Hometown: The Roch, MI (aka. The Crotch, aka. Crotchscratcher, aka. Crotchmolester, aka. Rochester)
Currently Living: Clawson, MI
Height: 5'8
Weight: Ha ha, yeah right
Favorite Color: Blue (preferably navy)
Profession: Researcher
Favorite Nickname: Trick, Sloan
Favorite Drinks:Vodka Tonic, Guinness, Diet Dr. Pepper, Dirty Martinis, red wine
Favorite TV Show: Friends, Sex & The City, Project Runway, The Amazing Race, Iron Chef America
Least Favorite TV Show: A Baby Story, I Love Lucy, Martha Stewart, Everybody Loves Raymond, every hour long drama
Favorite Books: The History of Love, Beloved, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Fight Club, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The of Being, SurUnbearable Lightness vivor, Empire Falls, The Corrections, The Bell Jar
Favorite Movies: Little Miss Sunshine, Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Wordplay, American Beauty, Life is Beautiful, Amelie, Breakfast Club, Singin In The Rain, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sleeping Beauty, Dancer in the Dark, Duets, The Virgin Suicides, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Austin Powers I, II & III, My Best Friends Wedding, Moulin Rouge, Tommy Boy, Billy Madison, The Shining, Gone With The Wind, Bridget Jones' Diary, Chicago, Love Actually
Guilty Pleasure Movies: Xanadu, Dirty Dancing, Overboard, Groundhog Day, Steel Magnolias, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bond movies, Footloose, Clue, Murder By Death, High Spirits, A Cinderella Story
What I Do Too Much: Check email, crossword puzzles, complain about my job to friends and family,
Obsessions: sushi, Indian food, ranch dressing, toenail polish, song lyrics, hands, awards shows, symmetry, avocados, maps, dreams, This American Life, the display in my car that tracks my MPG
Pet Peeves: loud eaters, slurping, gulping, arrogance, snoring, bad grammar, repetition, late mergers, ripping cardboard, the word "chunky", intolerance, couples in a restaurant sitting on the same side of a booth, pop-up ads, privacy manager, men that drive without shirts on, being foolish, unfairly jumping to conclusions, being made fun of, cat-calling, people who type too hard
Greatest Fear: crossing bridges
Relaxing Activites: late night drives to sing by myself, headstands, hot baths,
Wish I Was: Ansel Adams, Jenifer Aniston, in love, living alone
Prized Possessions: ring from my grandparents, flower pot of my Grandma's, electric blanket (temporarily broken), tongue scraper, my bed
Craziest Thing Ever Done: getting a tattoo, strip Jenga
Things I Eventually Want To Do: skydive, buy a guitar, learn how to play the aforementioned guitar, take flying lessons, travel to France, write a novel, learn how to play the harp, tap dancing lessons, run a marathon
Wednesday, December 15, 2004 I'm so smart, too bad I can't get anything figured out....I spent an hour and a half this morning in the bathtub contemplating some of my immediate moves for the next couple months, (note: I've become obsessed with taking baths lately. It provides me with the feeling of "doing something," even something a little special for myself. Something different than not getting out of bed or not getting off the couch. Somehow, not getting out of the bathtub feels more productive. Especially if one is contemplating life or coming up with wonderful phrases that will eventually find their way into a story sooner or later. I would share these wonderful phrases with you, but I should probably copyright them first). And yes, I take baths in the middle of the day on a Wednesday. Which figured into part of my action plan. Because if I have enough time in the middle of the day to be lounging in freakishly hot water, then certainly I have time to be doing something else that doesn't have the illusion of being productive, but in fact actually is.
Immediate prospects: get another job. I'm considering leaving my job all together. You heard it here first. Not that I'm unhappy, but it's 100% (maybe 90%) for financial reasons. And I now know that I will not be able to function on my salary for the next year and a half (my yearly pay increases are about half that of inflation). It's a fact that I've been in denial about for the past year or so, but now that both of my credit cards are maxed out and my checking account has been overdrawn more in the last 2 months than I'd care to mention, it's drastic measures time. My stupid main reason for not leaving my job is the perk of having my tuition for school paid for. But there are a few alternatives to this:
1. Find a job that pays enough to cover those costs. And hopefully enough more to not put me into the exact situation I'm in now. 2. Find another job that still covers tuition but pays more.
The obvious problem with both of these, is that I don't have my degree yet to make me a more marketable candidate and push me into another salary bracket. Although if you knew how much I got paid, it seems impossible to go any lower, short of licking the floor clean at Church's chicken for pennies. So there's the next option:
1. Finding a part time job that doesn't involve folding shirts, smiling, trays, or anything nasty enough to require me to wear gloves while performing. Ideally flexible hours, and preferably related to my future degree.
So while soaking in Pear Glace scented bubbles, I had a brilliant idea. Since I was meeting with my professor to pick up my quiz, I could ask him if they were looking for any part time help. This satisfies all above said requirements. And the professor has always been very complimentary to my prowess, if it's possible to associate that word with math. Problem solved! I was mentally rearranging my current work schedule to facilitate my new job. I was thinking about being able to do statistics stuff all day long. I was decorating my new desk. So I sat there psyching myself out and plotting out exactly what I would say and how to best inflect my voice to make it sound casual and unrehearsed.
So what did I do when I went to go see him? Took my quiz, thanked him politely, and left. Maybe I was deterred by the fact that there was no extra chair in his office for me to sit down and have a chat. Maybe my brain was going wild with processing the leaning piles of crap that occupied every available space of shelf and floor. Maybe internally, there's something wrong with this brilliant plan. Maybe I'm still just a big fat friggin' wimp when it comes to job hunting and marketing myself in any way. Maybe there are still deep seeded traumatic issues that I've buried from my previous job-seekeing experience that perhaps still need to be dealt with. And here all along, I've been so sure I've matured into the best interview candidate ever! (I could make witty jokes! Be so well-spoken! Smile with the perfected look-and-nod of respectful understanding of my interviewer!).
But this isn't over yet. The situation is too dire for me to be a be overcome by intangible, inexplicable reasons. Maybe it's a cue to best articulate myself through everyone's favorite medium of email. In the meantime, it's time to start tweakin' up the resume kids, because Lisa's on the dismal hunt once again.
3:52 PM
