Nobody expects their chicken pot pie to be interrupted with the sudden need to go to the emergency room, so you can imagine my surprise when that’s exactly what happened to me a couple of weeks ago.
Three hours, two pills and an EKG later, I’m the lucky winner of an acid reflux disease called GERD and what my doctor THINKS is a severe case of anxiety. “Thinks” because I have a few symptoms that suggest I might have something much, much worse, but until I can afford the medical insurance I’ll need for routine trips to the doctor, anxiety it is. (AND HERE’S THE PART WHERE I YELL ABOUT THE $2,500 BILL I GOT IN THE MAIL FOR EMERGENCY SERVICES, WHICH, LET ME TELL YOU, ISN’T HELPING MY ANXIETY ONE BIT.)
The day after my super fun trip to the hospital I had to hop on a plane to Los Angeles for a content management conference—not the best idea ever, but the company I was covering had paid for me to go and it would’ve been pretty shitty to call them up just a day before and cancel on account of my crazy. So I went. And I wrote. And I contracted pink eye. And I didn’t sleep for 48 hours. And I spent most of my free time alone in my hotel, rocking back and forth in the shower with a hot cup of caffeine free tea (because of the GERD), wishing I had filled my new prescriptions before traveling hundreds of miles away from home.
I realize how crazy I sound right now, I really do. If you’re an employer, a potential employer, a lover, a family member, or hell – GAS will probably be around forever! – my future kid (MOMMY TOLD YOU NOT TO GOOGLE HER), I promise I’m not batshit out of my mind. I just think and worry about oh, at least a thousand things per minute, and I suppose this is my body’s way of finally telling me that that shit ain’t cool.
Bear with me, this story just reminded me of another story. Really quick: my sense of direction is shit. And when I say that, I mean that if someone painted over my street sign with a different name, I’d probably drive up and down the cross street looking for my turn. Forever. Ergo, the first time I drove with a driving instructor we got completely lost when the session was over and it was time to get back to my house. We drove aimlessly for a good hour, during which night fell and it started raining. Did I mention this was my first time driving ever? Picture it: tiny hopeless 17-year-old drives for the first time in the dark during a storm while her instructor sits beside her, eating Cheetos and quietly cursing.
Actually, my instructor turned to me and said something along the lines of, “Hey, do you realize how well you’re doing given the circumstances?”
And that’s when I calmed down and found my house. Similarly, I got through my first lone business trip with all my limbs and a new understanding of records management to boot. And even if nobody else is proud of me for it, I sure as hell am.
Here’s the part where I tell you I’ve been making moves to make sure 2010 is not a wet blanket, because despite all the problems that’ve already gone down since the ball dropped, my outlook for the next twelve months is strangely positive. I mean, to tell you the truth I kinda fell off the whole this-is-my-year bandwagon, because really, it doesn’t matter if it’s January or June or December. Every day is a good day to pick up the slack or be better or try something new. It just so happens that my motivational fairy showed up this month.
Stay tuned for news about my activities. For now, I'll just tell you they involve money and travel and shoulder kisses. And perhaps the occasional heart palpitation.
I’d like to say that the reason posting around here has been so light lately is because I got a job doing something I love to do and am busy making a ton of money. That and the bitch of a personal assistant I had to hire to keep up with all of my correspondence and scheduling is totally slacking. Alas, that isn’t the case. Actually, a position at the organization I intern for opened up a couple of weeks ago and I was so stoked when I got the email about scheduling an interview that I immediately sent them my resume (the one that needs editing) and a cover letter that read: I LIVE FOR THIS NON-PROFIT. PLEASE HIRE ME. I’m not even kidding.
The position was a temporary part-time administrative job that opened up because our current gal is having problems with child care, and even though I loathe administrative work, I thought getting paid to be at an organization that I honestly feel I live and breathe and exude out of my pores when I sleep would be a dream come true, no matter the responsibilities. So, I scheduled my interview on a day that I’d normally be there working on gallery stuff, dressed in the type of clothes I usually wear to intern (jeans, a button down, Asics) and sat there in front of the Outreach Program Director and the Office Manager and sold myself rather terribly, right after they interviewed an old intern that made them laugh out loud a zillion trillion times and another old intern (Margarita) that wore what looked like a $200.00 suit and kept them in conversation for over half an hour. Afterward I kept thinking, Why didn't they laugh at my jokes? Did I have something on my face? Like maybe a giant banana slug, or Leprosy? Is that why they were looking at me like that? Since when does professionalism prevail over cool, confidence and comfort when you're dealing with people you already know and work for, FOR FREE? Where did I put that bottle of Vodka, damnit?!?!??!!
Needless to say I didn’t get the job. Though they said it would take four to five days to decide, I got an e-mail that very evening thanking me for my interest and dedication to the organization, but also letting me know that they chose to go with another candidate. And then I died.
Okay, just kidding. I didn’t die. I was disappointed though, and for days I tried to blame someone, something, anything, on the reason I failed the interview, including my casual outfit, my ugly hair, my very unappealing two hour commute, my less than professional cover letter, the awful job I did at disguising how much I despise office work, etc. But the bottom line is I didn’t have enough experience. I know it wasn’t my personality because besides being very confident in my heavyweight awesomeness, they didn’t even hire laughing guy! And Margarita did function as an administrative assistant under the Outreach Program Director when she interned, so it was a smart decision to give her the job. Plus she’s become a good friend of mine, and I think she really deserved the opportunity.
None of those realizations kept me from behaving like I’d just been through a bad breakup, however, and an old friend asking me to sit his house while he went out of town couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. For two days I lazed around in a hammock underneath a pomegranate tree, reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (which is conveniently ironically, about American opportunity), eating yogurt pop after yogurt pop, and talking up a storm about my stand-still life to his creepy pet chickens, named after princesses by his four year old daughter. It was a little difficult to adjust to Xena, Leia, Belle and Diana constantly going after my toes like they were little worms, but at the end of my three day vacation, they turned out to be pretty good listeners that could fake interest quite well with their cute little cocked heads and beady eyes. I guess. Also, I stopped going out into the yard without socks.
Besides the rejection, talking to chickens like a crazy person, getting sicker than I’ve been in my whole life, attending HWMNBN’s several birthday parties without imploding and the havoc my brother and I have wreaked in the house since my dad went out of town, life has been pretty uneventful. I mean, I’ve got a couple of art and writing projects underway, and I’m actively searching for a job in between episodes of The Girls Next Door, but I’m beginning to feel like this temporary move home is going to become long term because I’m never going to find a job, and soon They are going to call me and say I’ve failed at life and I should just resign.
I need Life to give me a break before I drive down to the chicken store with the intention of purchasing a personal assistant complete with beak and feathers. What do you guys think the odds of that happening are?
Decided against taking the summer off, mostly because this guy at my temp job who totally reminds me of Alan Tudyk said that the most non-profit hiring happens in June, as it's the end of their fiscal year. OF COURSE IT IS.
I don't think I'm going to hear back from the ones I sent letters to this morning, however. Why, you ask? Because I linked this website. And now ask why, why oh why did I do that, and I will shrug and say I have absolutely no clue. I think it has something to do with waking up at 4am all this week and my brain being total mush because of it.
Merde.