Idiot Parade

I know how desperate things are out there right now. As a teaching student, I constantly get to hear about and witness job shortages. Talented professors are getting laid off and it sucks. Badly. But the magnitude of this recession didn’t really hit me until yesterday.

I received an email conformation from In-n-Out in August, informing me that my interview would be on September 14. I could arrive anywhere between 9 am and 4 pm, and that people would be seen on a first-come, first serve basis. I planned to get there about quarter to 9. I mean, it’s a fast food place; how many people could possibly show up especially that early?

J tried to tell me how massive this thing was. He says he did, anyway. I drove to that interview knowing that interviews are going on all week, and therefore expecting the lobby (we were told to come to the Ambassador Hotel) to be filled with thirty to fifty people, tops.

When I saw my interviewer, after almost three hours of standing in the line that wrapped around the entire hotel and then some, he informed me that four thousand applications had been submitted for forty available positions, and that every applicant would be interviewed, in the interest of fairness. We’ll skip the part where I feel that’s incredibly unfair, because I’m sure there are people out of those four thousand that are either under or over-qualified…such as the man behind me in line who graduated from the International Culinary School at the Art Institutes. Actually, no, let’s stay on that for a second. There were probably a thousand people waiting in line with me yesterday morning, and people like that showed up. Forty-year-old women. Men with briefcases. I don’t begrudge them anything; we all need to make a living. But that is just so sad. That people like that have to try for a one-in-a-hundred shot at a burger joint job because there is nothing else.

So, essentially, I waited until almost noon and got a sunburn for a three minute conversation where some guy asked me about myself. That was the whole interview. Nothing about the job. Just ‘oh, you’re from SCV? Cool, I’m from Granada Hills’. That kind of crap. I know I won’t get the job, and maybe that’s okay. I need something soon, but there are obviously people way more desperate than I am. I wasn’t laid off, I don’t have a mortgage or kids to feed. Hollywood Video is hiring next month, Bath and Body Works is hiring now, I have an application for Starbucks and an Asian restaurant down the street.

I just can’t believe how insane this whole thing is.

My finals are over and I am finally allowed to be sick .

I’ll probably still be an idiot and go to the gym tonight, because a sore throat has nothing to do with weight lifting, but we’ll see.

I have planned and mickey-moused and wormed my way through every last inch of the Cal State LA schedule of classes, and I have finally found a sure-fire way to get my last eight classes in so I can graduate at the end of Spring Quarter (for anyone who remembers that I have a list of 43 things on the right side bar, that means #4 could be checked off the list). This seems reasonable. Two years in a junior college, two at a university, exactly how I wanted it to be.

Until, of course, they decide to change everything.

They might not. And unicorns that poop glitter might live in the clouds, too.

I wouldn’t be so concerned about it, except now, CSULA has this amazing thing going on called furloughs (all the flyers on campus spell it ‘furlows’. Remove head from sphincter, then type.) Six days of unpaid leave for all faculty members. Most of my classes are two days a week. That equals seven weeks of instruction instead of the standard ten. For the couple classes I need that are once a week? Who knows if anyone will even bother teaching them.

So, we, as students, are losing (presumably) valuable weeks of instruction, which means we’re literally paying more for a hell of a lot less. Student fees went up yet again, 25%, I believe.

Santa, I’ve been very good this year. For Christmas, please bring California a halfway decent education budget?

Anyway. J has been taking very good care of me while I’ve been sick and gross. He makes me tea and doesn’t take my kills on Gears of War 2. Who could ask for anything more?

Oh, if anyone else is sick and gross too, I swear by the night-time Tylenol cold multi-symptom, the new-ish one that has the little honey stick and says ‘warming’. I couldn’t sleep last night, so I watched 10 Things I Hate About You, wrote a couple songs, and then remembered that I have some of that wonderful concoction in our medicine cabinet. Four tablespoons of that (yes, that is two too many) and I was out like a very warm and happy light. Fair warning for those crawling over significant others to get back to your designated sleeping place: you might get elbowed/kneed in the face. Just sayin.

Total left turn. On a more somber note, a boy I knew passed away this week. The details on the how are still fuzzy. I can’t really call him a boy, he was 30 when I met him, but he never really struck me as an adult. We met last year when I was in Massachusetts for my eldest niece’s high school graduation. We went out a couple times around Boston and had a little fling…it was fairly innocent and very sweet. When he took my to the train station the last time, he asked me to call when I got back to the west coast. I said I would. I never intended to. I liked what we had that one week, and it would have never been anything more than that. I feared that if we had tried to maintain a friendship, it would become awkward and strained. I do no regret that decision at all. It ensured that all of my memories of Lucas would be very fond ones. I only hope that he didn’t feel slighted by my decision, because that certainly wasn’t my intention….though considering he never called me either, I think it might be safe to assume that we had the same mind about the situation.

Don’t want to end on that note. One facebook click led to another, and Sins o’ the Flesh, the Los Angeles Rocky Horror cast, has a new Trixie. (Aside, a couple things about SotF. Good cast. Awesome cast, in fact, these people are frigging accurate and, more importantly, funny. The security team rocks my socks, too. I’ll never go back there [except maybe for Clue, because I've still never seen that with a shadow-cast] but if you’ve never been to a live Rocky Horror Picture Show, SotF is the cast to see. Just don’t date them. The single ones are single for very good reasons. Except maybe for Wynn. He’s pretty cool. End of aside.) I mention this only because back in the day, when I was a regular attendee, the role of Trixie was still open, and I was seriously considering auditioning. There are brief moments where I wish I had gone through with it, because I think it would have gone a long way towards improving how I perceive my body. But then I remember that stripping in front of people who have already seen me somewhat naked (I was a ‘sheet slut’ one night, no I didn’t sleep with the whole freaking cast. Geez.) is much different than stripping every other weekend for Rocky-obsessed tards, which includes subgroups such as: pre-pubescent tards, over-30 tards, and female tards that are into other female tards only when intoxicated. I remember this, and the world makes sense once again.

I mentioned my 43 list earlier, and I’m on my way to accomplishing one more thing: #5–lose ten pounds. Last Monday, I was 135. Yesterday morning, I weighed in at 132. At that rate, provided I get better by tomorrow (I will, I will!), I’ll make 125 in a little over three weeks. I don’t intend to lose any more after that; I could and still be healthy, but then I would have to say goodbye to certain girl-parts that I’m very fond of. Yay for reaching goals! As of today, I’m also starting on #35–meditate daily. I think this will be very good for me. I’m hoping to get J in on it as well.

That’s all for now. I’d like to go work out (carefully) tonight or tomorrow morning, so I’m going to take a much needed nap.

There have been quite a few days lately where I just feel like I’m doing everything wrong. Every now and again, I find myself wondering if I’ll get better at being a girlfriend. I say things without thinking, and it has really begun to show me what a selfish person I can be. That was never a word I thought I’d use to describe myself. Being an only child, though, I got used to having a lot of things done my way, on my schedule. I’d like to say that I always do the best that I can, but frankly, sometimes that isn’t true, and I get mean and snappy. I don’t know how to fix this; the only thing I can think to do is take stock of the stupid things I did yesterday and make a point to not do those stupid things today. If I do new stupid things….well, that’s what tomorrow is for, I suppose.

J has been wonderful about everything. As big of a pain in the ass as I can be, he is an equally big sweethart. We both have our moments, but we do the best we can to be patient and understanding with each other, and we never say anything that we’d regret later. Can’t really ask for more than that.

Aside from those hiccups, things are going well. I’m still out of work, which is the main cause of my stress, but my CBEST scores will be available on Tuesday and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find work as a substitute. I have a couple backup plans, but nothing that I like nearly as much. Though, if we’re talking about what I like, I’d much prefer to stay at home like I have been, taking care of the house and the cooking. I’ve been cooking dinner just about every night, and I absolutely adore it. I’ve recently discovered that I have my father’s knack for improvisation in the kitchen. This is usually out of necessity–how is it that I go shopping once a week, but there are still never enough ingredients for a single dish? Oh well. Tonight, vodka-poached salmon and sweet potato fries.

I know it’s been a while, but I hope someone is still out there, reading all my nonsense.

When chopping jalapeños, cover your mouth with a damp cloth, much like you would in a very smokey room. It will keep the jalapeño fumes from sneaking inside your throat and choking you from the inside out as it refuses to die, like an awful old aunt that no one likes but has a ton of money and lives to be a hundred and five, the old bitch.

No, I don’t actually have an aunt like that. All my awful ones are dirt poor.

No, I don’t have awful aunts at all. I’m very fond of all my parents’ siblings. They can take a joke.

Frozen yogurt with strawberries

X-Files marathons

Having tea when I wake up

Having tea right before bedtime

Shuffleboard

Playing Gears of War with J, even though I suck at it

Carmina Burana

Having my hair braided

Walking through the front door and being greeted by a cat, a dog, and a J.

I’d like to note that I have lived in the same place my whole life. Not the same town. Not even the same house. But the same room. The room next to my parents, next to the computer room that was once my sister’s bedroom, long before I was born. The room that held my crib and my changing tabe now houses my grown-up bed and hundered or so books. And because I was raised as a only child, the only person who slept in or kept her stuff in that room was moi.

I say this because I want you, people of the Internet, to fully grasp how big a deal my moving out is going to be.

I’m essentially living with Jason. I go home on weekends to work, but given current circumstances, I’m not sure if that will be cost effective much longer. I’m waiting to hear about a job out here in the Boonies…we shall see.

The idea of sharing a living space with someone, as wonderful as it’s been so far, is completely baffling. He asked me to move in, but I still feel this weird sense of guilt putting half of my closest next to his, and keeping my jewelry box next to our toothbrushes. Having an ‘our’ room, ‘our’ bathroom, ‘our’ space….I know it’s ‘ours’, but I keep feeling like I’m in the way.

We’re happy, everythings brilliant….I guess there’s just a period of adjustment. Anyone else have similiar experiences?

The more amount of time I spend in a college classroom, the more I feel my creativity being stifled. Granted, I’m not in the writing program, where I might be allowed more artistic liberties, but I feel as though my current school, as well as my junior college, don’t offer nearly enough artisitc outlets.

I bring this up because I want to recognize (read: pimp) an organization that’s formed in Santa Clarita over the last couple years.

A friend of mine from high school runs, along with other artists, a group called Proxart that gives musicans and spoken world or visual artists a place to play their songs/display their work. Orginal paintings, sculputres, very talents songwriters and poets, using their peers to create an environement where art can be simply appreciated, not graded–a huge relief, as a good number of participants are high school and college students.

In light of current media, where a joke has to be about sex or involve profanity in order to be appreciated and art exhibits only make the front page if they’re condemned by the Pope, I think it’s brilliant that people my age, stuck in the middle of nowhere, in a somewhat white-collar and increasingly conservative and PC city, have come together to appreciate their own artistic abilites. It’s innovative, entertaining, and often surprising–I had no idea how many talented people there were in my neck of the woods unil I made it out for a Proxart show.

Anyway. I’m placing their banner on this homepage, and there is a link in the above paragrapghs to the Proxart blog. Meetings are once a month, dates and places TBD. If you can stop by one night, I promise, you’ll be glad you did.

Done with school for the next two weeks, and I’ve decided that I am very much overdue for some ‘me’ time. Finals were a easy as pie, with the excpetion of my two hour essay final for Medieval Lit. A bunch of us didn’t finish, and we all wanted to claw our eyes out by the end of it. But I survived. That is enough for me.

I’ll be working, thought not as much as I’d like…I could really use some extra hours, and I generally like being at the restaurant. With only one exception, all of the servers are very sweet and helpful. They take good care of the other hostess and me.

Aside from that, though, I’m very much looking forward to Disneyland (!!!) and finally reading a book that doesn’t require a six page analysis due at midnight to turnitin.com. Jason’s trading me his Starcraft series for my extra copy of The Princess Bride. So excited! He started reading part of one of them, Nova, to me last night. Have I mentioned how much I love being read to? It’s amazing. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and safe, like a kitten wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by teddy bears that are eating cotton candy. It is that awesome.

I will, I will, I WILL start going to the gym again. That is also on the list of stuff I want to do over break, because it really is just as much a matter of want as it is of need. I know how good I feel when I work out. Someday I would like to trade my gym membership in for pole classes, but I think that’s going to be a long way off.

Last weekend brought a whole bunch of bittersweet. My dear friend Myra and her husband Kurt are moving to Oregon…I think they already left, actually. The three May Revelers are spread out quite a bit now, but I will definitely keep in touch with Claire and Myra, and hopefully I will be able to reach Joanna. I don’t have such a tight relationship with many women. I never thought having close girl friends would be something I ever wanted. Now that I have a few, though, I can’t believe how much I was missing out on.

Nothing dramatic or epic to report. The biggest thing going on right now is the 1 vs 100 live game on XBOX 360 that Mom 2.0 and I have become completely obsessed with. I had forgotten how competitive I can get…apparently Jason was unaware as well. Oops! just one of those things, I guess, still getting used to each others little quirks. It’s fun, though. We make a good team.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that having a boyfriend is not entirely unlike raising a teenager. I realize how ridiculous that statement may sound, and I’m sure that someday, when I happen to be the mother of a surly thirteen-year-old, I will look back at this post and want to slap the past me for being so naive. For the time being, though, just try to follow me on this one.

I’ve mentioned this to a few people, but for those who are unaware, my boyfriend is going to be joining the United States Air Force. Currently, he’s playing phone-tag with the recruiter, but there’s at least a 90% chance of this actually happen within the next two or three months.

Jason is too tall to be a fighter pilot. Airmen are rarely sent to the Middle East, unless they are part of a security force, and even then, tours only last about six months. He would actually have to try to get hurt for anything to happen to him. As my dear ex-Navy friend Tim said: “It’s not like he’s joining the goddamn Marines.”

Logically, I know everything will be fine. Except, there’s this thing where I’m a worrier. I was born into a family of worriers. Worrying is our art, our craft, and we take it very seriously. So while there is every possibility that Jason will be at a desk somewhere in Arizona, way the hell out of harms way, my mind is absolutely certain that he is going to be shipped to Afghanistan and shot. Or blown up. Probably both.

As if that weren’t enough, now the boy wants to sell his car and buy a motorcycle. Now, financially, this is a good idea. Hell, I’ve always wanted a motorcycle. And I’m allowed to have one. He, however, is not, because every time I think about it, I suddenly turn into my mother and begin spouting off accident statistics. Because, obviously, anyone who ever owned a motorcycle EVER has died in a horrific accident of twisted metal and hellfire, just bloody and gory enough to be featured in one of those god-awful Red Pavement videos that we had to watch in Drivers Ed.

Moments like those, it’s a toss up between whether or not I want to kiss the boy or strangle him with my own two hands, because I really don’t know if my love for him outweighs the frustration he causes me. How dare he try and make a life for himself when I’m busy trying to KEEP HIM ALIVE.

But then there are moments when he does the simplest things, like insisting that I lock the door when he leaves and I’m by myself, because he needs to know that I’m safe…or how whatever house we’re in (usually his) is referred to as ‘home’, just because we’re both there. In those moments, I have never felt more like a woman or more loved by a man. Those are the moments that make every *headdesk* and *facepalm* and “Really?! Really???” completely worth it.

Alright, I’ve suffered in silence….quasi-silence….long enough. I can’t take this anymore. The seemingly endless amount of poor grammar hurts my soul.

Before we begin, I’d like to note that I am not going to slam people who speak in LolCats. That is meant as a joke, and is generally used sparingly. If someone starts abusing their “I can haz?” privileges, have no fear, they will be drawn and quartered, and then I will sell all of their belongings on Ebay and use the money to buy the 80th anniversary edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

First lesson: there, their, and they’re.

“There” refers to a location. Where is the book? Over there. For a more abstract use: There are only a couple ways to use the form “there”, so stop screwing it up.

“Their” is a possessive. You should know what that means, but just in case you were too busy passing notes in your middle school English classes to pay attention, that means “their” is used when the noun in the sentence belongs to someone. That delicious, mouthwatering, nearly-orgasmic sushi is (unfortunately) theirs.

“They’re” is a contraction. That little tick mark between y and r? That isn’t decorative, amazingly enough. It really does have a purpose. It’s called an apostrophe, and it takes the place of an extracted letter, in this case the a in are. So, if we replace the apostrophe with the a, “they’re” becomes “they are”, and we all know how to use that phrase, yes? Please? For the love of all things holy?

Edit here: Holy crap, I fail at life. I could have sworn I typed ‘contraction’ when I first posted this. Thank you, Angela! You are wonderful

Second lesson: loose versus lose.

I can’t even begin to understand how these two words are confused; they mean completely different things. However, I’ve been seeing this mistake for a few years now, and it’s not getting any better.

“Lose” means to misplace/get rid of something, or it is the opposite of ‘to win’. As in, I hate when I lose my pens because then I have to buy more, or My dad’s volume reaches ungodly levels when the Red Sox lose.

“Loose” is the opposite of tight. My pants are loose; I must have lost some weight! Also can be used as a slang term when talking about those who are sexually promiscuous, i.e. “loose woman”.

My hand to God, I will brutally maim the next person who switches those two words around. Public school education is NO EXCUSE.

I have a few other more generalized gripes. Run-on sentences, comma splices, apostrophe errors (it’s versus its), lack of capitalization at the beginning of sentences….look, people, these are things that can be fixed easily and will help you be perceived at least as intelligent as fifth-grade GATE students. Please, go forth and try not to suck at this. It makes the rest of us cry like starving Ethiopian children.

One last thing: if you use ’2′ for to (or too) or you spell “what” with a u, just give up now. There is no hope for you; you have lost your soul and you will probably spend eternity in the circle of hell that also houses those who don’t take advantage of deodorant and those who write Snape/Hermione (or Sirius/Lupin) slash.