The World According to Amy

I've been getting lots of random hits on my LJ and I have no idea where they're coming from. Some people are entering through tags but I don't even know where they would find the link unless they clicked on one from the main page. All of my mopey posts about this guy are under the tag cynic, so lots of people have been entering from here. I've been trying to figure out who these people are to no avail. I know someone from Bellflower, CA has been consistently following the posts in the last few days but I don't know anyone from Bellflower. I know the guy wouldn't spread around my journal link, so I can't even trace it back to him.

I always thought that I'd be one of those people who would work a miserable job with long hours for $$$, but looking back at my job history, I totally wouldn't. Anytime I really dislike a job, I quit. I need to like my work or at least the people I work with. This doesn't make any sense to anyone else, but I'd rather not work and not have any money than work a job that I don't enjoy. "Amy, wouldn't you rather make $9 an hour and have some money than none at all?" No.

I received an e-mail from someone looking for a babysitter for the next two weeks before their son has summer camp, and if offered, I'm going to accept the job. It's time I started working again and since it's only for two weeks, that'll give me some sort of income while I'm sorting out the nanny thing. Maybe that's my birthday present from the job gods.

Last night I ate so much chocolate Moose Tracks ice cream that I felt really ill afterward. Safeway is having the buy 1 get 1 free deal on all Safeway ice cream for $5.99, so I bought chocolate Moose Tracks and Cookies n Cream. I couldn't decide between the original Moose Tracks or chocolate, but ended up with chocolate because Cookies n Cream is vanilla based.

interview schedule:
- dot-com company, Wednesday at 4 PM in San Carlos
- Saturday or Sunday at 4 PM in Hillsborough

I really liked my second interviewer. Initially, I wasn't really sure what to think because her e-mails made her seem so excited! She was really nice and normal as far as I could tell. I liked that she was hands on with her kids and had her kids' artwork on the walls around the house. My parents used to put mine up on the refrigerator (back then when we had a magnetic fridge- now it seems like nobody has one of those anymore) but never taped all over the walls. She asked if I had plans to go to law school, and when I said that I'd thought about it for a long time, she told me to call if I ever had any questions. Considering I'd just met the woman, I thought that was a nice gesture. She also asked what kind of law I'm interested in, and when I told her wills and trusts, she said a good friend of hers was an estate attorney and she could put me in touch with him if I was ever interested.

In terms of working for her, she said she wouldn't be able to hire me for 20-30 hours until the fall, but she'd call if she ever needs a babysitter. She also said she might have side projects that she could use my help with, so she'll be in touch with me. I guess that means I'm still in the same predicament- great interviews, no job.

I need to e-mail the Hillsborough family to set up an interview. Jess says 4 kids is too much, but we'll see. If that falls through, I guess there's always the small internet company in San Carlos. I'm really not feeling the 6-hour work week with the Japanese lady in FC, but if she doubles the time (or pay) I'd reconsider.

Last week he told me that after working all day he looked forward to talking and playing games with me. After my interview, I went to Safeway to buy ice cream and cones, then got home and I just wanted to talk to him. I just want to talk to him again.

And on that note, I really need to stop listening to Sarah McLachlan.

In other news, I just got an e-mail from the family in Hillsborough (I'd really like to work with them) who I thought wasn't going to respond to me once they got my resume. They want to know what my schedule will be like in the fall. I'd really like to tell them that I just want a job and I'll make my school schedule work around theirs.

I also just got my 11th Craigslist response from a Japanese woman in Foster City with an 21-month-old daughter and 6-week newborn baby girl. It's only 6 hours per week on Wednesdays from 10-1 or 4-7 and Fridays from 4-7. Only 6 hours per week??? The only way this would work is if The Four Seasons guy hires me for 10-15 hours, which will bring me to almost 20 hours per week.

I'm off to my second interview of the day. I hope it goes well.

So, I go to The Four Seasons in Palo Alto and sit in the lobby for a few minutes before looking for the guy. While I was walking in, I saw a tall guy with a white jacket on-- turns out it was him. He's talking on a hands free so I decide to wait a bit. At 12:30 (our scheduled meeting time) he says that he'll be a few minutes so I sit at a table and look at an art book full of lithography prints. He makes me wait for 10 minutes before he gets off and apologizes. Basically, he says, the million dollar question is how many hours of work am I looking for? 20-30. Well, he doesn't know if his kids are moving down to the Peninsula anymore because of his ex, so the nanny position is out the door until later, but he still wants a personal assistant. So I'm back at square one with this guy and I don't know if I'll accept the position even if he offers it to me. He says my resume looks good and he'll call in 2-3 days once he figures out what to do. I don't think I have the patience to deal with this guy. So wishy washy. God.

It's only 10:15 on a Monday morning and I've already finished washing my car and eating oatmeal for breakfast. I'm quite pleased at myself for sticking to the schedule I'd planned last night. I woke up at 8:56, four minutes before my alarm even went off. This is a feat in itself because I've been wakeup up around eleven over the past week, and 1 PM these past couple of days.

I just got off the phone with my first potential employer; we're meeting at The Four Seasons in Palo Alto off of University at 12:30 instead of noon because he's tight on time. He told me to look for a tall white guy in a white jacket. This whole set up is making me feel slightly awkward because it's almost like we're setting up a date.

Last month he and I were talking while I was making a couple of CDs for Allison's birthday barbecue. "What're you putting on it? Pussycat Dolls and Britney Spears n shit?" A musical elitist, he would call my tastes in music shit, and always link me to music videos of songs I had to listen to on YouTube. Ever since he found my Last.fm page and saw the Pussycat Dolls and Britney Spears in my top 25 overall played artists, it was like the re-education of Amy (musically speaking). I'd justify it by saying that I'm lazy, didn't know how to download music from the Internet, and my half-marathon music was the only music I had uploaded to my computer. Anyway, I remember he linked me to Badfish by Sublime and said that any summertime barbecue CD had to have Badfish on it. He was right. Badfish ended up being the hit of the party, the song we had to go back and re-play twice. I never got to tell him.

In order to save my reputation (whatever that may be) and to avoid sounding like a crazy bitch, I was thinking of making my entries friends-only or private, but after talking it over with Allison, she's convinced me to leave them public. While most people don't post publicly about their mania, I'm sure they've gone through similar emotions and hope they can relate or understand where I'm coming from. I don't talk about my feelings very much because I like to seem resilient, but writing in my LJ or blogging has always been a platform where I can release my feelings freely.

Some of my girlfriends have compared my so-called cyberstalking to girls looking at their ex-boyfriends' (or their new significant other's) Myspace or Facebook pages. I told Verity about how I feel so stalkerish refreshing his Steam page to see if he's online or playing TF2, and she said, "Amy, it's OK, everyone does it." It makes me feel more secure in my role as "crazy bitch-tron" or "crazybitchtron." Al even said that she was relieved that I told her about everything because she felt like nobody could relate to how she's feeling in her pursuit of Old Guy.

I got in touch with the family I worked with last year and the mom said she'd be happy to give me a great reference and that her kids still talk about me. That's good, right? She said that she'd have called me, but they haven't needed a sitter (the grandparents live next door). Work things are sort of falling into place. Now my only worries are how the interviews go.

Tomorrow I have my lunch interview in Redwood Shores and then another meeting at a home in San Mateo. I didn't wake up until 1 PM today, so I hope I can get myself awake and ready early tomorrow. I'm thinking of washing my car before I go so I'll need a little bit of extra time for that too.

I still haven't decided what I'm going to wear. For all of the other positions I've ever interviewed for, I usually wear black slacks, a white button up shirt, v-neck sweater and black pumps. Pretty conservative and boring, but that's me. I'll probably end up doing the same tomorrow just to be safe except maybe instead of pumps, I'll wear pointy-toed kitten heels or loafers. I love loafers.

Allison and I were talking a bit about relationships earlier and how if we were to get into a fight, it would never cross her mind that we'd never talk to eachother again. We talk on the phone almost every day, so after a week or two of being mad at eachother, one of us would probably cave in and call the other to resolve whatever the problem was. With the guy, the only contact I have for him is the e-mail address he gave me. I have anxieties about the fact that he could fall out of my life permanently. What if he changes his e-mail address? What if gmail becomes obsolete (it probably won't, but I'm just saying)? What if he forgets who I am?

In a moment of weakness and longing, I e-mailed him about an hour and a half ago, just to say hi.

My friends are mystified at why I'm in my predicament, but I just miss him and can't get it out of my head.