Dreampepper

The first interview went extraordinarily well. We talked in the owner's office for over an hour, chatting about theater, arts culture, the people we have in common, and my job history. The second interview, a more serious thing with the office administrator, went fairly well. It was less casual, more the regular check list of the sort of formalized corporate queries I always find awkward, like "what is your five year plan?", to which I gave near desperate answers like "to work steadily at something I like until I win the lottery and can move somewhere warm enough to open a sloth preservation foundation." Despite this, they called the next morning and offered me the job. (While someone else at the office was apparently still on the phone with one of my references.)

So now I have a real job.

*ahem*

NOW I HAVE A REAL JOB.

Just in case you didn't get that.

As of first thing tomorrow morning, I will be the new office administrator/receptionist-in-training at Stage One Accounting, a firm specializing in entertainment industry clients, which no, is not a euphemism. I am thrilled, intimidated, and incredibly relieved. On one hand, accountants, my justifiable fear of math, working on Saturdays, and joining a tax office in January. On the other, everyone I've met there so far has been smart, funny, interesting, and competent, the sort of person I always feel lucky to make friends with, and reliable, solid pay-cheques from a company not running on crazy. Heaven!

Of course, because the universe is a quirky place, to add an extra dash of ridiculous to the whole situation, I have turned down three very promising job interviews since accepting the job just yesterday. Three! THREE! That's as many as I usually have in a MONTH. I have saved their numbers, though, just in case, as I cannot get over the foolish notion that I will sleep in and blow the whole thing, just out of some sort of residual existential despair left over from two years of unreliable contract work. David has offered to make certain that I'm awake tomorrow at seven, but even so, I am sure that when I go to bed tonight, it will be in dread.

Oh! And I totally got to chat with William Gibson tonight! And though I was initially terrified of speaking, it turns out we like each other! He thinks I'm "funny and smart"! Hooray! Exclamation mark! Annnnd! AND! I fit into my kilt again, just in time for Robbie Burns! EEEEEEEEE! PERSONAL VICTORY DAY! HAVE AT THEE!

"It is only from one of the higher towers, the myriad smaller buildings laid out below and higher ones gleaming in the distance, that the City’s infinitude truly becomes intuitively and not merely intellectually apparent."

Mastering new things generally comes easily to me, yet contact lenses are presenting a strange new kind of learning curve. Despite several months of switching them back and forth with my glasses, (a task that abruptly went from herculean to simple when I learned how to peel them off the skin of my eye with a fingernail), I remain severely discomfited by the visual change, how everything warps, the way my brain readjusts its input parameters to redefine normal.

When I first tried them, the doctor put them in for me then told me not to stand up right away. I didn't mind waiting at first, but eventually even the marvel of peripheral vision became boring in the broom closet back office, so I stood up and tried to step to the door, thinking I was ready. Wrong. As I crashed immediately to the ground, shattering every pretense of sophistication and grown-up-ed-ness, I could hear him shout from the other room, "I told you so!".

I felt immediately welcome at my interview this morning, which wasn't stressful in the slightest, but an undeniably positive experience. I liked the questions, the interviewer, the vibe, everything! I especially appreciated the quick tour around the office at the end, as it confirmed my brightest hope about the company, that it's built of the astonishing power that comes from good people doing good work. I feel like I could very happily fit in there in a very satisfying and productive way, like calling to like. I'm told I'll hear back from them on Monday, but to send in another résumé in the meantime, one that covers my creative work, too.

My only worry is that I may have seemed distracted, as I was silently agitated while we spoke, all too aware of my lover, sitting in a clinic across town, about to go into surgery. Between one waiting breath and another, his name will be called, and they will move him to one of the hospitals, then to an operating room where they will strap him down to a table and drill into his knee. It is not the surgery that concerns me, however, but the the anesthetics, because the only chemicals that will work on him are the sort that are tricky to properly balance. Too little and he'll wake up, snap the needles piercing his flesh, and destroy the operation, coming out worse than he went in, but too much will poison his heart, a defibrillation-resistant dysrhythmia will set in, then, quickly, cardiac arrest.

Being my usual reasonable self, however, I did my best to stay objective and only focus on the interview. I may not have been as winning as usual, but it was a pleasant conversation, even so, and I am grateful for it. If nothing else, it warms my heart to know that those people are out there in the world, making it better, a tiny line of code at a time.

Back when I was laid off in December, I couldn't get a Record of Employment from my previous employers. Told me I was a contractor, then that contractors don't receive them, which I knew was wrong for a number of reasons, not least of which being that I've received them in the past as a contractor, at jobs where I've actually, you know, signed a contract. "It's just a ticky-box at the top," I said. "Oh, uh, well, we forgot to get you the paper," said they. Awkward. I went in again to the same excuse, then finally, after growing tired of pestering and running out of time to apply for EI, I went in to the Employment Insurance offices. "Hello, here's all the paperwork I have, I would have brought more, but my employers are withholding. Am I eligible?" The lady behind the counter was very sympathetic. She asked me some questions, had me fill out a form. Of course I was, she said, "it will be fine." The Ministry would request my ROE for me and all would be well. Right? Wrong.

The Ministry requested it only to be refused, so the quest for my ROE was turned over to the Canadian Revenue Agency, the Canadian equivalent of the IRS, and my claim was suspended while they investigated, leaving me again without any income. Once their decision was made, I was meant to receive a phone call and a copy of all the paperwork involved, including my missing ROE. That, however, is not how things went down. I never got a phone call from either the CRA or EI or any of my case papers in the mail. Instead the only thing I received was a bill of collections notice from EI stating that I owe them back every penny they paid me. Calling the office got me nowhere. All their operators could tell me is that my account was "under investigation, decision pending", no matter that a decision had obviously been made, given the improbable, terrible bill in my hand. Calling the CRA proved equally useless. ("I can tell you nothing of the case in question, except that given your lack of income, you may defer the debt until August. The best news is that because this debt is in no way your fault, you do not have to pay interest.") And yet I still don't have an ROE. Or an income. And now I'm in far worse debt.

Which brings me to this week. Given my precarious financial situation, where I'm not making enough to cover food and shelter, essentials in the bottom tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I've caved and signed up for the dole. From here on in, I'll be receiving rent $75 a month from the government, as well as enrolling in JobWave, their outsourced employment program. It might not be enough to live on once the EI debt starts collecting off the top, but it's the only option I seem to have left. I signed up yesterday, answering simple questions, sitting in a cubicle under a giant canvas printed poster of a pop art John Lennon, a copy of one of the Twilight books on the desk. The staff seemed nice, but even so the place seemed painfully stereotypical, a community center rec room, beaten chairs and cheap computers, walls tiled with brightly coloured print-outs and stacks of photocopies so degraded from endless duplication they could have been printed by a soot blower. Even the other clients, the word they use for us, seemed to be stamped out of some sad, run down machine, all first nations people with cheap red and faded blue tattoos, obviously poor and missing some teeth, or teenagers in death metal t-shirts and rebellious high top boots, their manifest frustration shimmering off tiny pentagram necklaces, too annoyed by living for life. I'm not sure what I expected, but somehow it seems that wasn't it. I'm not sure yet how I fit in.

All such details aside, however, it sounds like I'm being signed up for some good programs. The woman who processed me into the system gave me two packets of bus-tickets before I left to make sure I could get to my classes and an application form for a year long Vancouver Parks Leisure Access Card, which grants access to free swimming and half off the Community Fitness Centers, so I can try and fix my broken body a little more on my own and get back into better shape. Tomorrow I have a four hour course called Tools For Work, and then on Friday I have another one called Setting The Stage. Not sure what the second one is about yet, but I imagine it will be a sort of an education overview introduction course to the program. (Next week is a week long course called Job Club, from 9 am - 4 pm. There goes my mornings. Ouch.)

Honestly, I was meant to start today, but my upcoming GED tests are crushing me with stress and I couldn't bring myself to sleep a wink last night, so I called them this morning and moved it to Friday. Scary, sort of, because Friday is when my exams start, so now I have my JobWave course from 9am - 12 pm, my math test from 5:45 - 7:15 and then my science test from 7:30 pm - 8:50, but I'm hoping that filling up my day with employment issues will distract my despair, like waving a shiny string in front of a cat to keep it away from a wounded mouse.

What it comes down to is that I stopped writing.

And then I think about birthdays and sitting in the back of streetcars and listening to people talk about someone I know and getting it all wrong but staying silent anyway, because those people are their own social machine, and I am a stranger and content to stay that way. Interaction would change the dynamic, would have to give me a voice and a face and an opinion and above all, I would just be breaking in to say that someone else is bloody wrong, is wrong and smug and possibly an asshole, smearing his own dirty politics all over someone I even loved sometimes, when I remembered not to feel terrified or betrayed. In the back of the bus, I am an apparition, a ghost, and I think, then, where will I be one day when I remember this? Not knowing now, not knowing what city I would be in, what comfortable livingroom, in whose borrowed pyjamas, how that day would destroy so much that was beautiful, when now I can look in a mirror and count the scars scratched in lines across my forehead. Does he realize? Does he listen?

Curled up here in this city I'd like to move to, shedding the skin of my current worn out life, I am annoyed at the job I worked at that's delaying my EI application, the job I worked for a year and a half that dropped me like a one night stand, that barely noticed when I was there or just never bothered to care, except when my desk was convenient, right next to the new fridge where the Friday beer was kept. The only nice thing was being paid to be ignored, but there's only so much of that a person can do before their soul starts to atrophy. What happened to being useful, to making the world better somehow, being a force for change? I used to look out the window at the bright shiny office blocks, the extra tall buildings that house EA and Vancouver's poor excuse for newspaper publishing and think about shattering the glass just to feel some wind on a sunny day.

A small thin child with a mullet just trespassed into our office to sell us sketchy boxes of chocolate. "Hello, I am part of a program to keep kids like me off the street. I am selling delicious boxes of scrumptious chocolates in an effort to raise money. Even buying one box of these delightful treats will help." His spiel was so practiced he sounded like a well oiled automaton. How many times a day must he say that? Why is he in our office? Who on earth told him to use the word scrumptious??

I did not buy a box, but the sales guy did, and now I have eaten one of the dubious choco-almonds. If I die frothing at the mouth, know that I loved you all.

In the hopes of impressing my office enough to finally garner full employee status and get new health plan discounted glasses, I spent a significant amount of my holiday signed in to work remotely, meticulously going through everything I could think of, so all our files would be perfectly updated for the coming year, with no more clients slipping through the cracks or being misplaced due to spelling mistakes. (The number of people who sign up with commas for periods in their e-mail addresses is simply ridiculous). I signed in when I got up and again after dinner almost every day of the holiday, without fail. "Notice what a shiny, industrious little go getter you've got on your hands," I hoped. "See how I've gone through the worst of our dreary lists with a fine tooth comb, straightening everything up!" Even through the weekend, it turns out, because who pays attention to what day it is when on holiday, when what I really wanted to be doing was deleriously playing out in the snow.

Guess what backfired.

I filed my hours today and got a letter back, "Can you account for these hours?" Bafflement turned to shock turned to hurt when the term "honor system" was mentioned. I immediately saw what the problem was: Holidays are for Days You Do Not Have To Pay Your Employees. Apparently we were only ever meant to check in, not actively seek out what else we could manage to do, so now not only did it turn out that I worked those weekends for free, my employers might be questioning my work ethic! I don't know if there's any office accusation as depressing. Bah. Argh. Hate. I'm not one of those flaky "my word is my bond" types, but damn do I hate being even slightly accused of being a liar. I still occasionally feel terrible about how I misremembered who was in a story about spilling coffee on William Gibson from when I was fifteen. That's how much it galls me. Going back on Monday is not going to be fun.

I'm still glad about what I accomplished, but now, instead of being pleased to be back, I'm simply morose.

The Knights Inn hotel in Kamloops was a very special kind of disaster. The staff were perpetually off the premises, the phone didn't work, the alarm clock was broken, and half of the light-bulbs were burnt out.

As a bonus, the main hall was one of the spookiest rooms I've ever been in, which is saying something, as I used to spend nights over in an abandoned hospital. It smelt of burnt talc and rotting dust.

Neat, hey?

I've spent the majority of my day dissolving myself in layers upon layers of technical writing, business plans, copy edits, consultations, proposals, and articles, anything I could use for some concrete writing examples, and you know what I've discovered? That joke I have about living the majority of my life behind non-disclosure agreements is more true than I considered. I don't think of documents as isolated work, but as it turns out, maybe I should.

Almost all of the design work I've done, the packaging, the clever promotions, even the press releases, are locked. Weeks of my life seem to have been swallowed up in what might be considered completely invisible work. Only the trashier articles are freely my copyright - the ghost-written fetish tartlet interviews, the essays on how the McCarthy Era is to blame for Japan's end-of-the-bell-curve pornography industry - very little I would be comfortable shopping to prospective employers. 'Course, I don't show them here, either, for very similar reasons. (It's the rare page that even carries my real name.)

Obscene interiors: terrible decor with invisible pornography.

Which brings me, (if sideways), to something Juan and I were discussing the other day, the self-referential use of digital cameras that's begun to quietly permeate our culture. People will go dancing, bring a camera, take a picture, show it to everyone, pass the camera around, keep dancing, keep taking pictures, keep pausing to look at them. Micro documentation, preserving a moment while living it. Especially odd considering that these pictures don't usually go anywhere and are rarely looked at again. They're hard-drive space.

What I think is interesting is how people are beginning to tailor the way they act in public for things like photos they know will inevitably end up on-line. I have articles I sign with a pen name, which I thought was almost shallow of me, but apparently I'm not as self-conscious as I thought. I overheard a woman on the bus talking on her cell-phone the other day, passionately discussing how she only wears make-up if she knows there will be "technology types" at a party. She felt "liberated" that she was going to a "hippy house" where no one would have cameras.

Spaz.Mike had a nice little essay on post-scarcity that I feel relates, about how the web is bringing around the death of celebrity, a topic we hash out together with some regularity, and I'd like to take that a little farther and say that it's taking what's left and spreading it thin, sure, but it's spreading it over us. Our personal narratives have become individual expression painted entirely by collective context. We have begun wearing the behaviour of miniature celebrities, even when we're not aware of it. Our journals are quietly expanding their borders, leaking out into full scale multimedia presentations that saturate our real life social interactions, as if our constant connection to the network is warping us from observers into the content itself. We The Public learning to manage Being Public.

Me, I like it. What about you?


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edit: speaking of celebrity vs. real people - Go vote for Mike as That 1 Guy! He's almost at number one!