School’s out. And so is my motivation.

No one knows this about me. But when I have the evening off and I retire to my room for the night, I go in with the intention of writing.

Well no. Not just anything. I go in with the intention of actually starting to write a story. What actually happens is I write a blog post, read a book, or just pass out. Instead, I want to write something cohesive. Something that makes sense. More importantly, I want to write something that I can go back to and work on over a period of time. I swear there are so many ideas, and I have no problem organizing every other area of my life except for when it comes to my own thoughts. I know, I know. This could be a problem for someone that actually wants to sit down and write a real piece with a beginning, middle, and end for no other reason than my own satisfaction. (Clearly I have issues with procrastination when it comes to this life goal.) I need a plan of action. Advice is always welcome.

Wonderful Wizard of Wordly Wishes

Wonderfulness has taken over. Ladies and gentleman, perhaps if you complain enough good things will happen. Perhaps if you are an impatient, obsessive-compulsive, control freak things will happen the way you want them to. Perhaps, I am right. But I digress…

I have a J-O-B.

It doesn’t begin for another couple of weeks, but I am absolutely ecstatic about it. I don’t want to expand too much on this blog for reasons that are slightly above my maturity level, but mostly because I suppose that is unprofessional. Which means that I will most likely continue to write about things I can’t be held accountable for i.e., my family, friends, total strangers, and random thoughts.

I’ve been mildly entertaining for this long, right?

All I want to do is yell obsenities.

I feel like I’m not “here” right now. Does that make remotely any sense? I’m currently at my internship, but I’m so unaware of my surroundings and obsessed with my e-mails and my job applications that I forgot where I was. After about an hour of listening to music–headphones on–I decide to look up and, voila! Magazines, random novelty toys, and beauty products surround me. I am at my internship…not my bed, not my local coffee shop, not anywhere else.

I feel a little lost I guess. I’ve come to New York to begin this life, but I’ve begun an entirely different life then I had planned, and now the original life that I’m still trying to achieve has little time to become realized. Again I ask you: Does that make remotely any sense?

After speaking to a friend online earlier today, I began thinking about even more uncertain things than I had been before. This is not necessarily a bad or worrisome thing. Thinking is good. Thinking about what will happen to me next week versus this week. There is something congruently pleasant and totally sad about me hoping that perhaps next week my life will be completely different from my life this week. This week I am an unpaid intern with a bachelor’s degree who waitresses at a pizza place. Who knows what I may be next week! Most likely though…I will still be an unpaid intern with a bachelor’s degree who waitresses at a pizza place. And you know what? Maybe I should just start to accept that this is life for a while and be able to be happy with the status quo.

Some obsessive compulsive part of me is telling me that that kind of thinking would be wrong. If you’re unhappy with your situation, you change it. But never being happy with any situation is also a recipe for disaster. So where do you draw the line between being a motivated, self-starter and just always wanting more? Is it good to always want more? And perhaps the real balance to aim for is where you still always want more but can still be happy with what you have?

I’m sorry if I’ve made you think too much. But this is what goes on in my head ALL DAMN DAY. Yea, I know. One day when I’ve figured it all out, I’m going to write a self-help book; and you’re all going to buy it and read it from cover to cover. You’re going to be amazed at my “living life-skills.” Just you wait.

Life Coach for Hire

I love when I’m in moods like the one I’m currently in. It usually happens with the perfect amount of coffee. It’s a slight caffeine buzz, but without the shakes.

I’ve been sitting in the same cafe for three hours now. I’ve had three 12 oz. glasses, and I plan on stopping relatively soon. Tonight I’m meeting with a cousin that I haven’t seen since I was probably 14 or 15 years old. She’s been living in New York for two years, and I’m the inexperienced, young newcomer looking for guidance.

Speaking of guidance, are you aware that life coaches actually exist? My friend Cristina once met one of these people on a plane and still keeps in close contact with the individual to this day. While it sounds a little new-age for my taste–I could be into this. I am one of the most indecisive people ever, and while a life coach would surely not help me form my own decisions, (or would they?) he or she would certainly point me in the right direction. If anyone is considering taking on life coaching professionally in the future and would like a guinea pig to practice on, I’m available.

[post notes: After publishing this post and reading it again, I can now see how coffee makes my mind go totally spastic. There is absolutely zero effort put into even attempting to form transitions from one thought to the next. Sorry folks. I will do better.]

And the search, like the beat, goes on.

Today marks day 29 on my quest to find a job. Job hunting is kind of like what I would imagine dating to be for ugly people who have too high of standards. You have that dream occupation in mind and you’re not willing to settle for less. You start off really confident. I will get that job. I am perfect for it. Then you realize that the only people that get jobs like those are the ones who “slept around” with everyone involved with the position, thus getting an in when some people who may really deserve it and are ready for such a responsibility remain as waitresses–I mean, remain unemployed. (This has nothing to do with me, obviously.) I have probably applied to over 30 jobs, had two interviews, and arranged two informational interviews. These informational interviews, while not meant for the purpose of securing employment, actually leave me the most satisfied. I’m at ease because there is no fear of rejection, and the editorial assistants that I meet are genuinely nice. I think they relate to my tales of despair in a world with too many writers and not enough writing positions.

And now, perhaps because my day of interning is over and I actually have the night off from work, optimism has decided to trickle into my prose. –A rarity to those of you familiar with the way my mind works. As cliché and romanticized as this will sound, in the back of my mind I know it’s the truth: Years from now I will be looking back at these moments of humiliation, desperation, and lack of funds as some of the most wonderful and humbling times I will ever face. A friend recently wrote to me in an e-mail, that if it were easy, everyone would move out to New York and be fabulous. How true. Honestly, I had been telling myself for nearly a year now that I would move out to New York, be poor, work really hard for a while in order to secure a position, and make life happen from there. At no point did I naively think: With my credentials, I should have no problem getting a job. So I guess this post is my way of rationally telling my mind to stop being so masochistic and punishing me for not yet having found my very own 401k plan with health benefits.

I am not an ugly person with high standards. I just haven’t slept with the right people yet.

I stare because I hate your shoes, and I’m sorry.

OK, so I think I might have a staring problem. Something tells me that I probably got this weird disorder from my mother, who has been known to stare. That’s another story for another time though. Moving on:

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I’m pretty sure that my staring problem increases when I’m riding the subway alone. It’s like my eyes don’t know where to look! When someone is riding the subway with you, you look at them and have a conversation. However, when I’m by myself, I just sit there with my little iPod and gawk at those around me. I don’t even necessarily stare at people I think are attractive. Most of the time its the people with a twitching problem or ugly shoes on that leave me mesmerized for seconds at a time. Then I get paranoid though because I don’t want those people to know I’m having trouble averting my glare from them–so I look away. But you know what? Ten seconds later, my eyes are right back on those twitchers and Teva-wearing passengers. It’s a disease, and I think I might just get my ass kicked for it one day.

A simple solution to this problem to anyone other than me would be to bring a book or magazine along for the ride. I have, in fact tried this before. Nonetheless, I look up and glance around me, then come back down to the book. I read a couple sentences, and I look up again! Am I alone in being a lone starer? Please say it isn’t so.

Lives of the Not-so-Rich and Not-so-Famous

This weekend some very good friends came up from DC to enjoy the 21st birthday festivities of a fellow AUer here in the city. The party was held in this beautiful old home in Brooklyn Heights overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline. Is it sad that everyone compared the evening to an episode of Gossip Girl or Marie Antoinette as opposed to simply taking it for what it was–a well-organized, champagne infused, over the top dance party?

Call me nostalgic and cliché, but it was one of those evenings that will not soon be forgotten. Even if there was copious amounts of alcohol.

Moving on from my life where I pretend to be a socialite once every business cycle, we arrive at my day-to-day life as a commoner. There are certain cultural advantages I get to experience that those who are better off will simply never know of. Take for instance the subway. Why, just the other day I witnessed a man with a razor blade shaving his face only a mere three feet from me. Some might condemn such behavior, deeming it uncouth. If you think about it though, this lowly peasant cared enough about his outward appearance to take a moment and beautify himself prior to making it to his morning engagement.

And here’s something for all of you who enjoy a scandal. I may be relatively poor right now, but like those young, Hollywood starlets I was involved in my very first sexual harassment dispute last night! Leave it to a couple of drunk and middle-aged male customers at a “fine-dining” establishment to tap your bottom and grab your arm when asking for the check. But hey! They sure did tip well. Everyone wins.

I’m writing. You’re reading.

Writing is like a sport. Without proper training and practice, you really start to suck at it. The only type of written work I’ve completed since graduation in May has been along the lines of: “Attached you will find my resume, cover letter, and writing samples. I may provide references upon request.” I have been applying to various jobs like crazy ever since moving to New York about a month ago, which is really a full-time job in itself. It’s a tedious and winding road, but it’s also the only route to my final destination. So here I am–hopefully on my way.

For those interested in knowing (and I’m assuming you are, otherwise why would you be reading this?) I have begun my editorial internship with NYLON and have started waitressing at this quaint pizzeria in Brooklyn not far from where I live. For the moment, holding my breath, life is good. I’m busy and tired, but I deposit my singles into the bank the following day with a pride that only servers and strippers can understand. I say to myself: Bitch, I earned my money! Of course I then go and buy some frock to don. Some people, like my father, may think of this as an unnecessary expense. You’d be wrong though. It’s like I tell people, such as my father, that clothes are just little investments into my future career. More importantly though, above all else, new clothes just make me feel better. I could have a worse addiction. Am I wrong here?

I have several more things I want to talk about right now but can’t because I have to go to work in thirty minutes. I’ll give you a quick “dirt sandwich”-like preview though (only in writing and not by video): man shaving on subway, new Russians: a.k.a “my family”, one-eyed cab driver, first Brooklyn Heights experience=a good one.

It should be no surprise that this would happen to me.

Last night was the second in a row now where I have been up for no good reason until 3:30AM. What is tragic about this, besides the fact that I look like live I’ve aged thirty years from lack of sleep today, is the swift and heavy fall I took at 2AM. I was getting up from the couch to refill on water when my left leg decided to not do its job of holding me upright (naturally). I tumbled to the ground, but not without colliding into the corner of the coffee table first. A bruise on my abdomen and a skinned elbow are but a couple of souveneirs I received from my unexpected trip to the hard ground below.

It was kind of like Spring Break ‘07 in Cancun minus all the booze, man.

Last week was Spring Break. As mentioned in the previous post, it was spent with my aunt, uncle, and two little cousins outside of San Francisco in a little place called the Central Valley. Aside from there being just about as much to do in their town as there is to do in my hometown: eat, watch TV, bowl, get your nails did, walk the dog, drive nowhere–I had a wonderfully educational experience.  

You may be asking yourself–Educational? Really Jess? Please, do let me expand. First off, my aunt is quite the homemaker. She never seems to be that much older than me, until I visit her. It’s when I step into her house and notice that not a single thing is out of place, not even a crumb to be found on the kitchen counter, that I realize–Man. She IS getting old. Now, now. I jest! It’s just that my tiny one-bedroom apartment is, um, far from this level of immaculate. Most people my age tend to shower regularly, sure…but clean our apartments? Please. I would rather do something more productive with my early twenties like watch Rock of Love or Housewives of New York City while thinking about why Rumer Willis looks like that.

Another thing I learned: kids can wait. Not forever. But for the time being, I do not want ‘em. I love the tykes known as my cousins, but they require a certain level of patience I just don’t see in myself yet. Maybe patience comes with time or the desire to want children of your own like, immediately. I’ve just never been a “little kid person.” You can’t be competitive and play games with them, because they’re always supposed to win. ‘Cause if they don’twin–watch out! You’re about to see the biggest, bat shit-crazy, hissy fit of a lifetime. I was there. I know what I saw, and it was frightening. I had no idea what to do in this situation. I’m supposed to be the cool, older cousin. They are not supposed to throw tantrums with me. All I wanted to do was lie and say that he had in fact won the game. This would be followed by me throwing my Monopoly Junior money at the kid. Here. Take it. It’s not even real. What do they know? They’re just kids! I think I tend to connect more with the 9-13 year-old age group. –Not because I think they’re cute or anything, but because I don’t have to speak an octave higher in order to sound nice.

This weekend my little brother comes into town. He’s a pretty laid-back fellow who doesn’t require a squeaky clean abode to sleep comfortably when away from one’s home, nonetheless I will be fixing up the apartment in anticipation of his arrival. And if he happens to start talking to me about girls, I’ll let him in on a little story about what I see parenting really being like. It’s like my friend Michaela always says, “Abstinence is a condom for the heart.” So. True.