As a result of growing up in a pedestrian-friendly city, I developed this misguided conviction that every destination is within walking distance. Once I had a job interview in an office in Massachusetts that was about 20 minutes walk from the nearest bus stop, but I checked it out on Google Maps and concluded that it was manageable. As it turned out it was several miles away along a busy highway with no sidewalk. I trudged along in my suit and sensible pumps through thigh-high weeds and bramble as cars honked beside me and the sun blazed down on my cursing, harried countenance. I arrived at the office damp from sweat and dew, tousle-haired, and triumphant. Lesser women would have turned back. Smarter women wouldn't have accepted the job offer.
You know when you wake up on a Monday morning and it's raining and you arrive at work soaking and your boss is being kind of a jerk and you need to go uptown for a meeting and when you get there you find out that it was cancelled earlier but nobody bothered to tell you and the guy you were hoping would call hasn't called and the job you've been waiting to hear from hasn't gotten back to you and come to think of it you can't even get your best friend to call you back and you have a random patch of eczema on your cheek and you have -$3.00 in your checking account and you don't get paid until Friday so you can't afford wine and when you get home from work there's a a brochure from St. Michael's Cemetery advertising burial plots addressed to you in your mailbox?
Yeah, me neither.
Someone sent an email to my work address today and this was their email signature.
Yesterday I spent four hundred bucks I don't have registering for another sketch comedy writing class at Upright Citizens Brigade. I justified this expense by telling myself I need an outlet for my weirdness so I don't spend all day fantasizing that my coworkers are secretly vampires. They're starting to get suspicious.
I tried to make a list of ways to make some extra cash, and this what I came up with:
Sorry about the prolonged absence, reader(s). I spent August in a boozy vacation haze. It involved my friend's wedding in Barbados and trips to Rhode Island and Boston. I managed to spend a week in the tropics without developing any kind of sunburn on my pasty Irish skin by frequently applying sunblock made specially for albinos. Then this weekend I got an ugly, mottled burn by spending an hour in the Boston sun.
This August I rarely worked, often partied, and ignored my body's need for sleep. As I result, I developed a dependency on 5-hr energy shots and wine. This is a lifestyle choice I recommend if you think you'd like to have a series of small strokes for 4.5 hours and then pass out in a Denny's.
I have $11 in checking and what is presumably a raging case of scurvy.
I am looking forward to a fall of monk-like abstinence and contemplation. I will make sure to blog about my epic failures in that regard.
