introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K

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fatality of all things confident

when i woke - twentieth of february, 2002

"they built a lie to shelter you everybody wants a piece of you."~rusted root

so yeah. i've found this strange pattern. a rhythm, i suppose. its been perhaps a little over a month and i'm having this strange trouble keeping track of the days. is it monday? wednesday? i hate this and at the same time, its consuming me just like i knew this sort of extended period of jobless-appointmentless-nothingness sort of thing might. and i dreamed of it. i just never expected to have it now, at twenty three. it was really more of a retirement at forty five sort of illusion. so i thought.

but here i am and i had to figure out what day it was based on a strange method of video rentals (and consequential return dates) and judging from the last day we didn't get mail (which was a trick because we didn't get mail on supposed monday). so i had to go with counting from valentines day and trying to remember what i've accomplished on these days (exactly nothing, now. don't let me fool you.) and i've decided that today is certainly wednesday. certainly.

but i don't have wrinkles and laugh lines of a bordering AARP member. instead, i have perpetual mundane that i'm basking in like a warm bath.

i'm not living on your tax dollars, though. i promise. they send me one hundred and twenty four dollars a week. sporadically. its barely what working for the man gave me on a regular fourteen day cycle. we're not living in luxury, i promise.

but the doorway has become this strange passageway...a sort of portal to another world. i left the comfort of our house on...saturday, i think it was?...to go to the thrift store. nacho was down with her boy. that light burned brightly for the time she was here and simmered down to the glow of memory shortly thereafter. but jobs? i think i've hit a roadblock to the normal world.

you see. there was this day or two period when i was feeling so ultra good about things...so damned confident that i was able to call out to some stranger at the end of a strange telephone number in response to an ad in the paper. i even sprinkled t with a bit of sarcastic 'if i can do this, you sure as hell can', which, in retrospect, wasn't exactly...nice. i called and asked for this strange "katie" and ended up talking to "megan" instead. girls names drive me insane. especially when i concoct in my head these visions of katie and megan and well, me, sizing gargantuan near them....but what was i saying? oh, yes. CONFIDENT.

so i make this appointment for an interview with a supposed advertising agency for the next day. i get all excited. i might work for an ad agency. one forty five. my head starts mapping out what time i need to be up to be in robinson town centre and at the kinkos to get that necessary copy of my resume. not bad. end present tense omnicient nonsense.

the next morning was like...this strange ceremony. it was like the day i'd been waiting for for weeks had finally come and i was going to be accepted into the normal world of the employed once again. i showered meticulously, as if i had slacked in the former weeks and had somehow gotten dirtier than i would had i had a job. i blow dried my hair and carefully applied murray's pomade to my now- very short now-a shade or two more blonde hair. i donned business casual attire: khaki slacks i've only worn thrice, a sweater and some blonde boots, curteousy of my former employer. i woke t and he got ready while i gulped a steady stream of maxwell house, trying to believe that this day would, indeed, be good to the last drop. we left verbil with a pat on the head and no reason to believe that i would be returning to this house unemployed. i was writhing with confidence, after all.

and so we went to kinkos and i nervously thumbed through paper colours while my own resume and cover letter documents were printed on "resume linen"...a fancy way of saying...white.

finding the joint was like finding a dark alley in the middle of the night downtown. we nervously managed, my confidence dwindling to something more like c o n f i d e n c e. but anyway. we found it. at the top of the hill just like megankatie said.

i waited in the "waiting room" of the place. it was covered with well-known company logos ranging from chilis to chi-chis, t.g.i. fridays to sports teams. two men sat smugly in stylish professional suits leafing through waiting room copies of outdated GQ. i took my book, Bee Season, out of my crocheted bag, looking strange compared to thick leather folders and briefcases. i began to feel so silly for thinking that i had a chance at all. hell. i don't even own winter dressy attire. i mean. i go to school in the mountains. it snows. a girl who wears skirts and heels up there is insane. namely, my old roommate...but anyway....

i sat and watched applications pulled and greetings be greeted. hands sh aken. i began to realize it had been months since my last job interview. but, i had gotten that job, hadn't i? i decided, my nose and fingers cold with strained nerves, that i was here to interview them rather than the other way around.

finally, my resume was yanked from the ikea desk. finally, release from Creed, bumping on the stereo while megankatie sang along, decked out in her spandex asspants and chunkified platform boots. release.

he talked so fast, this blue eyed wonder. he drew on my resume and i tried to maintain eye contact while concealing my disgust for the doodles on my resume...didn't he know that resume linen had cost me ten cents a copy and that he was making a massacre of the thing? eye contact. eye contact. he talked faster than like...fran drescher on speed. words slipped into being. boston. new york yankees. papa john's pizza. nod. nod. nod. eye contact. noticing that it was so cold in there because he had window wide open. indoors or outdoors? whatever it takes? good, good. six thirty and seven thirty. second interview. we'll call you. if we don't, good luck and keep doing what you're doing. more handshakes. feigned smiles. blue eyes. whew.

i spent the day at the new mall working with minimal funds and toby to put together an interviewing outfit in the event that i did get called back. if i didn't, it would be fine to wear on other interviews. heh. we are sleuth and came away with a skirt, blouse, and jacket for under twenty dollars on sales racks. payless heels that my sister and old roommate would wear that had a touch of my tastes to them, fifteen dollars. black panyhose, gift certificate from christmas to the big girl store. things were good.

the call came at six forty five. still talking so ridiculously fast. liked my resume. one of the first put aside. second interview. free tomorrow? yes? nine o'clock. keep you all day. dress for the weather. click.

i called my mother first and then brian. yes, new york yankees. yes, i thought the same thing.

see, a boyfriend of our friend's was working for this place that sold him the story that, even if you don't follow baseball, you'd pick up on if really paid attention. its a blatent lie that goes along the lines that when the baseball strikes were going on a long time ago, this company went door to door to sell tickits. they filled the yankees stadium and so, the owner of the team wrote them a handwritten fifteen page letter of reccomendation. right. cuz hand written letters are as good as gold, as brian says. oh. and add that to the fact that this company was filling stadiums when THERE WAS NO FUCKING BASEBALL and you' ve got yourself one hell of a whopper. and nobody pointed this out to Rich, so he started talkin' fast and selling Subway coupons from door to door and this was the job that he was going to leave his baby and girlfriend over if she couldn't support him. yeah. so back to the story.

i had some laundry to do and was heading up to my mother's anyway and we arranged to meet for coffee while the laundry...laundered. i asked brian to call our friend and ask her the name of the company, just to be sure.

so, yeah, those fast talking folks over at P.R.O. Advertising pulled the wool over my eyes....almost. Visions of advertising came crashing down like the third wing of the new convention center, killing one.....only in this case, it killed my confidence. bigtime.

so yeah.

now days are breakfasts and rented videos. reading a lot. watching the weather change and the buds on gwen-nextdoor's tree grow bigger and bigger. letting the dog out. feeding the dog. dehydrating fruit in my father's dehydrator, lent to me. funny how the thirty six hours it takes to dry apples goes by so quickly. pineapple chunks. bananas. plums. green tea for toby, who has a cold. the edge is always there, though. one of these days, i'm just going to have to get dressed and get a job. for now, though, i'm wrapping myself up in a blanket next to toby and wrapping myself up in the grey-brown of february, hoping for the light to come soon.

until, cats. be well.

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.what came before. - .what happened next.

a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017
baseball season to football season, abbreviated - 25 september 2017
the doodles - 11 july 2017
at arm's length - 4 july 2017
like a sea-mammal needs a bicycle - 30 may 2017

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