Where have you been?

It's been almost two whole months since my last post and it's hard to reason why. I got away from it, mostly. I also spent a couple of weeks in Canada and disconnected to my feelings about Charlotte. Disconnecting from something/some place you are otherwise desperately trying to connect with is, well, discombobulating to say the least.

What has happened to me in Charlotte since then? I've been busily hunting for employment and let me tell you, it has been a humbling experience. I think I have been unemployed for a total of three days since the age of 13. I've had a variety of odd/mind-numbingly normal, (I once dressed up as a Duracell battery; it paid outrageously well) good/horrible, (ad sales jobs with the freedom to wander and luncheon come to mind in the good department) well-paying/pathetically paying gigs along the way and find myself in a strange place. I am working, but not at a job that is necessarily well-suited for me and am working hard to make peace with it. Though I am grateful to be employed, I am still asking myself, much like a Talking Heads disciple, "lord, how did I get here?".

Talking to former beauty queens who live for pampering and vanity sessions is not a job I ever saw myself doing. Besides being obviously (annoyingly) over-qualified, I am spending an inordinate amount of time with people who very much care and take care of their looks. I am generally speaking, not one of those people. I'm not criticizing though; I wish in some ways, I did care more about beauty. I just don't feel natural or familiar in this territory. And let's not forget the Elephant in the room, the beauty business is fairly superficial. I'm trying to find people who are beautiful on the inside and again feel discombobulated. Sigh.

To be fair, I have met a couple of genuinely sweet people. Not everyone who works for a beauty/cosmetics company is a superficial ninny, though it sometimes feels that way. I have actually become good friends with a few and am grateful for the opportunity to meet any new people here. I can live with that for now.

For now.