Sorry for the lack of posting, but in the past few weeks, I have

-Started a new job
-got a new apartment
-got my wallet stolen from the gym.

All in the same week.

In fact, I got news about the apartment on the very-same day I started my new job and I got robbed at the end of that week. In other words, that was one long-ass, crazy-ass week. I feel like my whole life turned upside down and then somebody came by and shook me just enough all my change fell out of my pockets.

On top of that, it's my first new job in four years and my first new apartment in seven years. It'll also be the first time I've lived with someone in 7 years. It'll also be the first time I left the city proper and have moved to the outskirts, mainly the Richmond which means I have bought a fast pass for the first time in about five years.

And all of this means other life-shaking things. Like actually buying a couch and kitchen table. And real art. Or looking at having to get up early for a 45 ride on the 38 Geary L. Or having to call every place for which I have an account with and switch my account information to reflect my new checking account number.

I am exhausted with a mixture of freaked out thrown in for good measure.

And speaking of new jobs, today I remembered another fun part of new jobs, the fact that you're still kind of new and nobody knows you. When you're busy, it's fine because you're running around, being a part of things. But when you're not, you just sit at your desk, bored out of your mind, and contemplate the fact that you're kinda alone. There's no coffee klatch to go get coffee with or people to gossip with or even say hi to in the hallways or ask about their weekends.

It's like being the new kid in school and it's kinda lonely.

So here's my reaction to Obama's brilliant, amazing, thoughtful speech yesterday, a speech so good it'll definately doom him in the election as it once again is proving that he's just too good to be elected. It's basically about a viral video meant to attack Obama as a way to scare whitey:

"The co-founder of Laura Ingraham's radio show who now helps run Hugh Hewitt's 'Salem Radio Network' has mixed an Obama video interweaving Obama with Malcolm X, the Black Power salute at the Mexico City Olympics and Public Enemy's 'Fight the Power'."

And I'm thinking, that's a bad thing?

God, I forgot how God awful the first week of a new job is. It SUCKS. All I'm doing is everyone else's busy work which means I'm doing a lot of photocopying and filing and turning things in for people who are too busy to walk to someone's desk. To say I'm bored shitless would be an understatement. Throw in the fact I can't check email at work (!) and how you can't surf the web when you're new and I'm dying. D-Y-I-N-G.

It's so bad I'm having trouble sleeping because it's hard to look forward to waking up way earlier than your used to and then be horrendously bored for 8 hours.

Lord, help me make it through these first few weeks.

So tomorrow I start a new job, my first new job since August of '04 (imagine that). And I'm kinda nervous and kinda scared and kinda anxiety ridden mainly because all new jobs are hellish and suck. On the one hand, I kinda want to put myself down and go to sleep so that I'll get plenty of rest before the big day. On the other hand, I kinda want to stay up as late as I can just to enjoy all this time in which I'm not dealing with the first day of work.

As we all know (and as I've probably written here before), first weeks suck. There's nothing for you to do, they're not really prepared for you, and so they just sit you at a desk that hasn't really been set up for you, give you a bunch of papers to fill out and a bunch of manuals to read and then you have to spend eight hours pretending that it's the most exciting thing ever and you're so excited to be there. When you're not. Or at least, you're not because you're bored out of your frickin' skull. Plus, you have to pretend that you are a hard worker so you can't spend all that free time doing what most people at work do with free time-- surf the internet.

The other thing is that everything is new so you don't know anybody, don't know where anything is, and don't even really know who to ask. So you have to ask where the bathroom is or where the lunch room is or if there's coffee and snacks there and if not, where do people go and so on and so forth.

Oh, for various reasons, I can't check email at my new job which is GOING TO BE HELL.

One more interview story before I hopefully don't have to post one of these for awhile....

The older I've gotten, the worse my fear of heights has become. Actually, it's not a fear of heights as much as it is a fear of being in a high place when the Big One hits. Anyways, the issue has become big enough that working on the 30th floor of a high rise, something that could happen if I were to get offered the job, would put the job in the negative column. So is the fact that it's prime real estate, huge office, and lots of empty seats. But that's a whole other thing entirely.

Two other things about the interview-

Due to some yummy mexican food the night before and way too many cracker-type substances, I woke up the next morning with a rumble in the tummy. Which had me worried. So worried I spent much of the ride over to the job and before the job wondering just how one extricates themselves from the middle of an interview to run to the commode.

The other thing is that I was really exhausted that day, for various assorted reasons. I got to the interview on time and was just wired enough from coffee, but first they had me fill out a form. That took fifteen minutes, ten of which I spent twiddling my thumbs. Then the first person I was supposed to interview was fifteen minutes late. Now, the thing is that when you start with the interviewin' you're kinda pumped, kinda primed, kinda raring to go. Except for when their late and it's early and your tired and after awhile, you start feeling sleepy. Very sleepy. But the thing is is that you can't look sleepy at all. You can't slump down on your chair, can't put your head on the table, can't even give any impression of doing anything but sitting at the chair in a completely attentive way so that you look eager and gung-ho.

This is not as easy as it looks. Trust me. It's hard to sit there in a prime position when you're mind is thinking three things

-I'm friggin bored
-When the hell are they going to get here? This is driving me crazy
-God, I really have to take a shit.

And so, yes, Barrack Obama Superstar got crushed last night. Maybe the black guy won't win. Of course, I should have known it was meant to be because of what I always expected. Mainly that:

-Inspiring and idealistic always (always) loses to cold, cynical and ruthless
-Celebrity trumps everything so that one person with a famous name will always beat somebody without a famous name
-Never underestimate how much whitey (especially poor, rural whitey) is scared of people who aren't whitey
-Never misunderestimate the intelligence in the American people in terms of believing every random email they get sent to them by their aunt's sister in law


I guess I will vote for Hillary in the election but I have to say that I actually like John McCain better. I at least respect him way more than I do Hillary. All that kitchen sink throwing they've been doing at Obama just gets me under the skin, the misrepresentations, the vague allusions to race, the contorted logic in their arguements. But, as always, it gets to me in that for the most part, people (well, some of them) seem to be voting for her because well they loved Bill and they had a good run when BIll was president so let's vote for his wife! Except for NAFTA. That was on him.

The thing that really sticks in my craw is the whole thing about "experience" in foreign policy. She was the freakin' First Lady. It's not like she was conducting negotiations with the Serbs or the Palestinians yet they make it seem like she did. And then, if you read through things, you discover that she didn't even read the friggin' National Intelligence Report when congress decided to vote on the war, yet she's the one who has more experience in foreign policy. If you look at her record, actually, she has the same votes as McCain and we're guessing a lot of them were cynical votes so she didn't have to be accused as a wuss.

Eh, I'm just bitter this morning.

Got nothing other than two random thoughts--

It appears that one of everyone's favorite smells is the smell of bacon in the morning. Even people who don't eat meat. All of which got me thinking that maybe somebody needs to make some sort of air-freshner thingy which smells like bacon being cooked.

Yum

And the other thing....

After reading way too many stories about this election, it appears to me that there should be a test on whether you are able to vote or not-- if you really do believe Obama is a muslim (based on some random email that they got over the internet) than you should not be able to vote. Because not only do you prove you really haven't paid enough attention to what's going on to deserve to vote, but you are also a fucking idiot.