(Atomic) Dog Days of Summer

I’m going to keep this short, I have work at Starbucks in the morning.  I kind of feel like Doogie Howser at the end of an episode, but I just feel like I have to fully capture what I had to do just to end up where I am at the end of July.

Doogie Howser was way before his time people.

• Somehow, I had to find some roommates, or I was leaving LA.  Luckily, I knew where to look, but the sand was already dropping from the hourglass.
• I thought that I’d be hanging out with a lot of people in July.  But just because I had a lot of free time on my hands didn’t mean that anyone else did.  People were working, exploring foreign lands, or trying to get the hell out of LA.  Or at least, that’s what I tell myself when no one texted me back!
• The leasing office here didn’t do me too many favors.  I was lucky to get three people to commit to move in so quickly, but none of them were going to be in LA until mid-August, so I had to do most of the legwork for them…
• It took 12 days to get all of the applications faxed in (that’s the downside of distant signatures).  Still can’t run credit (which cost me $75 so that no one would have to send money yet), they need proof of employment.  On day 13, proof of employment was obtained but not in time to turn in.  On day 14, proof of employment approved, but that’s when they tell me the applications were incomplete. And why is it incomplete???  Because they forgot that their website didn’t have the full application.  So that meant more faxes.  So in all, it took 17 days for the applications to be completed.
• Of course, during this time, I had to figure out how the lights were going to stay on.  Luckily, I got to Willie before he left; otherwise, I would have been writing this in the dark.
• We also had to figure out how to sign Marcus out, which was slightly more complicated with him getting ready for TFA in S. Carolina.  Again, faxes/signatures/time-less.
• I mentioned it took 17 days for the whole application mess to get figured out.  I had to wait an extra 48 hours to know if my new roommates’ credit would be approved.  Making matters more complicated, I had to work now (I make it seem so bad, no?) … making matters even more complicated, the lost time would make it difficult to get rent money from peeps on time – IF they were even approved.  Ye gods.
• Also starting right when I started work?  The NFL off-season.  Simply inconvenient.

But you know how these stories usually end.  With a deep breath among all of the stress and BS.  After a week of screwing up orders, forgetting the store hours, burning myself with milk, and making it painfully obvious that I spent the past ten years working with (and for) youth, I think I’ll survive working at a downtown LA Starbucks.  It would be nice if a job I applied for called me, but for now I’ll appreciate my low hours while simultaneously motivated by my minimum wage.  I need to learn how to be more selfish and start taking myself more seriously, and that means spending the fall applying to grad school for either (sports) broadcast journalism or social media communications.  If I don’t like what I have in LA come spring (RE: if I’m still working at Starbucks with no 2012 contract by May), then I’ll prepare to leave.

But for now, I’m here, still in Boyle Heights, in the same place (but a new, clean room) waiting for my new roommates to get here.  It was a long, very isolating month that I wish not to have to go through again.  Although I probably shouldn’t say that either.  I was challenged this month, but the few people who helped me get through this month know who they are, and I appreciate them.  I have my health intact and my faith restored somewhat.  I’m in a bit of a personality rehab, and that should do me well by time the year’s out.  I should have gray hairs, but I don’t, so I’ll just try and enjoy the rest of this crazy summer.

Although, if I look like this by the end of August... well, I warned myself first.

-1SKILLZ