Eternal Search for Perfect Job...or at this rate...Any Job

"You are just never at peace with yourself," my husband says with a sigh last night on the couch. Yeah, you can say that again.

I am never happy with where I am in my life. Never satisfied. Even though I technically have a job, I still decide to punish myself and get a demeaning, low-paying other one. Is it the Catholic in me that believes I must suffer?

Yes, I started a new gig this week. I use the word "gig" because to call it a "job" just wouldn't be right. A job has connotations of real pay, you know in exchange for services that require actual thinking and maybe even benefits, a 401K.  This "gig" includes none of the above.

I've been feeling desperate. I haven't worked since January. That's a long time. I know I'm lucky   blessed to still have the "work from home job" but it's not a job in my field and a few weeks ago my sister sent me an article about how companies view you as unemployable if you've been unemployed for more than six months. Basically, they figured you've already been passed over, so they don't want you. And this freaked me out.  Plus, I'm just l.o.n.e.l.y.

I don't like staying home all day.

So in my desperation, I started applying to any and every job out there in my field-even, gulp, internships.

I got zero call backs.

This is not good. I am young, it's not like I can go the rest of my life without a real job.

Finally, someone wrote me asking me to come in. Do you remember how I mentioned that I got my start in the mail room? Well, this may even be beneath the mail room.

I spend all day transcribing and logging video. I'm feeling like such a fat loser.

I'm hunched over a computer and a video deck, typing away. Is this how the Jewish and Italian immigrants felt slaving away making blouses before they were killed in the Triangle Fire??? I feel like what I do is the 21st Century version of a sweatshop but instead of a sewing machine I've got a computer and a video deck.

My reasoning for taking this job is that I need to just get myself out there. And it is a production company so it's related, you know, it's not like I took a job in retail. Although ever since my sister stopped working at JCrew and lost her discount, I have been considering retail....

Ironically, on my first day I transcribed an interview with an 80-year-old man that's still working and I found myself feeling jealous of him because he loves his job. He says going to work everyday is the one thing keeping him alive. The producer asked him if he ever plans on leaving his job. He said, "Never! they'll take me out the back door when I die."

Wow. Can you imagine loving your job so much that you'd like want to die at work? Will I ever find a job like that? Probably not.  Not only did this old man LOVE his job but he also made good money. Apparently, when you're 80 you don't feel the need to be humble about how much money you make. The thing that kills me is that this 80-year old man didn't do anything special to get this job it just LANDED ON HIS LAP. 

ROUGH TRANSCRIPTION BASED FROM MY MEMORY OF TYPING OUT EVERY SINGLE SYLLABLE  THAT CAME OUT OF HIS MOUTH
80-year old man: I didn't have a job and one day I'm just sitting in a restaurant and my friend comes in and says, Marvin there's a job down the street-they're waiting for you. And I go, who are they? And my friend says just go and see them they're waiting for you. So I go and I don't even open my mouth the entire time-they do all the talking and hire me right there. And they asked me how much do you want and I gave them a number and they said sure, sure fine and here I am 50 years later. (smiles at camera)

Sigh, sometimes you just get lucky sitting in a restaurant.

I Survived

I know not getting along with your in-laws is as American as apple pie. I mean entire sitcoms have been based around annoying in-laws.

There's the Honeymooners. (poor Jackie Gleason could never catch a break from his mother-in-law) and Everyone Loves Raymond . Even cartoons depict America's strained relationship between in-laws.  Remember the Flintstones? Let's just say Wilma's mother was not Fred's biggest fan.

I guess writers figure it makes for good TV and comedy but I, myself can't even sit through an episode of Everyone Loves Raymond.  I will seriously make my husband change the channel. Consider it a sore spot but that lady is SO MEAN! I'm talking of course about Ray's mom.

But here's the thing she's only SO MEAN to her daughter-in-law.

Who if you ask me is just a LOVELY person and if anything Ray's mom should be kissing the ground her daughter-in-law walks on for putting up with her son. Yea, I know it's only television but what can I say it's a sore spot.

The in-laws flew in on Friday and just having them in the same state made me feel totally and utterly unsettled. I HATE feeling this way.

I guess the thing that really kills me is that I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY SHE DOESN'T LIKE ME!!

I mean seriously guys I am a likable person REALLY. Getting along with folks isn't a problem for me. I have great manners, a great personality.

Exhibit A. my high school yearbook  is just chuck-full of pleasantries such as "you are the nicest person I know" "and "don't ever change."

Exhibit B. ex-boyfriend's mothers all LOVED ME.  I mean I haven't had too many boyfriends but of the ones I've had there's not a single mom that didn't like me. In fact we all became the BEST OF FRIENDS! Really we got along just splendidly. We got along so great that there were some boyfriends I didn't even want to break up because that meant losing his mother as a BFF!

But just like Debra from Everyone Loves Raymond there's no good reason for her mother-in-law to not like her. 

In high school I had this cult obsession with the movie, "Empire Records."

There's this scene where Liv Tyler whines to Renee Zellweger that "Deb" (their co-worker) hates her. Renee responds, "Yeah, she hates me, too.  But I have enough sense to hate her back."

I think a lot of newlyweds/wives go that route. Figure, hey she hates me I'll hate her back EVEN MORE. And they talk tough about how horrible and miserable their mother-in-laws are and act like they don't care that they don't get along with the woman that gave birth to their husband.

Well,  I am not that tough-talking girl. Trust me, I tried to act tough and be all like "I don't care" with the attitude of a 14-year-old but that front didn't last long and ended up with hot tears spilling down my cheeks in a very public place (not one of my best moments) that sure didn't stem from NOT caring but caring and caring a lot and feeling really hurt.

It makes me sad that my mother-in-law and I don't have a relationship-that the thought of visiting my husbands family this Mother's Day causes me so much angst and anxiety. It hurts my feelings that I see her be perfectly nice and warm to others which makes me realize she's capable of being nice but only feel coldness from her.

Of course this is MY version and not hers. She may very well argue that I am the cold, standoffish one.

Well today is the day AFTER Mother's Day and I am here to tell you I survived. Dare I say, the tension is even becoming a little less between us. Of course I took preemptive measures like making sure I wore pants to cover the veins in my legs which my mother-in-law had no problem pointing out the first time she met me and I made sure to not eat any bread so as to not provoke her saying out loud how bread turns into sugar and then fat.

Yes, I say it was almost a success.  Sure it helped that after politely saying "hello" and I wished her a happy Mother's Day we retreated to opposite corners of the patio. (Not an easy task considering the patio was about the size of a closet.) Baby steps people baby steps.

For newlyweds that just naturally mesh with their spouse's family-good for you. It really is a blessing to get along well with your in-laws. This has not been the case with this marriage. I think meshing into a new family is tough especially when your spouse has already got a weird relationship with his own family it makes it really hard to navigate.

I don't think my mother-in-law and I will be the best of friends EVER. I still feel uncomfortable at family get-togethers but I do think it's getting better.

I am just thankful that this visit didn't send me to the brink of despair which past visits have. I actually even didn't stay up all night worrying about it like I have in the past and most importantly my husband and I did not fight ONCE over his family.....of course they don't leave until next Saturday....there's still time to screw this up.  :)

Brilliant!

I  mean really the whole thing was just perfect, wasn't it?

I'm taking about the Royal Wedding, of course or specifically Kate Middleton Princess Catherine's dress.

I know everyone's seen it by now but here's what I could find from google images just to allow ourselves to drool just a bit longer.

I really wasn't into all the hoopla, was never a Royal obsessor but the media told me otherwise and I  willingly obeyed and ate it all up.

I got up somewhere around 5 o'clock-ish and am a bit embarassed to say that it's noon and I've spent the majority of the morning watching all the coverage as well as googling Grace Kelly's wedding dress and other celebrity weddings which I will conveniently include here for you to relish as well.

Can you say the word iconic?

The only other recent wedding gown with sleeves that I could think of was Ivanka Trump's dress.  And boy was it gorgeous.

Beautiful. There's really nothing more to say. This commoner-wedding lover got her fix today and I should probably do something constructive with my day other than goo-goo-ga-ing over dresses.

 

Facebook is a bride's worst enemy

You know how it's supposed to be this magical moment when the bride and groom see each other for the first time on their wedding day? Well on my wedding day when I walked into the church and got my first glance at MY groom he looked pissed..not exactly the storybook moment I was envisioning.

Later on my husband told me he got super annoyed when he saw his crazy brother-in-law jump in front of the professional photographer we paid good money for so he could get the money shot of me walking down the aisle on his camera phone.

HIS CAMERA PHONE.  He got in the way of our professional photographer and the photographer's fancy schmany camera so he could get a shot of me walking down the aisle on his CAMERA PHONE.  And then he proceeded to take that photo of me on his camera phone with my eyes half-closed and making some weird face and posted it on Facebook.

Imagine my surprise when I got back from my honeymoon and went back to work to have people I barely know tell me, aww welcome back I saw your wedding pictures!

Really? How is that possible? I mean I barely even KNOW you and I haven't even seen the pictures from our photographer.

One word for you. FACEBOOK.  Yes, for girls like me Facebook is our worst enemy. And when I say girls like me I am referring to insecure, type A personality control freaks that do not photograph well on your CHEAP CAMERAS and are less than thrilled that you decided to share theses photos with 200 of your closest friends. 

Listen, I am not a photogenic person. I know this. It's been painful growing up with two very photogenic sisters. So I know that my wedding photographer had his work cut out for him but little did I know that everyone and their mother thinks they're a photographer these days and felt it was their duty to photograph our wedding day and promptly post them on Facebook without even bothering to think hmmmm the bride does look a bit cross eyed in this one maybe I shouldn't post. NO! OF COURSE NOT.

I know it's silly to some but the fact is a bride wants to look and feel beautiful on her wedding day and years from now wants to look at her wedding pictures and think, "damn I looked hot...what happened to me??"

But seriously this is an important day and the reality is most people don't take good pictures and most of the point and shoot cameras our there don't do justice to the DRESS.

I know this for a fact because the photos of me in my wedding dress that wound up on Facebook are NOT GOOD. So yea, I guess I'm a little sensitive about photo-taking at weddings and believe that you should "leave it to the professionals."

So when I attended a wedding last week of a dear, dear friend I may have been a little miffed when the lady next to me kept getting annoyed because the photographer [as in PROFESSIONAL photographer] "kept getting in her way" as she phrased it.

The first time she complained about the photographer I kinda just politely smiled and shook my head. But after she started doing ninja moves to get IN FRONT OF THE PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER I felt I had to intervene. And so next time she complained about the photographer I responded,  "well, they did hire HIM to take pictures and not you" and added a small laugh at the end in hopes that it would come across as light and airy because you know I'd hate to offend her.

Luckily for me she was not offended at all; in fact, she spent the rest of the night focusing her attention on me and getting embarrassing pictures of me out on the dance floor.  Her favorite picture that she snapped was one of my armpit. Yes, the open bar had given me the confidence I needed to think I could dance and she got the perfect close-up of my armpit while I was dancing with my arms in the air. 

I am waiting for it to surface on Facebook.

I guess the title of this post should be anybody with a camera that I am not paying a few grand to make sure I look good is my worst enemy.

Fit Pregnancy

Let me just preface this by saying, No, I am not pregnant BUT that doesn't mean I don't have a right to browse through Fit Pregnancy magazine if I'm killing time at the book store waiting for my ride, right?

Well, apparently Barnes and Noble doesn't think so because Fit Pregnancy is wrapped in a plastic cover which means I can't read the magazine for free which is what my intention was.

I've had my eye on Fit Pregnancy for a while now. It's one of the magazines promptly  displayed  in the checkout line at Whole Foods at Columbus Circle and since I seem to find myself at Whole Foods every other day (yea we're that household that does not buy in bulk or plan weekly meals and so somewhere around 4 o'clock we  I realize that we've got nothing for dinner and make the pilgrimage to Whole Foods)   I always check out the cover and vow I will not make the same mistake I made with the small fortune I spent on bridal magazines.

Real Simple Weddings, Martha Stewart Wedding, New York Weddings...yup I bought them all.  And seriously folks, I could've really saved a bundle if I had just went out and bought a damn subscription when the whole wedding madness began.

Martha Stewart Weddings costs a whopping six bucks an issue but I could've gotten the ENTIRE YEAR for 12 bucks!

NO, I WON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE!

But I'm a bit superstitious and can't bring myself to BUY the magazine when I'm not even pregnant...maybe that's like a no-no you know...kinda like the same theory of you shouldn't go wedding dress shopping or ring shopping if you don't even got a man.

And even though there's ALWAYS a mad crazy line at Whole Foods there's never really enough time to browse through the magazine.  You gotta be alert at Whole Foods--there's a very complex (no, not really but it does seem to befuddle newbies) numeric color coded system that designates your corresponding register.  But enough on the checkout line at Whole Foods because this is not about Whole Foods this is about me wanting to flip through Fit Pregnancy Magazine!

Which sadly I did not but somehow ended up flipping through a bunch of bridal magazines....Oh wedding planning how I  miss you! Just like a bad relationship now that all this time has passed it's so easy to just remember the good times.

Two Steps Forward...Two Steps Back

Be proud people I just applied to a job. Granted it's 1:15 in the afternoon and I told myself I wanted to be done by noon. It was definitely morning when I started working on it.  Hey, at least it got done.

For anyone out there on the job hunt...I feel you. Applying and looking for jobs is no easy task. It takes sheer determinaton to not just throw in the towel. Sure, it sounds so easy 'please submit your resume and cover letter' but writing a cover letter takes me for-EVAH. You can't just have a generic one you know-you want to tailor it to the job description plus I periodically send lines from my cover letter to my sisters and BFF for them to proofread to make sure I'm not commiting some kind of gramatical sin.

So, I've got one more job I want to apply to and at least one "networking" email to send but I'm procrastinating because I really find this whole applying for jobs and interviewing for jobs thing to be EXHAUSTING to my soul and mental happiness. 

But still be proud people because I did get one application done. Granted, I finished off a bag of my favorite Easter candy during the process....

Old People Class

Every Monday and Wednesday at 10:30 if you need to find me I'll be at the gym at my "old people class." I recognize this is perhaps, not the most politically correct way to describe my gym class but that's what I call it.

Technically, I think the class is called "Fit for Life" or something like that. It was the first class I ventured into taking after joining the gym earlier this year and I didn't really know what to expect. I got to the class early and there was an older lady already there that greeted me with a warm smile and told me I'd need hand-weights and a mat. Soon others started arriving and I couldn't help but notice they were... umm...kind of older than me...  I figured since it was during the day that the class would be full of stay at home moms but stay at home moms would be more like my age group and this was NOT my age group.

I actually thought about going to the front desk of the gym asking if this class was for seniors but what if it wasn't and what if someone in the class overhears me...I'd hate to offend anyone but at the same time I didn't want to spend an hour stepping from side to side for aerobic activity. I came here to burn calories damn't! 

Let's just say I totally walked out of that class thinking that perhaps the man upstairs couldn't wipe the smirk off his face.  Stepping from side to side?? Yea I'll show you stepping from side to side!!  I totally broke out into a sweat in the first few minutes and was sore for days. It was such a good workout and the people in this class are friggin' hilarious.

Do you remember this commercial from the Superbowl? It's a car commercial and it's set in a senior home where they're all talking over each other and yelling, WHAT? to each other.  This is my class.

Everyone knows everyone and have been working with the instructor for it seems like forever the way they talk. In my first class, half the ladies were more interested in gossiping asking the instructor,  "Have you seen, Jenny? Is Amy coming back?" I'm pretty sure this crowd was especially boisterous because it was right after the holidays and everyone was just catching up with everyone but it still made for one comical cardio session. The instructor plays off this crowd beautifully and never misses a beat. Ruth, your other left.  no your other left. NO YOUR OTHER LEFT.  There you go Ruth!

It really is a riot and I may call it my old people class but let me tell you these old people they mean business and could probably put a lot of younger folks to shame. My butt saunters in at 10:30 but they've already done the water aerobics class that started at 9.

I can only hope that I'm that active at their age. I totally give them props. And it warms my heart how kind they all are and how determined they are to do the moves even if they don't always get them right. One gentleman in particular is so sweet. Roy. Always says hello to everyone and calls me Miss. I have a huge crush on Roy.

So yea, I faithfully work out every week now with a bunch of "old people" that kick my butt and make me laugh out loud and that's my kind of workout.