I should probably just chill out and try to have some fun with this no job thing.

Weeeeeeee! I am adrift on the shining currents of the ChaoFlux! WooooOOOoooOOOoo! Look at me everyone, I'm freeeeee! I'm flyyyyyiiingggggg! WahaYYYY! Hail Eris, I'm Outside Your Systemmmmm!!!!



Mmm. Not getting my yayas. Maybe this is more fun if you're fourteen and with rich parents?

However... I really must yank my head out of this obsession. Fear is interfering with my ability to attack the situation creatively. I need to step back the ways and get some perspective.

I'm planning some ancestor-related hocus pocus over the next few days. Tomorrow, obviously, is Halloween/Samhain; I shan't be partying as such, so I will be able to focus on the ol' mumbo jumbo. Also, I'm having my healer's meet. I might be able to get some leads from them (if not paid work then at least some voluntary). Then on Monday it's Tot Sants, which is a big holiday here. All job-hunting activities will have to be curtailed in veiw of this so I can use the time for quiet reflection and Sim City 4.

I feel bitter.

And twisted. Twisty twisty bitterology. My quest is fruitless; I nibble not on the fruity goodness of the Hired but on the nasty-tasting, 5p-a-packetonion-flavoured-corn-snacky horribleness of the jobless.

This sucks. I mean, how many agencies do I have to sign up with? How many CVs do I have to hand out? How many want-ads do I have to respond to? What the hell is going on here?

I feel like I'm missing something. Like there's some trick or route or grant or loan or person or body or company or whatever that everyone else knows about and I don't. I need some kind of help and I don't know who to ask.

Rejection.

Got turned down for a couple of jobs yesterday. One had just been filled and another turned out to require fluent Catalan. This is not a kvetch, you understand. I like those reasons. They are good solid reasonable reasons and I respect them.

When applying for jobs in Spain I've been very careful to keep the epilepsy quiet. None of the appos I've filled out have had a "Do you suffer from any chronic disease?" box but even if they had, I'd have been tempted to commit a tiny sin of omission. Why? Because you're all a bunch of ignorant morons, that's why. You read a couple of video game warning lables and your tiny tiny minds leap like circus fleas to entirely the wrong conclusions.

"Well, I don't know why you're applying for this job, Ms. Carnival, since the advertisment stated quite clearly that you'd be doing data entry and you can't use a computer. Your application form says that you have epilepsy!"

(Note: For maximum Pissing Mordant Off points, the word 'epilepsy' should be delivered as if you were going to rinse the phone out with Vim after you've said it.)

My all-time favorite was the bigoted ninny who told me, in tones of barely-restrained glee, that they couldn't possibly employ me because I was a fire hazard.

A fire hazard.

Yes, it took me a while to work out too. As I recall, I said something along the lines of "Beh?" Eventually I managed to follow this idiot's Hornby-sized train of thought back the ways and realised that because her mind was so tragically little, she was forced to file any physical condition she didn't understand under 'disability'. She'd come across the old fire hazard excuse used to deny wheelchair users employment and had liked it. Liked it so much. Fire hazard! Brilliant! She'd probably lain awake at night in bed,* dreaming of the day when she could wheel it out and reduce someone to a puddle of impotent simmering rage. So when she sees the e-word on my form, it's like all her birthdays** have come at once.

When I'd stopped saying "Beh?" I got myself together enough to point out politely that I was not actually in a wheelchair and in fact had (still have) full mobility. Stairs and everything.

"I know," she says, a little disappointment creeping into her tone.

Pause.

"But..."

Pause.

"Umm..."

Pause.

"But! You could have a fit, right, while there was a fire, and people could... trip over you!"

Pause.

"Beh?"





*Or borg alcove or slime-pod or whatever HR officers sleep in when they're not being tubesteaks for a living.

**Possibly Spawning Day. Or construction date.

To do.

Sign up with Spanish course.
Ride Telefonica's collective glutes about why I still have no shagging telephone line in my flat.
Try to get those two water bills taken off next month's rent.
Find an affordable swimming baths.
Sign up with those two agencies I found in the paper, plus assorted other job stuff.
Fix broken window in flat.
Go and look at some Barcelona places of outstanding beauty and awesomeness in order to remind self that the above is all small stuff and should not be allowed to bug me.

The sun is shining.

When I leave this internet café, it will be hitting the painted plaster of the buildings just so. I will feel better just for looking at it.

Things are brittle in my life right now. Everywhere I put my mind, it bangs up against the sharp edge of something: work, the temporary nature of my dwelling, my anxieties for the future, the gnawing, itching gaps in my knowledge and education.

I'm making tentative plans again now, very tentative. I'm going to sign up for one of those cheap language courses, though I don't know if I'll be able to complete it (I'm sure anyone who knows me well is just dying of shock at that notion; it's just that if I find work I might have to quit).

I've been applying for more and more jobs; I have a daily minimum of 6 job leads, which I usually exceed. I've had a few nibbles but no interviews as yet. I've been making things again, and my writing's picked up a bit. Tomorrow I will go to the park and flypitch for a few hours, see if I can't get a bit of cash that way.

I don't feel lucky. Something needs to change.

My imagination is broken.

I can't work; there's a hole in my brain. When I poked around in it, I saw it had two narrow lips and a rudimentary tongue, the better to whisper of cash and the lack of same. On the uvuala was tattoed a Euro-sign. I've tried taping it up with elastoplast but it works itself free every time, muttering on and on about all the things I can't do or have. Between paragraphs it tuts like a clock, or sniggers at the ragged lines of my CV. It lays out every mistake, every missed opportunity like a Tarot hand and it reads me a shabby fortune. At night it doesn't sleep. It spins the same line out into the deeps of my dreams, dangling a sharp hook baited with fear and greed. I wouldn't mind but the voice is so much like my own.

Shouty people.

I was coming back from the shops yesterday and there was this woman waiting outside the main door to my block of flats. She stops me as I go to open the door, and in this rather peremptory manner she asks me if I know anything about a flat to rent. I tell her I don't. She keeps me hanging around whle she rummages in her purse for a bit of paper where she's written down the details: apparently she has arranged to meet the lettings agent, R., at six. (It's now ten to, something she confirms with a grudging look at her own watch.) I confirm that she's at the right address. She asks if I'm R. I tell her that no, I am not R. She asks which flat is being let. I tell her I don't know. She won't accept this and asks me again, a bit louder. I repeat that I don't know. She asks me where the lettings agent is. I tell her that I don't know, but that R. should be here at six. I ask her if she'd like to wait in the lobby; she angrily refuses.

Durng the whole conversation she's getting snappier and snappier, with much tutting and sighing and rolling of eyes. I'm trying to find a polite way to disengage myself from the situation, but she's just asking more and more questions. Finally she asks one that I not only can't answer, but can't understand. I ask her to repeat it. She rolls her eyes so hard I think they're going to fall out, and repeats herself. I tell her I don't understand, and apologise for my weak Castilian. She repeats the question several times more, louder and louder, until she's yelling at me, yelling this incomprehensible question in my face like an insult. I apologise again and tell her that I still don't understand. "Well, you should understand!" she screams at me. "You should understand! You should understand!"

At this point I decide that hanging around this crazy freak is over and above the call of duty. I tell her to stop shoutng at me and finally get the door open. I hurry inside but the woman's shrieks of "You should understand!" don't abate. I snap. As I close the door I say, in English, "You are a very rude person!" and then practically run up the stairs.

I know that it's not really acceptable to do that (have a go at someone in English when you know they don't speak it, I mean) but I just lost it. I mean, all I was doing was trying to help her. I still don't get what she was so pissed off about.

I really hope she doesn't move into my flats. I think I've had more than my fair share of psycho neighbours.

Superpissedoffness.

So I wake up this morning and discover that there is no running water in my fucking flat. No. Running. Water.

Panic panic, zoom around trying to work out what the matter is, phone water company. Am informed that I haven't paid my last two water bills. Explain that I've only been there for three weeks. Attempt to convince woman on phone that I am not responsible for bills. Woman on phone is unconvinced.

Trudge into town with rent contract, find water company's office, show rent contract to woman at desk, explain sitch. Explain that as I have only been living in the flat for three weeks I am not responsible for ect ect.

Woman at desk a picture of distain. I live at the address on the bills, ergo I am responsible for paying them and it matters not a whit that I am not the person whose name appears on the bills. After much back and forth I am forced to accept that the only way to get the water turned back on is to cough up for two quarters' water, for a flat where I've been resident since the end of September. Fifty fucking euros just because the wankstack before me was too tight to pay her bills before she moved out.

I am unimpressed.

I'b god a code.

I hate getting colds, even more now than I used to when I get them all the time. Now they've got shock value. I've been sick as a dog. Except that a sick dog has a dry nose.

Quadraplegic killed for smoking dope.


http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6282


From the article, it sounds like they whipped this poor paralysed guy off to gaol (for a first fucking offence, mark you), failed to provide him with a ventilator and essentially let him suffocate.

All this over a little bit of mary jane. I'm trying not hope that the judge chokes to death; it's really rather hard work.

(Via bigdave357)

Edit: More over at the Washington Post.

Hey everyone.

Apart from the fixable by me stuff, all that stuff in my flat that was shagged the last time I wrote is still shagged. The promised repairman never arrived and my landlady remains incommunicado.

I'm feeling bleh. Sedantary. Sullen. My head crashed during the move and I'm having trouble rebooting it. For the last few days I've been jobhunting like a... like a... like a... well, like a very broke Mordant looking for a job and not much else. All I do is dump CVs at temp agencies, bother agencies who already have my CV ("¡Hola! ¿Usted me recuerda? ¡Estoy aún buscando trabajo!"), eat, sleep and excercise. Haven't been sewing huge felt doll heads with misaligned googly eyes and pointy teeth; haven't been taking bad wonky photos of the new barrio; haven't even been writing. (Well, not proper writing. I'm still blogging, making increasingly bitchy messageboard posts, and churning out word salad.) Which disturbs me, coz writing is sort of my basic level of functionality normally, and non-writyness tends to mean that a certain degree of hatstandness has crept in.

I need a push. Someone push me.

Stuff in my flat that is shagged:

1) The fridge. Yes, it is nice to have a fridge again, finally, but the seal at the bottom leaks. Duct-tape will make all things right. Duct-tape is one of my favourite substances in the world in space.

2) A window. Or rather a foot-square pane of glass in the door to the balcony. Not a security issue coz there's a big ol' wooden shutter that can be bolted across it, but not good from a heating perspective.

3) The sofa. Being somewhat penurious, we plumped for an inflatable job from Ikea. On opeing the box we found not a sofa which was inflatable but eight sort of rubbery rectangular bottle things that can only be inflated with the aid of a hairdryer (which in our case we have not got) and which need, in order to function sofarily, to be inside the special Ikea cover (sold seperately).

4) A light. The wire which dangles from the ceiling is mended in the middle with a smidge of tape. Many things can be fixed with tape and will function as advertised. Not this.

5) The loo. The flush is knackered.

This irks me. I am irked. I hate it when things break that I can't fix with duct-tape.

Busy busy busy.

Been a pretty active time, what with one thing and another. Went back to the old flat to pick up a few things and do a spot of cleaning on Thursday. This, of course, rapidly mutated into a full day's cleaning and three bags of stuff which had to be lugged back over packed public transport. Still, it's all over now and I can focus on the really fun stuff, like finding room for all our crap in this itty little flat and trying to persuade someone to give me a job. I'm already signed up with 3 agencies in the area and they're making fairly positive noises.

Artistically: I haven't been up to much, due to extreme and protracted moving related interference. I've managed to work on my puppet heads and this felt doll thing, which I hope to make a few of to sell in the park.

On the mumbo-jumbo side: I have been feeling my oats lately. Been doing a lot of the usual healing stuff, with some okay results. Other than that I've been doing money drawing and work related bits and pieces using hoodoo equipment and techniques. (One of the great things about my new gaff is its proximity to several handy magick shops.) Mostly I've been focusing on the training and strategic spending of hunting money, with some hopeful results, but now that things are a bit more settled I'll be doing something a bit more substantial--reforging my hematite bracelet, putting together a spell-in-a-bag to take out when I go job-hunting, stuff like that.

Over and out.