Girl, 21 or so, describing the tattoo she’s planning:
Okay. It’s a fairy sitting on a shroom. A shroom in a field of little shrooms. The fairy will have short hair, maybe blonde, with a large bust. Larger than mine. And a really sexy look on her face. A very sexy look. Real sexy. And she’ll be wearing ballet shoes.
I know it sounds corny or cheesy, and I’m really not a fairy person. I don’t buy a bunch of fairy books or think about fairies all the time. But really though, that tattoo symbolizes me. She is me.
It’s fucking November.
Can you believe that crap? It gets dark early, my ass inevitably widens and I think last night I saw someone wearing a Christmas sweatshirt. Already.
Oh, I didn’t get that job I interviewed for. I got my first ever rejection letter for a prospective job. It occured to me during the process that there has never been a job that I applied for that I did not get. Granted, my only jobs have been, in order: Receptionist/Sectretary for a Human Resources group that provided summer employment to underprivileged children, Certified Sandwich Artist, video store clerk (best job ever), waitress/bartender and a film festival intern/assistant. The film festival position might seem fancy, but remember festivals are non-profit organizations who prey on the wageless work of college kid interns. It wasn’t that hard to nab.
However, post graduation, I did not get hired to work in a call center. You heard me right, even with a degree and 7 1/2 years customer service experience I was passed over. I passed all the pre-screenings and computer tests–that wasn’t it. It was after my face-to-face interview that I heard nothing, only to receive notice by mail that I was not chosen for the job.
Which, in a way, yay me. When I applied I was thinking only about how much I’d be earning (the pay was fairly high for that sort of job), that I might get a 9-5 type job that allowed me to wake up in the mornings like the rest of the world, and that I might never have to kiss some bitch’s ass for a $2 tip. But in the time since my interview I’ve learned that a call center job just might have killed me. I was fully unaware of the horrors that working at a busy call center might entail in the haze of my I’m-getting-a-new-job! frenzy.
Get this shit. They tell me I would have had to talk on the phone all day. Go ahead and laugh at my ridiculous naivety, but I mean all fucking day. Truth be told, I hate talking on the telephone. I was told I’d have to take call after call after call with no break in between until time to clock out eight hours later, jaw sore and mind weak. Much like a hard days work making porn.* So, I guess it is sort of okay I didn’t get the job. Besides, I may have had to work the night shift anyhow, which was one of my main reasons for leaving my current job.
Ya know, though, I wouldn’t mind knowing why not. I was doing fine until the one-on-one interview. I can’t help but wonder what the deal was. I thought the interview went fine, with me giving all the right answers to his barrage of questions about my strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps it was the extensive criminal background check I agreed to that disuaded them. I have a DWI on my record, but I confessed to it up front on the application. I wasn’t hiding anything. It’s not like I have to drive the freaking phone.
Chances are I’ll never know. Had I been turned down for something more substantial I don’t think it would have been that big a deal; so, I’m underqualified, I’ve no experience. Understandable. But this place was hiring 20 year olds for fuck’s sake. And some not-so-smart ones, to boot. I think I’ll pretend I was overqualified for the phone slave job. It’s best on my ego that way.
In other news, the VCB and I finished the entire 30+ hours of “Twin Peaks.” We waded through shitty, worn-out rentals of the 2nd season, and devoured more donuts than I’d like to think about. Naturally, the VCB was taken with the series, because he is smart and has fantastic tastes. He seemed particularly fond of the Windom Earle plot line in Season Two. He was hesitant at first, not sure of what he thought after just the pilot episode, but in due time he came into the fold. Next step: Convince the VCB to attend the Twin Peaks Festival this summer.
In other, other news:
-I am reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and am loving it. It’s more than safe to say that my science background is lacking…it is downright pitiful. So for the first time ever I’m learning about how planets were discovered and just how unfathomably enormous our galaxy is and how it is that this vast and crazy universe began. And I get to laugh out loud at least twice per page. Can’t beat that.
-Here I Type is back at it. This brings me inexplicable calm.
-Me and the VCB broke into my 2nd story apartment with a huge ladder in the middle of the night. Well, it was mainly the VCB, I just stood on the ground propping myself up on the ladder with one hand, alternating between whining and hurrying him. He had to sort of dive into the window head first upon reaching the open window, just after overcoming his lifelong fear of heights. Which totally makes him my fucking hero.
-I finally saw The Breakfast Club. It was not at all what I expected or very good.
-Ladies: Avoid rummaging through your boyfriend’s old photographs all willy-nilly. Odds are you’ll end up crying.
*I, uh, guess.
Twelve maybe, thin, with the sides of her dark blonde hair tied back in neat braids. She’s wearing a flimsy white blouse edged in blue trim, and she’s tapping her fingers impatiently on the counter. Her jeans fit snugly beneath a hair’s width of exposed white belly. A shiny, delicate chain connects the light-faded denim to her plastic Kerropi wallet.
She orders before he speaks, then he nods and scurries to fill the order. While his back is turned she fingers the service bell with a cocked head, her index finger poised. Ready. She strokes a menu before inspecting the dish of chocolate-covered espresso beans; she selects a large one and tucks it into her mouth. A sign just at eye-level clearly labels the beans as ten cents each. She chews languidly. Spinning the tip jar she peeks inside, surveying it’s meager contents. She sways her hips to the music he’s picked out.
He arrives back with her white, frothy frozen drink and with a pout he’s gone again. He returns with a whipped cream-topped beverage and begins to bang at the register. She rolls out a ten from her front pants pocket to pay and from the change he hands her she places the few coins in the dish labelled “Take One, Leave One’. Her dollar-filled fist hovers over the tip jar momentarily, before she jams it, still full, into her jeans.
Unwrapping her straw at both ends, she places one end of the straw in her teeth and blows the paper wrapper like a feather into his face. He grins.
She looks at me directly when she turns around, beaming, and licking whipped cream from her upper lip.