and sign up, but for now...meh.

I also don't care about having a regular schedule for things.  Certain things cannot be done without a set day and time  (interviews, dentist appointments, etc.), but everything else can go out the window.  I will get it done when I get it done, and that's that.  It WILL all get done, but on my non-schedule.  If it doesn't all get done today, I re-label the list for the next day and, ta-da!  New list, new day, new way to avoid stress while still getting things accomplished.

I'm sure there are many more things I don't care about, but for now I'm sure you get the idea, and besides, I'm seriously considering having Second Dinner and staying up late.  There IS one thing I care about at the moment, however.  I'm wondering what you think of this blog entry and if there are any things you don't care about, too.  Feel free to let me know...

Everything

It's been WAY too long since I've posted here.  I just kept thinking...everything is going along pretty much the same as it has been, so I don't really have much to write about.  I don't like to write just to take up space on a page.  But a few things have happened, so here we go.

Since October (when I last posted), I broke up with my boyfriend of about 5 years.  It took me a long time to make myself do so.  After all, my life has been ALL about loss since about 2007-08 or so.  It's been kind of a blur of loss:  leaving my abusive ex, divorce, my father dying of cancer, not to mention getting laid off and plunged into this horrible recession where I was unemployed for two years or so while looking for work, and am now severely underemployed and looking for work.  See?  I told you it was a lot to deal with.  You might be saying to yourself, "So, what's another loss among so many others?"  But no, it doesn't work that way.  You don't truly get used to it.  So, breaking up with my boyfriend still felt like someone had pulled my guts out through my nose.

Now I am on what seems like the 12th round of begging for my job from one of my employers who likes to make me beg.  

Don't get me wrong, I am NOT the begging type.  


It's just that I am not even barely getting by and they know it.  I am also trying to gently drag them (kicking and screaming) into modern methods of marketing and they are not having any of it.  (Never mind the fact that I have several potential excellent income sources for their business eagerly awaiting information.)  I suspect they will return to doing everything by running around like crazy and doing some begging of their own.  They have admitted this method has not been very successful.  I don't need a crystal ball to see that they are trying to gently drag me (kicking and screaming) back into my previous state of being more underemployed than I am currently.  

So, you might be wondering what I've been doing differently to find work.  And yes, I have actually tried something different, now that you mention it (sort of).  I recently visited  a social services office that is opening in my area.  I actually printed out a letter explaining in detail the severity of my situation, and included a copy of my resume.  I literally handed it to a woman who was in a casual staff meeting there at the time (no receptionist had been hired yet).  She was in the middle of talking about how they could help people, when I quietly interrupted and handed her my information.  So it was that a few days later this same woman contacted me to meet with her there, and at that time I literally poured my heart out:  I am desperate and have looked EVERYWHERE (even down in Atlanta) for work, to no avail!  Please help!  


She nodded and smiled pleasantly as if I had just told her that I like chocolate (or something similarly unrelated and unimportant).


The woman assured me that she would let others there know about my situation and would call me back, so as to not leave me hanging.  A few days later, the call did not arrive...instead she sent me a brief email message, advising me to continue looking for work using the same methods I have been using since 2008.  (What's the definition of insanity again?)

In short, I feel like I have an invisible label on my forehead that reads, "Do Not Hire".  I suspect that the situation is much closer to something like this:  if my last name was Zook, or Stoltzfus, or anything else remotely German, I would be happily employed by now.  But no, I am not from here.  You would think by the way I have been treated in almost every local interview that I was from another planet.  Perhaps I should consider beginning all interviews with, "I come in peace!"

So, that's everything that's been going on.  Well, the main points, anyway.  You don't want all of the tiny, jigsaw-puzzle-like details.  The main things will give you the big picture.  I need to try to focus on all of the things I have instead of the many I don't, but that's about as easy and as comfortable as breaking up...

Snowtober

It's been a while since I felt like I had anything worth writing about. Today has been crazy, so being able to write about it might just make me feel better. I think.

The Evil Bank I used to be with took almost all of the money I earned writing magazine articles the last time I got paid, so I went to the bank to cancel my account. They assured me it would be cancelled.

Then I got a notice that one of my bills was auto-paid from the same account. I sent them back an email to remind them that um, HELLO - I no longer have that account, thankyouverymuch. I didn't hear a thing back from them.

Today I went to a new bank to sign up and thought I had a check to deposit, but it wasn't in my purse. I looked high and low and finally all was well again. Smooth sailing, right? Whatever.

I went back out into the SNOW in OCTOBER (don't get me started) and took the check to the Good Bank, where I waited until the manager was finished with a meeting. While I was waiting, the power went off for a few seconds. This was just long enough so that she was not able to do much for me and now I am going to have to wait until Monday.

Wish me luck calling all of those to whom I owe money (utilities, mostly) and trying to explain this mess. The Good Bank manager said that paper checks would be the way to go on Monday, which would actually be quicker than any other method at this point. It beats not having utilities, so I guess I will have to go along with her plan and hope that this is not another Evil Bank in disguise.

Oh, and lest you think that I'm one of the Occupy Wall Street lemmings, I'm not. I just like being able to use my bank, and not the other way around.

While I'm at it, I might as well include the fact that one of my relatives scolded me for not wanting to shovel the snow. I hate shoveling, what can I say? Who can blame me? Apparently this relative, that's who. They topped it off by insinuating that I am immature for not wanting to shovel. This is someone who doesn't have to shovel and probably doesn't even OWN a shovel. Oh yes, that's exactly what I needed to hear. Not only do I feel stupid for losing the check, now I feel humiliated for having my own preference and opinion.

So, I'm out there shoveling and grumbling and basically hating my life for several key reasons (none of which involve my ex), when one of my neighbors sees me shoveling and grumbling and hating my life and apparently has compassion. "Don't hurt yourself!" They yell over. "I won't!" I reply, and for a moment, everything is a little bit better.

From that moment to this, I have simply stayed home and tried to avoid anything else that might go wrong or drive me up a wall. Maybe that way I can make the moment last.

Hiding From Tomorrow

Yesterday on the way to work, I accidentally locked my keys in my car while at the gas station. Stomping my foot and yelling next to my securely locked car door did no good but it made me feel a bit better.

Reluctantly I shuffled into the gas station convenience center, where the cashier was about to feel his blood pressure increase significantly. I carefully explained to him what had happened, as he was foreign and spoke with a heavy accent. He agreed to dial the phone for me which was out of my reach behind counter displays and contacted 911 so that I could have the police come to unlock my car.

The 911 lady who answered my call sounded quite irritated when I reminded her that other police have unlocked my car in the past, insisting that not all police in all areas will do so. She gave me the number for a lock service instead. I knew that any company other than AAA was going to charge me a fee, so I asked the cashier to call 411 so I could get the number for AAA.

Now, this sounds very simple, but it was actually quite complicated. In addition to regular customers coming to the counter to buy gas and other items, another man with a different heavy accent was repeatedly coming in to tell the cashier that the gas pump was not working.

By this time, I had had enough, and went out myself to see if I could help. The pump was actually broken. When the cashier told the guy to use another pump, he stopped coming in. This is surprising, since the second pump was not operating, either.

At last, the cashier was able to call AAA and schedule assistance. I restlessly paced around the front of the store and gazed out the window as a downpour began and a dark, dusty-blue Charger pulled into the parking lot. A very tall policeman made his way out of the car and and into the store to examine the ice cream selection. While he looked carefully through the freezer doors, I asked him if he would unlock my car door. He said he was willing to check his car for a tool to do so, as he slowly walked to the cashier, who by this time was less frazzled than before.

Hopeful, I followed the policeman out to the parking lot and was glad the rain was warm. No tool, but he entered his car and contacted another cop who was to arrive with the correct device to do the job.

While I waited for the policeman to exit his car to let me know if someone was able to help, the cashier exited the store, coffee in hand. Oh, how nice of him to see that I'm standing in the rain and to bring me coffee. He announced that AAA had called and would be there in 40 minutes, then he and the coffee disappeared back through the doors.

A local and very handsome policeman came to save the day. I enjoyed watching him almost unlock my car. Well, at least I didn't tell AAA to cancel.

The rain had passed, so I grabbed a free publication and leaned against my car to read. Finally, a large truck arrived and a cheerful AAA repairman exited and opened my car door.

After all of that, you'd think that nothing else would happen for the week that was worth mentioning, and you'd be wrong.

Today so far the toilet has overflowed and I accidentally locked my keys in my car in the grocery store parking lot. This time I was able to walk to my mom's house to get one of my spare keys.

I don't want to know what's going to happen tomorrow!