Irrational Becoming Me

I just applied for a job in Reading, England. With an American phone company. But I thought, hey, maybe I'll end up in jolly old England again! And seeing as I'm quitting Ann it's the perfect time.

Oh, I'm quitting Ann. Ann has let things get out of control so I'm taking back the control and quitting. Quitting. I've done this before I think, yes, yes I have...July 4th I walked out.

Anyhow. I'm still recovering from my journey to escape Irene.

Walking, train, running, bus, train, train, taxi, car.

Doesn't sound so bad when you put it that way. There were a few arguments with people in charge of the transportation, ie the cabby. Why argue, sir, I'm paying you to drive me!

Anywho. Back to work tomorrow, have to figure out my life and such.

Now this is how a vacations is supposed to be

I am currently in Hoboken,  NJ.  It is the London roomie's b-day weekend and I'm here to relax, enjoy the stereotypical Jersey-ness that is around. The problem is Irene. Irene is not even a person. Irene is a stupid hurricane that is effing everything up. We can't stay until Sunday as was planned, Sunday NYC and Hoboken will but underwater seized by no less than tropical storm force winds.

So, yes, I'm boldly climbing aboard a bus tomorrow heading toward home and toward the storm. Panic has taken hold and I'm curious as to whether or not I'm making the right decision. The problem with the whole thing, there is still a chance that the bus gets canceled. It's the big freak out before the potential let down of the storm. Do I freak or stay cool and collected? I'm not sure.

NYC public transportation is closing. DC metro may end up closing. So I'm going to be super screwed. I'm not super excited about this whole thing.

The Curse of My Hometown

At my bank job I am allowed an hour of silly internet time a day. I rarely use that hour because 1.Though we are a slow branch there is only so much of People.com one can handle and 2. I have access to internet news free and clear. I spend a bit of time on the culture pages, read some of the more tasteful news blogs, check out the Guardian online (the sheer enormity of the site can keep me going for days) but out of habit, and perhaps ease of spelling, I always start my day on CNN.com. Yesterday, I made the mistake of ending it there.

I have to clarify this upfront my outrage and hurt have nothing to do with CNN, they were just creating a top ten type list and it so happened to pique my interest, I don't hold CNN responsible for my heartbreak.

I'm clicking through links and more links and end up here. The article is a wonderful place to read and dream, and there are pictures to aid me in this endeavor. I really wanted to know where the jobs are, and where I need to be to find these jobs. I clicked next after the first slide and nearly cried. Number two:Loudoun County.

I live there. I live here! I have for the majority of my twenty-three years. Most of my jobs have been in Loudoun County. All of my jobs in Loudoun County have been menial (with the exception of my internship at Weider History Group, that was intellectually stimulating, it was fun, it was professional) mindless jobs. I've worked at the outlet mall in Leesburg for nearly seven years. I've worked in labs and banks and doctor's offices for little pay and usually no benefits.

Before you get too agitated about the above point you need to know that for the last, well, no less than five years, Loudoun County has been either the first or second richest county per capita. So, yes, I'm jaded about making $8.51 an hour helping women who claim an income of $250000 a year only to be declined for a credit card that starts with a $250 limit.

Back to the living in the second best place to find a job. Verizon, Aol, and some other large tech companies are headquartered here. Verizon is having union troubles right now. Makes me wary of even considering working there, though I'm not qualified for anything. Aol is only anything anymore because it acquired Huffington Post recently and with that they acquired higher standards when it comes to experience.

Loudoun County is still a bit wild around the edges, my neighbors have cows. I just got bumped from a farm sitting gig while the farmers, a nurse and a federal law enforcement agent, are on vacation, they're Virginia Tech-student of a son is leasing himself to other farmers to make a bit of cash before heading back to school. Twenty miles east is where creepy suburbia begins, and not all Starbucks and WholeFoods, just white people, houses and expensive cars to go with credit debt and teeny-bopper clothes on the forty-somethings. Suburbia is a new invention, my parents moved to Loudoun County so that my father could help draft the plans for that evil.

So I'm in the right place. I have been applying to jobs and beseeching people to help me. So what if I lived in Loudoun County when people ate the chickens from their backyards. So what if my childhood friends were very successful in 4-H. I have the education. I have some of the experience. And the places I've lived while not living in Loudoun County have been dreams come true. London, New York, Harrisonburg. Dreams lived, and I can't find a job in my hometown.

Becoming the Nice Person I Used to Be

My mom keeps doing nice things, saying nice things, inviting people that she has disliked for 30 or so years to visit because "it'd be fun". Why all this niceness? She keeps saying "Somethings changing, I'm becoming the nice person I used to be." And I'm thinking the change of life usually does the opposite, makes you cranky. Do I suggest she sees a doctor? Changes in mood usually signify a brain tumor.

So does this mean that she's going to be perpetually nice? She hasn't asked about my rent yet this month, I left it in my car, for a week. She thought my snarky email to my grandmother in response to her whining about her age was a bit rude. All I said was that I, too, am aging everyday.  The woman told me I need to visit her, and I have to tell you she lives in a backward place and is a backward person and I out of respect for my elders I can only stand the woman for about two hours a year. I did promise that if I made it to her neck of the woods (a seven-ish hour drive) I'd take an extra day to visit. It was a sincere promise.

My new-nice-person-mom would visit her, if she didn't more or less hate the old bag as much as I do. Maybe that will be the straw that turns my mom into the callus role model I need.

Here's to hoping.

In the Clutch of the Crazies

Yeah, they're back. The crazies are getting me. And blue is blue but this has got to stop. I've toyed with the idea of seeing someone but the last thing I need is more drugs and further expense to add to the stress of working a bagillion (bajillion?) hours and not bringing home the bacon. Speaking of bacon, the crazies are making me fat, like, um, this fit yesterday, what can't I get it zipped, fat.

So the new thing is going to be how to not let the crazies get to me. Plan isn't a simple, somehow I have to become happy. And how does one become happy?

I think Martin Page and Francois Lelord seem to know how. But they're French so maybe it's a French thing, this happiness and contentment. Or maybe it's a man thing. But I'm leaning toward French. And maybe it's not a thing at all, because I'm reading these books and the characters find that after the search everywhere only to realize that what they had before was quite alright. So is what I have quite alright?

I guess I have to go through a great journey, across the globe, I must meet people who are happy and sleep with many, many happy men what want nothing other than a roll in the hay and nuzzling. Wait, that sounds French, or fictional. Too many books. But I do think the journey part of the idea holds water.

So the journey thing, you say I should go? Who pays? I'm still looking into the whole sugar daddy thing, the boss man tells me that all this fellow needs is $8 million in the bank and I can live on a slim four hundred thousand in interest every year. Which I think, maybe I could handle. Maybe, if I watched my electric bills and lived on rice and beans for two meals a day. I think I could do it.

Oh, right, but I can't because it was a thing that The Today Show exploited for ratings in the last week or so. This is a warning to The Today Show: Stop stepping on my toes, until I'm good enough to work for a living I need this. Thank you.

Then again, maybe my outed plan can still work, rich old men don't get up to watch The Today Show, they read the newspaper!

So anyhow, if anything a few weekends away, a few dates (take the freaking hint!), that could be the band-aid on the bullet wound for a bit. A real job would be super fantastic. A place to live. More French books?

Here's to the search for happiness!