on the incessant joys and obligations of participartory democracy

i believe the onion said it best 4 years ago: "a participatory democracy is like the lottery - you can't win if you don't play". they said funny things before this, too. i don't remember those things.

and yet...

i don't get why people don't vote . i jsut don't. man, i was so stoked when i turned 18 because it meant i could both buy cigarettes and vote. two things that i had been wanting to do since forever. and then there's complaints from said people - who, although they didn't exercise their rights still have an opinion. and it's great to be informed and feel a certain way about things, but seriously, if you're not going to vote i don't give a shit what you think about the elected representatives in this nation. because you apparently also didn't give a shit enough to voice your opinion in a platform where (in theory) it counts.

let me put it this way, i am an avid if jaded voter. my first election was 2000 (and we all know how awesome that one turned out). then 2002 saw sonny damn perdue get elected governor of georgia. then 2004, when it felt like the whole country was ready for regime change at home, jack shit happened. my luck with voting has been shaky, at best. but i do it. gladly. everytime. because i can. and because i appreciate that. even if it's a shady vote-counting/electoral process, and even if i don't think america really needs an electoral college anymore, i vote. i make my voice heard.

which...is kind of the point of a true democracy...

anypoo.

vote.

and i hope you vote for obama, but, i'm really just gonna be happy if you vote.

oh...dear...god...

it's another one of those moping about my life choices blog! yay!

so, yes. november is fast approaching. by my calculations, once i've written my rent check and paid for therapy and that other bill that's due in the first week of november, i'll have about $35 in my checking account until my next payday. which will be nov 14. this is assuming i don't buy groceries, take money out of my account, or need anything urgently that i don't currently own.

oh shit. Oooooohhhh shit.

so, um...i'm about to have a real big problem. i do have some savings, yes, and i'm comfortable taknig up to 200 more dollars out of savings. but, um...that's not gonig to be enough. let's put it this way...i'm making about 65% of what i had been making per month for the past, oh, 2.5 years. this is not okay. especially since what i had been making didn't really give me any money leftover at the end of each month for savings.

and i have been applying for any and every possible non-waiting tables job that is part-time that i can find. it's rough. it's really rough out there. and right now, it's not looking so good.

so...whereas before, i was having difficulty sleeping because of teaching the spider lesson at my otherwise nifty-but-part-time job, i am now having difficulty sleeping because of my financial situation created largely by my unwillingness to remain unhappy at a nightmare job.

theory - if it holds true - is that i am happier now. and to a large extent, yes. i am. but uh...wow am i worried. Wow. wow.

add to that, there's a lot of other shit happening right now. nevermind the whole national/international economic crisis and it being election season (which is stressful enough on its own), but then there's a lot of weird personal things happening right now including my further demonstrated inability to date successfully, octagenarian that i love and their many varied health crises, my sister having a really rough time of it right now, and impending mysterious changes at my artistic institute of choice (the one where don't get paid), and it's fucking cold already. it's uh...it's a lot.

and i hate to say it - especially since for the most part this year has been really positive for me, and on the whole i feel like i'm in a lot better 'headspace' now than i was 12 months ago - but the astrologers were right. 100%. i do, to an extent, fall into that horoscopery bullshit. no, my daily horoscope usually doesn't mean anything. and usually, i don't remember or care about the 'yearly astrological predictions', but all the ones that i read for 2008 essentially said that this year would be a doozy. and a doozy it has been. just...one thing after another this year. broad, sweeping, constant change. in all areas all teh time.

so i guess what i'm saying is, i'd like to get paid to be stable. maybe it's like a dare. like 'i dare you to not make any ginormous life changes for at least a week and to roll with the people around you making ginormous life changes in a pleasant manner and if you can do that, i'll give you $300'. Okay. sign me up. dare accepted! give me the $300! or even $100. or $10. whatever. i just...sigh..

okay, well...i'm going to go see if any online surveys need me to take them. i'm being dead serious, i signed up for like three 'get paid to take free online surveys' services yesterday. in addition to applying for a bunch of jobs.

heigh-ho...

things change so quickly...

it's hard to catch your breath, sometimes.

that's kind of what this year has been about. constant, sweeping change. over...everything.

it's been, well...it's been a year.

i'm...im dumb. you know when you've got something secret and you think you're being sneaky, but then there are days when you just feel like everyone knows everything? yeah.

that's not exactly why i'm dumb, i'm just...sigh.

in other news, all wedding cards are horribly written. all of them. and apparently, at this juncture, all the wedding cards at target have horrible writing in them. no blank wedding cards, they.

i'm sewing a dress to go to said wedding. this dress wil be awesome. and it feels good to sew again. like, really sew. not jsut 'i need to make something that can be torn off easily', but like an actual dress. for use in non-wrestling moments.

it feels good to tell the truth, too. i'm big on honesty anyway, and, well, i reckon i don't have as much courage as i should. or i get it and i get it at the wrong time, nu? anyway...i'm big on being truthful, especially when you don't really have anything to lose. or, that everything is kind of null and void anyway...sigh...

might get drunk again tonight.

help me obi wan kenobi*...

you're my only hope.

* if you are reading this note, you are obi wan kenobi. congrats jedi master.

so, yes. i no longer work at norcostco. this is great. great because that job was not great. at all. wowsers. worst job ever.

i love, love, LOVE my new job. Love it. can't say enough how happy it makes me. i'm at the center for puppetry arts in their distance learning program. i get to teach kids, make crafts, and be around as much puppety goodness as i can be around before i get tweaked out and have to get away from it. but...it's only part time.

you see, mama left hell to find something better, and it's working-ish. i'm fine monetarily until i pay october rent. then...we'll see.so, you my friends, if you hear of anything - even if it's like a week of stuffing envelopes - please, please, PLEASE let me know. i'm about to be CRAZY strapped for cash/living expenses and i don't really want to move in with my folks. i am not 'above' waiting tables, but would like to save that as a last resort and even then i'd still be looking for a steady day-time thing.

let me tell you when i can work - 2:30 to 5:30 or 6 (some nights even 6:30) M-Th, all day Friday (so, like 9 to 5 or 10 to 6 or whatever). that's - for those of you keeping track - about 22 hours that i can work per week. i'd like to avoid nights and weekends, if possible. but if you hear of something that needs doing and will pay me to do, and it's on the weekends, please let me know.

i'm sorry to make this whiny/help me/i'm an idiot so help me find a way to eat, but uh...yeah.

thanks for your time. lemme know how i can help you...word.

oh, and if you stumbled over here from another blog, with the promise of fun times, just...read other things...or i'll get goofy and post something here...whatever...

alright norcostco,

that's fucking it.

all i wanted to do was go pee. seriously. Seriously. that's, in fact, all i need to do. and for all the things this store doesn't have, we are lucky to actually have a bathroom. the women's room has two stalls, actually. and it has access from the sales floor.

now, i hate my job, hate doing customer service - although i'm good at it. so most days i hide in my hideous, salmon-colored office far from the sales floor. and then i'll have to pee, or kylee and bill will go out to smoke, or clint is busy and i'll hit the floor.

i don't like the salesfloor. not only does it leave you exposed to our crazy-ass customers, but it's also full of things that tweak me out - latex masks, plastic bugs, plastic spiders of varying sizes. i'm kind of a pussy when it comes to bugs and spiders. really. even the fake kinds. i readily admit it. and aside from the whole i might starve and die because i took it factor, the only other thing that really tweaks me out about this new gig is that i'm going to have to do a big ol' spider lesson. that said, yes...fucking norcostco has spiders of various sizes and construction scattered throughout the salesfloor. this disturbs me as much now as it has since day one of this stupid job.

but while i find these things chill-inducing and unpleasant to be in a 10 foot radius of, i can deal with most of them. there is, however one area of the store that i will not go in. first of, there's a full wall of half-masks - not the masqueradey kind, the scary-gross latex kind. second, on the ceiling beam thing (and interspersed with a autumn leaves garland...for some reason) is a fairly large plastic spider - the kind you may buy for some sadistic little boy. and third (and most imporant) there is a gigantic hairy spider just hanging out on the floor. it's not quite the size of the giant spiders that would attack adults in b-movies of the 50's, but it could definitely attack a toddler in one of those masterpieces of celluloid. i can take the masks. i can take the dangling rubbery spider on the ceiling (even though it may fall on me at any moment). but i cannot stand near the damn giant spider-thing. which is a shame since this little corner is directly across from my favorite part of the sales floor - the wall of facial hair.

so today.

all i wanted to do was pee. the bathrooms are down a very short hallway across from the register and sort of between the tech area and the make-up area. the make-up area has this wire bin thing with clearance items in it. and i turn the corner - averting my eyes from the free-standing kiosk of spiders, roaches, flies, and snakes as i often do - and i see that fucking giant brown spider thing perched on the clearance make-up rack. gaurding the mother-fucking bathroom.

i have two options, the way i see it... 1 suck it up, take an alternate route to the bathroom, pretend not to see it on your way in (goddam impossible), take a pee. or 2 write a stupid blog about your insane phobia of things that are inanimate and pee when you get home.

guess which option i chose...i hope it's not still raining while i drive home...

so...now what

welp...

i accepted the job. the part time job.

i feel good and nervous about this. good because for once this isn't an 'oh shit, i have to have something and this will do' job. this is actually something i'm interested in. and it's actually adding to my 'skill set'.

nervous because i have a month to find a companion part-time gig. if i can find one for 20 hours a week at $12/hour i'll be making the same amount that i've been making for the past three years or so. yup, my pay scale is astronomical.

so tonight is supposed to be night one of (hopefully) a non interminable job quest. unfortunately, my nerves (i'll get to it) and laziness have forced me to eat a half-pan of brownies. so i'm kind of brain dead right now. also, i'm just kind of brain dead after today in general.

never in my life have i felt so close to puking at a job as i did this mornign. because i knew i'd have to give notice today. and it went well, really it did. and my coming in september boss who's still in jersey asked that i write a list of all the reasons i'm leaving. which gave me the opportunity to, in a very professional way stick up for my co-worker and tell the uppers what i think is wrong with this place. that felt really good to do. new boss will be sharing this thing with the 'appropriate parties' after i leave. it's nice. and i've worked it out so i don't feel like such an asshole leaving - i'll be full time all this week and next week, and then starting the 18th i start at new job and go part time until sept 5 at my current job. that'll give my new boss a week to settle in and make sure my co-worker isn't driven insane by crazy amounts of work. and it gives me a month to find something else...

but all day i've been just this little quiver-box of nerves. it's like being some sort of creature made out of jello with butterflies in it. it's been...tense. and apparently jiggly. add to that the fact that i talked for at least an hour and a half (altogether) with more than half of my co-workers about the shitty state of things and i'm just...beat...

and then i had to talk to my mom about all this. which made me much more nervous than i thought it would. ah...nothing like being nuerotic and afraid of disappointing the people around me.

so tomorrow at work i start getting everything i possibly can set up and ready before i hit part-time and before the busy time really picks up. and tomorrow night will begin night one of part-time finding...oh my jebus.

once again...i may be an idiot...but at least now i'll be a much happier idiot. and really, isn't that a good thing? really?

parte dos: everything in between

point a - this week

when an audition calls for an actress to be mid to late 20's, witty, intelligent, and (glory be) tall, i should probably go ahead and audition. and i did. and i didn't do well.

in the audition room i was witty and intelligent. i was tall and mid to late 20's (though there's not a whole lot i can do abuot that either way). i jsut wasn't any of these things when i was reading.

here's the deal with the theatre crap: i've had more auditions between now and april than i've had since i graduated from college. this is good. and there have been some auditions that i'ev been called to and not gone to. this is also good-ish. what is less good is i haven't actually booked anything. i'm 'making the rounds' and getting nothing. it's frustrating. and i really do feel like i've had more good reads than bad. sometimes it's a good read for a part that i would be terrible at. or i get a callback and i'm grateful, but someone else gets it. these things happen. it's what happens.

it would just be nice to get paid.

oh money, you old bastard you. i'm not making money at my day job. i mean, i am, but it's just enough to get by. which, kind of defeats the purpose of a steady day job, no? like, if i'm supposed to get enough to live on and health insurance and also be able to 'do theatre', shouldn't i actually be getting enough to do all those things?

well, i'm not. so i'm applying to jobs like a mad woman. in fact, i'm taking a mini-break (that doesn't include dim sum) from dad's right now to partly apply to jobs like a mad woman. now, i tend to have a harder time getting an interview (the audition of the real world), but if i can get an interview, i can generally get the job. since i started at my current job (3-ish months ago...seriously) i've had two interviews and a second interview. i did well in all three. in fact, i did so well in my second interview that i've been offered a job.

this job is great. it's with an arts organization in town that i adore - both what they do and the people who i know that work there. it's with a program that's REALLY badass. i mean seriously, it's cool. it uses the customer service skills that i've picked up, performance stuff, teaching experience (both that i already have and building on that), gives more tech skills, and i'd get to make awesome arts and crafts. every day. how cool is that?

so, waht's stopping me, and what i've been taking the weekend to process, is that the gig is part-time. oh, part-time... now, if it were part time and more than i'm making hourly, it'd be no problem. take the job, get something else that pays more than minimum wage and i'm set to make at least what pittance i'm making now. but hourly it works out to about what i'm trying to live off of now. which is not enough. and once again, if i'm leaving this job not just because i hate it, but also because i need to get paid, there are so many unknowns in taking this job, that i don't know if i can do it.

i just want to take it. really badly. but i'm not sure in the least that i can.

today i have spent some time on some job sites looking at part-time jobs that want 20 hours a week and how much they'd pay (i've also kept busy today doing any chore i can think of so as to avoid commiting to a decision). some things pay pretty well and don't seem mind-numbing. some things don't. either way, there's no promise that i'd get any of these promising jobs. and then i still don't know if i'd be doing alright, or if i'd want to say the hell with it, or if i'd have time to do a show if i ever actually book one.

oh time, the other thing that i don't get that seems to rule my life jsut as much as money...

the fact is, i need more time. for everything. to look for jobs, to do theatre, to do dad's, to visit grandma.

ah? what's that eve? i thought you said grandmas all live in chicago?

so they did. but this week my parents were up there moving grandma morawski down here. and on friday i was helping them move her into their house. and she'll be moving to an assisted living place in another week or two. this is because she can't take care of herself anymore and we're the family.

i'm happy to have her here, i don't worry as much that way, and i actually - in theory - can see her on a regular basis instead of once a year. in theory i'd like to make it up there to visit once a week. dno't know if this will actually happen or not.

the thing is, this is really, really hard on my parents. for so many different reasons - the least of which being concern for moving my 89 year old dementia-ridden grandma from the city she's lived in her whole life and the place she's lived in for 20 years. it's difficult. and i want to be there for them more. and, it's really really hard to do.

grandma herself is apparently worse off than my folks originally thought. but this might also be because of the move itself. i don't know. she doesn't really know what's going on right now. which is no good. sigh. it's a...it's depressing.

so, yes virginia, there is a point b in all of this. i have no clue what it is. zero. or how to get there from here. but i've made it through this long week at least, and will make it through the next one too.

i don't know.

anyway...my tomorrow morning will be one of two things (and i hope i know which one before i go to bed tonight) eventually leading to one of a million point b's: (1) i call and do not accept the job, continue job hunt, eventually find something; or (2) call and accept the job, call my soon to be boss (it's hard to explain) in new jersey, call corporate in minneapolis, tell my co-worker, try to finagle part-timing at current gig until they find a replacement or i find something lucrative-ish...wonder about what the future may hold.

so yeah. it's been a rough week. and a really long weekend. and i'm not done yet, dammit.

points A and B

"i have a headache. i have a terrible headache." - bruce mcculloch, hangover chronicles

working on saturdays sucks. i know, there are lots of jobs that work on saturdays. and there are lots of different definitions of work and what all that entails...but working on a saturday at a job you already hate 5 other days of the week is just a disgrace. but this is sometimes the way things are. and if nothing else, i am true to my word and will work on saturday.

imagine my dismay this past saturday when i woke up to go to work and my car wouldn't start.

"they'll never take me alive, we all drive killer cars" - radiohead, killer cars

oh, car trouble. the last great unifier of the 'middle' and upper classes. for a long while there it seemed like airports and air travel might be the last great unifier, but no...car trouble wins.
i consider myself lucky that my alternator didn't give out at 2:30 in the morning, when i was trying to get home from an occassionally (frequently) unsavory neighborhood. i also consider myself lucky to know my neighbors and know that one of them (surely) would be able to jump my car and get me to work. which two of them did (yay for brittany and david). unfortunately, poor elsie's (that's my car) battery couldn't hold it together and the charge was completely gone by lunch - never to return.

as it turns out, i not only spent all day saturday at work, but a good portion of sunday in the parking lot at work waiting for a tow truck. when you put it all together, i was at work (even if just outside of it) for a good 10 hours last weekend. as opposed to the usual saturday 7. sigh.
the parking lot at work is, i assure you, just as fascinating as my actual job.

"the pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles" - bob dylan, subterranean homesick blues
the tow truck guy was awesome. like santa clause he came, and - as opposed to unloading his sleigh of magic - loaded his flat bed tow with my poor, sick car. thus began our journey across the city - me in lara's healthy accord (thank you lara), and tow man in his own cab.
our three vehicles - like soldiers bracing a fallen comrade - traveled to the place from whence elsie's battery came. the advanced auto parts in said occassionally sketchy neighborhood.
here's something: parking lot mechanics. dudes who are jsut trying to make a living by fixing cars in the parking lot of advanced auto parts. this makes my life difficult. not because i'm ungrateful, or because i don't trust these dudes, or because they seemed to be close to a fistfight over who would replace my alternator (which they correctly diagnosed as kaput before the computer did). this makes my life difficult because there was no way i could pay either of these guys. not with cash, not with check. because as it turns out, my day job (which is there so i can live and have money to spend on things i need and have health insurance and all that) provides me with no left over money for luxuries or for things i need (like food and health insurance and car repairs...etc...). so i had to ask my parents for help.

i did buy a brand spankin' new alternator at the store. the clerk (who was also an amazing human being, and i don't know his name but he kicked ass) brought it out to me on the side of the building where the dudes were not. i ran on my battery alone to the grocery store and home. this is not a good thing to do. batteries will die quickly this way. but i didn't have time to get it fixed sunday or monday and i needed it monday. i needed it friday, too so the whole 'putting this off' thing was not an optino either.

"thank you driver for gettin' me there" - the who, magic bus

ah, atlanta...the city that isn't manuverable without a car.

i only ended up scraping rides from lara and brian. brian took me to a party on sunday (after i was thouroughly tired and stinky) that was lovely and that i would have felt like a jerk if i missed. lara took me to the marta station so i could get downtown for an audition in the middle of the day monday. my car got me to work and home again on monday. yay elsie.

and then it got me to my sister's mechanic back a little bit past that self-same sketchy neighborhood. this guy, heath...he's great. super awesome. and he was open at 6am. which was good news since i had to catch a 7:25 bus to get to work by 9. well, a 7:25 bus to a 7:45 train, to a 7:58 train, to an 8:30 bus. to be at work. by 9. which i was. before 9, even.

"anyone can use public transport, sweetie" - edwina, absolutely fabulous

i have to say this - marta is not terrible. it seemed like it would be. well, no, let me back that up. i heart-a marta. the trains are great. and generally, when i refer to marta i refer to the train. unless there's a problem on the track (which, really is not that often) the trains run smoothly and on time. they're clean. and they make you feel like you live in a 'real' city, where you can actually get places on public transportation. because, for all that i love the trains and the disney-world like experience they apparently provide me with (it's especially surreal when you go from like, the candler park stop to five points or peachtree center...it's like you've gone to a whole different world), they only go down two streets. and i don't go to many places on those streets.

it's the buses that are scary, or less the buses themselves than the bus schedules. do yourself a favor...pick two places in atlanta - one that you would be traveling from (we'll call this 'point a') and somewhere on the other side of the city that you will be arriving at (let's call this 'point b') and make sure neither of them are on dekalb ave/decatur st/e college or peachtree street and they're not the airport. now, get the addresses for those places . google map them. look for the little bus stop signs on your google map. pick a time to arrive at point b. now, go to the marta website and try to find out what time you need to leave to get there.
i bet, even if it's a 15 minute drive, you'll need to leave an hour before. or even earlier if you're traveling at an off-peak time. this is assuming, of course, you were able to find a route that will actually be close to your destination. oh, a route that still runs since the marta website still lists a lot of those routes that they cut for budget purposes. good luck. especially if your map skills are as good as mine.

that said, for the intimidating build-up, the buses were clean and efficient. they didn't smell like urine. they were alright. and when you ride the bus, you get to play new games - games that aren't on the train. games like 'what's that smell?', 'is she a stripper or is she just wearing the shoes and getting out at club onyx?', and 'i hope know one knows how inadequate my knowledge of bus-riding is'. seriously. there's nothing like having a mini-panic attack at trying to figure out what cord to pull and when to pull it to get off the bus.

but it all worked out. and, perhaps because i went through neighborhoods i've never seen and gained new perspective on those i have, but while on the bus i came to love the bus and accept it for it's tarnished majesty.

also, the MLK drive marta station looks like a haunted version of the subway station in michael jackson's bad video. haunted and sunny. and all of this took me out of work mid-day for a good 2.5 hours on tuesday. not too shabby.

"but wait, there's more!" - any infomercial c.1993

there is more. this week has provided me with SOOO much more than just car woes. but, uh...i'm sick of writing.

i might write more tomorrow (sorry bout the cliffhanger) but we'll see.

i jsut want to say this...it's been difficult finding my point b lately. in everything. like, i figured out the marta, and got my car back, but...man...there's longer roads ahead in the very near future, and i jsut don't know what to do. or where i'm going. or how to pull that stupid cord.

how's that for a cheese-ball metaphor...