magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

i got a phone call this morning confirming that the vegetarian cafe had in fact hired someone else. 'we really liked you, but a ton of people came in.' blah, blah, blah. it was nice of them to call though.

i buried my head back under the covers and had some odd dreams. when i finally got up, i talked to annette on the phone, george and daniel briefly online. and spent most of the afternoon browsing the help wanted ads on craigslist. with a few more potentially compatible finds.

the most exciting was an entry level illustration job with a company that designs movie posters. i sent an email with my resume and link to my online portfolio. was almost immediately sent back a number to call. but it was very cold and formal. the want to see a print portfolio. gave me an address. i don't have anything in print form, although i suppose i could put something together, take it to kinko's and get it nicely colour lasered.

there's also another vegetarian restaurant. a nightclub in brooklyn that says enthusiasm is more important than experience. a theatre prop shop looking for an assistant.

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sometimes it's just so easy to forget. washing dishes, i found myself mentally in stef's jetta, driving down south lamar past the target shopping plaza towards william cannon. cooking dinner, i felt as if i would eat, watch some tv, and then she'd be coming home from work. i don't really understand why we're not together, why i'm here in new york looking for a job, when i'm supposed to be wherever she is.

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i received two emails today commenting on friendship and the last few magicbeans entries. from cybèle:

I feel like I've been selfish a lot recently, but tonight I stayed up to finish an article I promised my friend Wendy for her zine. I would have liked to perfect it but that's not the point, in your reponsibilities to people, in looking after friendships. Anyway, it was really good to get your email just now. I have to visit soon, maybe next weekend or the one after.

and edited a little from my response: sometimes i feel like i really am such a crappy friend, that i don't look after my friendships, except when i can get something immediate in return. chris told me the other day that he had thought that we would have one of those friendships that just sort of faded away. that maybe he'd attend my wedding some day, but that we probably wouldn't stay much in touch otherwise. he was saying it in such a way as to say that he was really happy that i was in new york, that we were hanging out again. and that is something good to come out of all this crap, but the main reason i'm in new york is that i can have my friends around to make me feel better. which feels so selfish and self-absorbed, even if it does have the consequence of making other people feel better too.

and so after saying all that, i would like you [cybele, and anyone else i haven't seen in a while] to come and visit. which might sound a little hollow, but i hope that it comes across as something actually heartfelt. i really do like to have friends around, and not simply to make myself feel better, but because life is better with friends around. that's sort of the point. i'm just a little too numb and depressed and caught up in the stress of my life to fully appreciate it all right now.

and mail from er!n. in her old, no-spaces style (spaces added back in for readability):

i don't know what to say i've reached out at times when my own life was upside down i say i've reached out expecting my hand to fall on something if nothing more than a wall but even stranger it seems i reach right through someone or something that seems only to know a shadow of me a shape like me something someone who has still never asked a question someone who i often think doesn't care much to get to know me somehow i feel like having you push me over some sort of ledge would be better than continuing to walk delicately across the surface of our friendship you know i read somewhere that the phrase walking on water was how they spoke of treading water years and years ago Christ himself may have been doggie paddling

it makes me so sad to hear things like this. am i really that inept at the basics of interpersonal relationships? or is it just the way that certain people read me? i've known er!n for six and a half years, and she still feels like i only really know a shell of who she is. if i had to make a list of my closest friends (and i sort of did in deciding who i was going to invite to receive magicbeans updates while i kept them offline), at least half of those people are people who i have hardly spoken with in a six months, a year, or even longer. is that my fault? or is it endemic of the way life works?

what happened to having a group of friends, like in high school, or on tv shows, who you see pretty much every day? who you share the small and large events of your life with. why is that not the life i'm living?

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on a completely different note, i took an online quiz tonight that will match you up with the best choice of presidential candidates, based on your own social/political/economic beliefs. (created by aol/time warner, so take it for what it's worth.) it gives you a ranking and percent match. there wasn't any real question in who was going to come out at the top of my list: kucinich, followed by al sharpton. it was a little more interesting to see how the more mainstream candidates matched up to my views. kerry and dean were in the low 80s. edwards and clark in the low 70s. lieberman another 10 points down. and then george bush, with a measly 4%.

it's sad to see that kucinich, while gaining a slight bit of momentum, is still basically without any delegates. i've been seriously thinking about registering to vote, despite what doing so would do to my anarchist cred, so that i could support a politician who i actually believe in. but should i register in new york, connecticut, or texas? should i choose the state i feel most connected to? the state where my vote will have the greatest impact? the state in which kucinich is highest in the polls, and has the best chance of winning delegates? the state i'm, gasp, actually living in?

or do i succumb to the apathy and resignation bred of a failed system?