2006-01-21

i'm 25

It was my birthday yesterday, and I celebrated by going on another job interview. This one was in LA. I only got the call for it on Wednesday and he wanted me to come up that week, so I agreed to come up yesterday. I took the train at his suggestion. It was extremely convenient, because the train goes the main depot in LA and I could catch the metro downtown from there as well. The train took about three hours, but it probably would have taken just as long anyway to drive, considering the traffic and the headache of finding parking downtown. This is probably the only time I have ever had a really favorable impression of LA.

The business was in an extremely ritzy highrise in the financial district. I'm not all that easily impressed, being a world-traveller and all, but this one left me a bit intimidated. First, I had to take the elevator to the viewing level. Naturally, the walls were glass and there was an open balcony so you could take in the cityscape. It also had frescoes on the ceiling, leather armchairs and a large marble fountain. From that point, I had to check in with security and get escorted to their office, as in, the security guard actually went with me in the elevator.

I was a little early, so I waited around and read a magazine. The interview went fairly well, I thought. The job is basically to do research on people for clients. I told him about my research, although I may have inadvertently left him with the impression that I wasn't all that methodical in my search methods. We also talked about Italian literature and design for a little while. Then I told him about my old habit of internet stalking for Di before she went on dates with people she met online. Basically, we'd always check them out online to see if they were freaks, so I told him about that. I was a little apologetic about it, because I felt foolish talking aout it in a interview. With them all fancy and everything too. At some point I forgot myself and said, "I'd check for discrepancies, you know, if they have different ages listed on different sites or something, because then you know that they are liars and she shouldn't go out with them." I also told him about this creepy man that we tracked down. This guy posted a lot of strange ads online and was obviously a weirdo. He lived near Di's hometown and attended the local college, so we thought that her friends there should know who he was so that they could avoid him. But, I think that these two stories may have actually pleased him more than my talking about my thesis research. So we'll see.

So, it was an interesting birthday. Like I mentioned earlier, the train was about three hours each way, so by the time I got home I was exhausted. I did get a nice coat from my mom and she made me a cake with chocolate frosting. Di called to wish me a happy birthday and sent me some silly ecards. Paddy sent me a text message in the afternoon and called later on. My elder brother sent me a card with a handmade coupon that said I could make him take me out to lunch. It was all very sweet.

xanthium at 10:03 a.m.

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