Sunday, May 21, 2006

interlude

This is a blog about nothing. Or so it seems. There's been plenty of exciting news lately though. A new job -- and I mean a real one with my own desk and business card and all. A new visa. Real weekends, because when you have a real job, one is enough.

So what now? For the first time in months, and I mean many months, I have free time and my checking accounts proudly shows a 4-digit number in the column where it feels good to see a 4-digit number, not the other one that gives you the creep.

Now what?

It's going to be a lot of hard work to keep that position, but still, it feels kind of weird all of a sudden not to have to worry about paying the rent anymore. Not to have to put cents into rolls and bring them to the bank to buy food. Not to have to worry about my status here. All of a sudden, life seems so easy.

That job with that cute little visa, it came just in the nick of time. The week before I started I shot my knees. A little gift from my previous jobs, I guess. Now, for the first time since 2004, I have a little card in my wallet that says I can go to see a doctor and won't have to pay full price. I can't help but wonder what I would have done about my knees if it wasn't for the new job. How long I could have kept my other jobs with my fucked up knees, how long it would have taken me to put enough money aside to be able to see a doc?

And then, I realise what I have done over the last 2 years. It's scary. You do what you gotta do, when it's over you look back and you're scared. You realize how desperate your situation was. How the recent events are a miracle. Just how close it was.

Why did all this happen now? What's the difference? I had written better cover letters than the one that got me this new job, and for positions I qualified even more and I didn't get shit. The job interview was ok, but I did better for another job application a year ago almost day to day.

It makes no sense.

I go to restaurants and bars and watch the waiters work and think I couldn't do it all over again. I hope I will never have to wait tables again. Behind the street windows of closed banks I see guys in uniform mopping and I hope I won't have to do that again either.

Now my mailbox is full of invitations to attend readings, plays, even operas. In June Sonic Youth will give a show in NY and I know it'll be easy to go if I can just remember to block the date. In less than a year, there should be a trip to France planned.