fiction (untitled and in progress)

Claire licks her lips. Not seductively, but because they were dry and she forgot her lip balm when she switched bags that morning. She has about seven lip balms scattered around her apartment and in different bags, but somehow she forgot to transfer one into her big tote bag before she ventured outside today. It’s mid-Autumn and the humid summer air is finally receding. She likes the cooler, crisper air that comes with Autumn, but she couldn’t stop licking her dry lips. She looks down and notices her ankles are also dry, and digging in her bag for lotion she realized she forgot that too.

She is sitting on a park bench in the middle of the city. The other half of the bench was occupied by an old woman when she first sat down, but the woman got up and walked away with a friendly smile after a few minutes. Claire will only sit next to old women at this park. She is wary of the older men and nervous around the attractive younger men. Old women are usually a safe bet; she feels comfortable smiling at an old woman.

reasons why I'd be totally content to work part time right now

I'm currently being considered for two different part time position in my field. I am totally happy with this. If I could miraculously get both of these jobs my life would be awesome. Job 1 is at an after school program a few blocks from my apartment. For a part time after school job they've made me go through a whole lot of steps and I'm hoping my continued interest will act in my favor. And they'd be crazy not to hire me. After school programs are my thing. I've written papers about it. Job 2 is a part time library position at a Catholic school. It would only be two days a week but with a schedule flexible enough that I could still do the after school job. I love the idea of working in a school library. I love books and I love seeing kids get excited about books and I would like to share my excitement about books with kids. I saw the library and it was a little sad, but I'm confident that I could make it awesome. Hopefully I convinced the principal that I am serious and enthusiastic about this part time opportunity.

Part of me feels like I should be more ambitious and try harder to secure full time, grown-up employments. But, then again, 7+ of unemployment has kind of crushed my spirit and part time jobs might be all I can handle right now. These two part time jobs in particular would be good on my resume and I feel like I could learn and grow as a professional educator.

Here are a few more reasons why I'd be content with part time employment:
- I'd be able to make ends meet, if not overlap. I've gotten so used to being so broke any steady income would be wonderful. I've done the math and these jobs would allow me to pay my rent and my bills and probably have some cash left over for food. Anything consistent would be better than the constant state of broke-ness I've been experiencing currently.
- Free time! If I'm only working 20-30 hours a week I'll still have loads of free time for comedy things and friend things and fun things. And I won't have to rely on the kindness of my friends to buy me drinks when we go out. And coming up with septa fare to get around won't be a constant struggle.
- I could ease into the whole "career" thing. I may be highly educated, but I am not very experienced in terms of work things. It might be nice to be able to ease into it with less pressure than I'd get from a full time teaching position.
- I am so damn tired of applying for job, writing cover letters, and going to interviews only to be rejected again and again. I can only handle so much rejection.

Seriously guys. I am so sad and so broke right now. I need these jobs. Waiting a week or so to hear about them is awful. So if you see me in the next week and I seem off, that is why.

people i interact with at open mics

I've been trying to go to more open mics lately because I have a lot of free time right now and I should be taking better advantage of it. Going out more has made me noticed there are generally three kinds of people I interact with at open mics (or don't). I'm going to break it down in a list because lists are fun and easy to do. And these are generalizations and probably vague descriptions and if you're a comedian friend I encourage you to try and figure out what category you're in (or don't).

1. People I'd like to talk to, but don't
These are mostly people who have been doing this comedy thing a lot longer than I have and are more "legitimate." I only want to talk to them if they're people I find funny though. Sometimes I'll say hello to these people or even a few more words than hello... sometimes these people will even say "good set" to me and I'll wonder if they mean it or if they're just being nice to a lowly noob open mic comic such as myself. I'm wracked with insecurity. It just want to be liked! But I get nervous talking to most people and I'm easily intimidated.

2. People I truly enjoy talking to
These are people with whom I've had real actual conversations in real life (and probably on facebook too). People I like. People I feel comfortable talking to outside comedy shows and open mics. People with whom I have stuff in common beside doing comedy things sometimes. People with whom I can talk about actual life stuff if I want to. Or not. (There's actually a lot of gray area between these three categories now that I think about it.) There are more people I kind of am comfortable talking to than people I truly enjoy talking to. (Why did I start out ending with a preposition and then try to not to that and then just go right back to it? Am I trying to prove to you that I went to college? I minored in Linguistics so I could totally draw a grammar tree showing that it's permissible to end a sentence with a preposition if you want to.)

3. People I really don't want to talk to
These are usually new open mikers and they are usually drunk and nervous. It's not that I don't want to impart my limited wisdom ("Whatever, man, just have fun with it. And stop drinking.") Sometimes these are just regular drunk people and sometimes they are hitting on me (I think?) or just getting in the way of me talking to people in category two. I don't really enjoy talking to drunk people. Unless I'm drunk, in which case I'll talk to everyone. But I try not to be drunk at open mics.


This list is probably over-simplified and incomplete.