Bedtime Bloggin’

So the same week the blogaxy decides to show it’s not dead we lose one of my most beloved planets? R.I.P.

Lonely week(s) start(s) tomorrow. I’ve been abandoned by both of my roommates, and the only recourse seems to higher incidents of naked blogging. Or alcoholism. We’ll see. Don’t pity me, I prefer my natural state.

What type of world do we live in that I learned my dear mother sprained her ankle through social networking? And what type of wretched child am I not even to give my condolences on her wall? Some luddite could make a heck of an argument about something with that little anecdote.

Read a fantastic book doing laundry Sunday. Praeder’s Letters by James Baker Hall. He nailed it.

It’s rapidly approaching 11:30, and sleep beckons. What a cheerless thing this ‘real world’ is.

Too Boring to Blog

So why am I? Cause none of the rest of you are (apologies to anyone who has blogged in the past week).

I’ve found myself in another temp job, once again in a situation that demands large amounts of outgoing phone calls. Am I getting type-cast over here? I’m afraid so, though perhaps in this economy telephone oriented jobs are the only ones available? Since this is actually an in-house job (meaning I’m temping at the temp agency), it’s seems more likely that my extreme good looks and charisma have made me a desirable asset to have at one’s viewing and conversing pleasure.

Pretty big friend-making weekend for yours truly. On Friday co-workers invited me to drinks after work (and then promptly didn’t show up), at said bar I made an acquaintance named Vicki (while forlornly waiting for my new would-be-friends), then at the Bulls game later that evening I chatted up an Australian fellow from London and sweet-talked a nice young usher into allowing my party of three to sit eight rows behind the court for the duration of the fourth quarter. Fine, you’re right, it was really more of a having-brief-conversations-with-strangers weekend, happy?

I also saw a 6-year old pantsdownshirtup-ing into a urinal at the United Center. End this post with whatever catchphrase you wish.

Lordy Lordy Have I Been Lazy Lately

Still no job. Had a nibble, it felt like, through the temp agency, but that got offered to someone else. Pops says I might need a ‘job coach.’

It’s been good getting some grad school stuff together though. I’ve got my 90% sure list (Northwestern, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth, Idaho, Portland State, Roosevelt) and I’m almost halfway done with the personal statement (it needs a lot of work). Portfolio feels like it’s in a good place, but that self-assuredness just means I’ve got some work to do.

I handed over the keys to the Hip-Hop Hour blog to Ira the other day, so hopefully we’ll get some fresh playlists and flashy videos. It made me go through some of the old posts—I miss that show. Also, I sure had a serious crush on Blu there for a while huh? (Still do.)

Some of ya’ll need to make it up to Chicago here in a hurry.

Real Quick

Feeling bad about absence, so here’re a few tid-bits.

Done with my first temp job already. Lasted about three weeks. Honestly, I like the temp life. I go into an office, charm everyone, make some decent cash, and then break every heart when I leave. Plus, I get a week or so off while I wait for the next gig to come through. Tell me with a straight face that none of you want that lifestyle.

So you must wonder: what does John do on his days of unemployment?

Hulu has been a good friend of mine lately. Fox’s Lie to Me is actually really entertaining. I’ve only seen the last 5 or 6 episodes of 1st season and the first episode of the 2nd, but it’s slick, smart, and the acting is better than most similar shows.

I also watch some pretty bad movies. 9, The Last Kiss, and The Proposal I’ve all seen in the last week.

So admit it, you’re all jealous.

I have actually been doing a fair amount of grad school preparation, so hopefully next year I’ll get to watch shitty movies and good TV shows without having to work every few weeks.

This was a lazy blog post and I’m sorry.

Time to Fess Up

So I guess for a while on this thing I had a bit where I would write disheartened posts about not having a job, and my so-called worries about such. Well, you may have noticed that I stopped posting a week or so ago. Did he get a job? some of you probably wondered, Does he have nothing to say anymore? Well people, here’s what happened.

I warned you that I had an interview. Embarrassingly, I referred to it as Benito Juarez High School (technically it is called a ‘Community Academy’), and never updated again. How did the interview go? Great, wonderful, better than I could have imagined. I seemed intelligent, charming, handsome, fought through a poorly worded question that made it seem like I was inquiring about the possibility of forming ‘relationships’ with students (and followed it up by explaining that I didn’t mean “anything weird”), and eventually got to the point that the Assistant Principal told me that she would want me to help her run the school’s Writing Center. 26K for nine months with winter vacation and spring break, all to follow a single student from class to class? Yes please.

I got the job. No shit, seriously.

So I went out, told the Apple Store that I was still a student at Truman, and bought the nicest 13″ MacBook Pro they had in the store. Got a printer, iWorks, even a free iPod. It’s what I’m currently typing on, and I must admit that Macs are pretty sweet (even though I can’t figure out how to get Firefox to remember my WordPress password).

School started yesterday, but I wasn’t there.

I lost the job. No shit, seriously.

Paid for a physical (no homo), my transcripts, started charging my groceries, etc. and two days before I was supposed to start training I lost the job. What tripped me up? No fucking Child Left Behind. No Joke. Long story that involves some past transgressions (cough cough hint hint) led me to fill out a form improperly, which led to my rejection on a piece of paperwork I needed to be added to payroll, which led to a frantic call and message to my boss, which led to an e-mail response that ‘unfortunately she need[ed] someone immediately’, which led to a call to a lawyer, which led back to the State BoE, which led to my approval on the previously rejected form, which led to a joyous call to my boss informing her of the good news, which led to another e-mail informing me that she had already filled my position with someone else. No shit, seriously. Two days, three voice messages, and one e-mail, all of which asked her to call me back, and she never did. She couldn’t even tell me to my face that I had been replaced. No shit, seriously.

So I was pretty much fucked there for a second. Still might be, but things are looking up. After losing the job for good officially I called the temp agency that loves me and asked them to take me back, which they did, and the 1-day job they offered me almost immediately has turned into a 6-day job (and enough for next month’s rent). My parent’s have offered to loan me the money for the computer so that I don’t have to bite the 10% restocking fee (thanks Ma!). It’s likely that I’ll now jump from temp job to temp job (and pretty fine Indian chick to pretty fine Indian chick if The Office is any indication) for a while, and have the same old shit to piss and moan about on here. Life lesson: we’re all winners.

Welcome Back

After single-handedly carrying the blogosphere on my back for the past couple of weeks I must say that it’s awful nice to have you all back. We all know that I could never have sustained that sort of prolific-ness for the long term.

So what’s up with me? Juggling a temp offer with the desire to be approached for something more…substantial. But like I’ve been telling my roommates, I don’t actually want to work. I’d much rather hang around the house reading and hitting plastic golf balls into garbage cans. I just need to figure out how to get paid for doing this. Maybe a company is looking to pay live-bloggers? I’ll set up a webcam to capture my every move if some brilliant entrepeneur can figure how to pay my living expenses. In the meantime, I’m banking a little spending cash by participating in silly research studies. No, I’m not driving myself crazy, but this Sunday I will drive 30 minutes in order to wade in a pool for an hour, and then return home to collect my urine in a kit for the next 24 hours. Fifty bucks is fifty bucks I say, and since they’ll let me do it three times that’s half a month’s rent right there*. Another group may be paying me to tell them how many beers I drink and then test how well I perform on menial tasks after being given a mystery substance. But hell, that one is even better money, especially when you consider that they’ll be paying me to conduct follow-up interviews on a regular basis for the next two years

In other news I have procured what my sister refers to as a ‘porn couch’ for free from Craigslist. 2/3 of it will be arriving shortly (thanks ma!). I would do that awesome thing where I edit photographs to make art, but I don’t have a picture of it yet. So cross your fingers and maybe I’ll update this post later.

*To be delivered in 6-8 weeks, and with 2 or 3 weeks between each portion.

Oof

I bet you’re probably asking yourself, “why was John blogging at 8 am?” Well, I’m moved in, but there ain’t no curtain/drape/blinds over my bedroom window. Also, I’m hungover. It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be when I first awoke a quarter hour ago, but it certainly isn’t too pleasant either.

Yesterday I did a little grocery shopping, mostly just to check the prices, see how I’ll survive, and found out that the nearest grocery store is one of the absolute cheapest I’ve ever encountered. Let me amend that. One of the cheapest for produce and meat that I’ve ever encountered. Shit, with bananas 3 pounds a dollar I don’t even need a job.

Found my way to the AAA Lounge eventually, a nice little neighborhood bar that hadn’t seen three gringo faces since, well, maybe ever. Live band (is there a name for the type of music you hear on Mexican/Hispanic radio stations?), cash only, and those Schlitz drafts? Yeah, those are fake. I can’t promise that beer never flows forth from them, but it certainly didn’t last night, and even after the owner felt bad about overcharging us for our first round (no harm no foul I say when the second round’s on her). Told a new friend Jesus that I spoke un poco espanol, then had that idea immediately disproven.

Anyway, new roommate moves arrives in a few hours, so I’m going to attempt to remove all signs of my lovemaking from her bedroom floor.

I’ve Just Done Something I May Regret

R.I.P. Moustache 8/11/09

You’re not mistaken. In a fit of professionalism I paid for a trained stylist to work on my hair and followed up the trim with a full shave. I’m no longer recognizable to those who know me best. And why? A job interview. That’s right, the blogosphere’s most hopeless job-hunter has procured a real-life, scam-free job interview. On Thursday at XXX (I don’t trust you all to not call me during the interview), I will be interviewing at Benito Juarez High School for the position of Special Education Aide. I’ll save the young professional smack talk until I’ve secured the job (which is a very big IF, mind you). However, in memory of my already missed moustached, I’ve created this piece of art:

Personalised Ringtone Anyone?

If you would like me to hear a certain song every time you call I’m taking suggestions. Not that any of you call me anyway, but it’s a nice idea.

Movin’ On Up

To a third floor apartment in the city. You probably already heard, but over the weekend I inked my name to a little document assigning to me the title of guarantor for a comfy little place overlooking Ashland Avenue. You may remember the whining and bitching from my last post, well, I apologize. Getting the stressor of this fking* apartment hunt off my back has really done wonders for the ole psyche. Some beers, malt liquor, and wine went a long way as well. Eventually I ended up at a party where coeds gathered around the television having their minds blown by the second installment of Trapped in the Closet. Oh how I longed to be once more in college!

Saturday saw the Oak Park Book Fair come and pass. My haul wasn’t quite what is was last year, and I didn’t find what I hoped to (namely The Crying of Lot 49, or anything by Pynchon or Wallace for that matter), but I still came away with a few fine finds. For one, I stumbled upon a copy of Ulysses that had been previously owned by either a college student or professor. I hate books that have been scribbled in or underlined or highlighted (I’m not OCD, it just changes the way you read a book), but this one is filled with such gems as “trite!” underlined three times next to a passage. I also picked up a copy of the 1962 O Henry Prize Short Stories, which actually includes a short story by Pynchon. I have a theory that you can see what books are overrated by going to a book fair. They’re the ones that you find 7 or 8 copies of, typically all of the same edition. Good books likely, but not good enough that people feel a burning desire to keep them. This year some major targets were Things Fall Apart, Moo, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man**. It seems as though my not-so-flattering review of the book encapsulates the way many feel about it, eh?

Saturday afternoon we took a last look at our apartment before signing on it. Got confused and just wandered around the apartment making jokes about where to put Mike’s bed for about 20 minutes while the landlady waited for us next-door. Took a stroll around the neighborhood, found a really nice park with hoops, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, and even a building with a pool in it. Some kids had a fire hydrant open and nailed my car with a full blast as I drove past. Can you tell I’ve gotten bored with this post by this point?

*Found a real brilliant review of G.I. Joe in the comment section on Rolling Stone’s website. Here it is in its entirety:

This shouldn’t even get a star! I said it months before I went into the theater, this movie was going to SUCK ASS! WHat a waste of my time. I was only made to go by my so called friend, saying it was going to be so great and that I owed him for all the ***** movies I had made him see. My choices have never fell this low. Good for Hollywood to sell out again, these movies should only be given to directors that actually give s *****! God forbid it was made with serious tone like: “Saving Private Ryan” or given to the team that made Resident Evil: Degeneration??? Oh no, only voice acting then??? What a fking shame??! Wouldn’t want it to remotely look or feel like the cartoon that was actually cool in the first place to gather it’s foundation. They always have to mess with ***** and spin it off into WTF land. How about giving it to Steven Speilberg or J. J. Abrams and if they don’t take it. That’s a pretty good sign it can’t be done with *****ty writers and live actors that have no real muscle tone. America you really are showing how dumb we are. It’s a no wonder we fall behind in the polls in education. It seems this nation is made up with a majority of complete ignorance for big lame explosions to tickle your retarded brains. Anyone that gives this an “A” never truly got one one in school.

That guy should start a blog.

**PotAaYM doesn’t seem to fully fit the requirements for my theory because it has been out for so long, the potential of its classroom use and because of the plethora of editions and covers you find at the book fair. It may simply be a victim of natural supersaturation, rather than because of it’s fadish inclusion in Oprah’s Book Club or some other such book spreader.

Oh, and since I haven’t done this in a while, here’s this totally artsy picture I took of our new stairs. It’s got meaning.