Bunny trails, jobs that are bad before they even begin, memory loss
Happy Easter. I’m looking at a rabbit in my backyard hopping around this very second. There are four or so that frolic out there all the time.
I’m not terribly superstitious so I refuse to believe I jinxed myself in my last missive by referring to a job I was perfect for (and consequently spending like an employed person). Anyway, I didn’t even get a second interview, which is shaping up to be my M.O. Apparently, I am incapable of moving beyond the phone screener stage.
They say jobs come through connections and one actually did last week but it looks so horrible that I can’t possibly get excited. In fact, I feel like quitting before I even start on Monday. I mean, it is remote with benefits, which are the only pros, but the Glassdoor reviews have headlines like “Just Say No,” "I contemplate jumping in front of traffic on the way to the office every morning,” “You'd Have to Be Clinically Insane,” and “Slavery 2.0,” plus the person who worked there and referred me, a fellow Queens resident who moved to Boston where this company is based, just quit. The opposite of auspicious. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, I actually have good judgment. Hopefully, this isn’t a new downward trajectory.
I’m really going to miss my free time. If the 50-hour work weeks with no weekends free claims are true, I won’t be able to do side projects like the profile of a local tortilleria for a national series about Mexican food in America or polish the so-so personal essays I’d imagined I’d have months to work on or come up with pitches about Glasgow since I will be there next month.
I’ve been lightly socializing with a woman who also used to live in Queens and moved to Portland last year and her boyfriend who I presume is in his 50s, so it is weird to refer to him as a “boyfriend” but “partner” is even worse, got let go from his NYC job, got severance, and is now working at Goodwill. This isn’t to make fun of that--I don’t know who reads this--but there’s no way in hell I’m going to work at a Goodwill in Portland in 2019. I did that for ten days in the mid-’90s, and one of my coworkers was a young, bedraggled Miranda July. And look what a success she turned out to be!
Coupled with my inexplicable migraines and consequent violent throw-ups in my car (which I just sold after less than one year of ownership because I’m crazy--not really, I just wanted lower monthly payments) and my back going out last month so I could barely walk for a few weeks, which made my weekend in San Francisco a few weekends ago slightly difficult, this might be the beginning of the end. I’ve also started snoring in the past year, which doctors love to grab ahold of in their blaming of sleep apnea on all ills (lack of focus, depression, high blood pressure, and more--not migraines, though) if you’re even mildly overweight. I’m not about to sleep with a mask, thanks. I was referred to a sleep study because I wanted to increase my dose of Concerta. In recent years, it’s become kind of trendy for adult women to be diagnosed with ADHD (sure, why not?) and autism (no thanks) and I love being a part of the zeitgeist. You can keep your CPAP machines--I’ll just take your prescription amphetamines. #sorrynotsorry
Or maybe it’s just perimenopause--ugh--the affliction I’m not actually sure is real or not. How could a ten-or-so-year stage in life be a medical condition? I belong to multiple facebook groups for women over 40 and this is a constant subject of discussion and I literally don’t know what people are talking about. Symptoms like headaches, fatigue, concentration difficulties, hot flashes (I get hot very easily but don’t have obvious flashes), forgetfulness, weight gain, fatigue, depression, muscle aches, anxiety or irritability, mood swings are absurd as these could be attributed to a million things.
Forgetfulness: Wednesday, I received a text alert that said UPS had dropped off a package at 2:38pm but I couldn’t find the package anywhere. I haven’t experienced package theft in this neighborhood before, so I turned to my Ring app which captures videos of doorbell rings and motion (which often means the city bus just driving by every 15 minutes or so) and saw that the UPS driver did indeed drop a package off exactly at 2:38pm.
Irritability: I then lost my shit because I had no idea where the package went. The package contained two bundles of vintage wool rug yarn because I had the bright, crafty idea to try and fix my rug that got destroyed by moths while in storage (which makes me even more irritable because it was a fairly pricey rug and looked fine when I rolled it up just over one year ago for the movers to take and now has big bare patches).
Fatigue: I started clicking into all of the Ring activity for Wednesday afternoon and got the fright of my life when I saw myself on video clearly going on to the porch and picking up the package like it was a horror movie where the protagonist sees footage of themself committing murder or some nonsense they have no recollection of. I then vaguely remembered bringing the padded envelope in and cutting into it. I was extremely tired and spacey that day because I had done a sleep study the night before and slept like four hours when normally I get a full eight hours-sleep (making me call further bullshit on apnea). I also nearly ran over a rabbit in my neighborhood when I was driving home at 5am and thought it was just a brown paper bag blowing around, then noticed the hopping motion.
Anxiety: I found the opened package in the trash outside but I have absolutely no idea what I did with the yarn. I always open mail and packages immediately and leave the contents on the dining room table and break down boxes immediately and throw papers in recycling. It’s not on the table or chairs. I’ve searched my bedroom and extra room. There’s no place else to look. I hesitate to re-order the exact same thing from Etsy for fear of looking nuts.
I didn’t intend this newsletter to be overly bodily in nature, but millennials are shameless and they will surely try to “own” aging as the oldest members are now 38 like Paris Hilton (strange reference, but I was curious). Even a Kardashian is now 40.