August 30, 2003
I need to get back in the dating game. Too bad I'm on the wrong team, what with having a vagina and all. It's a man's world, but no more so than in the singles scene.
On Thursday night I had no plans and was going crazy sitting in my apartment, so I decided to go for a walk through town at 11 p.m.
As I passed the twenty-something hot spot, I saw muscular guys buying tequila shots for girls in halter tops while they all sang along to "Sweet Caroline," which none of them are old enough to remember. Good times never seemed so good… until the next morning when you wake up with a five-star hangover and a frat boy you don't know.
I headed for the thirty-something bar which had even older music. The band was playing Frank Sinatra and the crowd was swilling martinis, but the dynamic was the same. I saw the same men who were hitting on me last fall hitting on new women. Not the same type of men, but literally the same men. I recognized them.
When I got home an hour later, I flipped on the TV and a show called Elimidate was on. A man gets to date several beautiful women at once and then eliminate them based on things like how they French kiss. To a woman, it's a car crash that's hard to look away from. To a man, it's how things would be in a just world. The bachelor was from Texas and had to decide between four women, three of whom said "I bought these!" and pointed to their breasts. The final date involved a club where the girls wore bikinis and danced on a stage. A pole was involved. The man indicated which woman he wanted by licking the face of a girl so beautiful that even I would have dated her.
Since most men just want to get laid and most women want a committed relationship, I think I can figure out who benefits the most from today's dating culture.
No bras? No-strings sex? I suspect that the Women's Movement wasn't actually started by women.
August 26, 2003
I guess in addition to going on 50 dates and asking for $50,000, I'm also applying for 50 jobs.
There are no jobs in Seattle, but there are lots and lots of ads. Most of them are placed by recruiters and broadly hint at oases of money and benefits at "a large, world-renowned software developer in Redmond" or "a large, world-renowned coffee retailer in Seattle." These ads are just a camouflage for headhunters looking for your boss' name and company information so they can solicit him.
I saw one real ad for an administrative assistant. I sent my resume, which is 100 percent full of writing and editing jobs. I didn't even bother to mention why I'm applying for a secretarial job when I am clearly not a secretary. If they can't figure out that it's because of the economy, then they are not smart enough to have me work for them.
What could I say anyway? "I've decided that writing is too fulfilling and have been meaning to get into a more boring, repetitive line of work. I type like a dyslexic and will have your files screwed up for you in no time!"
August 23, 2003
President Bush was here yesterday. He was widely criticized for talking about salmon rather than jobs, since Washington State has the worst unemployment rate in the country, next to Oregon and Alaska. I think he was using salmon as a clever and insightful metaphor for the upstream struggle of the unemployed, though, because to just talk about fish would mean he was out of touch.
Not that salmon aren't important. I respect any of God's creatures that bravely go against the current, plus they're really good barbequed with citrus salsa and a side of garlic mashed potatoes. Pair it with a nice pinot gris and you won't even care that you may not find a job until sometime in 2004.
My own personal economy isn't just swimming upstream, it's dead in the water. The people I interviewed with on Monday called and said they decided to "move forward with other candidates who did better on the editorial test." Sure, the inside applicants who are already doing the job.
I left a message asking to see the correct answers to the test, since if my ability to differentiate stationery (the stuff you write on) from stationary (like an exercise bike) means the difference between having a cush job with stock options and sharing a cardboard box with Alex, one of the homeless guys downtown, I wanna know about it.
They never returned my call.
I decided to be proactive, so I went over to the company at 8 a.m. I couldn't gain entry without a security badge, so I sat on the steps and cried and rocked and told anyone who would listen about my fears of ending up homeless. Really I didn't, but I would still like to see that test.
August 20, 2003
Things that were bugging me this morning:
People who have jobs. They are so smug and cool in their work clothes with their little work friends, all: "I have to be someplace at a designated time cause my boss pays me to be" and...
People who use Starbucks as their office. When the other people having overly strong coffee and dried-out cranberry scones are able to parrot back your "I hold piano lessons in my living room for $60 a half hour" pitch, it's time to put down the cell phone.
Things that weren't bugging me this morning:
The guy at the coffee house who seemed genuinely distressed about what I gather to be his recent layoff, and...
His friend, who looks like the assistant Rachel slept with on Friends, who told him, "If you're not enjoying your unemployment, you're not doing it right." And then considered, "Or is it the whole not-having-money thing?"
August 18, 2003
"Well I guess it's better to eat it than smoke it… from a health perspective, I mean."
"Dewd, we should pick a place to meet if we get separated."
"Dewd, we're not gonna get separated."
"But I'm just saying we should pick a place to meet if we get separated"
"But dewd, we're not gonna get separated."
I went to the Seattle Hempfest this weekend. Instead of cotton candy, there was Chronic Candy. Instead of a hog-judging contest there were patrons who've pleaded no contest. There were like 200,000 people there and I'm pretty sure you could have scored some weed from most of them. People walked around with cannabis-looking leis and some of the girls had on pastel angel wings with glitter. The police patrol the festival, but they also turn their heads. Seattle cops are cool and reasonable. In the past I've heard punks getting high on the street complaining about how redneck the Seattle police are. Please. Go commit a crime in front of LAPD and then get back to me.
There was a guy on the main stage ranting about pot being legalized. He was Cheech Marin channeling a Baptist preacher. I agree that pot should be legalized if alcohol is, because alcohol's probably worse for you. I also think that the pro-marijuana people should get non-stoned people to fight for their cause if they want to be taken seriously, because stoned people just come off as stoned.
I was there to see this band called The Speedles that does Lennon and McCartney by way of the Sex Pistols. Clever idea and they sounded great. The sun was beating down on me, it was dusty and my head was spinning from the contact high, so I left right after the band's set.
One thing that's never chronic is my employment. I had an interview today -- my first since I moved here -- but it was really a non-interview as I suspect they are holding the job for a current employee but have to interview outsiders for some legal crap. It was a job unterview.
The company is in an incredible brick building that used to be a hospital. I was invited there to take an editorial test, but that's it. A woman came and got me and put me in a little glass meeting room with a jaw-dropping view of Puget Sound. The test was tough, but all stuff I knew from my last job. I finished early and the woman came to escort me out. She told me she hoped that when they called me in they didn't get my hopes up about any possible job. I thought to myself that my hopes are never up. Not about jobs anyway. I think since it was a fake job interview they should have given me lunch instead of making me take a really hard test. Like, we don't have a job for you, but here's half a turkey sub and some potato salad.
August 14, 2003 again
I didn't get to the cocktail party much past 7:30 and there was already a crush of people there. I said hello to You Have Nice Breath guy who we all went to late supper with a few weeks ago. He told me he called the one woman whose number he took and I told him that all of the guys I gave my number to that night called. He congratulated me for being in the black again. I don't normally update people on stuff like that, but I had told him I was peeved over the two guys who didn't call me from an earlier party, so we had to get current. I don't know why I didn't care for him when we first met, because he is actually quite funny and charming and he also does sort of dating-and-relationship experiments and writes about them like I do. He probably grates on me because we're so alike. Like when Susan complains that Sharon is such a gossip and everyone snickers behind her back because Susan is the biggest gossip they know.
Just then Red Bull and Vodka tapped me on the shoulder and apologized for not calling me after that party. This is the guy who I thought didn't call because he was so drunk and likely didn't remember me. Well, it turns out he didn't call and remembered me perfectly. He said he got in a motorcycle accident and didn't want to talk to anyone. We actually didn't have much to say to each other after the initial apology, and I saw him leave with a woman who has hair like mine an hour and a half later. Nice Breath told me I should have asked to see proof of the alleged motorcycle accident, i.e. tissue damage.
As I was making my through the throng of bodies, an Asian man said he knew me from California. He guessed San Francisco, which is wrong, but I talked to him anyway. He had a stack of neatly folded sheets of paper in his breast pocket. He gave me one and it was a printed page from Amazon.com listing all of the feng-shui books he has written. He said he is the leading expert on the Chinese art of placement and I told him I thought that Lillian Too was. He asked how he could get ahold of me and I gave him my number since I thought maybe he could somehow fix my chi. I think it is running backwards or something.
I was going to chat with one of my friends when I ran right into the guy I had really liked who didn't ever call. Our eyes locked. His said: I purposely didn't call you and I have no excuse. I just didn't want to. Mine said: You asshole. I was so taken in by your big speech about how you empathized about how hard it is to be new in town. I really liked you but now I hate you. We exchanged pleasantries. I made a beeline for the safety of my girlfriend. She introduced me to a young former lawyer who reminded me of Rob Lowe in voice and manner. I had a lot of fun with him and he bought me a drink and asked for my number. He set up a date with me right then for tomorrow night.
August 14, 2003
Yesterday I realized that August 15 is my deadline for filing my taxes since I got an extension in April. Of course I have not even looked at them, so I found a form called 2688 which lets you file an extension on your extension. It is stricter than the first one, though, and you can't give reasons like "I didn't feel like doing my taxes" or "My taxes seemed too scary to me when I looked at them before, so I put them away," which is of course the truth. I thought I would write a brief, businesslike-sounding excuse so I wrote in "Lost records," which may be the actual case for all I know at this point.
Since I sort of handled or at least put off the tax thing, I thought I should tackle some of my other financial stuff like balancing my checkbook and opening my credit-card bills. Both of these acts are akin to going to check out a gurgling sound in the cellar when you're home alone in an old house during a thunderstorm. There's a scene in the director's cut of The Exorcist where Linda Blair quickly crawls down the stairs backwards like a spider. It would be even more horrifying if she had my checking account balance mysteriously written on her stomach.
It seems that I have pleased the gods of finance by facing up to my blood-chilling paperwork, though, because I got a call for a job interview today. It's my first interview since I moved to Seattle. I am very nervous and freaked out. Very. The thing is I have to take an editorial test. I am aces with a regular job interview -- it's like being on a talk show. But a test is something where I can't avoid a sticky question by saying, "I'm so glad you asked that. It reminds me of a hilarious date I went on…" Maybe I could still do something like that if there's a fill-in-the-blanks section, though.
August 11, 2003
I can't go running up to a man at a party waving my arms and yelling "Steve, remember me? Did you get my email? Can you come to my birthday party on Saturday?" When I see women do this, I think: Did I stumble back into the fourth grade?
At least these women have a dating tactic, though. I just stand around and wait to see who buys me a drink. Often it is not the guys who would be my first choice, but that makes sense, since I am not choosing them. While I will never be the type to sprint across the room to snap up a handsome prospect, I think I could at least not spend so much time being polite to someone I would never in a million years find attractive. This is something most women have figured out by the time they are 13. I am tragically slow on the uptake.
I'm going to a big cocktail party this week. I am going in with my first-ever party plan, heretofore known as FEPP.
1) I am going to survey the room when I arrive instead of getting caught at the door by some not-so-hot prospect that some other woman probably just managed to ditch, and will instead at least head in the direction of someone attractive.
2) I'm not going to spend more than 10 minutes talking to any one guy.
3) I'm not going to spend time talking to girlfriends, guys who are just friends or guys I've already dated, if there are any there. My friends will think this is weird, but then again since it's me, maybe they won't.
4) I am not going to get caught up in some long conversation just because someone buys me a drink.
5) I am not going to spend time exclusively socializing with men who are bald and shorter and older and have a less interesting career than me. I am tired of providing the hair and the height in my relationships and plan to find some guys who can do their share in those areas.
6) I will continue reconnaissance of the door to see if any new cute ones come in.
I'm excited about the FEPP. I'm going to have to memorize it, though, because it veers wildly from my usual party plan (UPP), which is to meet about one so-so guy every hour and a half.
August 5, 2003
I am supposed to be on a date right now with my favorite guy from the party the other night, but he postponed it. Then he called and cancelled. Then he called again to ask me out for this weekend. Then he emailed and asked me if I was still free tonight. This was all in the space of two hours. Last night we had a very nice conversation on the phone. He later sent me a poem he wrote about me that talked about jazz, writer's block and how sweet I am. Then he called and told me not to read it.
I don't think things are going to work out between us. At 24 hours, it's the shortest romance I've ever had. I have a date on Thursday night with someone who's not as complex.
August 4, 2003
As we suspected, I heard from those guys I had middling interest in -- and within four days of meeting them at that party. The first one I heard from was the one I had slightly more than middling interest in, so that's good I guess.
I had written up a whole update about why I haven't been dating. It included a treatise on how I'm not likely going to hook up permanently with a guy who's way older or way younger than me. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, like if he were Liam Neeson
or Topher Grace.
But now I have dates this week, so it seemed silly to put it up. It was very clever and probably the best thing I've ever written. Oh well.
