i gots a mole

this day was perfect.  l. and i went up to my hometown and swam in my grandparents' pool, drinking lemonade and wearing straw hats.  we wore sunglasses in the hot tub, got chlorine in our eyes and basked in the sunshine with my younger brother, talking about how nice it was to feel sun kissed and relaxed.  i haven't had a day like that in a long, long time, and i'd say it was well deserved for all of us.

the thing i should have remembered, however, was sunscreen.  not because i got a horrific sunburn, because i didn't (a surprise, because i usually almost always fry, regardless of the amount of oily lotion i slather on myself).  no, it isn't a sunburn i'm cursing right now.  i'm a little appalled at my own neglect.  i should have worn sunscreen because just two days ago i had a minor panic attack about a brand-new red mole i've grown on my skin.  apparently, it's nothing, as it's not flaking or burning or itching or irregularly shaped or made of a mosaic of colors (i did have a doctor tell me this, so it's true).  however, having been so concerned about the mole that i dragged myself to the student health center to get it inspected even though i am now no longer a student, i should have been a little better about trying to prevent any more new growths.  blarg.  interestingly enough, i just googled images of red moles and found everything from naked mole rats to tacos covered in mole sauce.  yummy.

i'm a douche.

i met a woman the other day, randomly at the beverly center early one morning before it opened, who dresses up as chuckie the homicidal doll at universal studio's haunted house.  she therefore spends her entire work week scaring the shit out of small children by popping out of metal trash cans in dark hallways.  i was both extremely pleased and terribly upset when i learned this about her, because 1) it meant that really bizarre jobs can be and are held by relatively normal-looking people, which is always encouraging.  however, it also made me wonder why i don't know anything about how to find a cool, weird, interesting, "i-can't-believe-i'm-living-my-dream" kind of employment (which is not to say this woman's lifelong dream was to wear a chuckie head and exploit her own shortness, but you see what i mean).  i need an awesome job.  i need to be proud of what i tell people i do, be it because the job is prestigious or fashionable or just downright out of control.  and that is precisely why, my friends, i quit my job at borders today.  over the phone.  like a total jackass.

i'd never meant for it to end this way.  i started there thinking i'd be toiling at the helm of a literary mecca, helping people find the books they'd always wanted, changing lives, making a little money to support my college lifestyle and getting an awesome discount on books i wanted for myself.  however, sadly, it was not to be.  let the rant begin: i don't have much tolerance for being treated like an incompetent fool whenever a helpless, extravagantly self-indulgent customer demands i find which book they want based on their stunning description of it's "hard blue cover," which may or may not actually be blue.  i could smile and be pleasant, but inside it tore me apart when women with clacky, newly painted acrylic fingernails act like it's a personal affront to them and to common decency that we don't do free gift wrapping anymore.  i hated hearing people complain when i'd inform them that i couldn't allow them to combine their two 40% off coupons because selling books for nearly zero dollars makes no sense when you're trying to run a business.  but maybe that's just it.  i wasn't running the show.  i was helpless to change all the horribly tragic practices i witnessed and was a party to each and every day i went to work.

i'd wanted to see someone freak out on the clock, the way i'd heard in water-cooler rumors people often did when they reached their retail breaking points.  i'd wanted to live vicariously when someone shouted, "i am so OVER this shit," and stormed out of the castle, leaving behind their blaring earpiece and radio and reveling in the fact that they would never have to ask, "do you have a borders rewards card?" ever again.  i couldn't wait.  unfortunately, people aren't that creative, or shameless.  people just started disappearing, as if some terrible borders monster was making off with them at midnight at the ends of their grueling closing shifts.  we'd all hear snippets of what had happened when so and so left (he'd abandoned the rest of the hours remaining on his shift, she'd simply refused to come in again, etc.), but i wouldn't know exactly how the disappearing act goes until i did it myself.

just before noon today, i popped into the store to use the restroom (as, post-graduation, i've spent much time floating around westwood, alighting in parks to read books outside and drinking liters upon liters of water to keep from shriveling up in this disgusting summer heat wave).  then, just by chance, after checking on my flagging borders rewards sign-up percentage, i glanced at the weekly schedule to find i was pegged to start work later that afternoon.  this came as a surprise to me, mostly because i hadn't been around to check the schedule, having called out or found a replacement for my shifts for the past week and a half (for purely academic reasons, mind you - i needed to graduate, after all).  i also never work on fridays.  this, apparently, was the final straw.  the one, tiny straw that broke this camel's back.  after leaving the store, and consulting with l., i called my manager and told her i wouldn't be coming back. 

i'm a douche.

last day!

today is officially my last day as a test-taking, grade-hounding undergraduate. i've got a final in about two hours and then i'm done, free to explore all the wonders that a part-time job in retail can afford me. i did, however, get an internship at a literary agency, which is insanely fabulous and should allow me to read and edit and surround myself with (soon-to-be-published) books. it's more or less a dream come true.

once my final is over, i'm going to go apartment hunting, sans l., who will be decorating and eating cookies with some kids at his school. it's important that we move soon, because as much as i really truly love our apartment, ktown is just about the worst place for us to be right now. not only have we been owned by crime four times in the last two months, we also spend the vast majority of our lives on the westside and with gas prices being so out of control, it's beginning to make less sense to traverse the whole of the city twice each and every day. we put the apartment search on hold a few weeks ago, as finals and the end of the academic year began spiraling my life into craziness. however, now that i am (very, very close to being) totally free of school, i feel i can start looking again. i found a really cute one on craigslist, and as far as i can tell, it looks really good for us. here's hoping the pictures weren't total lies.

also, yesterday l. and i went to santa monica to find a michael's craft store, and while we were there, i spied a r.e.i. mega store, in which i purchased a north face fleece pullover (yipee!). i've wanted one for just about forever, as they are cozy and warm and actually fitted to a woman's body, so i can be cozy and warm and not look like a massive polar bear escaped from the zoo. and, in celebration, i am wearing it right now, despite the fact that the weather forecast for today reached into the 80s. i figure i'll be spending a lot of time inside, so maybe it won't be too tragic.

MJT

i've just finished my spanish final, and spent some time in the library trying to study for my two upcoming finals, and i think it's safe to say that i am completely over this. it's unfortunate to be this checked out right before i have to take the last two college tests i'll be responsible for (at least until i get my act together and apply for grad school), but i truly believe there's nothing to be done. i'm surprised i even made through this quarter, actually, it being so incredibly craptastic and everything. right now, i guess i'm just banking on my well-honed inferential abilities to get me through these tests.

in other news, yesterday j.* and i went to the museum of jurassic technology on venice blvd. (my tour of a museum on the eve of an 8 am final should be an indication of how totally done i am.) i'm all for awkward, weird craziness, but that museum did very little other than piss me off. what makes me the most irritated is that i yelped it (http://www.yelp.com/) and everyone apparently loved the completely esoteric exhibits on dice and russian space dogs and 17th century magnetic scientists and logic languages. i can't believe it. i spent the entire hour and fifteen minutes we wandered around in there hating everyone else who nodded and pretended like they knew what was going on. it was very much like performance art, which i think is insanely pretentious. the content of the museum would have been interesting had it not been presented in such an alienating and incoherent way. perhaps, though, it is simply my fault that i cannot appreciate the museum's massive exhibition of the unexplained works of an obscure psychologist (complete with a replication of the attic workspace upon which he wrote his massive tome i've never heard of).




*i've decided not to mention anyone by name, as i've already cloaked l. in mystery and felt it was only fair to do the same with everyone else in my life. it will also probably force me to create as spreadsheet or something with all the people i know and their top secret names, which will make me feel special, i'm sure

blarg

i've been terrible about posting, which is sad for two reasons. one, i made a huge scene about wanting to express the brand new me (!!!) when i first created this new blog. i haven't really been very good about that. and two, so much insanity happened in the last two months that i really should have been better about documenting it all. i guess maybe i was so consumed with everything that was going on that i didn't want to have to relive it all again, and make it clever, on a blog. i will satisfy your presumably all-encompassing curiosity with a short list of all the things i have experienced since april:

1) l.'s truck was stolen. we didn't know it at the time, but this would mark the beginning of a pretty emotionally crazy couple months.

2) l. proposed, on the roof of an apartment building where we ended our first date. adorable.

3) l.'s truck was found, after being impounded in south central los angeles. a frustrating, horrific day of bureaucracy followed, during which l. and i tried to get his car released from the impound yard, only to fail miserably. (note: this was three weeks ago and the truck is still MIA, as is the insurance payment).

4) my car was broken into, which we discovered early one thursday morning two weeks ago, a mere six days after our (first) impound lot extravaganza. we spent the day in my hometown, cleaning shards of broken safety glass out of the various tiny spaces in my car and getting in massive fights with my mom.

5) two days ago, the LAPD towed my car illegally (it was a huuuge mess) and only after many hours of irritation (of course) did my dad and i succeed in getting the car released from impound. the police are paying the impound fees, so i guess that case is closed. however, on top of everything else that's occurred recently, i had a really extremely difficult time dealing with my wednesday adventure.

6) i have three finals next week.

there was a point when i had grand hopes for the future. however, i'm slowly learning that there are only two possibilities: one, that i am eternally cursed to have to deal with incredibly ridiculous and obnoxious shit for the rest of time; or two, that this is what everyone's life is like and i'm just more vocal about/sensitive to the injustice of it all.

maybe i'm a whiner. however, before you judge, i suggest living through my last few months.