Decision Making.

Sorry for the delay. They are working me very hard at the bookstore and i recently had to tell management to decrease my hours because "this is not a permanent position". Oh yeah. I took it to the man.

As I figured, I have been putting in 40 hour weeks for a very long time. With only two days off, I managed to only squeeze in sleeping and eating. This is not what i planned and though a lot of things have turned out differently from my imagination, working a full time shift at a bookstore really was not in my book.

Of course with the new time off (starting next week), I cannot spend it waiting for updates on PerezHilton.com or even watching shows on various sites. I am quitting my job in December. I know it is a rash and perhaps irrational move but it seems right. Today as I was helping one of my managers put up a display she asked me how many hours I worked during the week.

"40" I began quickly adding "that I decided that 32 was better for my schedule". She shook her head, smiled and said "that's wonderful that you work 32 hours". Because i am known to exaggerate minuet details I imagined that that nod and smile really meant " that's wonderful that you can work 32 hours/week so that I can train you to be a full time employee at our dear bookstore". Followed of course by a maniacal laugh. I shudder even thinking about it, let alone writing it down.

December seems like a good enough time to quit because of the holiday rush. They have warned me about the soul crushing, chaotic mess that holiday shoppers bring and if I am on edge with the regular customers, I can only imagine some horrible breakdown to come December. This deadline only means that i have to look for a new job, figure out if i even want to stay in the city, and start looking for a new place to live.

My best friend at work Marisol, who I could see becoming a life long friend, recently got a new job. Though she has only been working at the bookstore for two months she snagged a pretty hot job as a graphic designer in the city. Today was our last day working together, and we hugged in the aisle in front of customers and employees alike wishing each other goodbye. Earlier in the day we talked about the bookstore and how it was just the 'waiting place' for our real lives to begin.

"I don't want to see you here in December" she said, parting words that I needed to hear. Without Marisol, it is just me and a bunch of people who have been there for a year or more. Supposedly the cast of characters are changing these days. Some are moving to far away places, some are heading back to school, but most...most are just still there, sour faces and all.

A lot of offers are being thrown my way as this new December time frame looms before me.

My mom wants me to come back home. She reminds me (daily) that I can get a lot of writing done at home, that i will have the comforts of my bed and tv (sans my lovely cats) and that i won't have to deal with the stress of this place. She even threw out the "i'll make Parmesan chicken". My favorite food ever.

Marie, who is lonely in her town has offered to house me at her apartment. We can be roomies and I can look at schools in the neighborhood. We would each have the comfort of a friend around, and in the process be brave enough to meet new people. I could stay with her rent free until i got a job, and my own place...and I've only been to North Carolina once but it sure was pretty.

Though tempting those propositions are so far from what i want to do it's scary. I don't really want to return home where the absence of my cats will be an excruciating thing. I will run into old faces from high (and possibly college) who will all ask "what are you doing now". I will be too embarrassed to say that i have come home because i did not make it in new york, and instead will make up some lie about visiting my mom for a while.

I do not want to live with Marie, only because we would annoy each other. We are too very hard headed people whose friendship has survived on the basis that we have our own space. Living together seems cool because we are both in weird places right now, her socially (which not having as much problems in. Go figure) and me career wise (which she is having no problems with).

At the end of the day happiness right now involves creating a life for myself. Distinct my my family and distinct from Marie's. My first step is to quit the bookstore but i have to make sure I have something lined up. I can't just quit and do the whole "no one will hire me" thing. If i could find a job before then that would be great. I don't only want to find a job but one in my field so I feel like I am getting closer to something. I am not certain if I can find that here, though new york is the capital of...well everything. It seems like everyone here is trying to break into some industry and luck is a key component that i seem to be lacking.

Perhaps i am just being impatient, but working at the bookstore isn't cutting it. So i have to take charge and make things better, though i am not sure how to go about doing that. By December I am out of there. December.

Right now I am on the search for a job (again). I have to get some books on how to right cover letters, because i feel like i am not grabbing any ones attention in human resources. I do not care if my job is in new york or somewhere far far away, as long as i feel that the experience gained there will help me get somewhere.

I have been thumbing around with out of the way locations: Maine, Oregon, Vermont, and I have decided that if book publishing won't take me (yet) than maybe i can start off small in literary magazines.

Right now i have a whole bunch of plans but no idea what to do with them. I am not happy here, but i feel like leaving and heading home or moving in with Marie will not help me. I need to find my place, I need to search for it, and then grasp it. I cannot bail out on a dream just because it is on a hard and arduous road to it. I can also not settle for anyone else's idea of what I should do with my life.

I have this fear that i am a "seeking person". That I am never fully settled in one place, and am constantly on the move for something else. This worries me only because at my age decisions are costly. Figuratively and Literally. I wonder if i will ever be happy with the job that i snag, or the school that i attend, or the life i am leading. I worry that even if happiness and security smacked me in the face I will be too busy worrying about what else is out there. For now, being a seeking person seems okay. I am young and curious, and testing the waters is what i am suppose to do.

I am learning everyday what makes me unhappy because that is what has been surrounding me lately. But i can't seem to make what 'may' make me happy into a reality.

I have a lot of decisions to make and whatever one i decided could bring it's own share of pro's and con's which I am not certain i can endure. But i have to take a risk right. I have to steer my life in some direction and deal with the problems along the way. But anything is better than right now.

I've been channeling Sylvia Plath lately and especially her passage about the fig tree:

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

God, why am i so indecisive about my own life.

In other totally related news, i must remind myself to write about some guy a work who has a crush on me. In a classic Beckett move, I manage to attract a weird (but harmless) maintenance guy instead of the man of my dreams (a older elementary school teacher who works at the book store part time to support himself). Apparently i am very charming to guys i don't want to date but completely rude to guys that i do want to date.

More details after I sleep this day and indecision's away.