The Not-So-Secret Diary of a Bad Luck Girl

I just had my second round interview for that communications manager position, and I think it went well and that I’m closer to actually getting it. The woman said that the guy I first interviewed with had lots of good things to say about me, and that my meeting with her, his boss, was just to ensure that our personalities gibed, which I think they did. Tomorrow I have an interview with HR, which is cursory.

MB and I didn’t see Horton Hears a Who! this weekend, but we did see a midnight showing of A Boy and His Dog. Have any of you heard of this movie? It’s a cult science fiction movie from the ’70s but I had never heard of it. Basically a very young Don Johnson (yes, that Don Johnson) and his telepathic dog (yes, telepahtic. dog.) scavenge a post-apocalytic world for food and sex. It was weird, disturbing, and entertaining all at once.

One of the previews for Alien, which I’m totally seeing if they show it at that theatre. Next weekend is the Muppet Movie.

Yesterday I did my paper and presentation for my library site visit. It took a long time! Tonight is the presentation. You know how I feel about that, though of course I’m not nearly as nervous as for work. It’s mostly talking off the top of my head in an organized way. The only thing I’m worried about is that we have just 5 minutes, and earlier when I rehearsed I was at 8 minutes, and not even for all my slides. Guess I’ll see what happens.

The person who had signed for my apartment for May 1 backed out so now the search begins again. Dammit! I don’t care that much, but the brokers are pretty annoying.

Ah, a no meeting day! Yippee! Yesterday for some reason I was clobbered with meetings, and that was even after playing hooky from two of them in the morning.

Last night I got into it with this woman on the subway. I was on my way to class and the train was very crowded. Unlike a lot of dumb fucks, when I get on the train, I don’t stand by the door, blocking the way. I push as far inside as I can, which was what I did last night. I saw a space, albeit tiny, and made my way there.

Then this woman kept getting in my way. Glancing at me, she moved in front of me every time I tried to move to the space I had my eye on. So I did what any enterprising New Yorker would do: I squeezed past her, into that space, thereby creating room behind me.

Her reaction? “You could say excuse me.”

Why, cuz you’re the queen of England? I said, “You saw that I was trying to get in here.”

“Why don’t I just get right off this train?” she said. “Why don’t I take a taxi?”

“That would be nice,” I said before I knew it.

Is it me or them? Not sure anymore.

MB and I are both in town this weekend. Yay! Need to get me some more furniture for his place, which before me was sort of, um, spare. I already have a desk. Still need a comfy chair and a dresser.

Last night we saw The Bank Job. It was an entertaining heist movie. We both thought the actress who played Martine was very strange-looking. Like her cheekbones and chin were extremely exaggerated, and her lips were very pronounced, and it looked like she had trouble moving the top one, though it didn’t seem like she had any work done. We hope to see Horton Hears a Who! this weekend.

Off to lunch.

Get ready for a long one.

Had a productive/relaxing vacation. Spent Tuesday through Thursday going through my apartment, getting rid of stuff, bringing stuff down to MB’s. Oh, did I mention that we’re moving in together?

I’ve been wary about mentioning it here, but the move is going to dominate my life for the next couple of months. Seems crazy right? We’ve been together for barely six months, but sometimes you just know when something’s right.

I got my new lease early last week so I took that opportunity to call and say I wasn’t renewing, and ask if I could break it a month early. They were pretty nice about it, saying that if they could get someone to sign for May 1, then I could break it. Otherwise, I’ll just let my lease lapse on June 1. It’s good timing: they wanted to raise my rent a $100.

The brokers descended almost immediately, and were really annoying at first. I guess one woman was in competition with everyone else. She raced over to my place, saying, “I’ve been waiting for your apartment for so long! You couldn’t decide when you were leaving!”

I was like, Um, no, my place has been on the market for all of four hours. Dumbass.

I have nothing of value left in my place – except the gigantour TV, good luck toting that out of my place – so I had keys made for them and am just letting them show it whenever. My only request is that they call beforehand. Who knows if they will but I don’t really care.

Besides, I want to get rid of my TV, couch, bookcases, and other large pieces of furniture. MB’s place just doesn’t have room for that stuff, and I really don’t need it. Also, I’ve gotten several years’ use out of everything. Hopefully Craig’s List will help me purge all my junk.

It feels good to let all of those things go. I feel like they’re from my old life, and I’m shedding my old skin.

During my time off, I also:

Did my site visit for library school. The assignment is to visit a library, and observe for three hours. I picked the medical library of Sloan Kettering. They were extremely nice and helpful, and it’s a beautiful space. The highlight for me? Excellent coffee for 25 cents. Woohoo!

Went to the dermatologist. Waste. Of. Time. She barely looked at my face before trying to prescribe me oral antibiotics. It’s not like I have rampant acne so I didn’t want to take antibiotics if I didn’t have to. They always do a number on my stomach. So I went with the topical stuff instead. Who knows if it’ll work.

Got my taxes done. Got quite a chunk of return, which means I’m paying too much, but oh well.

Ran six miles. So I worked out just once during my vacation, but at least it was a good one.

Went to Charleston. On Friday, MB and I flew out to Charleston for a little vacay. It was an absolute madhouse at the airport, and we actually almost missed our flight. We were sitting there, keeping an ear out for announcements, but only heard the very last one.

Then we proceeded to sit on the runway for close to an hour. MB was pretty relaxed about it, which helped me be less antsy.

Got into Charleston around dinnertime. Our hotel was on the harbor side, so after settling in, we took the free trolley into town and ate at Magnolia’s, at the suggestion of the trolley driver. It was good Southern food – I had the fried chicken while MB had the shrimp and grits – but a bit overpriced.

Overall the weather was very nice. At night and by the water, it was chilly, but in the sun it was in the 70s. The sun was unexpectedly strong so that MB’s poor shaved head got totally burned.

We basically spent the whole time eating and walking around. The houses there are these beautiful old Southern homes, and it was cool to walk by the water and see birds that we don’t normally see, like pelicans and other sea birds which I can’t name. One looked like a black egret while another looked like a tern. And of course there were seagulls.

More highlights:

Ghost & Graveyard Tour. We wanted to do the Dark Side of Charleston tour cuz it was “rated R,” but it was sold out. The Ghost & Graveyard Tour was still fun though a little cheesy. Mostly the guide just told walked us around told some spooky stories.

The best part was when she took us to a cemetary, and told us about plat-eyes, a type of mischievous ghost from Gullah culture. Apparently they’re most active during the full moon – which it had been the night before – and take the shape of a white creature. Supposedly during a tour on the night of the full moon, a woman saw a white cat with green eyes in the graveyard we were in, and at the same time felt a severe stabbing pain in her side.

So after that we were all a bit creeped out and keeping our eyes out for a white cat. “I want to see the cat!” MB announced cheerfully. He doesn’t believe in any of that stuff and wasn’t nervous at all.

After the tour, as we were walking away, I said to him, “You wanted to see the cat,” and then a frigging cat jumped out at us from the bushes. It wasn’t white – in fact it was black – but that didn’t stop me from yelling, “Oh my God!” and jumping ten feet, at least according to MB. Some people from our group were behind us, and totally cracked up. We were laughing like crazy for a good long time.

Poogan’s Porch. This restaurant was a stop on the ghost tour and supposedly one of the most haunted places in America. Poogan was a dog who hung out there and died in 1979. Supposedly if you eat on the porch, you can feel a dog rub itself against your legs, and dropped food will disappear.

But the spookier story is that many years ago, two spinster sisters lived in the house. After one of the sisters died from a fall down the steps, the living sister, Zoe, went nuts and died in an institution. After the house was renovated into a restaurant in the ’70s, weird stuff started happening – people seeing a little old lady waving from the second floor after the restaurant was closed, stuff being moved around, and the topper, a woman who used the second floor bathroom, looking up to see the image of a little old lady in the mirror.

So of course we had to eat there.

The food was really good. We had fried green tomates, jambalaya, and crab cakes. For dessert we had their “award-winning” bread pudding. I don’t usually like bread pudding, but this was SO GOOD. Moist and not too sweet.

As we were eating, I sort of forgot about the spooky stories. Then the waiter was telling this other couple the Zoe story, and the woman said that she had gone to the upstairs bathroom earlier and felt totally creeped out, and that was before she even knew the legend.

So then I was like, “I want to check out the bathroom!” but then immediately started to chicken out. After some prodding from MB, I did go upstairs, and of course that bathroom’s light was off and the door partially ajar, which for some reason made it seem skerrier.

I was a total wuss and couldn’t go in.

MB was like, “You’re lame,” and went by himsef. Of course nothing happened. After we finished eating, we went together, and again, nothing. But we only stayed for two seconds, enoug
h for me snap a couple of pictures, and for MB to shut off the light, scaring the bejeezus out of me.

Charleston Cooks! Cooking Class. MB signed us up to my consternation. While I like cooking, I just don’t feel confident about it, and don’t like to do it in public. But then I thought, okay, it’ll be good to get out of my comfort zone.

Turned out not to be hands on but lecture style. It was still fun though. It was Easter Sunday so the chef made a ham, biscuits, greens and grits, and lavendar tea cakes. The glaze for the ham and the greens and grits were good, but the biscuit sucked, especially compared to the ones we had at Poogan’s Porch.

Dolphins, up close and personal. Another way to get into town from our hotel was the water taxi.

On one of our trips, we saw some dolphins, first in the distance, so subtle I thought I was seeing things. But then the water taxi guys pulled up to where the dolphins were and they swam right up to the boat. I’ve never seen a dolphin that close up in the wild before. The water taxi guys said they weren’t really supposed to drive up to the dolphins, but MB and I were the only ones on the boat – it was Easter Sunday – so they made an exception.

Back at work. It wasn’t as bad this morning as I anticipated. Some annoying emails and one particularly annoying phone call, but that’s all. Helped that I got lots of sleep last night. We flew in on a 6 AM flight, so going to bed at 11 was no problem.

While I was gone, my boss and team members worked more on trying to redefine our team. I so don’t care. I was very happy to see that I got second round interviews for that communications manager job I want so badly. I live for the day that I can see ya.

As in flinging stuff.

Spent the weekend getting rid of stuff. Must have made four or five trips to the curb, and each time the stuff mysteriously disappeared. That is till I saw one of my Crate and Barrel boxes in the foyer of the Chinese acupuncture place next door. Chinese people love free stuff.

Also shredded a slew of old documents, getting my two file boxes down to one. Dumped a huge garbage bag of clothes I haven’t worn in years at Housing Works. $900 worth! I also have books I need to donate, and a box of kitchen stuff that was too heavy for me to bring down to the curb. Hey, MB, first order of business when you get back from Chicago!

Aside from the spring cleaning, I hung out with YP a bit Saturday afternoon. Had a coffee and a nosh, then walked around the city. It was a gorgeous day, like winter was finally ending. Today I saw SB and Ellie for a little while. Little Ellie had the crazy medusa hair going.

Just one day of work this week. There’s a small thing I totally procrastinated and need to take care of tomorrow. I feel myself getting stressed, but I need to remember that it’s really a small thing and can be taken care of. I don’t know why I always do this to myself – procrastinate to the point where I’m totally stressed and wake up at 5 in the morning and can’t sleep anymore. I’m such a doofus.

But here’s a little more.

David Byrne ( yes, that David Byrne) makes a really good point on his blog. Spitzer is identified as client #9 (kind of like Chanel No. 5, only dumber) – what about clients 1 through 8? They were all part of the prostitution ring that the FBI wiretapped so the feds know who they are – how come they’re not being plastered all over the news?

Byrne’s theory these are mega rich bigwigs, possibly Republicans with a vendetta against the Caught Crusader. MB and I discussed over lunch who the possible 8 could be:

Some movie star. Lots live in New York – Robert DeNiro? Kanye? Woody Allen? Take your pick.

7) Mob boss #1

6) Mob boss # 2. Hey, the Emperor’s Club apparently covered New Jersey too.

5) A Yankee. Derek Jeter? A-Rod?

4) Some super-rich CEO of some overbloated corporation or another

3) Rich bigwig Republican #1

2) Rich bigwig Republican #2

And finally. . .

1) Slick Willy himself, and Westchester County resident.

“It’s good to be President.”

~ ~ ~

In other news, I had an interview today for a communications manager position. This would essentially be coordinating and creating communications – whether via announcements, emails, presentations – between four different groups that are now under one worldwide group, which sounds really good to me.

With my other interviews, I couldn’t tell how they went. All I knew was they didn’t go badly, but they weren’t fabulous. This one I think – knock wood – went well. It was more of a discussion and exchange of ideas, rather than an interview. Then he asked that I send him some PowerPoints and other communications I’ve created.

Like everything, wait and see.

Class tonight. And MB’s off to Chicago, boohoo! He’s back Monday night.

. . .you’ve heard.

Personally I’m not sure I have anything against prostitution, if it’s between two consenting adults, but I mean duh as a public figure, you’d think you’d stay away from something like that. And on top of that, to be a guy known for shutting down two sex rings himself – “hypocrisy” is indeed an understatement.

But I feel worst for his wife. We don’t know what was going on with their marriage – maybe she’s known about it for a while, maybe they had an agreement – but if not, then it’s cheating. Cheating is cheating, and on the day before Valentine’s Day too. Oy.