Hire Me, I'm a Liar

I'm about to lie on this next batch of job applications.

I've been searching for two years (with periodic breaks/breakdowns) and the only time I made it to an interview, all my charm and optimism did me no good; I had just convinced the hiring manager that I only wanted to use my art degree for freelance work, but what I really wanted was something steady. I loved Arby's and would be thrilled to be the store manager.

She walked away from me, looked at another application, then asked the man how he would get there every day, since he'd listed that he didn't have a car. He wasn't sure, and he'd never been employed... she asked when he could start.

So, lies and cheating, since the truth has gotten me nowhere.

I'm going to stop listing my Bachelor of Fine Arts. No one knows what it means anyway, and it just makes me sound pretentious. My high school degree, as long ago as it was, will do.

I'm going to combine all the jobs I worked at University into one long-term job. If all you do is glance at the page and I've worked five places, it's got to look bad, but my title was "Student Worker" at all of them. So, from now on, I was "Student Worker" at University for three years. When they ask what I did, I'll list what I did where, and my supervisor can be the supervisor from my final position.

I've tried to keep in touch with people from college. One of my two possible professor references (assuming I decided to list my degree after all, in a fit of insanity) has died, and the other is a hipster, which I'm not saying is necessarily a bad thing, but I admitted that I had a PC in front of him and he couldn't stop laughing. By the way, Macs are for people who don't know how to use computers.

I went there.

One of my close college friends has since decided I'm lame because I was unable to get a job within a month, and because she got married to a wealthy guy and I was apparently a charity project, so I've lost her (good riddance), whittling my contact list down to...

K: Friend in college. Trained me for a week in a student position she was leaving.
Peer: Trained for position as graphic designer at University.

E: Friend. We met while writing role-play for a Harry Potter website.
Peer: Creative writing, group projects, personal research.

H: Friend: Also met role-playing on a Harry Potter website.
Peer: Creative writing... You can see where I'm going with this.

I know, normally when one lies on an application it's to make oneself look better. You want to inflate your own importance, make yourself seem even more valuable than you are. Well, I tried that for the first year, when I was actually looking for Graphic Design positions. However, it's been almost three years, and I just need a job. I need money so that I can stop living with relatives and feed myself without government assistance.

Hey, you say. This is another complaint post about unemployment!

It's about time you caught on. Seriously though, it's a completely different angle this time.

I'm a terrible liar. I can do it on paper, but if one of these places actually calls me in, I can imagine the look on my face if someone said, "You've never had a job, at your age?" I know, it's a hamburger-flipping job and saying That's right, never been employed, I've always depended on the kindness of strangers. *cough* I mean, I cared for the home while my significant other/family member/pet iguana brought in the money is more likely to get me that entry-level position than Yes, I have a degree, but I swear I want to work here, and I'll do a really awesome job!

It's funny, in that way that's only funny if you tilt your head; when I was applying for Design jobs, my friends and family got onto me about being picky. Now I tell them that Pizza Hut sent me a "We currently have no positions which you are qualified for" e-mail and get responses like, Well, duh. That's because you're over-qualified.

My sister tells me (though I already know) that I have to stop submitting my resume. I have a nice resume. The guy from Apple was impressed, though sadly he hated my portfolio and wasn't hiring anyway.

I have several resumes. I have my Design resume, my Clerical/Office resume, and my Generic resume, which states my objective as looking for a "challenging" position. Why the hell does the McDonald's website ask you to upload your resume if it doesn't want it? That's the trap I fall into. I see the "Upload Resume or CV" button, and I have to click it.

But no more.

I have a high school diploma from many years ago, and have never worked. I have low standards, and will take any job you offer me. Speaking of which, do you know anyone who's hiring? I'm willing to move if relocation is paid for.

Dream Interpretation

I dreamed I went to school with Mr. Feeny. Yes, Mr. Feeny, the teacher from Boy Meets World.

Let's start from where I remember: for some reason I'm married, and I'm cleaning the house. It's a nice house, at least two stories, very spacious. All it has in it is the hand-me-down stuff I currently own and tons of my stuff shoved against the walls in piles, but I'm trying to clean those up before Mr. Feeny arrives.

When he shows up, I've done a decent job and I'm dressed nicely, except for the towel I've still got my freshly-washed hair wrapped up in. Don't ask how I managed to get dressed without noticing that. So we get ready to go to school together, which we've apparently done before, and we're all buddy-buddy as we walk out the back door.

Instead of a lawn, however, there's a busy street and a train going past where my house just was. There's also a guy chasing a fluffy white dog along next to the tracks, and I'm worried one of them is going to get run over. Then the dog changes into a little blonde girl, and so now he's chasing his daughter next to the tracks, and I'm even more worried. I want nothing to do with this. Then the little girl turns into a preteen boy who is walking along the edge of the street instead of using the sidewalk. That's a little less terrifying.

Anyway, Mr. Feeny is trying to hail a police officer. If we can get a ride to school from the police, he saves gas and time because he doesn't have to find a place to park. After a few minutes of this, I point out that it could take a while to do so, and that my car is parked along the edge of the street. I tell him I'll drop him off and he can run to class, and then if he'll just let my tardy slide... An attack of conscience quickly follows that request. How can I ask him not to count me tardy when I would be? In real life I'd have been all about getting that free tardy, but in the dream it offended my moral sensibilities. Go figure.

No clue what else would have happened there, since my alarm woke me up, but I did have another dream as well. I had waken up and was visiting family in a nearby town, keeping in mind at the time that my daughter was at school for the day instead of home sick like she has (in real life) been for the past couple days. I run some errands, and just when something incredibly important comes up, I realize that, as it's the last day before the holiday break, her school gets out at 1:30. (This is actually true. I often have dreams set in the day that will come when I wake up. I guess it lends more realism to the misery about to follow).

I panic. I tell my dad that no, I can't help my sister, I have to go now because my daughter has just gotten off school and the bus will be bringing her home in an hour. It's an hour's drive. I take off, and through traffic and road construction I make my way home, long after the bus should have shown up. I imagine that she's gone home and panicked because no one's there to let her in and the police have been called and I'll end up in prison for leaving a child at home alone. Then I realize that I didn't send her to school at all, and that she was asleep when I left. This gets me out of prison, but how much of a panic must she be to have waken up alone? She must be starving from not having been fed! In what horrible state will I find her?

The answer: Sitting on the couch reading a comic book. (She's been doing this a lot lately.) She's fine, though she wondered where I was, and she's hungry. Could I make her a bagel? I do so, in echoes of this morning, when she came in the living room, sat down with a comic book, and asked for a bagel. That dream is going to torment me all day.

So apparently I want to send her to school instead of staying home again for illness, and I'm feeling guilty about not going to school myself. And I want Mr. Feeny to come bully me into shape or something. I don't know, I totally made that up.

If it's too loud, you're too old.

The neighbors below me have knocking issues, but at least those are during the day. I can't really fault the neighbors next to me for getting up and showering for their day(night) around the time I'm going to bed, but there's something not quite right about the people behind me and their nighttime parties.

It's almost 1 a.m. and they got started maybe half an hour ago. I should have been in bed already, but there was epic shit happening on the internet and I got distracted.

I've tried to wait it out before, but about 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning I usually give up. They have music blasting, people walking around outside who usually end up yelling at each other, and all I can think is, at the other university housing place, Public Safety would have shut them down by now. There are quiet hours, and there are quiet hours in the dorms, too.

*looks up at the title of this post*

Yeah, yeah, I'm too old, what of it? This is family housing, which means that there are adult college students here, at least several of which have kids in second grade and younger. Do they sleep? Do they study? Are there quiet hours here, or am I saving $200/semester to stay up two hours later at night? Admittedly, there's a lot less house to clean when you're in an apartment this small, so it's not all bad.

ZZZzzz... *snorts self awake and looks bleary-eyed around the page*

My bedroom is closer to the noise... I'm putting it off... I'm thinking about napping again. Naps are very nice. I have things to do, though. I need to get my portfolio online so I can get a job, since pursuing a Masters in Marketing isn't working out. Not that I'm lazy or I'm not smart enough, but Marketing isn't my thing. I thought I could force it since my school doesn't offer the degree I want (in fact, no school in the state does), but no. Cannot take my art degree and add math. Accounting has pwned me twice now.

I was going to write about awkward one-armed hugs and the possibility that a friend outed my online persona to my family, but I think I'll go attempt sleep instead. I'll turn on my waves-noise-thing-app especially loud and retire to my imaginary beach house. Maybe my friends are still having a bonfire celebration on my private beach, and I retired with a certain musician, worn out from the festivities.

I got the idea from my uncle, and yes, I know I'm rambling when I should have just stopped. He's one of those lucky few who falls asleep the second his head hits the pillow, because "I'm in my hot tub." The app that makes the waves-noises is better than a little hot tub. I have the Pacific Ocean, baby. I've had trouble falling asleep since I was a kid, and since I started the white noise and hanging out by the beach every night, I've been out in less than half an hour. BOO. YAH.

Goodnight.

Job Hunting

Okay, so maybe I'm not hunting for a job, per se. I am hunting for a Career, with a big C. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and despite the insistence of one friend that I should try McDonald's, I have not done so. Not for pride, though I have plenty of that, but because the last time I applied to a McDonald's, I was overqualified. In fact, I couldn't find a job anywhere because I was overqualified and undereducated, and that's part of why I went to college. Just a theory here, but I bet the addition of a degree didn't solve the overqualified issue in the fast food arena.

Apply for management, you say.

Been there, done that. Arby's took one look at my B.F.A. in Graphic Design and asked why in hell I wanted to be their manager. I smoothly replied that I'd like to work as a freelance Graphic Designer, not full time, because Graphic Designers are known to burn out. I took their million-page Are you management material? quiz, and they hired someone else. In fact, I took the same kind of quiz for Wal-Mart. It told me I passed, but of the three times I've applied there, it's never panned out. So I'm not unemployed because I'm picky or a snob, in case you were wondering.

I've asked people I know if they know anyone, and only one person excitedly said yes. They then sent me a link via Facebook to Monster.com and said cheerfully that they'd gotten their job through Monster, and they'd even had moving expenses paid for. Sounds pretty sweet, right? They get a brownie point for trying. I've been a member of Monster.com for many, many moons. Never gotten so much as a nibble.

I've been scouring job boards. Koda and Talent Zoo most recently, but jobs in the Graphic Design field want 3-5 years of experience (or, in one case, 35 years of experience. Whether that was a typo or not, I didn't qualify). There are internships, but most are unpaid and are looking for undergrads, which I'm not.

This is totally a bitching post, you know that, right?

Meh, yeah, I know. Sorry about that, it's just dominating everything else in my mind. I need to get my online portfolio set up, but it's so overwhelming that I can't seem to get started. That's the problem with being a perfectionist. I have a strong sense of If you can't be the best, then you may as well be the worst that I'm constantly fighting.

So hopefully this will end well for me. I've got about a month to find a "job" and a place to live, and find some way to pay off the hundreds of dollars I owe the utilities that make them refuse to turn on utilities for me at all until I've fully paid. The university is paying for my gas, water, and electricity right now, and since only water comes with the place, they're pretty butthurt that I never put the others in my name. Hopefully they can just take it out of my financial aid, and not turn the utilities off.

So this one time, at the cheese factory, we made balloons out of the latex-free gloves and played ball with them because the production line was stopped. Working the night shift has its perks. And now you can go away happy.

The Nap-Wagon

You may have noticed that I didn't post anything yesterday. Or maybe not, because you're probably not even reading this (though you may be reading it, I can't count that out entirely). My sad excuse is that I fell off the nap-wagon.

This happens a lot during the fall and winter months. Midwestern winters do not agree with me, and no matter what I do, I spend at least part of each day struggling to stay awake. I have what I affectionately call my lizard light, which duplicates sunlight and keeps me from sleeping all day, but try as it might, there's only so much it can do. I want to nap.

Yesterday, after getting my morning routine out of the way, I was near quivering with excitement over the idea of taking a nap. I had only gotten six hours of sleep, so I could justify it! I came home and shuffled back into my pajamas, then snuggled down under a pile of blankets and fell blissfully asleep.

This wouldn't be a problem for most people. You're out for what, an hour or two? Then you wake up, refreshed (hopefully) and pleased with yourself for the novel idea of daytime sleeping. While everyone else was at work, slaving away, or maybe drowsing over their keyboards, you were in bed, or maybe on the couch or in your favorite recliner, refilling your energy bar enough to make the rest of the day a breeze. (If you think you saw a Sims reference there, you did. Sorry 'bout that.)

Napping isn't that easy for me. Or, rather, it's too easy. I can get my usual seven hours sleep, and since I do best on nine, talk myself into just a short nap to make up the other two. I set an alarm because even in moments of faux-optimism I don't trust myself, I wonder if the meager light filtering through the shades will keep me awake, then I go unconscious for hours. Three hours, five hours, and I end up waking some time in the early afternoon, vaguely aware of having surfaced enough to turn my alarm off.

Mmmm, naps.

This is not good for the functionality of my day. By the time it's two or three o'clock, I wonder if I'll have time to do any of the things I need to do. If I shower before I get dressed (which I should), my lazy side says that I won't have time to drive across town and get groceries before I need to be home again to wait for the school bus. I certainly won't have time to go downtown and see if I qualify for housing assistance so that when I get kicked out of grad school I have someplace to live. I'd have time to start laundry, but meh, carrying it all the way downstairs and to the community building next door is such a chore.

Naps are a duplicitous friend. On one hand, it's bliss sleeping, no matter how many nights in a row I do so. On the other hand, I find that I've just spent twelve of my twenty-four hours asleep. I should just accept the seven (or four-and-a-half) hours I get at night after talking to my friends, checking Facebook, and making sure my future-rockstar Sim gets in a relationship with the girl I made him. I was aware of the time, no matter how much I might claim otherwise. I glance at the clock at least every hour and a half, and I can't pretend I lost track of four hours, because I'll never believe myself.

I promise myself that I'll use my lizard light as soon as I wake up from the nap I intend to take. I'll sit under its angry glare for three quarters of an hour, and if I do so every day for a couple of weeks, I might be able to wean myself off morning naps and start feeling sleepy at night again. It's a vicious cycle, but one I'm determined to conquer.

The Key Debacle

Part I

I have locked myself out of the house. You'll find once you've known me a while that things like this happen with striking regularity. I am Sod's Law embodied, absent-minded enough to miss things like the keys I keep by the door (so I can't forget them), yet focused enough to write a blog on my phone while walking to the student housing office and stopping, as appropriate, at all street corners and crosswalks to check for traffic.

Why not go find your RA? you may ask, since you apparently live somewhere on campus?

Ah, I reply. I don't live ON campus, not in a dorm, anyway. I live in school-owned apartments for non-traditional students. But we'll deal with that another time. Point is, no RA.

There's a Student Apartment Manager, but as I write, it's 8 a.m. and I'm not sure which apartment they live in. I suppose I could walk door-to-door, knocking and asking like I did during the summer, but somehow I doubt people will be very friendly and eager to help if I wake them from a sound sleep. I should probably have the S.A.M.'s number in my phone, but I don't, because I'm just that good.

I've done this before. The response is, Come to Student Housing and get a spare key. So I'm walking and I'm almost there, and at this point not only am I getting my month's worth of exercise, but I'm also determined to find a bloody place to hide my spare key outside, since the tape thing didn't work. Let me digress a moment.

I locked myself out of this very same apartment on Labor Day. This means that very few people were home as I walked through the stifling heat in sweats, a New Kids on the Block t-shirt, and flip-flops. I didn't find the S.A.M., but I did find someone who'd been a locksmith at some point, and after he failed to get my door open (the locks are sturdy here, nice to know, and cannot be fooled by credit cards), he called Public Safety for me.

Immediately upon getting into my house, I drank a ton of water. Then I got my spare key, went outside, and taped it somewhere so this would never happen again. Well, I live in the Midwest and tape doesn't like humidity. They key fell, and there was literally nowhere else I could hide it. My porch is slats of wood, so hiding it under a doormat (besides being the first place I'd look if I were going to burgle myself) would be a surefire way to lose the key entirely. And I'm not tall enough to reach the top of the door frame, so no putting it there. My spare key, therefore, might as well not have existed, and so I was fated to repeat history.

Part II

Did I mention that, aside from jeans and a winter coat (it's 52°F, but you know how it feels colder when you're sleepy), I'm wearing a fuzzy purple pajama top? Yep, fuzzy, purple, and very obviously pajamas. For those of you who haven't tried this, power-walking plus hardcore-new-plushie-flannel plus a coat equals sweat. 

It's a college campus at 8 a.m., everyone's in their pj's, take off your coat, you moron!

No.

I'm vain enough that bedhead is plenty. I can pretend that I have a really awesome, enviable mane of flowing locks, but the moment the coat comes off, I'd look like I was taking a Walk of Shame. I'd rather boil, because I hear enough about my imaginary sex life/preferences without adding fuel to the fire. I can see it now;

Oh my gooooosh, I haven't seen you in forever! What were you doing walking across campus half-dressed? *wink wink, nudge nudge*

See, I forgot my key in the...

Hahaha, riiiiiight.

No, seriously, I...

Mhm, just keep saying that.

Okay, fine, I was at some barely-18's dorm room, shagging them silly all night, and I sneaked out at dawn to creep home.

*eye roll* No, you weren't. And no, you didn't.

Uh-huh, and it was awesome because I'm an effing God in bed.

Nuh-uhhh.

Yeah-huh, and you wouldn't know anyway.

So why were you really walking around?

Grrrr! By the way, I have these imaginary conversations all the time, and no, it's not schizophrenic, though that's been suggested to me as well. Healthy imagination is a completely different animal. Apparently I have the most perfect reactions to being teased though, and it's soooo much fun. No matter how much I expect it, or how much I'm aware of it happening, I almost always take the bait. There are, of course, the odd occasions when I fight back.

So, since you're not gettin' any, me and your cousin thought we'd get you a gigolo for your birthday.

I'm saving myself for H~ (an out-of-state friend). We're in love, and you can't break us up.

*pauses, eying me like I just grew a second head, then turns to someone else for new convo*

Honestly, if you can't take it, don't dish it out, and yes, I see the irony in that. Hush, you.

Part III

I made it home and got into the apartment without a problem. I've been talking about making a blog for a while, and I guess I finally wrote something that entertained me enough to want to share it. Now I should be job-searching. While spell-checking the horror that was me typing all this on my phone as I walked, I got a phone call from the school reminding me that I owe them my soul, and they want it in monetary form now. I'm tired of school, but that's a story for another post.

I promise I'll figure out the formatting at some point so you can read these things, and here's to hoping your morning was better than mine, or at least that my adventure gave you a moment of schadenfreude. ;)