I Write for Two Blogs! Only One is Read

http://swingstateofmind.com/?p=505
UPDATE: The new blog is sfreeper.com

I'm not sure how I feel about this...


...Just kidding. I feel awesome.

Tryin' to be a Grown Ass Man Despite HATERS

Okay, so I'm a grown ass man. I have a job that pays well enough; it includes health benefits, work parties, holidays off and even a no longer proverbial water cooler. I dress nicely to go in (probably too nicely since I've yet to shake off the nuance of new job smell) and it's all in all a professional atmosphere, except for one thing. The toilet seat in the ladies' bathroom is a lobster claw. Clearly a Maine lobster claw by it's bright red hue. When I garner enough not creepy cred, I'll sneak off to the bathroom with a camera so you can see why this toilet seat is foiling my plans to be a grown ass man.

Santa Feans Care About a Lot of Things, Just Not People

Well, that's not true. They care about far-away peoples whose cultures they've appropriated and they care about indigenous peoples whose culture they've comodified and made marketable. They care about those people in a way that rings more of patronizing and theft than of appreciation and respect. That said, I fell off my bike.

I was riding to the right of cars, where good bike riders are supposed to ride. I was riding on a nice piece of asphalt but due to the endless construction here, that asphalt did not continue after I rode over the train tracks. Instead it was replaced by a nice lane of thick sand and gravel. Needless to say, I left my bike in that sand as physics took my poor body onward.

What is the worst part about this is that I was riding past a long line of cars stopped at a major intersection —one that has a notably slow-timed light— and not one person so much as asked if I was alright.

Upon later inspection, scrapes similar to the one in the picture of my elbow (this picture was taken today, so one must assume it was grosser three days ago) pepper my right side. Somehow I have bruises all the way down my left. Mostly I've felt generally incapacitated ever since.

Perhaps these people were busy freeing Tibet or making sure that they got top dollar for the resale of Native pottery at Indian Market. Whatever magnanimous thing they were doing, a battered, bloody and bruised girl, could play no part in their fanfare.

As I, dirty and broken, rode the rest of the way home, an old man in a convertible proceeded to hit on me, continually slowing down or speeding up to stay by his beloved's side in traffic.

Santa Fe: 1, Empathy: 0

Just as Effective as Lobbying

He's just so likeable that McCain has no choice but to rep him. He also has bumper stickers and is gonna let me know about his VP pick by text message. On Sunday Hillary Clinton will even be in town (Espanola) to say why she too loves Obama.

I Met Someone Famous While Trying to Get My Drink on for Free

Today was the luckiest day.

Needless to say I began my day scouring the "free" section on Craigslist, because, well, it's free. Someone was offering 24 Southwest airline drink coupons for the nominal fee of something interesting in return. I offered up what I could: shitty bike, decibel meter, old wet shoes, and even my beloved "Where's Yan?" t-shirt. By the end of the day I was to find out that the decibel meter, and, for some reason, the "Where's Yan?" t-shirt would seal the deal.

As if this weren't enough to having me glowing (and always drunk while in transit), it turns out that this cock-eyed scheme's initiator is a famous writer. And he —to my dismay not Cormack McCarthy— lives only two blocks away. He also (possibly on purpose) failed to realize that half of the coupons he gave me are expired but I will extort him for compensation on a later date. What's more important is that he writes for the same paper I will be copy editing.

That's right. I will be copy editing a paper. I got a job! A job that is even (mostly, and with a trusting leap of the imagination) in the same field in which I am interested and it has nothing, NOT ONE THING, to do with making sandwiches. Okay, so copy editing isn't exactly what I had in mind when I set out to become a famous writer, but it's a start. And my job is exciting and will be great and it will be nothing like what my friend Chris suggested would likely be a daily scenario: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/23/mediamonkey.

This job also means that I got to put in my two days —poor man's version of two weeks— at the deli. I am still unsure what kept me from going out on break today and not returning. For now I'll call it severe moral rectitude.

I also found a dollar. For those of you who saw me pick it up, it is my damn dollar, so go to hell.

One of Many Highly Offensive Things About Santa Fe

There is a thing here where the more gentrified a neighborhood, the more things take on Spanish names. The Spanish names, however, are clearly ones that one would not create if she were native to that tongue. "House of Colors" is just as stupid a name for an apartment complex in Spanish as it is in English. It is a strange but prevalent thing here for white people to make things more Mexican. For the longest time I couldn't really understand what the other co-workers were calling my favorite co-worker. It sounded something like "Av-i-el" with varying accouterments and perhaps a trill depending on who said it. Upon asking "Av-i-el" how to say/spell his name, he informed me that in Mexico, his Spanish-speaking family called him "Abel," like Cain's buddy. The rest of the staff insisted on the alternate Mex-i-like pronunciations. He conformed and now is a better Mexican for it.

Work Still Sucks

Today was my first day back to the deli after my impromptu vacation and it sucks just as bad as I remembered it. I had just gotten over my fake illness and my co-workers were as ready as ever to critique everything I did. I was as ready as ever to fake quit again but was rescued by the advice of an old friend who reminded me that people suck everywhere so this is as good (and as bad) as it gets.

I've taken to playing weird, manipulative mind-games and all-in-all coming off a little crazy. A clearly white co-worker of mine with a clearly Hindi name, who has been particularly nit-picky and an all-around displeasure to be around, informed me that she grew up in an American Sikh community. I quickly informed her that my sister is living in a real Sikh community —a family— in real live India. I so pwned that bitch. I've also taken to blinking hard at people when they arbitrarily command me to do things or do whatever I'm doing differently. I find the subtle gesture to have a profound effect on whomever I use it.

Some people are really nice though and even though I wouldn't go as far as using the word "camaraderie," I can at least say that they show apathy. I also think that I might be getting molested by the female meat manager. It's not particularly troubling. I just all of a sudden placed her excessive touchiness as something more than maternal. Eh, no harm no foul.

The worst part of the day was that after working from the ass crack of dawn, I had to return to work for a mandatory, staff-wide meeting. WTF. This is food service, not a think-tank. After an hour of managers talking about all-time-high profits — none of which I've seen personally— with no end in sight, I grabbed another slice of compensatory pizza and walked out. I've done worse for no punishment, I'm guessing this will be inconsequential too.

Somehow, I Still Have a Job!

Somehow, I still have a job.

To recapitulate, I had a bad job, hated that job, didn't feel like going in for a while, didn't, lamely pretended to be sick and somehow, someway, still have a job. In all I worked for a week and then mysteriously didn't come in for three days (until I had two days off anyway) and now I find myself unintentionally employed.

I called up my employer today, mostly to brave getting yelled at long enough to inquire about getting paid for my week's worth of work. Upon finding out that I was well, my employer asked if I'd like more hours to make up for the ones I've missed. What could I do but say yes? The truth is that I hate the job but I need cash, so keeping the job that I somehow still have is the the simplest way for me to keep having cash. In addition, I'm perplexed and excited at the prospect that my being incredibly irresponsible could be completely inconsequential.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get a better job (like one of those ones I've been looking for since I graduated that don't care how much I can carry) so that I can quit. But maybe when I quit next time I'll do it like a grown ass man. Probably not.

Day Two: Still Chicken Shit

It is day two of the standoff and we are at a standstill. I am unsure if I will go back to work ever and my boss, well, she either thinks I'm sick or an asshole. The thing is I sort of caved and for that and probably a bunch of other reasons, she'd be right.

After not showing up for work and turning off my phone so as to avert the demanding queries of my boss, I ended up actually having to turn my phone on for something or another. I also messed up last week when I never programed my job's phone number into my phone —this might have been a subconscious attempt at making this a temporary affair. So when my phone rang later that afternoon (day one) I wasn't sure who was calling me. The New Mexico area code could have very well been an employer from a new and better job. Probably not but whatever. The point is I answered the phone and was cornered. My boss just seemed so nice. And all I could manage to do was squeak out some feeble response about being sick or something.

Later I was tricked again by the area code and responded to further questions about the timetable of my convalescence with another lie about having an abscess that would doubtlessly take a few days to heal. For some reason being sick felt more legitimate than just hating my job as far as reasons for just not showing up go. Now I'm unsure if my boss knows of my ignoble lack of courage or if she is awaiting my recovery — I'm afraid it is the latter and that I'll actually have to quit again, but this time to her face. Then again, maybe I could use a few more bucks as well as a few more people here that hate me.

Quitting My Job

Right now I am having a standoff. A standoff with the man. I quit my job, well sort of. By my count I should have already been at work for an hour but here I am, not bathed, playing on the interwebs, and enjoying every moment of my purloined freedom. So I guess by "quit my job" I mean I didn't go in and am not answering my phone like a coward.

The job itself wasn't terrible, but it wasn't nice. It was a lot of things —annoying, happening when I wanted to be asleep— but those things are natural for a job of this kind. What was intolerable was that everyone took it very seriously. In my experience, if I got the job done and done well, that was it. Go home. Here everyone likes making sure that the way I do my job is exactly like theirs, even if their methods are contradictory. And don't get me wrong, I bend. If one person tells me to do something one way, I do it. Case closed. Here, though, following one person's orders would get me yelled at by another. This whole process involves me being watched a lot. Also, there is no camaraderie between fellow underlings. It seems that everyone was far more likely to go suck up to the boss than to rise up against him or at least subvert him. To hell with this job.

Minutiae aside, this job was making me feel bad. I never came to hate my co-workers so quickly before. Therefore, I am not going in today and have not even called to say why. Okay so I'm not exactly doing anything brave or nice or even really warranted. I'm just doing what I have to do.

Right now I am watching my phone not blink because it is not on. I imagine there are a lot of angry calls coming in and my voicemail is filling up with loathing rants but I'll contend with that later. For now I have the whole day to waste as I please.

I Learned a Not New Thing Again!

Today I learned how to use a copy machine. I am not going to say that I already knew of every achievable effect and alteration possible in the annals of copy machine options, but I did know how to make a copy, even multiple copies and even the two-sided kind. I've even been known to lighten or darken a copy as needed. Today, however, I got a tutorial —not one in which I learned all the mysterious and probably unnecessary options of a copy machine, but one which, for some reason, took nearly as long. The lesson consisted of learning how to make copies (just the one-sided kind) and how to refill the paper. I could see how such basic training could be useful and I wasn't about to protest some hard-earned time away from the meat slicer by alerting my instructor to my copying prowess. The problem with the training was not that I didn't understand the importance of it, but that it was embarrassing, very embarrassing. In a room full of people who doubtlessly are far more familiar with the machine than I, my instructor not only instructed me on how to complete the procedures, but also had me act out each thing as she did so. Naturally, I was a natural. Regardless of my ability, though, she had me fill and un-fill the paper again and again (to her credit, there were several different colored papers for me to contend with) until she was sure that I was not disabled.

My First Fake Job

Okay, so the gravy train —the one composed of the delusions of succeeding on which I rode in here— ran out. And I got a little more serious about getting one of those more modest jobs in "food service" or "labor." To tackle the job world in "the city indifferent" I began employing the tactics I had used in my futile attempts at finding other, more serious jobs: I followed up. And it worked! I am now a full-time deli clerk at a food cooperative where my extensive knowledge of postmodern theory can finally pay off. Sort of like post irony without the sincerity part.

Forget four years of college; today I received a lifetime's worth of knowledge packaged into one succinct, eight-hour gem of an orientation. While not-so-discreetly checking to see if we were literate by occasionally calling on us (especially the more foreign looking of us) to read aloud, the orientation speakers managed to drag us through everything we'd ever need to know about the food business. So I opened the floodgates and was immersed with some wonderfully new-fangled knowledge.

In a rousing round of role play I posed the following situation from a deck of situations, "The phone rings five times, what do you do?." This was not a trick because at a co-op people are straightforward and honest farmers (not millionaires with annoying food hangups). After realizing that there was no treachery in the question, my coworker responded correctly, "answer it," for which he was lauded.

From a generic work harassment video I was dismayed to learn that my time-honored mantra "look but don't touch" apparently doesn't fly in the food service world or any other world where one works with people. From now on I'll have to re-direct this axiom to the expensive food on the shelves so as not to throw off my entire world.

I learned that a co-op is not a place where the members divvy up the work among themselves, but instead a place where better people (the gainfully employed or, more often, unemployed trust-fund artists) pay a small fee to have underlings like me work for them. There is really a sort of divine order to this.

I even learned what 401 K is and how in a million years my measly savings will mean something. In layman's terms 401 K means that sacrificing one beer now means like five beers when I'm 50. This was very troubling knowledge because it means that I shouldn't be spending the remains of my measly paycheck on drowning my feelings of inadequacy in booze.

Marginally more perplexing was when the orientation directer made a well-meaning point about equality in co-ops and how that preceded formal rights for women such as voting. The director, however, confused the inception of women's suffrage with the date the stock market crashed and I am still unsure about the significance of such a mistake.

All in all it was a good day. I got paid to learn things I didn't need to learn, nor ever cared to learn and I got a free lunch! I really like free lunch.

Commencement: The Beginning of the End

Exactly two months ago I was a very successful college student. I went to an elite liberal arts college where I was the editor of the school's paper. I had prestigious-sounding internships. I was an honors student.

Today, after two months of job searching, I am unparalleled at scanning Craigslist for jobs I will not get. For employers that will not even acknowledge my painstakingly-wrought cover letters enough to tell me I will not get the jobs for which I applied. Today, I am dutifully unemployed.

This is not a story of procrastination, or lack of ambition or skill. It is a story of someone who is highly qualified, capable and hardworking. Maybe it is the story of a failure to launch, but I don't like to think that. It is probably a story that should be told so that is what I will do. I will chronicle as best I can the ups and downs (mostly the latter of late) of my life with a bachelor's degree.

In line with the way my liberal arts education scarred my formative years, I drove west right after the mortarboard I did not wear did not hit the ground. Free spirited, fresh and hopeful, I decided that I was not to be shackled by jobs or up-and-coming cities in my search for a new, warmer home. In my free-wheeling, willy-nilly thought process, I arrived in Santa Fe, " the city different," or my addition to the myriad of other plays on this mountain town's epithets, "the city annoying." I could go on about the city but that should suffice for now.

What is important is that I have not yet been able to get any jobs that require my degree. What's worse is that I can't even get jobs that don't require my degree, or any degrees for that matter. My scourings of Craigslist and the local papers have become more and more modest. Searches for "writer" and "journalist" yielded to "data entry" and "office assistant." Now my queries are sequestered to the fields of "food service" and "labor." Prerequisites are no longer certain majors or internships, but instead how much I can carry and that I be "over 18. " Life, however, is not so bad.

In my unemployment, I have managed to do lots of things. I read more now than I ever did at school, though I can't say much about the quality. I possess a local's vocabulary of the nearby mountains and trails. I know the fastest way to anywhere on a bike. I know where to eat and drink for cheap and my repertoire of price comparisons of the local supermarkets is superb. Happy hour times and dinner discount days are recorded in me like an inflected language. I now can run five miles at an elevation 7,000 ft. higher than I'm used to. I can also do a push-up hand-stand. So it hasn't been all that bad. I've heard not working is always much better than working but for the sake of my self-esteem I'd rather be working.

For now, I'll sit back and wait for whatever little money I saved to run out. And maybe, just maybe, I'll get a job. Any job.