waiting for magic...

This may not sound like the best time to wake up, and indeed, it isn’t high on my list of things to do. Why, may you ask (and too bad if you didn’t) am I getting up so early, at least an hour before the sun? I have an alarm better than any machine: beginning-of-the-week anxiety. It’s a special and rare breed, guilty for similar insomnia in my days as a grad student (what? I have 2 research papers due plus 25 papers to grade and I’m supposed to be defending my creative component when? And I have no direction in my life? And I’m a dirty, dirty, ahem…well, you get the point, messy apartment and whatnot). And so, at the beginning of my week, like clockwork, between 3:45 and 4:15 I’ve been waking up in a panic. An OMG I just frittered away my weekend, two days gone without job searching (perhaps more if I’m being really honest…I sort of lose my focus by the end of the week), and I don’t have a job!

I’m beginning to wonder if there is a step I’m missing in the job search job (because, trust me, this is a job, they (whomever they might be) just don’t pay you for it). But because “they” don’t pay me for this audience analysis (because, really, a cover letter is just about that…examining the employer and deciding what lingo might grant you the serenity of an interview), I’ve come up with a new plan to mitigate my dwindling savings. I had this idea before, but never manage to pull it off (darn ladybug).

When I was strapped for cash as a grad student, it was suggested to me that I sell my plasma. There was a center in Ames and if you go as often as they’ll let you, you can make around $200 a month (at least, that was the going rate in IA). I was a little apprehensive about donating, but I went, despite my feeling of foreboding. However, after a few visits (bad scheduling conflicts), I’d only gotten to the interview portion of the session (no plasma even taken yet) and I was asked the question: do you have any tattoos? There may, perhaps be a ladybug on my ankle…slight possibility. She wanted to know how old it was. Only 8 months? Gosh, sorry, you have to wait a year after getting a tattoo before donating. I was remonstrated several times for my idiocy (lie, lie, and lie some more) but in my defense, I didn’t know why they were asking the question (although I might have been able to deduce where they were going with it if I’d been a little less nervous and therefore focused). So, my money troubles passed me by (sort of, I mean, after all I was a poor graduate student living for my school loans) and I never went back to the clinic.

But here I am, yet again, bleeding numbers out of my bank account (a pun that bad can’t be intentional, but don’t put anything past my subconscious). Although the donations (if I donate as often as possible) only grant me enough to cover my car expenses each month (my last tank of gas: $42.00. Despite the coolness of the number, I still was not, surprisingly, jumping up and down with glee), that’s still even more time I can last on my savings before I’m forced to admit defeat (read: I’m never getting a good job and will be forced to work retail and donate plasma for eternity; outlook not good).

So tomorrow, for the first time (assuming nothing goes wrong, but I have a good feeling about this one), I’ll be hooked up to a machine that takes out a ton of my blood, filters out the plasma and puts the rest of the crap back in (but that’s cool, I hear red blood cells are pretty nifty and don’t get me started on those white ones). 1:20. Tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll have something boring to say about it then, too.

I’m breezy!

Posted by Dana on Monday, June 18, 2007 at 3:02 PM | Permalink