especially on here, so i apologize. i have developed a tendancy towards feeling sorry for myself, i think. and it's kind of gross.
anyhow. i have my interview tomorrow, where i get to teach a room full of adults pretending to be sixth graders how to find the volume of an irregularly shaped solid. i had a dream that i showed up and got called and suddenly realized i hadn't done any advance preparation and didn't know the values and whatnot, and asked for more time, but then couldn't get the readings right, in that anxiety-ridden, can't-perform-the-simplest-of-tasks way that is the hallmark of such dreams.
i feel good. no, i really do. i think it is going to be fine. i will make sure i have all my figures written down in advance.
in other news, charles' friends from college were here for the weekend, which was alternatingly stressful and fulfilling. stressful because i never did get a grip on where i stood with the friends in question. they were kind of hard to read, and in the end, i kind of just felt relieved that they were leaving. fulfilling in the fact that we did new york city up rather perfectly this time, the pinnacle being the trip on saturday to coney island, which was really spectacular. the weather was perfect, the cyclone was perfect, the skee-ball, shoot the freak, boardwalk dance parties, nathan's, cold beer, the spook-o-rama... it was all that and more. and charles won me a prize, which was the first time anyone has ever won me anything. i think this could be love.
i'm off to find something interview-esque to wear.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Monday, July 09, 2007
choking in the clutch. and other stories.
it's very hot: in the 90's and humid with a whole ton of smog to compliment that whole "live earth" thing they did over the weekend. incidentally, south park ran it's al gore episode, with manbearpig, just the other day and i haven't been able to stop saying "guys! i'm so serial!" and "oh my god, it's manbearpig" in my al gore voice, which is probably my favorite next to my sean connery voice. anyhow, what was i saying? oh yeah. it's hot.
i don't really go in for all this heat stuff. right about now is when i shut down, as far as motivation to do anything but sit around and think about how little motivation i have. yesterday i did get the overwhelming impetus to ride the cyclone at coney island and eat cheese fries, but i had to work. and i was totally unmotivated to do that. the cyclone and my upcoming interview for the nyc teaching fellows are really the only two things i have felt at all excited about lately. and the teaching fellows thing is less an excitement and more of a repetative nausea, combined with a strong desire for it to be 10:05 pm on tuesday july 17th, the time that the whole thing will officially be over. and that's no fun.
i wish i didn't have such a paralyzing fear of this whole thing, but i can't stop thinking about how likely i am to blow it on the basis of sheer nervousness, which will translate into a babbling incoherent mess of an interview and whatnot. i surely wish i were one of those blessed people who thrive under pressure and in the clutch, one of those people who you can be nearly certain will perform to the greatest of their ability when they have the most on the line. the tom bradys. the tiger woods. the roger federers. the derek jeters. instead, i am in the other category. the chris webbers. the scott norwoods. the tony romos. the losers.
sorry tony romo. but you are just gonna have to suck up that distinction until you can do something next season to erase our memories.
anyhow. i am trying really hard to relax and coach myself on how to stay calm and not fall apart in the clutch, and while i am pretty certain that it has everything to do with staying calm, and forgetting exactly how big of a moment one is supposedly having, even the act of trying to make myself calm is having the opposite effect.
the only thing i can keep repeating to myself in my crazy screwed up brain is that one way or another, i am going to go to that interview next week, and stuff is going to happen and i am either going to be selected or not selected and that is all there is to it.
so far it is half-working, i'd say. i am sleeping, astonishingly. but we are still a week away.
i think some of my desperation to not fuck this up is directly related to my desperation to call my waitressing life quits. i have run out of steam on that front, in all regards. i can tell because even a "good" job like the one i have now is not cutting it. i simply can't deal with the public anymore, not on this level. i will continue to deal(because it's virtually impossible to avoid) with getting elbowed, stepped on and pushed out of the way by douchebag commuters in business suits who consider themselves in the upper eschelon of society but have no problem acting as if we have all been let out of a cage at the zoo when the train doors open. i can no longer find it in my soul(even deep down, where i must go lately to even walk into work) to not flip out when someone has a totally inappropriate outburst because they haven't received a basket of fucking chips and salsa fast enough to appease their inner asshole. i guarantee that these people have eaten at least once today. and that they will not suffer any adverse effects from another two minutes without their snack. but yet the nastiness and derision that these morons are ready to level at me or anyone who they happen to flag down at the time is astounding. i feel like pulling up a chair and asking what, if anything, else they might be able to get that worked up about. certainly nothing that doesn't have a firm connection to their own personal desires and demands for what they want placed in front of their gluttonous faces at the time they have decided it must appear. think nothing of what goes on around you, oh righteous consumers of chips y salsa! do not for one beat consider that perhaps there is a logical and worthy explanation for why your request has not been fulfilled within seconds of your making it. just rise up and strike wrath down upon the idiot waitress or lowly foreign busperson who happens by. show your friends and family how powerful and proactive you are! how you fear nothing in your attempt to procure your free chips and salsa immediately, and how you will not be denied the spoils that are rightfully yours. and then make sure to leave a crappy tip, just to make sure the waitress knows that her inability to do her job properly will not go unnoticed or unpunished by you.
basically, the only thing better about this job is that i don't have to deal with the corporate overlords and their ridiculousness, or with wearing a self-esteem crushing uniform, which, i assure you, is much appreciated on my part. but being a waitress means having to suck it up and be nice even when you have the worst people in the world acting out their emotional issues on you. and there was a time when i could do it, but that time has passed. the trendite brooklyn heads are just the hedgehogs in less formal attire. and in some ways, their attitudes are worse, because they have deluded themselves into thinking that they are the most enlightened people in the whole fucking universe. and that, me friends, simply ain't true
for the last fifteen years i have taken the ill-advised path of continually putting myself in situations to not only deal with these people, in all their incarnations, but also to be a part of various flawed establishments who's shortcomings cause my inablility to do my job to a level that would ensure even moderate success: in short, to get these fuckheads to shut the fuck up even most of the time would require that the places i work in function at anything resembling a successful fashion, which they NEVER do. ever. i have never worked in a restaurant that didn't have critical flaws that caused major problems in customer service. and so i am doomed. if i don't get out, i will spend my life catching hell for things i cannot control. and if i am going to do that, i would at least like the "customers" to be children who need a friendly face and a caring heart to lead them in their lessons every day. maybe the success rate will be nearly the same, but at least i will feel like i am helping someone get something other than a basket of chips and salsa for my struggle. you know?
oh blog, thank you for letting me lash out yet again. better, and cheaper, than therapy!
i don't really go in for all this heat stuff. right about now is when i shut down, as far as motivation to do anything but sit around and think about how little motivation i have. yesterday i did get the overwhelming impetus to ride the cyclone at coney island and eat cheese fries, but i had to work. and i was totally unmotivated to do that. the cyclone and my upcoming interview for the nyc teaching fellows are really the only two things i have felt at all excited about lately. and the teaching fellows thing is less an excitement and more of a repetative nausea, combined with a strong desire for it to be 10:05 pm on tuesday july 17th, the time that the whole thing will officially be over. and that's no fun.
i wish i didn't have such a paralyzing fear of this whole thing, but i can't stop thinking about how likely i am to blow it on the basis of sheer nervousness, which will translate into a babbling incoherent mess of an interview and whatnot. i surely wish i were one of those blessed people who thrive under pressure and in the clutch, one of those people who you can be nearly certain will perform to the greatest of their ability when they have the most on the line. the tom bradys. the tiger woods. the roger federers. the derek jeters. instead, i am in the other category. the chris webbers. the scott norwoods. the tony romos. the losers.
sorry tony romo. but you are just gonna have to suck up that distinction until you can do something next season to erase our memories.
anyhow. i am trying really hard to relax and coach myself on how to stay calm and not fall apart in the clutch, and while i am pretty certain that it has everything to do with staying calm, and forgetting exactly how big of a moment one is supposedly having, even the act of trying to make myself calm is having the opposite effect.
the only thing i can keep repeating to myself in my crazy screwed up brain is that one way or another, i am going to go to that interview next week, and stuff is going to happen and i am either going to be selected or not selected and that is all there is to it.
so far it is half-working, i'd say. i am sleeping, astonishingly. but we are still a week away.
i think some of my desperation to not fuck this up is directly related to my desperation to call my waitressing life quits. i have run out of steam on that front, in all regards. i can tell because even a "good" job like the one i have now is not cutting it. i simply can't deal with the public anymore, not on this level. i will continue to deal(because it's virtually impossible to avoid) with getting elbowed, stepped on and pushed out of the way by douchebag commuters in business suits who consider themselves in the upper eschelon of society but have no problem acting as if we have all been let out of a cage at the zoo when the train doors open. i can no longer find it in my soul(even deep down, where i must go lately to even walk into work) to not flip out when someone has a totally inappropriate outburst because they haven't received a basket of fucking chips and salsa fast enough to appease their inner asshole. i guarantee that these people have eaten at least once today. and that they will not suffer any adverse effects from another two minutes without their snack. but yet the nastiness and derision that these morons are ready to level at me or anyone who they happen to flag down at the time is astounding. i feel like pulling up a chair and asking what, if anything, else they might be able to get that worked up about. certainly nothing that doesn't have a firm connection to their own personal desires and demands for what they want placed in front of their gluttonous faces at the time they have decided it must appear. think nothing of what goes on around you, oh righteous consumers of chips y salsa! do not for one beat consider that perhaps there is a logical and worthy explanation for why your request has not been fulfilled within seconds of your making it. just rise up and strike wrath down upon the idiot waitress or lowly foreign busperson who happens by. show your friends and family how powerful and proactive you are! how you fear nothing in your attempt to procure your free chips and salsa immediately, and how you will not be denied the spoils that are rightfully yours. and then make sure to leave a crappy tip, just to make sure the waitress knows that her inability to do her job properly will not go unnoticed or unpunished by you.
basically, the only thing better about this job is that i don't have to deal with the corporate overlords and their ridiculousness, or with wearing a self-esteem crushing uniform, which, i assure you, is much appreciated on my part. but being a waitress means having to suck it up and be nice even when you have the worst people in the world acting out their emotional issues on you. and there was a time when i could do it, but that time has passed. the trendite brooklyn heads are just the hedgehogs in less formal attire. and in some ways, their attitudes are worse, because they have deluded themselves into thinking that they are the most enlightened people in the whole fucking universe. and that, me friends, simply ain't true
for the last fifteen years i have taken the ill-advised path of continually putting myself in situations to not only deal with these people, in all their incarnations, but also to be a part of various flawed establishments who's shortcomings cause my inablility to do my job to a level that would ensure even moderate success: in short, to get these fuckheads to shut the fuck up even most of the time would require that the places i work in function at anything resembling a successful fashion, which they NEVER do. ever. i have never worked in a restaurant that didn't have critical flaws that caused major problems in customer service. and so i am doomed. if i don't get out, i will spend my life catching hell for things i cannot control. and if i am going to do that, i would at least like the "customers" to be children who need a friendly face and a caring heart to lead them in their lessons every day. maybe the success rate will be nearly the same, but at least i will feel like i am helping someone get something other than a basket of chips and salsa for my struggle. you know?
oh blog, thank you for letting me lash out yet again. better, and cheaper, than therapy!
Monday, July 02, 2007
noise violation.
at this point, i can safely say that i am in danger of losing my f-ing mind due to the non-stop construction that envelops our apartment in a neverending wall of noise. as i write this, i cannot hear the music playing out of a speaker twelve inches away because across the street, at construction site numero dos, there is the mind-numbingly loud sounds of a jackhammer. for the last two hours. on saturday, it was the steady thwack of a sledgehammer, every ten seconds or so. and that's just the construction site out front. around back, we have our apartment building friends, who spend the day backing up their heavy machinery every 4.5 seconds, eliciting that "beep...beep...beep" that we all recognize as the sound of heavy machinery backing up. and let me tell you, after a bunch of hours, that sound will make you want to march right over to that construction site and start swinging a two-by-four around until you can make it stop.
i haven't reached that point quite yet, but it's coming. believe me.
today is a beautiful day- the stifling heat and humidity have relented momentarily and we have 60 degrees and breezy back for a day or two. i am going to have to leave the apartment and the neighborhood to enjoy it though, because the noise level in only going to increase and, as i mentioned, i am liable to go insane.
in other news, i feel terribly unconstructive lately. i think that is new york's fault. or mine, and i just seek to dodge accountability. but the struggle for new york survival gets exhausting sometimes, and not the kind of exhausting that a bit of sleep can remedy. the kind that just drains you to the soul. i think it can be restored by a bit of quality new york city time. a walk across the brooklyn bridge, like cw and i did a few weeks ago. or maybe a ride on the staten ferry. something that will remind me of one of the multitudinous reasons i am here.
one more thing. i have finally started to feel as if i fit in with the people i work with, and it's a nice feeling. i was thinking about it yesterday, and i realized that even in jobs where i made and kept really good friends among my co-workers, it took a good six months or so before i really started to feel at home. and this time, i think i was feeling a bit alienated for the first two months, because i felt like i should feel more comfortable, but now i realize it is just an ajustment period. and i think i will like going to work a lot more now, something i have not really enjoyed since leaving the hill. obviously the other ny job i had totally blew, and no matter how much i liked the people i worked with, the rest was un-overcomeable. but this won't be like that. and at this point, i think it's only a matter of one night of solid alcohol-induced bonding and it will all click.
of course, i am really hoping that i am going to be receiving a phone call or an email very soon that will inform me that my waitressing days are soon to pass and i will instead embroil myself in the quagmire of the american public education system, but no word yet.
oh, one more thing. i had hoped to post on the nba draft and perhaps have some pictures of charles' knicks-induced suffering, but isiah thomas shocked the world and made some improvements(!) to the dire situation that is the ny knicks. i wish i had captured a pic of charles' grill when the news came across of the zach randolph trade... he was positively blissful. but alas, i missed it. i also must note that i am very happy that my phx suns drafted dj strawberry out of maryland. i love that kid.
i haven't reached that point quite yet, but it's coming. believe me.
today is a beautiful day- the stifling heat and humidity have relented momentarily and we have 60 degrees and breezy back for a day or two. i am going to have to leave the apartment and the neighborhood to enjoy it though, because the noise level in only going to increase and, as i mentioned, i am liable to go insane.
in other news, i feel terribly unconstructive lately. i think that is new york's fault. or mine, and i just seek to dodge accountability. but the struggle for new york survival gets exhausting sometimes, and not the kind of exhausting that a bit of sleep can remedy. the kind that just drains you to the soul. i think it can be restored by a bit of quality new york city time. a walk across the brooklyn bridge, like cw and i did a few weeks ago. or maybe a ride on the staten ferry. something that will remind me of one of the multitudinous reasons i am here.
one more thing. i have finally started to feel as if i fit in with the people i work with, and it's a nice feeling. i was thinking about it yesterday, and i realized that even in jobs where i made and kept really good friends among my co-workers, it took a good six months or so before i really started to feel at home. and this time, i think i was feeling a bit alienated for the first two months, because i felt like i should feel more comfortable, but now i realize it is just an ajustment period. and i think i will like going to work a lot more now, something i have not really enjoyed since leaving the hill. obviously the other ny job i had totally blew, and no matter how much i liked the people i worked with, the rest was un-overcomeable. but this won't be like that. and at this point, i think it's only a matter of one night of solid alcohol-induced bonding and it will all click.
of course, i am really hoping that i am going to be receiving a phone call or an email very soon that will inform me that my waitressing days are soon to pass and i will instead embroil myself in the quagmire of the american public education system, but no word yet.
oh, one more thing. i had hoped to post on the nba draft and perhaps have some pictures of charles' knicks-induced suffering, but isiah thomas shocked the world and made some improvements(!) to the dire situation that is the ny knicks. i wish i had captured a pic of charles' grill when the news came across of the zach randolph trade... he was positively blissful. but alas, i missed it. i also must note that i am very happy that my phx suns drafted dj strawberry out of maryland. i love that kid.
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