can i just tread water now?

so that job i'd told some of y'all about? the one i really, really wanted? the one that would be perfect for me in at least 3 different ways? the one i had 2 rounds of interviews for (three, if you count my initial phone screen)?

yeah, i just received word from their hr rep that they decided to go with another candidate. sigh.

i'm not so much sad as i am disappointed. did i mention that i really wanted this job? b/c i did. still do, if i'm going to be honest, and yeah, i know wanting a job that technically is no longer open might be weird, but life's like that sometimes.

but i applied for 9 jobs last night, and i had a meeting this morning with a colleague of a friend who might be able to connect me with some folks who might be hiring, so all isn't completely lost. and in case you missed the update on my other blog, i now have somewhere to stay until november 10th, so yay for that.

i feel like i'm forgetting something else that i was gonna share with y'all...i'll edit later if i remember what that something is.

happy thursday. :-)

poetry mashup

i'm not quite sure why these poems were stuck in my head late last night, or why i started transposing lines from them as if i wanted to create the aforementioned mashup, but here they are:

We Wear the Mask
BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

Harlem
BY LANGSTON HUGHES
What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

i'd offer some sort of analysis, but i'm currently operating on ~5 hours of sleep and my brain isn't quite up for it at the moment. happy friday.

addressing the address situation

it should come as no surprise that, even in the midst of the insanity that is my life these days, i'm still actively looking for jobs. i remembered last week to pull my address and home phone from my resume and other job-search documents, and i still need to log into all of my various online application sites and change my info.

i noticed something during last week's job search, though: a fair number of sites require an address as part of their application process. for some of them, i was able to type "address available upon request" in the address field and made up a zip code of 60600. that doesn't work for all of them, though, so i went ahead and used my current address, my rationale being that it was technically my address at the time of my application, so all should be ok. besides, it's not as if most places send out old-fashioned rejection letters anymore, so as long as my other contact information (cell phone and email) are ok, i should be set.

this got me thinking, though. how does this process work for people who are, for lack of a better term at the moment, more housing-insecure than i am? how does, say, a woman temporarily staying at a shelter as safe haven from domestic violence apply for a job? or anyone else who's homeless? it's entirely possible that i'm over thinking this and that these groups of people are able to use some sort of alternate address when this issue arises. it's just something that occurred to me - maybe the universe decided i needed yet another "attitude of gratitude" reminder. i don't know. if i come up with anything else on this, i'll be sure to share.

recipe review: lamb and chickpea chili

my "recipe roundups" will be going on hiatus until my living situation is a bit more stable. that said, i wanted to give a quick review of the one recipe i've tried out since my last roundup:

lamb and chickpea chili

substitutions/additions - i used all ground turkey instead of 1/2 lamb and 1/2 turkey, b/c i had a pound of ground turkey in the freezer that i needed to use before the move anyway. i used chili powder instead of harissa b/c no way am i going to voluntarily spend money on something super-spicy. oddly enough, though, i also added a dash of crushed red pepper toward the end of cooking.

you know how chili tastes better the longer it sits? it's true for this recipe as well. it was decent the first night, but by day 3? omg amazing. the texture's a bit weird b/c, well, there's chickpeas involved and none of the chili i normally consume has chickpeas in it, but don't let that stop you from trying it. unless you have texture issues, in which case feel free to ignore this recipe's existence. for those of you with a higher tolerance for spicy food (which, i assume, is everyone else on the planet b/c we all know i'm a wimp w/r/t spicy food) - i'd love it if you tried this with the harissa (or maybe more chili powder/cayenne) and told me how it turned out.

bon appetit!

oh, vh1, you've done it again

pop-up video + chapter 1 of "trapped in the closet" = comedy. now if we can get vh1 to give the pop-up video treatment to all 22 chapters...

R. Kelly - Pop Up Video - Trapped in the Closet Chapter 1 (Pop Up Video) - Free Music Videos

my dear miss brooks

if you've ever heard me talk about my undying love for gwendolyn brooks, then you know that i was way too excited when i saw this photo on sjb's tumblr. of course i had to share it with y'all, b/c that's just the kind of girl i am. :-)

paying it forward?

i was walking home from dominick's earlier and a woman approached me to ask if she could bother me for a moment. i had a few minutes to spare, so i stopped to listen. you've heard a version of the spiel before, i'm sure: single mom, didn't want to go into a store and steal something b/c she knew god wouldn't approve, just looking for some help so she can feed her kids, etc.

i almost always say no when people ask me for money, if for no other reason than my cashflow hasn't been very positive lately. if someone asks me for food, though, i'll offer to go to the store with them so they can buy a few things. most folks turn the offer down, but this woman didn't. off we went to aldi.

she was so grateful and couldn't figure out why i'd stopped. i couldn't pinpoint it immediately, either, but after i paid for her groceries, gave her the hug she asked for, and started walking home, i figured some of it out:

1) the woman reminds me of an older version of my friend tiff. seriously. similar facial structure, similar sounding voices...it was a bit uncanny.

2) i found $20 while walking home last night. i bought an instant lottery ticket while i was at dominick's and won $2 (technically $1, since i paid $1 for the ticket), so i suppose i was feeling a bit generous.

3) the universe and i have been having a bit of fun lately w/r/t me being open to new experiences/changes/etc.

as i'm writing this, reasons 1 and 3 are really sticking out for me. obviously, the fact that i'm, relatively speaking, down on my luck at the moment (read all about that here if you haven't already), also might've weighed into my decision. i don't regret it, though.

i can't stop laughing at this

vh1's "pop-up video" is back (woo!), and one of the 1st videos to get the pop-up treatment on this season is lauryn hill's "ex-factor." if you follow me on twitter, then you probably know that i tend to refer to lauryn as #mshillifyourecrazy. (what? we all know i'm bitchy like that!)

but anyway...the level of pop-up snark for this video has left me damn near in tears. i've laughed so hard that my stomach hurts. therefore, i decided that such comedic genius (imo, anyway - y'all might think it's utter bullshit and that's totally ok) had to be shared. here you go:

Lauryn Hill - Pop Up Video - Ex-Factor (Pop Up Video) - Free Music Videos

september: a recap of sorts

91 job applications. 4 interviews. 1 eviction notice and 2 court dates (update on that here). zero job offers. countless hours of college and pro football viewed. copious amounts of booze and chocolate consumed. ok, so that last one is pretty much a monthly occurrence, but you get my point. i'd tell you how many books i read, but since i track them by quarter and not by month, i can't give you an exact figure.

suffice it to say that there were quite a few times when i wanted to punch september in the face. yes, i know it's a month and not an animate object. i also know that 2011 is a year and not an animate object, and yet i want to beat the everloving shit out of 2011 on new year's eve. it hasn't been an easy year, let me tell you, and september definitely was not a pleasant month.

it wasn't all epic fail, though. i got to hang out and/or reconnect with some of y'all, which is always nice. i met some new people at my volunteer gig (i swear i will do a post about this on my other site before the end of october). overall, things could be a lot worse, etc., etc. although i don't really want or need to find out just how much worse things could get, mind you.

and now i will leave you with 2 of the songs that have been stuck in my head all weekend: