Pardon My French

There’s a scene in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill BIll Vol. 1″ when Uma Thurman’s then nameless character is instructing her toes to “wiggle”, the starting point for resuscitating her hospital weakened muscles back into use.

“As I lay in the back of Buck’s truck, trying to will my limbs out of entropy,” a voice over narration begins, “I could see the faces of the cunts that did this to me and the dicks responsible.”

It’s a moment in pop culture that really bothers Phil.

“Entropy is a physics term,” he pointed out to me last Fall in an instant message. “Atrophy is what happens to muscles when you don’t use them. It’s not even important, but it makes me insane.”

“Being a copy editor blows. It’s like living in this little bubble where you’re always upset, but very few other people get it and most think that you’re psychotic.”

It’s one the many things about him that I really admire: his eye for detail.

Since the start of Perfect Stranger L.A., every story that I have freelanced since last April, and each brave attempt at fiction writing, Phil has graciously edited everything that I have written. (With the exception of blogs. All those commas splices and unnecessary hyphens are my fault, not his.) He was my editor way back when and he’s my editor now.

He always fixes my awkward wording (I write how I talk and I also enjoy pauses.), provides me with a more focused direction and gives me encouragement. I don’t know what I would do without his help.

Since I have quit my part-time job, we’re again at a place where Phil, unfortunately, is carrying the financial weight. I have been spending my time looking around on the internet for employment opportunities, but he’s not rushing me. He’s been encouraging me to take this time to work on the short story I recently began, pick up where I left off on that memoir that’s been haunting me for years, conduct more interviews for PSLA–just be creative and happy.

(But, I am seriously frantically looking for some kind job.)

It’s a shame that the whole “what do you do for a living?” line of questioning is such a staple to conversation, both in meeting new people and while catching up with friends– Because right now, my response is a bit of a complicated explanation.

I’m a writer and a journalist with a degree who runs her own independent journalism website, Perfect Stranger L.A., without pay and one who happens to be between paying freelancing gigs. My only source of income at this time comes from my cashier position at a newly opened local frozen yogurt shop that’s just up the street from my apartment.

And when I say complicated, I don’t just mean that it takes some time to explain.

The truth is that I’m embarrassed.

I’m afraid that when I speak, what people actually hear coming out of my mouth is: “Hi. I wasted four years of money and time only to move across the country in order to work at an ice cream parlor.”

On paper I am a freelance writer for Sci-Fi professional social networking website MyOuterSpace.com, but recent site designs have brought the entire project to a standstill. It’s been weeks since my last story and I have been told that the editors will contact me when they need me.

I could hear the disappointment in my Dad’s voice when I told him about my frozen yogurt gig. As awful as that is, it’s not even close to as bad as the disappointment I feel, myself. It’s awful and illogical, but It’s hard to feel good about oneself when success is measured by the job we have. I associate a huge part of self-worth with the work that I’m doing at any given time.

In the grand scheme of things, I know that I should be proud of myself because I’m definitely keeping busy.

-I’m always on the look out for new employment opportunities. (I have a job interview this week at a local newspaper and I’m tightly crossing my fingers.)

-I’m maintaining my own, independent journalism project, with more readers visiting the site every single week. I’m doing my best to update the site with interviews and/or feature stories at least twice weekly. I’m getting out there, learning the city, meeting tons of new people and overall, doing what I love.

-I’m training for my first half marathon for AIDS Project Los Angeles, running miles in the double digits every week. I’m getting back into shape and I’m happy with the effects the program is having on my body so far. I’m also meeting lots of new people at the training sessions.

-I’m fundraising for APLA, doing something to help out someone else–so far I’ve raised over $700. (I must raise $2,000 by July 2 or I can’t run, so as you might imagine, I’m starting to scramble. Help?)

-I’m continuing my work on my memoir, my recollection of my ten year long dysfunctional friendship with my gay best friend. The memoir is an effort to break down the glamorous GBF stereotypes.

-I’ve been querying literary agents my memoir and I’m crossing my fingers.

I know that a job is a job and in some cases I’m lucky to even have one. I keep telling myself that what I’m doing here is helping Phil make ends meet and I’m pulling my own weight.

I’m just bummed that I’m not doing what I thought I was going to be doing.

I was waiting for my Falafel burger to be prepared at a cash only Mediterranean take-out place down the street from our apartment in Los Feliz.

That’s when I first noticed a small stand-up advertisement sitting atop a flickering display fridge in the far corner of the restaurant. The stand-up contained a half a million square sized brochures for a series of half marathons (13 miles) in Hololulu, San Francisco and Disneyland in Los Angeles–all to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles.

In the last six months, I’ve thought about training for a triathalon or a half marathon. I thought it would be a great opportunity to get into shape, do something nice to help someone else and perhaps make some new friends. I’ve never known where to look and because of how hectic things have been the last few months, I haven’t put much initiative into looking. Finding these brochures seemed like some kind of sign–like a great opportunity.

The first date of training for the San Francisco race had already passed and the one for the Hololulu start date was still over a month away. But, the beginning of Disneyland training was just two days away.

I went straight home after that and signed up for my first half marathon.

I’ve never ran more than a few miles at one time, but I’ve heard a lot of great things about this training program:I am to do two 45 minute workouts during the week and show up for group training and running clinic on Saturdays. I’m hoping it will also help me learn to run without an iPod and to become used to working out in public–which is a bit of a phobia I have.

The fundraising is the scariest part of all, though. I have to raise a grand total of $2,000 by July–and this kind of thing has never been a strength of mine. I hate asking for money, I’m bad at math and keeping organized on these kinds of things isn’t one of my strengths. ( I remember owing my elementary school a Morley Candy debt and my mother ended up having to bail me out.)

I’m desperately hoping that people–friends, family, acquaintances, collegues and kind strangers–will help me out by visiting my fundraising page and making a contribution. Every little bit counts and donations are put to use immediately. I’m counting on you guys! I’m begging you: PLEASE HELP! It’s for a great cause!

Life is so crazy sometimes and I never really know what a day will bring me. If it wasn’t for the fact that Phil was in the mood for a Chicken Shawarma wrap for lunch, I wouldn’t be doing this, but, I’m so glad that I am.

I went from being without a job on Monday to having two jobs on Friday.

Last week was definitely a weird one.

I was perusing Craigslist last Friday, as usual, and sending off emails with my credentials to every writing/editing job and “gig” that I qualified for. (I’ve been hitting the pavement pretty hard since I’ve moved to California but haven’t been having much luck.) Occasionally I get an interview, but rarely do I ever about these job opportunities, again.

That’s why I was surprised when I almost immediately received an email back from a Science Fiction website I had contacted. The Craigslist ad hadn’t listed much information about the job, only that this was a new site who needed news writers. In the signature of the email, one of the website’s founders listed the URL of the site–MyOuterSpace.com.

A social networking site for creative people in the science fiction genre. MOS is a network that targets science fiction, horror and fantasy fans seeking a career in the science fiction industry. Divided into 12 network categories called “Planets”, each Planet represents a different entertainment art. For example: Orpheus is a place for musicians, bands, singers and songwriters while Creatia is an area designated for writers and directors.

MuOuterspace also has “Starships” which are like virtual production companies, each working on a project that’s being made into a film, stage or animated production. If higher ups on the site like the work being done by a particular member of the website, these people may be presented with an opportunity to work on one of these various projects.

I had heard of these guys.

Phil had mentioned that he registered on the site after he saw a tweet about MyOuterSpace from William Shatner’s Twitter account. (According to various news sources, the site had 20,000 hits within the first hour of this tweet. The site crashed several times during the first week of it’s launch because of the high traffic on MOS.)

After some back and forth, one of the site’s founders requested that I come sit in on a writers meeting. I was expecting some sort of in depth interview process, but at some point during this meeting I realized that I was already considered to be a writer for the website.

So, through this somewhat bizarre twist in events, I became a staff writer for William Shatner’s social networking website. I’ve written a few minor stories so far, not a whole lot, yet, but it sounds like I’ll primarily be working on Sci-Fi news, site news, features with The SyFy channel as my beat. I’m hoping for the opportunity to produce lots and lots of content.

I also grabbed up a job working at a local frozen yogurt place that’s opening up the street from us. It sounds like I’ll be working the cash register and doing general dealing with customers. The store’s owner asked me if I was sure that I wanted to work there “Because I’m way overqualified,” he said. But, work is still thin for me. As long as I’m writing, I’m actually quite pleased with this job. I’d like to be able to get out of the house (I’ll be doing my MOS work from home) to go do some work, whether it’s mundane or not. I’m also hoping it will bring me into contact with some interesting people for the Perfect Stranger Project. The store is scheduled to open next Monday.

Neither of these jobs offer a benefits package so I’m still on the look out for more opportunities. I like to think that this just falls in line with what I’ve always been told– to never, ever stop looking for a job and to never settle.

I recently started experimenting with conducting Perfect Stranger interviews at local events (Capcom’s Fight Club, a promo event for the release of the new “Street Fighter IV” video game, and a local zombie walk) and the results have been good.

The day that I posted my story from the Zombie walk, I received a record number of hits to the website. The Facebook Fan Page is growing every week and more people are becoming loyal readers.

Check out http://PerfectStrangerLA.com if you haven’t lately. I’m actually quite pleased with my work as of late.

Today Phil, Kiwi and I disembark on our estimated 3 day journey across the country to Los Angeles, California. It turns out, we’ve got a lot of stuff between the two of us and a lot of it isn’t going to make it into Phil’s Escape. We’re shipping my car so that we don’t have to drive all day, everyday for the next short week. Looks like we’re going to have a lot of boxes coming to our door, too.

Cross you fingers for us. It’s show time.

D-Day from Caitlin Foyt on Vimeo.