Hey my faithful lolcats, remember how last time I wrote on this thing I was blathering on about being scared of the wind because wind is change and change is scary but change shouldn’t be scary because everything changes and grow a pair and turn and face the strange ch-cha-changes, blah blah? Well that last gust of wind brought some bad and heartbreaking sad change in the death of a friend which made the rest of my dumb problems seem like a side plate of cold french fries. I realize that’s a confounded metaphor that might only make sense to me but bear with moi as the last weeks have been unsettled and no sleep!!!! But! One night after a tortuous week of tossing, I remembered that Bob, who has to wake up at ungodly wee morning hours, takes a Gravol with a rum and Coke and conks out hard and wakes up as such (so he says). So one night I needed to sleep because I had a job interview the next day (ugh, more on that later)  I had a Gravol and a glass of wine and guess wot? ZZZZ! All the way through! Woke up with dry mouth and a sore throat but it was worth it. And don’t worry this post has a happy ending so stick with me.

I tried it again the next night and it kind of worked but I actually threw up in the morning. I never throw up even if I’m hungover! Gravol is supposed to make you anti-nauseaous so I am obviously already abusing the medication! Michelle told me about some sleepy time hot drink from the health food store that contains magnesium. I know me, I will never go through all the steps of boiling water at night, mixing something in a cup, wait for it to cool and sip it the whole thing until it’s gone. Why not just take the tablets? With the wine, duh. So I’ve been doing that and it’s been working! And the dreams! You’ve all been in them! Especially you, Scarecrow.

The day of my friend’s funeral, Freddy left for his camp job for the summer. He’s been doing this for a couple of years or 3 and usually I feel that sweet melancholia sadness that I can easily console myself with by thinking one less egg to fry when he leaves but this time I felt like my fucking heart was being ripped out by a dark monster. The couple of months he was home from university, he and I have been super close. Spotting each other at the gym and watching Jeopardy every night, real mother and son bonding stuff, good times. Sometimes we watch a movie and he is all reluctant when I make a suggestion for a classic because you need to see these things for just for reference sake. This time round we watched Se7en which I hadn’t seen since it was in the theatre. I remembered being scared by Sloth and SPOILER ALERT: Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box but this time around I found the whole movie slow, boring, ridiculous with the rain machines trying to make L.A. seem like a dank mystery city and an overwhelming bloated music score. Gwyneth’s head tho! LOL!!!!!! Freddy liked it so that was good David Fincher representation, not my idea of a classic per se but whatevs. I also would have seen Fight Club again, but he was like, no, mama, I know who Tyler Durden actually is, and this is where I have to remind my son of the age old wisdom that it’s not the destination, it’s the journey that counts.

So off he went last week and I felt physical pain watching him go but! No more socks to sort! By the way, potential suitors out there and I know you’re there, I can feel it in the wind, that’s measure where you know if I love you if I sort your socks. But! If I leave them in a random pile then you should take the cue and leave. Anyway I just did some laundry and there was one random sock of his and I didn’t know what to do so I threw it out, I figure the other one has petrified under his bed somewhere and that’s something I don’t want to know about.

*************************************

So I’ve been on a few interviews for various jobs that we won’t go into specifically because I don’t list my strengths and weaknesses to just anyone and tell. I will say that there’s no rhyme or reason for these employers’ criteria out there. You can have all the qualifications and more but they think you’ll be bored even though being bored is not one of my issues in life. I could stare at a blank wall and knit a scarf all day. Conversely, your “busy” office and need for someone to “multi-task” and have a “sense of urgency” is not a problem for this OCD insomniac who does complex math in her brain at night while furiously masturbating. Or! They think you don’t have enough experience as though you can’t learn anything new. And you people are always telling me I’m too old in general for anything but! I know who Tyler Durden is because I actually saw Fight Club in the theatre back in the days when popcorn had “golden topping” instead of real butter. Young people know who Tyler Durden is because they saw it in a meme. AND HEY! I KNEW WHAT MEMES WERE BEFORE JESUS GREW A HIPSTER BEARD. Holy shit.

The prize interview of the lot goes to an Asian chick named Zoe who I think we can all agree needs to be called out and nailed to a cross. She advertised on Indeed a couple of positions being available for a home reno showroom WITH A SET ANNUAL SALARY OF NOT BAD MONEY, dreams of a bathroom demo danced through my head. She replied to my application that she was conducting a “soft” interview with a group on Wednesday. I’ve done this group interview charade before, it’s a disaster, there is always this one dude who needs to take the floor to mansplain every stupid fucking thing that comes into his head. But whatevs, I went, enjoying my little commute to the flatlands of warehouses and Chinese banquet halls.

So there’s 8 of us, all ages by the way. Everyone was in a chair but I was perched on a high stool which you would think was embarrassing but I felt empowered like I owned the joint. It was kind of cool place, a giant warehouse with good lighting and shiny things set up as sample showcases. My magpie sensibilities would never be bored except for the barf-awful ugly art on the walls. There was actually a giant portrait of Marilyn Monroe in pixelated tiles, it was much wow but very fucked up at the same time. If you can’t tell if something is amazing or hideous, it’s probably really tacky.

So Zoe says: “Hi everybody! Thanks for coming. I just want to let you know that we have hired the salary positions over the weekend but I am offering you all an opportunity to a part of my team of commission sales.”

This beautiful elegant Persian lady bats her lashes and says WHAT THE FUCK?

And Zoe is like, flustered: “It’s a great opportunity for an entrepreneur. You can set your own hours and use your social media to network…” She started to stutter when she looked at everyone’s faces and somehow ended her vomit of words by exclaiming “Pinterest!”

I thought it was just me that was confused but Elegant Persian Lady interrupted her and said; “I’m sorry but I’m leaving.” And she haughtily left in a puff of smoke, closely followed by an old groovy dude whose name was actually Elvis, then the young people silently got up and left also.

I stayed!!! Why? For you! So I’d have something to talk about. After everyone left, Zoe got all sweaty and nervous. I pretended to be interested in her obvious pyramid scheme which was probably a front for some elicit activity. She claimed she worked with “real-a-tors” who did staging and developers who built new construction in the big city. 4% percent commission on a half million dollar decorating job! Do the math! That’s 20 grand! She kept saying the same sentence over again and somehow ending it in “Pinterest!” It was really the weirdest thing. I asked her some hard hitting questions, like who are you, where are you from? She was dodgy and kept getting up to leave to tend to something in the warehouse, which, by the way, was devoid of any other people much less newly hired salaried employees. She did tell me her Welsh father-in-law hated her until she cooked him something delicious and now he loves her. Which I find hard to believe.

She gave me a tour and told me she really wanted me to be a part of her team because she liked my personality. I smiled ruefully and told her “I like you too, Zoe.” I found some ceiling tiles I wanted for my kitchen. I took note of the manufacturer and I’ll go straight to the source because fuck her. As if I’m going to use my social media to sell shit, I feel bad enough I plop this blog on my Facebook wall. Anyway at the end, I grabbed a heaping handful of candies from her desk and told her I’d be in touch, and hauled my sad deflated self out of there. #FML

*********************

But! The next day the universe actually threw me a bone. Some young dude on my dating website sent me a message, the kind I always ignore, you know the “I’m in your city for a night, wanna hook up?” kind of message. Except his was better written and had a legit reason which was he is in a band and playing at a specific venue which I looked up, watched a YouTube video of him playing and basically exploded in my loins. Yes, yes, yes. Holy shit. We had Facetime chat the day before which usually means the death of everything. Ghost city. I don’t know how to behave over the phone. I always end up saying too much. But! Not this time, dude pulled through and showed up after his show. Okay, on YouTube and Facetime, he was very cute and with a hot voice and sexy af accent but IRL, him standing under a streetlight in front of my house, I practically fainted. If Serpico and King David from the Old Testament made a baby, threw in a bit of LeBron James for the height and dapperness, it would be this guy. You should know of my fetish for big black beards by now, he was too young for the silvers that set me over the edge but you know they’re just around the corner. His future is paved in pussy for sure.

Anyway, in the house he happily entered. I offered him a beer which he took of and we hovered in the kitchen and stared at each other. He took a sip from the can and even before he finished swallowing came the throw down. OY VEY! To think that I almost pressed the delete button and sent him off into the ether, it almost makes me cry for the missed opportunities every where. Anyway, later when we were waiting for his Uber to take him away, he said: “This was fun and very healthy.” And it’s true, it was. He left behind a bunch of tiny fingertip-sized bruises on me that will eventually fade away but I’m going to keep the memory awhile longer. And yes, I finally showered and yes, washed my face eventually. But took my sweet time about it.