M

you bitch.

OK, right.

It is done. Resignation handed in, two weeks' counting down. I have to sit in this stupid cube for exactly nine more days (advice: give two weeks' notice over labour day) and then I'm free... to do what I want... any old time... (god bless the Soup Dragons).

So, thank you to all the people who commented in support. I feel so loved by a bunch of people I don't know! Yee! Harpy-darpy.

Anyway, I should have made this decision two months ago. When you're in a position that is going to lead you nowhere, isn't helping you financially, and is sucking your soul out of your eyes, it's time to quit. I am very lucky to be in a position where I can do this; I don't have kids, I'm single, and I have a supportive network of friends and relatives that I'm sure I can couch surf through if need be.

I came into work this morning and handed in my letter, and then walked around and told the people that I would prefer hear it from me. One guy, who has really grown on me, took one look at me and said "you look so much better than you did last week." It was about damn time I took a proactive role in my life and my career. So ya, I feel good mon.

I had another interview with Super-Duper New Company last week. They are having me in for a drug test/medical tomorrow (wonder if they'll care about all this silly opium I've been doing). I don't think it's presumptuous to say I am expecting an offer. The Friday interview was actually not a first-round interview, as I thought, but a follow-up to the disasterous interview I had two weeks ago (this is how well I thought it went). Apparantly I was a "very impressive candidate," and my follow-up went "very well." The position is amazing (doggystyle), and cashy (woot!).

Anyway, I have led everyone around here to believe that I am quitting with no real plan and just because I can't take it anymore... I have "realized the ship is sinking, and would rather jump into the water and swim with the sharks than go down with it," according to one colleague. Damn right, says I.

So. That's that.

I had a good weekend. I took Friday off to see Heidi's wedding dress and interview and Super-Duper New Company. The dress is beautiful and very unique to her... not everyone could pull it off (because not everyone is drop-dead gorgeous). I stretched the legs of my new digital camera around the city and at the St Laurent street fair. I'm finding it very frustrating and miss the weight and shutter response of my SLR. All of my digital pictures are coming out out of focus and framed bizarrely, which you would think wouldn't be a problem with the preview, but the screen is tiny, only about 1.5" square. It's a fairly high-end digital camera, but I love my Nikon N60 so very much and would never have gone digital were it not for the ease and eliminating developing costs. I'm finding capturing moments very difficult with the digital shutter delay, and whenever I use a flash, even if I shutter it back, the picture comes out flat and overexposed. Maybe I'll post some pics and ask for some advice... later, when I get around to it. I'm also annoyed at how quickly it eats through batteries. I had this brilliant idea to buy an ipod photo and upload pictures directly to it in the field, so I would have the equivalent of a 20G memory card (instead of the pissant 64MB the camera came with). All in all, I'm just a creature of habit, but the camera was free, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. Alls I know is the digital and the film cameras are both coming with me to England so I don't risk missing good stuff because I haven't mastered my medium.

Saturday was this silly frosh week pubcrawl. I went on that thing my first year (obviously) and second year (as a leader), and I believe my third, but skipped it my fourth and last years. I should have known that I outgrew it when I was 20, and it's not like at 24 I would suddenly like it again. Anyway, I crawled for about an hour, chugged two beers, and felt I'd done my duty for the rest of my life... I am way past hanging out with trashed 18-year-olds and the 20-year-olds leading them around. I didn't think I was growing up, and the prospect of this new job at Super-Duper New Company is a bit scary (you want me to do what? Are you sure?), but I'd rather deal with getting up at 6:30am and dressing up for work every day than get smokin' drunk in a seedy bar with a bunch of engineers. Except for the engineers that... you know... stayed my friends because we like each other beyond engineering.  So I left the pub crawl and went to Will's house for a very civilized three bottles of wine, a pasta dinner, and a few amaretto digestifs.  Because that is where I'm at.

Guess I'm growing up. On to the next thing.

8:15am

"Mary, could you step in here for a minute?"

*blah blah blah, pass 30 minutes discussing project*

Stands up, shuts door.

"We need to have a talk. It seems to me that you've been very unfocused lately. It's affecting your work."

Oh, yes, M. Way to be. Go out on a high note, you fucking idiot. It's good when they're UPSET that you're leaving, not secretly relieved. Guess this will be a no-reference job.

I know it was a short talk. But my manager is a bad manager and avoids confrontation at all costs, and now I feel like a complete ass. I also feel like I've failed. And although this is to the familiar tune of me freaking out, if I can't go home at the end of the day and feel like I'm better than this shit, why do I deserve to leave?

I am so pissed off at myself right now.

God, I'm fucking happy.

(who's happy? None of your damn business!)

Seriously, look at my life. I am quitting my shit job. I have recieved nothing but support from my friends and my family. I am well on my way to getting a very lucrative offer from a very, very good company to work for, that will, within a year, have me doing exactly what I want to be doing.

And you know what? Although it seems like a no-brainer, I'm thinking about not taking it. I'm thinking about saying "fuck it all" and moving to Seattle. Because I need a change. And I don't know if just a new job is going to cut it. And if I get a job at this company... well, it's going to be hard to leave.

So.

I have a billion things to do today, but I'm going to start with this. I'm coing to call a recruiting firm in Seattle. I'm going to find out about the employment climate out there. Then, I'm going to book a flight out there, leaving the Saturday after I quit my job. I'm going to hang out there for a few days and get a sense of the city and try to set up some interviews. Then I'm going to fly to England to visit my very dear friend, who is studying at Oxford, because I love her and I miss her and I don't know when I'll see her again. She and I are going to raise pints in England and then trapse off to Greece for a week to bask in the sun.

As I have another interview on Friday, I have elected to take Friday as a "personal day," and then I will quit on Monday. Although I set my quit date for Friday a few weeks ago, it just makes more sense to do it Monday. And that's that. Monday, August 29th, I will be resigning. And on to a better job in the city, or leaving Montreal for good. Either way, I'm excited. And I get to go to England! yay!

In other news, I made a new friend. I met her through a club I ride mountain bikes (well, when I'm healthy) with. She's, like, cool. Anyway, Saturday night I went out for a beer with her... which turned into a pitcher and two pints. Needless to say, I was blitzed, and so was she. Both of us at least once said something along the lines of "so, anyway... what was I saying? I forget. I'm drunk." We staggered out of the bar at around 2:30 and went for bagels, then staggered off towards home. She lives about 200 metres from me, so we walked to the corner together. That's where things got funny. There is a strip club across the street from my apartment which lights up the whole block. Occasionally, I'll be woken up by Christina Aguilera belting "Dirty", or a motorcycle taking off in the middle of the night. Half the block is lit by the proverbial flashing red lights. It's atrocious. Anyway, when we got to the corner, she decided she wanted to talk to the strip club owner. So we went up to the door, and I swear, this is the conversation.

Mel: Anglais or Francais?

Strip Club Owner: I don't speak French.

Mel: What the hell, you run a business in Montreal, and you don't speak French?

SCO: What can I do for you?

Mel: So, we're doing our masters. In stripping. And we had a few questions for you.

(cue me doubling over and cracking up. Very smooth.)

SCO: yeah...?

Mel: So, how many people would you say you have in here on an average night?

SCO: I'd say about eighty between 8pm and 3am.

Mel: And do you allow women in?

SCO: sure, yeah, we get all kinds of ladies in here... lesbians and stuff.

Mel: So you don't need a male escort or anything?

SCO: Nope. Do you ladies want to come in?

Mel: No way. Just wondering.

We walked away, and I about pissed myself laughing. Now, I realize this isn't a particularly funny story. Yet.

We got about half a block away, because I didn't want to walk straight into my apartment and have this sketchy, nasty dude know where I live. Mel stops and says "wait, I need to tell him about the poop." There's this picture of a stripper from behind on the outside of the club, where she's pulled down her bikini bottoms about halfway, and the bottoms are hanging between her legs... it, quite literally, looks like she dropped a load in her pants. So Mel goes back to the door (I actually couldn't walk because I was doubled over in the street.) and pulls the guy outside by his sleeve to point at the picture and to tell him that she doesn't come into this bar because of the poop show. And he was trying to convince her that no, it's because she's so wet, and she wasn't having any of it. Insisting on the poop.

Then, I threw out the idea that we should get the next group of guys we see walking down the street to go up to the strip club and then turn around and say "yeah, maybe we'll go somewhere else. I don't want to see a poop show."

And she did.

Fuck, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

I don't kiss ass. I don't. It's just not something I do.

Once, in high school, I was walking in the woods with a friend. She said something, and I muddled together "kiss my ass" and "bite me," which came out "bite my ass." She did. Hard. It hurt.

But I digress. My career (well, less my career than my life) is going to be severely hindered, I fear, by my lack of ability to suck it up and kiss a little ass. In Spanish, the phrase is "lamer los ojos," or quite literally, to lick the eyes. Whenever I think of that, my brain immediately jumps to that part of Lolita where he licks an eyelash out of her eye. Anyway, there are people who can suck it up and put on a happy face and say cheese. I am NOT one of these people. I think it's a positive attribute, sometimes, that I am a no-bullshit person. If I think you're an idiot, you're going to know. It makes me a very direct communicator. But it also makes me a bitch.

The thing I think most people don't realize, is despite the fact that I have a relatively thick skin, I give a shit about what they think about me. Not everyone. I don't care what the stupid trendy girls with their too-short skirts and why-god-won't-you-just-let-the-80s-die pointy shoes think of me, and I don't care what my stupid boss thinks of me. But there are a few people out there, and heaven help me, I value their opinions. And I don't think they often realize how much impact things they say or do have on me. Maybe it's because I curse and drink whisky and do my damnedest to not cry in public and threaten to beat people within an inch of their lives, but hey. I have feelings too.

What's my point?  I don't have one.  Do I always have to?

Super-Duper New Company is in a hiring freeze.

Fucking typical.

Please, leave me words of encouragement... I could use them today.