I had an interview a few weeks ago with a studio in Falls Church, H8ST8. This commute would be equally hellish as the one I had with G, but at least it would have been a paying job. I could have caught up (rather, re-started) in my reading on the bus & train & train & bus 1.5 hour commute. Alas, I found out this afternoon that I didn’t get the job. Oh well. Tis a shame, because the company’s initials are C+C and I was going to call them the Music Factory. A in “I am now heading out for my daily stint at the Music Factory.” Hopefully you will be old enough to understand that inside joke.

Tomorrow I have an interview with another company, this one thankfully downtown. It’s the company where my brother works, but it’s a huge global corporate company. So I’ll have to wear a tie at least to the interview. I don’t think there will be any jeans/shorts wearing at this job, unforch. The position is in their Architectural/Design Services division being a Technical Editor/Writer Coordinator. The job description is a little odd, some writing & editing included with traditional graphic design services. They wanted to have me come in for an interview after reviewing my resume though, so there must be something in there that they think will be a good fit. Wish me luck!

One year and six days ago I spent my “birthday work lunch” making and serving grilled cheese sandwiches for the homeless families at Carpenter’s Shelter. I’d estimate I made about 30 of them. Me and other coworkers were volunteering for the lunch shift. It was a good thing to do, the staff and temporary residents all seemed pretty thankful and it felt really good to do it too. And it was fun. I had also taken the following two days off of work, a Thursday and Friday, to have a long extended birthday weekend. I had days to use up before the end of the year anyway. So my birthday last year was technically the last day I was in the studio as an employee.

One year and five days ago I caught a flu bug and was pretty much laid up in bed for those two days I had taken off work and the weekend, too.

One year and one day ago was Monday and I was scheduled to be back at work but since I was still not feeling 100% and we were dreadfully slow I decided to take a sick day and have another day of recovering.

One year ago I walked into work and, before my strict 8:30 morning meeting, was ambushed in my office and told that I had been laid off along with five other employees.

So it’s been 365 days of unemployment. Which means filing a lot of actual paperwork and digital paperwork. My food stamps will expire this month so that’s $200 less money from my unemployment checks, in a sense, that I’ll be getting.

Have you ever tried to find a 2nd-tier creative job in an uncreative town? It’s not easy. Most of the local ads I’m finding are skimming the bottom of the barrel: “do this logo for $50 and there’s no way it should take you more than two hours”… or freelance jobs that are paying $15 an hour. When I moved here fourteen years ago I was making $30/hour on freelance jobs.

So now what? Reinvention? Easier than it sounds. Relocate? Most employers aren’t going to hire someone who is not local. Go and work at somewhere that’s three levels beneath my education & experience? That seems the only option now. Suggestions?

I’m sitting here, looking at this. And at that. And it’s nothing that I haven’t seen before. I’m sure you’ve seen it too, one of those days where you just look around at things and sit there.

Don’t deny it, you’ve had those days.

There’s no reason to go anywhere, really. There’s no where to go for any reason. And so you don’t. You don’t do anything. You don’t go anywhere. You sit down at the computer and there’s no reason to go anywhere through that box either. And yet you go there.

All day.

You think of what the rest of the world is doing, and you let that happen around you. There’s so much this and that, and yet you do this… and that… meaning you go there in the next room and look around… and then you go into the next room, and look at it, and move…

Mr. Coup said that we, as humans, are not meant for idle time and I’m starting to believe that.

Yep, that’s it. It’s a thrill-a-minute around here. Yawn.

They say not to let your work life define you, except here in The District that’s what we do. It’s always the 2nd question asked when meeting someone. “What do you do?” Earlier in 2009 I used to answer this question with a professional title associated with what I’ve been trained to do for the past twenty years but sometimes I answer it with “Nothing” because that’s literally what I’m doing right now. So if work defines us and one doesn’t work, you can do the math.

Today since the weather was nice I went to the grocery store. Big whoop. I did this because basically I had run out of sugar for my morning coffee. Creamer I can do without but sugar, no. So I went. This was the first time I’ve walked there since the weather turned cooler and it instantly reminded me all those cold forays (sometimes at the break of dawn) to the store nine or ten months ago. Thankfully it’s not that cold yet. But it will be soon enough.

It’s funny the familiar people you see in a grocery store mid-afternoon on a Tuesday. Familiar people that you’ve seen at the gym, a local restaurant or bar, the bus. And you wonder why they’re there at that particular time. Did they call in sick? Is this their lunch break? Do they work nights? Are they using an EBT Card?

My favorite checkout employee wasn’t working. Out of chance (or fate) I was always in her line when I first started using my EBT when I was unfamiliar with the process. She always very discreet when she would need to explain to me something paying extra (for non-consumables) or alerting me to when coupons expire. I’ve helped her grab items off the top shelf that she couldn’t reach while she was doing her own shopping. Maybe she recognized me and that’s why she asked, or maybe I was just the tallest, closest person.

So that’s what I did today. Oh, and then I went to the gym. And then I came home and made a sandwich for dinner. Then I went to bed.

Purchase: $37.18
EBT Card Balance: $240.49
Club Card Savings: $1.69

I see now I was charged $3.79 for a stuffing mix that should have been $1.50. Sigh.

Freebies? Not exactly but I guess kinda on some levels.

One freebie is the credit balance on my Zipcar account, thanks to neighbor Sherif who houses the cars in his backyard lot. They give him monthly credit and every so often he’ll dole some out to me and other friends of his. Unfortunately the credit has an expiration date and I still had some that expire tomorrow. So I reserved one this afternoon (as well as a Mini convertible last Saturday) to do some grocery shopping.

Which brings me to the second freebie. While this is technically free, it’s that whole I’ve-been-paying-into-the-system kind of payback, and that’s my EBT card. Or as they used to be called pre-technology days: food stamps. Just like last time, I didn’t really need to stock up on anything other than perishables but since I had a car it was time to get more of things I usually can’t carry like bottled water. Plus I noticed that instead of having Club Card specials many of the hanging tags were advertising “new lower pricing” instead of Club Card-only savings. Subsequently, my Club Card savings wasn’t that much.

Pushed on by the drizzly weather I found myself buying comfort foods: tomato soup, deli turkey, stuffing mix, flavored mashed potato mixes. Oh, and Healthy Choice dinners $1.99 if I buy five or more? Sure, I’ll take six.

Purchase: $208.63
EBT Card Balance: $97.01
Club Card Savings: $21.90 (9% of purchase)

The balance on my EBT card is $348.20, and that’s a lot. Apparently I have not done a real grocery shopping run since mid-July. So it’s time. Rent the Zipcar, grab a cart (the kind you actually push!) and start filling it up. Since my balance is pretty healthy, I’m grabbing both things that I need to get as well as things that strike my fancy, with little regard as to what my purchases are going to add up to.

Purchase: $202.70
EBT Card Balance: $145.50
Club Card Savings: $44.58 (17% of purchase)

I am in the grooviest doctor’s office waiting room that I have ever been in. It’s probably a simple Ikea setup, but at least it looks new and has clean lines. Someone needs to straighten the artwork on the walls but I’m going to let that slide.

My appointment is for 1:30 and I’m seen at 1:32. I like this doctor already.

I’ve had a couple of left-ear blockages in the past, nothing major and usually a good syringe-plunging washout does the trick and actually feels really good. I tell my new non-insurance doctor what’s going on, he has a look in both ears and explains that it’s not a typical waxy buildup, but that I had liquid behind my eardrum. That is what is stopping the eardrum from vibrating and clicking on all those other little bones in there which produces sound.

He then proceeds to look up my nose because all those holes in your face are connected inside your skull. He, oddly, then pulls out a tuning fork. He rings it and places it near each ear and of course the sound is different because I can’t basically hear out of my left ear. He rings it again and places the handle end on the top of my forehead. The vibrating moves through my skull and directly into my left ear. It was the oddest thing ever and I kind of wanted him to do it again.

Then he sprays a mist that smelled and tasted like Vick’s Vaporub into each nostril while I’m instructed to take a quick snort. Then he brings out a tiny exploratory camera on the end of a flexible tube and sticks that into my nose. This was a little uncomfortable as I feel this tube exploring around my sinuses. That I wouldn’t want to do again. The tuning fork, yes, but not this.

The prognosis is that I have a blocked eustachian tube. This is the tiny canal that connects the ear to the back of the throat. There’s no real quick fix, like the flushing I mentioned earlier, so the only thing to do is take sinusy-type medicines and prescription nasal sprays (he gave me a free sample though). And when I’m purchasing the OTC meds it is apparently the hardcore kind that you can make tina out of, because I’m scanned and documented at the CVS point of purchase. Plus he tells me that I need to become a gum chewer to keep things moving and lubricated. So now I get to be one of those people, but all under a doctor’s care. Okay, meds, do your thing!

Let’s see…

I still can’t hear about of my left ear after Eddy’s drunken/birthday/hello greeting. I’ve been hydrogen peroxiding it all weekend long, and while it’s tickly and bubbly it still hasn’t solved the problem. I’m afraid I’m going to have to put my no insurance/Medicaid to the test soon and actually go and see a doctor. Is it ironic that a cancelled beach trip with a deaf friend this weekend is the same time that I can’t hear?

This week I’m starting M–F half-days at my “volunteer” job. Best thing about it is that it’s only five blocks away. I haven’t even ridden the bike there, it’s quite enjoyable just to walk through the neighborhood. It takes about two iPod songs. Things I’ve noticed while walking that I never saw before on the bike or in a car: There is a house on 14th that has an entire porch covering made out of a wisteria tree. I’ll take a pic this week and add it here. Also, there is a grate/manhole cover on C that still has the ladder in it leading down to the catacombs. Whether the workers left it there or it’s non-removable is unknown.

After my last round of the blandest marinara sauce ever, I’ve redeemed myself with yesterday’s batch. While I didn’t have some of my fave/regular ingredients, I pulled it out with an eye-measured mix of ground cayenne red pepper, epazote, ground red chipotle, ground mustard, oregano and adobo seasoning. And the cans of diced tomatoes also had some jalapeños in them. And S&P, of course.

I’m going to see if I can barrel through a re-watch of Season 1 and 2 of Mad Men before the 3rd Season premiere on August 16. Since I don’t have AMC, luckily iTunes has S3 available for next-day downloads. That is something I’ll spend $20 on.

Useless trivia: Kristy McNichol’s name was spelled “Kristie” during the pilot credits of Family. When I was a kid in the 70s, I had a box full of notecards that listed the 555-xxxx phone numbers of television characters that I had collected over the years. I had the numbers of the Brady’s and Jaime Sommers, those that I can remember. Now you can just find them here.

Blogger pal and sometimes drinking buddy Joe.My.God reports that DC is the #1 U.S. city for job postings, and by a wide margin.

This is not really surprising since the largest office building in the world is right across the river, and the Feds employing so many more not to mention our 10% tax thriving restaurant scene. Do I want to be a civil servant? No. Do I want to be a waiter? No.

That was just a dream.

Six months ago while I contemplated moving to another city to find employment it actually seemed plausible with some good, almost perfect, jobs that I was applying for. Apparently the big thing for employers these days is to not send out any kind of “Thank you, but no.” correspondence. Hell, I’d be happy with a “Fuck off” email returned from a prospective employer, at least that way I would know that they actually received my resume. Maybe stamps are too expensive these days to send out so many TYBN letters.

Whatevs.

So besides scouring the want ads, the only thing I’ve done today is nothing. Supposedly the weather was beautiful today but beautiful weather on Saturdays is for people who have jobs and can’t normally be out in the daytime enjoying it. So I stayed inside and let me have it all to themselves. I hope they had a good time doing whatever it was they were doing.

Enjoy.

If you read here, you’ll notice that DHS stated that I would have to bring validation from the VEC (Virginia Employment Commision) and proof of payments for rent, utilities and phone in order to complete my paperwork. As I was gathering these together I noticed that my July deposit (which was supposed to cut off in June) went through so I figured it wasn’t a rush to get back down there. I figured I’ll have to take everything in before the end of July but at least it gave me time to get everything together.

This I received in the mail last week:

Your application for food stamp recertification has been approved effective July, 2009 through June, 2010.

So, they’ve obviously processed the form as is without any verfications of my private information. And they’ve extended benefits for an additional 12 months! Ridiculous. Hopefully I won’t be needing them for much longer though, but the job search continues on.