ARM actually paid me.
He sent me a check (way less than what I would have gotten if I stayed until July 31, way more than the ZERO I expected) and a note that said, “I hope your new job is going well. Are you currently running a blog I can read?” Ha, no. There it was for an instant, that glimmer of a sense of humor that kept him out of the 100% Pure Evil category and sometimes made him downright fun. Well, thank you, ARM. It won’t buy back the sanity I lost during those 365 days under your employ, but it will buy me a massage and a facial and enough booze to potentially wipe my memory clean.
What more could a girl want?
The weirdest part was when I looked at the printed return address before I opened the envelope. I recognized it without really processing that it was ARM's home address, like it was innate or perhaps my own address. It was a familiarity like the moment when you become fluent in a foreign language and can think and respond in that language without going through the steps of translation before every phrase. I cashed the check immediately and threw out the card.
I took the stupid GRE yesterday afternoon. The whole experience felt like I was being punked: the whitewashed walls, ubiquitous Dude Bros in various degrees of preppy attire (all presumably taking the GMAT) hovering by the locker area, oddball employees who seemed like it was their collective first day, and an overly chatty man from St. Lucia who both told me his scores (they were pretty bad) and asked me out for a drink (I politely declined) as we exited the testing center. At any moment I expected Ashton Kutcher to leap out from one of the cubicles, scare the shit out of me, and inform me that this was all a set-up and I'd have to take the real GRE again. I scored 100 points higher on the math section than the verbal section, which is distressing for one who wants to study creative writing. Perhaps I should reconsider that engineering career after all. Anyway, that step is done and now it’s on to begging for letters of recommendation and editing the heck out of my portfolio. Oh right, and figuring out where I want to go and how I’m going to pay for it and then praying to the Gods of Higher Education that I get in. Piece of cake.
During lunch today I went out for the MRI on my right leg. I kind of like MRIs and that sort of test. You lie down wearing big headphones and take a little midday nap while the machine makes weird clicking noises and if your leg inadvertently twitches they start the whole thing over and you can nap for even longer! Hooray!
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3 comments:
I'm with you on the MRIs: its like a return to the womb. At least, when I say this people always say: "was the womb dominated by such mechanic clanking?" and I always say: "if your momma worked at a machine shop, probably?"
but yeah, there's nothing quite like the MRI nap. quite exhilarating.
I've told people, who complain about how much they hate MRI's, that you take a nap--they never believe me!
OMG, did you go to the testing center near Penn Station? I HATE that place. I also didn't study, my score was horrific, and halfway through the essay my computer froze, lost my essay, and they made me START OVER AGAIN, no extra time added or anything for their dumb fuck-up. Ugh. No words. I feel your pain.
Anyway, I cheated and went to grad school abroad, where no one has even HEARD of the GREs.
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