Niki told me I should write a book on How To Blow a Job Interview.

Now, the first step neccesary to blowing a job interview is to really hate the job, to not want it at all, and to convince yourself that the person interviewing you, the owner of the store is a pompous ass. Okay, now charm your way through the interview, make the owner laugh and smile, and keep the interview rolling along smoothly. You don't really blow it big unless it is abrupt, the smooth laughter, and then the stoneface. Smile. No smile. That's the effect you are going for. Wait until that moment right as he is about to offer you the job to blow it. Hold it as long as possible. Wait until he asks you one last question, a formality that just requires a nod. Let's just pick a hypothetical example. Let's say he asks you about your plans to also pick up a part time job, you say that you are thinking about it, and then he exercises power and says that this is not a good idea since your schedule changes from week to week and that Lame-O Grocery Store must be your #1 priortiy. Now you are free to blow the interview, but be subtle. Continue this discussion about scheduling and a part time job, let him give you a long explanation of their scheduling and why this should prevent you from seeking out other work, an answer that is supposed to silence you if you want the job. And then laugh like he is a dickhead and say that is just not financially realistic to expect you to support yourself in New York City for godsakes working only forty hours a week making eight dollars an hour, and that you are going to need to get another job.

And then watch as the owner's smile fades, as he straightens papers and tells you that they still have other people to interview and will get back to you.

I decided that if I am going to get paid low wages, it is not going to be as a cashier at a fucking grocery store. Organic or not. And tomorrow at ten, I have an interview at The Strand bookstore (eight miles of books!) that I am not going to blow. Oh, and I have an apartment too. Or at least until June 20. A sublet in Williamsburg that I can move into on Sunday. Tomorrow: interview, job hunting, meeting with Jeff about subletting his room, and then either the Rev. Al Sharpton talking at the gay center or Tom Robbins reading. I really want to see Sharpton but I told Niki already that I would go see Tom Robbins, who I think is a little silly.

In the living room of this loft is this huge image of a beach at sunset. I'm talking 10 by 15 feet. The type of thing they have at travel agencies on a wall. And I was watching Magnolia on the couch and looking into the sunset, thinking that I was in that picture only weeks ago and I didn't appreciate it at all. You look at a picture of a tropical beach on a cold, drizzly day in New York and it seems about as distant from reality as Mars or something, and a short period of time ago, this was my reality. And I looked at this image for way too long, at the sunset on the wall of this loft in Red Hook, and I wish I had a digital camera so I could show all you LJ readers what I am talking about. Images to accompany the story. I saw a young female, my age or thereabouts reading a WG Sebald novel on the train today, and I thought: too young, too young.