You know the salsa commercial where the cowboy looks into the camera and exclaims in horror, NEW YORK CITY!? Whether you or don't, the point is that the cowboy is correct in his astonishment, who would ever really want to live in this city? The housing is overpriced, the food though yummy is overpriced, and every other possible thing that one might need to live is jacked up to the point where it might as well be lined with gold and sold in the suburbs. But then again, where else is there to live? Where else do people live? Yes, I've lived elsewhere but who would ever want to given the choice. Unless you were to live in some foreign and fabulous culture with an equal degree of diversity, culture and glitz (such as Paris, Rome or a bunch of others I've never been to) why would one ever want to live outside the 5 great boroughs? As smelly, stinky and rude as it is, it's NYC. Open mostly about 20 hours of the day, complete with unreliable and again overpriced public transportation with a complimentary dose of stress and anxiety. What's my point? If you don't live in NYC then I don't have one. If you do, well then you're not the ones asking...
Much to my dismay, I had my second interview, in 18 months, this afternoon. I'll spare you the details of the first, the outcome being self-explanatory I assume. What is there really to say in regards to interviews anyway? I'm pretty horrible at them. My competence in this area is so poor that on this one occasion I had resigned myself to complete and utter failure, and success I believe I did achieve! No, I do not possess a self defeating prophecy, though that would explain a lot; instead, I see myself (if I may) as a sort of lesbian Woody Allen, completely inept and incapable of any or all forms of social (or at least acceptable) interaction. Perhaps now that this has clearly been determined I can resign myself to a life of forlorn and antisocial behavior.
So what happened with the interview you ask? To begin with it was with the YWCA and not the WMCA; which if I had known that, having a degree in women studies and all, I would have been much more excited about the potential professional prospect and perhaps would have made it there on time. Enough said? In conclusion: we were at the tail end of the blizzard of 2010, I submit that meteorological fact as my final piece of half assed evidence in my defense.
Here are the stats; it's the top of 2010, I'm committed (in a relationship not in an asylum), slightly homeless though not on the street (we'll get to that later), 18 months out of my undergrad and chilling at the customer service desk at the local Bookstore and Bookstore. Well that is, I'm working.
I didn't bother going to my college commencement and never received my diploma in the mail, but I don't really care. What am I supposed to do with it at this point anyway- hang it on my nonexistent apartment wall and brag how it landed me this fabulous job? I don't think so.
Like many of my generation, I found myself during my early to mid twenties making a career out of transferring from college to college. After one last cross country schlep, I settled my restless brain in the all promising NYC, was accepted into my terminal college and began my short lived career in women studies (in my next life I will be a gender studies theorist complete with tenure). I moved into an overpriced LES studio, met my last boyfriend (I say last because I would shortly precede in discovering my own lesbianism) and landed myself a part-time gig as a book slave to Bookstore and Bookstore. Fast forward four plus years and here I am. My part-time gig has gone fulltime, President Obama has called for jobs to be the number one concern of the country (but of course let's not abandon healthcare reform just yet), and I'm banking on my tax return to pull me above the debt mark.
I probably sound downright miserable huh? Oh on the contra my dear friend! Yes, fiscally I'm screwed. The lights and sounds of NYC do not come cheap (neither does the smell or noise), but if I really wanted to fall into a deep depression I would have by now, bought a shot gun and popped myself off outside a mosques in Jackson heights while screaming g-d is great in Farsi. But my desire for that lags, maybe because I have that " been there, done that complete with the psychotropic drugs and inpatient treatment" experience that some of my fellow and fella recessionistas my age have not experienced. So apart for the occasional teary-eyed moment of overwhelming fear that I will never amount to anything and I'll windup a casualty of the great early millennium recession. I'll stay at my crappy bookseller job until the one day I crack. I'll be shelving books on existentialism and realize none of it matters! Nothing matters! Because it's all connected! Or is it everything matters because it's all connected? Either way, I'll look up at the florescent lights, close my eyes and scream, "I want waffles," and then "you're all being ripped off! Don't you know the markup on this shit? You're all sitting ducks, sitting ducks to a giant corporate retail scam! Ducks! Ducks! Duck, duck!" That will be it, I'll look down from my ladder and as customers walk by I'll pat them on the head and yell duck! I'll jump from my ladder and run through the displays of brightly colored ribbons and wrapping paper playing my own game of duck duck goose. When I make it to the front of the store, I'll look up at the caricature of earnest Hemingway painted on the wall, make glaring eye contact with the literary genius, point to him and scream "goose"! If security doesn't drag me out the back at that moment I'll make my exit through the revolving door.
The glamour will end there and I'll be homeless on the streets; I'm now the crazy book lady that wanders from Columbus Circle to Lincoln triangle staying between Amsterdam and central park west- except for the occasional venture east to feed the birds in the park.
TO BE CONTINUED…
