Not getting much better

Its been a really hard week. I'd thought this week would be better then last with a few new chances. Turns out I was wrong, and all those opportunities lead to dead ends. Not sure anyone other then myself really reads this anymore, but I just don't think I can go on like this much longer.

So long old friend.

Rusty, the next door neighbor's dog, will sadly no longer be present to bark at us, and beg for attention. The man living directly across the street from me apparently was so upset at the dogs 'cronic' barking that several weeks ago he called the city police on it. If that doesn't seem asanine let me restate that. He called the police on a 60 lb dog, police that should be out stopping people from having gun fights just off the express way, or from dropping off furniture in the middle of Torrence. At any rate the police came took a report, and my neighbors had a court date on Monday. They apparently lost and were fined 1000 dollars with the stipulation that they'd get 900 of it back if they recieved no complaints about the dog in a year. The man across the street at that point made it abundantly clear that if the dog stayed he'd file another complaint. So Rusty is on his way to the pound.

I sincerely hope someone adopts the dog, and that he's not destroyed. He's extremely loveable, and despite the complaints of the guy across the street actually doesn't bark all that much. Rusty is sadly a bit neglected, and is full of energy. He desperatly wants someone to pet him, and play with him. Anytime anyone walks anywhere near the fence to his yard he bounces around and barks to get their attention, then looks at them all floppy ear'd and sad.

What really upsets me about this whole incident is the growing lack of communication in my neighborhood. Rather then talk to a neighbor about a problem you're having with them its become far easier to simply call up the police and complain to them and have them deal with it. We were fined twice for my van. Now the fact is both me and my dad knew we should not have left it out in front of my house for 4 months, and to be honest we'd actually never intended to, it just sort of slipped our minds. Had the neighbor who called the police simply taken the 30 seconds to walk over to either of us and said, 'Hey, that van is kind of an eye sore could you move it?' either one of us would have jumped up, grabed the keys and instantly moved it. Instead they called the police not once but twice after we'd already moved it behind the house. Across our neighborhood it seems there's now a vindictive spike of calling up the city to fine various neighbors for the tiniest infractions. From lawns left a smidge to long to too many cars parked out front of the home. Its truly sad to me that Rusty the big dumb loveable dog had to be a victim in this, but hopefully people will start to wake up, and talk to each other again.

When the world gives you shit....

You do what? Make Shitade? One of my favorite Penny Arcade comics, but it's true of my life at the moment. As many of you know I had an interview last week for a tech position down in Crete. The interview went pretty well we spoke for around three hours, and I was pretty drained by the end of it, not surprising considering it sometimes felt like a three hour psychiatric evaluation. I was a little unhappy that they'd significantly lowered the salary from when they'd originally spoken to me, but its still a good job so I was pretty hopeful. Unfortunatly it's looking like I did not get the position. I'm still trying to be optimistic and hold out hope, but they told me they'd call at the earlist on Wensday, but said they'd definatly be calling 'this week'. They haven't called me, and more upsetting is the fact that as near as I can tell they haven't called a single one of my references.

I really don't know what to do anymore. I can't continue to live off of less then 100 bucks a week. On top of that my savings is almost completly run out, I'm literally almost bankrupt. I'm tired of feeling like a failure, and tired of family members and friends (not anyone who reads this blog so don't send me e-mails saying, 'I don't think you're a failure') thinking I am. I'm tired of being lonely. I just honestly don't know what to do anymore.

I thought when Melissa forwarded me this job that I'd finally figured everything out. This was it, finally some direction to my life at a real job that actually seemed to care about their employees. No more constant lying to customers with the threat of being fired if I didn't hanging over my head. Even when they lowerd the salary and I knew I'd be making half of the 50,000 a year they'd initially promised I still felt that this was the job for me. I could finally answer the question, where would I be in 3 years time, and work with a good team of people. I suppose looking back on it, I'd done what I always did and counted my chickens before they hatched. I've been through this enough that I should have known better, but I just felt that this time would really be different.

I'm still kind of holding out hope. Maybe it was just a harder decision then I thought, maybe they're discussing it. I mean it did take three hours with them to complete the interview, maybe they're just taking a long time to sift through all the resumes again. Thoughts like this though just make calling on Monday to see whats going on even harder. You don't want to shatter the illusion of hope, because thats all thats keeping you from breaking down.

*sigh* I just don't know what I'm going to do anymore.