repel this
a.k.a. the hipster conundrum

[rewritten 10.4.2003]

green l.e.d.s on the clock radio burned my eyes at a glance: four in the morning. lethargy tormented my eyelids with promises of pleasant dreams as fingers scrolled aimlessly through lines of text on the screen. searching through job listings has become a form of amusement, given the slim chances of actually being noticed in the bitstream crush of resumes. given that i have nothing to lose and probabilistically little to gain, a twisted thought evolved from a blending of faint notions as i typed out a response message.

until that moment i had been using a couple of form letters accompanied by tweaked resumes representing the industries in which i sought employment. in my haste to seem the good, employable candidate, i had forgotten an essential aspect of attention and memory: i was being utterly forgettable. when applying for office jobs, everyone is more or less forgettable -- a skill set and little more. but when applying for writing/media/design jobs as i had begun to do, that approach struck me as the quickest way to the "Trash" box.

stand out or be ignored, i realized. the same as everywhere else.

blinking the blur and sleep to the corners of my eyes, i started to write. the subject was a play on words, the body text was generally self-effacing and humorous, with a writing sample tacked on to the end. i didn't bother including my resume; if they wanted it, they could ask.

in the next couple of days, i continued in this pattern; sending irreverent, apparently careless emails to carefully picked targets. i know what i am worth, this is why; you can hire me if you like.

in a week i had three responses, whereas in the past six months i had received none. one was a flame, trash-talking me for critizing his obnoxious use of all-caps in his ad. but it turned out to be a marketing job, and marketing is a hustle; i am not a hustler, so his anger-management problems got a quick "thank you" response, and *click* the delete button.

the second was a courteous thank-you note for my 'thoughtful letter'; i was to be the front-end coder complementing her graphic design expertise, and we were to form a partnership in providing freelance web design for clients. i haven't heard back from her since i emailed her my rates... lol

the third response, from the zine to whom i had sent my first teaser email, was a request for my resume.

now, a week later, i am editorial assistant intern-slash-webmaster-slash-office manager [?]-slash-[...]. no suits and no corporate bullshit... at least for the time being. seems like right now, my classroom is life.

audio: bjork . i miss you [darren emerson mix]

i like johnny depp.

setting foot outside club demerara as the sun began to rise, he was surprised as well as amused. his exhaustion at dancing for five hours straight could not dampen the smile that curled at the edges of his lips from time to time.

the first had hunted him down on the dance floor as he lost himself in the hard house beats, moving close and gyrating with him as if their bodies were made to be together. she had whispered in his ear, and after a short conversation, her phone number was his.

the second appeared beside him after he had paid ten dollars for water at the bar[!]. their conversation was longer and more intimate, ranging from intellectual topics to the skills of the dj that night. they made plans for ice cream while walking down by the seaport, and she too asked him to call her.

the third, most mysterious and enchanting, had brushed against him as they left the club and accidentally dropped a bracelet and a flyer. they both knelt to retrieve the fallen items and their hands touched for the briefest of moments. taken aback, he stood and grinned sheepishly. she gathered up her things, luxuriant black tresses falling well below her shoulders as she waved a few stray hairs from her face. standing at a distance of just a few inches, she studied his face for a long moment, eyes, nose, cheekbones, lips and jawline. at last she gazed directly into his eyes and smiled a crooked, friendly smile. she was strange and disquieting and obviously not like the others. laughing lightly, she told him that he would do just fine, passing a brief caress down the left side of his throat as if feeling for his pulse. reaching for his hand, she took a pen from the rather ape-ish bouncer, and scrawled a phone number and a happy face into his palm.

all of these women soon became great friends of his, each in their own way. soon, though, they became aware of each other and demanded that he choose just one, and to promise that he would not continue to see the others. with great difficulty, he decided on the one with the crooked smile. she was different and he was secretly enraptured.

the others, however, upon hearing of his choice became consumed in jealous rage, conspiring to tear the two apart. in three weeks' time, rumors had spread and the world began to fall apart for the two. although their embrace was true and real, ms. crooked decided to leave, returning to her ancestral home on the other side of the earth. he too, was heartbroken, but he was also not like most... he quietly spoke to the open sky, words that few knew and fewer could understand. he was never seen again.

in three weeks' time, the two who had betrayed him suffered pains and sickness with no cause or cure, tortured by memories of his friendship as apparitions in the night and the agony of a thousand pins wriggling beneath their skin. they would never forget his love, and they longed for what they had so foolishly sought to destroy.

[ + ] boring3d.  

the joys of fictive chin music

locked into the magnetic holding pattern of a desktop hard drive sits a long, prattling text file, full of gossipy details about things that happened and almost happened this past weekend.

... yawn ...

after the twisty-plot-without-the-plot intrigue and general shadiness of certain people, it seemed necessary to let a couple of heads fall out of the circle; holding them there beyond a certain point was causing undue strain...

having cut a couple of names out of my address book, a story tumbled from my brain and landed on the screen. it makes oblique references to several aspects of the actual situation, but the sequence of events is non-factual.

generally speaking, i haven't written much fiction in the past, probably with good reason ;)

this thankfully short piece was derived as an interpretation one of the maria makiling legends.