Jerk Ethic.

Skin Flicks, vol. 1

I responded to a post the other day on a public domain that rhymes with Legs Wrist. It was for a freelance online movie reviewer for a website and it would pay up to $150 per posting. All you needed to do was write to the poster, state your interest, view 30 minutes of free footage, and then submit a review.

As an alum of distinguished (chortle, chortle) NYU Tisch’s screenwriting department that boasts many characters powering both the chorus line and the line at your nearest soup kitchen, I know me some movies. I be learned. Writing and movies are two of the two things I can do well.

So I wrote to the email address provided. Sent my credentials. Asked for the footage. And received a very professional response from an adult entertainment site. I would be reviewing pornography for money. And getting the perk of free porn. Free porn. Words. Money. All they have to do now is offer me food and we have pretty much all of my bases covered.

Of course I’m leaving out the part where I explain that pornographic movies make me more inclined to blush and giggle than go at myself with an itchy trigger finger. I am totally fine with porn and the industry, I feel more comfortable knowing that my three male roommates have smut as readily accessible as a roll of Charmin in the bathroom, but for my own personal intimate amusement I like to rely on the gyrations of my imagination instead of Jenna Jameson.

I was raised Catholic. I’m still convinced that I’m a stork baby. So needless to say I did have to wipe my hands on my pantlegs when choosing between Straight, Ass, Big Tit, MILF, Fetish, Creampie, and the rest of the menu options. 30 free minutes. One review. Money. Like a mantra.

I scrolled through the menu, looking over each offering like it was the salad bar at some smut buffet. It was between Handjob and Bondage. Don’t ask me why. I figured the former would be tame enough for me to remain objective, while the later would be so far out there that I could really let my expertise in expression shine. I mean, when selecting between Arab Street Hookers 3 and Grannies Givin’ Up Panties one has to think about which will have more engrossing content for an editorially successful review.

I decided that The Good The Bad And The Slutty #2 would probably be my best option, in truth this was because I liked the actress’ hair. I clicked on the link, below her exposed wares and uncomfortably jutting knees, and received a blank page. After clicking several times I figured that it wasn’t just my prudish computer but a deeper issue. Trolling my inbox I found the note welcoming me to the site, cyber-ink still wet on the screen. Below is our exchange thus far.

***
[Email]

Hello there!

My name is Cyndi a and I’m the WebMistress for SmutHut.

First of all, welcome! I think you’ll find this to be an interesting website that is truly like no other. As a reviewer, I’ve had wonderful experiences and have met interesting people.

So what does a WebMistress do? Well, it’s quite unlike an actual Mistress, more like a slave actually. I’m here to serve all of you, the writers! I’m nice, I promise.

If you are still waiting on your 30 minutes of free, steamy action (which can take a couple of days sometimes because of age verification), please feel free to review an adult movie you already own or submit a review on your favorite adult toy product. PLEASE NO MORE REVIEWS ON THE HITACHI HV250R MAGIC WAND. We know this is a remarkable product. So does the rest of the world with a pulse.

Truly, it is my joy to help you. Good luck, have fun, and if I can answer any questions, please let me know.

Now go and enjoy watching naked people have sex (for free!) and then write a review about it! Then cum hard, and cum back!

Thanks,
Cyndi
WebMistress of SmutHut

Check out my blog! Click here! http://***blog address removed ***

***
[Email]

Hi, Cyndi

I’m really looking forward to submitting my sample review to SmutHut, your site is quite expansive and has a really large selection of films to choose from. The only problem I’m having is accessing the 30 minutes. I’m looking to review The Good The Bad And The Slutty #2, featuring the sultry Audrey Bitoni. I’m sure that girl’s panties are like a sauna. I’d really like to utilize your offer for free 30 minutes because I have no movies on hand (no pun intended) and would like to submit a thorough and well-informed editorial. The only problem is, every time I click on the “Play Movie” option it goes to a blank page. Any suggestions?

All the best, and good luck with your blog.

Best,
Ainsley a.k.a. Hester Prynne

[Editor’s Note: I needed to come up with a nome de plume. I haven’t been feeling very creative of late, likely due to the recent influx of rejection letters from poetry publications and a dearth of calls from prospective employers. So I chose a go-to name that I figured would serve as both excuse and apology.]

***
[Email]

Hi Ainsley,

Thanks for your kind words!

Please direct all movie fulfillment questions to Jim; he can be reached at [*** email address removed ***] He is our tech support guru and can have your problem resolved much quicker than I could. He has been having a rough time, though, and is out of the office until next week. His dog Lucky died and he is really taking it quite hard. When you write him please do not include the words “dog,” “bone,” “hound” or “all fours.” I know this sounds silly — especially considering the fact that a lot of those words need to be included in the reviews he looks over! — but he is a great man with a big heart and it is very sad to see him upset. He will be back in on Monday, and I’m sure he will respond to your question then.

At any rate, please let me know if I can help further; I look forward to reading your work!

Thanks,
Cyndi
WebMistress of SmutHut

Check out my blog! Click here! http://***blog address removed ***

***

Okay. Well. Stay tuned for the next episode in my little work-free life, which, for this weekend, has the same amount of free porn as it has a steady paycheck.

(She has nice hair.)

Poached Eggs

My mentor tells me that “anxiety breeds success.” What I hear? Egg donation.

I’d read about harvesting eggs as a quick way to get money back in New York. Of course, back then, the idea appalled me. I regard the gynecologist as the Bowser to my medical Mario Brothers. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I take care of it when it needs taking care of, but basically if that area isn’t being used for recreational purposes I try not to dwell on it. I let it do its thing and I do mine. I think about babies in the abstract way Christians think about angels.

That was before I moved to Portland and decided to give freelancing a whirl. Two dollars in your pocket as you walk around a grocery store and pass a refrigerated display for a dozen farm fresh suckers (“Sale! $3.19/doz!”) makes new ideas hatch. I figure I’m carrying my own little precious dozen or so around, and if there’s a price tag on each ovary, well, then crack me open like a lobster and take ‘em. Sure as hell I don’t need to be thinking about my eventual cartwheel into motherhood because, let’s face it, I am in no shape to be passing on this set of genes lurking below my jeans. My current priorities in the queue include “buy hummus,” “learn Italian,” and “go to another rodeo” well in advance of “create human life.” The average egg harvesting, from what I had heard, tallies at around $8,000. That is a lot of refried beans and skateboard trucks.

The first ad I click on has the usual prerequisites that you’d expect when you’re stealing from the henhouse:

“Must be a non smoker (you will be tested.)
Must be between the ages of 23-35.”

Done and done.

But then I read:

“No more than 2 Cesareans
Must have at least one child of your own”

Oh boy. My first thought upon seeing the word “Cesarean” is a salad with anchovy dressing. And the closest things to children that I have is a Pomeranian in New York and the lady on my deck. If this list so far didn’t DQ me the last item most certainly did:

“Must be financially stable.”

As further proof to how hateful of a human being I am I have to admit that my immediate response was, “If I were financially stable why the hell would I be considering donating my eggs?” Um. Right. So much for those thirteen years of practicing Catholicism to teach me about humanity. Moving on.

At this point I felt much the same way I did when I pawned everything of value that I owned, which shop would take it, which had the lowest standards but the highest return…I half expected to click on the next ad and see a jpeg of the same old man with the lazy eye and the comb-over who bought my earrings for $250.

“Help an infertile couple attain their dream of having a family. If you are age 19-31, healthy, and a non-smoker or drug user you could have the satisfaction of helping someone in a very special way! All ethnic backgrounds welcome! Compensation begins at $5000 for the first donation, $5,500 and more for subsequent cycles.”

I’m 26. More or less healthy unless you include mild OCD and insomnia. I’m a non-smoker who thinks that drugs are lame. $5K for mine scrambled or over-easy? You got it. Click, click, boom.

Then I remember back in New York when I wanted a second job to supplement my income and bolster my savings account, back when saving was an option. I wound up applying for a part-time gig that was “easy work for a great for a girl who enjoys talking to people” with a “tattoo and piercing friendly work environment! Night shifts available.” It sounded, to me, like an office gig at either a veterinary clinic or a hotline. The hours were from ten in the evening until three AM. I figured I’d go for the interview, after all, the woman who called me (Chloe, looking back that should have been a red-flag) was very sweet on the phone.

Fast forward to me being shown around the dungeon and trying not to stare at the girl who was affixed to the wall by leather straps. “What’s your stage name, honey?” Chloe asked. My stage name was apparently a guttural moan which probably would have worked better than Petrified Privately Educated Pollyanna.

This time around I decide to investigate the risks. If there’s over a 15% chance of death or nipple clamps I figure I should sleep on the idea, at least through Monday.

Egg harvesting is some serious business, usually. You could be asked to meet with therapists and lawyers, in order to make sure you truly comprehend what you’re doing.

Also, you could be rendered infertile. Though it’s a small risk…it’s really not a small risk, if you get what I’m saying. Don’t tremble too much at the thought of a little me running around, I’m going to keep one in the kitchen (Cooking) and one in the living room (Cleaning.) I know those are original names, they’re French.

According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine you’re not going to be allowed beyond the velvet rope of egg donation if you…

…have a serious psychological disorder. I’m going to take “serious” to mean “not funny.” So no.

…abuse drugs or alcohol or have several relatives who do. I’m sober. The rest of my clan are more portly Jew than Mötley Crüe.

…currently use psychoactive medications. Couldn’t afford them if I needed ‘em. Nope. No pills other than Tylenol PM.

…have significant stress in your life. Well, compared to any action movie heroine I’m going to say no. Compared to my friends who are planning weddings, families, and corporate mergers I will also say no. Compared to myself last year? Okay. Yes. A little.

…are in an unstable marriage or relationship. Nope, though one could argue that any relationship that contains me as a member is fundamentally unstable. But I feel that I’m currently half of a functioning partnership made up of two people equally accepting of my crazy. Although possibly spreading my DNA around (via any method) might rock the boat a little, I’m guessing.

…have been physically or sexually abused and not received professional treatment. Thankfully no. The closest things to abuse have been in the form of self-flagellation, over-zealous dieting, and following Ally McBeal when it was on television.

…are not mentally capable of understanding or participating in the process. The jury’s still out.

Even after reading all of this and not-so-fondly remembering the last time a lady in a white lab coat played plumber and cleaned out the pipes, I still was thinking about it. Several thousand dollars is literally inconceivable to me at this point. Hell, I’d probably flash my A-cups for a twenty, I’d likely donate my eggs for a single G. But the hormones. Oh the hormones.

See, I’m one of those girls who will be your best-friend/girlfriend/favorite aunt/prize student for two and a half weeks out of every month. The other week and a half? Well, let’s just say that I make a pretty good case for the development of menstrual huts in America.

My best-friend Erin and my boyfriend would agree that injecting more hormones into my little body would be like asking Godzilla to perform a puppet show for some first graders. The entire egg harvesting process can take a while, especially with the frequent doctor visits and monitoring. Extra hormones for extra long? I love my inner circle, in fact at this point they’re literally all I have. Well, that and my girl parts. Neither of which I’m really willing to torture or compromise. Not yet, anyway.

I also read in the ASRM document the word “scrape” in very close proximity to the words “your cervix.” The level of fear that inspires rivals an additional Bush term. Call me a chicken but I’m keeping my eggs.

For those of you who are better women than me, below are some resources if you’re interested in egg donation:

Egg Donation Information Through the New York State Department of Health

Surrogate Web

Exceptional Donors (I’m so tempted to write “Egg-ceptional Donors.” Hilarious. Groan.)

Statements Said To Me In A Tone Not Congruent With Their Meaning

“I’m not firing you.”

- Freelance client

Team Building Exercise

I’m examining my skill set and narrowing my job search by applying my naturally negative, fatalist perspective that makes me so lovely to be around. There are many things I cannot and should not do, for money or otherwise. I’m taking regular experiences and shortening my list of possible professional paths.

For example, last night I learned from fighting with my boyfriend at a bar that I should not be a life coach, therapist, or housewife. I probably should not be a Girl Scout leader or locksmith in light of the fact that I ran out of the bar in a state that can only be described as that gray area between nearly homicidal and wholly misanthropic and promptly realized that I had left my keys at his house. The best solution I could come up with was to walk sheepishly back into the bar and try to troubleshoot the fight, which was just as ineffective as my attempted departure. Guidance counselor and hostage negotiator were both quickly crossed off of my list, as were park ranger and substitute host for Man Versus Wild, since I extended the shelf-life of the fight by roughly twenty minutes as I tried my best to avoid having to go back outside and into the forty degree Portland night without more than a dress blazer, a pair of jeans, and a lot of seething vitriol to keep me warm.

My general inability to negotiate with strangers or drunk people (strikethrough any and all retail positions, strikethrough police officer and preschool teacher) led to several frat boy types talking loudly and in my face as I called a cab company. Said company refrained from sending a cab to the bar so travel agent or personal assistant are not titles to be printed on my future business cards. All further attempts to disengage from the already asinine, Real World-esque dramafest boyfriend and I were putting on display failed, and in the end I was left with “reality show contestant“ and “my own mother“ on the list of possible future careers.

I should also add that I think that I shouldn’t be professionally employed by AA, Narcs Anonymous, or any rehab facility seeing that my solution - at less than sixty days sober - was to get as fucked up as possible off of well-whiskey with tequila chasers. Which I would have done. If I didn’t only have five dollars in my wallet and to my name.

Also, arm candy? Not me. My charms were outnumbered by my bobby pins. The best conversation that I had all night, other than the one I had in my head with the Jet Blue booking agent, was with a kid so drunk the entire interaction consisted of him telling me that his bike, which he was holding, was red and white. Thank you. I’m unemployed, not blind.

This morning not only proved that my days of having one night stands have gone the way of the dinosaur but that I also shouldn’t pursue a life of crime. The elaborate departure scheme that I’d set up, complete with laying out my outfit and prominently placing my keys on my shirt, was for naught. I type this blog entry on my pink SidekickID wondering when the boy will get up and how much vegan granola I can buy with five dollars. I can’t even quit a relationship successfully. But today that sort of seems like a good thing.

List of Jobs That I Will Not Have and Why

I might only have $15.00 left in my bank account but I still have enough common sense to know what I cannot do.

Trimet Bus Operator
Reason: I cannot deal with being asked questions and I’m not very patient. Also, sideview mirrors = target practice.

Professional Curler (as in the sport: lead, mate, vice, skip)
Reason: Not a big fan of sweeping, not a big fan of rocks. Unless we’re talking about Pop Rocks or Van Halen.

Actually, no, not Van Halen.

Burlesque Performer
Reason: No breasts, no rhythm, no interest.

Barista
Reason: I have neither visual impairment accessories nor good hair. Also, I’m clumsy and would likely chant things like, “Burn the witch! Burn the witch!” while incorrectly operating the Franke. Or the La Marzocco. Or the percolator. Whatever.

Landscaper
Reason: Any flying insect sends me into a paroxysm of fear that includes screaming and running, especially the ones with the names that are actually a consonant or are associated with the Wu-Tang clan. Landscaping means being outside, being outside means flowers, flowers mean…those things.

WNBA Player
Reason: I have no reason why not. I look gay, I run fast, I like being yelled at in empty rooms, I’m entirely uncoordinated. Sign me up.

Greenpeace Recruiter
Reason: I don’t want to want to kick my own ass.

Daily Grinding

I am not graceful. I am not adroit, lithe, or a delicate little flower. I was the child running through the screendoor after smacking her chin on a chair leg while eating paste. I have names for my scars the way that meteorologists have names for hurricanes. Among professions that I now know I should not pursue I can pencil “professional skateboarder” at the bottom of the list.

Why are you writing about this now, you ask. Well, I’ve been freelancing, which means that I get to structure my own procrastination…I mean workday. Inbetween going to the bathroom and getting another cup of coffee I have distracted myself by tooling around on a borrowed skateboard.

Over the past six months I’ve gone from a professional woman who wore blazers and dress shoes to work Monday through Friday to a girl-child who wears message tees, listens to Portishead (again), and seriously contemplates getting a facial piercing daily. My quarter-life crisis feels comfortable, similar to the first swig of a wine cooler or the warm splash of water as I rinse the Manic Panic dye out of my hair. Skateboarding was another tiny baby step back to the glory days, when I would go to the Wetlands in the Lower East Side to see hardcore bands and when saying, “Screw you!” to my mother was audacious.

Now finding a way to ask her to pay for my phone bill without crying is daring.

So I’ve started skateboarding between projects in the Walgreens parking lot. It’s fun. I don’t know what I’m doing. The other day I fell down so hard that my right thigh now looks as though it’s sprouting a mauve and green guava-kiwi hybrid. My elbow actually has a bruise that retained the pattern of the shirt I was wearing. I would go out and skate now but it’s nearly 11PM and I’m afraid that if I get arrested I’d have to pay for my own bail. That ain’t going to happen on a freelancer’s salary.

Skateboarding is a 2.5 billion dollar industry. Think back to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that you used to play with your high school girlfriend when all you wanted to do was get to second base. Think of Quicksilver and Element, brand names that are practically suburban household staples if there’s a boy between the ages of twelve and seventeen around. Think about all of the sneakers, the clothes, the stickers that your parents told you made you look trashy and homeless. That stuff, that’s lucrative. That’s business. Professional skateboarders are sponsored. Sponsorship means money. Companies like Plan B can pay up to $120K for a ‘boarder. All you need to have seems to be a board and something to sell, which in short can be as simple as a personality and an image, right? Well, I’m a girl. I have tattoos and piercings. I sleep with both genders and listen to bad, aggressive pop music. I swear, once I learn how to skateboard without falling down or looking like I’m about to pee my pants I’m the next Bob Burnquist. Only without all the talent and the famous vert ramp in my yard and the money from Oakley.

So I gave the parking lot a hug. Does that mean that my pro-boarding dreams are dead?

“The most common reason for skateboarding injuries result from hitting an irregularity on the riding surface. Skateboards have much smaller and less compressible wheels than, for example, bicycles and are more easily affected by interruptions in the riding surface, such as sticks, stones and cracks. A study in the Journal of Orthopedic Trauma cited that almost 50% of skateboarding trauma resulted from hitting such surfaces, which is concurred by most other reports in the medical literature.”

Um. Irregularities. Does that include yellow paint?

I suppose I’ll just stick to my day job. Oh yeah, that’s right, I don’t really have one.

(Thankfully this is not the condition of the board I borrowed. At least not yet anyway.) 

Facts

Article - Pro Skateboarding as Dream Job

“Are you hiring?”

I have started applying for jobs at shops where the clerks look beaten or jaundiced.

It’s like a lion scoping for sick gazelle.

Only gazelle with liprings and coke noses.

Let’s Hope It’s Not Genetic

Let’s Hope It’s Not Genetic. (The racism part, not the successful career part.)

I warn you in advance, this post is less funny, more ranty. I swear it will not become a habit. I’m not a fan of soapboxes, unless they store old pornographic magazines. Or soap.

The other day I was able to score a potential gig at a non-profit, supported living organization. I would work as an at-home companion to the severely disabled, making sure that they’re taken care of, fed, dressed, not eating cigarette butts off of the street, and so on. My companion and I would go to the park or to the zoo or just stay in the house and I would just basically play the role of a careful friend while getting a paycheck to do so. There would be paid time to sleep involved.

I am feeling pretty on the fence about taking the job for many reasons, and I found myself playing some serious handball up in my headspace over it.

When things get rough for me I often call on my dad for guidance. I do this for several reasons. For one, he’s very different than I am, opposite in fact, (a man of science, not of letters) and therefore will give me unique advice that can quickly be dismissed if I don‘t want to hear it. Also, he knew what he wanted to do with his life at the age of nineteen so sometimes I hope that, through inconsistent emailing, my sense of misdirection will be molded into a compass pointing towards some job with health insurance and a 401K plan. But mainly I write him because he’s always brutally honest. Emphasis on the brutal. That warm-n-fuzzy television brand of parenting? Not his. Then again, I’m not exactly the sitcom child.

Here is an excerpt from our last email exchange. It has not been edited.

“Ainsley: Let’s be up front and honest. Home health aides are black uneducated individuals. What in the world are you doing with your life to even entertain the possibility of doing such a job? Your past history has always been taking a job out of desperation. Look what has happened in that situation. It is time to change this mode of behavior. I really think it is about time you get a grip and start making a long range plan and commitment towards achieving a goal.”

For those of you who don’t have the pleasure of knowing me face-to-face, I am white. I am college educated, and have been accepted to graduate school several times, each time reneging on the ability to go because of my desire to write and my lack of desire for debt.

I am what I consider to be a child of privilege. Yes, at this point in my life I have no money, only enough to live off of for the next four weeks or so, six weeks if I sell my bicycle. No, my father does not send me any sort of assistance whatsoever, nor will he, in part because of my pride. I don’t want any handouts. I figure that the ability to go through high-school without needing to help put food on my parents’ respective tables was a gift enough.

And although I love him to smithereens I have to say that I think the only struggle my dad had to deal with recently was whether to choose the forest green Lexus Hybrid SUV or the black one. I don’t know if he’s ever had to pawn anything in order to be able to pay his cellphone bill. I doubt it.

I also believe that this sort of myopia, and not just the racist nonsense but the entire enchilada of ignorance, comes from a state of contentment that works against any real, positive progression. My father works with people. He is an eye doctor. The last time I checked the majority of his patients were old, non-white, and on Medicare. If any of you are reading this near your grandparents, read that paragraph that he wrote aloud. Now ask them who has trouble seeing.

It’s likely that I’m not taking the job, not because of my elite education, not because of my skin color, not because of my apparently stellar breeding, but because I am scared. I am desperate but I’m not willing to take care of someone else when I can barely take care of myself. My friend who works as an aid (also white, also educated) is extraordinarily patient and thick-skinned. I, admittedly, am not. I cry when I can’t open a jar of pickles. I curse, loudly, in coffee shops when I can’t find my wallet in my bag. I’m known to get bruises and not know where they came from. I have never successfully babysat. I shouldn’t be taking care of an adult who cannot bathe themselves.

Yet.

“Diabetes Starts Here”: Job Searching In Candyland

I am good at taking orders and doing the same thing countless times a day until it’s rote. If that same thing includes pressing a button or saying the same mindless line more times than anyone but Raymond Babbitt can count, so much the better. In honor of my sudden and inexplicable foray into veganism (http://ainsleydrew.blogspot.com/) I decided to look for a job related to the last non-vegan food item I consumed: blue bunny marshmallow Peeps.

Just Born’s facility is in Pennsylvania, so already this is requiring relocation to an area I’m not really willing to call home. Pennsylvania, to me, has two things working against it, namely the Amish and the 76ers without Allen Iverson. Moreover, there’s something pretty creepy about a state having not one but two huge candy making factories. The state slogan should be You’ve Got Diabetes in Pennsylvania.*

That said, pumping marshmallow goo out of a machine while wearing a hairnet sounds kind of fun. And you have to get some sort of wicked sugar high from breathing in corn syrup fumes for eight hours a day. Besides, job perks would include free samples and the smug satisfaction you’d get at a bar with the line, “I can make you candy in six minutes.” (In 1953 it took twenty-seven hours to create a single Peep, nowadays it takes six minutes. The wonders of technology.) I wouldn’t be embarrassed to go to my ten year high-school reunion and say that I make Peeps. Honestly.

The problem is that apparently it’s just as rad of a job as I think it is. Out of all 530 associates they’re only hiring for three positions at the moment and all of them are dry as hell, such as Financial Analyst (“The projections for lavender Bunnies are in and they’re down, people. Seriously, if we’re going to get back up to the numbers we were at when green Chicks launched we are going to have to do some serious strategizing.”) and Mechanical Design Engineer. Well, it’s to be expected if your job title is Marshmallow Packer, Hand Stamper, or Panner you probably don’t want to give it up too easy. Not to mention that on the Just Born website they either intentionally or unintentionally have made a witty little career description: Are you motivated by encouragement to stretch, grow, develop; and become the best you can be? (Original punctuation kept.) Yes, they put stretch. For a job at a marshmallow candy making factory. Cute.

So much for being able to annoy my confectionary co-workers with manic, incessant giggling of the word, “Sweeeet!”

* Pennsylvania’s actual state slogans are “America Starts Here” and “You’ve Got a Friend in Pennsylvania.”

NDA. PMA. WTF.

I would tell you what I did for work today but then I’d have to kill you.

No, seriously, I signed a confidentiality death clause, otherwise known as a non-disclosure agreement. So all I can say is that it was rad, paid very little, but was the equivalent of taking a quadriplegic to a swimming pool in August. Free fajitas at work? Check. Coffee and lunch-break where I was offered margaritas? Check and check. I spent the day with an effervescent, deliriously happy  secretary who talked nonstop about how employees were allowed to bring their dogs, have tattoos, throw parties and how she loved work so much that she never wanted to leave. Of course there are no jobs available at this company. Today was just a freelance gig for a friend, eight hours of work for fifty bucks, but still. Freedom’s just another word for food stamps.

Before you start connecting the dots between the previous posting and today’s allow me to say here and now that no, it was not porn or prostitution. Clothes stayed on. The only shower I took occurred at the end of the day and no alloys were thrown in the mix. But it was still fun and easy money.

Anyway.

Yesterday I took a look at a 1960’s self-help book entitled Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. I have been told that I can be a trifle vitriolic and difficult when it comes to walking on the proverbial sunny side of the street. I can argue that this is because I both sunburn easily and enjoy complaining. In my previous job with the internet start-up I was told that I was “too East Coast” and cold on the telephone. So I picked up Success with the hope that it would both lead to a warmer, more cuddly me as well as a steady job. I hoped that the words of the author, W. Clement Stone, would be like oil to the rain rusted New York joints of my Portland tin-man, that from leafing through Success I would glide easily into a more easy-going and smiling work persona.

It was hilarious.

First of all, according to this book, “Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.” Well, I have moved to Portland, the unofficial hometown of, “meh,” shrug. It seems that out here the starting point of all achievement is whatever you put your weed in. For my razor-tongued self the only thing that’s definite is that I don’t have enough money to live in this town beyond April, and my purpose is to avoid leaving here at all fucking costs. Being that there are NO FUCKING JOBS it doesn’t seem likely that I can apply for a permanent position, secure a career, and receive a paycheck in time to prevent JetBlue from transporting my sniffling self back to Nassau County with nothing more than a blog and a couple of bruises to show for it. Thanks, positive mental attitude, for being as flaky as most of the people I’ve met in the 503. You say you’re coming? You’re just waiting until you finish downloading the latest Decemberists’ album? Yeah, well. Hurry up and get here.

“No matter who you are you can have a Magnificent Obsession.” Okay. This just sounds creepy. My last magnificent obsession was named Rachel and she had a labret piercing. I do believe that there is something sincere within this quote though, and it pertains to life in all fifty states: it’s true, no matter who you are, you can have a restraining order put out against you for peering in people’s windows late at night carrying a six pack of Pabst and a dozen (dead) roses.

Stone Not-So-Cold also recommends a daily mantra for positive self-suggestion to boost your PMA - 

“I feel healthy! I feel happy! I feel terrific!”

I have tweaked this and modernized it to better suit the century and my personality.

“Fucking hell, I’m awake. I want to cut a bitch. Now where the hell is my change from last night, I need to get an espresso.”

Lastly, Stone says the very weighty statement “You are what you think.” In this case I am both bullshit and therefore also a self-help book.

Maybe I just didn’t practice the mantra hard enough.