Kids, I have just been on one of the most depressing shopping trips in my experience. I looked at so very much clothing, all over the Salem mall, and oh, it filled me with despair. "Doesn't take much," you may say to yourself. Ah, but consider: all shirts are not only poorly cut, but have the dreaded bust pleat (bust pleats: enemy of all but those whose busts conform to manufacturer standards) and WAIT THAT'S NOT THE WORST they also sometimes had GLITTER and RUFFLES and, even sweaters had this: RUCHING. And drawstrings in weird places, and cut-outs in weird places, and oh, so many ugly things, rhinestone zippers, printed words, sins of ribbon, all in the worst colors, in fabric that already is pilling and snagging.
It was disgusting. I took to swearing under my breath.
And don't think I confined myself to the youngster sections--shit, the rhinestone zipper was in the old lady section! What has become of us all?


I had to go to the mall because I have no clean, non-shabby article of clothing to wear on my top half for my mock interview tomorrow. Dudes, I am so stressed out. That is why I am blogging again, because I cannot face my future. I teach a full day tomorrow, then I go to a mock interview, and I am not well-prepared for either, and I HAVE TO TAKE IT EASY, I'm VIRUSY. I keep just wanting to cry. It's not only because of tomorrow, but you know how it is, things pile up and after a certain point of ack-edness, everything looks to be a fucking mess.

Oh! I was going to make a joke for you. I don't think I can make it funny now, but it was about how I settled for a zip-up cardigan that, though it might not say "interview," at least says "mock interview," especially since it is a mock turtleneck. There's a pun, in there!! At any rate, if somebody gives me crap I have little to no qualms telling them, "It's a mock interview--let's pretend I'm dressed appropriately." My resume is bad, I cannot manage a cover letter, and I have no idea how to respond to any possible interview question. I have been forgetting my zip code and phone number, today. I'm going to just be glad for now this is not the city nor state where I actually want to get a job.

Hey, let's change the subject. I need to go soon, but before I do: moistworks.com is doing a week of entries by known authors (it's an mp3 blog) and I cannot believe no one in the comments is freaking out. No one! People don't freak out about authors? I mean, if I were a person who comments on sites of people I don't know, they'd have the following comments on their site:

"Whoa! Sam Lipsyte! No way! YOU ARE SO AWESOME."

and

"holy shit! it's jonathan lethem! i LOVED motherless brooklyn! i've read nothing else by you but i bet the rest is good! man, seriously, motherless brooklyn. that was GREAT. ps: why are you so into chickens?"

Sometimes I mix it up with the capitalization, see.
So yeah, no one freaked out like that in the comments, at all. Maybe such comments were deleted, or self-edited because everyone who reads the site is relatively socially adjusted.

Here is another thing to share, a stream of an album not out yet. I like it a lot so far: http://www.mergerecords.com/jukeboxes/destroyer/