budgiehead

I was walking through downtown Redwood City -- all four blocks of it -- on Monday, and suddenly realized that I needed to cut my hair. That's the way it happens sometimes; you're doing something harmless like finishing a meal or tying tin cans to a puppy, and bang, all at once, you want to do something life-changing, or at the very least mutilating, to your personal appearance.

Maybe it's just me.

So I was walking through downtown Redwood City, and I decided to get my hair cut. "The very next place I pass," I told my companions, the Norwegian and Vak. Fate, who has a sense of humor, decreed that the next hair cutting place should be a little hole in the wall on Broadway, near the "Sushi by the Pound" place. Tara observed a while back that I seemed to have luck with little holes in the wall when it came to my hair. Puffed up by self-importance and that particular piece of dangerous flattery, I walked in.

This is why today, four days after the haircut, I look like a geriatric, angry budgie. Lucky me.

I'm not going to talk all that much about the haircut, which wasn't fine, or the nice lady who cut my hair, who was, okay, nice, but no graduate from Vidal Sassoon if you get my drift. I will mention that she used a neat pair of scissors with gold handles that looked like they had made it through both World Wars and were worth several thousand dollars on eBay. None of that seems particularly important and while I'm sure you'd enjoy the story -- which I'll tell to anybody who asks, and don't you wish you knew me in person? -- it just seems to pale besides the fact that at this point in time, with the exception of the whole Being Asian thing, I could march into any mullet-afflicted trailer in the state of Alabama, crawl into bed with any of the residents, and be accepted as a potential breeder.

Flamingo sent out emails today announcing that she's now employed, which picks up my spirits enormously. In terms of vicarious living, I'm one of the past masters of confiscating others' joys for my own; it comes of being a musician and never having the time to live a life that actually involved, well, living.

On the home front, I'm heartily sick of being unemployed. On Wednesday I woke up late, and at three o'clock I wandered out of my room -- for the first time that day -- in order to make breakfast. At some point in time, long before we'd moved in, some sadist had attached a full-length mirror on my door. I came back with my nutritious breakfast of sourdough toast and cheetos, and was brought up short by my own reflection.

Y'all, it was like coming face to face with the leviathan from the laundry room lagoon.

Item: One pair of sweatpants, mostly black, with holes attached. Very much in need of washing. Item: One Hawaii T-shirt, backwards, with tag showing. Also very much in need of washing. (Note to self: When was last time this T-shirt was removed? Wasn't I wearing an undershirt at one point?) Item: Two socks from different sets, one white, one not-so-white. One sock rolled over the hem of sweatpants because apparently this is easier way to don socks when unemployed and not giving a damn about personal appearance. Both socks unreasonably clean. Item: Hair. Oy, eighties flashback. Hairbrush has obviously not been in vicinity for very long time. Item: No glasses. No wonder everything seemed blurry. How long ago did we last see our glasses?

I'm tired of being unemployed. I don't think I'm going to make it through a long unemployment, either. I need help, somebody. Send beauty care supplies. Note to self. Find job.

In point of fact, I've narrowed down my list of Places I'd Like To Work. Initially, it started out fairly simple.

Ahem.

Places I'd like to work:

Anywhere.

Now that I've had some time to really look at companies though, I've narrowed it down to a list of places I really don't want to work -- Exxon is on that list, for instance, as is McDonalds -- and a list of companies I'd give my eyeteeth -- (Note to self: What the hell are eyeteeth? Look up in dictionary sometime) -- to work at.

So, if anybody out there works for the following companies, please feel free to inspect my resume and give me a call. I promise I'll be your ultimate employee. I'll be cheerful, helpful, intelligent, hard-working, entertaining, service-oriented, and friendly. I'll get emotionally attached to the company and develop ridiculous loyalties to business plans, no matter how irrational or inane.

I specialize in troubleshooting and developing good relationships and lines of communication. I can speak English, simultaneously translate Canadian to American, and can write in all three languages with varying degrees of fluency. I've programmed, managed projects, reviewed software, done release engineering, trained, edited, published, tested, deployed, and designed. For a new job, I'll do all that and more.

I'll even bathe and put on clean clothes. And get a new haircut from someplace that costs more than Supercuts. Really, what more could you ask for in an employee?