My Mumbling Thoughts

For some reason ever since I came back home I've had a strong urge to start smoking again. It's probably because I don't do anything except sit at home and count the cracks that are forming in our walls, so the boredom leads me to start thinking about those dirty little friends that used to hug me whenever I wanted one. You can only search for so many jobs, or clean the house so many times, or read so many books until you finally think to yourself, "fuck it. I'm going to buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke those bastards like there's no tomorrow."

I didn't start smoking again, in case you were wondering. Mostly because I'm stupidly poor and can't even buy a pack of gum to try and ease the smoke cravings. Instead, I've found a new addiction that I believe is a lot healthier for me and teaches me some valuable lessons.

I am of course referring to that bastard game on facebook called FarmVille. I've only been farming for a little over a day and already I'm hooked like some kind of farming crack addict. I plow, I harvest, I pet my animals and clean up my neighbors farms when they're away. I do this for hours and forget that I'm unemployed, still finishing up my last term of university and should probably even take a shower now and again.

You wouldn't think that a game like this would teach anyone anything, except to waste endless amounts of time when I could be doing something much more productive (like blogging, for instance), but it teaches me how to be more patient, which as we all know is a very hard lesson for me to learn. I'm greedy, selfish and want everything to happen RIGHT NOW. Why do I have to wait for my pumpkins to grow in eight hours until I can harvest them? That's so long from now! I WANT TO HARVEST THEM NOW.

That then leads me to start planning things a little bit more on my farm. I have to calculate how long it'll take something to grow and if the coins I'll receive for my patience is even worth it. Can I be bothered to plant an entire farm full of strawberries? Sure, it only takes them four hours to grow, but I only receive 35 coins for my patience. Not worth it in my book. I'd much rather go for the rice that takes 12 hours to grow, but costs 89 coins when it comes to harvest.

Oh yes, my friends. I am that girl on facebook now.

Aside from perfecting my electronic green thumb, I have been doing other things. I'm still half-heartedly searching for a job and have some promising prospects in my near future. Why, just this Thursday I have double booked myself for two interviews! Last week I was supposed to go in for an interview for an executive assistant position. It was cancelled twice (!) and then re-scheduled for this Thursday at 5p.m. Like, who has interviews that late? Seriously. It's such a pain in the ass. Either way, it's scheduled and if they cancel on me one more time I might just tell them not to even bother with me anymore.

This morning I was woken up by the cell phone ringing and had to practice saying, "hello" a couple of times before I answered. I didn't want the person on the other end to hear my groggy voice, even though I was sure they could still probably tell I had just woken up seconds before.

Turns out it was the hiring manager from a company that I interviewed with a month ago. A MONTH AGO. A full month! Who waits that long to get in contact with a potential candidate? Seriously. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me. She didn't even ask if I was still available for work! She just said that they would like me to come in for a second interview to meet with someone I didn't speak to before on my first interview, which happened A MONTH AGO.

I agreed of course. Even though it was a month ago, it's still with a bitchin' company whose benefits are twice as bitchin'. I mean, if I could land this job I'd probably stay with them for years because the benefits are THAT GOOD. You know, if I get it and they ever call since they seem to like taking their sweet time getting in touch with people!

While I'm there, I'm going to meet up with my good friend, Erik, who also works at the same company. We haven't seen each other since he was in London to visit with me, so it'll be nice to have a couple of tacos from Chipotle and catch up on each other's lives. I'm really excited for it actually.

I have a third job option as well, which came from that one previous Shit Job That I Hated With A Burning Passion. The Shit Job was "put on hold" because the Shit Company didn't even know if they wanted to keep that position anymore. I was like, "thanks for letting me know A MONTH LATER." I'm glad I wasn't waiting for that to pull through. This new job, however, is working for the recruiting company that was trying to get me the Shit Job (if that makes sense). It turns out that their accounts manager needs an Executive Personal Assistant ASAP and said that they'd let me know their decision by Friday. I already had a phone interview with them at 9P.M. RIGHT BEFORE GREY'S ANATOMY STARTED. Who calls people at 9p.m. to have a phone interview? Seriously. What is wrong with these companies these days?!

Mr. Late Night Phone Call interviewed me for twenty-three whole minutes, and because I wasn't exactly in an interview mood, and I was watching Grey's Anatomy on mute while he jabbered away, I gave some pretty forward answers that I probably wouldn't have normally given if it was a standard, normal interview. Although, I think he thoroughly enjoyed my super honest answers and said that he'd let me know something soon. I just hope he doesn't call again during any of my other favorite shows.

SO. It looks like even though I've pretty much given up on this whole "job searching" thing, stuff seems to keep coming in. I hope one of these jobs sticks, though, because I'm getting really tired of being unemployed. Sure, it was fun for a little while, but now I want to have a different reason to leave the house, other than going out for groceries. It feels like something should happen for me soon though.

Until then, you can find me out on the farm.

Posted by Sam at 07:17 PM | Permalink

You know what I love to do?

Complain.

Oh, god (!) do I love complaining! And whining and crying and all of that really annoying shit that people generally can't put up with because it makes them feel like glass is slowly being inserted into their brains.

BUT, I love it. It's AMAZING. Therapeutic even.

Sometimes I even like to hear other people complain, because I realize that we all have problems that we need to vent from time to time. Do you have a problem? If so, EMAIL ME TO COMPLAIN ABOUT IT. Because I know after people complain, after they get that heavy load off of their chest and share it with someone else, you usually feel SO. MUCH. BETTER.

Of course, after you do all of that complaining, you had better go and try to do something to fix it, because I can only handle so much complaining on the same topic before I start going a little mad. Complaining is just the first step to actually fixing whatever it is you're complaining about in the first place.

But for the most part, I'm totally down with complaining.

SO. Here's my blog post where I don't do anything else except complain about my problems. Enjoy.

First, a little back story.

We all know I'm unemployed. This is no secret. I have spent many weeks, months even, accepting and getting used to this fact. I know the economy is shit at the moment, and it's particularly difficult for people my age to find work straight out of university, so I shouldn't be expecting anything amazing straight away.

I can try. But I shouldn't expect anything.

Recently, while I've been unemployed, I have spent many hours cruising the internet searching for potential jobs that are non-government related since the government will most likely frown upon my past life choices. I don't like being looked down at (figuratively speaking; I know my short stature leads to people literally looking down at me). I definitely don't like being judged or otherwise told that I'm a bad person because I happened to leave the country and experience another side of life that many people don't agree with. So with that I've basically ruled out all government jobs, which is fine since I personally don't agree with the government contracting business anyway and it's not what I want to do with the rest of my life.

The only downside to that is that 80% of the jobs around here are government contracting jobs, leaving a much smaller pool for me to choose from, and making it significantly harder for me to compete with the other thousands of unemployed workers in my neighborhood. Not only that, the likelihood of me finding my Super Awesome Dream Job around here is also sliced in half.

But I keep trying. I keep applying for different little writing gigs I see, build up my portfolio and continue searching for viable contacts. Networking. I'm trying to get my Networking Ball rolling.

A couple of weeks ago when I went to go interview for this really Shit Job that I was not excited about at all in the slightest, I met this woman who was my "local contact" for that business. We were both sitting in the reception area waiting for the hiring manager to come out and meet with us, and were just chatting about our plans for the weekend. I mentioned that I'd probably be working on some articles since I am a writer after all, and that's something that writers do occasionally.

When I mentioned that I was a writer and that I was just starting off in "the business," she got really excited and mentioned this networking group that her friend does. She explained that it was basically an online website for women to meet, network and help each other out with their personal businesses, and how it might be beneficial to me since I was new and didn't really know that many people locally.

Fast forward a week or so, and I found myself at my very first networking meeting. It was a group of about twenty-five women, each who had their own business and were looking to meet other women who might be able to help them grow, or who they might be able to help. It was all set up really nice, with a mini buffet and little vendor tables that were set up by local business owners; there were these women who owned their own jewelry stand, another woman who specialized in beauty products, a woman who sold designer jeans at a very discount price and so forth.

It was a little strange at first for me, but after a while I kind of got the hang of it all and thought it was pretty cool.

One of the women there, Sandy, was selling these beauty products that I was really interested in. It kind of reminded me a little bit of Mary Kay or Avon, but the thing that I found most appealing was the fact that the products were all 100% natural and eco-friendly, which is something that I've been trying to find for a while now ever since I saw this program ages ago about the different kinds of chemicals that are put into beauty products and how harmful they can be.

Yesterday I decided to meet up with Sandy to talk about my job searches, my future career goals and whatnot, and also to talk a bit about her products since we didn't really have much time at the networking meeting. I wanted to get more information to see if they'd be something that I'd really want to use and I thought I might even be able to get an article out of it since I do write for an online beauty/fashion magazine.

We had a lovely conversation in the afternoon sitting at Panera talking about my future plans, how much I hate Corporate Life, her products that she sells, her business and so forth. The business was set up on the basis of like how they do Mary Kay and Avon, but I didn't plan on doing any of that. To be honest, I just can't be bothered to set up my own business like that and give it the full amount of time and energy that it requires.

But the products are pretty sweet.

I like the fact that they're all 100% natural, that they don't cost an arm and a leg, that they're eco-friendly, that they're made from recyclables and all that jazz. I've been waiting a while to toss out my expensive name brand beauty products that leave my face feeling clogged, gross and could potentially lead me down a road of hell because of the harmful chemicals that they pack into it. I'm all about health and awareness, even if I do eat poorly and hardly exercise.

So I took some free samples home and was excited to see how they worked. I briefly considered being a representative who could become a part of the crazy Beauty Product Empire and forego all of my dreams of being a writer to become an evangelical leader spreading the good word of natural vs. chemical. But it got too tiring and I figured it'd probably be best if I remained a client.

I was a bit leery of telling Momma, though, because I knew the minute I mentioned the fact that Sandy sold beauty products, she was going to go off the deep end and rant about how she was just playing with my hopes and dreams, making it seem like I was going to be a millionaire over night, that it was a pyramid scheme and I needed to forget about it all together. Sandy was a housewife that could afford to spend all of her time on selling beauty products, and I had other obligations that I needed to focus on, instead of wasting time, money and energy on some crackpot idea.

I was right. The second I mentioned the beauty products, Momma went off on her spiel about how this was setting myself up for disaster, and why do I let people talk me into these things? Haven't I learned from other past disasters before and I needed to get a real job that will keep me locked down at a desk probably doing data entry and slowly crushing my soul. Because THAT sounds a lot better.

I cried of course, because whenever I feel too much of any one emotion, there's nothing left for me to do except cry. I also yelled at her because she wasn't listening to me. I didn't plan on becoming the new spokesperson for these 100% natural beauty products OKAY. I just wanted to try them, see if I liked them, and maybe later down the road recommend them to some people who I know have skin issues and have tried other things that have failed them in the past. Was that such an awful thing to do? Could I not even sit down with the woman to have a conversation, drink some lemonade and talk a little business? IT'S NOT LIKE I WAS DOING ANYTHING ELSE WITH MY TIME.

The thing about networking and meeting all of these different people I've learned, is that you can help them while they try and help you. Sandy was saying that she knows of other great networking groups where I could try and meet people who are more in my field of interest with writing, and eventually if I keep trying I just might find someone around here who might be able to lend me helping hand. Her line of business was beauty products. I couldn't really help her much (unless she needs me to write a review), but I might know someone else, and she might know someone else for me. That's all it really is, and since I have absolutely no contacts of my own here I thought it couldn't hurt to give it a go.

Why did Momma have to shit all over it and make it seem like some kind of evil that was taking over my mind?

All of those past events lead me to here, sitting at my laptop and thinking about all of this nonsense. Mine and Momma's argument last night (over nothing) just reminded me why we have problems in our mother/daughter relationship and why I get so frustrated with how things can be around here. Why I don't fit in here. Why I left.

I've thought about it a lot ever since I came back home, about how sad and unhappy I was in London, but it was because of things I could have fixed. I was really unhappy mostly because I didn't have any money and how much stress that put on me. Yeah, I was homesick and missed certain people, certain things, but I'm sure it would have been the same if I lived a couple of states away. I wasn't lacking in friendships or unhappy because people didn't understand where I was coming from.

If I could have found a decent paying job and got a work permit, I would have happily stayed in London. I would have continued my life there and wouldn't have stressed about the things I'm currently stressing about. I wouldn't have fought with the government, I wouldn't be starting from scratch and trying to think of new ways to go back. I wouldn't be at home feeling like I've taken three giant steps backwards thinking that this is going to take me much longer to get out of than I had originally thought. I just would have kept on living the London Life and that would have been that.

I am back at home, though. I am starting from scratch. I am trying to rebuild myself over here and trying to figure out what step is next for me. I am trying to figure out if I do fit in here and if it's at all possible for me to not feel like a dick. These are the new things that I'm trying to deal with. It's just hard for me at the moment and my Frustration Tolerance isn't very high and I tend to get easily let down when things don't go my way, or when Momma takes something that I want to try and slaps it around with Negativity. Doesn't she understand that now I'm unhappy with where I'm at in my life? Doesn't she empathize even a little bit with the fact that I left an entire life in a city that I now miss more than anything? Doesn't she know that I came back because I wanted to be closer to her and Mel, but when she talks to me like I'm fourteen it doesn't do anything except push me away. Doesn't she know that I have been trying really hard to be some kind of contributing family member, but spending my days locked behind a desk doing some unknown mind-numbing task for the next twenty years isn't exactly what I planned for.

You know, I understand why Momma tells us all of the bad things before we even attempt something that's different or out of the ordinary. I realize it's because she doesn't want us to set ourselves up for failure or to get caught up in something that we're going to have to dig ourselves out of for the next ten years. I know she doesn't want us to get used, duped or treated unfairly. I know all of this, which is why I'm always careful before I leap into anything that could potentially lead me down a path where I might be used, duped or treated unfairly. I am skeptical about some things and I know that not everyone is out there to help other people, but rather help themselves. Those are all Risk Factors. But why does she constantly have to rain on our parades, be the Debbie Downer and not even hold a little bit of trust in our judgment? It only leads to us feeling like we're not good enough, that we can't do things and hold us back from doing anything new that might not be "normal," but might be right for us.

So now, after all of that, I'm just left here, in bed, at my laptop, still trying to maneuver my way around in this quicksand that's slowly taking me under. As Will Young sings in one of his many amazing songs, "I just need a break, a little one."

Just give me a break. I'll take it from there.

Posted by Sam at 09:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This past week I have been watching way too much TV.

Way too much.

I used to not like American TV. When I was away (and even a bit before I left), I hardly watched any TV, and the time I did spend in front of it, I mostly watched British reality shows. Whenever I'd come back home and flip on the telly, it was too much for me to handle in one go. American TV, if you're not used to it (or have been away from it for a long period of time), can be very In Your Face at times and is DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA all the time. Our morning news channels, our entertainment channels, our reality TV, our sit down sitcoms, everything. It's always very over the top and can be a tad over dramatized.

BUT, once you get used to it, god it can be addicting. I can't get enough of it now, and for the past two weeks I have relinquished any kind of responsibility to finding a job or doing any kind of productive writing, and have instead taken to watching anything that's on TV. And what have I learned in the past week that the television has taught me?

We are all crazy.

And it's cool. But we're all definitely bat shit crazy.

Just this past week, I've watched countless episodes of E! True Hollywood Story. Oh my goodness y'all, I love this show. I have always loved this show, but when you watch so many back to back, it can really have an effect on you. I watched one about kidnappings, which frightened me so much, now every time I hear a noise in the house I swear it's some pedophile trying to break in to kidnap me and keep me locked away in some motel room for months. I watch all of these stories about famous people who have hard times, and either manage to overcome it and make extraordinary comebacks, or eventually lose their battle with the limelight and are forever remembered as an icon who left a prominent mark on the entertainment industry.

One of my favorite episodes is the one about Christina Aguilera. When the pop stars like Christina, Britney, Mandy and all of the boy bands were first emerging, I was going through that phase where everything pop was retarded, and so I never admitted to liking her music. I thought she was just some air head pop star and I was showing how cool I was by not buying her albums, but instead listening to Linkin' Park and screaming about how I felt misunderstood. Little did I know that I'd eventually morph into one of her biggest fans and grow to admire her as a person and acknowledge her amazing talent. Now I can say that I am a full fledged Christina fan, and have boundless respect for her.

This week was also the premiere of Oprah's 24th season, and she opened with a two-day show and a very candid interview with the legendary Whitney Houston. I had been waiting for ages, as most of the world has, and I was eager to hear what she had to say about her seven year absence.

It was awesome.

That interview with Oprah and Whitney Houston was awesome. And I don't care what anyone else says.

Bless Whitney Houston, for being so open, so honest and just telling it like it is. Her voice was a little scratchy, and it sounded like she could have done with some water, but I totally understood where she was coming from. Her life is obviously ten thousand times bigger than mine, so her stories were on a much grander scale, but nonetheless it was the same. I related to Whitney. I felt where she was coming from. I knew what she meant when she said that she used drugs to cover up the pain, how she can sometimes have the desire for it, and trying to take it one day at a time. I knew what she meant when she was talking about her attraction to Bobby and how they had passion for the passion, and how the relationship eventually became destructive. She was trying to find herself, like we all try to do. She just had to do it very publicly and was criticized every step of the way.

When E! updates her True Hollywood Story, she will be one of the entertainers that makes it out to the other side.

Then there is of course, this past Sunday's antics at the 2009 Mtv Video Music Awards with Kanye West showing how much of a dick he can be. I watched on as it happened live and cringed, and felt so horrible for sweet Taylor Swift who was so genuinely shocked and excited. And then not so excited.

I rarely get too upset or thrown by things that famous people do these days, because I'm like, meh, they're famous. But this whole hullabaloo really upset me, because it was rude and humiliating to Taylor. Regardless if people like her music or what their opinions were about who should have won, it was her moment and he ruined it for her. I don't like rude people, and I certainly do not like Kanye West (although his songs are damn catchy).

People are saying that it was staged for one reason or another, but I don't care either way. On Sunday we all saw Kanye West make an ass out of himself and now he's having to live with the aftermath. He even stated on Jay Leno that he was going to take some time off to reflect on himself, which I think is probably for the best. We all need that kind of time. Whitney Houston took seven years. I'm taking time off now. There's nothing wrong with it.

These famous people, these superstars, these icons, these legends - they're all people. They're all humans who have problems just like you and me. They all have talent (well, most of them) and we place them up high on these pedestals and then set unimaginable standards for them to constantly live up to; no wonder most of them go off the deep end and lose themselves. I can barely live up to my own expectations, let alone everyone else's. Why should we expect them to be any different? But we do, and then we judge them.

It must be hard to live under those bright lights and try to please everyone. I used to say that it was their choice to be famous, so they have to live with the consequences, but I don't think that anymore. In some cases, yes, people are simply famous because they're famous, and bring on a lot of unwanted attention to themselves. But musicians, actors and other famous personalities are just trying to make it like the rest of us. They make movies, or they sing songs. That's their jobs, we should let them do it and give them some peace. Otherwise we end up tearing down the people we helped raise up, and that's not good for anybody.

Posted by Sam at 02:14 AM | Permalink

When I was at university, I thought I was invincible. Obviously, that wasn't really the case since I was ill 3/4th of the time I was there and spent numerous days in bed recovering from my hangovers. But nonetheless, I was still invincible. No one could stop me, get in my way or prevent me from doing anything that I wanted. I'm not sure where this unknown power came from, but alas, there it was.

It's so weird to think about my time at uni, now that I'm back at home and have had time to sort through all of my leftover emotions and memories. I'm not sure if anyone felt the same super powers that I did, but I never felt that I wasn't safe, and I certainly never thought anything bad could happen. University was shrouded in this invisible safety bubble that kept us all shielded from the outside dangers and I never worried that I'd ever fall victim to any kind of horrible misfortune.

Since I've come back home, however, I am now acutely aware of every single danger that surrounds not only me, but also Momma and Mel. Perhaps it's having too much time on my hands to sit and think about all of the different things that could happen, but I'm not sure that's it; I had loads of time to sit around at uni and I never thought about the different bad things that could happen then. It's only now I realize how lucky I was nothing bad happened, and how I should probably be a lot more careful in the future.

But it's this new worry, this new stress, this new over protective feeling I have over Momma and Mel now that sometimes can keep me awake at night. Not long after I got back home, I either developed, or had reawaken this feeling to make sure that they were both taken care of at all times. Part of me wanted to keep them at the house at all times so I could keep an eye on them and make sure that they were okay; and every time they stepped outside to go to work, I was so sure that they were going to get in some kind of horrific car accident and I'd get a phone call to come down to the hospital.

It's these thoughts that constantly swirl around in my head, and I think to myself, if I just keep thinking about it, then nothing bad will happen. It's always when you're not thinking about it, when you least expect something, is when all of the bad things imaginable happen. So I keep torturing myself and thinking of every worst case scenario, to make sure that that particular day isn't the day I dread the most.

I'm more worried about Mel, though, and am always making sure that she's taken care of. After I left, I didn't realize how much of an impact it would have on her. I was her best friend and we did everything together, but after I was gone, she was bound to the house and has since developed her own group of "work friends" that I despise and am positive are getting her into hard drugs (even though Mel is the complete opposite of me as far as rebellion goes and can barely stomach a Smirnoff Ice, let alone do a line of coke). I've never met her friends, but I don't trust them. The Big Sister Instinct comes out, and whenever she leaves the house to go hang out with them, I'm glued to the house phone in case she calls needing me to come pick her up from a house party gone wrong, and give her a ride back home.

Just a couple of weeks ago she went out to a club in DC with one of her work friends that I hate the most, and I couldn't sleep properly. I imagined her being peer pressured into drinking until she couldn't control herself and then taken advantage of by some strange man with greasy hair and a dodgy mustache. I instinctively woke up at five o'clock to make sure she was back home, and there she was in bed, sound asleep. She appeared to be fine, and after my interrogation the next morning, I was positive nothing bad happened, and it was just a typical night out.

I hate that I constantly worry about them like this. I hate that I imagine horrible things happening and wondering if I'd be able to handle it. I hate that there's this guilt that has come out of nowhere and now I feel like I should make up for the time that I was away. I know they're both perfectly capable of taking care of themselves (obviously Momma has been taking care of herself for a very long time now), but now that I'm back I feel like I should be the one taking care of them. Maybe it's a way of me saying, "thanks" for letting me go off to find myself and supporting me for three years. Or maybe it's a way of me saying that I'm crazy and need to learn how to let them do their own things. Bad things happen, and me constantly stressing about it won't help. I know this, and yet I still worry, I still think about it, and I still believe that I'll be more prepared for when the inevitable happens.

Posted by Sam at 09:43 PM | Permalink