time suck

when i took this job, one consideration was my ability to get there. i moved back to the city to make my life easier. friends, cultural interests and *work* are all here. presumably anybody job-hunting factors in length of commute as part of the decision-making process.

during my initial forays for interviews i arrived easily and quickly. it lies on one of the more reliable lines that is less likely to be choked by students. so i took my local line off the island, made one transfer, read my book and it wasn't so bad at all.

cue to summer. construction. lots of it. shuttle buses. driven by union guys who had no idea how to get from here to there, having never driven the route. did the mbta even give them directions? did they just not bother to read them? although work was being done only between station f and r, or r and r, frequently, and with no warning or announcement, you were forced early off the train at station k and herded on another slow-moving bus that crawled through neighborhood traffic.

many weekends, "improvements" were being made on my local line, meaning now an initial bus ride. our infrastructure is collapsing, so a tunnel has been closed. this has meant a long and unscenic ride through more broke-down neighborhoods, out and away from our destination, over a bridge, circumnavigating our nexus in an unthinkable way.

who makes these routes? are the mbta honchos huddling over a ouija board and talking to the marquis de sade and the 3 stooges? "yeah, this'll hurt..." "nyuk, nyuk, nyuk." "why, i oughta..."

what should be a 6-minute ride to my connection can take an hour. factor in a bus on the other end, add on at least another 30 minutes. what should be a 45-minute trip, has often taken me more than 2 hours. yup. TWO HOURS. each way. pile that on to a 12- or 15 hour-day. yeah, that spells quality of life like little else.

last night i was traveling home late. 11:00-ish. got to my connection easily. no beer-soaked sox fans or throngs of drunken bc kids heading downtown to get drunker. yellow tape across the stairs: no train. upstairs to a bus. which traveled one stop. downstairs to the t. which traveled one stop. thank fucking god it at least brought me to the other side of the tunnel, so i could now walk home. the remaining brown people were shunted onto still another train, across the tracks to head further out.

i work a job i don't much enjoy. which pays barely enough to get by and certainly not enough to get ahead. with people whom i have nothing in common. i mentioned that on my day off this past weekend, i was going to see the new wes anderson movie and the new brad pitt movie (really stolen by casey affleck and augmented by a few craggy turns from sam shepard, but i digress.) i guess cuz there were no blue-screen special effects and no fart jokes in either, i was met only by blank stares. ffs, brad pitt. how could they be so unaware? yes, yes, it was a throwback to art-house 70s westerns, but still.

i never wanted to be a restaurant manager. ever. yet i dutifully took advice from somebody who'd never worked in the business. clenched tight the rcg's, believed him and thought i could make it better. feh.

lateral move this, out of financial duress. i put on a happy face though and don't complain. last time it took me 4 months to land a job. (at first i couldn't bear to look, while i repaired the inside compass.) so i'm starting to look now. pro-active.

my wset certificate is in the mail. passed with distinction, tyvm. however, what that buys in this city remains to be seen. we have yet to attain the sophistication where being a sommelier is much more than a hired monkey. the pay is terrible across the board. i buy for a company with combined sales of over $12 million, yet cannot afford cable tv. that shows respect, huh?

i know what i would *like* to do. who is out there who will pay me to do it? anybody? hello? anybody?