Take a risk. � Get uncomfortable. � Play ugly.
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Rob Zombie's
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Thursday, Mar. 06, 2003
I stuffed a legal pad and some pens into my bag before heading out downtown. I had a sinlge errand in dropping off a resume and application at the temp agency. Even with our effecient public transit the trip is plenty of time spent for one thing. With a few bucks in my pocket I decided to stop in at the P-town Cafe and untangle these unprocessed brain farts in my head. I find myself being slightly less emotionally honest when I'm constructing my thoughts on a computer.

It occured to me after I'd read some constructive criticism on my resume, that I've never had a real job. Taking a second look at the layout I'd obsessively pieced together, broken down into the finer points of detail, I suddenly became terribly self conscious that I didn't even know how to look for a real job. My work history, which Jane tells me ought to be re-labeled work experience, lists a series of jobby-jobs that only kept me distracted until something else fell into my lap. A series of conformations to other peoples' expectations that ended with more time wasted than experience gained. In a better mood, I'd admit that every one of those experiences taught me something valuable about the real world. Still, all I have to show on paper is something that "looks more like a job application," Jane says. Yeah. She's right. At this point, I don't have anything to pad a resume with. All I have is information that will fill up those rediculous little boxes on an application.

No matter where I go, there I am.

I took the bus downtown and decided to get off early to walk the several blocks to the temp agency. I don't feel like I spend enough time with my city. Lately, during the sunny intermissions between downpours and drizzles, I've been out making appearences, letting anyone who notices know that I'm still around. I hiked up to Columbia street, smiling at no one inparticular, just trying to compose a pleasnt expression with each draw of fresh city air into the bottom of my lungs. How is it that I feel most alone surrounded by living, breathing human beings in three colorful dimensions, and I still feel most satisfied with myself sitting alone infront of a computer? Why doesn't trafic stop me at the corner and lean through the passenger window to ask to bum a smoke? That kind of random civic comraderie just feels beyond my socialization. Of course there was that Mexican who stopped me and asked for directions to the dee embee. Glad I could help. A block later I thought uno calle mas, a sud.

Whether it's immature selfishness, or a healthy mental disposition, I try to take for myself something relaxing, something interesting, something...nice, from every chore that has to get done. Then, in the middle of my small pleasure, I think if I could get into the habit of setting my rewards on those long-term goals, instead of buying myself a chai esspresso for turning in my application to the temp agency - big f'n deal - then maybe I'd be farther along my ideal life's journey than I am. And yet again, how many "successful" people know from experience what the flowers smell like? I'm trying to console myself by assuming most people who have found their ideal sucess at my age have only read about flowers in a magazine, or have seen them only on televison. Maybe that's petty and dilusional of me.

I got where I am by ignoring myself.

I'm looking around at all the interestingly beautiful women around me. All the butts that go bouncing by. All the cute haircuts that come floating through the door. The harsh shades of lipstick. Various intensities of that projected off-the-shelf personality. Without realizing it, I'm glad it's too bright outside to catch my reflection in the pane glass window. I might think of that personal Chance Meeting ad taped to the side of the cash register.

The girl behind the counter stood and watched me read it. "Saw you at the P-town Cafe. Me: short brown hair, too shy to say hello. You: too busy with pen and notepad to notice. What are you writing? Meet for coffee sometime?"

Not that I ever check the Chance Meeting ads in the personals. I just don't feel like the type that inspires attractive, intelligent, emotionally balanced people to take out a personals ad for a complete stranger. That only happens to beautiful, strangely interesting people. Those who are so beautiful as to appear strange, so different among the average as to ignite a minor obsession with casual passers-by. People who seem so strange as to appear beautiful, a radient anomoly in a room full of socially conditioned courtesy.

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