Another Day, Another Interview, Another Library

Wow, it's been a whole day since I blogged, but it feels like forever. Or maybe you're reading weeks worth of my blog in one sitting and have no real sense of how long I go between posting. Either way, a lot of stuff has happened since I last wrote about my life-changing trip to the laundromat.

Post laundry, I basically sat around for the majority of yesterday morning/afternoon. I had extreme cabin fever. I had to be to the church (more on that in a minute) for work at 6:30 but I had absolutely nothing until then. It was pretty awful and not even a scam phone call offering me $9000 in grant money made me feel better.

I eventually left my apartment -- with more than enough time to get to work -- and my bus was late! Thank you, traffic or CTA or whoever caused my anxiety to go through the roof. I literally did nothing ALL DAY! I could have gotten to work six hours early and I was going to be late. I then missed my connecting train by approximately four seconds after the girl ahead of me on the bus insisted on continuing to read while she disembarked instead of closing her book for nine seconds. By the way, she's a "girl" like I'm a girl. We're both adults but not like adult-adults yet. I'm not talking about a 10 year old whose reading Harry Potter for the first time, because that I would understand. This was someone who knows better.

I ended up being only five minutes late but that is like a century in my book. So, why was I going to a church instead of the theatre? The show we're rehearsing is called Tony N Tina's Wedding and the whole premise is that you're the guest at these stereotypical Italian wedding -- you first attend the ceremony at the church and then the reception at the theatre. So, rehearsal was starting at the church. I quickly learned that being the only person in a room full of people who've been rehearsing audience participation without an actual audience makes you the automatic guinea pig. It was a little more than I'd signed up for, but it was cool. My main problem at the moment isn't related to being the house manager but more that everyone stays in character all night so I haven't learned anyone's real name yet.

My reaction. Thanks, Snapchat.

Here's where things get truly crazy if you ask me (and I know that you did), at the end of the night, they gave ME the keys to the church! Part of my responsibilities are going to be locking and unlocking the thing and by thing, I mean house of God! This is an actual church where people actually pray on Sunday and I now have the actual keys. This is a new level of crazy.

Believing that it had been a successful night, I headed for the train, what I didn't know was that my 30-40 minute commute was going to take longer at 10 o'clock at night than it had during rush hour at 5. My bus just wasn't coming. The timer they had up when I got off the train said that the bus was going to be about 20 minutes -- which is a pretty long wait for this bus -- and that was at 10:15. The bus didn't come until 10:55. Everyone was miserable, because of course, during that time, the group of one or two people I was waiting with had grown into a HUGE crowd. The bonus was that no matter how long anyone had been waiting there, they all believed that they had been waiting the longest. People who had been waiting no more than three minutes were probably the most impatient and I was one of the last people on the bus despite having been one of the ones who was waiting there the longest. I made it home and basically collapsed in bed.

Today, I also experienced some cabin fever but not as much of it. I had a job interview at 3 that said it would take about an hour to get to so -- not wanting a repeat of last night -- I gave myself two hours to get there. It took the singular hour... Kind of skeeved out by the area I was in, I went to the "interview" early. Turns out that it wasn't an interview. I'd applied to work for a staffing company and I was just there to sign my paperwork so they could start giving me assignments. I'm not sure when I'll actually be available but it was kind of cool. The guy who "interviewed" me spoke freakishly quietly but told me that his sister is from Scituate when he saw that the address on my driver's license said Cohasset. Small world.

Let me preface this next paragraph with a blazing ROOKIE MISTAKE spoiler. When the interview was over, I was headed to the theatre. I had an awkward amount of time in between but it wasn't enough time to go home, so I was just going straight there. Going to this interview was my first time EVER on a green line train here. The line I needed to take was called Ashland/63rd and I got off at Ashland. Brilliant, I thought to myself as I was heading back to the train platform, I'm at the end of the line, I just need to go the opposite direction to get to work. WRONG! There are two Ashlands -- Ashland/63rd, the actual final stop and the Ashland I'd gotten off at. I rode the train for a half hour in the wrong direction. It wasn't until I got to the last stop that I realized my mistake. Luckily, I had hours to kill, so I just turned around and was fine, but like I said ROOKIE MISTAKE.

When I arrived in Lakeview (the neighborhood where the theatre is), I walked to Michael's. I need some craft supplies but I didn't end up buying anything, partly because I didn't want to carry it and partly because I didn't actually need anything.

With hours left to kill, I decided to write you all this wondrous post. I am writing to you from the Lakeview branch of the CPL. I don't know if anyone abbreviates Chicago Public Library to CPL but I just did. I came here because it was somewhere I didn't need to pay to be. I also knew there would be free WiFi. I went to log on when I noticed something strange and needed to screen shot it. Let's see if you can spot it (I know it's going to be difficult looking past my beautiful face on my desktop wallpaper but try your hardest, please).

I'm gorgeous, I know.

Did you see it? I connected to CPLWIFI (so they do abbreviate it!) but did you notice another interesting network on that list. Perhaps the one called SEX DUNGEON! What kind of library is this? Are these my tax payer dollars at work?! There was also a network called Puppies that you can't see there; I'm cool with that, my tax payer dollars like puppies. (Technically, my tax payer dollars haven't paid for any of this because I've never paid taxes to the state of Illinois -- yet).

I was planning on hanging at the library for a little while just to kill time, but I think I'm going to hit the publish button and peace out because the lights are not only humming over me but there is also a strange, unidentifiable, obnoxious, shrill noise that is going to bother me more than spending $5 on a muffin at Starbucks (or another coffee shop) will.