It feels like yesterday that Keithers and I were sitting on the floor of our living room (we didn’t have furniture yet), eating delivery that we’d ordered using my iPad (we didn’t have internet yet).

I was always waiting for something to make me settle in. For my furniture to get delivered (so I could put away my clothes). For my bookcases to be put together. (so I could get those unsightly boxes of books out of the living room). For a dining room table, so I could sit down and eat a meal like a grown-up.

None of that made me settle into that apartment. And being a 20 minute bus ride from the Metro made me crawl further into myself, which, for an introvert is quite impressive. I would sometimes look at upcoming meet-up events, sometimes I would even half-heartedly RSVP, but I would always cancel. During the day The-Job-That-Was 2.0 just drained everything out of me (which wasn’t much).

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have gone back to that apartment after getting out of rehab. Nothing good has happened within those walls.

This is what it feels like: A month ago, I quit my job, moved to DC, and started a new job. By two weeks ago I hated my new job. A week ago I got back from rehab, and now it’s time to start looking for a job.

This is what it looks like: I am unemployed with a stack of medical bills. I have boxes to unpack – I live in Virginia now. I think I gained back all the weight I lost. I have a scar right between my eyes.

I don’t have an articulate way to end this, so I’ll just default to my go-to song lyric about time going by at a ridiculous speed:

And I thought about years; how they take so long & they go so fast

There are tons of songs about New York, lest I mention the line from a New Jersey born man himself “If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere.”

I remember New York in early mornings and late evenings. I remember coffee before work, and then often, beer with co-workers afterwork. I listened to “Leaving New York” too many times to count.

DC is not a place that lends itself to songs. There’s maybe 3. And one of them is a song about visiting DC.

Still, I’m going to give DC another shot. I’m moving to Alexandria, true, but the officially in the city stigma is different here than in NYC, probably because DC is so tiny. I am moving to a place a block from the Metro, so I have no excuse to not get out.

Things I will miss about Glover Park:

1) My super awesome roommate

2) Having a car (maybe?)

3) The black squirrels. I HATE squirrels. There are not enough words to capture my hatred of squirrels. But the black squirrels are awesome

4) Delivery options galore.

5) The flight path. I still don’t know what airport it goes to, but a flight path goes right by my bedroom window.

Things I WILL NOT MISS

1) Being a 20 minute bus ride from a Metro stop

2) The D2 bus

3) Not being within walking distance of anything. My roommate, who’s from the Berkshires said he can walk to a store in freaking Cheshire, MA (the “trashy part” of the Berkshires) quicker than he can here. And I’ve been to his house there, it really feels like the middle of nowhere!

4) Leaking faucets, drains that won’t drain, and lack of lighting in the living room.

5) Navigating the steep hill from my car to front door, with grocery bags.

6) The idiotic apartment management. I highly do NOT recommend Bernstein Management.

7) The creepy trees

The creepy part of Rock Creek Park being right across the street. And the antler-rats who something wander out into the road

My Top 3 Memories of This Place:

1) Singing/dancing to Tom Petty’s “American Girl” our first night here

2) Sitting on the floor of the living room (because we didn’t have furniture yet) eating take out.

3) Making a trip to Target in Falls Church early in the morning, having not slept the night before, and yelling at my GPS on the way back. And then making Keithers unload the car because he hadn’t gone with me and I was cranky as hell.

Yes, “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” was on as I drove out of the parking lot at work. No, I did not cue it up on my iPod. The universe is just amusing.

Thursday is my last day, and I keep catching myself doing things, with the frame of mind of “this will make my life easier in the future,” and then I realize, “Wait, no, I won’t be here.” Somehow, part of my brain thinks that this temp I’m training is just that; a temp, and that I’m going to have to come back and handle CLE forms and update benefit plan provisions.

I didn’t get to take a carload of stuff to DC this weekend, and this entire move has been riddled with set-backs and roadblocks, and it’s all very frustrating. I think the moving process is my least favorite thing ever. I just want to be settled. I keep thinking that I just have to make it until Saturday, but even then, we won’t have furniture yet. And then, my parents will be visiting the weekend of the 18th, and I would really just like to get through that first visit, because I know exactly how it will go, and I can’t relax until it’s done. Oh yeah, and there’s my first day of work on Tuesday. That should be interesting too.

I know all these thoughts are normal, as are the pangs of nostalgia I feel for everything about my soon-to-be-former job.

I want to speed through the next few days, so I can just get to DC and get settled. But I’m still not ready for this to be over. I guess I would never be ready. That’s where “look if you like, but you will have to leap” comes in. That you have to take a step before you’re ready; because if you wait to be ready, you’ll never take this step.

Now, regardless of the fact that I am leaning towards actually executing this Plan, there are still several issues. One is that it is summer, and I do not intend to go anywhere at the moment, because summer is a terrible time to look for work anyway. The second is that I would like to reapply for the Libertarian Fellowship. I am unsure at this point whether I will apply for the early deadline (so maybe I can know that I am rejected by XMas again, and not pin any additional hopes on it) or if I should wait until one of the later application deadlines.  Third is that I still prefer NYC to DC, and even though the MAJORITY of jobs are in DC, there are still a few good ones in NYC, and maybe I could wind up with one of those, however unlikely.

Did I mention Polite Boy started asking me legal questions on his own behalf, and then started ARGUING with me over my answers. And these weren’t wavering opinions, they were STATEMENTS OF FACT. And yes, I know the law is up for interpretation and what have you, but he was trying to go into all this technicalities that were irrelevant, because his overall premise was wrong.

He was also suggesting that it would be okay to lie and claim that he never signed a piece of paper, because it wasn’t notarized and therefore they can’t really prove he signed it. There are a number reasons why this is a stupid idea, the first being, of course, “committing perjury is a bad idea.”

God, I am a magnet for tools.

Next summer, I plan to be one of three places: DC, NYC, or Europe. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten with The Plan.

Ok, that’s not quite true. Three things that need to happen before I go anywhere.

1) Pay off my car. It’s a 3 year loan, through March 2012. I know that if I wind up in NYC I won’t need a car (and maybe not for DC either, depending on whether I live in DC proper or N. Virginia) but paying it off before I try anything big is a psychological neccessity. I’ll worry what to do with the actual car when the time comes.

2) Save up $5000 strictly for COBRA. There is the “go without health insurance” option but since I’m trying to responsible/smart about the potential leap, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Based on what COBRA cost me during my brief stint of unemployment in 2008, that will keep me for 6 months.

3) See a dentist. I must, must, must get over this fear and get my teeth taken care of. And I need to do it while I have dental insurance.

There are a few jobs to put in applications for this week, but I’m not expecting much. This process sucks, and I am sure Joe is thoroughly sick of talking with me about it. I think that if I don’t find anything by September, I will seriously consider just taking the huge chance and moving to DC with no job. And then make job hunting my full time job, and also, probably try to get temp work at the same time, but with the lousy economy, that seems unlikely to pan out. This is all probably just speculation; I don’t think I have the guts to make such a move. I don’t have to move to DC. My emergency fund is supposed to be just that – emergency funds, should I lose my job, not luxury money to play with because I can’t stand suburbia another second.

Joe is trying to get me to think of it in terms of time as a valuable resource, as in, I feel like I’m wasting away my time here, and if DC is what I really want to do, I should just do it, and worry about rebuilding an emergency fund later. But I know myself. I am responsible about these things, perhaps to a fault, and perhaps out of fear. I am a Hobbesian. I value security, perhaps over all other things.

And I always do the safe thing. Always.

And then also; May is going to suck. So much is going on at work. I’ll make some money from overtime, but I also haven’t applied to one job this week and the whole month of May is looking to be the same type of frentic pace. And also; it’s already May.

Last night, in one of my half written drafts, I started to think about a May, a ten years ago May, a May that was dreaded and referred to only in hushed tones, but that, when it arrived, my utter impatience had already forced the issues and dealt with the fallout, which softened the blow and it was anti-climatic. I think of six years ago May, which was eerily the same, in which I viewed more sunrises than in the rest of my life combined and drank black coffee at 2 in the morning. Four years ago May was about silence and quiet regrouping and the beginning of the best of times. Two years ago May was bold faced lies to myself and everyone around me as I pretended to get well.

While one year ago May was just about survival, this May was supposed to be about another beginning. I warned Keithers that I might not have a job by May, that the job market was tough, but really, I’m pretty sure that a part of me was sure I’d have a job in DC by now. In February, May always seems far away and like a time when things will be different.

This May is about false hopes and real, but vague longing and trying not to get depressed about my 27th birthday. May reminds me of New York and makes me desperately miss lunch breaks in Midtown and the way the city shimmers at 9PM on a Thursday and it makes me ask “DC who?” This May is weekends at work, for overtime pay to stash away for a financially secure exit to who the hell knows where, and brings the reminder that I’m not going anywhere this summer except back and forth on the oh-so-familiar curves of Route 287.

April is allegedly the cruelest month, but I can’t find a one word way to sum up May. I just want to get through these thirty-one days. Starting the countdown from today.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/04/30/thirty-two-days/feed/ 1 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/03/30/reset/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/03/30/reset/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:04:43 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6663 I have not applied for a job in a week.  There is no (tangible) difference between a week when I send out 50 applications and a week when I send out none in terms of getting me a job in DC.

But I think my head is back in the game. I actually LOOKED at postings today.

March was pretty much a total failure. I went to the gym ONCE, I did not get my Quintessential Nice Summer Dress altered, and I cancelled my dentist appointment. Today I was feeling guilty, so I made another dentist appointment, this time with some guy who is 5 minutes from work and advertises dental hypnosis on his website and is probably a quack, but I am ok with that.

Oh and I also decided I am no longer going to check my work email from home. I’m not “supposed” to anyway.

Tomorrow is another day.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/03/30/reset/feed/ 2 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/03/22/ineffectual-messes/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/03/22/ineffectual-messes/#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:17:56 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6649 I have this long, sappy post that I wrote Friday morning while on the train down to DC, that I’ll probably post (and backdate) later. I spent Thursday night with (most of) my favorite people on the planet, playing trivia. None of this would mean anything without them, so I was very happy we were all able to get together.

Friday, I took the train into the city and as usual, had time to kill before my train to DC. I was walking around Penn Station, having my usual internal freak out about how the city still feels like home, and I have this deep, visceral love for it that can’t be put into words, and why am I trying so hard for DC when NYC is home? I can’t describe it, but even in the blocks around Penn Station, where no respectable native would find themselves for any longer than necessary, there is just something that feels right.

(For the record, even if NYC is home, it’s home in an entirely different way than Jersey is. )

And then I got to DC, and the weather was beautiful, and I spent Saturday evening walking around the Capitol Hill north district with Michael, and I thought “Well…I guess I could do this too.”

I like to project, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Anyway, the weekend was quite nice and it was very good to get out of Jersey for the weekend, even though getting back on Sunday was a hassle. Now I’m back at work and it’s rainy, and I hate the federal government. Basically, they’ve taken all the worst aspects of the U.S. Healthcare system and found a way to make them worse in one ridiculous, ineffectual bill. My prediction is that anyone who currently has issues affording healthcare will still have issues affording healthcare 5 years from now. Also, if the rhetoric-realism chasm is too deep and allows for Sarah Palin to step in and win in 2012 I…well, I’ don’t know what I’ll do. Probably write an outraged blog entry about it.

Grawrl. I’m conflicted on who to side with. Just reading facebook statuses from both sides of the argument last night was frustrating.  I don’t believe health care/insurance is a fundamental right, but I also don’t believe that the Obamacare is shades of socialism. But I don’t think it’s anything to celebrate, regardless of which side of the issue you fall on.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/03/22/ineffectual-messes/feed/ 0 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/03/16/grrr-foiled-again/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/03/16/grrr-foiled-again/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:50:59 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6641 Arg. So after much internal debate (and some external harassing of other people with my “should I go to DC this weekend?”) my boss basically tells me I may as well take Friday off because no one will be here and it’s also going to be nice weather.  So yay, I decide I’m going to DC.

And this turns out to be the one weekend that Keithers will not be around.

 Arg. I’m sure it’s probably for the better that that makes my decision for me. I have the money to go, but I shouldn’t necessarily spend the money to go (because ((crosses fingers)) eventually I’m going to need to go down to DC for interviews)

Though by saying things I’m probably just tempting fate and facing the wrath of the thing from high atop the whatever.

But I am so bored in Jersey and I’ve pretty much exhausted the social options here. I want to do something different. I know, I’m whining. But the nice weather makes me cranky, because it makes me want to be living in a city.  So now I have to decide if I’m going to bother taking Friday off.

Arg. Back to sorting invoices.

I had an epiphany on Monday night regarding my somewhat newfound vehement desire to move to DC: I blame the West Wing. In a very short period of time, I watched all seven seasons of the West Wing (which I had never seen before) and became obsessed. My history shows that I am an EXTREMELY suggestible person. This can be seen as both good and bad. On one hand, DC is the best place for me, career wise (if I can ever get a freaking job) and I have always known this. However, I have discounted DC because I didn’t “like” DC (translation: it’s not NYC). And it’s true, I still might have some lukewarm feelings for DC itself. Therefore, West Wing has helped me to have a more positive view of my potential future city.

On the other hand, I just shouldn’t be so fucking suggestible.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/03/10/before-wordpress-ate-my-post/feed/ 1 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/02/17/shes-a-highly-specialized-key-component-of-operational-unity/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/02/17/shes-a-highly-specialized-key-component-of-operational-unity/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:57:50 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6595

.

Points if you get where my post title is from without googling.

I feel the need to clarify something from yesterdays post (she says, defensively). Much of my woe is coming from the fact that I can’t even get an admin assistant position in the field that I want to be in. Two commenters pointed out that this is the way to go if I’m serious about DC (and they are right) but I have applied for admin positions at every foreign policy, or foreign policy related think tank in DC.  As well as various other interesting places.

There are a number of places where I want to work where I don’t care what the job is – I just want to work there! These positions pay about half of what I’m making now, but I’d manage. Someone just has to hire me first. My fear is that in order to move to DC I’ll have to take another legal assistant job (or worse) which isn’t really my field and I’ll just get trapped in it because all my experience on paper is in it.

The other thing V and I were lamenting is “entry level” is both a misnomer and a double-edged sword. For example, these positions will claim to be “entry level” and they will pay entry level wages, but then they will ask for three years experience and in the end it’s basically an admin position. On the other end,  I have been viewed as “too experienced” for entry level. The number of times my snobby Masters degree has raised the eyebrows (and not in a good way) of the hiring person is astounding. They question why I’m applying to an “assistant” position and they question why I’ve been working in as an assistant.

Existential crises aside, do these people not understand having bills to pay? I’ve been at my current job for a year and a half. A year and a half ago, I was running out of unemployment and I couldn’t afford to shop around for the perfect job. Now that I’ve built up some savings (and I have the luxury of looking while employed) I can be choosier. But my experience, particularly my type of experience, is generally looked down upon.

I know that this all sounds defeatist and terribly know-it-all-ish. Who am I to claim that I know the workings of a hiring manager’s mind? I could be projecting, right? Thing is, I truly feel I’m being pragmatic and realistic with all of the above, and that if I let myself think otherwise then I’m being delusional.

Which perhaps is another puzzle. I believe I experienced this when I was job hunting immediately post-college. That is when I was interviewing for every receptionist/assistant position in NYC. Including one at a glue factory way the hell out in Brooklyn (seriously, it was a looooong ride on the R train) staffed solely by Orthodox Jew.

That was an awkward interview.

On the plus side I put $500 in my savings account this paycheck. On the negative side, I spent an obscene amount of money on clothing. On the plus side, I will be returning a large percentage of it, so no harm done. Mostly.

Now, to get a job in DC, so I have a place to wear all my cute clothes. Suburban Jersey + no dress code at work means I’m wearing jeans and plain sweaters everywhere.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/02/17/shes-a-highly-specialized-key-component-of-operational-unity/feed/ 5 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/02/17/dream-medium/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/02/17/dream-medium/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:18:45 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6593 One of the main reasons I haven’t wanted to get all angsty about the Great-DC-Job-Search (other than the fact that whining is not an attractive quality) is that I don’t want to listen to people tell me that I’m being fatalistic, or that I CAN do it, or making suggestions about what I should try.

Here are the facts: I never had a fancy (unpaid) DC internship when I was in college. I could have one summer, but it would have involved paying for houses and not making any money. I chose instead to go home for the summer and work. There were lots of factors involved in that decision, and at the time, I wouldn’t have been happy in DC, but I am paying for it now. I have NO DC experience, and this is somehow relevant even for non-Hill jobs (I don’t want to work on the Hill). The Libertarian Fellowship was so important to me because it was a back door into DC. A shortcut, so to speak. I knew that the chances of me getting a job in DC the old-fashioned way were/are very slim and that that fellowship would have given me an in.

The other thing is the type of experience I have. I have a Masters degree from a very good university, where I also worekd as a research assistant. But my resume also evidences that I’ve been a glorified (and at times, not even glorified) secretary since college. I was lamenting this with Virginia, a girl who graduated a year before me; job postings want you to have 3 years of experience, and the only experience you can get is admin work, and then that’s not good enough.

Do you know what I would have done, as an intern, in DC? I would have made copies and filed and answered phones. Yes, I recognize that location is everything and there’s more to it than just the clerical aspect. But I hate that that looks more important on paper than what I do now (and I do all those things and a whole hell of a lot more). I hate that my only option is a lateral move into another admin position – that that is my only hope of getting into DC, and that is still a small chance.

I don’t want to hear about how I just have to be patient and try and whatever (yes, I know I sound whiny) because these are not the off-the-cuff ramblings of a frustrated job searcher. These are just the facts. They are something that I have been painfully aware of for a long time. To an extent, this knowledge may have kept me from job hunting in DC in the past – fear of rejection/failure and all. I know the odds and they are not good. Add in the recession and they slip to sub-zero.

So I don’ t exactly know what to do. My motivation is sapped. Writing another cheery cover letter makes me want to stab my eyes out. I know that everyone searching for a job must feel the same way. It’s a disheartening process, to see these jobs that I would be perfect for and not get a resposne to my carefully crafted applications. And then I read the barrage of job hunting advice that’s on the internet about networking and promoting yourself and finding your job through twitter (and how you’ll never find a job the traditional way, not in this world) and it’s even more confusing about what to do.  What am I supposed to do? Blog incessently on my RealName wordpress account (I don’t use it, I just snatched up the name) about the places I want to work and why they should hire me? Because I do have 2-3 places in mind that I would LOVE to work.

I don’t know. I know that my frustrations are the same as almost everyone going through the job hunt. But I feel so trapped. I feel that the decisions I made five years ago are haunting me now and that this is my life. A future something great destined to spend her life answering phones and ordering office supplies. I like my job and for the most part I do way more than that, and there is nothing inherently wrong with those things.

But I want to be something other than a glorified secretary. I don’t want to have to answer someone else’s phone. That’s my dream. Right there.

From my description you can see that trivia is Very Important and that this victory made me (well, us) way happier than it rightly should have. In the car ride home we were still discussing it, and future team strategy, and I was like “Guys, you do realize that we’re the only ones there to tonight who are STILL DISCUSSING THIS.”

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. It feels good to be a team again (Joe and Brent were on academic decathlon with me in high school) and to make ridiculous references throughout the game that no one else would get but us.

I didn’t fall asleep until around 2am, for the second night in a row. I am definitely feeling that this morning and the coffee is doing little to dull it. I have ice cream stashed in the freezer here, and I’m tempted to break it out. Work continues to be filled with crankiness all around.

But I am in a better mood than I’ve been in all week – maybe even all month. Getting rejected from the Libertarian Fellowship certainly left me in a funk and I’ve also hit the wall in terms of available things to apply for in DC. It’s frustrating, because I know I’d be perfect for several of the think tank positions I’ve applied for – there are just other people who would be even more perfect, and they’re probably already in the DC area. I’m that at the point yet where I could realistically (or would even want to) just quit my job, move to DC, and hope for the best with the job search and the powerlessness has left me irritable.

But being around two of my favorite people on the planet, who understand me better than anyone in the world, has done wonders for my spirits. At least for today. And allegedly, that’s the only one that should matter.

And yay, Friday! I may actually be social this weekend (an acquintences birthday tomorrow evening) and then, what the hell it is already February. If I start talking about how time is flying, and how I’m going to be, omg, 27 in May, I’ll just ruin my good mood, so I’m going to stop, and go do something productive.