A bunch of negative things.
I was going to post a really sophisticated and positive blog about how my love/hate relationship with Los Angeles is in a hatred phase, and how I'm sure it will pass, but instead I started writing this email to two of my closest friends, which is now too sad and self-pitying to send, so I'm going to instead post it here on LJ so my friends don't have to deal with all of my self-loathing, which inevitably leads to finger-pointing and etc.
Sigh.
Hostessing: restaurants: they pay squat. You have freaking 3 or 4 hour shifts! At minimum wage?! That's nothing!!!! I mean, if I'm gonna make minimum wage, I gotta be working 8 or 9 hour days. That's what I did at Roast and Toast. That's the only way you make ANY money!!! Working for 10 or 15 hours a week at a minimum wage job expends more energy in transport than it equals money. It sucks.
Of course, I am in a bit of a quagmire, because it's not like a bunch of other jobs are chomping at the bit to take me. Today the owner of the restaurant came up to me and said "I saw your resume. You have some very impressive academic credentials." To which I wanted to say "So why am I freaking working at a minimum-wage hostessing job? Exactly."
I know I spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself these days, and it's gotta stop, but I am SO sick of being so freaking poor. SO sick of it. I know you hate your office job, Friend X, but the luxury of doing something you hate and getting PAID SO WELL that you don't have to do it 12 months out of the year is - whoa. It's beyond what I can even imagine. I've never had a job that pays over $20 an hour. And when I've had $20-an-hour jobs (for very short time-spans), I feel like I'm rich. Like I'm a millionaire, because I can pay rent AND bills AND credit cards AND go out to dinner and do a few fun things. It's like, I can actually have a life. This is, of course, a "grass-is-always-greener" situation, because in turn you say "if I could just write articles, get paid just enough to live on, and make a living that way, life would be SO much better" and in turn Friend Y says "If I could just have enough writing gigs to save and move..." and on the circle goes. So! I'm trying to take one step at a time right now, and FIRST figure out how to stay afloat before I do anything else, like, accomplish any of my immediate or mid-term goals (such as... short-film-making, script-writing, getting represented, applying to film festivals, etc) and I'm just realising that, having jobs is one thing. But having jobs that you hate which HARDLY (if even) cover your rent is so sickly depressing that it hurts. It hurts to know that the illegal Mexican nanny of my neighbours probably makes more per hour than I do. That I've wasted thousands of dollars on an education that will never get me a paid writing gig, much less ANY job. That I'm so stuck and at the same time drifting, that I can't see past my current trauma. At every other time in my poverty-filled life, I've been able to find something to get me through. Some creative expression, like painting, building, DJ-ing, crafting, photographing - and I don't even have any of those anymore. Because I don't have friends to do any of those things with. I don't even have friends I can rely on to call me back, must less brainstorm or create with. I just have a complete creative void, and I feel powerless. And I hate it.
Sigh.
Hostessing: restaurants: they pay squat. You have freaking 3 or 4 hour shifts! At minimum wage?! That's nothing!!!! I mean, if I'm gonna make minimum wage, I gotta be working 8 or 9 hour days. That's what I did at Roast and Toast. That's the only way you make ANY money!!! Working for 10 or 15 hours a week at a minimum wage job expends more energy in transport than it equals money. It sucks.
Of course, I am in a bit of a quagmire, because it's not like a bunch of other jobs are chomping at the bit to take me. Today the owner of the restaurant came up to me and said "I saw your resume. You have some very impressive academic credentials." To which I wanted to say "So why am I freaking working at a minimum-wage hostessing job? Exactly."
I know I spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself these days, and it's gotta stop, but I am SO sick of being so freaking poor. SO sick of it. I know you hate your office job, Friend X, but the luxury of doing something you hate and getting PAID SO WELL that you don't have to do it 12 months out of the year is - whoa. It's beyond what I can even imagine. I've never had a job that pays over $20 an hour. And when I've had $20-an-hour jobs (for very short time-spans), I feel like I'm rich. Like I'm a millionaire, because I can pay rent AND bills AND credit cards AND go out to dinner and do a few fun things. It's like, I can actually have a life. This is, of course, a "grass-is-always-greener" situation, because in turn you say "if I could just write articles, get paid just enough to live on, and make a living that way, life would be SO much better" and in turn Friend Y says "If I could just have enough writing gigs to save and move..." and on the circle goes. So! I'm trying to take one step at a time right now, and FIRST figure out how to stay afloat before I do anything else, like, accomplish any of my immediate or mid-term goals (such as... short-film-making, script-writing, getting represented, applying to film festivals, etc) and I'm just realising that, having jobs is one thing. But having jobs that you hate which HARDLY (if even) cover your rent is so sickly depressing that it hurts. It hurts to know that the illegal Mexican nanny of my neighbours probably makes more per hour than I do. That I've wasted thousands of dollars on an education that will never get me a paid writing gig, much less ANY job. That I'm so stuck and at the same time drifting, that I can't see past my current trauma. At every other time in my poverty-filled life, I've been able to find something to get me through. Some creative expression, like painting, building, DJ-ing, crafting, photographing - and I don't even have any of those anymore. Because I don't have friends to do any of those things with. I don't even have friends I can rely on to call me back, must less brainstorm or create with. I just have a complete creative void, and I feel powerless. And I hate it.