GothamGirl

Come and Knock on Our Door

I spent all day trolling the internet for job listings. I even called a few places, only to be either 'accidentally' disconnected, indefinitely put on hold, or flat-out hung up on.

Needless to say, it's not been pleasant.

But it made me wonder about job hunting in the days before the internet.  Yes, of course there were classified ads in papers, but I've heard tales of people literally 'hitting the pavement," going door-to-door in anticipation of finding an opening. That seems like the craziest idea in the world to me, but apparently it worked. Some of the time. But - my goodness - how truly terrible that must have been.

My old office (oh, it feels nice to say that) used to have people coming to the door all the time to sell things.  At first, I was really surprised. I had no idea that door-to-door salesmen were even still around.  I figured they'd gone the way of milkmen and human beings at the end of customer services lines, existing only in the memories of those old souls longing for the days of yesteryear.  Perhaps you could find them in a few Pleasantville-like relics of the past, towns standing far enough from the shadows of urbanism to make such a life possible.  But in New York? I could hardly believe it.

Can you imagine someone showing up at your apartment door hawking a vacuum cleaner? Those dead bolts and chain locks would slide into place faster than you can say "Avon lady calling."

Still, I was greatly reassured by the knowledge that the door-to-door salesman was still alive and well. Granted, I never bought anything they were selling (be it shipping services or a payroll), but it was nice that someone was still bothering to give a personal touch to what is essentially the human version of spam.

And -- look, everyone -- GothamGirl is on a roll!
==============================
Day 26
Bought one lottery ticket.
Won. $5.
Total: $22.
==============================

Forget Me Not

So I was looking for jobs online earlier today (I swear I was. I wasn't checking out Kat Giantis's 'Undressed' column on MSN. No, no. Not me.) when I remembered today was my friend's birthday. 

It was obviously too late for snail mail (though I do so love that personal touch), so I resorted to an e-card from Hallmark.com. (Clearly the best in the e-card crowd, as they have Hops & Yo-Yo, the reigning celebs of all e-card-dom.

Ugh. I was asked to log in.

Reluctantly, I set about creating a new account, only to be told ON THE FINAL STEP that my email address had already been registered.  But of course I didn't remember my password.  I didn't even know I had a password.

So I asked to have the password emailed to me. And then waited for my password to be emailed to me.  And then went back to Hallmark.com, signed in all over again, and finally sent my card.

It was a ridiculous process to go through just to send a gosh-darn free E-card.  For anyone other than this particular friend, it would have hardly been worth it.  I sure hope he appreciates Hops&Yo-yo.

(Though it did get me thinking about how nice it would be to have that little "remember me" box at the sign-in stage in human interactions.  "Oh, yes -- please feel free to forget me," you'd select after having done or said something incredibly stupid.  Or "Yes! Remember meeeeeee!" you'd pick in the [infrequent] cases where you'd been endlessly impressive to a future date or boss or someone of that ilk.)

Okay now -- shhh.  I have a secret. Have you heard of BugMeNot.com ?  It's a website where people submit their registration information for websites so that, when you go to sign on, you don't have to go through the rigamarole of using a pretty-much out-of-date email address and making up a fake name and street address (everyone does that, right? Not just me?).  They don't give away any registrations that cost money, but they have a pretty wide range of sites -- everything from nytimes.com (sans Select, of course) to some pretty random sites.

Generally, if I'm going to go to a site on a regular basis, I'll sign in.  Maybe I do want their emailed newsletters and whatnot. But if I want to go read one article at a pretty obscure site, I hate it when it takes longer to register than it would to read the darn article in its entirety.

Ethically, I still grapple with it a bit.  Am I cheating?? Some people justify it by comparing it to a library: all information is free and available to the public until the moment you want to take it off the premises; at that moment, you must either register (get a library card) or pay for it ($0.10 or whatever the going rate is for a photocopy).  But if the only place you want to put the information is in your own brain and you have the patience to sit there while you read, then it's free.

And so I that line of reasoning seduces me.  I'm not stealing the information and taking it elsewhere.  I'm not infringing on copyright at all.  And what's the point of registration in the first place? For demographics?  And why do they even bother; don't they realize how many people are entering fake data?

So thanks, BugMeNot.  You've  been endlessly helpful in both my aforementioned internet stalking and my job search.

Speaking of which, I've really got to get back to that.

Today was a beautiful day in New York. I spent 2 hours sitting on a bench in the park, watching the dogs play in the dog run.  Spring has sprung, my friends.

==============================
Day 25
Bought one lottery ticket.
Won. $2.
Total: $17.
==============================

 

 

Identity Theft Affects Us All

My god.  The epidemic is even more widespread than any us of could have imagined.

 

.

.

.

.

(Thanks for filling us in, MSN money.)

In other news, after a Friday night spent searching for spare change within the confines of the couch (resulting in a grand total sum of $4.17 which was, at turns, both delightful and horrifying -- I mean, how had I managed to lose $4.17 in the couch???), today brings with it my second win in a row.  Could this be the beginning of an upward trend?
==============================
Day 24
Bought one lottery ticket.
Won. $5.
Total: $15.
==============================

Stalking my Stranger

I was online today, poking around for some temp work (okay, okay -- you caught me. I was catching up on the commentary about the Katie/Meredith switch over at The Today Show even though I don't really care either way. As long as they don't have Airhead Alexis Glick on, I'm pretty much satisfied.), and ended up stumbling across a foreboding warning to Beware of Cyber Stalkers.

The article warns about pedophilic cyberstalkers using networks like MySpace and Friendster to gain access to children's information. And -- undoubtedly -- parents need to be educated about this new and disturbing threat facing our children.

But -- as for the rest of you: Beware of me. 

For -- you see -- I am a certified Google Stalker.

Give me a name, a general age, and one other piece of identifying information, and I can track virtually anyone down.  It's a skill that comes in handy, particularly on groggy Sunday mornings. (In fact, I hold office hours on Sunday from noon to 2pm. No appointment necessary.)

This is pretty much how the conversation will go: "Well, his name is Brad," one of my girlfriends will say. "And he does....something with money.  Umm... he's an investment banker? Yeah, yeah. That's it."

And a couple clicks here, a couple searches using the always-necessary asterik (an integral element in the cyber-stalking process) and -- voila -- I've found your man.

I'm always shocked that they can't do it themselves.

But my gift (and -- have no fear -- I generally use my powers for good and not for evil) is currently failing me.

There's someone I want to find.  A nameless stranger.  And I can't for the life of me do it.

He rides my subway in the morning.  And he is the most beautiful man I've ever seen in my life. 

It was love at first sight.  When he dashed down the steps at West 4th and darted through the closing subway door just in time, I was instantly smitten.  He looked so familiar; I was convinced I knew him.

That first time I saw him, I assumed that I knew him from somewhere. But -- from where? From college? From a hazy night in a dark bar? Or was he a New-York transplant from my semi-small Midwest town? (And wouldn't that be the most wonderful story to tell our grandchildren? 'Oh, we grew up just across the cornfield from each other,' we'd tell them as we sat by a crackling fireplace, hand in hand, 'but it wasn't until we both moved to this big crazy city that we met. And then we fell in love.")

The second time I saw him, a week later,  I still hadn't been able to place him, though his visage had been burned into my memory: his twinkling, jet-black eyes and the gentlest crease around the corners of his mouth that proved this was a man who smiled a great deal. So my romantic fool of a self then assumed we hadn't actually met before, but that we were in fact meant to be together.  Surely the tangible hint of familiarity was just fate indentifying our souls to each other through the din of the screeching subway.

My romantic notions were quickly swept away as soon as I laid eyes on him for a third time.  This was definitely a man I knew, but not from having met him in person.  He was some gradation of "famous." He was not-famous enough to have to ride the subway, but famous enough for me to know who he was, though I still couldn't tell why.  Someone on the par of a New York One reporter.  Not even an anchor; just a reporter who had done a few stories and whose image was stored way back there in my subconscious along with other things I know I know, but access rarely.

The Quadratic Equation.  The future-perfect tense in Latin.  Avogadro's number.

My dream man.

I first spied him in December, and in the ensuing months, rode the subway with him only once or twice a week; a few times, a full seven days would fly by without a shared car.  Our relationship progressed from the tiniest head nods to small smiles, but still no words were exchanged.  I longed for someone to spill coffee on him so I could lend him a napkin.  I hoped for him to ask for my newspaper.

I thought of things to say.  Witty jokes.  Clever openers.  But each time I'd go to open my mouth, I'd freeze.

I haven't thought about this until now but tonight it hit me: I'm not taking that subway any more.  My subway stranger is down there, deep under the streets of Manhattan, riding without me.  And I don't know how to find him.  Is it crazy to take to riding the subway in the morning at just the same time, hoping against hope that he'll walk back into my car?

I can't find him, as my internet sluething skills fail me without access to his vital stats.

I know how graceful his hands are; I know how warm his eyes are;  I know that his glasses slip ever-so-slightly down his nose as he bends to read; I know he loosens his scarf once inside from the cold. I know him.

But I don't know his name.

And I know he might quite possibly be lost forever.

==============================
Day 23
Bought one lottery ticket.
Won. $2.
Total: $10.
==============================

 

Quarter-Life Crisis

John Mayer sang oh-so-eloquently about a "quarterlife crisis" in his song "Why Georgia?," and his lyric was the catalyst for a cultural phenomenon. Hordes of unhappy twenty-somethings jumped on the bandwagon, lamenting their unhappiness and dissatisfaction in droves.

Now, I'm not one to put a damper on self-discovery, and I certainly don't profess to have it all figured out myself.  But I'm greatly troubled by this phenomenon for a few reasons.

1.) It's not anything new. Why does our generation seem to think we're the first to have this experience?  This is not something that John Mayer made up.  In 1957, Jack Kerouac was writing about the "beat and evil days that come to young guys in their middle twenties."

Sound familiar?

It should as it's exactly what everyone is belly-aching about today. 

Much as I'm far from the first one to write about this, our generation is certainly not the first to think these thoughts.  So -- calm down.  You're in good company. And our elders seem to have made it through (relatively) unscathed.

2.) It's not a "crisis."  Questioning (your values, your relationships, your choices, and your life in general) is a normal and necessary part of growing up.  How boring things would be if we all had it all figured out by age 18, then spent the next 60 years just 'hanging out.'  Labeling it a "crisis" is certainly blowing things a wee bit out of proportion; uncertainty about the future is hardly a catastrophe or a disaster. It just seems that way because we're young. 

There's little you could have done to have irrevocably screwed up your life by this point. You've only had 25 years so far. Just wait until we have kids to mess up and companies to run.  It's at that point that we'll have a little perspective and re-think terming things "crisis" situations.  Perhaps the mid-life version will turn out to be aptly named.

But -- most of all --
3. It's the wrong question.  Aren't we asking the wrong question anyway? If 25-year-olds spent a little less time on the "what do I want to be" question and a little more on the "who do I want to be" issue, we'd all find ourselves a little better off.  The questions prompted by the so-called "quarter-life crisis" seem always to be entirely job-centric.  What company to work for? What job to take? What network to join?  But what about what kind of person you want to be? What kind of spouse? What kind of parent?

You can change the city you live in. You can swap your boyfriend/girlfriend for a new and improved model.  You can switch jobs.

But you're stuck with yourself for the rest of your life.  So it seems like that's a pretty worthy investment.

But who knows? I could only be spewing this stuff to self-soothe, to make myself feel better about my unchartered path.  I could be totally and completely wrong.

But -- hey.  I'm only 25.  I'm not supposed to have it all figured out.

One thing I know for sure is that my luck is not going much better.

==============================
Day 22
Bought one lottery ticket.
Lost one
Total: $8.
==============================

Tomorrow's my day. I can feel it.

 

April (Snow)Showers Bring Netflix Deliveries

I woke up at 10:30 this morning and laid in bed for a bit thinking about what I'm going to do about the jobless state in which I currently find myself.

Sad to say, during the period in which stared at my ceiling (noting, for the first time, a nasty watermark that I seem to have missed in the 6 months I've been in my current apartment), there was nary an earth-shattering catharsis.

The only thing I had realized after 30 minutes of thinking was that was it was 11am and The View was on, so it was time to get up.

Boy was I in for a shock when I took my first glimpse out of the window.

Snow!??!  In April??!  I mean -- I was wearing flip-flops just a few days ago. [We have seriously messed up our environment. People -- if you don't recycle, start doing it now. Every little bit counts.  This weather is NOT NORMAL.]

The upside was that the blizzard outside (which -- to be honest -- lasted for all of 20 minutes TOPS) was reason enough for me to stay in. So I read a little, cleaned a little, and made myself a nice scrambled egg, but was bored by 1pm.

Hmmmm. I wondered if the mail arrived yet.

So I tramped downstairs, still in my pjs, and checked my box.  Oooh! Disc #3 from the first season of Arrested Development had come from Netflix! Finally something to do for the rest of the afternoon.

But it got me thinking about Netflix and how their online DVD-ordering system has really screwed up my life.

I joined Netflix a year ago with the loftiest of goals.

As I waited for my first DVD, I sat down and made a list of the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Films of All Time. I researched all of the Oscar-winning Best Pictures and put them on my queue. I vowed to keep up with all of the art-y documentaries that dart in and out of theaters before you can say "Declan Desmond." Poised to blossom into a cinematic connoisseur, I waited with bated breath for my first delivery.

Yet somehow – despite even the best of intentions – these well-laid plans for my Netflix experience have been derailed. Instead of viewing art house movies to broaden my horizons and to deepen the pool from which I can draw allusions, I have indulged in the very worst that Hollywood has to offer. Whereas the original objective had been to transform my very own living room into a cultural Mecca of sorts, I find myself watching total and complete trash.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me briefly confess a few of my sins.

In the past year:

1.) I have seen more movies starring teen queen Lindsay Loan than I care to acknowledge.
2.) I’ve spent evenings home alone watching such selections as Madonna’s doomed-from-the-start “Swept Away” and “Gigli,” the work of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in their pre-Bennifer days.
3.) I watched the Olsen twin’s ill-fated big-screen debut, “New York Minute.”

3b.) And I liked it.

Yes – I confess. I liked “New York Minute.” I liked all of those movies. My enjoyment during each viewing was tinged with guilt, but somehow that made it all the sweeter. I could feel my brain cells slowly dying as Miss Lohan strutted across the screen in a string of roles virtually indistinguishable save for the changing size of her breasts, but I just could not bring myself to turn off the DVD player.

I watch these movies purely because I CAN. I’m not plunking down $10.50 (for that is indeed the exorbitant cost of taking in a movie in a Manhattan theater nowadays; adding a popcorn and soda can easily double the price, and a movie's just not a movie without some buttery popcorn and a diet coke). I’ve already paid the flat fee for the month, so it’s essentially like I’m watching the movie for free, right?

So I think I'm going to cancel my subscription.  It didn't turn out to be what I had intended, and since  (as we are all aware) I have no job, a few little indulgences have got to go while I figure out exactly what it is I'm going to do next.

Bye-bye, Netflix.
It's been reel.

As for the lottery update:

==============================
Day 21 (I skipped entering it yesterday, but I didn't win anyway. Big surprise).
Bought one lottery ticket.
Lost one
Total: $9.
==============================

The good news is that apparently I was Gawker'd and it drove a whole bunch of people over here today.  And having some people commiserate about the sucky, extermination-expecting (ex-)job was better than winning a couple bucks on a scratch-off.  Thanks, guys!!!

The 4-Bagel Plan

(Yep. Still unemployed. And lovin' it.  Panic has not yet set in.  Things are still sweet, but -- alas -- this is only Day #2.)

So I write recaps of NBC's "The Apprentice" each week for a website called The Trades.

It used to be something I just did for fun (the site is run by a cool group of people, AND I'm seriously obsessed with Donald Trump -- and utterly consumed by my girl-crush on his lucious daughter Ivanka -- so I figured that I might as well write down what I think and have other people read it instead of just yelling at the TV).  But now that I'm unemployed, I guess that this once-a-week blurbing could be considered 'my job.'

[Except for the fact that I'm not getting paid to produce my tirades. Ah well.]

But I digress.

The reason I'm bringing this all up (besides telling you to read my freaking column, which is updated weekly in the sidebar here) is because I am unhealthily intrigued by a now-fired candidate by the name of Brent Buckman.

Brent was a dispicable character on the show. He personified all of the stereotypical negative qualities of fat people: sloth, laziness, an insatiable appetite for bagels.  And he had no good ideas to contribute, which is why he was given the boot on episode #4.

Since his departure from the show, he seems to have dropped an astonishing amount of weight.  Apparently, he's invented his own diet -- The 4-Bagel Plan. 

I'm a carbohydrate craver myself who loves nothing more than an H&H bagel and a nice, tall glass of OJ.  The low-carb crazy almost drove me crazy (especially when I realized how much weight one could lose by stuffing one's self full of only artery-clogging fat. Mmmmm. It was hard to turn away from that one.) So this bagel diet seemed like the cat's pajamas. 

Here's a sample from the menu:
*Bagel with margarine for breakfast.
*Bagel with margarine for lunch.
*Bagel with margarine for a snack.
*Bagel with 8 oz of meat for dinner.

The bonus is the added direction: "Once a week have one meal or dessert which has lots of calories: For example, chicken fingers and cheese fries, pizza, ice cream sundae, cake, etc."

Hmmm.  I could do that. Worked for Brent.

Seriously. You should go check it out.  It seems super-scientific and not unhealthy at all.  And Brent is a reformed fat guy who was in a reality television show! He totally knows what he's talking about!

As I conclude this post, I would like to point out that a.) I am still unemployed. and b.) it is still good.

Time to go to Barnes&Noble, get my sticky fingers all over their magazines, then return them to the rack.  Yippeee!!!!!!!!!!

 

Friends Don't Let Friends Drink and Copyedit

I forgot that one of the best things about being unemployed is catching up on reading.

So I stayed in bed today and flipped through the last four weeks of the Sunday Times (which had all been bought and left untouched in a heap under my coffee table), a 7-month-old People Magazine (oh, how I long for the days when Tom Cruise was just beginning his multi-city tour of Crazyville), the New York Magazine about vacations my unemployed-butt doesn't have any money to take AND this week's Newsweek.

Which brings me to my point: Has someone been hitting the bottle over there?

Once you get through all the theres-a-war-in-the-Middle-East-you-should-care-about-our-government's-predicament crap (though I swear I will try to bone up on current affairs now that I have no job), you get to the good stuff: a profile on actress Rebecca Romijn.

[Quick!  Name three movies she's been in! (And they can't be the only two credits that spring to mind for me which are 1.) her turn as the blue-body-paint covered Mystique in "X-Men" and 2.) her role as Full-House hottie John Stamos's hot wife.)].

Anyway, the article talks about her new show "Pepper Dennis," on which she apparently plays a klutzy hottie who is a news reporter who trips over stuff a lot.

Download newsweek_makes_a_booboo.pdf I tore the page out of the mag and highlighted it to make my point, as, if you'll notice:  THE ARTICLE HAS NO SPACES BETWEEN WORDS.

(Unless "leavesherbraslyingaround her" and "stnatlyringingcellphonewhen" are erudite words a dolt like me doesn't know.)

We're not talking one or two little too-close-to-calls.  It's the entire freaking article.

It's called a space-bar, people.

No one caught this before it went to press???

So: Newsweek -- Do you perhaps need some sober copy-editors who understand there are limits to type-fitting??  People who understand that, when you reach those limits, you must actually start deleting words?

If so, I am available, as I'm newly unemployed.  You just let me know and I'll zip my resume right on over.

On a side note, it's Monday. And I've not been this happy on a Monday in a LONG time.

Quest-to-win-the-lottery update (which is now not just about luck, but about survival, as I am Un.Em.Ployed!!!)

==============================
Day 19:
Bought one lottery ticket.
Lost one
Total: $11.
==============================

That still can't put a damper on my day.

 

Yep. Still Unemployed.

I am unemployed.

It is Sunday.

Other people have to go to work tomorrow.

But I do not.

As, I am unemployed.

And thus, all is well.* *

**<I am trying to keep variations of the above running through my head to stave off the panic which keeps threatening to set in.>

Bought a ticket. Nada.

==============================
Day 18:
Bought one.
Lost one.
Total: $12.
==============================

Sad to say, but that tally is pretty much the grand total of my bank account.  I've gotta find some temp work and STAT.

But!  Tralalallala! I do not have to go to my shitty job tomorrow!! Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy Crap

Holy Crap.

I quit my job yesterday.

No need for April Fool's jokes today, as the joke's on me.

My life is a joke.

I remember -- through the alcoholic haze which coats my memory of last evening (a few good friends too me out so I could drown my sorrows, which I heartily did before sticking my tongue down a bartender's throat and being promptly brought home by said friends) that people kept saying this could be the best thing I ever did for myself.

Though, in the light of today, coupled with a hangover, it suddenly seems plainly like a dumb, impulsive move.

Oh my god. I have no job.

On a lighter note, I won when I played the lottery.  $175.

Oh, who am I freaking kidding? That was a lame attempt at an April Fool's joke. But I did buy two tickets last night and one today (when I went out for Fresca, my hangover drink-of-choice).

Grand tally?

==============================
Day 17:
Bought three
Lost three
Total: $13.
==============================

Lucky number thirteen.