my morning was awesome, therefore my interview was awesome

still not trying to jinx myself, but as cher says in clueless when paul rudd tells her the guys are betting on who catches the bouquet, "it's in the bag."

as i said in a previous blog, i can always tell whether an interview is going to go well or not based on the events prior to it. that being said, this morning fucking kicked ass. like, it was so good that i had a secret smile on my face the entire time and, when actually prompted to smile, i beamed radiantly.

first of all, my favorite cab driver, oscar, came to pick me up. sometimes it's this dude named julio who owns the cab company; he used to be my favorite cab driver till he started creeping me out with his passive-aggressive flirtation. he's in his late 30's and has a kid in the dominican republic and once said, "but i'm not that much older than you. people wouldn't think it looked strange if we went out together." um...gross, no. but today it was oscar, and oscar is an older hispanic gentleman with kids around my age and a very cheery disposition. he's so great! he told me he'd missed me and that hopefully i get the job so that he can drive me to the train station everyday. we speak in spanish together. it makes me happy.

then, once i was at the train station, i went inside to buy a ticket and the ticket man [ticket master?] was equally friendly to me. i asked him if i could buy a ticket with peak rates one way and off-peak rates the other way [it's like a $2.50 difference based on rush hour], and he was like, "of course you can! anything for you!" i noticed that he had a heavily bandaged finger on his right hand and i asked him about it. he told me he has to get it operated on in two days so that the fingernail grows back straight. i wished him luck and he bade me a very good day. as soon as i got to the door, another man opened it and said, "oh! here you go!" as if it were a treat for him to open the door for me. yes, he looked at me like a treat. it was such a smile-filled morning already!

on the train, i sat by the window and saw all the beauty of the landscape flash before me as i listened to my favorite songs on my ipod. the scenery brightened my day even more; the sun glistened on the river and the mountains rose up in the background with their multicolored trees and sheer rock faces. when we got to grand central, i heard a loud snore and laughed; the man next to me struck up a conversation at that point saying, "someone must be very tired!" then he asked me where i worked and guessed that i worked at a bank. i told him i was going to an interview and he said his son was, too. he assured me, "you'll get it!" and wished me luck and i wished his son luck, too.

i then took the subway and got to my interview a little early, which was good. i admired the sophisticated decor of the real estate group's offices while waiting to be called. a lot of people passed by, a few of them being hot guys! sweet! so i smiled again. finally! a working environment not dominated by women and gay men! suddenly, the two guys i was interviewing with appeared in front of me and shook my hand. i was led into a conference room where the vibe was warm and friendly from the get-go.

both guys—the chief operating officer and the marketing director—had their coffees in hand and the COO apologized for keeping me waiting, saying that the line at the coffee place was way long today. he asked me if i'd had my coffee this morning and i was like, "no, but i didn't need any because i was so excited about this interview, i was just ready to go!" and he had a hearty laugh about that and my "natural high". i love a good, hearty laugh at something i've said. well, there were more hearty laughs to be had. lots of them, in fact. the three of us were just making the witty banter back and forth, talking about everything from one of my favorite words ("snarky") to ninjas to my new jewish nickname if i start working for the company. [i learned a new jewish word today: "shmattas", which means "rags" and can be used to refer to clothing. this came about because i used the word "schlep" in reference to my instyle job and COO man said that if i start saying "schlepping shmattas", he'll have to give me a jewish nickname.]

anyway, they kinda loved me. they pretty much said that they'd have to interview the other applicants tomorrow "out of fairness", but they've already got my january vacation written down and asked me if i'd want to start working today. i am so psyched! i loved everything they told me about the position, i love the vibe of the company, i love those two guys i met with. i wrote them a thank you email like,

"I just want to say how thrilling it was to meet you both today! Seriously, it was probably the highlight of my day. I am so, so excited about the (very great?) possibility of working with you and I hope—as mean as this sounds—that your interviews tomorrow are tepid and mediocre so I get the job. :)"

to which i got the response,

"It was thrilling meeting with you as well… we’ll talk soon. Have a wonderful day =]"

it's almost like i'm in love. i'm all giddy and can't wait to hear back from them. i've already put in a request for a mac...haha. ahh, life is so beautiful sometimes!

let's hope i haven't jinxed myself.

all the hot ones are inevitably losers.

i feel like there's something amiss with the hot guy population in america—and i say "america" because i cannot attest for the ones in other countries. especially sweden. and norway. sweden and norway are fucking full of hot guys...it's extraordinary. of course, i haven't been to either country; i just know that those countries must be full of hot guys based on my experiences at south bar in chamonix, france, which was a swedish bar where even the not-so-hot guys were hot. i met a norwegian guy named lars there...i still think about him sometimes.

anyway, i don't know what it is. maybe it's just me? but i feel like whenever i see a guy that i think is just fucking hot—like the kind of hot where you want to stare at him forever and ever and not peel your eyes away lest you miss any of his hot glory for even a second—there's something seriously lacking with him. for example, there's a dude at my nephew's school who directs traffic or some shit like that; he wears a neon vinyl vest and dirty work boots and gloves. nevertheless, he's tall, dark and nice to look at. i don't want to look at him! but i can't help it.

then there are the dudes who work at sandwich shops. i don't know why i always end up liking hot sandwich makers. when i was in college, i dated this dude for a few months named jaison; before we met, i used to order sandwiches from him, like, on a daily basis and i called him "hot take it away guy" [the sandwich shop was called take it away]. i accosted him at a punk rock bar called tokyo rose one night and was like, "i know you. you work at take it away." [my pick-up lines are so smooth.] he nonchalantly offered me a sip of his gin martini with olives and, by the end of the night, we were making out in the stairwell and he took me home. unfortunately, the relationship ended badly, but it was fun while it lasted. i also had a "hot cosi guy" named niño [what the fuck were his parents thinking?] when i was working at the real estate magazine, but nothing ever came of it. we did spend five hours on a plane together, though. i randomly ran into him at LAX after a reconnaissance trip to LA a month before i moved there; he'd been visiting family in huntington beach and we just happened to have booked the same flight back home to DC. so he switched seats and sat next to me and i slept with my head on his shoulder most of the way. that was probably the last time i saw him.

but my point is: i don't want sandwich guys or traffic directors. i'd like to meet a hot dude who has a great job and a great career happening for him. he needs to be intelligent and witty. and not just that—he needs to be, like, normal. alas, guys with the whole package appear to be as elusive and fabled as the holy grail. "good on paper" dudes often have something else wrong with them; they're either emotionally unavailable, commitment-phobic, socially awkward or gay. or, you know, they have shockingly small penises or can't get them up. there's always something.

like, again, i don't know why, but i always fall for the ones who are totally and completely emotionally unavailable. it's like i have radar for these things. oh! you just broke up with your girlfriend of eight years and you're on the rebound? pick me! pick me! or, hey! you're secretly a misogynistic sociopath who's afraid of being emotionally vulnerable? sweet! just my type! and then there's my favorite: the pathological liar with 16 girlfriends who tells you all kinds of crazy shit just so you'll never find out about them. i mean, come on now.

one time i met a guy in arizona named scott on myspace. he was in a band called sex for cigarettes and i was "friends" with them. well, he started an online flirtation with me, which then extended to chatting on AIM and the phone. finally, after the buildup of much sexual tension and curiosity, we decided we'd meet. and, don't get me wrong: it wasn't just like, "hey, let's make this happen"—he'd had plans to travel to virginia to see his friends in VA beach but they fell through and we were both disappointed because he was going to try to drive up and see me. so i was like, fuck it. i'll make a trip to arizona because i've never been there before and i really want to see if there could be something more with this guy.

except, he dropped off the face of the earth a week before my trip. didn't answer my calls, didn't call me back, nothing. so, naturally, i was pissed. but i went to AZ anyway because i wasn't about to waste an opportunity to travel to a new place, nor the money i spent for the plane ticket. when i got there, i rented a car and booked a hotel room, which caused me to spend, in total, a grand that i hadn't been anticipating spending. but scott ended up calling me while i was driving from the phoenix airport to the hotel. and, you know what? we had a fantastic week together. it was awesome. it was just the aftermath that wasn't awesome. it turned out that he had a fucking girlfriend! this chick named susy that he told me he'd broken up with six months prior to meeting me. and they'd been together for a year. meanwhile, susy told me that he'd also been fucking some other chick named—of all things—gypsy a month before i'd gone to visit him. not only that, but he told me that the reason he'd dropped off the face of the earth was because some supposed ex-girlfriend of his—not susy—was trying to get back together with him and that he was considering it. susy said that he'd been with that chick, like, years before and that she was totally out of the picture, yet he always used that story. um, that's weird. it was fucking horrifying and i swore off random internet meetings ever since. but arizona was pretty sweet, especially sedona.

shortly before my trip to arizona, i met dex. and i liked him, but i had this scott shit going on. so we didn't actually end up getting together till two months before i moved to LA, which sucked when i actually did end up moving to LA [i get attached easily and i cried a lot]. well, dex is, admittedly, not the brightest bulb in the box. he always says he's not book smart, but street smart. maybe that's something all dumbasses say to console themselves? i'm not sure. regardless, he's fucking hot when he drums; he's in a band and everyone knows i'm a sucker for the musicians. plus, i'd say that, to this day, he has the hottest body of anyone i've ever dated. still, he was the emotionally unavailable type. constantly depressed, constantly drunk, he was mum about how he felt at any given time and, when pressed to explain himself, he exclaimed, "i like you but you're moving to california!" and that was it. i think he was hung up on his ex-girlfriend, too. i'm not sure why i was so attracted to all of this, but, sadly, i was. i'm over it now, though.

so, anyway, i'm just a little concerned. because i don't want to keep falling for these beautiful douchebags. not to say i need some super-hot guy; i think i even prefer the guys i date to only really be hot to me so that i don't have to deal with them being pursued by multitudes of bitches. i think i need to start looking in different places. seedy indie-rock bars and sandwich shops probably aren't the ideal places to be looking for a mate. my supervisor at instyle and i once went to happy hour at a bar that was frequented by lots of suits, who were surprisingly good-looking all around. or maybe i need to stop focusing on what the dudes look like, though, that might not work seeing as, like andy warhol, "i am deeply superficial." just kidding. sort of.

and, not to sound like a gold-digger or anything, but i need a guy with money. i'm tired of dating these schlubs who don't have any financial stability. i've had to support way too many guys in my lifetime, though i've never been rolling in the dough, either. i mean, shit! i work in editorial. we writers don't make shit for a living. i'm going to need someone with some kind of wealth going on so i can maintain my frivolous spending habits and sophisticated tastes. i used to have a t-shirt that said, "i &hearts dirty boys with no money" because, apparently, all the hot ones are as such and i like irony. but i had to throw that shirt away. i simply cannot be sending such karmic messages out into the universe. my dad hated that shirt, too, by the way.

of course, i'm not really in a position to be dating anyone right now. namely because i'm poor, currently jobless, and living at my sister's house in the suburbs. what a catch! that and my priority is really to get my career going since i'm fucking 25 already and have barely anything to show for myself. so i will merely dream of this hot, accomplished, emotionally available, funny, charming, straight, well-endowed man. wherever the hell he may be. i may have to fight off some bitches with sticks to have him, but, goddammit, it will happen.

inordinately pleased but trying not to jinx myself

when i worked in real estate, i pretty much hated it. i hated writing about the same damn shit all the time [i.e., will the housing bubble burst or no?], i hated interviewing realtors about topics i didn't care about, and i hated the aura of tacky fashion and bad hair surrounding the entire real estate industry. it was my first job out of college and i dreamt of being in fashion editorial and writing about glamorous things while living in "the big city"—wherever that may be. so, of course, i moved to LA and swore that i wouldn't go back to real estate again; i'd get my ass into the fashion industry and it would be awesome.

well, life, as it is, has a funny way of foiling even the best intentions and plans.

clearly, LA didn't work out. turns out: it's a shallow, provincial pit of despair crawling with superficial and mean-spirited idiots! it's no wonder they're punished frequently and relentlessly with all-consuming forest, park and house fires. burn, bitches, burn! anyway. there was no way i could find glamorous fashion editorial work out there [you know, since my name isn't lauren conrad and i don't have my own show on mtv] seeing as, despite there being condé nast and time inc. branches out there, they're small as hell and low budget, and the most prominent publisher of all is flynt. yeah, no thanks. hustler obviously contains no fashion—or rather, no clothes, period—and is, by my standards, not at all glamorous, while all of flynt's other publications have to do with hunting or fishing or outdoorsy shit like that. whatever. i hate camping.

so i settled with a job in high-end fashion wholesale. and, while the building i worked in, the california market center, was really nice [and was recently shown in an episode of america's next top model as "the heart of the fashion district" or some shit like that by jay manuel with his horrible platinum hair], the position kinda sucked rhinoceros balls. i was an account executive in a showroom run by a cheap-ass chinese biatch who basically screwed me over by not taking taxes out of my wages and claiming me as an independent contractor even though i was a full-time employee that pretty much ran the fucking showroom while she sat around with her thumb up her ass. i just finished paying off said taxes (all $5000+ of them) last month. meanwhile, that is precious money i could have saved to move out of my sister's house! i hope god smites that bitch one of these days, i really do.

i quit that job the same week that my closest friend in LA moved to NY and my boyfriend and i broke up. once my boyfriend and i broke up, i needed a new place to live, since we lived together. i fell into a deep and impenetrable rage-slash-depression and there was nothing i could do but move to NY, too, and start over since i had no desire to start over in LA. once in NY, though, it was harder than i'd anticipated to get a foot in the door of the fashion editorial industry. because i didn't have the "storybook" resume, i had to rely more on making connections within the industry than on my actual talents. well, i eventually got there.

i finally attained my dream: i landed a job at instyle! granted, it was only a freelance assistant position, but i was in, nevertheless! i was so freakin' excited, i could barely contain my elation. and yet...it wasn't as sweet as i'd imagined it'd be. first of all, that mag is fucking frumpy and they don't even know it. its pages are filled with ugly outfits and objects, the page layouts are totally crappy, the ad placement is distracting and poorly done, and hal rubenstein's writing gets more and more cheesy and "eh?"-inducing by the issue. he's fucking ridiculous.

the thing is, i kicked ass at my job. i was amazing. i went above and beyond all expectations and still didn't get a permanent position! i may have been a little too vocal about my opinions during an interview for an editorial assistant position, perhaps. i may have been too smart for the position, too [in fact i know i was], considering one of preliminary interview questions was, "if my hairdresser in LA were unavailable, what would you do?" like, what the fuck kind of question is that? everyone's a diva. but i suppose that's how it is in an industry driven by catty, self-important women. i actually found out from one of the interns that the higher-level editors at instyle look for people who are actually stupid but hard-working. that way, they do as they're told and don't rock the boat with their opinions on how to change the magazine, which they view as being fine the way it is. that's not me! c'est la vie.

so i've been contemplating other options. i've still been applying to positions at condé and hachette, but i'm trying to broaden my horizons. maybe i'd like working in scientific/biology-related editorial? i didn't take IB bio for two years in high school for nothing, you know. i love me some genetics and neurobiology. or maybe i'd be better off in public relations writing press releases? maybe i should look into the marketing/advertising side of magazine publishing. or maybe, just maybe, i should try real estate again. ivanka trump does it. it's almost like she's bringing sexy back.

anyway, i have an interview on wednesday at the real estate group, a "young and dynamic" brokerage firm with a pretty sweet website. if i got the job, i'd do online marketing and writing, which apparently would provide me with a lot of creative leg room. there is certainly very, very little of that in le fashion editorial. and, most importantly, it's not a company full of fucking women! my interview is with two dudes and i'm totally excited about that because, let's face it, dudes are so much easier to deal with than a bunch of premenstrual bitches. i have a good feeling about this, too, though i really don't want to jinx myself [i seriously need a job, like now]. the director of marketing, who i corresponded with via email before setting up the interview, put these little smile emoticons in two of his messages to me, like this: =]

that's gotta be a good sign. i feel like i can always tell when interviews aren't going to go well because of the unfortunate occurrences beforehand. for example, i had an interview with an HR girl at time inc. after my instyle gig, which was just okay. it was tepid. the girl was very waspy and i hate those snotty, waspy types. i didn't leave with any sense of confidence that she had my back or would be looking very hard for a position for me. and i should've known it wouldn't go as well as i'd have liked because that morning, while walking down the front steps of my sister's house to get to my cab, one of my heels got caught in a cuff of my nice theory pants and ripped it! thankfully, my mom has since taken out the cuffs and lengthened the pants to make them wearable with higher heels, but i was really, really upset when that happened. then, last week, i had an interview at a beauty and fashion PR firm for a copywriter position. that interview actually went well, i think, but i was the first person they interviewed and i haven't heard back from them. i actually can't really see myself working in that particular environment, nor did i feel like i really clicked with the company, but i wouldn't turn it down. anyway, the initial vibe of the emails exchanged to set up the interview was terse and cool; i feel like that's always a little off-putting. the morning of that interview, too, had some mishaps. first off, it was raining. secondly, i twisted my fucking ankle upon disembarking from my cab to avoid a large puddle. thirdly, i scuffed the toe of my shoe while traversing the stairs to the wrong platform at the train station—i was most upset about this. clearly i care not for my physical well-being as long as my clothes and shoes remain intact.

that being said, i really hope the smiley emoticons and very chipper conversation i had on the phone with one of the marketing director's associates are good omens. and that i don't injure my person or my outfit on the day of the interview—or ever! but again, i don't want to jinx myself. i just need a job! dear motherfucking god, do i need a job.

i miss the peace-loving pot

you know, it's funny: i've been deleting all my blogs from the 'space and reading them over again and i'm realizing...jesus, i was stoned, like, all the time. stoned or drunk. and it's a little disconcerting in hindsight, but i'm also a little jealous of my former self. not that i wish i were inebriated 24/7, but goddamn, did i have some fucking good times!

alas, these days, and for the last six months, i've been living like one of those straight-edge kids i used to gawk at when i found out they didn't drink or do any drugs. and really, i don't want to do drugs. i just want to smoke the peace-loving pot.

i feel like i've had pot on the brain in a serious way lately. like, i'm on AIM a lot more now—i wasn't for a year and a half or so—and catching up with friends i haven't spoken to since before i moved to LA back in '05. well, it seems that all my conversations inevitably end up being about smoking le weed. which is always a very engaging conversation considering i have very strong opinions about marijuana and its benefits to mankind. but it's also a bummer because i have little to no opportunity to smoke in my current situation [living at my sister's house, without a proper job, writing a book like a damn dirty hippie (sans le weed and patchouli), acting as a nanny to my small nephew] and i yearn for it.

the worst part is that i actually have some weed that my sister gave me and i can't smoke it because, stupid me, i stored my bowl in the attic with the rest of my extraneous crap thinking i wouldn't ever need it. of course, the weed is also really fucking old and dry and i don't know that i'd even want to smoke it if i could, but desperate times call for desperate measures and i have been known to scrape resin every now and again. i'd smoke ancient weed before i smoked resin. beggars can't be choosers, after all. which means i'd probably smoke resin at this point, too.

the only glimmer of hope on my horizon is the fact that we're going home to my parents' house in DC for thanksgiving and, if my mom lets me drive her lexus—without insurance because i don't own a car anymore, which is a major reason she'd say no—i can go find my fellow pot lovers and have them share with me. i've been thinking about this a lot, obviously. i need to get out and be amidst my peers. i need to smoke some fucking pot and relax for a minute and have a hearty laugh. and, if i could manage it, i'd love to go to the black cat and drink some whiskey and dance my ass off. but i'll settle for just the pot-and-laughter bit if i can't have it all.

i just hate the misconceptions surrounding marijuana. like on those anti-marijuana commercials—the kid whose brother doesn't pick him up from school because he was stoned in the basement; the swim team that gets let down at a meet because one of the swimmers was too stoned to show up; the kid who drowns in the pool because the babysitter was getting baked; the biker who gets hit by a car in the drive-thru because the driver had been smoking pot. i mean, dude. these are all such unlikely situations! first of all, i don't think stupid people should smoke pot. but even if they do, most people who smoke aren't retarded enough to forget the important shit they have going on. it's not like they're crazy crackheads who can't think about anything else aside from their fiendish need for more drugs. pot's not addictive. secondly, most potheads know if they're productive potheads or not. i, for one, am certainly not. when i'm high, all i want to do is giggle, eat, discuss existentialism and sleep. thus, i will never do anything that requires the full attention of my faculties whilst partaking in the pot. it just doesn't work. i have a friend, however, who is totally a productive pothead and can't get motivated to do anything unless she is stoned. like, i've seen the girl clean her entire fucking house and bake cookies while high [i just sat there and ate the cookies], and she used to crank out papers and important assignments in college like that, too. it's just how she functions. my point is, once you know whether you're a productive pothead or not, you're able to gauge when it's an acceptable time to smoke or not. either way, no competitive swimmer would dare get baked before a big meet—or even a practice, and i know this because i knew a stoner swimmer in college—nor would a babysitter attempt to care for a child if he/she weren't a productive pothead...those little fuckers can run fast.

thirdly, i don't know many potheads who'd be willing to actually leave the house to satiate their munchies. like, most high people just want to stay home, and even if they do get in their cars, it's with a distinct paranoia. i drive like a fucking old lady when i'm high; i go 30mph and i'm like, "i'm going so fast!!" my hands are clenched on the steering wheel and i'm alert as hell. meanwhile, i'm much more of a reckless speed demon when i'm not under the influence of anything. needless to say, if i were stoned and going through a drive-thru, i'd see that biker and stop at least 10 feet away because i'd be paranoid that my depth perception were off. also, what the fuck is a biker doing in a drive-thru anyway? those commercials are totally illogical.

anyway, i miss my weed. i miss the euphoric feeling of peace and well-being i experience while high, i miss the quiet knowledge that all is as it should be in the world and that everything will be alright, i miss the ebullient joy i feel that subsequently makes everything funny, i miss the camaraderie of passing a flavored blunt around. on that last point, i'm wondering if they even have those moist, flavored blunt wraps on the east coast. they sold these everywhere in LA:

i do miss california when i think of the pot. that was some good shit. but yeah, i miss the good times most of all. i miss getting together with friends and getting stoned while making jokes and then pigging out afterward. and i think what makes me so nostalgic for all that is the smell of fall. this crisp, autumn weather always makes me think of times past and i start to miss people and places and things.

so. hopefully i'll get to smoke soon. if not, i might go crazy.

so this is it, eh?

this is the first blog entry on my brand spankin' new blogspot, which i'd been loath to create before as i'd had my myspace account to vent all my crazy life shit on. but now my 'space is gone [good fuckin' riddance] and i need a new outlet for all my drama. which, for the record, is not drama i create. [i don't want my first entry on this thing to portray me as some kind of needy drama queen because i am so not. anyway.]

i figured i'd call this blog "perspectives from urban bohemia" so it can act as an extension of my totally kickass website, bohemianartista.com, which, despite kicking ass [this is a jest; it's just alright in my opinion, but my artwork does, in fact, kick ass], hasn't been updated in, like, two years. this is because, while i have dreamweaver installed on my computer, the cd that has all the registration info on it is upstairs in the attic and i can't access it at all until i move out of my sister's house in april. that and i'm too unmotivated to update it. i don't think i even remember javascript or how to use fireworks anymore. oh well. i digress.

so this blog. it's going to be my new emotional forum and arena for snarky social commentary. by the way, i love how this shit is autosaving my words as i type this. like, i'd hate when myspace would just fuck up and delete all the crap i'd spent the last hour writing and i'd be so fucking pissed—so pissed!

anyway, i'm just rambling at this point to fill up space since i have nothing very exciting to disclose. or, rather, i do, but i don't feel like sharing right now. i'm still in the process of deleting the 'space account and saving all my old blogs into word docs, which is so fucking nerdy but i have to have something to show for my three years on that goddamn site. besides, that shit was well-written. is anyone even going to read my blogs on this site, i wonder? i guess we shall see.