And now back to our continuing story…..

So I've been waiting to hear back from that Ad Agency over the past week. The one where I had all these strange coincidences connecting me to it, so much so that having just seen Signs, I was pretty sure we are about to be invaded by Aliens.

Today, I finally heard back.

Let's just say that I'm now pretty convinced that Signs is a complete piece of crap. Signs and coincidences don't mean jack shit, just random occurring things that don't lead up to much of anything. I also learned that really good connections aren't really good if the only way you're connecting to them is mainly through drinking.

How desperate am I now? Months ago, I wrote about how I had an interview for a job in San Mateo (about 15-20 miles outside of SF, an hour by train) and how I didn't really want to do the commute. Didn't want to be Commuting Man. Today, however, I had an interview in Sunnyvale, which is about 40 miles away from SF, on the edge of San Jose. Even worse, the CalTrain station isn't close to the office so if I were to get it, I'd have to get a car and drive. Even worse, it's one of the most God-awful commutes in the country.

To get to the interview, I had to borrow a friend's car. I'm such a City Guy that I haven't really driven a car in maybe a year or two. My friend's car is also stick and I'm pretty sure I haven't driven stick in a good four years. I wouldn't loan out my car to me. My friend is actually the only person to have ever let me drive their car (other than my parents), an act to which I repaid him by trashing the clutch. Lest you think I'm an awful driver, you try parallel parking on a huge hill in North Beach (I've also had a motor scooter given to me for a week and crashed that too).

The job is eh. Eh all around. The products pretty boring, the office is total Silicon Valley (air conditioned cubicles in an Industrial park in the middle of nowhere), and most of the people in the office seemed to be frumpy middle-aged people. I looked to and fro when I was there, but couldn't find anyone young and slightly non-big-haired. This is all a big change from where I've worked before and so far from what I've hoped for in looking for a job.

On the other hand, the money's really good and most importantly, it's a job. And I need a job right now because if I don't get this, it's r'uh oh time.

You hear a lot about the California dream. The mythology of the state and the idea. But it's not really about Little Surfer Girl or not being able to check out some dumb hotel. It's about making some sort of Faustian Bargain. You can live here, in one of the most beautiful, exciting, perfect places on the face of the earth, but it'll cost you. Whether it's high rent or out of control real estate or long-ass commute or long hours to afford the out of control real estate, at some point, in order to stay here, there's gonna be some sort of sucking it up involved.

And it looks like if I really want to stay here, I'm gonna be doing some major league sucking it up.

On top of that, Marquis Grissom just climbed up over the wall to rob Rich Aurillia of a game-tying home run. I feel sick.