Trainwreck

Yesterday I had an interview. It was just an exploratory interview, meaning they didn’t have any openings at the moment, but they met with me anyway and might contact me if something opened up soon.

It went really well, and I walked out feeling sort of pumped, but then I immediately got a little bit bummed, because I realized, oh wait, you still have exactly nothing here. It was like having a really great first date and then the guy says, “Well, I’m moving to Europe, but I’ll call you when I get back or something.” Suddenly the little bit bummed turned into this snowballing rush of shit, what if I never get a job? What if no one ever loves me? What if I die alone and childless? And then this guy on the train next to me who was sketching people handed me this sketch he’d done of me, which was very nice of him, only in the sketch I was really ugly, with swollen cheeks and a weird old man chin and an even huger nose than usual.

This was just one thing too much, and then there was that feeling of oh god, you’re about to cry in public, DO NOT CRY IN PUBL —yes, you are now totally crying in public. So I tried to hold my book up and just act like I was very moved by it, but I realized that no one was going to buy that I was moved to tears over Kick Me by Paul Feig, so instead I pulled out my phone and sent the most pathetic, self-pitying text message to everyone I knew, and got off the train at the next stop.

I was immediately fine, like a freak two-minute thunderstorm had passed. But then all of my nice concerned friends started calling me, and I had to explain my myself and apologize for seeming like a drama queen. I walked around 34th Street, talking on my phone and sniffing and freezing, and decided I should probably put something in my stomach, so I walked inside the first McDonalds I saw and ordered a coke and fries and sat down to eat, but as I swung my hair back to remove my scarf, I whacked my head against some outjutting on the wall, and I saw bright lights and when I put my hand up, and it had actually started to BLEED, so I found myself under the fluorescent lights in the McDonalds bathroom, wearing my job interview clothes while blotting my BLEEDING HEAD with paper towels and looking at my tearstained face in the mirror, and suddenly my own life seemed really, really funny to me.

I met up with Ryan and Chris and drank my dinner, and then came home and took a long bath and drank my late-night snack as well. I was sitting on the couch in my towel, blissfully dazed and watching Newlyweds, when my roommate picked up the subway sketch sitting on the table and said, “Who’s this?” and I said, “Uh, me,” and she looked at the sketch and me back and forth several times me like I was crazy and said, “But it looks nothing like you!” and my day was officially fine.