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.

last night, i got to cash in on the best christmas gift ever™: a voice lesson, courtesy of the biscuit. i remember when he gave it to me, he was a little apprehensive, concerned that i might consider it a comment on my singing, and its need to improve. but the thing is, i KNOW he thinks i'm a decent singer, and that he likes the sound of my voice. so really, it was like giving a car buff a gift certificate to a really good local garage: it never hurts to have an expert look under the hood, even if there's nothing that actually needs to be fixed. and the sad truth is that, despite all the warblings i do with my guitar, my voice hasn't been properly exercised since i got out of college. so the prospect of having someone put me through my paces properly was just irresistible.

despite my enthusiasm, however, i was slightly apprehensive. i didn't know what to expect. in the long run, however, that was probably a good thing. because if i'd had a set image in mind of what this experience was supposed to be, world would have been set utterly askew. the back story is this: most of my voice teachers have been hard-line traditionalists. old school, mozart-loving, focus-the-sound-through-a-point-in-your-forehead types. so, to be confronted with a tiny little woman who wished to start with a few moments of tai chi and meditation was a little disorienting.

but good. very, very good. i will freely admit that i felt more relaxed and more centered after the exercises. and just singing, really flying up in the rafters was great. it was nice to know that some of my old problems (tense jaw) were still evident, but that i hadn't messed anything up yet.

at the end of the hour, i was saddened, because i get an enormous kick out of this sort of thing, but really can't afford regular lessons at seventy bucks an hour. but, since apparently christmas presents keep on giving even a couple months later, the instructor decided that she could give me a partial scholarship--if i did two lessons a month, i would only have to pay for one of them. assuming i can do those lessons in half-hour increments, i think i can eke out $35 a month to bolster my mental health; don't you?

oh, also?

JOB INTERVIEW! JOB INTERVIEW! next tuesday at 2pm eastern standard time. mark it on your calendars and send me some good vibes right around then, okay? with the power of positive energy, we can liberate me from this hellhole!

it's strange, but in these circumstances, it's the fact that i once understood SO WELL that makes it impossible for me to comprehend anymore.

i have this strange aversion to cooking meat. i don't know why, or where it came from; considering i'm fairly adept in the kitchen, it seems like a rather odd affliction. i make a mean lasagna; i just wouldn't dream of doing it with anything other than spinach and ricotta cheese. i think it's a bit of a holdover from the lone quarter of home economics i was forced to take in the seventh grade. our teacher (a not-so-closet alcoholic whose coffee was so heavily spiked with brandy that we could frequently smell it as far back as the fourth row) had a pathology about salmonella and e coli--those pesky little bacteria that like to travel by meat. as such, she did her level best to instill in us a sense of urgency with regards to cleaning the kitchen after handling meat.

'use hot water! if it's not hot enough, the bacteria left on the chopping board might make someone sick! and you don't want that, now, do you?' (no, not especially. necessarily.)

of course, my eleven-year-old mind decided to take that a step further; if the bacteria left on the cutting board can make you sick, the bacteria in the meat must be able to KILL YOU BADLY! since i had no idea how much heat it would take to destroy the offending bacteria, or what i'd have to do to the meat, i basically just gave up on the idea of ever cooking it. i couldn't handle the pressure.

this particular course of action served me well through college, when i gave up all meat for a while, even exploring veganism (a short-lived incident, ending with a curious scene involving a block of cheese). also, the eating disorder helped with the not cooking of meat. or anything else. but, eventually i got out of school. and i started eating like a normal human being again. and i started reintroducing various meats into my diet, though i still retained a pathological terror of cooking them (thirteen years later, i still have a terrible fear of inadvertantly poisoning my dinner guests with an undercooked drumstick).

i stared down that fear last night.

while i am still too nervous to try anything wild, like, say, roasting a chicken, i am proud to report that i make a pretty decent salmon fillet with rosemary butter and roasted red peppers that thus far hasn't killed anyone!

up next:...i can't even think that far ahead. i whipped into such a frenzy over the prospect of poisoning Boy last night that i'm still too weary to even consider my next culinary triumph. really. unless that next triumph involves a dirty martini. i could probably consider that ok.