Today is a beautiful day!


I got the job at the commercial production comany! I'm gonna be the Office Manager!


I seriously woke up today and didn't think I had a chance. I mean, they've been interviewing all week. I thought for sure someone with more experience would come along.


I start on Monday at 8 AM.


I am so excited!



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I haven't spent a single day alone with my husband in about a month. I didn't realize this until a couple hours ago. But I am feeling, well, can we say frustrated? I mean, not to sound too creepy, but I'm starting to feel the way a Sim feels when their friends overstay their welcome, and the Sim just wants desperately to go to sleep, but they won't go to sleep if you have free will on, because they simply have to say goodbye to the guest before they retire.


I love my family. And every single day that they're either here or we're over there, it's been of my own free will. I love them. A lot. And I've missed them since I've been across the country at college. So I feel like I've had to soak them up as much as I possibly can before I get a real job. But I have to tell ya, I'm starting to miss my husband now because we've barely even talked since we've been back in California.


I guess being completely cut off from all friends and family for the last three years, he and I really relied on each other for companionship and friendship. We only had each other, so I guess I got used to the fact that most nights were like slumber parties, where we'd go to bed, but we didn't actually sleep. We'd just lay in the dark and talk for an hour before we actually allowed sleep to set in. But in California, most nights we're going to bed it's not really night anymore, it's actually morning, and we're barely awake enough to say "Goodnight."


Although, I guess you can't blame us for not wanting to sleep in our new apartment. Don't get me wrong, our apartment has been essentially perfect. I love the fact that when people are over now, they don't have to walk through our bedroom to use the bathroom. I love the fact that we have 250 square feet more here than we did in DC. I love that there are no roachs. No bedbugs. No cars honking rudely all hours of the day. I love that we have a dishwasher. That the laundry facility is card operated instead of coin operated (coin, blah, it should be called quarter operated). And we have so much more storage space here than we've ever had.


But the bedroom has been like a sauna.


California is hot in the summertime. And our apartment only has a single wall unit a/c in the living room, not central air. We're also at the top floor of our building. And we have a tree outside of our window, but it's not tall enough to provide us shade, but tall enough to provide the downstairs neighbors shade. So by 7 AM every day, our bedroom is hot enough to bake the Devil's cookies in.


But we bought our own a/c unit to put in the bedroom. We've only had it for a day, but so far it seems like it's working really well. I'm considering actually going to sleep at a decent hour just because I don't dread going in there anymore.



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I have an interview tomorrow. It's for a production company. It's the one who did that cool AOL commercial. Now, I know you're thinking cool and AOL and certainly commercial do not belong together in the same sentence. But it was that commercial where the little AOL symbol was in a kind of movie promotion, doing action sequence type things. That has been the only acceptable AOL commercial ever made. And the company is looking to hire an office manager. And they're looking to interview me tomorrow. I am trying to prepare for the interview. You know, doing the usual: Researching and reading about the company, trying to think about questions that could possibly be asked, and thinking about answers that I could possibly give.


But the one I've had the most trouble considering is: What is your biggest weakness?


Would it be appropriate to say, "Well, I would consider my biggest weakness to be the fact that I can't hold a conversation with my father without it erupting into a screaming match. You know the kind of conversations... The kind where I haven't seen, or heard from, or talked to, my father in 4 years. You know, because he used to beat the fucking crap out of me, my brothers and my mom. So when I left 4 years ago, I thought going across the country would rescue me from his influence. But I was sadly mistaken. I probably should have just fled the country, period. And that's my biggest weakness: I am a sucker. That's a right. A sucker. I'm a sucker because I always try to believe the best of everybody. But I should have learned by now to never trust a man who's threatened to kill you and your family, chop you up into little pieces and scatter you around the country so no one will ever find your bodies."


Yeah. That's my biggest weakness, Mr. Interview Man.


I'm a big fat sucker.



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A message for Desmond:

When I was reading Samuel Johnson I learned that most people are never happy. Not really anyway. Humans are conditioned to live in the future:

"I"ll be happy when I move out of Maryland."

"I'll be happy when I lose weight and my skin clears up and have a girlfriend."

"I'll be happy when I have $10,000 saved up."

The reality is we never truly live in the present. Like, how many minutes a day are we actually living in the moment in which we are experiencing? I'm sitting here writing this to you, but I'm wondering about that company that just called me for an interview. When people drive, how often are we just driving? We're usually listening to the radio and thinking about where we need to be, instead of just being.

The point of this: We generally live in the future because it's optimistic. However, once we lose sight of the future, we usually get depressed. So once the goals we've had are met, we are faced with living in the present, only to realize we aren't actually happy. So we develop a new set of goals to be achieved.

And maybe that's the problem. Maybe you've lost sight of some goals, or maybe you need a new set of goals. Something to keep you motivated. For you. Not for some woman you may meet in the future. Because unless you are happy and healthy (physically & mentally), you are not going to attract healthy women anyway. And let's face it, you don't need more of that.

I have more to say, but we're leaving right now. And I'm getting bugged to get dressed. So hopefully I can finish this later tonight.



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I will wake up 23 tomorrow.

 

I have only completed one of the things I wanted to accomplish before I was 23. I wanted to graduate college.

 

But I haven't published a book. And 5 years ago I said that I would publish a book by the time I was 23, even if I had to save up enough money to publish myself.

 

I don't have enough written to constitute an entire novel.

 

I could say that school got in the way. Or maybe being traumatized by 9/11 did it.

 

But the fact remains that when I left California the first time, I stopped writing. I use to have an overflow of creativity. Ever since I started college, I basically only wrote when I had an assignment.

 

I don't even feel like writing anymore. Keeping a journal doesn't count as the kind of writing to which I am referring. I'm afraid that if I don't have a class and I don't have an assignment, I have no reason and no motivation to write.

 

I'm sure I'll probably feel different in a few months or something. But at the moment, the fact remains that I feel like this now. And it's horrible because I feel like a failure to myself.

 

I wonder how much failing a soul can handle in a single lifetime.



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So I thought starting a creative arts journal was going to be relatively easy. I guess I have just been blessed with friends who are decent writers or something. Because a majority of the submissions we've gotten so far (around 50 or more) are mostly crappity-crap-crap. That's worse than your normal, run-of-the-mill crap.

 

To give you a "for instance," take Ms. Idaho (name is changed for protection of the guilty, and no, Idaho is not where she lives). Ms. Idaho sends us her resume. Why? We're not lookin' to hire anyone. In addition to her resume, she sent us a news press release for some sort of boring malpractice suit. Apparently it was her idea of creative non-fiction? It was journalistic writing. That isn't creative in the slightest.


So I have a question to post to everyone: What's wrong with normal fonts? Like Times New Roman, Georgia, Arial, Verdana--heck it's not my favorite, but I'll take Courier over freakin' Matisse any day of the week. I kid you not, someone actually submitted a work of fiction written in Matisse. Do you know what this horrible font looks like? Open up Word and copy & paste a paragraph in there and change the font to Matisse--do you see how hard that is on the eyes? What kind of a person writes in Matisse? Of course I changed the font after I got done laughing/crying, but apparently the choice of font was the least of the writer's problems.

 

The other thing we keep getting: e-mails from people who want us to slog through their blogs, websites, etc. and choose something to publish. This seems like the highly lazy and highly shady way of getting us to read more than 3 submissions. I don't want to waste my time picking something out from someone's website to publish. That's why writers are supposed to submit to the magazine. Unless it's the kind of situation I have with two people at the moment; I actually approached a couple individuals to submit something because I was already at their website on a completely unrelated visitation relations, and I liked what I saw.

 

So all in all, it's proving harder than previously thought to start a journal. There actually isn't as much good writing as I had hoped out there. Or at least, the good writing isn't finding us via Craigslist. Although Lorie and I have sifted through, and found a few gold nuggets amongst the sluice, it's still a little disconcerting. Maybe I was just lucky in my writing programs at college, being surrounded by students whose work I actually enjoyed and respected. Maybe I should contact them and ask them to send their work to us.



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Our Creative Beseechment For Your Creative Work, this is an actual IM conversation between the editors of Semblance:


Lorie: I'm having trouble thinking of what to say for the ad beyond the fact that we're looking for contributions. Should I include the submission guidelines?


Samantha: Nah. Just direct them to the website.


Lorie: OK. So I have the line "Semblance hopes to publish a(n) ______ mix of creative non-fiction, fiction, poetry, drama and art." What word do you think should go in the blank? The only one that's coming to mind for me is "enticing" and that sounds weird to me.


Samantha: Delicious!


Lorie: Do you want us to sound tasty?


Samantha: Aren't we tasty? Oooh... you could write the ad in a menu style. We are cookin' up a journal for your reading palette. We want our entrees to be appetizing and yet satisfying.


Lorie: This isn't really attention-getting is it:


Semblance, a new creative arts journal, seeks contributions for its premiere issue. Semblance hopes to publish a delicious mix of creative non-fiction, fiction, poetry, drama and art. For more information and submission guidelines, please visit the

Semblance website.


Samantha: Delight your literary sensibilities With Semblance, a creative arts journal. We're currently seeking contributions for our first issue, due to come out at the end of August. We're rarin' to cook up a delectable array of tasty mind treats, and we need your help. We need a sioux chef, so to speak. Several for that matter.


Lorie: Um...I think you mean sous chef. Unless you really meant sioux chief.


Samantha: Oh. I remember seeing an ad in the paper for a Sioux Chef, and I was like, "So it is spelt like the American Indian tribe?"


Lorie: Or maybe I'm wrong. I just didn't think it was spelled the same, but I only know the occasional word in French.


Samantha: So the person who sent the ad to the LA Times messed up. Pretty bad.


Lorie: Google finds 105,000 listings for sous chef.


Samantha: What about sioux chef? ;)


Lorie: There are 60, mainly seeming to be a combination of typos and "Sioux Chef" aprons featuring a college mascot.


Samantha: Definitely go with sous.

So we obviously need your help. Send us your stuff: creative non-fiction, art, fiction, poetry and drama—if you need help understanding any of the categories, that information is at the website (You'll also find submission guidelines and the e-mail to which you can apply.)

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So Semblance is getting off the ground. I have submission guidelines and information on the website.


Looking forward to reading a lot in the near future...

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I saw my first Cal Worthington commercial in over a decade.


For those of you who are not native Southern Californians, then you may not know who Cal is, and I suggest you go here. The best footage is a link at the bottom of the page that says, "The best of Cal." That way you'll get to hear the famous Cal Worthington theme song.


I grew up with Cal peddling me Chevorlets and Dodge trucks. He would stand on his head just to get my business. He'd ride an armadillo just to get business. He featured lions, tigers and bears in his catchy commercials as, "Go see Cal! Go see Cal! Go see Cal!" played in the background. But don't forget his dog, Spot... Spot is probably long since dead, though, nowdays.


Which brings to why Cal Worthington is the subject of this post. When my family moved from Southern California to Northern California, when I was in elementary school, I only saw one Cal commercial in 9 years. (We didn't have very good television reception, and so we only got PBS, and that was on the clear days.)


When I was old enough to move away, I moved. Across the country. So it wasn't until just now that I caught a glimpse of Cal.


I heard the music que up, and I got filled with that little girl excitement that used to fill up inside my chest like a balloon filling with helium whenever I heard his theme song. Strange as it may seem, I always came running into the room when I heard Cal's commercials on television. I hardly ever saw the same one twice.


No matter how bad it got at home, I still had Cal. My dad could push me into the ceiling by my shoulders only, and drop me free-fall style the seven feet, but then Cal's commercial would sing to me in the background. His voice and music was like a twisted soundtrack to my own personal movie. Cal's face was unchanging, but his antics were always entertaining. I felt a strange patriarchal familiarity with this man through the television screen, I guess because I didn't feel that same kind of respect, admiration and exhiliartion with my own father.


But I saw Cal tonight. Actually this morning. About 14 minutes ago. (It's 4 AM right now.)


And he's old.


He's so old.


My nose started to tingle, the way it tingles right before I start to cry. I don't know why, but it was so awful to see Cal, at 81 years old, wrinkled, trying to be enthusiastic--and with a lisp now.


Did he have a stroke? Is his face half paralyzed? Is able to stand on his head anymore? How many Spots have there been since Spot I? Is it like on The Simpsons when Snowball died, so they got Snowball II, and then recently Snowball II died, and they went through a slough of resplacement kittens (one named Coltrane), and so now it's really Snowball IX, but it'd be too much effort to change the name on the bowl, so Marge suggested they pretend that this all just never happened.


My heart wrenched. My heart is still wrenching.


Cal Worthington will die. And so will I.

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So I called on that interview, and yes, it was going to be more like a solicitation instead of an interview. Blah. I cancelled, as if you couldn't figure that out.


I would just like to say, for the record, that I think what that agency did was shady. I mean, getting the ranks of the unemployed excited about a phony interview is just mean. Plus, they were trying to take advantage of my career desperation to try to lure me into their weird "Be in business for yourself, not by yourself" nonsense.


Anyway... ever since I cancelled the interview, my life has been absorbed by The Sims (Vacation edition, although none of my Sims have gone on vacation because they couldn't afford it). My friend Mike asked me the other day if I played The Sims anymore, and I haven't played since the Spring 2003 semester. So I suddenly got the urge to live vicariously through my Sims--seeing as how they all can get jobs simply by finding a newspaper or choose from 3 options on their home computer.


I should tell you that I don't play wussy Sims. I play Survivors Sims. I put 8 characters in a house, with hardly any money, and then they all have to get jobs and try to survive starting their kitchens on fire, and eletrocuting themselves by trying to fix their televisions on sticks (you know, the ones with the antennae).


This is the first time that all 8 have survived to get promoted rather far along in their careers. So far, no one has died. Which is strange, because this is the third time I've played this way, and I've always had at least one or two die. Colonel Sanders and Lara Croft each died last year in the aforementioned ways. But both Batman and Robin went to have fabulous careers as daredevils and crime enforcement.


This time around the cast of characters includes:


Lydia Deets from Beetlejuice. She's currently in love with Louie the Vampire (Louis, as in The Interview of a Vampire Brad Pitt Louis, but I call him Louie--not too shabby for Lydia). Louie is on the slacker career track, and he's currently a lifeguard, an irony I take great joy in. Lydia is also in love with Psylocke. (Is Laura going to be the only one who knows who Psylocke is?) Lydia is a ho. She's also in love with two of the neighbors. Psylocke is currently working for the government, which I find appropriate, at least until her brain gets switched. (Hyuck, hyuck, a joke only Laura can love.)


Next we have Mr. Pink from Reservoir Dogs. He's on the Life of Crime Career Path, another great one for appropriate-ness. (He's currently a bookie.) Then there's Rube from Dead Like Me (from the shows that are still on the air, Dead Like Me and Six Feet Under are my favorite). Rube is on a political career path. Not exciting. But he makes a lot of money, which is what was important at the beginning of the game, so the family could afford things like a toilet. Rube, unlike the other "famous" characters is not actually a true skin, but rather a grim reaper in full robe-wear walking around, playing chess and watching television.


I threw a Mermaid into the mix. She kind of waddles around, and it's funny. She's on the paranormal career track and she's a hypnotist at the moment. Rocket Robin Hood also joined the ranks of Survivors III, and he's on the science track. I like it when he was a test subject, but he's graduated on up to a science teacher now. Dead Prue from Charmed is there. I was going to use her for fodder, since I hate that show. But like I said, no one has died.


You know you're a sad individual when you're envying your Sims because they all have jobs. Heh.


Oh, another thing... Zappo and I have been staying up late, and there's nothing on tv really late at night. Except Boomerang. Oh my god. It's like a Hanna Barbera orgy. If I see another freakin' episode of Josie & The Pussycats I am going to puke and then poke my eyes out.


Then I could collect Social Security... but I'd still be unemployed... Hmmm... Nah... I don't think I could lose my eyesight over Josie & The Pussycats. They're too lame. I'd have to give it up for something cool. Like exchanging my eyesight for a cure to boredom. Or for the latest Gossip Girl novel. Or something. But not the freakin' Pussycats.

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Ammendment to earlier post:


So... I have reason to believe that my interview on Thursday is going to be more like a session to convince me to start my own business with Farmers peddling insurance.


The reason why I think this is three-fold, numerated in Japanese:


Ichi) The agency that called me said they found my resume on Careerbuilder.com -- and all the information on the position they had on the position was that it was probably either a Career Agent or Agent Manager. I went to Farmers website and found out that they try to solicite individuals to start their own businesses selling insurance. And the only listings that Farmers has on Careerbuilder themselves are ads that say, "Work for yourself, not by yourself."


Ni) When I went to Farmers Insurance's website, the only information they had on their careers were the ones about starting your own business, the way people can be affliate-like with Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


San) I did a search at Farmers website for available positions, and they had no available jobs that were called Career Agent or Agent Manager. But that's what it's called when you start your own business with them selling their insurance. You're called an "agent."


I'm going to call on this tomorrow and make sure they're going to try to assimilate me.

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My friend Brian is very helpful. He's sent me some job leads over the last few days. All in the dream industry in which I would love to work. (If you haven't figured out that it's movies, then you're a bit slow.)


So I sent him an e-mail thanking him for his dutiful eye keeping a lookout for me, especially in the midst of his own busy schedule. As soon as I push send on the letter, a place called Agent Resources calls me and offers to set up an interview with Farmers Insurance and Financial Services. They found my resume at Careerbuilder.com.


I have an interview on thursday at 4 PM.


I feel so ... desperate. Dirty. Low. And desperate some more.


Is it better to not have a job, and continue looking for jobs in your dream field, or is it better to pay bills with a paycheck than from your savings account?


I think Gungy and The Man's assistance is needed on this one. They both actually didn't work for about a year. But I don't know if they were looking for jobs, either. I do know that they had to live on savings, or in The Man's case, his wife's savings, at least for part of the year.


I said to Brian, "They got my resume off Careerbuilder.com ...ah, careerbuilder will be the end of me yet... such huge moral dilemmas I get myself into..."


Zappo said it would be a good practice interview, since I blew the last interview. But what if I am offered the job in a week, in a couple weeks, and I still have nothing?


So I need your opinions. Is it better to keep the hope alive until it works out, or is it better to sell out and take a job with Farmers Insurance, considering they offer me one?

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My cat smelled like poo.


So I gave her a bath.


She got so stressed out, that after the bath was over, at some point between 11:30 PM and 4:00 AM (when I found it) she had vomited all over the carpet.


Now it's not just a little puddle, as usual, when she's not feeling well. She's only thrown up 3 times in 2 years, this being the third time I can recall. But it was like she was walking and throwing up at the same time because it's like a stream.


And what makes this noteworthy is that my cat's throw-up was in the shape of Japan.


Right down to Hokkaido.


I'd take a picture, but then I'd have to commit myself.

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When I was in Canada last week, I had the insane pleasure of experiencing Rocket Robin Hood. This is whole episode for your viewing pleasure.


Rocket Robin Hood lives on Sherwood Asteroid and is a thoroughly Canadian cartoon. I did a search and apparently a lot of Canadians are quite proud of their Rocket Robin Hood childhood roots. It's animation is some of the worst I have ever witnessed. It's like a scaled down version of Superfriends--which by the way I just watched a whole half-hour of, and I haven't laughed so hard in least a week (since I watched Rocket Robin Hood).


Speaking of Superfriends, I could have sworn that there were twins who had superpowers on the team. But maybe that was the Justice League. Anyway, there's this character called Firestorm is just so... ridiculously overpowered.


"Firestorm's principle power is the ability to perceive and rearrange the atomic structure of matter. He can also alter the density of objects, including his own body, even to render himself intangible. Firestorm can project bolts of nuclear energy, fly at great speeds, and absorb explosive force and radiation into his body harmlessly. However, if he directs his power against organic matter other than himself, he causes only an energy feedback that may harm him. Also, he can't project energy bolts while intangible." (You can read more on Firestorm here, but I think you get the gist.)


The episode I saw included the Mirror Master, a man who fights with a woman's compact. I kid you not. (To get an idea of what the dialog was like in the episode, read this snippet from a Green Lantern advertisement for Twinkies.) He beams light into the eyes of Samurai and Firestorm, thus rendering them incapacitated from the blindness, but later beams that same light at a rock, and starts a mini-avalanche. Oh, this same wonderous fighting compact was also used to trap Superman, Batman, Robin and Firestorm in the 6th dimension. Um. Is it the beam: light, kinetic energy, or a matter transporter? Oh who cares, the man is fighting with his wife's Cover Girl powerpuff compact of doom!


Please, do your belly a favor and read some of the explanations of Super Friends at Seanbaby.com. The one on Apache Chief is especially good.

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It's time for bed when you turn the tv on and see this on Showtime: Lord of the G-Strings, three sexy Throbbits must destroy a legendary artifact.

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You know you're having a bad day when this starts to look like a good idea.


So. I did not get the PR Assistant job. The man who interviewed me was quite nice about it all, though, which is to say that his being nice stung worse than had he screamed in my face, with a little spittle splattering all over the place, that I was unqualified and ignorant to boot.


As I explained earlier, the job was for a publicity place that handles independent and foreign film marketing and oscar campaigns. The job sounded dreamy: $24,000 to start, then two months later benefits kick in and the pay raises to $26,000 a year. Oh, and 2 weeks paid vacation.


But I was not familiar enough with independent and foreign films. I couldn't name independent and foreign films that I have seen recently.


I've been going to school full time for the last 2 years. I have not had a break from school. I went during the summer. I went during the Winter mini-mester that was offered in January.


I had no life. We barely rented movies, let alone went to the movies.


But because I was not familiar enough with independent and foreign films, I was informed that they were looking for someone more knowledgable.


The sad thing is, I used to be knowledgable. 4 years ago, when all I had to worry about was me and my own scrawy bills, I rented movies and went and saw movies, and I read articles in magazines. I knew a lot. 4 years ago.


Ya know, back in high school. Before college absorbed my life.


I feel like curling into a little ball and crying.


I was in the shower for 2 hours this afternoon. I like showers because my tears and mingle with the shower water in droplets on my body, and you can't tell which are which. It makes me feel less like a loser.

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Hey, check it out: the beginnings of semblance.


I'm pretty excited. I did all the design tonight. I must be in an ambitious mood.

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