Arms and the Crazy

Is the world on crack? I swear there's some lunar alignment that has everyone batshit these last few days. I have a start date A WEEK LATER than I had hoped because my dad has ultimate guilt power over me (peep that internet-safe allusion). Plans for this weekend have been a revolving door of expectation and disappointment, and I have at least 6 hours of freelancing to squeeze in before sunday evening.

Adulthood is hard.
" " humid.
" " kind of slutty.

so i've had 3 job interviews -- two with progressive non-profits and one with a giant music industry conglomerate. i don't know what i want to be when i grow up.

still working at trois pommes patisserie, and while it remains distressingly delicious and generally pleasant, i grow increasingly tired of not having a job that allows me real weekends and livable pay.

i think i'm going to las vegas with my mom and cousin paula for 4 days soon. what? srsly?

i recently finished reading middlesex by jeffrey eugenides; it was incredible.

My Pain

Sorry Everyone,

I'm far too busy just wasting away my life on the sandy white shores of Sunset Beach to post anything right now. I'm going to be all tied up with the beach for the next two weeks.

Ugh, my life is so hard.

Aux armes etceteras

Rise up, fellow blogites and blog!

I'm thinking of coming up to NY either this weekend or next... whichever weekend has cooler weather.

Thanks, Arthur.

I was mid-precis at the time of this: 

But seriously, I feel like bears are EVERYWHERE.

It all started when Team Face recalled the "Bear City" shorts on SNL (gag, I know), and suddenly singing the jingle and saying "bear city" at completely unnecessary times became the norm.  

And then I realized that this uh, school-related person, for vagueness' sake REALLY REALLY REALLY REMINDS ME OF A BEAR.  Like imagine if a person was slowly becoming a bear, to an uncanny degree.  It's haunting.

I have a really odd schedule and procrastinate a lot, so much of this is done by nosing around ONTD.  It is here that I learned about Pedo-Bear, mainly in relation to teenybopper-, I'm sorry, tween?-related posts about Disney Channel stars (sidenote-new guilty pleasure is totally Hannah Montana; I keep it on in the background while I read lots of Derrida and Freud [teehee]).   There was an episode of Hannah Montana the other day with a stuffed bear in it.  BEARS EVERYWHERE.

Fast forward to tonight, in my Dead Performers class, where we talked about what? BEARS.  Teddybears.  Sent as a memorial from something in Oklahoma to NYC for 9/11.  Bears as surrogate mourners.  BEARS.

But this Dead Performers class is really great.  I LOOOOOOVE the instructor, who is Kay Turner, matriarch (or something) of the Brooklyn Arts Council and general awesome riot of intellectual laughs and greatness.  And the people in my class are fantastic; it's a smaller class than the intro, so discussion is a lot more focused and relevant.   The sucky thing is that it meets from 6:30-9:15, which is just really, really odd.  

The journal job is fun too.  My co-workers/boss(es) are all very different but make great officemates.  My kindof main boss often yells profanities at the top of her lungs with the door to the hallway open.  I get to email very important people sometimes.  Something else about a bear happened at work the other day, but I don't remember what, just that it was ANOTHER BEAR.

Oh, and Charlotte got a BlackBeary.

Yours + Mine

So I have taken a full-time position with AmEx working as a listings producer. I'll be with my dad's company for another week or two but then my quality of life skyrockets as my quality of bankaccount stagnates just a bit.

I've had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with new loves: Alex (duh...she's old [ass]hat now), Abby (soon to be everyone's new best friend), Dan P (ok, not tons of time but more than usual. I make a surprising wingman and vice versa), and some people from summers past. Still trying to figure out a balance between work and socializing, kind of like freshman year all over again.

I hope I can get a job teaching fitness classes once I'm settled at AmEx. I've been running but I miss having a fitness following.

so that's where I am now. Alex?

State of Everyone Else?

Photo courtesy of Art Exchange Africa's website. You can purchase figurines like this for several thousand U.S. dollars.

---

Is everyone else on this blog deceased? This is like the hiatus between sitcom seasons.

Will Cait find gainful employment?

Can Sam merge into the professional world and remain looking absolutely, stunningly cool?

Is Dave still enjoying his "Dalby" time? Or is it now "Deleterious Dalby?"

Where's Andy? Where is Andy?

Has Alex resuscitated Charlotte from the bottle and despair? Is Charlotte on top of the world?

What's the state of Lucia's mind, body and soul? Is she maintaining her fiercely independent Latin flavor amid work, absent housemates and cheap Mexican food?

Likewise, is Da-iel P---------g going to honor dust jackets across this merry nation with his Dutchonymous name?

Will Josh only greet his fellow bloggers and then perish among the many short-lived blogging attempts in this vast undiscovered e-country?

I'll finish with a politician's universal call to action: "People of Berlin ... this is our moment!"

P.S. I was on Youtube.com for some random task, I think the subject was innocent enough--anyhow, I came across a video (flagged for age verification) of a live human birth. Talking Point: When will births become obsolete, much like Gary Shandling predicted back in the 20th century?

New Blog

Hi all-

I'm powering up another level in the techno-world!

For practical purposes, I'm starting a new blog where I can catalog my own thoughts and works rather than fill up this space here (as if we needed more postings on this site anyway!).

You can follow my work and ego at http://deanredwards.blogspot.com/. See you around!

-Dean

State of Life

Life has eased into a gentle rhythm; work isn't very strenuous and the living is pretty fine, too. Cassie, Ryan and I are welcoming into the house a third roommate, fellow graduate Sarah McCann, sometime this August. Until then, Laura Allen--yet another W&M presence in our home--is our guest for three weeks or so.

Weeks pass by relatively quickly, and recent weekends have seemed like brief pauses between what have been enjoyable weeks at the News-Press--I'm at home there.

In other news, Taylor Rubin and I have spoken about heading to the Northern City sometime, which will be a relief from the D.C. area humidity and low-rise buildings. I will enjoy losing myself among skyscrapers and traffic grids--hell, anything is better than D.C.'s roads.

So my brief update must be a relatively mundane one: I can't be much more descriptive about my life. Perhaps more will come here when I've done more at work--speaking of which, there is a public mixer tomorrow open to anyone in Falls Church; plenty of wine to boot. I'll be able to schmooze with the Chamber of Commerce and some odd guests that have been described to me as large bearded men wearing garish white fur coats, who never talk but eat everything at the annual gig--good times! I can't wait for the White House Correspondents & Press Dinner; that should be good fun, too, meeting the big wigs.

I learned a lot about the em and en dashes today, too. Apparently the em dash is considered "Victorian" and outmoded. Alackaday! And the AP Style Book removed "Milquetoast" as a preferred word. O tempores, o mores!

Fin.

P.S. Went to the Botanic Gardens this past weekend. I was able to see the plant that gives us precious quinine--once known, of course, as "Jesuit's Bark," per the first European contacts with the plant material. Also, Microsoft Words suggests that "of course" is haughty. I agree.

omg

i really really really want a kitten. they have a kitten adoption palooza right by our apartment every saturday and this week i was really close to stealing one forever. one in particular -- his name was "darky" and he was really frisky. i watched him roll around in a box of shredded newspaper for like ten minutes. i was squealing the whole time.
we're technically not allowed to have pets in our apartment but no one would ever find out if we did. i'm thinking about talking to the roommates about becoming a kitten foster parent, which means you keep them for about 2 weeks until they get adopted for reals. then you can get a new one. this sounds like a win-win. no commitment, and you always have a kitten and never a cat. it's the god damn kitten fountain of youth.

UGHHH LOOK

joy

The Chair of Joy.
My boss gave it to me because he was going to throw it away (!?).

a cover letter

Dear Company ________,
I am writing to you regarding the _______ position. I am thrilled to be considered for this opportunity. I've applied for approximately six thousand other jobs that have not called me to schedule an interview and, upon finding this job listing, came to understand that I would be able to complete this job while simultaneously g-chatting and playing 5 games of Scrabulous. Additionally, I would receive health benefits under your employ. These are values I strongly adhere to. I am honored to be considered for this position and would love to become a member of your team, in spite of the fact I have never heard of your organization (seriously, who has?).
As my resume will surely help you to understand, I am very overqualified for this job. In fact, there are chimpanzees that are very overqualified for this job. Nevertheless, you probably won't call me, because you probably only call NYU students. They are exorbitantly wealthy and there are zillions of them, true, and living in Virginia for the undergraduate years hasn't taught me much about the rich cultural fabric of New York City, true. But they are just idiots with good haircuts. Come on, you know its true.
So, employer, call me. Seriously. Help me end this depersonalizing charade called "the job search." As a skilled and smart human being, I don't want to deal with this inexplicable rejection any longer, and you don't want to expend the effort to go through all those remaining resumes. You won't be disappointed.

Yours,
Caitlyn Smith

P.S. I'm cute.

P.P.S. I know where you live.

HALT

you know that TIPS training acronym that's all "hey kids, just remember to HALT: don't drink if you're Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired"

well up yours tips, I'm stickin' it to the man now.

I just spend an hour in the waiting room of a dank brooklyn oral surgeon to find out (within 5 minutes) that it will take 2 k and a lot of tears to pull out my wisdom teeth. But he threw in an english-majors-have-no-futures joke for free.

Work is shit. I have no life.

but i do have wine.

In other news, I booked my flight to Prague for February 2009. I'm staying with Philip Clark, William and Mary 08.

better late than never

Why helloooooo there everybody!

This is my first post to this blog. Sorry for taking so long...it's been a bit difficult to find the inspiration to do this, especially amidst the crazy changes going on in my life. Allow me to update you:
- I just moved into my new place, a huge, old house in Woodley Park (for those of you who aren't familair with DC, it's the neighborhood located all around the National Zoo, also sandwiched between Cleveland Park and Adams Morgan. A pretty sweet place.) that I share with 3 other housemates (technically 4, but the 4th housemate is perpetually MIA-she moved in with her bf? i dont know). It's pretty nice, the location is wonderful, but I have been so busy putting my room together that I haven't gotten a chance yet to really explore. All I do know is that I walked home drunkenly from Adams Morgan on thursday and made it home quickly and alive, and that there is a Chipotle around the corner, which is basically the reason I moved here. I am happy with the place but I could really use a chair--I have been using my bed as a chair and it's not so good.

- I am officially employed! I am working for the same curator I worked for last semester. It's been exhausting but really great, I have a 45 minutes-1hour commute to work e'eryday, which kind of sucks. I am just waiting on that first paycheck. Man, the day I get that will be the best day ever. Especially because it means I can buy my own food instead of eating all the food of the people whose house I am currently "sitting". I am going to be really embarrassed once they come back and see that their fridge is empty.

Despite all of this great stuff going on, I have been falling into little ruts here and there, especially over the weekends. Like I don't know what to do with myself now that I am far away from the overly-social atmosphere of college. A lot of my friends still live in NOVA, or are scattered around other parts of the city, and I am not used to waking up and having to figure out how to get to the people I want to see--I actually miss walking into my disgusting williamsburg kitchen and happening upon people to talk to. Who am I kidding, I miss that whole damn house, except maybe the bathroom.

kuyki ("love" in quechua, the language i am (hoping to) learn[ing])

Lu