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2004-10-25 @ 11:25 p.m. |
YAY ME!!!!holy shit. freakin' hell. I can't freakin' believe it. After over three years of being unemployed (actually on disability for bipolar disorder) I have gotten a job! Now its not like the Naked Man Nanny job in July. Its a real job. It's only part time. Very part time...8-10 hours a week. It's only $8/hour. But to me that seems like a million bucks right now, especially since I'm one of those who have to triple coupon/food pantry/Dollar Store/no new clothes EVER their way through life. Did I say, "YAY ME"? Oh yeah, I did. Anyhoo, it was just an average day. Laundry day actually. Went over to the Spin and Dry. There were several people there. A guy reading "The History of Air Guitars" (??). An African American guy who looked like he could lift two washing machines over his head and clang them together like in the musical "Stomp". And then there was this weird, pervy looking guy pestering a blonde female student. He perhaps wavered somewhere between harmless and "let me show you some dirty pictures" pervy, but still, you could tell he was not really someone you would want to invite to tea and crumpets. So she was loading her laundry into a washer and he was trying to talk to her. He was trying to impress her with his spelling prowess evidently (the new cool way to impress women...spelling), because he was telling her he had always been able to spell the word "psychiatric". Hmmm. Could it be, because you were just released from a place that had the word "psychiatric" in it this morning and you looked back up over your shoulder as you were leaving and made note of it? I think that's an affirmative, good buddy! But I actually kind of enjoyed watching a cute blonde coed squirm a little. She was giving him monotone yes's and no's as she agrily jammed her multihued thong bikini underwear into the washer. You could tell she was pissed at having some weirdo laundry perv throwing spelling words at her. It was then that we both got some bad news. The one and only coin machine in the Laundromat wasn't working, and I had only arrived with 4 quarters and a $5 bill for 2 loads of laundry. Blondie was ill-equipped in the quarter department too. She turned to me and uttered "shit" and then abruptly apologized. I told her it was okay to say shit, especially in times of great duress and I think she suddenly thought, "Oh no, two weirdos at the Laundromat". We did join forces outside. The Spin and Dry is in a very small artsy, hippie shopping area that is only a block and a half long. There are only about 10-15 businesses there. And we had to go look for quarters. And nobody would just give us any. I took one side of the street. She took the other and I kept seeing her come out of stores with her cash still in her hand. I finally ended up buying some ice cream. Damn, I hate when that happens. HAVING to buy ice cream. I did get some change from that woman. I kind of sarcastically made fun of the laundromat across the street for not having any quarters and wouldn't you know it? Her family owned it. Yeeks. So a little ass kissing was in order, so I said: But its a nice laundrymat. Really. I mean aside from the fact that it doesn't have any quarters, its filthy, weird pervy types hang out there and there's hairs in the washers. Its great! She then groused about the fact that they had just put $500 worth of quarters in the machine and that people from the surrounding businesses had gone over and gotten their change there rather than going to the bank. Her: "Its total bullshit! Oh, I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry." Me: "Its okay to say bullshit, especially in times of great duress." She just looked at me strangely. Unfortunately, she was only able to give me 4 quarters, so I wandered over to our premiere hippy-dippy tarot cards/incense burning/ Hindu music playing retail location across the street. I was thinking maybe I can buy something for less than a dollar so I can get some more change. Hey, I know. Incense! 20 cents a stick! Whee! Of course there was the unforeseen aspect of wittykitty having to suddenly and abruptly decide amongst 1200 aromatic scents. Witty, you're only buying it so you can get change. Yeah, but I also have to smell all of them. I have to. Its the law. So there I stood for 20 freakin' minutes smelling things like "sky" (it smelled like chicken), "hippie armpit", "patchouli", "zen alienation", "feng shui voodoo". And unfortunately when I reached into the back row of incense sticks, my elbow got caught on some "migraine irony" incense sticks and I knocked several glass jars full of incense onto the floor. And they fell with quite a clatter. I was mortified. Yikes! Fortunately nothing broke and the young clerk with dreadlocks and fifteen earrings helped me pick everything up. I finally ended up with a single stick of Sandalwood incense. Wow. 20 minutes. 20 cents. Nobody lost any limbs. Good deal. And I got $2.00 worth of quarters from him. He said, "Peace" when I left. So I got back to the laundrymat. The pervy spelling champ was still there. Blondie had found her quarters. I was finally able to start my two washers after nearly 40 minutes of quarter panhandling. I then headed over to my favorite library across the street. Its a small place, but very neighborhoody. I like it. I checked my e-mail and then settled down to read the New York Times. What a treat. I also checked out a Psychology Today magazine. It had an article about what makes couples click, which was pretty interesting. All of the people in the article had had adversity in their relationships, but had come through them. Am glad to know that at least some people have happy endings. I then headed back over to the laundrymat to collect my clothes out of the dryer. (I had gone over in-between) And unfortunately, by then, it was just me and the pervy spelling champ. And where do you think he was sitting? Right exactly opposite of my dryers. And its a small place. And when I opened the dryer door I nearly backed into him. I could feel him staring. So I carefully leaned nearly inside the dryer to make sure I got everything (and I'm sure he was admiring my awesome ass too), hoping against all hopes that I would not drop my panties when I pulled everything out. Because dammit, that happens just about 99% of the time. My panties always seem to fall out of the dryer right at the feet of some guy. Never the right guy, mind you. And then I have to bend over, retrieve the panties, all the while sending angry ESP messages to him, "Do not attempt to retrieve my panties...unless you're incredibly rich, single, like neurotic, insecure women and are willing to watch Boston Legal nude". So what do you think happened? A pair of my purple bikini panties flung themselves off my armload of clothes as soon as I stood up. Fruck! Fortunately pervy boy got my ESP message and I was able to swiftly scoop them up, giving him yet another lovely view of my awesome ass. But then he made a mistake. He started laughing really loudly at a radio commercial. It was freakishly loud. Like HA, HA, HA...and you're now my woman sex slave. Ok, I was a little uncomfortable. But fortunately, as you might notice, I have a lot of anger, so I just let that keep me safe. I glowered at him. Glower. Glower. Was he impressed? Gee. Actually he wasn't. He just kept staring as I folded my clothes. And I kept looking up at the security camera mounted by the ceiling, wondering if anybody actually sits down and watches these tapes on a regular basis, like for entertainment. Like ha, ha, there's pervy spelling champ working his magic on a babe again. Anyways, I got the laundry folded really quickly and headed out. Pervy said, "good-bye", but I didn't return the favor. Driving home I saw a huge sign in front of a house. "We've lost our ghost. Please return it. Great sentimental value." You've lost your ghost? Maybe it moved out because it didn't like you. Maybe you treated it like it was invisible. Maybe you hurt its feelings by calling it "Casper on steroids". Maybe it had Halloween Performance Anxiety. You know HPA. I mean, there's a whole host of reasons, why ghostie with the mostie left. Jack Nicholson didn't win for "The Shining". Who knows? I finally got home and unloaded the laundry onto the bed where Guard cat was blissfully sleeping. There were three calls on my caller ID. Two from my mom and one from my social service place. I thought maybe they were calling me about picking up my art work from the show last Friday. But with two calls in rapid succession from my mom seemed urgent, like they always do, so I gave her a call. Momsy: Call "S" immediately!! She called me and said she has some news for you!! Quick call her!! Quick!! (veins probably popping out of her neck) Momsy had made me nervous just by insisting on talking with exclamation points. And I have a lot of anxiety about using the phone anyways. As far as I'm concerned, the phone is the anti-Christ and I hate talking on it . Making calls is even worse. But I knew I had to do it. So I called "S" and it was quick and painless. "I'd like to offer you our job". And I gave a very half assed, "Well, I think that would maybe kinda be okay. sorta. gulp. you're making a huge mistake. RUN!" Okay, I didn't quite say that, but I was feeling it. I accepted the job and she told me the training will start on Monday at 9:30, and I said I would be there and she was really nice and, and and...why am I suddenly having heart palpitations? And as soon as we said our good-byes, and I set the phone down, I said to myself, "God, I hope I don't fuck this up." I guess after the nanny fiasco in July, where I was told that I hadn't been very good with the kids, I was just scared. Scared that, in fact, I might not be very good at anything. I couldn't even really enjoy my victory call because I was standing in my bedroom, feeling 3 degrees shy of angstdom and displaying enough nervous ticks to be mistaken for Woody Allen. Even my breathing was shallow. Christ, witty, somewhere in your brain, you must know you're ok. You were chosen over ten other candidates. You just saw the woman who hired you on Friday at the art show. She was very friendly and nice. And she loved your art. Yeah, but I haven't started yet. I haven't had a chance to fuck up yet. You'll see. Stop it witty. You'll be great. No I won't. Yes you will. No I won't. Grrr. I guess you can see why I've been on disability for a while. The bipolar beast is rather domineering. Or perhaps it just been the last couple of weeks with Married Guy. My one emotional support has crashed and burned and I have felt like the Hindenburgh seconds before impact. So I'm hoping I can just take things as they come. The job will perhaps open up some new social avenues. I'll actually have more than $20 in the bank the last week of the month. And maybe perhaps, as a peer mentor, I will feel needed again. Needed. As in something I haven't felt in a really long time. Older Entries |
Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney. All angst copyright by awittykitty |
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