ides of march, or thereabouts

Click here for previous versions of the space on East Cordova and Main.

This is what it looked like last night (Friday March 16) shortly after 6pm:

 
I took the picture while on the way to my book club, where we talked about Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad, which everybody liked. Including me.

Next up for book club's May meeting, two titles, because Selection #1, William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, is apparently a fairly quick read. Selection #2 is Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America, which I recently finished. I am in love with it. I want everyone to read it. So go and read it already.

looking for jobs in all the wrong places, looking for jobs...

Unemployment update, Month 6. 

Or, Where Pride Is Getting in the Way of Putting Food on the Table.

Or, Where I Ramble A Bit About Dreadlocks and Vaguely Entertain The Notion of Pretending To Be A Lesbian And Compromising Some of My Political Beliefs In Order To Put Food On The Table.

I am looking all over the place, for anything that could even remotely be applicable to My Unique Skill Set. Career goals? Whatever. Snort. I have a dollar-per-hour range in mind, but am willing to settle for much, much less. My next step is to hit up all the temp agencies.

I am nervous about going to a temp agency and being told that my appearance is all wrong and there is no way they will consider sending me out for executive assistant, admin assistant, or data entry jobs. All of these places say "Must Have Professional Appearance" and yes, I look great in a suit and have been known to wear makeup but Oh Gosh My Hair. In other words, I am nervous that I am about to be rejected from earning $12/hr. I know, get over myself. Still, I have those student loans to pay. The more money I make, the higher the loan payments, and the quicker I will be out of debt. And then I can start saving money again.

(A friend recently asked me "Don't you and Tom have any savings?" Uh. Yeah. We DID have savings. Substantial savings, actually. We used to talk about buying a house! And then this recession thing hit, and some family shenanigans, and neither one of us has been able to find steady work in almost 4 years now. But, you know, thanks for judging me, friend!)

My nerves regarding job rejection are valid; a lot of people think that dreadlocks are disgusting, therefore people with dreadlocks are disgusting. And as a white lady with dreadlocks, well, that's a whole other thing, too.

This is not my imagination.

The suggestion to cut my hair has been freely given on a number of occasions; one of those unsolicited advice nuggets that well-meaning folks have proffered up. My mom brings it up every once in a while, hesitantly, as we have a history of hair wars and hesitation is a necessity. In the days after my brother-in-law died, my extended family had a freaking field day with making fun of my hair. Comic relief in times of tragedy! Let's make fun of the grown adult's fashion choices, huzzah!

I have been sneered at, laughed at, and ridiculed by strangers -- last year, a woman working at a convenience store told me that I was dirty. This was after a long day at work, back when I was working (at a museum where I knew the security code and had access to priceless artifacts and whose collection was valued at the multi-million dollar level but that's beside the point, right? That I am a trustworthy, intelligent, responsible, capable individual?) Due to the low blood sugar I was experiencing (buying some chips so I wouldn't eat my arm on the bus ride home), I was rendered speechless, then burst into tears outside. I wish I had handed the chips over and asked for my money back. I dunno, why does it still surprise me when people behave atrociously to strangers?

Some people also think my hair means I'm stupid, because folks have been nice to me in person, then said some vicious crap behind my back -- hello, library school! Hello, networking events! But I'm a tough broad. I soldier on. If someone would guarantee me that changing my hair would get me a full-time permanent position and I could gleefully stop looking for work, I might consider changing my hair style. But there are no guarantees in the job searching world. 

So, because my job search is relatively wide open, I read a lot of job ads from a lot of different sources. I was checking out the website of the Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter, as I was mulling over volunteering for them, and then I saw that they are currently looking to hire and pay money to a couple of people, for the position of Anti Violence Activist.

As job ads go, it's painfully typical, even for an atypical job. It gives a bit of info regarding general duties, preferred experience, and the fact that it's a one year full-time contract. It doesn't list the salary, which, while maddening, is completely normal. This is why I love government and university job ads: the transparency of available information makes me drool, and employers who don't tell you what they are able to pay make me want to lunge through my computer screen and strangle them.

Wasting time is a hallmark of the job searching world. I really don't understand why companies are afraid of stating a pay range. CLEAR COMMUNICATION IS A GOOD THING.

Anyway, the best part of the job ad is near the end:

That last sentence? Oh my.

We are especially, but not only, interested in applications from First Nations women, working class women, women of colour and lesbian women. 

 
I would love to see the cover letters that address those points.

To the search committee:

I'm a Nlaka'pamux/Chinese lesbian who survived seemingly endless beatings as a child by working class parents, and I am now fully committed to ending male violence against women. But not female violence against women. Because that doesn't exist.

I know it's old hat, but shouldn't a person's qualifications to do the job be of more importance than their skin colour or what gender their sex/romance partners are? The gender thing is also complicated, but not really, considering the shelter is a women only space, backed up by the BC Court of Appeal in 2007 (no transgendered women allowed, bio-ladies ONLY. Okay, that part is complicated, but not the focus of this meandering blog post).

I'm also perplexed by the working class thing because, if taken literally, anyone who is working is of the working class. Does this mean the currently unemployed will not be considered? What about volunteer work? I know they probably mean... what? Blue collar workers? People who've worked in the trades? What the fuck is "working class"? Would I be automatically discounted because I have too much education to be considered "working class"? Does a university degree make you not part of the working class?

Oh, job ads. Endlessly anger-making.

I'm gonna live forever ... stop aging ... find eternal life!

Under a bridge in East Vancouver, photos from earlier today.

Fun job searching fact!

The City of Vancouver's employment opportunities page has a snide little joke going: every time you click on an advertised opportunity, it opens up a PDF with the helpful title of "dummy".

Every single time. This has been going on for at least three years, at least that's how long I've been haunting the City of Vancouver's job site. My downloads folder shows multiple items named
dummy.pdf
dummy-3.pdf
dummy-4.pdf
and so on.

Other places give their PDFs long strings of numbers and letters based on internal coding, or competition numbers, but the City of Vancouver wants to remind the unemployed or underemployed or unhappily employed: we have jobs you want, dummy. Good luck, dummy.

I've written an Official Email of Complaint. I wonder how long it will take to get a response. I'll keep you posted, if I remember.

UPDATE! MARCH 4! BECAUSE ABSOLUTELY NO ONE HAS BEEN ASKING!

Haven't heard anything back from the email I sent over a week ago, aside from an automated response saying that all inquiries are answered within 3-5 days. I also realized that the ICBC (BC's insurance corporation that everyone loves to hate) website also has "dummy" PDFs -- they seem to be using the same content management software as the City of Vancouver. Good for them. See, it's this amazing eye for detail that has really served me well in not only my work life, but also my personal life. Good for me!

if you have no hands, how did you type out this message?

corner of East Cordova and Main: choose your own fortune.

The above photo was taken on Sunday, February 19, 2012. Other versions of the ever-changing corner of East Cordova and Main are here and here.

things I have been doing lately. eight things.

1. Darning socks.

Sock with hole.

Sock with somewhat repaired hole.

The trick to darning is to get at it before the hole grows too big. This hole was too big. But I made it work. Mostly.

2. Laughing.   

One thing I have been laughing at is this pronunciation series.



see also January, carpe diem and ciabatta

3. Writing.

Creative writing, non-creative writing, and correspondence writing.


Here's where I'd put a picture of some letters I wrote if I had taken any pictures. Or if my scanner was working. Not that the scanner is not working.... I need to download a driver, or something...

If you are looking for people to write letters to, here is a good place to find people who may or may not write back to you. Or people who have a vastly different concept of time than you do.

4. Reading.

I've been reading a lot of books. Short story collections. Young adult dystopian fiction. Science fiction. Alternate worlds and alternate realities. I'm sure that means something, somewhere, to someone. I've also been reading a lot of things on the internet. I've discovered there is even a term for a lot of my internet-based reading: hate-reading. I learned this through one of the websites I love to hate. The irony is palpable.


5. Continuing with my Year of More Rejection, Please.

After several months of not hearing back from any potential employers, I landed an interview for a job that I really really really really really wanted. Really. The interview went very well. Which made me want the job even more. Then I was nervous for a week and two days, which caused all sorts of digestive shenanigans. Then I received the nicest rejection email that ever there was: it included a lead on another similar position. So far, nothing back on that lead. But I am trying. Being rejected by people who are kind and pleasant and humane is a real treat. Too much of a treat. Why are people such assholes out there in the looking-for-work world?

6. Took a cooking class. It was a delight. I grilled lamb chops and steak, and did something fancy with pork. It made me feel capable and useful.

7. Entering online contests. I have not won anything. Yet.

8. Hanging out with my niece.

I swear I was not making her cry. Just taking pictures of her while she cried. I hope she will forgive me for thinking she is adorable even when she is upset. Adults can be so dismissive and condescending to kids -- I try not to be an Asshole Adult, but maybe it's inevitable.

corner of East Cordova and Main: power passes slowly, but pisses like a race horse.

Here is what was on the corner of East Cordova and Main in November 2011.

Below is what it looked like last week.

hot chocolate with Katie

I met Katie last year, in June. I pulled her hair, as you do when you meet someone at a krav maga workshop, and she punched me a few times. Katie has been doing krav maga for a while, though I didn't know it at the time. I had fun. Punching people is fun. Kicking people is fun.

We went out for fancy $6.10 hot chocolate at a place called Mink. We both had a Caramel Mermaid, or maybe it was just a Mermaid.... I can't remember. I'm not good at Timely Blog Posts. This was a few weeks ago. Maybe even a month ago. The hot chocolate was pretty good, though I feel if I am paying $6 for a drink, there should be some weed cooked into it, or alcohol stirred in. I had the dark version, Katie had the milk version, and it had caramel in it, and a sprinkling of sea salt on top.

We talked about things like temp agencies, living wages, the destruction of one's self-esteem after a long period of unemployment, travelling, and how she makes her own cola soda -- which sounds rather delicious. We both like arts and crafts type things.

It was snowing that morning. On my way to meet Katie, I discovered that someone in the neighbourhood had cleaned out their stuffed animal museum:

The animals were still there the next week. Mickey was missing, Bugs was lying in the gutter, and the Pink Panther had abandoned his buddies and made it all the way across the street:

Sneaky.

Some of the stuffed objects disappeared the following week. The snow melted.

Finally, the elephant was left all alone.

Then he vanished. Now there is an odd assortment of furniture where the abandoned stuffed delights used to be.

coffee with Katie, virtual edition.

Modern times make it possible to have coffee with someone without being in the same room. The day after I posted my coffee with Katie, she sent me this text:

Looks gross, tastes great.