Revolting Door

Another job fair passed today. “Chicago’s biggest job fair of the year” at Navy Pier. Navy Pier? Desperate unemployed mixing with not-having-a-care-in-the-world tourists? Interesting choice, big bro.

Anywho, when I arrived, the line to get in was about a mile long but I guess I arrived at the same time with most people (this is how mainstream I am) because when I was leaving there was no line anymore. You could see all kinds of people from all walks of life on this fair, wearing all kinds of business and non-business attire, from suits to baggy jeans and white T’s.

There were less than 20 employers. At least the room was cool. And not letting everyone in at the same time was actually quite nice. Otherwise it would’ve been a murderhouse.

I made sure to leave my resume on every table, since there were only about 15 of them. I talked to a couple employers and a couple people in my boat, but we mostly joked around; I went to this job fair with the lowest expectations possible, so when I realized it wasn’t gonna be so bad, I decided to at least have fun. Yes, fun is a matter of decision sometimes.

Hunger being the driving force in my life, I was on a roll to cover all tables as quickly as possible so I can go and satisfy my longing for food. Another driving force in my life is sex, but my sex toy is still away on training, and that’s a whole other topic.

On April 22/23 I started seeing a friend. I don’t want to desecrate the experience so far by writing about it.

Last time I updated this (April 17) my main priorities were going to the gym religiously and applying for jobs, mostly online.

Today my priorities still revolve somewhat around going to the gym religiously although I skipped a whole week last week so how religious is that. As far as applying to jobs online, I’ve always known it’s a waste of time but I somehow felt a glimpse of hope every time I shot out a resume out there in the vast pool of millions of digitally submitted resumes. But since 80% of the jobs out there are gotten through knowing someone, I finally got my guts together and attended a “How to Work a Job Fair” workshop some times in May, and a few days later I attended an actual job fair.

Let me tell you how useless and frustrating to my core that whole experience was. It was a hot day and I wore my black suit for the lack of another one. I had to bike there since I had absolutely no cash that week. I finally got there while somehow keeping my cool together in the meantime (let me tell you - being totally broke doesn’t help self-confidence much). There were literally thousands of people, hovering around 60 tables of employers. Out of those 60 probably 20 were hiring for whatever positions and probably only 10 or less were looking for full-time employees. You can imagine the lines in front of those full-time hiring tables. No, you can’t. There were about 50 people lined up in front of each of those tables at any time for as long as the fair lasted. So I stood in five of those lines, finally got a “chance” to talk to a rep, say my little speech, hand my little resume and my cool colorful yet professionally looking business card, but it’s so fucking loud in that room I can barely hear my own voice. So I try to leave my frustration and exhaustion somewhere in the back and gear up all the energy I can possibly squeeze out of myself to yell my little speech in a high pitched voice at the rep who probably hears the same thing for the 500th time that day and the 10,000th time that week. But instead of coming out cool and collected, whatever I say (yell) comes out as a neurotic bomb bordering with insanity. In fact at that point I’m sure the rep can literally see the craze in my eyes as my eyeballs pop out from straining myself to get heard. Tell me, how can networking like that possibly help anyone get a job?

The cool thing about having a thousand people there was that you can easily lose yourself in the crowd; but the even cooler thing was that you can elbow people and get away with it - an activity so fulfilling in its passive-aggressive nature.

So after waiting in five 50-person lines and going to the restroom a couple of times to recollect myself, I start just wondering around the room, not quite giving a shit anymore, realizing how ridiculously pointless this whole thing is, the desperation and aggression of the unemployed crowd leaving me feeling like I got high on bad pot after a few days of sleep deprivation.

At this point I’d been there for two exhausting hours and had talked to only about 5% of the reps. So I just walked around the room, elbowed my way to the tables that were hiring, and “casually” left my resume and business card on the pile of other resumes. Sometimes I’d have to walk behind tables because some employers kept the stacks of resumes on chairs behind the tables so people like me felt more discouraged to do what I was doing. When I got most employers covered, and felt like I would either throw up or start yelling at people, I got on my bike and biked home. I felt squeezed out and I felt as if someone had been tossing me around like an old piece of rag for three hours. And so discouraged on top of that. I took my clothes off when I got home and just walked around trying to calm myself down. I felt like hitting and punching things. I felt so desperate. I don’t know what the mood was for the rest of the day but that was basically my job fair experience. Oh, also when I got home that day, I wanted to convince myself how pointless job fairs are so I found this discussion board which made me feel better.

I also had an interview in May. With a shitty company - 100% commission - offering a shitty service and driving your own vehicle without getting reimbursed for anything. You can imagine how that whole thing went down. I went there in my most sarcastic mood. The interview started half an hour late, lasted five minutes, and I wasn’t even the only interviewee in the room with that uneducated douche who bragged about making as much money as doctors and lawyers without having spent ten years on education. Unpleasantly reminded me of that boss I once had who was less educated than all her employees and was ready to kill someone for two bucks.

So I ended up asking the uneducated douche for the contact information of whoever owned the building their “company” was in. I liked fantasizing about having enough money to open my own business in that old building that used to be some kind of factory and they still haven’t renovated and desecrated it by turning it into a modernistic piece of crap. I spent a lot of time after the interview just walking around the empty floors, being alone in the vast airy spaces, breathing in the smell of wood, opening heavy old metal doors with a-hundred-year-old locking mechanisms, running my fingers along the exposed brick walls, looking through the huge windows out at the industrial parts of the city.

On my way out I ended up talking to one of the guys who work the job I was applying for. He tried convincing me that it’s an easy and profitable job. I stood there in my Prada heels and black suit, on a hot day, in a god-forsaken part of an industrial Chicago neighborhood, letting myself being convinced by someone whose personality type is light years from mine. Then we went to an internet coffee shop so he could show me the magazine he and his friend were about to launch. I saw an opportunity for a photo gig so I sat there for 45 min looking at tits and pussies among some supposedly more sophisticated articles, and was ready to go and devastate a big lunch when I realized my car got booted at the fucking parking lot. Being just as poor as during the job fair, I literally just didn’t *have* the money to pay. Finally I asked my good friend I. to come and swipe his credit card for me and he did. While I waited, the boot guy gave me a cigarette and some cop started up a conversation with me and ended up offering me $40 which I refused to take because it made me feel like a hooker in a suit. Now that I think about it, I should’ve taken it.

Something amazing happened in the beginning of this month actually - I won my court case and got all my money back.

In terms of gigs, I did a couple food photo gigs. I sold a lot of stuff on Ebay. I’ve been participating in research studies and other one-time-gigs. Two out of three credit cards are maxed out and it seems the more money you owe the more fees they dump on your account. Like if I can’t pay my bills it’s pretty obvious that I’m flat broke, what makes you think I can pay your additional fucking fees that you wouldn’t dump on my account if I wasn’t broke? Your retarded company sucks.

Now about the future. I’ve been thinking seriously about switching directions. I just don’t know what path to take since I don’t want to spend another 4 or even 2 years in school learning something I can learn over a few months. More about the direction I’m interested in - later. Additionally, my work permit expires in January 2010 and unless I get married, I have to leave by March. That’s starting from ground 0 again, in another continent. But that’s inevitable if I plan to move back to that continent one day. At this point I feel like whatever I strive to accomplish in Chicago, would be an effort wasted, since the plan is to not even be here another winter let alone longer.

But home is really where your friends are, and at this point I feel I can even move to a small Indiana town if I have friends there and a job that will pay my fucking loans.

Commencement is tomorrow. I don’t want to go. Haven’t even told A about it because he’ll convince me to go and I don’t want to be convinced.

I’m waiting for A to come back and make pancakes on this lazy, happy, rainy Saturday morning. I have a few things planned today. Thank god I finally got some good sleep last night, after weeks of torture.

He’s going on a two week training starting tomorrow. I caught myself actually being jealous yesterday. But a healthy amount I hope. But I see how if I get too attached this could easily get out of control. But I don’t think it will. As long as I care a little instead of a lot, things will be fine. And as long as he has the same interest in me he’s had in the past 10 months.

What sucks the most is when the guy who was once crazy about you, loses interest and takes you for granted. There is nothing as heart-breaking as knowing you’re not as special in someone else’s life as you once were.

They all have girlfriends. And wives and someones. You’re just their daily breather; their fantasy; their “If I were single…” moment.

My housemates and I went to a house party. S’s mom is visiting for Easter so she came with us. It was a one-year birthday party for the son of one of S’s students. She’s Mexican so the culture of warmness and high spirit is a given for her and her family. There were tons of people - singles, families and about twenty kids running around. Altogether it was real pleasant. I enjoy the Mexican culture tremendously, probably because it is so close to my own. At a party, you can totally be yourself; you don’t have to be super loud and chirpy to be accepted; if you’re slow to open up to people, you just take your time, do your thing, and people respect you for who you are; people might see you as a quiet and nice person but they wouldn’t judgmentally label you as timid or shy; in my culture that’s just a type of personality, it’s not a flaw. While in the US, at a party, if you’re quiet you’re automatically scorned as a social outcast and that’s the end of it.

When we left, my housemates’ mom exclaimed “Oh my, I would never survive in such an extroverted culture. I wanted to crawl in a hole.” This exclamation led me to realize a few things.

First of all, I realized how much I miss being surrounded by and living with extroverted (or at least less introverted) friends. My behavior is profoundly influenced by the people I’m with, and I know, if I did go to that party with more outgoing people, things would’ve been different, I would’ve met and interacted with more people, I would’ve talked more, I would’ve had more fun, I would feel charged with much more positive energy by the end of the evening. Point being: Living with these folks is detrimental for me. Just the way living near a factory is bad for your physical health (breathing the poluted air - bad for your lungs), the same way living with very reclusive folks is bad for my mental health, and my mental health is just as important as my physical health. So what do people, who live near a factory, do? They move. To another neighborhood. Neighborhood without a factory and maybe even near a park (you know - fresh air, trees and whatnot).

Second of all, all this time up until now, I thought that the reason my dear (and I’m saying this in an honest non-sarcastic way) housemates are so socially inadequate, was because of their dad; they claim he has autism. I thought their mom was fine. But now I realize their mom is not much better in terms of social skills. The poor kids were brought up by these two totally incompetent and inadequate, deeply introverted and socially unskilled adults, and they still turned out pretty fine. But the point is: It’s not their fault they are the way they are. Given the parents they have, they could’ve been even worse. S is actually pretty good and covering her awkwardness in public. I know she feels awkward in side but she exhudes this dignity about herself that can only bread respect. (Well, except in a club but I’m sure she can work on that.) A, however, you can literally see how much he’s suffering around strangers and in public. He just literally shrinks; becomes nobody; stares down at his plate, and when he forces himself to look up and look around, his eyes frantically go in all directions, checking out the environment and then going back to his plate. If you meet his eyes during one of these environment-scoutings, you might get scared of the fear you see there. These folks are really afraid of being in public, and I can relate. I’m tired of trying to hide it all my life; trying to cover it with a mask of coolness and dignity, even arrogance. Sometimes I have spells of exstrovertedness, and despite that they don’t last very long, they help me get a glimpse of what it’s like to be an extrovert, and it’s FCUKING AWESOME! You perceive the vibrancy and colorfulness of the world around you, without worrying about how you look, how you walk, who’s watching you, etc; you soak in all the awesome stuff of the world around, without getting overwhelmed; you are actually able to enjoy the world without getting tired of it.When I’m in those states, I try to hold them a little longer every time, but I inevitable go back to my inward-looking and being stuck up in my head.

Third of all, which was a confirmation rather than a realization - why would you want to have a child with another introvert just to create another suffering human being. I don’t know a family where the parents or I’s and the child miraculously turns an E. Think about it - my housemates’ parents are two I’s. My parents are two I’s. I’m sure I can come up with thousands of other examples. And the thought that naturally follows - your only way to even have a chance of having an extroverted child - your only way to break the vicious circle of introversion, is to have a child with an extrovert.

There was an introverted young couple at the party - a young couple with a little girl. The dad sat in one corner of the TV room, the mom sat in the oposite corner. They had the sweetest little girl, and the mom was trying to make her go play with the other kids. But no matter how much the mom was telling her to go and playing and trying to make her to be outgoing, the little girl would make a quick trip to the other kids, and then immediately come back and sit with mom, or want one of her parents to go with her to the other kids. Point: you can’t force a child of I’s to be an E, if all she can see is I (her parents’ behavior) because kids involuntarily copy their parents’ behavior, no matter how bad it might be.

Some of my worse qualities have been surfacing in the past week or two. I don’t know if it’s because it’s April and it’s still winter, or because I literally have no money to wipe my ass, or because my housemates’ inability to detect the way I feel or to understand it, for that matter, drives me insane. …the serenity to accept the things I can’t change… courage to change the things I can… wisdom to know the difference… They’re just sitting there, numb, completely unaware of anyone or anything around them. Unaware of the rusty pans, the smelly kitchen, the wall in the living room that’s literally falling apart day by day, the tons of rag-remnants thrown over the old couches. They cook in those rusty pots and pans and eat that food, they eat seven-days-old leftovers, they cook chicken and beef that’s been sitting in the fridge for over a month… They are very interesting species. They annoy the heck out of me but at the same time I can’t stop analyzing them; they fascinate me in a weird, annoying way. The poverty and ugliness doesn’t bother them, they don’t detect facial expressions, vibes or type of energy in others. They’re introverted to a degree which bothers even me - I, who is supposed to understand introverts and accept them, me being one of them. But this is really some extreme case of introversion - it might be okay for them, but it’s unhealthy for me. The neighbors downstairs are interesting species too - their place is an even bigger dump than ours, and cluttered with three times more crap stuff, on top of everything else. Now I understand why mom was always bugged by my dad’s lack of need for aesthetics in living, and I want to never make that same mistake. I miss Miguel. He was the other sensing person in the household. We didn’t speak the same language but he understood me the best - just a look at my face was enough and he would instantly see the rainbow of emotions I was experiencing at a glance. He was so good at that, sometimes I wish he wasn’t - when for example I would come back bummed out from school and I would like to hide it from everyone but he would notice instantly. Now I miss that. I’m all alone. Now, when I come back from somewhere and I pass through the living room, no matter if I’m overwhelmed with joy or sadness, their reaction is always the same - NOTHINGNESS.

But back to my worse qualities - yesterday I felt like I wanted to grab A by the collar and shake him, shake him and yell “I can’t take this anymore” or something along those lines. Poor retard probably wouldn’t understand. I’m also still mad at S about depositing nearly $800 without notifying me. What thoughtless and insensitive person does that?! I feel like telling her these exact words; I feel like telling her that I’m mad at her. I feel like telling her that I’m also mad at her for eating my last grapefruit without asking. I feel like telling both of them over and over again, in every possible way, mostly passive-aggressively, that THEY LIVE IN A DUMP and DOESN’T IT BOTHER THEM?!?!? DON’T THEY NOTICE IT? I feel like asking S how come she doesn’t mind to have lived in this dump for the past 8 years, and didn’t she at any point want to move somewhere better, or this was sufficient for her in terms of living conditions? I don’t want to be mean, I’m just curious how their minds word, how they perceive things? Obviously so differently than me. She also bugs me because she never admits if she’s upset with you. She’s passive-aggressive instead or just tries to suppress it altogether. Which is unhealthy; no wonder she “felt like killing somebody” (citing her) when she was off of her pills.

My bank account bounced at -$650 a few days ago and I just noticed today, enough time for fucking “insufficient funds” fees to pile up on top of everything else. Normally I would cry in this situation but nothing came out as I was staring at the screen, so I calculated the damages instead. My housemate apparently cashed checks that had been piling up for the past two months that I had forgotten about - rent, gas, el. I wanted to go and yell at her but really what’s the point, just create additional tension for both of us.

I know what I’m gonna do in the morning - go to the bank and beg to waive the fees. But I don’t know what I’m gonna do after that. I have a box of cheap jewelry in the drawer… Silver, nothing golden unfortunately. Hmm. My financial situation has never been *that* desperate, and yet I don’t feel desperate in the comfort of my bedroom tonight. Oddly enough, I don’t feel like I’m capable of going out there and doing desperate things, not at all.

I’m doing something wrong, but only after I start doing the right thing I’ll realize what I’ve been doing wrong.

I’ve been joking lately how I have to find a rich husband asap. The 18-year-old emancipated Me would strangle the 25-year-old pragmatic (and, okay, slightly desperate) Me for bringing shame to Womankind, but a nice rich guy really wouldn’t be that bad right now. Judge me, I don’t care.

I’m scared of waking up in the morning. It’s gonna be Monday morning, and I will still have no job. Scratch “still”. “Still” implies some kind of hope that I might have a job in the future. I have, in fact, lost such hope. Semi-educated retards don’t even want to hire me as a server.

Actually I’m not depressed. I have a list of things to do tomorrow, places to go, people to talk to. I’m hopeful, and yet, I know Hope came out of Pandora’s box. And whatever your Monday is, such will be your whole week. The only thing I really, honestly hope for, is to still be not-depressed when I wake up in the morning. Good night.

PS Maybe I should go back to school.

Relationships… Committed. Monogamous… A. and I were talking about Persephone the Queen of the Underworld, and he suggested that that is probably my understanding of a relationship – living in the Underworld. That metaphor - strikingly correct… Caged. Trapped. Suffocated. I become this other person. Dependent. Emotionally dependent. Completely and totally un-independent. Demanding. Testing the man constantly through deeds, scenarios and situations. It’s not that I like doing that, don’t get me wrong, I just can’t help it. Clingy. Clingy is a BIG one. You’re suffocated but you’re also suffocating. It’s like you’re suffocating your own existence but blaming the other. Is it natural? Are relationships natural? If you’re walking around the zoo on a warm sunny Sunday with only one other person, and you’re walking with the understanding that this is the only person you’re allowed to be with, and there are no kids and no friends to take the attention off of each other, wouldn’t you be bored out of your mind? Fidgety to get the hell out of that zoo trap? What an irony. Trapped people go to see trapped animals. A voluntary act of admitting your defeat. Without realizing it. Thinking you’re happy. Being happy. Are you really happy?  

In the end of each day, I tell myself, tomorrow will be different. Better. More productive. More active. More clear-minded.

Then the mornings are usually fine; lunches are fine too. But if I’m not out and about by the time early afternoon hits… the day is lost. The hours keep rolling… first it’s 2pm… then it’s 330… then it’s suddenly 5… and what have I done? Nothing. By the time 5 comes around, I’m too tired to even go to the gym. Tired of what, you may ask? Don’t ask.

I feel that there is so much that can be done but… At the same time all I do is *think* about it; none of the *doing* seems to get done… I tried to push myself - with violence and with peace - I tried to tell myself that I need two hard slaps in the face; and I tried to tell myself that I love myself. Nothing worked. Nothing works.

Night used to be my favorite time - right before I go to bed. Now I dread it. I dread it because I don’t feel sleepy but sleep because I don’t know what else to do. I dread it because I look forward to nothing in the morning that comes.

Bienvenue to the first summer day in Chicago!

Walking back from the restaurant I applied to this morning, bathed in sun and warmth, I was thinking how awesome it is to be single! I felt this burst of happiness, I felt free, being able to breathe without anything holding back parts of my breath, walking in the sun, a plan of the day ahead lined up in my mind. None of the sadness and broken-heartedness from three weeks ago. You don’t feel confined when you’re single, there’s no one you owe explanations to, you don’t feel the grip of undeserved guilt every time you talk to a male human being. God forbid if you flirt with them. And God knows flirting is the only means of communication I know when it comes to some male human beings. You don’t feel put in a box. You don’t have to put up with annoying habits. You don’t trip when he’s late or doesn’t show up. You don’t feel jealous or insecure or obsessed. You just feel carefree and light. You are simply yourself and you live and breathe the life you create for yourself because it is 100% what YOU want it to be.