Slippery Slope

I'm the kind of person who can't get started on something before she knows every single step she'll need to take along the way, and preferably the outcome as well. This worked out fine in middle and high school English classes where we still had to write formulaic five-paragraph essays. Don't get me wrong, I hated doing it, but the concept of an outline of arguments and examples worked great for me. I still have a hard time understanding people like my boyfriend, who start writing a paper with the main ideas and information in mind, but won't figure out the final flow, or even the point of the whole thing, until the end. (Maybe not 'til the fourth draft, months after it's been turned in and graded.)

With things like job applications, I have to convince myself I could do the job, I could want the job, I would be able to commute to the job, and someone might consider me for the job, before I can sit down and try to convince anyone else, via the cover letter, to consider me for the job for even a moment. I don't want to hang a picture or pick out new curtains until I know all the other pictures I'm going to hang and what the new duvet cover will look like. It's all or nothing.

With the jobs I already have, this can translate to deep (and undeserved) loyalty. The better I know the job, the less likely I am to leave. Inertia is a powerful thing.

This might be the most deeply-rooted facet of my personality. Procrastination justified by a difficult requirement of certainty.

This acceptable configuration (of disparate things) did not make the cut.

Loyalty is not a bad thing. If you're my friend, I want you to be my friend forever, and I'll do what I can to make it so. If taught convincingly, a lesson is set in stone in my mind. Perfectionism, though—I've been warned against it my whole life. It's a great way to get nothing done and go nowhere. My family taught me that.

I Changed My Mind

The verdict is in, and my previous thoughts are overturned: cover letters are the worst.

I say this because I wrote, not one, not two, but THREE cover letters before Thanksgiving, for three jobs I was totally qualified for but that weren't all totally generic and essentially beneath me, and I heard ZILCH.

And now I am trying to write another one, but I feel like I need to do something different because, again, no one liked the last letters! But what can I do different. How do I make you hire me for this lackluster job no one could possibly really desire. But I do want it, I do, I really do! (Really, please, make my next twelve months less of a giant, gaping, mysterious hole!)

I have to go to work number three in two hours, and before then, I also need to call someone, who then will tell me to call someone else, about how my identity has still not been verified for the healthcare exchange application, and isn't this life FUN?

Today's an all caps, all cramps kind of day, I guess.

In other news, my computer is by a window today, and although the window is extraordinarily drafty and chills the keyboard, the heater goes all along the floor under my desk, and it is warm and great. Thank goodness for fingerless gloves and SUNLIGHT.

(Also I now have over 30,000 Delta SkyMiles, thanks to my newest credit card, so, watch out, world, I'm halfway to Europe FOR FREE.)

You Can Drag A Horse to Water But You Can't Make Her Write a Meaningful Sentence (Or Can You?)

Or Cover Letters: Not That Bad?

For me, conceptually, cover letters and resumes are The Worst. Meaningless salutations ("To whom it may concern"), formulaic paragraphs that relate my personal identity to some boring job posted on the internet? Some unknown human is going to read this embarrassing letter? "Kill me now" is my official stance on job applications. I'm obviously not alone in this.

For some people, who I imagine must be both highly motivated and mostly or completely unemployed, cover letter tweaking and dispatching is a robotic nothing experience that they do for many hours each day, until they are offered a job or have to start working at a coffee shop. These people, I imagine, know what they want and have some baseline of qualifying skills, so they are just doing essentially the same thing, over and over again. They aren't casting about in the dark for any possible handhold, like I have been, and so they can be robots--whereas I must fabricate a bridge to each opportunity and hope everyone involved will join me in my wishful thinking, accept my persuasive tactics long enough to hire me. Writing the sentences, or even the basic sentiments one by one can be like forcing myself to tiptoe across a floor totally covered in broken glass, trying to land on the few safe centimeters of space.

Kill me now.

But I've been practicing this process for a while now, off and on, and so there aren't so many gaps to fill in the resume. I've had one cover letter that got a response, so I know now that I'm not fishing in a lake that is biologically dead, just one that's heavily over-fished. And what I've learned, with all this, is that resumes and cover letters can actually make me feel better about the lackluster jobs I've been spending all my time on. I realize that these jobs where I spend so much time doing nothing have actually imparted a number of useful skills. Despite the downtime, I have had many responsibilities.

So that one successful cover letter of my life thus far. This specific posting didn't require a cover letter, but I figured, I can do this, I can do this (just fucking do it), I can write a few sentences about why I want this tiny part-time job in the few minutes before I get out of work and walk to other work (an exciting Friday night). At the interview, she asked me if I was interested in going into that field, and I said I wasn't sure, but maybe. I wanted to find out. She told me she liked my letter, that it was confident. I got the job. (This was in September.)

The job is only nine hours a week, though, and so I hope they won't care too much if I find something that pays for a full life. And next time I get an interview, I will say YES I want to go into the field. Let's throw ourselves off the cliff, guys. We can always back out later when the going gets mind-numbingly awful. Or before then--file that under "Things I Need to Work On."

On the Plus Side, My Bed Is Comfy

I started my health care application today. It is not geared toward people with temporary income, and of course, my most temporary job, which will have ended before my insurance coverage begins, pays at least 50% more than all other jobs I've had in the past two years. So that's screwing up the data.

Also I am scared of this temporary job ending, and what I am supposed to do with myself, day in, day out*, for the rest of my life, and also, everything, always. So I'm gonna say that attempting to apply for health insurance was good enough for now, and goodnight, world, I'm gonna be sleepy tomorrow.

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*Or as Estorbo de la Bodega Dominicana would say, "dayeen, dayoud"—I've been reading 66 Square Feet for a year and a half, but only noticed her cat's blog (which actually came first) two days ago. I love it and wish that our fake cat narratives were as well-rounded as hers.

Addiction

I just.

Zombie.

The internet is truly evil.

I can't even explain it, but then I maybe can, but then again, how can this (lovely, beautifully slim, perfectly functioning) computer screen ensnare me so? There are many things I would have rather done with the last few hours of day.

Ruts

These are some good-looking ruts.

Last week when I got on the elliptical after lifting some weights (it's always time to do arms), everything was perfect and the "running" just happened and it felt good and I was trying the whole way through.

Today I forced myself out of bed, slowly, but not too slowly, because it is always better to get out and up and start thinking and doing. But I didn't do anything, really. I now know that I should have slept in. I should have gone back to sleep at the moment when the curtains were still shut and it was that perfect gloomy grey, and I felt the covers against my skin and I knew, I just knew that being asleep would be perfect.

But I also know, intellectually, that getting things done feels better, at least if they are worthwhile things, and especially if the worthwhile things are accompanied by dish-cleaning, so that all the surfaces everywhere are clear and easy to look at. So I got up. I pulled on leggings instead of clothes—I'd like to be working on the habit of getting fully dressed when I get out of bed, like I used to in high school, but so far, no luck—and I checked the evil internet and then I ate some cereal and then I just couldn't.

Or I didn't.

I didn't do anything besides finish reading an article I started last night, and plan out my evening, reluctantly, because do I deserve a social evening when I didn't have a productive morning?

I think I'm broken. My boyfriend said I'm in a rut and it's so true. I'm in a series of ruts, though. I slide from one rut to the next. Each rut has a set of anxieties and guiltinesses and warring impulses, and together they are inescapable. (Free time, money. Exercise versus reading blogs versus reading literature versus reading about translation versus translating versus friends versus cooking versus drinking versus shopping. Knowing some of what I want theoretically but not wanting it in the immediate moment, and not knowing in the long term.)

Maybe Emma's instincts are right. Maybe my boyfriend is right. Maybe we have to obliterate the entire terrain, so that there are no ruts, but also no tracks. Nothing to trap us but also nothing to lead us.

My boyfriend says that my commitment to incremental progress may not be enough. In terms of livelihood, I know that's true. There's got to be a leap somewhere. Not necessarily a big one. But no more of the same thing—not a better-paid job like this one. Not another restaurant. New things, new lessons.

Emma wants to move away. A fresh start. A bigger place with new people and more opportunities (and less driving).

But I really love the people here, and an escape is not necessarily a solution.

I Want

a loaf of bread
2-5 apples (get me through the weekend or the week)
new red lipstick (lost mine)
a borrowed iron
the will to hem my curtains (hinges on iron)
donuts and cider
$20 to get through the week

That's all I want this weekend, at least that's tangible/measurable (if the curtains are hemmed, the will was there).

Paying back student loans, it turns out, saps all your extra money. No paid sick or vacation days kills the possibility for extra money. Life, friends, is boring!

 My brother's baking bread today, so hopefully by tomorrow I'll have some. Free, and so delicious.

I'm going to the cider mill tomorrow, even though the money was spent yesterday on mulled wine at the new beer garden and Strongbow and cheddar ale soup and ravioli, split with Emma. A beautiful evening followed by a lovely date with cocktails and pizza and a tasty s'more.

As for lipstick – red lip gloss forever, I guess. It's been running out for a year, but never actually does.

Hot Beef

Emma:  I think I'm going back to the part of my life where I try to not eat flour

 me:  oh SADZ

NOW

 Emma:  I know

except for like a treat

 me:  i was trying to give up a thing or two every week

like, sweets 

 Emma:  it makes it easier to be less hungry

 me:  or snacks

or alcohol

but not all three

but i couldn't even pick one

or decide if a smoothie was a sweet

so i gave up

and then i had a hot beef sandwich at the sidestreet diner last night with my parents

omg

the fakest white bread plus roast beef so good covered in such good gravy the whole plate

and a big scoop of delicious mashed potatoes in the middle under the gravy

and then a scoop of my mom's potatoes

and a corner of my mom's sandwich too

and then three bites of peach cobbler covered in whipped cream with cinnamon on top

oh my god

can this be a blog post?

 Emma:  that sounds like a bob dylan song

Negative Anticipation

How do you overcome the end-of-vacation dread? Or, if you're me, end-of-tiny-one-day-weekend or sometimes simply end-of-Thursday dread, because Thursday is a nice, pleasant day, and Friday is not.

I had a great Thanksgiving break. Wednesday night, I got to go to IKEA and eat the new version of the Daim-Torte that has cream! on top under a layer of chocolate, and my boyfriend bought a couch. Which I will get to sit on! someday in the future when perhaps I, perhaps he, perhaps a team effort has put it together. And then my dad had cooked my brother John and me meatloaf for dinner. In the morning, my family actually left on time to drive to my cousins' in Lansing, where we drank delicious late Riesling and I ate my third Thanksgiving feast of the week. On Friday, I went to my five-year high school reunion, and it was actually really fun. It was actually too short, or maybe just too crowded by the end. (We agreed that no one had really gotten fat.) I spent Saturday morning catching up with a friend from my year in Germany, and the afternoon was the fourth and final Thanksgiving, complete with tasty apple crisp—there's something different at every one—and a timid cat who not only allowed, but asked me to pet her for the first time ever.

And then it was home again, home again. I was sullen because I didn't know how I wanted to spend those last few hours of freedom. I'd been in a bad mood all day, when not otherwise occupied, and I couldn't shake it. Like I've written before, it gets better once I'm in it, it being that stupid normal thing that happens all the time and yet I dread, but it's so hard to convince myself ahead of time. At work at the restaurant on Sunday, we were doing what you might term 'deep cleaning,' because there wasn't a lot of business, and cleanliness is great. They're not all pleasant tasks, but it was fine. I got some stupid satisfaction from making things clean, and I chatted with my co-workers between tasks. When I left work, I was in a good mood. Once I sat down in the computer lab, after standing for seven hours, I almost fell asleep. Then I almost had Panera for dinner, but it closes early on Sundays. Then I almost made Kraft mac and cheese for dinner, but—surprise ending!–I had dinner with a friend and her mom who had just finished seeing a movie at my favorite theater, and everything was nice. I just wish I had been able to avoid the negative anticipation of the day before.

How can a regular human being like me avoid it? Or—why are vacations so seldom long enough?