Low.

I didn't get the job in Bridgeport.



I knew I wasn't going to but for some reason it still sort of hurt. Rejection has a way of doing that to you.



I am able to deal with disappointment on my own. I mean last year when I found out I wasn't going to grad school it was easy because I had the time to feel shitty about it and then move on from there. I am a person who internalizes everything (go figure!). I find it easier to put everything on my shoulder , hide in a corner when the stress becomes too much, and then emerge when I am ready.



This year it is a little different. My failures have been a little more public and it irks me. Yesterday I had three people waiting to hear about this Bridgeport thing. Three people waiting to tell me that 'the editor doesn't know what she's missing', 'things will pick up for you', 'I'm sorry to hear that, do you want to talk it out'. Three people to look like a complete loser in front of.



It may make no sense but I like to keep my failures to myself (well, you know what I mean) because to me failure is sort of embarrassing. I don't like people feeling sorry for me. And as a loner, I don't know how to accept shoulders to cry on.



So yesterday, before I knew that I didn't get the job, I kept getting nervous text messages and voice mails from my skittish support team. Angie with her "so did you hear anything . I'm so nervous for you. Let me know what she says the moment you hear something".



Marie wasn't as subtle: 'Did she call you', 'You need to call her if you don't hear anything soon', ' I would email her I mean she said she would contact you today and it's noon...'



The worst came from my mom. I know from experience that if you get a job, you will get a call from the employer. If you don't get a job you'll get an email. I have had my fair share of emails. Around 5 I checked my AOL account as as expected there was an email from the editor. I saw no reason to open it. I knew what it said. And I was content with it. The whole day I was okay with it , expect for when my support system kept making a deal out of it.





My mom called soon after I signed into AOL and of course she too wanted to know if I had heard anything. I told her that I received an email but there was no point in opening it. Emails only mean bad things. But she wouldn't let it drop. "Just open the email. What harm can it do. Come on. Open the email. Open the email and then call me back. Don't call me back until you open the email"



So I opened the email. Read the rejection letter and then cried. Not because I entirely wanted the job but because I didn't want to be rejected again.



When I called her back I was angry at her because she was wanted me to open the letter so bad. She couldn't just let me deal with rejection on my own. She wouldn't just let me wallow for a awhile just so I could pick myself up enough to convince everyone that I was okay.



The truth is...I am not okay. I make it seem like I have my shit together. That I am perfectly happy with Plans A, B, and C not working out. But honestly I don't know what the fuck I am doing. I don't know how to make things better or how to not feel like a complete failure. And some days I don't like pretending that everyone else is missing out poor Beckett. That my life will pick up, that I will have a job and enough money to afford things other than food. And maybe this makes me a horrible person because in front of my family and friends I am much more comfortable pretending like I am okay so they don't have to worry. Because if I admitted the truth I would see that look in their eyes that I could never live down. The look of worry and concern that I don't really want to see because I feel it every day.



I have turned off my cell phone so I don't have to talk to anyone. I just feel like disappearing for a while. I don't want to exist in the real world. I'd rather just fade away.

Spending My Time with Other Peoples Lives

Hey.



So I am not dead. I have not jumped off any high rise buildings or gassed myself in any stove ovens. I have not crawled under any unmanageable spaces and threatened never to leave. I am not rotting away in misery. That's not my style folks.



It's been a very long week or so. I went on an interview for that editorial assistant job and I have also been packing in preparation for my move back home. The interview went well, the editor said I had a sparkling personality but that my inexperience was the only problem. She will let me know today if I got the position but I am kind of hoping that I can apply for their internship program instead. They are looking for someone to start immediately and I need a break. The internship would start in August (i hope) and by then I will be ready



I am not going to lie. Some days are harder than others but for the most part I am not devastated by the grad school news. I wasn't devastated last week or the week before , but the culmination of everything this year has worn me out. The cab incident set that off, but only because I bottle stress in and then let something stupid get to me later on. I need a break from the real world...just for a little while.



I am going home for 6 weeks. I need rest. I am all worn out. I came up with some excuse (a writing workshop near home) to account for my future absence at work. They know I want to write and a few weeks wont hurt anybody. I don't know what happens after then. I have talked to some people about rooming with them in August. Angie wants me to try and find something in the Washington D.C/Maryland area where she now works. I still am obsessed with Maine.



But I'll worry about that when the time comes. Until then, I have been reading up a storm to pass the time ( in between working). Currently my days are spent reading books my co-workers deem worthy. Ryder ( Jack Keroauc Jr.) let me borrow Action Philosophers. Don't be fooled by the title, it is exactly what you would expect. Philosophy + Graphic Novels.

Kathleen currently wants me to read A Long Way Down by Nick Horny ( a book about suicide. what fun) in exchange for my book Less Than Zero (a book about disillusionment. more fun). The exchange occurs today at 2:30 in the fiction aisle of the book store, followed by cake. Yes cake because Michelle turns four today!

Brittney loaned me The Lovely Bones and Lucky by Alice Sebold last week. Rape makes me queasy and I am sort of fumbling with both novels though the writing is good. Work Michelle wants me to read It by Stephen King. But I would have to buy this book so I'm holding off on that read.

That's four books so far plus the three I am already reading The Secret History, April and Oliver, and American Psycho. Luckily I blow through books like I blow through sweets (very fast) and in no time I will have these read. Other people's lives are becoming a little more interesting than my own these days.

So yeah. Not dead or dying.

I'm just...

The Last Straw.

I just walked home. At 1:30 in the morning. Because I was on call and had to come in today to close.

But towards the shift it started to rain. And after a horrible time making a messy store look not so messy, I called a cab ARROW CABS, to be precise, to pick me up. After waiting 20 minutes for the cab to come, some guy from out of no where gets in.

So I, tired-dejected-rejected...go up to the car before they can leave together and voice my concern. That I was the one standing out here for a long time, I was the one who called twice to ask where the hell my cab was, and that this asshole address is not the one she was sent to pick up.

She knows this. Because after I tell her where I am going she turns to him and goes "did you call cab". He lies and says he did. That he called this specific cab. She says "oh" and then looks as if she doesn't know what to do. Even though I am her FARE. I am the one who she is suppose to be picked up. So you know what she does. She asks me to wait for the next one. As if that will make it any better.

I slam the door, mouthing an "Ok douches" and start walking in the rain. They get stuck at a light, and just as I pass she realizes how fucked up this is. That some straight out of the oven, minty fresh, douche bag is not her fare and that me, worn out-dejected-rejected-crooked edges is her damn Fare.

"oh miss" she yells from across the street"come in. come in the cab". But I can't because there are tears forming and I am too mad and proud to get in. So I tell her I will walk. All the way up the hill, past the cemetery and the law school to my 'house'. I think I tell her this. I wish I told her this. When the light turns green they turn the corner briskly and out of sight and then I cry the whole way home because even though I am dealing with this graduate school thing well....for some reason it mattered today.

For some reason all of the bad from this past year, mattered. It mattered that my nephew I never got to know and love died. That my mom and brother are dealing with their grief separately with food or alcohol. That Marie is so miserable in small town USA I worry for her. That my dad needs me to be the daughter I don't know how to be. That my aunt is an idiot who has raised and is raising selfish children. That I was rejected from grad school, from my own Alma mater which makes me feel like god hates me. Because the shit never stops. There is never a moment where it gets an easier. Never a pause button so I can take a snack break and come back to all the action. It just unfolds rapidly and without care.

So it mattered tonight that ARROW CABS left me at my job to walk home so some guy who never has anything bad happen to him could get home to his nice life where babies don't die suddenly for no reason, where someone stops being an aunt and a father and a grandma all in one day. Where schools accept bright girls for their MFA programs and where there are enough pause buttons for him to evaluate or not evaluate taking a cab away from a girl and where hs cabbie foes not have to evaluate breaking a cabbie rule: take the fare you are given.

So it mattered to night with each painful step home. It fucking mattered. And it was easy for all of it to matter because in the rain who can really decipher tears from drops that fall from the sky.

And the Ball Drops.

I didn't get in.

Enough said.

?????

Yesterday I half-heartily applied to an PT editorial assistant job in Bridgeport CT. It was a complete fluke. I was just sick of tired of waiting around for my grad letter to come, so I decided to do a job search. I still have not heard anything back from grad school which is really beginning to take a toll on me. It has been four weeks since I turned in my application. Four weeks that I have been contemplating whether my ok grad, ok gre scores and story will be enough.


Because I go back and forth between school and the 'real world' I thought it would be good to start a job search. See what sort of stuff I would qualify for this time around. So that's sort of what I've been doing. However, I was still very shocked when I received a call today from a position I applied to yesterday. She wants to interview me and see if I am right for the position. It is only part time, and it is an hour away but it's in publishing. And believe or not it is for the romance department. I get to read smut all day long. Kind of awesome.



But on a more realistic note there is NO WAY that I can take this position (if she offers it to me after our interview next friday). My lease has pretty much run out at my aunt's house, and I don't know about the whole traveling everyday thing. More importantly, I really want to go to school. And I am praying (yes, actually praying. What a goddamn hypocrite I know) that I will be attending school in fall.



I have been calculating this bridgeport thing in my head ever since she called. And all I can think about is traveling expenses, whether my aunt will let me stay in her house any longer, whether I can handle working there if I am only making part time money which will not afford me an apartment and plus I hear bridgeport sucks...hardcore. This is weird. When I first came here I never got a call back from the publishing jobs I applied to, and now I am qualified to pursue publishing but I don't actually want to do that right now.



What to do? What to do? I am hoping beyond hope that i get some word back from grad school on the status of my application. I want to move forward but I do not know if this is the direction i particularly want to take. This was not the news I was hoping to hear about this week, surprising indeed but not particularly what I was waiting for.



What the hell am I doing with my life.

The Real World Was Pleasant Yesterday.

No shit.

Next week is my last day at the internship. For some reason I am very sad about this. I can bitch and moan about the internship because it's my internship. I can curse Lenny out in my mind because he is my Lenny. And I can laugh at and with Adam (the IT guy who got me off that damn roof) because he is my geeky tech guy who I have come to like more than I should. Because sometimes when we are talking, our faces get too close for my comfort and I get this sudden urge to lean forward into him, just because...

Yesterday morning I came into work and Lenny was super excited because he got an email from one of the models for the documentary we are working on. Her agent contacted him and set up a day that Lenny and the model can talk. It was nice seeing his reaction, because I had spent so much time researching said Model and now he has an interview with her. Things are happening with this documentary that i have spent 5 months on and for some reason I am very excited about this.

The truth is, I like my job there. I have figured out my role in the production world and I like it. When I am not being the goffer, I am mainly the research person. This means if Lenny wants to know every and anything about Iquitos, Peru I compile as much information as I can for him so he doesn't have to do it. I get to read a lot of cool shit, I get to search the web like a detective and when all is said and done I compile my info into a nice word presentation that I print and send to him via email. I was born for that. And if they would hire me to do that everyday, I would accept. Accept. Accept.

Yesterday, I got into the elevator [with the] guy who was fixing the air conditioner. For a few seconds we were really silent but than all of a sudden he wanted to ask me questions about what we did there. When I told him we made movies his eyes lit up and he started talking about how cool my job was. I was about to explain to him that I didn't actually work there (work entitles a paycheck, and I am not getting paid) but I didn't see any reason to. He then asked me how one would go about getting a job there. ???. I told him that it just depends on when they need the help and what you have to offer to the production company. I also didn't see any reason to explain that they really only have about 3 people working there, and that everyone else is an intern. Why let a man down so early in the morning.

After this encounter though, I too realized how cool my job is. How cool everyone's job is there. I still have no idea what they do or how they do it. But for the most part it is a bunch of 20 something year old people walking around with Mac computers wearing clothes that cost more than me. Trust me they get some work done, but they look happy doing it even when they don't get the budget they want for a film, even when they have to negotiate time for money, even when they are on the phone with the guy who is paying for all of this.

They still have an amazing gig. Creating art through film.

It was a nice sunny day yesterday, and I went on my normal snack run around noon. The weather makes everyone happier and even though Soho is a big neighborhood there was something quaint about it when I strolled back to work 30 minutes later. There was something completely amazing about the city in a whole. That this is the place where people come to find and or lose themselves in. And for a solid moment, just before I headed inside, I began to regret my decision to leave.

If the situation were better (job, money, and an apartment I could afford) I would stay. Angie and I talked about New York a lot and how there is a tension in this place that nearly suffocates you. Joan Didion says New York is only for the young. Some say New York is for the strong willed. I have yet to figure out what New York is for me. Sometimes it is all of the above, sometimes it is not. But yesterday, New York was a place I did not want to leave. A place that I could create myself in. There is a part of me that has no idea where I will be in 5 years. A part of me where the future is neither dark nor light. It is sort of ambivalent place where I hope I reside. But as I took in Soho, I was hit with a flash flood of possibilities for me there. That I could be one of those people having a nice afternoon in Soho because I had a life there which I had created for myself out of nothing. And this thought caused me to regret having to leave.

In a weird way I don't want to leave. I want to see where I could be in another year here. I feel like I've learned so much already, and I fear leaving prematurely.

Anyway. I have to close tonight. Yuck. Not looking forward to the hoard of teenagers fucking up the store.

Oh, and Cat Power is driving me crazy. Where was she four years ago. Or where was I that I never heard of her until now.

Swine Flu Care Package?

So on Friday my mom said was mailing me a 'special' package.

As i wait around for some word on grad school, telling me about any special packages is not such a good idea. I imagined it was going to be my acceptance or rejection letter in the mail. That she had received the letter on Monday or Tuesday of last week, and decided to surprise me with goodies along with the letter.

This is what I expected because it is what I wanted. In some weird way. Even if it's a rejection letter, I will at least have some closure on this thing. But of course the package (because it arrived today) turned out to be...a Swine Flu Care Package. No lie.

I should take a picture of this thing. Neatly packed over some newspaper is a dozey of hand sanitizers (should the epidemic become too strong?), alcohol wipes (pocket size, should I venture outside of my house into the post-apocalyptic world of the H1n1 virus), and cookies. Yes gingerbread man cookies (should worrying about the virus make me hungry).

It's pretty hilarious.

So my grad school worrying continues as I wait for some news on what the hell I am going to do in the next few months. But at least I have all these precautionary items to last me through the year.

That's what moms are for.

It's A Sunday Thing

So yesterday I was on call. This means that I get to wait around all day until a manager calls (around 4) to see if I am needed or not. Being on call usually means I don't have to work but there are some days when they do ask, and expect, you to come in if they need you.

I wasn't terribly in a good mood yesterday (allergies) so when 4 came around and no one call I sort of put my phone on vibrate and prayed that they wouldn't need me to help close the store. I thought I was in the clear until I got a call from work at 7. I answered only because I need the money and if that means dragging my snotty ass to work..well then so be it. But my manager was not calling for that. She wanted to know if I could take Lisa's schedule on Sunday because she is moving into a new place. Lisa was scheduled to work 10-6, I was only scheduled to work 6-closing. So naturally I told my manager that I would have no problem taking Lisa's time.

It's been rainy the last couple of days which is weird because last week it was 90 degrees. Friday it was a deadly shade of grey outside and the clouds sort of hoovered. Luckily Lenny and the French dude did not send me running all over the place, because by 2pm the rain came pouring down. Today it was pretty much the same, grey and cloudy. You would think this would keep people inside. But no. Not in Westchester county where parents have more time on their hands then should be allowed. Today was a weird chaotic mess of people who didn't want to keep their children inside and people who should have stayed inside.

There is this regular customer-I use that term lightly- There is this regular guy who comes into the store with a huge disco colored shopping bag. It is the most ostentatious thing I have ever seen in my whole entire life, and the first time I saw him walking around the store I could only think to myself "what a weird thing to use as a purse". It goes beyond a purse, it is this ugly yellow bag you would get at some party store. Putting two and two together we quickly figured out that this guy is really a kleptomaniac and the bag is where he stuffs all his shit. Every time him and his yellow bag comes in we are on high alert. It's sort of funny because the bag draws so much attention to him. When the store lights hit the bag it glitters and could literally cause a glare. Our heads turn, we whisper "oh shit the bag guy is here" and then take turns asking him if he needs help while peering into his bag. I think his bag holds the secret of the world in it.

Anyway, it was my turn to follow him around today. But for a bag guy, he is pretty quick. One minute I had the glare of the sparkly shopping bag in my view the next I couldn't find the guy for the longest time. By the time I did see him he was near the exit. Someone says he has weird padding in the bag and that's why he can stuff crap in it without the alarm going off. Nevertheless he is one of the more interesting guys who comes in. And in some weird way we look forward to seeing him because then we have something to do for a while.

I am super nervous about telling my managers that I will be leaving June 1st. I have finally decided on a date. I will get to celebrate Michelle's birthday and enjoy my last days in Westchester before I head home to Small Town USA. I have been conflicted about this in many ways. I love my job. I love the people I work with. And for the most part it is an easy gig. So yes, I have to keep listening to people ask for books like To Kill A Mockingbird without knowing who the author is. And I admit it, I give them a "it's Harper Lee you asshole" look before taking them to the book. So maybe I have to pretend like I care about a book I will never read as a customer goes on and on about how I should read it because it will change my life. But, I love my job. In a weird way. I do.

I never had a job in high school. My mom never pushed the issue on me and I never wanted to make money. Seriously. I barely know what to do with the money I make now. So in a weird way my time at the Bookstore has been a fun high school-isque job where I spend more time talking to my work buddies then helping customers. This does not mean that I do not take book selling seriously but there are often times when I am talking to one of my 'friends' and a customer comes up to us as if we should drop everything to attend to them and all I want to do is turn to the customer lingering at the desk tapping their fingers on the counter and tell them 'hey can you come back in a few. I'm sort of talking here'.

I will miss that.

My mom wants me to take a plane home because I will get to my house in a New York Minute. But I am not a fan of planes. In a weird way I would like to leave this place just like I entered it...on a train looking out the window feeling like I have so much possibility. It will be a long train ride but I wouldn't mind. I could get my own little room, and not have to fight over the window seat. It will give me time to think and process the last 8-9 months of my life. I could read and stare out the window and just breathe...something I have not done in a very long time.

I keep forgetting how nice it is to do that everyone once in a while.

Time to read. I am on my third Bret Easton Ellis novel. I may be a little obsessed. I flew through The Informers and Less Than Zero, but I am not really feeling American Psycho. I want to get into it, but for some reason I just keep putting it down. I have the whole week off and I should make a dent in it. I think I should also start working on some more stories. I hate when people walk into the store asking for writing books as if reading "how to get write a novel for dummies" makes them a writer all of a sudden. I should just start a whole new journal called "that irks me" because if writing is so difficult for me how can some guy or girl off the street come into the store looking for those books, get it done? I can't fathom it being that easy.