It Hurts To Swallow

After a wild last week, this week was about as mundane and uneventful as you can possibly imagine. Since the majority of my reader base is from Iowa, you can possibly imagine. The general breakdown is this: I sat at my computer, applying for about five jobs a day, hearing nothing back from any of them, and spending my evenings with Rose and Ruby. I was more than happy to do the latter. Rose and Ruby are great. The hostel and its inhabitants have taken the form of a perverse surrogate family, and Rose and Ruby feel like the siblings I can relate to the most because either, a.) they speak English, b.) are not absolutely bat shit insane, or c.) are closest to me in age and interests. To stick with that analogy, Gweat’s is our older brother that came back from the war…a bit different. I will be sad to see Rose and Ruby leave to go back to Ohio next week. Very sad. But the former, me not being able to land a job, is getting somewhat obnoxious and scary.

As an English major, I am no stranger to feelings of inadequacy. But to have graduated from a respectable college (an oxymoron, and a phrase used maybe more than it should be) at the top of my class, coupled with a strong work ethic and can-do attitude, and still not being able to land a single entry level position job is disheartening. To not even hear anything back from a one of them is simply humiliating.

So be it. I’m in the eleventh hour now. My funds are evaporating. It’s do-or-die time. My options are either to find a job, any job, no matter how below me I think it is in order to stay in California, or trek across the country in the Cougar back home, broke and broken, live with Jay and his current wife until I can land a menial job, save up money to return to California on, and return to California, and start from scratch again. Might as well cut out the middle-man and try to make it out here.

I chewed up my pride and swallowed it. The taste and consistency reminded me of Children’s Tylenol. Then I got out there and pounded the pavement. The Cougar and I strolled up and down Pico Blvd. looking for jobs. I picked up applications for Starbucks, Subway, Barnes & Noble, and any store I saw that might have high turnover rates and low standards for what they hire. I happened across a movie theater that just so happens to be having open interviews tomorrow. I’ve always wanted to work at a movie theater, seeing as how I love movies and they are the reason I left for Los Angeles in the first place, but the opportunity has never been feasible until now. Besides, I’ll need something to do when Rose and Ruby leave.

Returning to the hostel, I banged out a few applications before preparing to meet up with Ben for what is becoming a weekend tradition. Over the past several weeks, we’ve frequented a karaoke bar in Burbank called Dimples. Aside from the Gaza Strip, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a more unpleasant experience in this world than the one you’ll have at Dimples. But that’s a story for a blog I didn’t write. Tonight, Ben and I met with a fellow Iowan making her way out in California named Christy and her fiancé Wayland.

Through circumstances out of my control, I arrived in Burbank to meet with Ben later than expected. Then, Ben and I got lost on our way to the meeting place roughly three miles away from Ben’s apartment. Christy and Wayland were kind enough to not mind we showed up forty minutes late. Or if they did, they covered it up really well.

It was nice to meet with two people that have a similar background to myself. Even in the global village we all now live in, where everything is homogenized, everyone has access to the same everything, and the world is very much at our fingertips, that common bond goes a long way. We know of the same streets and buildings and things and people, and have similar ideals. That goes a long way when you’re in unfamiliar territory. It gives complete strangers an automatic linking bond.

Christy informed Ben and I that Ashley Tinsdale, a High School Musical alum was eating at the same restaurant as us. Neither Ben nor I knew it was Ashley Tinsdale—we only saw a group of attractive girls sitting at a table outside—one of which happened to be a popular actress. This will be my first run-in with a celebrity to my knowledge in Los Angeles. I could also give a damn less. That’s not to say I don’t find it cool to be eating at the same restaurant as someone famous, but I don’t get too hopped up just because someone has been in a highly popular television movie(s). Now, if Jack Nicholson were to be within a football field’s length from me, chances are I would start to infinitely crap my pants. I respect his work as an actor, I’ve read many an interview with him, and love what he has to say about life and the lessons he’s learned along the way. I would get star-struck for someone like Jack. But it’s based around a respect for what he does and how he does it. It is out of an appreciation for his craft, not just because he is a recognizable face and a marquee name. Oddly enough, I tend to react the same way when I hear an ice cream truck and its driver.

After the celebrity dinner, it was back to the hostel, back to reality.