Category Archives: Work

Gorgeous! Totally Not Filthy.

In which I accentuate the positive! (Yes, I’m feeling much better today.)

It’s so nice outside today that I can barely stand myself. I’ve been sitting on the porch in the sun, reading. It’s so lovely!

Sweater UpdateI’ve finished the back of my sweater, and I am in the process of finishing the front. I’ve used half the yarn I bought for the project, so I think it’s safe to assume that I’m halfway done. Sweaters take an awfully long time to knit, people.

I want to highlight my hair. Someone should come over with a box of highlight RIGHT NOW. It’d be so fun!

Or, since my friends are hosting a lovely Bloody Mary Sunday, I might motivate myself to get dressed and go on over there instead.

In other news, I just randomly double-clicked on an MP3 file on my computer, and instead of booting iTunes it booted Winamp… which began playing a porno clip of a skinny girl wearing panties with cherries printed on them. It’s so interesting, sharing a computer with two other users!

And, just for the hell of it, because I used the words in the title of this post, here’s a remix of Filthy/Gorgeous for you.

Update: I have a follow-up interview here on Tuesday morning; the HR woman just emailed me. OMG, if the CEO likes me they just might hire me. A full-time job I actually think I want! Holy broken condoms, Batman!

Tres Times is The Charm… I Hope

In which I had an even better interview today!

Today I interviewed here. There were two half-hour skills tests; Excel and Word. (I aced ’em both.) Then an hour-long interview in a conference room. The HR woman showed me detailed job descriptions for two positions and I want both of them, but the second one — a data-crunching job — appealed to me most. I think. Hard to tell in advance.

A two-hour interview!

Not only did I get the impression that I’d really like it there, but I really, really, really need to get hired ASAP. I have less than a hundred dollars to my name.

This poverty shit SUCKS. I have a friend waiting for me at the bar, but I don’t think I should spend even $3 on a drink at this point, so I’ll probably stay home.

Bambú — a band made up of old friends, many who are back in town specifically to do this gig — is playing the Old Armory tomorrow night, but cover is $12 and I’ll probably be feeling too poor and miserly to pay it. There’s a mardi gras party at the Dead Cock tomorrow night too, and people are even gonna dress up for it. I might go to that, at least, and hope that people buy me drinks.

Right now my roommates are out playing pool and having Friday night drinks. Hell, everyone I know is out having Friday night drinks. I have less than $3 in my wallet. I have three great interviews under my belt from the past week, but no offers.

I. Need. A. Job. *sigh*

Interview Numero Dos

In which I have another interview… in the SAME BUILDING!

This afternoon I interviewed with this company for a part-time customer service job. They won’t make their decision ’til the 19th (omgwtfbbq?!) and the pay starts at only $9 an hour, but the office is super cozy and friendly and the vibe was great. I really liked the woman who interviewed me, and the other two girls seemed groovy, too. Plus: free organic coffee! Which is a total perq, considering how many working people spend a few bucks every day on coffee, and that shit adds up.

Today’s company shares a building with three other companies, one of which I interviewed at last week. The universe apparently wants me to work in yet another sthapatya Vedic building? (Sthapatya Vedic buildings bug me because they must have vastu fence, which means you can’t park close to the door no matter what you do.)

Unless I get hired here, that is. I have a two o’clock tomorrow with the HR chick for testing. (I guess they want to see if I can type?) They make infomercials!

The best part of my day so far has been these. Yum.

Interviewed

In which I just got back from my first interview in quite awhile.

Interview DayI just had a great interview here. The woman who interviewed me is totally from my planet — the organized, anal-retentive planet, that is — and the interview lasted slightly over an hour. Her desk was spotless, which is something I totally approve of. And she knits. I really liked her.

She told me she was already planning on calling me back for a second interview with the department head. (!!!)

The position is basically clerical/sales support, and starts at p/t. It’s expected to become f/t in 3-6 months. (I’m also going to drop off a resume at FPAC tomorrow; they have a little office support position they need filled. Two p/t jobs would suit me just fine for now.)

Oooh, I hope I get a job! That would rock so hard! (Plus I’m nearly out of money.)

Now I’m going to make myself some soup because I’m starving.

In other news, it snowed again last night. Is this not the fluffiest snow ever?

Pardon Me While My Roo Shows

In which the Movement is moving to the center of the nation.

AmmZon told me this morning that she’d heard that the Big M had decided to build a peace palace or something in Kansas, so I immediately googled it. It’s totally fascinating! The Movement really has bought 600 acres in north-central Kansas, and they plan to build there:

‘So here in traditional Kansas, the recent purchase of land by representatives of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to build what they’re calling a World Capital of Peace — just outside town — where meditators will send “waves of coherence” across the country — has many residents riled.

‘The group plans to spend at least $15 million to erect 12-15 buildings for a retreat, training center and residences.’
[link to article]

The nearest town to this newly-purchased property is small, aged, and dying… and it’s smack-dab in the middle of the bible belt:

‘”They say they’re not a religion. I say they’re a sect of Hinduism,” said Greg Hubbard, pastor of Smith Center’s Evangelical Free Church. “Bottom line is, I don’t buy you can be a Christian and a Hindu at the same time.”

‘Hubbard and eight other local ministers recently signed an open letter decrying the proposed new city as a threat to “the eternal souls of people.” A large Christian crusade spurred by the controversy is scheduled in Smith Center this month.’
[link to article]

He’s right: they are a sect of Hinduism, even though they’ll swear up and down that they’re not (and even went so far as to ban ownership of Hindu icons a few years ago, causing local thrift shops to fill up with abandoned deities). They celebrate Guru Purnima and Mahalakshmi, study Sanskrit and do pujas, and have their jyotish charts done. They’re totally fucking Hindu, as much as Hinduism is a religion and not merely a culture.

Hubbard’s also a closed-minded, bigoted idiot. (American Christians are FUCKING INSANE.) All religions are compatible. The rituals are different, but the underlayment is always the same. Only fundamentalists — and unfortunately, nearly all Xians are fundies — think that only their religion is the true one. THEY. ARE. ALL. THE. SAME. The differences are nearly always CULTURAL. Sheesh.

I hate all organized religion. (I already hate what will happen when my Guru leaves Her body — beaureacrats, rules, rigidity. It’s inevitable — and She hasn’t even done it yet.) I have no idea why God bothers with us, other than enlightened beings don’t appear to be much affected by suffering, so to them it’s no big deal.

Anyway.

In other news, I have an interview on Thursday morning. The job’s only part-time, but that’s better than no-time. Wish me luck!

Indian Food & Second Life & Knitting & Second Life

In which I cook Indian, freak the fuck OUT — omg! you have no idea! DUDES! — on a virtual world, and talk about the perils of knitting. In the process I manage to put a rather astonishing number of links into a single entry. (Mouse over ’em for snap-ups!)

Sunday Indian Food-o-rama!This morning (and I use ‘morning’ loosely here; you should cleverly interpret it to mean ‘early afternoonish’), I got up and immediately cooked a feast!

Chana masala. Egg curry. Long-grain Basmati rice. Papadums. Yogurt, chutney. So good! OMFG, so good. We all ate heartily.

Then I got back on the laptop and booted into Second Life. (I was up until five-thirty this morning wandering around in there.) It’s so, so fun. I want to move to San Francisco and work at Linden Labs, like, toute suite, swear to God. And I don’t even like living in SF!

2ndlife.JPGThis world, this Second Life, it’s everything sci-fi ever taught me to want! It’s virtual. It’s wonderful. It’s a/the progenitor of the metaverse, and that’s HOT. Sweden is building an embassy there. You can fly in there! How did I not know about this until now? Has my entire head been up my arse since 2003? It’s practically better than knitting!

Oh, and on the subject of knitting, I’ve divided my sweater for the front and back around the armholes. This means I’m actually lurking up on being halfway done with it! Yay!

The bad news is that the bamboo circulars I bought (from Knit Picks, along with the yarn and pattern), which were supposed to be size 10, are not in fact size 10 at all — they’re more like 9.75s. This means I have to knit the entire sweater with them, including the collar and the arms (which will be a pain in the arse), or my gauge will change noticeably. Luckily the circulars in question are long enough that I can use the magic loop method, but it still kinda pisses me off. I guess it’s taught me to use my needle gauge to check new needles for accuracy of size upon purchase, at least. Pah.

In other news, I submitted a resume to Robert Half Technology last week — for a tech position they’d listed on Monster.com as “Web Administrator’s Dream Job” — and they called me back and left a message Friday night! I’ll be calling them first thing Monday morning.

I suppose moving to Cedar Rapids wouldn’t be too terribly bad; it’s only an hour and a quarter from Fairfield so I could still come see my friends on weekends, and it’s almost practically a city (by Iowa standards, at least) so if I lived there I might could find myself a working band and have access to quasi-decent restaurants!

Feelin' Un-Groovy

In which I’m down and out.

Golden Lentil SoupLast night after upgrading my web site, I made soup. It was really garlicky and delicious.

Then I went over to my friends’ house and knitted and chatted and watched TV. Then I came home for awhile.

Then, at midnight, I went out for smokes and a cocktail. (Why not? I was awake, and it’s not like I have a job or anything.) There was only one other patron in the bar, and he sat right next to me. I said, “Dude, please don’t take this personally, but I’m going to smoke this cigarette, drink this beverage, and read this book, and I won’t be paying any attention to you at all.”

He said, “That’s cool, I’m not lookin’ to get laid, I just wanna chat.”

I said, “You’re not listening. I’m going to READ. THIS. BOOK.”

He looked at me for a heartbeat, then said, “You’re joking.”

I said, “No. I’m completely serious.”

“You’re gonna sit in a bar and read a book?”

“Yes.”

“What? Why?!”

“It’s what I do. All the time. Ask the bartender.”

He looked at me as if I were a talking slug who had suddenly begun doing the macarena for no good reason. “Oh my God,” he finally manged, “that’s totally fuckin’ weird.”

So there you have it: one of my favorite activities? Totally weird. (No, people, as a matter of fact, I don’t have feelings.)

Additionally, I heard through the grapevine that I have a snowball’s chance in hell of being re-hired by my old employer because apparently I’m a bitch and no one in that department likes me. Combine that juicy little tidbit with the facts that I have had no interviews whatsoever from the applications I’ve submitted this year, I’ve been let go twice in the past six months, and that Bread just informed me that I have no insurance on my jeep, and you’ve got yourself a girl who really feels like shit today.

Oh, and to add insult to injury, for some reason we don’t have any water in the house today so I can’t even take a shower or do laundry or dishes.

All I want to do is get a job, go there, and work. I don’t care what it is any more; I just want a little job I can do well and leave at work when I go home. I need to get all these bills paid, and I need to get my shit out of Brett’s house, and I need to feel like less of a loser.

I’ve already applied for two jobs this week, but I’m going to apply for another right now just to be thorough. And then? And then, I think, I might just get drunk this afternoon — really drunk — and go to bed early. I’m serious. I feel that fuckin’ bad today.

Update: The water’s back on; I guess they broke a main and it’s been fixed. Also, Public Property is playing the Old Armory tonight, and instead of getting shitfaced I might go to that instead.

On the housing front: a reprieve

In which there’s some good news… for once.

We don’t have to move! AmmZon’s mother has offered to sell her the house, and at a remarkably reasonable price. AmmZon is considering it, and in the meanwhile: we’re not evicted! Yay! I can stay here until I get a job and an apartment!

My previous employer — the one that laid me off last June — is hiring again. I sent in my resume today. Maybe they’ll hire me back. (I think I’ll go in tomorrow and sit on the HR person’s desk… for like an hour. Or three. Maybe she’ll hire me just to get me to leave her the hell alone.)

GauntletOn the knitting front, I finished my first gray gauntlet and have started the second one. The fabric is much firmer made of the superwash wool sock yarn I used, and I really like the way this one fits and feels. The one I made out of the bamboo yarn has in barely twenty minutes of wear lost its shape and is beginning to pill up, so clearly that particular yarn is too delicate for a hard-wearing application like gloves. (I’ll probably make the second bamboo one anyway, and give them away, and use the remaining bamboo yarn for something low-impact, like a scarf.)

In other news, I’m downloading Bee Gees dance remixes from Limewire, because, um — well, for no good reason at all, really — and one thing that drives me utterly, incoherently apeshit is mislabeled tracks! Who are these fucking idiots who can’t tell the Bee Gees from Chicago? Or Rick James from Hot Chocolate? Or Hall & Oates from Player? Or Barry White from Marvin Gaye?! WHAT THE FLYING FUCK, people!

Things I've Done Today

In which I present you with a list of my recent accomplishments! Yay!

Gauntlet #11. I finished knitting the first gauntlet.

2. I applied for a job at Cambridge.

3. I wrote a letter to Brumbaugh & Quandahl, PC, LLO, Rat Bastards about the levy on my checking account, inviting them to either provide evidence that they were legally able to attach my account or to kindly get their fucking garnishment off my account and refund my NSF fees toute suite else be hearing from my lawyer.

4. I made coffee and drank it with Silk brand French Vanilla Creamer in it.

5. I read several chapters of Hyperion, and OMG it’s sooooooo good.

6. I added additional items to my Wishlist because God knows I don’t want to be at a loss when I get a job and need to start spending money again.

[Possible 7.] I’m thinking of going to the store to buy ingredients for chole (aka chana masala) (aka kabuli chana) (aka chickpea curry) because the recipe over at Dykewife’s looks freakin’ delicious.

In other news, the weather ’round here is expected to turn reeeeeeally shitty tomorrow.

CholeUpdate: I made the chole after all, and served it with rice, papadums, cottage cheese, and green chili chutney.

Instead of following a specific recipe I combined both of the linked recipes above, adding some of the pre-mixed chana masala powder I found, in the surprisingly awesome International section at Easter’s, for less than two dollars.

It was so good! I had seconds. Truck had seconds too. When AmmZon gets home, I bet she’ll also have seconds. That’s how good it is.

Cell Phone Geekage! Proceed With Caution!

In which Katanas are cooler than Razrs, neener neener neener!

My brother, who rocks, sent me a cell phone for my last birthday. It was a pink Katana and I love the holy living shit out of it. Well, now he’s gone and gotten himself one too, and he sent me an email so loaded with phone geekery that, for your edification, I reprint it here:

“I just got me a blue Katana. Wow this phone is badass. I only got to play with yours for like 20 minutes, so I didn’t get to check out how bad it was. You are the luckiest sister ever.

“There are some pretty badass FREE apps you can get… go to wap.getjar.com on your phone’s browser, select ‘browse software by platform’, select ‘java’ then select any of the phones that have 240X320 next to them.

“You should definitely get “Opera Mini”. It lets you browse real websites on your phone!! You can even look at the ‘box, I’m reading tiny little Rants right now!! (So is dad the only one who uses it?)

“Also, you should look into an app called “Reporo”, I guess it lets you text message and IM for free, with like MSN, AOL, Google, and Yahoo… I haven’t done it yet but it looks cool. I’m thinking that the free texting would be an alright deal for you.

“I can’t stand how fucking cool this phone is… I kinda wanted the black one for the knight rider effect but the blue one had my name all over it. All my friends are jealous and I’m soooo glad I didn’t get the stupid Razr.”

So there you have it, straight from my little brother: Razr = stupid. So sorry, Razr people.

The Opera Mini browser totally fucking rocks. Go get it!

In other news, here’s a song I sang at the holiday benefit last month. It’s a little wobbly at first, but it tightens up.