The Day I Get An Interview With Old Soul In Midtown And I Start Working At Fair Oaks Coffeehouse And Worry About Bills (Again) During The LOST Finale

I hate that I never appreciated my jobs in the past.

I hate that I never felt so happy in my entire life as when I was in the back kitchen of Fair Oaks Coffee House & Deli, washing dishes, getting paid. It felt amazing. This is an eight-dollar per-hour job, my friends. Minimum wage. But I felt like the goddamn King of the World when Michelle asked me to come behind the counter and put on an apron. This was a job. I was back on track.

You miss this when it's gone.

I think I'll like it there. Michelle's a nice manager. Eric is a good superior coworker--when he told me he'd been working there for over two years, I thought he was trying to fuck with me, but it turns out he's been working there for longer than Linda has owned the company. Linda is the owner who interviewed me last Friday, the long gray-haired post-hippie woman who wanted to express her creativity and so she bought a failing coffee house and turned it into what it is today. Eric knows about the place's history. And he's calm and collected like me, which is good, and today was a good day. A three-hour day worth $24.00 before taxes.

I'm reluctant to pay my bills, though both PG&E and SMUD are due. That's about sixty bucks, total, and I'd feel a lot better taking that out of my credit-card than using actual money, because rent's due soon and I'm not sure we're going to make it.

Scary, huh?

I don't know when to ask my family for help. That's what I'm supposed to do, right?

Conflict of interest?

In other news, I've got an interview with Old Soul Co., a coffee shop downtown that might be pretty sweet, if it weren't another coffee shop. I knew I'd only have luck with coffee shops. I'll need to up my game to win an interview with Old Soul, however, because they're a little more grounded. Pun intended. Coffee-grounds, grounded... So that's scheduled for Wednesday morning at 9:00am. Tomorrow I'm going to every major restaurant in the area, sticking to the Old-Olive-Spaghetti-Cheesecake-Factory-Garden variety, your middle-class classy.

I also feel like I might've missed two big opportunities today, but I don't feel like either loss was my fault. First I made sure to call West Coast Coffee (Stacey) in the morning before my training at Fair Oaks just to lie to him about having to go pick up my mom from the airport and tell him that I'd be available around noon, and that I'd call him then. So I go meet AJ at the dog park and call him around 12:15, but get an answering machine and no return call. At around 2:00, in a moment of desperation, I called again and got neither Stacey nor the voicemail. I think Stacey broke up with me. Goodbye West Coast Coffee.

Then I find a voicemail on my own phone that I don't remember getting a call for, and it's Dominic from the UFCW 8 and they want to set up a second interview. I thought I blew the first one, so it's a shock to hear this message. But when I call back, the phone goes straight to voicemail and I have to leave a message. Dominic never returned the call.

Carrots, dangled before me, yanked away at the last minute.

The purpose of life.

But I'm happy with Fair Oaks. It makes me feel good to work. I'm scheduled for 12:00 to 3:00 on Thursday. That makes this a $48.00 week (before taxes).

As if this wasn't a depressing-enough time of my life, LOST ended last night and I'm set to watch the finale with AJ later tonight. I can't imagine life after LOST. I can't...

- Left to Fry