I didn't get the job

Peg, you're right. Thursdays suck.

Oh, if only

Last night I dreamed that I was at home, having dinner with my parents, when Pockets called me. She told me that enough time had passed, that she was sorry, that everything could go back to the way it was before. She came over, and we hugged.

Then I woke up.

The thick early morning fog here that rolls in off the Pacific is really beautiful.

Brief update

The temp job continues apace. Still no word from the job I want--I touched base with them yesterday and they're still checking references/in process. Grr.

Spending a lot of time writing, thinking about money, thinking about the future. Part of me wants to give my brain a break and get out more, another part wants to just hole up and hunker down. But the writing is going well and I'm cooking a lot.

Sorry this post isn't more informative/interesting. That's the bane of working life, isn't it, one day just bleeds into another, they're pretty much the same... which is not to imply that I'm depressed or bored stiff. Far from it. I'm just...floating. For a little while.

Money (insert opening bars of Pink Floyd song here)

I just realized this is the first full week of work that I've worked since Easter. I don't like it any better now than I did then. And while I was bored and restless for that month here in San Diego, waiting around in my apartment for something to happen, it was infinitely preferable to being bored and restless in an office. Then again, it was the same feeling I had in New York before the road trip, just waiting around for something to happen. Lesson: something should always be happening. And not in the "I need you to schedule nine meetings for me with these 12 people" kind of way. Lesson: quit whining about it and make something happen.

That being said, my financial situation is nigh untenable at this point. Thanks to the trip, I've recouped all the debt I managed to pay off earlier this year. What I'm making as a temp now is better than nothing, but it's not enough per month to pay all my bills, and I'm not including food, transportation, or electricity in that. But now I'm just really, really tired of having to work bullshit jobs to pay my creditors. I want to be able to take a $12-an-hour job in a kitchen if I want, or to hit the road for a few days, or to be able to save money toward a house, or whatever. And John has debt, too, so I think we will need to come up with a game plan to tackle all this and get it wiped out as soon as possible. I'm not too proud to reuse Ziploc bags and make my own dishwasher detergent in the meantime, and I'm no longer interested in spending a lot of money on clothes and shoes (that's the good thing about California being so uber-casual; I no longer feel the need to continuously update my wardrobe the way I did in New York. Hell, I wear clean pajamas to the grocery store, I'm doing better than half the people there already), and I already know how to make delicious rice-and-bean variations, so hopefully it will just be a matter of carving out the game plan and implementing it.

Speaking of ways to cut back, I have discovered that San Diego has Zipcar. O happy day! I can walk or take public transportation to work, and then use Zipcar for my occasional errand-running/going out needs, completely eliminating any need for owning a car. Now, one day I'd like to get my A3 back; but even if I had a car (and the money to support it), I think I'd still want to walk or take the bus to work. I'm not a patient person, and traffic makes me want to shoot people. I don't need to deal with rush-hour traffic every day, I'd blow a gasket. At least on the bus I can read and ignore it. Plus it's cheaper.

I did break down and buy a new watch. I lost my old one, the one I'd had for ten years, somewhere in the Vancouver hostel. I've been without one ever since, and while for the most part I did fine without it, I did miss it. My arm always felt a little naked. Now it doesn't anymore.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of fiscal responsibility, I priced out Christmas plane tickets from San Diego to St. Louis to DC and back to San Diego again. The cheapest I could find was $600 apiece, with about nine different connections. So, fine, but $600 x three people = too much. The crappy-ass airlines don't need any of my hard-earned money, thankyouverymuch. But get this--it's actually cheaper to rent a car and drive three people cross-country and back again, even with gas prices being what they are, than it would be to fly during Christmas. What's that all about?

It's all about the little things

One of the things I love most about not living in New York is being able to shop at Sam’s Club again. I know, I’m weird, but something in me rejoices in having large quantities of pantry basics and non-perishables around. Why buy a 5-lb bag of flour for $4 when you can get 25 lbs for $8 at Sam’s? It’s interesting seeing the regional differences—in Mississippi, I can get red beans and andouille sausage in bulk; in New York, I can get five different kinds of pasta and egg creams; in Virginia, I could always count on pine nuts and country ham. Here, there’s a bare minimum of pasta and no beans at all, but I can get tripe and beef cheeks in bulk. I’m attributing that to the fact that I’m about 15 miles from Mexico. But it does mean a bit of a readjustment in my shopping list (okay, I can’t get penne or pine nuts or red beans in bulk anymore—but I CAN get short ribs). I went to Sam’s this weekend and loaded up on some yummy stuff—short ribs, sausages, avocados, tomatoes, nectarines, crab (which is expensive on the West Coast, even at Sam’s, and I can no longer get fresh never-previously-frozen shrimp), dried fruit, etc., etc. It’s been a couple of days of good eating, much to John’s lunchtime delight. He seems new to this whole eating-leftovers-for-lunch phenomenon. Bachelors are funny creatures.

Anyway, so the other night we had crab cakes with mango salsa on sautéed rainbow chard; last night we had lamb chops with a corn-cilantro-tomato quinoa; and O Joy of Joys, I found a foie gras connection. The nearby Bristol Farms, a gourmet supermarket which has the advantage of being within walking distance, has some very good smoked bacon. Normally I get bacon at Sam’s (bulk bacon!) but the selection on Saturday was more bacon fat than bacon, so I wandered down to Bristol Farms after work yesterday to replenish. I gabbed with the meat counter guy for a while about the possibility of ordering fresh shrimp (no) and pork belly (yes), and then noticed they sold foie gras.

Now, I could only buy foie gras in whole packages in New York. One whole liver tends to be about a pound and a half, and at $80 a pound, that was too rich for my blood. Every once in a while I could find canned foie gras somewhere in small tins, but you know my feelings about anything canned. But the meat guy agreed to give me an eighth of a pound of fresh foie gras last night, in beautiful thin slices, which meant I had a mini-gorging session when I got home. It was all I could do to save some for John. This is a very exciting, but potentially very expensive, development for me.

Tonight I think I’m going to use up the last of loaf of French bread to make French bread pizzas, and then make a mango-avocado salad to go on the side. A mango-avocado salad in New York would be the height of fruity decadence; but they’re so cheap here, it’s almost like eating beans. Tomorrow I foresee a butternut squash and roasted shallot risotto with a dandelion greens salad on the side.

Zombies and lardo

I'm down to one of two final candidates for the dream position; just in time for John's birthday, on Friday. We celebrated at The Linkery, which makes its own sausage and blends its own red cask wine, which, YUM. The clear winner of the evening was the lardo ice cream sandwich--ice cream made from cured lardo, between two big chocolate chip cookies, with candied bacon on top. Now I have to learn how to make lardo ice cream. We finished the evening partying with the young college kids in the Gaslamp district. These kids today, I tell ya. Not one of them can actually dance. (Not that I can.)

Yesterday was spent recovering from a Friday-induced hangover and grocery shopping. It's sad, but one of the highlights of moving was the realization that I could once again shop at Sam's. I can't even begin to tell you how cheap avocados are here, in bulk. I've also learned the joys of the San Diego library system--all the books I wanted in New York, but available faster! We ended the day with John's co-workers at Zombieland. This really actually is a totally awesome movie. I was skeptical at first, but when one of my all-time idols made a cameo appearance, I was won over.

"If you loved me, you'd update your blog."

...was the message I got on Facebook today from not one but two friends. So okay, okay.

I'm temping in a financial firm, doing almost exactly the same things I did in my last two jobs. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I am now firmly convinced that I would rather make no money than ever hear the words, "We need to put together a presentation deck for the year-over-year cost analysis recap meeting," ever again. But it's a paycheck, and the job is within walking distance, so that's a very nice perk. Still. I'm interviewing again tomorrow for my dream job here. Offer sacrifices to the God of Theatrical Jobs for me, will you?

I'm starting to get a little restless. Once the apartment was put together, I really wanted to get out and explore the city, check out the local restaurants and bars, hang out at the beaches, etc. But it's hard to do that when you have no car and your boyfriend works all day. We're going out for his birthday dinner tomorrow night, to a local gastropub which makes its own charcuterie and specializes in craft beers. I know, it has "Jenny" written all over it. But so far as I can tell, he has no restaurant preferences. When I told him where we were going, he said, "How do you know this stuff? You just moved here." To which I replied, "How do you NOT know this stuff? You've been living here for two years!" Which is not meant to be a criticism--people have different spending priorities, and I'll be the first to admit that my restaurant/going out expenditures often make mere mortals hyperventilate. But it's a little hard to adjust my sightlines from New York to...the rest of America. (To which you will say, "Didn't we do this once already? Did you not learn your lesson last time?" To which I will say, "I'll be able to spend Christmas by the pool here. So there.")

Quite a few of the things I really loved about New York are missing here. There, it was considered normal to go out every night of the week, for men to own multiple pairs of $200 designer jeans, to not have cable, to not have a car, to be able to talk intelligently about current world affairs. Here, you're considered dressed up if you wear an unwrinkled polo shirt. No one my age seems to go out more than once a week, max, and my walking less than a mile to work has already earned me more than one "Wait, you WALKED? Where's your car?" (Okay, rant over.)

That being said, the weather here really is spectacular, everyone's much friendlier and more laidback than in New York, and no one (even in finance) works past 5. And I can grow basil and tomatoes on my deck year-round. I will just have to learn not to grit my teeth when I see 40- and 50-year-old men wearing baseball caps and Tevas with socks. But I'll be damned if I give up hanging out in gastropubs and wine bars. (Grin.) Now that I have a job, I hope to start frequenting some of the places I've been reading about--even if I have to take the bus there. I want to go OUT. A LOT. See, that's me. I'd rather spend my money eating good food in interesting places than own a car. I know, I'm weird.