I got it! i got it i got it i got it!

NEWWWWW JJJOOOOOBBBBBB!

also? they just emailed me back. they want to talk again. they want references.

yaaaaa!

so, the interview went well, once i got over my quivering fear of squaring off against two men wearing power suits (something about men in shoulder pads just alarms me). i was too flustered to give a coherent answer to the "so, tell us about yourself" question, and i didn't get to spring out my perfect answer to the "what is your greatest weakness" question. but, i did get to walk them through my portfolio, and i did get to reveal that i'm simultaneously ridiculous and resourceful: about five minutes in, they asked me if i'd seen the website. i said yes and started chattering away about it, and my thoughts of how it could be improved...

never mind the fact that i was chattering about the wrong site. whoops.

lost ground there. fortunately, i got it back when they asked me how i'd ended up on the one i'd seen. i said my phone had cut out when the guy called, so i'd only caught his name, and not the company's. so, i did what any self-respecting web-jockey would do: i googled him and matched up the addresses. they liked that. anyway. it went okay, though it was short. they did ask me to send them my thoughts on the site, so i sent a seven-point manifesto with detailed explanations of why and how certain things could be changed. i'll find out what they thought by friday--they want a quick hire. which would be great for me--the notion
of handing in my resignation on the very day my boss returns from maternity leave is almost too irresistible to entertain. plus, there are rumors that they're moving the whole department to palm beach, which means layoffs.

so, i'm sure you understand why it is that i am so desperate to get out of here? ironic justice aside.

to say that i am having a strange day would be the understatement of the century.

it feels very strange, discussing your interview strategy with your coworkers.

i can't help but wonder why it is that my father's pep talks always make me late for work.

here is what i have done to prepare for tomorrow's job interview:

• removed the scraggly nailpolish from my fingers.
  
• printed out my portfolio (consisting of a screenshot of the company website before they hired me; screenshots of the sites i have built to replace that site since then; the cover of the online newsletter; printouts of the three articles i wrote for that newsletter; three copies of my resume; the company calendar, which was my baby last summer.
  
• fretted about how to do my hair and makeup
  
• prayed to all that is good and holy that whatever evil cold thing is brewing in my soul will hold off until after the interview.
  
• dug out my suit.
  
• looked up sample interview questions and general tips for acing interviews on the internet.
  
• practiced the answers to the questions i'm sure they're going to ask ('why do you want to leave your current job?' 'what is your greatest weakness?')
  
• tried to stay calm.
  
• gotten a pep talk from the Boy, the Biscuit, the Owl, Stuart , Kate and the head of my company's IT department.
  
• had a glass of whiskey and three cigarettes.
  
• looked at the website of the company where i'm interviewing and tried very hard to think about what it is that they could possibly be wanting to do with it.
  

 

i stand unflinchingly by my belief that the very best part of karaoke is, in fact, the videos. forget the indulgence of an extrovert's fantasy. forget the virtually requisite drunkenness. certainly forget the noisy bridge and tunnel characters in the corner. no, the magic of karaoke is firmly centered around these low-budget video masterpieces. staple characters include: girl with heavy eyebrows and an early-nineties matte lycra dress; vato with the blue bandanna; oiled up, shirtless man with a mane of dark curly hair reaching about down to his ass; canals; bewildered yuppie with a wilting bouquet. truly, the archetypes that make society spin round!

high art. no doubt.

it's hard to tell which pains me more: the realization that i have lost a certain innocence that i had just a few short months ago, or how unfathomably naive i have been in my past. i ask because i have been drawn to revisit some of my earliest entries here, those concerning The Breakup, curious to look from the safe vantage point of a new love.

i remember at the time being so certain that he'd been telling me the truth about why he had to leave, about why he didn't want to be with me. i remember clinging to that belief like it was driftwood, like it was water and air. i remember needing to believe that there had to be some sort of reason why he left me. i couldn't accept that he'd just stopped loving me, if he'd ever started. i remember my friends shaking their heads, worried that i was hurting so much, and not believing for a second a single word of the pretty words i was holding on to.

looking back at all the things i wrote about the entire sordid affair, i realize that my friends were right. it was horseshit, every word he said to me. and i feel like a fool for ever believing it. more so now when the word around the campfire is that he has another girlfriend; everything he said about needing to not be involved with someone, to figure himself out without the prop of a lover, was utter rubbish. it wasn't that he didn't want a lover; it was that he didn't want that lover to be me. and it is to his credit that he didn't want to say that to me outright; he had at least that much concern for how i felt.

and you know what? that's fine. i'm finally okay with that. now, i'm just disgusted with myself for ever having believed it. for ever having needed it just to get up in the morning. because i should never wrap up my self worth in what an ex-lover thinks of me.

but by the same token, i am saddened that i don't think i'm ever going to do that again, fall wildly in love with someone with arms flung wide and no considerations for reality. that piece of me has been locked up so tight i can't even find the hinges. and it does manifest itself in my relationship with d., every time i keep my mouth shut, every time i hush him for talking about the future. he has decided that when he looks towards his future, he's started seeing me in it. and i can't get behind that the way i would have a year ago. i am reluctant to open that last chamber of my heart again, that blind optimism and good faith and unfaltering trust, because the last time i did it i stopped functioning properly for a short period. and that does sadden me, because i want to fall headlong into this, i want to be rapturously in love with no reservations and no fear. but i can't. not yet. or ever, really. never again will i give that gift with no ribbons to surreptitiously tie it to the apron strings, should i need it back.

which is not to say i'm a completely cynical old bird about the whole thing. i'm no longer pushing d. away with everything i've got. i've let him in, a move which has already proven to be a good one. but i fought him at the beginning, and sometimes still consider running hard and fast, so that i don't lose another piece of my heart, my innocence.

i am working from home today, due to the fact that it is, as you may have heard, ASS COLD here. the official warning from the weather committee is that any skin exposed (i.e. your face) for more than thirty minutes is pretty much guaranteed to freeze. in the literal, not hyperbolic sense. freeze. face. face of frozenness. yarr.

of course, the fact that it was similarly cold last night did nothing to deter me from going to see these guys play down at the mercury lounge. and it was so very, very worth it. becuase they rocked the socks off my face. i'm not much for shameless plugs (unless they're my own), but really. these boys kick ALL the ass.