I saw Stevie Wonder! I have no idea what the fuck he was doing at the event, but he was like 20 ft away from me. I tried to take a cellphone picture, but it was too dark.
Today was a day of minority stereotypes being perpetuated in the most hilarious of ways. and BREAKING! Not all black people can dance/have rhythm! This was learned the hard way.
So I had to do a piece of “creative” writing about DC, for the Job I’m Not Talking About, and it gave me a lot of trouble. Which was incredibly confusing at first. I love DC and generally, I have lots to say about things I like. Anyone who has ever tried to talk to me about Serious Things when I was drunk has likely realized this. Yet, here I was, tasked to write a poem about DC, something that should have been easy as breathing, and I was coming up blank.
I stopped thinking about it in favor of more pressing non-poetical matters, and then I overheard some people talking about what makes you a local, and it gave me a pause. I am legally a resident of the District of Columbia, but this year I will only have spent a maximum of 4, not completely consecutive, months here. Last year I only spent one month in DC, and only 2 weeks of that was consecutive. I don’t spend any time here anymore. It’s not really my city in the way it was in High School. It’s hard to write intimately about a city that you only recognize from memory, not experience anymore. The streets in my head don’t mesh with the streets in front of my eyes, and it’s jarring.
I have unhooked myself from one city, but I have not attached myself to Chicago. I go to school there, but I don’t fell like I live there yet. It is more of a home, because I am there more of the time, but I am struggling with calling it my home. I don’t know it and it does not know me. I know the airports better than my (is it mine? I want it to be, but it isn’t yet) neighborhood.
I’ve become transient and homeless. I am a step above living out a suitcase; I live out of drawers that aren’t mine. When I unpack, it is with the knowledge that in a few months I will need to pack again. Where I used to ground myself in my room, in my things, what I thought of as “my space”, I must now find stability in what can fit in 2 suitcases and a few boxes. My family is downsizing, so in a few months my mom will take what is left of my childhood, the things that managed to make it through 2 prior moves, and decide what gets to come with us and what does not. 19 years in two boxes, that’s it. I always knew they planned to sell the house, but I still thought of my room as my room, a place to store what was left of whom I’d been, but needed to keep, so I would remember what was important to me then.
DC is the home of my heart, but the home of my body is whatever I can carry with me, and anything that does not fit, is too heavy, and can’t be shipped stays behind. I am trying to tie my sense of self, into myself, not in the things I have, because I will not have an actual permanent residence for years. I don’t have a magazine subscription, because, where can they send it? How many addresses will it be forwarded too before it realizes I don’t live anywhere long enough for it to catch up with me, so it gives up, and it returns to sender?
I have an oddly complicated relationship with the past, so I need reminders of who I was, so I can remember why I have changed. It’s why I like tattoos; I plan on building an inked record of myself that I can carry with me on my skin.
I ended up writing about Chicago, but I changed the names and places because at the end of the day, a city is a city.
In the dark, they all sound and feel the same.
This is Part two. It has very little to do with part one, except that they are both things that have happened to me.
So I have a weird, complicated job that is hard to explain, so I’ve stopped trying to explain it. Mostly. But my Mother taught me that when you get a job, you do it and you do it well. This is not a common sentiment? That is one of the things I’ve learned this summer. Competency is something that I find incredibly attractive (Oo Boy. I see you filing that stack of papers before you’re asked. C’mere and let me holla at you), and that I aspire too. Competency is so hot right now. However, however, however, I seem to be in the minority in this regard. So I’ve been doing a lot of extra work, because my two group members suck their teeth so much they’re going to loose a tooth, and, like I was a sarcastic middle schooler, okay? But I have never rolled my eyes this much. I won’t go into my delicate sensibilities being offended by how rude and disrespectful a lot of these kids are, but. My delicate sensibilities, they are hurt.
So I do a lot of work, and it kind of pisses me off, but I do it anyway because it’s my job and no one else is going to do it. And we were told that we weren’t going to get overtime, so I was mostly doing this out of the “goodness” of my heart, i.e. I literally can’t comprehend not doing something you are tasked with, even if you’re only getting 30 hours of minimum wage for it. You do it cause it’s your job, the end. But last Friday I learned that I might (Might, might, maybe, we’ll see) be getting compensated for the extra work I’m doing. This made me happy (more money! maybe), but also, still pissed me off. I shouldn’t be getting compensated, possibly, for work that someone else should be doing. There is above and beyond, and there is picking up slack. I hate picking up slack, and something about (perhaps, could be, we’ll try) getting paid extra for it, sits with me funny.
I think this is what some people call Morals? Maybe, could be, we’ll get back to you.
This is why you don’t complain. Even in your head, even in your blog, even to your mom.
I am very busy now. Over the next week I have 11…stories? things? that need to be written. They range in size from a two sentence blurb, to a properly fleshed out article for a newsletter. I am not counting the number of e-mails I need to send. For some reason, e-mails take me eons to write. Facebook messages too. If you have ever received one, be cheered by the fact that I agonized over it for at least a full ten minutes, even if it ended up being 3 sentences long. I don’t pretend to understand my neuroses, I just accept them and move on.
ANYWAY. This would usually not be a big deal, but I am working on ridiculously short deadlines, I am a perfectionist when it comes to my own, non-academic(!) work, and I am going to Canada all weekend for a wedding. So this all needs to be done by Thursday. Did I mention that I don’t get payed overtime? I don’t get payed overtime. So pretty much all of this is happening in my “free time.”
Did I say I was going to stop complaining? I am going to stop complaining. The silver lining! I will have a portfolio with two (2!) journal type things that I helped create and so many writing samples it will make me vomit. Vomit with the awesome (?) experience I am getting.
Brighter news! I have some really fucking cute shoes for Steph’s wedding. My French teacher is really adorable, and makes me feel bad for knowing enough French that he thinks I understand him, when in fact I have just mastered the “ew/uh” sound French people make, and their vague hand motions. I’m an actress, not a French speaker, and unfortunately there will be no scripts on the night when I go to Paris. Too far?
His adorableness makes me forgive the fact that because of his class, I don’t get home till 9:30 on Mondays.
I am the same sort of tired that starts clawing at my eyes and bones during 4th week. I shouldn’t feel like this; it’s summer. It’s catlazinesslimeslowdrowsyhotstickysun tired, not cycling between so tired you can’t sleep to so wired you pass out the moment you’re horizontal. I’ve had a headache since 11th grade that won’t go away and I’m afraid it’s what the rest of my life will feel like.
The shoes are real fucking cute.
Today went well. I will do doing a shitload of writing this summer, which is incredibly exciting. Writing and interviewing and putting together an arts journal. If all goes according to plan (what plan?) there should be a tangible object with my name attached to it by the end of the summer.
I miss having art I can hold.
That said, I will be “blogging” for the DCCOAS so I might save all of my angry job rants till after the summer, just in case. I have barely begun; it would blow to be fired. But there will still be normal rants? I don’t know, I am kind of an angry person and not very good at holding that anger in. WHAT CAN YOU DO? But yes, today went well, I am optimistic, Truefacts job starts tomorrow, I am joining a gym(?), I made a delicious cheesecake, and I did not make too many snide comment in my head.
I am also going to make a second tumblr to dump my “creative” streamsofconsciouness (I like it better as one word). My writer’s block has left like a bird in winter and I am embracing this before it returns. It may or may not be linked here, who knows.
A link for your time.
Today = Still moving forward
Have been frustrating, to say the least. I’m not here to gripe, well no actually this is my blog and I can bitch all I want, but I’m so done with this job thing, so I’ll keep it short (Note: Not actually short).
The Summer Youth Employment Program (Shit, The Kids Need To Do Stuff So They Don’t Kill Each Other), started by our “lovely” Mayor, basically provides jobs to DC youth ages 14-21, or at least it’s supposed too. These “jobs” range from getting assigned to a national park that sends you home every day after half an hour because they don’t need you, to a White House Internship that has you working 9-5 every day. My position is with the, let’s call it the “DC Commission On Artsy Shit” (DCCOAS), and it falls in between. The job has two parts; let’s call them “Dubious Art Project” and “More Legit TrueFacts Job.”
The Dubious Art Project takes place in Anacostia. Anacostia is in South East DC. SE is known for its gun violence. The wall right across from the building we work in used to be a “murder wall.” It had the name and date of death for everyone in the neighborhood who had been killed. It was nearly full. Now, there are really nice parts of SE, and where I’m working doesn’t look (mostly) like the projects, but I’ve lived here for a really long time, and prior to this summer, had only been in Anacostia once. I was doing clean-up on the Anacostia River, so it kind of doesn’t count. Now, I will be spending all of my Tuesdays in Anacostia. You can’t imagine my joy.
The DAP has many parts: a mural, 3 documentrais, and a radio program all about Anacostia. I am on the Radio Program, and by August we’ll hopefully have a half-hour segment that will go on NPR. Whoo, NPR! The downside is that all of the other “deliverables” (the official term for the DAP’s) need research and “stories,” and my group is responsible for all of them. Read: Now that Alexis has started doing Real! College! Reaserch! It will never stop.
We met the artists we’ll be working with, and they are totally legit. It’s mostly the DCCOAS that’s failing. They are, and I quote, “building this ship as we sail it.” Now I’m not a shipwright, but that sounds like a very Bad Idea. But hey! I’m Not In Charge. I do have some hope for the Dubious Art Project.
Now, the More Legit TrueFacts Job still hasn’t started. I secured the position of Press and Media Assistant at an art gallery awhile ago. I’ve been e-mailing my boss for like weeks, but she can’t have me start till STKNTDSSTDKE says I can start. Which is now next Wednesday, more than a week after I was supposed to start. Instead, I’ve been going to “orientations” for two days to get placed at a position I already had, or, like yesterday, not needing to go into “work” till 4:30, when I had to interview for a position I already had. The interview started at 5:00, and I basically made jokes the entire time. But my boss said they liked me, so bully for me!
Today all I had to do was turn in 4 different pieces of writing, 3 of which I conveniently already had. This will count for my hours this week since technically, STKNTDSSTDKE started on Monday. Whoops?
This was not short at all, but there’s really no concise way of explaining this. But! In happier news, the cupcakes at Border’s are really good and I have a cute new vest. Priorities!
This Week= God, is it over?
