What a strange profession dentistry is. Your basic function in life is to not only look into the mouth of other people but to poke and prod in there as well. Even worse, nobody enjoys the idea of visiting you and the actual experience of visiting you. People go years without seeing you just because they hate the experience of what you do to them. For it really isn't a great experience or a pleasant one. Even the less painful visit is still uncomfortable at best and slightly painful at worse. The cleaning device they use to clean your teeth, for instance, occasionally scoots up into painful places and makes a nasty, shrill sound like a saw cutting through metal and even if it doesn't hurt when it's being used, it feels like it should hurt.

One kind of interesting thing about being the dentist, however, is being able to watch people while they're being worked on. Because the dentist and dental assistant are basically hovering over you the entire time your teeth are being worked on they get to see how everyone reacts to things. I'm sure everybody is a little nervous when the whole thing starts but then you get to watch people's expressions as they go from nervous to calm or calm to uncomfortable or uncomfortable to really, really unhappy or sometimes from uncomfortable to clam to in pain all within a matter of secconds. And I'm sure sometimes most people go the full range of emotions, from calm to nervous to "get me the fuck out of here right the fuck now!" And you get to watch it all.

Which brings up another reason why people hate going to visit the dentist, between being forced to open wide, have things inserted and moved around the mouth, and letting your naked emotion show through, it's kind of an intimate thing.

If you go to any ethnic restaurant in San Francisco-- hell, probably most of the country-- you'll find that whatever type of restaurant, be it Japanese or French or Middle Eastern, that the people doing the grimy, dirty jobs like dishwashers are all Hispanic. Over the weekend, Harlan and I went to a really good Mexican restaurant and halfway through dinner I began to wonder who does all the grimy work at a non-divey Mexican Restaurant? Poorer Mexicans? Guatemalans? Ethiopians? Laid off dot-commers?

Okay, so I've mentioned that company that I interviewed with that went really well but had not heard a decision as of yet. It is now about a month since I first had my phone interview and two weeks from when I was sorta told I'd get an answer.

Since I really need a job and since the interview went really, really well and since it was a good job, I really wanted to know and so I tried to find out what the deal was from the person who conducted the interview process. Last week I sent an email on Tuesday asking him what's up and got nothing. On Thursday I emailed him and the other person I met with and not only asked what was up but mentioned that I had another possible opportunity but wanted to hear something from them before deciding what to do. Normally, this would make the person responsible want to let that person know what was going on because, you know, the inference that whatever information is to be had could be of importance. He never got back to me.

So I kept on trying. This Tuesday I tried to call him and did so six times without him ever picking up. On Wednesday, I left him a message and reiterated that while I was still interested in the job, I'd kinda like to know what's up because of this other opportunity, in a nice way of course. Nothing. Today I emailed the other person, who has been nothing but helpful and nice this whole time, and once again asked her what was going on and mentioned that her boss had yet to get in touch with me. This was done on purpose because I thought it would really get both of their attention if she had to go into the guy's office and get on his case about his inability to get in touch with me. Which is what she did- I quickly got an email from her saying that she talked to the guy and told him to get in touch with me. There was even a hint of "Geez, that guy's been a bit of a slacker" tone to the email.

Once again, nothing.

Now, to make some sort of decision about a job and then not letting other people know is a dick move. To continue to do so after one of those people sends a couple of emails and leaves a voice mail message is being even more of a dick. To even do so when a coworker tells you to do it is beyond being a dick into some sort of other realm of dickitude. You know, like beyond dickitude and somewhere into horrible, horrible person land.

Still, I need a job. And still, it's a good job and I have not officially been told they hired somebody else. And if they haven't hired somebody else, all these attempts to get through has to be a point in my favor. And even if I didn't get the job which is very well and most probably possible and a good thing considering his dickitude, I am still going to try. Because I think I deserve to know. Because it's job to let me know too. And because I'm going to get the fucker to do it, even if it involves me hanging outside their office all afternoon waiting for him to go and get a bag of Kettle Chips so I can ambush him.

It's on, motherfucker.

Jesus, your Joe Lieberman or Olympia Snowe or Ben Nelson and the Senate has 58 or 59 votes to get what's supposedly a pretty decent (for our political system) health care bill and you're sitting there saying "no...nope....don't like that....maybe next time...not going to happen" over things that pretty much the most of the Senate and the House and the President think are okay.

How big of a dick are you? I mean, if this thing falls apart, maybe they should name people who die of some health care related issue caused by a lack of insurance "Death by Lieberman" or when they go bankrupt paying trying to pay off bills, you can say they've been "Snowed."

Had a job interview that didn't go very well. I kinda flailed at the beginning of the thing and never really recovered until it was well past the point I could save myself. I've actually gotten really good at interviews these days and have my answers down pat and was feeling pretty good going in there but I just choked. I think it all went wrong when at the beginning, I tried to make a light-hearted joke, you know to show some personality and lighten up the mood, but the person who I was interviewing with didn't respond. I mean didn't even notice or do anything at all to make that made me aware of the fact I had made a joke. Nope, the person I was having a meeting with was one of those no-nonsense, serious types with little to none sense of humor and I pretty much started flailing the moment I realized I was playing to a rough crowd.

Okay, so in this whole Tiger Woods thing we do have your usual assortment of skanks-- 10 at least so far. We even have your reality star and porn star to add to the list of the usual suspects of ex-models, cocktail waitresses, and "nightclub publicists."

So does this make this story exciting yet and Tiger less boring?

Nope. He's still as boring as ever, despite the rumors there was drugs (ambien) involved or he liked going "gloveless" or what have you. In fact, the sheer amount of the usual assortment of skanks makes it less boring as it's the same sort of people you'd expect a celebrity to have affairs with. Now, maybe if Chelsea Clinton or Emma Watson were involved...

Actually, the only thing that's not boring about this thing is that one of the tabloids is reporting that one of the woman was told by Tiger that his marriage to the Swedish model/nanny was done mainly for publicity reasons and wasn't really a marriage of love (other than love of money, of course). Why is this interesting? Because it confirms the theory that a huge percentage of athletes and the occasional singer/celebrity aren't actually real human beings as much as concoctions whipped up by their publicist/manager.

Which is what Tiger was. Which is why he's boring.

Why do I love the internet? Because while trolling message boards on certain tv shows you can not only discover that the half-Italian half-Jewish more-cute-than-hot 24 year old lead actress in a TV show has done something you didn't expect to see of them, mainly nudity in a sex scene. And not only that, it's from a totally random thing and as such, impossible to find by conventional methods (ie-- going into Google and typing the words "actress" and "boobs"). Needless to say, thanks to the magic of YouTube, said clip is available to watch.

I, of course, watched

Now here's the thing. Part of the reason why it's obscure and hard to find is because it happened in the Broadway Play that made her famous and the idea of nudity in a play isn't something you hear of that often. And that the title of the play was "Spring Awakening" which sounds like it's one of those frothy musicals we all know and love. Turns out, however, it's not. It's a play that's been banned several times in several places and is more like something out of that movie "Kids" or "Bully" than the "Sound of Music" as it involves messed up kids doing messed up things to other people all in the name of trying/having/not having sex.

Still, yay boobies!

Except for the fact that the sex scene, which takes place on a bed hanging from the ceiling in the center of the stage, is not quite like sex and more quite like rape and she spends most of the scene fearfully and somewhat tearfully pleading that she's not sure about all of this. And to add to the fun, there's a choir kneeling around the bed singing a chipper sounding song that's actually kinda disturbing considering what's going on. The only thing I felt after watching the scene was creeped out. Also majorly awed by the major balls of said actress to not only perform the scene but do so surrounded by about fifteen people singing, in front of an audience of hundreds, day after day after day. And thanks to the internet, now it'll be hard to watch said actress in said show without thinking about said boobs being fondled while in the act of being raped.

Yay boobies?

Even worse,

Living on a Prayer

And so my big dream a couple of days ago sorta came true and sorta didn't. Sorta did because I found out something about the job (no decision yet) but sorta not because I had to bug two people at the office for information, even lying about something, in order to get it what little information I did get. Actually, considering the person who appeared in my dream is still being a pud and hasn't responded to me, I guess the answer is sorta not more than sorta did.

Despite this, I have to say that for the most part, I've been treated rather well this unemployment go around. Other than the lame-ass HR person who made me think I got the job and this place, most of the people with whom I met with sent me emails giving me updates and were really polite about everything.

That doesn't mean I haven't had a few weird interviews, although nothing as bad as some of the one's I've been on. There was that one weird job, the one that could have involved travel to China, in which the job description was so vague that the recruiter and I spent a long time trying to figure out just what to put on my resume and to say. Turns out there was a reason for the vagueness because the person whom I met with admitted at the end of the interview that she didn't know what she was looking for exactly but just wanted to meet with people to see if a light bulb went off in her head while talking to them and realize what she wanted. When I told all of this to the recruiter, I could hear her eyes roll over the phone (I've actually gained a lot more respect for recruiters these days because I have a serious feeling that half of their jobs is dealing with employers who don't know what they're looking for but know they need somebody or employers who reject candidates for being exactly what they said they wanted because they decided they didn't really want that).

Then there was another job I interviewed for, a two to three month gig. The job was kinda low paying and beneath my skill set but whatever-- it was a job and it was doing some weird, nichey thing that I had plenty of experience in doing. Which became evident when they asked me a bunch of questions about how to do it and not only did I tell them exactly what to do but threw in some technical talk just to show them I really knew my shit. I met with two people and the second person with whom I met asked me what my process is doing this thing and when I talked about what and how I did things, he kept on saying "wow, that's exactly how we do it!" or "you use the exact same process that we do!" Turns out, however, I didn't because when I called the recruiter a few hours after the interview to check in (after driving home from Oakland in a nasty, nasty rain storm and driving over the Bay Bridge in pouring rain is NOT fun) the recruiter told me that they turned me down because they didn't think I knew how to do things and could "communicate the process." Or something like that-- the recruiter said he didn't really know what they meant as it was all kind of vague (see comments above about recruiters having to deal with flaky HR types).

The only thing I could think that happened on that interview, other than the fact they sucked, is that halfway through the interview I had a complete and total energy crash. The interview was on a Friday morning and it was my second interview of the week and fourth in two weeks. I also spent a lot of time at the Unemployment Office getting job help that week and had found out over the week that I had lost out on three jobs. In other words, I was pretty burned the fuck out. I also had to drive into the East Bay in crappy weather and apparently didn't drink nearly enough coffee. So I totally and completely crashed. I thought I hid it well but I also know that I wasn't as effusive and energetic as the interview went on. And sadly, in an interview, you have to perfect enough in the interview that the obvious appearance that you need a nap doesn't go over well.

Or, they could have just sucked.

A couple of weeks ago I had an interview with some marketing company. It was one of the more unusual interviews that I've had in which they told me halfway through the prescreening phone call that they loved my resume so much they didn't really need to do a prescreening phone call and then during the interview, was told several times by the person in charge that the whole thing was a "great interview."

I know-- there's no way I'm going to get this job.

Anyways, this was a couple of weeks before and when I asked what the next steps were, I was told I'd hear something this week. It seemed rather a long wait at the time (about two weeks) but when you factor in Thanksgiving it made some sense. They didn't say when this week, however, which puts me in a bit of a crappy situation in that I don't know when I'd expect to hear anything and so this big, huge decision affecting my life is one in which I could hear about early Monday morning or late Friday afternoon or anywhere in between. This is a little on the stressful side, to say the least as now everytime I check my email or hear the phone go off, I wonder if it's it.

To head things off, I sent the guy an email yesterday asking him what was up. As of right now-- almost a day later-- I have yet to hear from him making me that more anxious and a little bit concerned that the guy is actually kind of a dick.

This morning, when I was in that half-awake/half-asleep state, I had a vivid dream where I was sitting at the desk of the guy in question who was telling me not to be so freaked out and that I'll find out on Thursday. He even told me that I'll either get an email saying I didn't get the job or that I should come in and meet more people and to once again, not stress over it.

Okay, yes, it's a dream, but where did the Thursday part come in? Did I just randomly pull it out of my subconscious ass or am I actually having some sort of premonition? The dream was pretty vivid too which it made all that stranger especially in light of the fact that unlike most weird dreams fraught with meaning, there were no midgets involved.

So, maybe tomorrow it is. If not, I'm thinking the Fatal Attraction scenario where I stalk him about the job to the point he might find a dead rabbit in his bed.