I can’t begin to count how many copies of my resumé and how many cover letters are swirling around out there for me right now. No job, though, even though I’ve been told many times that my “credentials are impressive!”

But nothing, in fact, has happened beyond that.

Months later, nothing. I am starting to wonder if I will be okay.

I already spent $$$ applying for a particular education job.

– $$ to send a credentials file containing recommendations, grades, etc.
– $$ to send multiple copies of application, diversity statement, equivalency, etc.

Then they call me yesterday and it turns out that half of it arrived all mangled and illegible. Great. So I re-fax one missiong portion at Kinko’s. Did you know that Kinko’s charges TWO DOLLARS FOR THE FIRST PAGE and A DOLLAR A PAGE FOR EACH THEREAFTER to fax? What a f’in racket!

Well, that’s nothing because then I called the credentials service about an illegible copy of a confidential file that they sent. I asked if they’d do me the favor of faxing a replacement, since they don’t have fax listed as a sending option anywhere in their materials or on their web site. “Sure, I’ll do you a favor and send it by fax. What’s the number?” asked the girl on the other end.

Well, they just emailed me a receipt. They charged me SIX DOLLARS to fax ONE PAGE. Jesus, I thought she was “doing me a favor.” Total now spent on one application: $37.35. That’s ONE APPLICATION, folks, and it doesn’t count the cost of just getting things on confidential file in the first place. I was thinking I was going to apply to teach ’05-06 at ten or twenty schools, but I don’t have $800 sitting around just wanting to be burned for job hunts.

How the hell can people afford to apply for jobs at this level?

—

I suppose this isn’t the case for the people who are being buried under mud, losing their houses, etc., but I find the rain to be very soothing. Sitting in a Starbucks and watching the rain fall outside while Susan McKeown plays (they finally changed the ambient music in here) is one of the nicest things I’ve done in a while. Starbucks is becoming, for better or for worse, my home these days.

—

I feel sad and sort of crazy, like I don’t understand or know anything. I have no idea what to want, what to think, what to do next. I have no idea about anything. I’m tired.

Insight of the day:

“I’m hanging on, secretly waiting for circumstances to change. You’re hanging on, secretly waiting for me to adjust to circumstances.”

—

On my first personal Word Wide Web site more than ten years ago, I had no graphics and no photos. Somewhere on it, I jokingly said I’d get a scanner soon and post some photos of myself. At the time, off-brand 150dpi greyscale scanners were like $500.

Last night I bought a 36-bit color HP 1200dpi USB scanner for $0.90, exactly four cents more than a bean burrito at Taco Bell.

—

It’s all sound and fury signifying nothing. It’s still cold, it’s still morning, it’s still California. It’s all joyously silly. It’s all desperately sad. Seconds are ticking by.

10,581.

This is a post in leiu of what I would say if I could say it. But I can’t, so this is here instead. But all of the emotion is here along with it, at least.

This is a post to cling and a post to hope and a post to run.

It’s a post that, regrettably, doesn’t say anything at all.

     Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,
     Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,–
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

—

walled in on my way like i often went,
i couldn’t carry the message
all the way to you,
so i ducked out of the train and left it at grand,
it’s right next to the elevator,
between two tiles.
i hope you find it;
i wish our paths had crossed again.

So I got a new phone. Now my phone rings where I stay, at least, but I still can’t usually seem to answer it. Not very helpful. Not very helpful at all.

—

This is part of a continuing effort to get a site indexed at Google.

night 1…
“How was your new job today? What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. There’s nothing to tell. Let’s not talk about it.”

night 2…
“How was work today? What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nope. I really don’t do all that much. Just sat again. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

…

night 364…
“How was work today? What exactly do you do? You’ve been at it a while now.”
“Still nothing, same as always!”
“Nothing?”
“Yes! Nothing! I do nothing all day! I’m sorry my life is so boring. Maybe you should dump me.”
“No, I’m sorry, I’ll stop asking. It’s okay if you do nothing all day.”

night 365…
“How was work today?”
“Actually, I have to leave in five minutes.”
“Why?”
“To go and collect a prize.”
“A prize?”
“Yeah, it’s no big deal.”
“What kind of prize?”
“Just a Nobel Prize. I guess there’s a gala, and an address to the United Nations or something.”
“Nobel Prize!? That’s great! What did you to do deserve a nobel prize? And when?!”
“Nothing. I don’t do anything.”
“Nothing happens at work? They’re just giving you a Nobel Prize? You never told me any of this!”
“That’s because it’s not a big deal! Why can’t you understand that?”
“But I always ask about your work!?”
“Well, I’m telling you now. Anyway, the committee members and I were drunk when it was decided.”
“You know the committee members!? You drink with them!?”
“Oh, Jesus Christ! I don’t want to talk about it!”
“Well am I invited to the gala? I haven’t eaten yet, and I’d like to see what you do.”
“No, I think it would be awkward if you came. Nobody there would know you.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah, just stay home and be pretty. Watch some television. I’ll be back in a few hours. Byeeee.”

We live in a nation of skanky, selfish people, broken loyalties, and dysfunctional relationships. We are ugly. All of us.

Sarah Jessica Parker
Post-V-Day Stuff

—

Secretive people have something to hide.

I love you guys, you rule.

Never know, never know
what’s the right thing-o
all ich can grok is that
es ist nur so
(und so)
la di da di da di da fukkin da hehe
yah

alles was so easier,,,
when i had my copy of the encyclopedia of the future
i shouldna ever sold it
to buy that twelve pack of sapporo
on sale at the japanomart

but that’s what happens

Never know, never know
what’s the right thing-o
all ich can grok is that
es ist nur so
(und so)
la di da di da di da fukkin da hehe
yah

alles was so easier,,,
when i had my copy of the encyclopedia of the future
i shouldna ever sold it
to buy that twelve pack of sapporo
on sale at the japanomart

but that’s what happens

How do you make it? I must do research.

—

I have listed a pile of small-value things on eBay. I need to list another pile shortly. I’m running near the end of my rope. I’m gonna call the temp people and see if they have anything. If I don’t get this job this week, there is a chance that I’ll cease to exist. At all. Because in our culture, if you have no car, no phone, and no money, you are simply not there.

Not good.

—

There was this function last night at which other University of Chicago grads were also attending. It was like a meeting of the Good Old Boys network. It would have been great if it were I weren’t so broke (the lack of financial power being an omnipresent reminder of the fact that I’m not really so successful after all, at much of anything, yet).

I wish I was more career-minded. Now, getting closer to a year after leaving campus, I am wishing I’d used the Career Advising and Planning Services office. Whenever such things are available to me, I tell myself (and sometimes everyone else) that I don’t need that stuff, I’m far too independent. Then, later on, when other people are swimming in a sea of coin and opportunity and I’m not, and the service is no longer available to me, I realize that I’m a fool.

Gotta learn. Gotta learn.

The problem with private diary entries is that nobody ever sees what you wrote.
The problem with public diary entries is that someone always sees what you wrote.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if all of my private diary entries were accidentally made public.

There is nothing I want more.
and
There is nothing I want more to avoid.

—

Why do we humans spend so much time hurting each other and ourselves? And why are we so determined not to let people care about us, even as we desperately try manipulate them to ensure that they’ll continue to care?

We hold holidays for love full of products and advertisements amidst exploitation, unfaithfulness, killing, and destruction. How about for our love holiday, we all:

– Help those in need
– Tell the truth about ourselves and everything else
– Promise each other our loyalties
– Deliver on those loyalties, even if it means personal sacrifice
– Pursue peace

Chocolate’s okay, and so are roses and carbon crystals, but as measures of human caring, they’re monumentally stupid and hypocritical.

For today, I will try to forgive everyone who’s ever hurt me or lied to me. At least until tomorrow.

—

Every crime, from murder to rape to theft to espionage, is the result of an act of betrayal: a broken promise, a shattered expectation, a lie.

—

If you’re convinced that everyone is slimy, maybe you’re spending your time in the wrong places, with the wrong people. Maybe there is something about sliminess that you secretly like very much. Or maybe you just want to think of yourself as one of the slimy people, too.

The problem with private diaries is that nobody ever sees what you wrote.
The problem with public diaries is that someone always sees what you wrote.

—

To the world, and, of course, some more than others:

You out there: you are all liars. All of you. If I were to kill everyone who’s ever lied to me, my life would be empty. So I just play along; I humor everyone; I pretend not to know. Sometimes I wonder why I do it. Wouldn’t I be happier to finally do everything that lies make me want to do? Wouldn’t I be happier as the condemned multiple murderer, having killed everyone I love, rather than as the miserable idiot who everyone has always assumed they’ve fooled?

Lies.

You all tell me that you’re not lying, that you’ve never lied to me. If I ever let on that I’ve found you out, you tell me that you lied to protect me, or because it was in my best interest. That’s a lie, too. You all have always lied to protect your interests — to make sure that I’m a hostage, physically and emotionally. To make sure I’m around. To make sure that I’ll still care. Because you can’t bear to be alone and unloved, and yet you know — you know — that you’ve done things that make you undeserving and unloveable and unloveworthy; you know that really, if the world was fair, I wouldn’t care, shouldn’t care, and so you exploit me, tear me apart, rape me, feeling guilty always, but never too guilty to stop, never too guilty to really care about me, never too guilty to come clean about any of the lies.

You know that if I confront you — if any of us confronts each other — we’ll all be alone.

I hate humanity. I hate the lies. I have never known anything but lies, from anyone. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers — liars. The only way out is destruction, because solitude is unbearable — as unbearable as the lies. I am so hurt by everything I have ever known and everyone I have ever known. But because I am here and I am unwilling to kill myself and others, I pretend, day after interminable day, to think about other things: money, a class, a job, the sunshine, the ocean, a pet dog, a trip to the grocery store. But I never do and I never have. From the day I learned to think (the day I learned to speak), there has been only one thing. Only one thing: my suffering at the hands of lies.

And the bitter irony is twofold: first, that the suffering is the result of the lies themselves — and the loneliness and uncaring that they portend — rather than the result of the truth that you all think you’ve created; second, that those things that you have all lied about have always been infinitely less hurtful than the lies themselves. I can stand to be battered by life and cirumstance… but to be battered by everyone that I love is, and has always been, unforgivable.

I trust no-one. And in spite of my hopes, that tendency has never been anything but reinforced.

Sometimes (i.e. tonight) your life just looks fucking weird to you. Things aren’t what you expected them to be or feel they probably ought to be, though you can’t quite put your finger on what to change or how to rethink things.