bitterfig

Yesterday was to be my big job hunting day.  I applied for a few positions but overall I didn’t do nearly as much as I should have.  Part of it was that it was my first day off in forever and I had some other things I had to take care of, mainly renewing my driver’s license which was set to expire on my Birthday next week.  I couldn’t renew on-line so I had to haul my sorry ass over to the Chicago North DMV building which is way, way out on Elston Avenue and go through the whole process of standing in various lines, taking a number etc.  At least that’s taken care of for another four years.

My other distractions were purely frivolous-- going to the library (as if I won’t be reading Vanity Fair for the next month), writing, and updating my journal.  Things I enjoy doing and want to do on my day off but still I really have to make job hunting a priority.  I’m particularly aware of that this morning because I don’t feel very well.  I’m dizzy and have stomach cramps but I’ve got to be at work at 2:45 p.m. because if I take a sick day I’ll be half a point away from termination.  

I know I procrastinate and put off my job search because I’m afraid of being turned down and also of change but I’m also afraid of failing and having to return to my parents.  I had a nightmare about it last night.  I was packing up my apartment (which was also my dorm room from college) to go back to my parents house in Upstate New York.  I think it was partially influenced by a movie I recently watched, Everything is Illuminated which is about a Jewish American who goes to the Ukraine to search for his families roots.  There are many, many shots of driving through the remote Ukrainian countryside that reminded me of the rural landscape where I grew up-- beautiful in so many ways but also empty and desolate. 

The film version of Everything is Illuminated was, like the book on which it is based, deeply flawed but still vital and interesting.  Watching it I found that I identified not with the American, Jonathan, a compulsive collector who comes seeking his roots, but with Alex, the native Ukrainian, who wants nothing to do with history and embraces cheap contemporary pop culture.  I feel like that’s what I want to do and maybe that guarantees that sooner or later I’ll have to deal with where I come from.   My case is of course a bit  unique.  I know many people feel cut off from their heritage but both my parents want to live in 1800’s so I’ve had a version idealized of the past forced on me for as long as I can remember.  Spend enough of your childhood paying homage at he graves of various ancestors and you’re bound to resent them.  My mother in particular is very uncomfortable with sexuality and has created a safe haven in a chaste and pious past.  Among her prize processions are the journals of a relative who would faithfully report the weather and the chores performed each and everyday while never mentioning her pregnancies except to note that she had had a child and certainly never making mention of said child’s conception.