there's no home for you here girl

2003-04-04 - 11:21 p.m.

there's no home for you here girl, go away, there's no home for you here. -the white stripes

bad things from the past week: car broken into, purse stolen, worry gnawing at fear, loss of security, feelings of stupidity & bad karma, depression, loss of faith in humanity

good things from the past week: new white stripes album, lunch with natalie (her treat), movie with the fam, laughing with carrie, new job opening

today i felt normal for the first time since my car was broken into. and not just normal: i felt happy and carefree. which, actually, is normal for me, that or depression. i'm either rainclouds or sunshine, no inbetween.

i drove to work with the windows down in grey weather, slightly windy but not at all cold. i've listened to the white stripe's 'elephant' pretty much every second since i purchased it at target on april 1, but today i put in coldplay's 'a rush of blood to the head' for some unknown reason, and it made me feel amazingly better than i have all week. mostly i listened to 'clocks' over and over again as i drove 90 to work. i kept singing:
home, where i wanted to roam, home, where i wanted to roam

i only worked 4 hours today, and i barely worked at that. carrie and i talked and giggled and acted girly the whole time. scott called us rude when we kept whispering back and forth to each other. yeah, it was rude, but fuck it. i haven't laughed in a long time, truly laughed like i did today, and carrie and i were talking about our coworkers' sexual habits, then about one in particular, then about different penis sizes and experiences, and goddamnit, i just don't want to talk to scott about dick sizes. i don't really want to talk to scott about much at all, because quite frankly, i don't care for scott. so we were rude. so fucking what. i needed to have some girly fun, or jesus, just any kind of fun.

when carrie and i weren't talking about our coworkers or different peni, we talked about quitting our shitty ass jobs. the other day i went to the local new age store to buy some burt's bees chapstick and i noticed a 'help wanted' sign up in the window, so i called and asked what kind of help was wanted. the lady on the phone said that they needed a full-time person to run the register, re-stock, and just do general store upkeep. i said okay, and that i could stop by and pick up an application. the lady said that i should drop off a resume instead. which means that there are no applications. which means that the new age store isn't corporate. which makes me really really happy. and so as soon as i update my resume i'm going to drop it off.

carrie said that she'd been thinking about quitting to work at the cerebral palsy center full time. i mentioned the new age store to her. we both got really excited and started giggling about how screwed the bookstore would be since we're the only two full time cafe employees. and it's not that we want to screw over the store, but goddamn, i'm sick of taking this corporate bullshit up the ass. i've hated my job for a long time, and it was never meant to be long-term. i kept waiting to quit until i'd gotten my life figured out. well, i still don't have my life figured out, but i'm goddamn sick of my job.

i figured out that there are only two fates for remaining employed at the bookstore. either you become a complete corporate whore, like anne, and thusly get up every underling's ass for every little nuance and rulebook guideline, or you become an alcoholic, like rob. it seems like anne truly believes in the corporate bullshit, even though jen just says that anne hates her job and that's why she's the way she is. rob is funny enough, but conversely he's never serious, doesn't seem capable of being serious, and he drinks like a fish. in fact, the only thing he seems to take seriously is his drinking.

my faith in humanity is already dwindling enough without visions of becoming a corporate whore or an alcoholic looming overhead. besides, i just hate that fucking job.

i hate the corporation i work for, and i hate 99% of the people i serve. it screws me both ways. i try to fuck up the corporation by giving extras to the customers, but then the customers are dicks so i end up wanting to charge them $0.25 for whipped cream. it's so fucked up. the only two things i like about my job are most of my coworkers and making the drinks. making the drinks gets old, and i rarely get to hang out with my coworkers because we're always goddamn working. maybe if i quite working there i'd actually get to hang out with them. carrie and i promised to stay in touch if we quit our jobs. and god, do i want to quit my job. i fantasize about quitting my job the way i used to fantasize about anne rice vampires.

in my dreams i milk my last day for all it's worth. first i tell every single person i know and even vaguely love to come by on my last day so that i can give them free drinks. what are they gonna do, fire me? then i collect my last paycheck and buy a shitload of books and cds with my employee discount right before walking the fuck out of those doors. ahhh, beautiful.

for some reason my family seems to think that the bookstore is such a great job. laura pointed out that since it's a chain i could transfer my same job to a new city and automatically have a job wherever i move. good point, but if i hate working at the store in my hometown, why would i enjoy working at the same store in a different city any more? and from mom and dad's perspective, it probably sounds better to have a degree in writing and work at a bookstore than to have a degree in writing and work at a new age store. but goddamnit, it's not like i actually get to work with the books. used to all i did was bag the books and take people's money. now i make espresso drinks and rarely, if ever, see a book, unless some jackass is trying to avoid the line up front by trying to buy shit in the cafe. most of them believe that they have to buy a drink in order to be rung up in the cafe. this is not the case, but i let most of them believe it anyway, because i hate them. my father said that i was wrong, that he and mom were just happy that i had a job.

but what if i get this new job and it sucks even worse? or, an even scarier thought, what if it's amazing and i love it? one of my main motivators for getting the hell out of dodge is my shitty ass job. if my job was good i might lose the willpower to move.

actually, i don't fear that. i'm just trying to be theatrical. i'm tired of the scenery in my hometown, and the traffic, and the trucks with american flags waving out the sides, and the general mindset, and how i can't feel comfortable here no matter how hard i try. there are things that i love here, but it's not enough to build my life on.

so scratch that last part. i'm getting the hell out of town before another birthday passes. 22 sucked, and 23 is a year of fire and violence. i'm beginning to think that the stars are permanently out of whack, and that it's up to me to make my own fortunes come 24.