Keep Out of Direct Sunlight

Happy 4/20 to everyone, first of all, from the 9th biggest stoner city in the US.

Anyway, news:

I’ve started a fresh job hunt, because things have finally become unbearable at the movie theater. My manager is mad at me because two people in the last five work days have made complaints about me being rude to customers. This is largely due to my being a reserved and modest person who speaks in a soft monotone, which some people interpret as a great personal affront, despite that it’s supposedly irresistible. Thus I’m looking at even fewer hours than I already have. Add on to this Julia moving out, which means I’ll need to pay as much as $150 more a month than I already do, and it gets ugly indeed.

Luckily, there are a few options open. I just filled out yet another application to Borders, and completed their Kafkaesque 25-page e-ppraisal full of agree/disagree questions that range from strangely dark (There’s no use in having close friends because they will only betray you) to ones that would really depend on the circumstances (You love to hear people talk about themselves) to the ones where I had no choice but to political (It’s maddening when guilty people go free). Once again, I have no idea how I scored, especially since I had to lie on about 30% of them. But who knows? After all, I have 2.5 years of customer service experience at the theater alone. Just don’t ask what the customers think of me.

Then there’s the option of getting some menial seasonal job at IBM (where Nick works). I could make as much as $12 an hour just for delivering mail, and it has the added benefit of not having to serve the public anymore. It would also be good for saving money in the event that I decide to finally leave Burlington.

Or I could apologize to my manager for no adequate reason and keep working at the theater and in poverty. But, no, probably not.

As for Partyville USA, I’ve been writing every day. Thanks to those who got through it’s lengthy exposition, I promise from here on out it’ll be nothing but dark and miserable awesomeness. On a side note, for those of you who have been gracious enough to read, please keep an eye out for disposable material. You see, I’m hoping to submit it to horror magazines, and none of them will accept anything more than 10,000 words (and most take less). That section I posted alone is about 6,500 words. With your help, I might just be able to get it into a good journal like Weird Tales, which would be a nice feather in the cap to have on any further query letters I send out for Caterpillar (about 15 rejections and counting!).

So yeah, lots of strife and misery abound, but I’m mostly okay as long as I use it towards positive action. Keep your fingers crossed cowpokes.