The best Valentine’s Day ever. Note the heavy sarcasm.

As a young woman who’s been single all her life, Valentine’s Day usually comes and goes without too much concern from me. It’s just any ole regular day. With more candy.

This year, however, was different. Because The Sis brought our car with her when she moved out, I had to go to the DMV on Tuesday in order to get a parking permit.  I could have done this two, three, or even four weeks ago while we still had our temporary visitor permit, but I guess I procrastinated or something because suddenly we only had one day left on the temporary permit.  So I did my research, gathered all my relevant documents, and trekked out to the DMV on Valentine’s Day.  (But only after I went to the wrong location a day before.  Seriously, DMV website, could you be a little more specific?)

Here’s how I spent my Valentine’s Day:

Stood in long line at DMV. Talked to someone, stood in another line.

Talked to someone else. Found out the car, currently registered in my father’s name, must definitely definitely no-exceptions-allowed MUST be registered in my name. Even though I had documentation proving I was a legal driver under my father’s insurance.

Left DMV. Texted Sis that we needed to go to Plan B. Called Mom with update. Mom wonders if our Montana DMV can fax DC DMV a statement saying the registration is transferred, but that the official doc can’t get there in time due to bureaucratic red tape.

Return to DMV to ask about faxing. Stand in line again. Answer is “yes, in your situation.” Call Mom again. Leave DC DMV while Mom goes to MT DMV to transfer the car registration. Text Sis that I’m working on Plan C. Browse around in the nearby shops in order to kill time. Find stunning outfit I want to buy but I can’t because a) I’m a poor intern and Georgetown clothing is outrageously expensive, and b) the aftermath from the whole robbery thing is still not resolved.

Return to DC DMV. Stand in line. Get ticket stub to stand in another line. Pray to God that this all works out, because the DMV is about to close and today is the last day on my temporary permit and I really really don’t want to pay several hundred dollars in potential parking fines.

Mom calls. MT DMV needs my signature on some stuff. “Forge it,” I tell her. “I did,” she tells me. Then they gave her more documents, but only after she mentioned I was in DC, so now the game is up in Montana. MT DMV needs a signed and notarized power-of-attorney document saying that my mother can sign documents for me.

Have small heart attack due to disbelief. Ask why my father, a lawyer, can’t just forge a power-of-attorney document for me.

Leave DMV. Find bathroom stall. Cry.

Catch bus to my office. Print and fill out appropriate documents. Update my boss as to my situation. Try not to cry again. Berate myself for being so unprofessional.

Go to bank across the street. Sign and notarize power-of-attorney document. Withdraw some money. Nice teller lady offers to fax the doc for me, even though it’s against policy.

Fax machine won’t work. Go to FedEx and fax document there instead.

Call Sis. Tell her about the failure of Plan C, but that Plan D is the same as Plan C but can’t be implemented for a few days. Put together Plan E for the car in the meantime.

Go to work. Plan E fails, kinda. Put together Plan F.

Feel better once at work. Buy nice bottle of wine. Go home and drink half of it while watching trashy TV.

_______

So, that was my Valentine’s Day. This holiday is meant for celebrating love and companionship, and I spent it standing in line, mumbling obscenities about the human race, and feeling sorry for myself.  Pretty pathetic.

Oh well. At least I had some nice wine, at least my friends at work perked me up, and at least *I think* we got it figured out. I think. In any case, there’s a FedEx package winging its way toward me with new car registration in my freaking name, new license plates, and a new insurance policy…because, ya know, nothing is ever simple.


As an aside, I am now an expert on registering vehicles in the District. So hit me up if you have questions.

When the doors are shut

The other day, I got stuck in an elevator.

I’m gonna make this relate to my last post, I swear.  Just bear with me.

I had been in a basement conference room of my think-tank, participating in an evening event.  I had left my bag and coat at my desk upstairs, on the 6^th floor, but had forgotten that the building closed at 7. Which means the elevators don’t work normally after 7. It was nearing 7:30.

Not a problem, I thought, I’ll just check in with the security guard in the lobby and he can help me out.

My friends clustered in the lobby, promising to wait while I retrieved my things. The security guard accompanied me back to the elevators and swiped an electronic passcode thingie (I’m sure that’s the technical term) to open the doors.

“Which floor?” he asked, as I stepped inside.

“The sixth.” He pressed the appropriate button and moved away. “Wait, don’t you have to come wi– ??” I started, concerned that my think-tank would let some random girl – who, after all, could be anybody – wander through the building after hours. What if there were state secrets just “lying around”?

Whatever, I shrugged to myself as the elevator started up.  Bing! First floor.

Then, the elevator shuddered to a halt. No happy little Bing – be happy, you reached the second floor! No doors sliding open. No nothing. Not even flickering lights – the elevator just stopped.

Ah, that awkward moment when you realize you are stuck in an elevator.

(Aside: Ok, SRSLY elevator? If you’re gonna trap me, at least make the lights flicker!)

Um, ok, I’m stuck in an elevator, I thought to myself, trying to keep calm. All right, none of the buttons are working…and mashing them over and over again doesn’t seem to change that. I looked for a handy red “EMERGENCY PULL” button. You know, something like this:

"Push to talk." Brilliant.

Did my elevator have one?

Nope.

Did my elevator have any red buttons at all?

Nope.

The closest thing my elevator had was a small yellow button that said “bell.”

(Aside: Um, yellow? Like my emergency doesn’t merit the color red?)

(Further aside: Um, “bell”?! How ‘bout “alarm” – anything that implies a bit more alacrity!)

Breathing heavily (read: angrily), I pressed the bell button. Let’s just say it didn’t have quite the “this is an emergency” tone I was looking for. It sounded like the bells in my high school that were used to signal the end of a class period.

I held that button down for at least several minutes. Did anyone come to my aid? Nope. They must have been too busy getting to third period calculus.

Okay, okay, I thought, pacing the small space (thank God I’m not claustrophobic).  What’s the Morse for SOS…is it long-short-long repeated three times, or short-long-short repeated three times? Dang it, where are all the Military Fellows when you need them!!

I tried both my Morse theories. They didn’t summon anyone.

I was ready to cry at this point, and probably not the most rational creature. Great, I’m gonna have to sleep here ALL NIGHT. Ugh, the floor is so gross! Why won’t this bloody box let me OUT!!

Then I grew calmer. Well, I’ll just pull an Arnold and pry the doors open. They do it on Star Trek all the time.

 I wedged my fingers into the door and heaved.

Fortunately, they sprang open as soon as I got them the first few inches apart. Turns out, the elevator had made it to the second floor and then just had a brain shut-down. Or something. I took the stairs back to the lobby.

The guard, and my friends, turned towards me. Thoroughly disgruntled, I explained what just happened. “Oh,” my friends said, “was that you making the bell sound?”

Yes, you idiots. Didn’t you hear the SOS? Does a bell going off in patterns at 7:30 at night sound AT ALL normal to you?

I still needed my bag, so the guard took me back to the elevator and re-swiped his card. Wait, I have to go back in there? I panicked. Then I mentally slapped myself and reminded myself I’m an adult.

This time the elevators operated without a hitch. I retrieved my bag and re-joined my friends.

As I lay in bed falling asleep that night, I remember thinking, Huh, I should turn this experience into a blog post. It could be a really cool metaphor for feeling stuck in life and not knowing how or where to move next…all the doors seem shut…you can either pry them open, or…or…

Or you can accept that some doors will remain shut.

I was recently turned down for an internship (a paid one! Huzzah!) that I really wanted.  Obviously, I’m disappointed – the experience would have really advanced my career and given me incredible opportunities.  But when God closes one door, he opens a window. Or, he opens another door. Or, he traps you in an elevator to teach you the value of sometimes clawing at closed doors until they open.

Does this mean I’m going to claw at that internship until I get it? Naw, probably not. Will I continue to claw at the job market until I find something? You betcha.

Because sleeping on the dirty floor of an elevator – aka, interning forever/remaining static/giving up and waitressing full-time – is simply not an option. And I know that someday, that door WILL spring open for me.  (Even if it takes a scary ride and an SOS to get there.)

For now, I’ve decided to remain at my current internship. For a variety of reasons, all carefully and prayerfully considered, I believe its benefits outweigh its cons.  And I believe it offers the most opportunity for an eventual job.

So where does that put me within my elevator analogy?

Psh, heck if I know. Sometimes an elevator is just an elevator.

On Success

Thanks to pophangover.com

Submitting Timesheets, OR "When I realized I desperately needed another job"

Actual email that I receive faithfully every two weeks:

All,

This email serves as a friendly reminder that timesheets are due by noon tomorrow.

Please keep in mind that if you are an intern, you must enter your hours using the drop down box selecting “intern" not "regular.”   

Also, Monday October 10^th was a holiday.  Please adjust timesheets to reflect.

Log into [this site] to complete your time worked.

If you have already submitted a timesheet, please excuse this email.

Regards,

[Management of Aftan’s company]

I have an uncanny ability to cut through the diplomacy (living in DC is teaching me how to translate politically correct language) and this is what the email really says: 

Hey, you!

This email serves as a sharp and hopefully painful reminder that you are an unpaid intern. Tomorrow at noon – when everyone else is submitting their time sheets ON TIME – you will most likely be slumped in your desk chair, chin in hand (drool possibly running onto your fingers), eyes glazed over as you endlessly “conduct research.” 

Please remember, you are a valued member of our team.  However, you did not receive one of our coveted and rare-as-a-diamond-found-in-that-gross-alley paid internships. If you had, you would enter your hours using the drop down box labeled “scum”, “one step above scum” ,“intern.”

Also, Monday was a holiday. Everyone else enjoyed the day with the full realization that they were simultaneously playing touch football on the Mall and getting paid to play it. You were not getting paid, and you were probably not playing touch football because unpaid interns don’t have friends.

We will not let you log into [this site] to catalogue your hours until we’ve eked every last drop of free labor out of your thin, brittle fingers.

Remember, you are a valued member of our team. And you will continue to receive these emails reminding you of that. Until you die.

Never excuse these emails.

Regards,

[The People To Whom Aftan Sold Her Soul]

Dammit, I need a paying job.

Why I want to maim Blogger with a high heel, and other things you may have noticed

So, dear readers, you may have noticed that my blog has transformed a bit. New layout, new URL, new...stuff. Yeah, Blogger and I had a little spat, and Blogger won.

Long story short, I used my school email as the login name for my old blog, but the email listed on that blog was my personal email, and between that and having something called a "Google Profile" (which I should know about since I currently work in New Media) Blogger just couldn't take it anymore. Said something about the two accounts fighting with each other, and there was a constant request to "please logout or switch user accounts" or some such nonsense. Blogger said I had to fix this. I agreed.

Blogger told me to delete one of the accounts. Makes sense, I thought. My school email was defunct and unnecessary at this point, so I would terminate that one and my blog would transfer over to my personal email, rather than my school one.  This made sense to me, because my personal email was still listed as the official mailing address for the blog.

Yeah. Blogger often doesn't make sense. So it locked me out of the account. Oh, this is mildly annoying, I thought. But so far it's mostly funny. As soon as I email Blogger and get access restored, it will make a great new blog post. Haha, laughs to be had by all! Yeah. No. Because the next day, Blogger promptly deleted my blog.

Blogger: Haha! Suck-ah!!!

This momentarily stunned me -- surely not? -- and then it prompted nothing short of ALL CAPS RAGE!!!

I scrambled, had an almost-heart-attack, and frantically g-chatted The Sis.

Me: (Paraphrase) Sister!!!! My blog is gone!!! Can you find it???
The Sis: A, quit freaking out, the link still brings me there.
Me: Oh...But are you SURE??
The Sis: (Paraphrase) Of course I'm sure, it's right...oh shit. 


So. Old blog gone. I angrily huffed over to WordPress and built a new blog from scratch (after a kind and compassionate soul emailed me the content from my old blog that she had ripped from her Google Reader...fantastic friend, fantastic technology. I owe her a hug. But not you Google, cuz this is kinda your fault in the first place). Then I discovered how NOT customizable WordPress is.

Which brings me back here. Back to Blogger. Something I so don't want to do, but it's kinda like riding the Red Line of the metro -- you hate to do it, you know it will break down at some point leaving you stranded and late, but you aren't cool enough to own a car so you have no choice. I'm not flush enough to pay for a customizable WordPress, so here I am. I have no choice.

Sorry, I said "long story short" and I totally didn't mean it.

But now you know why things are a bit different, and also why it says I uploaded 18 new posts in one day. Psh, no one is that good. BUT I promise to make up for my lapse in posting with another entry within the next few days.

Cheers to all your patience, and to my non-existent patience which I am still trying to work on. I hate you, Blogger. And I still want to mangle you with a high heel, because thats about all the use I have for high heels.

My problems with the word "fleeting"

Every college student knows that the academic year holds several points of transition: we adjust back to school after a long summer, we adjust to a relaxed home at the start of the holidays, we adjust to new schedules and living situations.

Times of transition don’t go away simply because we graduate. On the contrary, “graduation” seems to be life’s codeword for “Quick! Assault the wee human with change!”

Still living out of a suitcase.

I know this isn’t the case for some of you, but it is certainly the case for me. And since this is my blog, this is my space to complain.

I am sick to death of living in transition.  I want a dresser. I want a lamp. I want a frickin bed.

Some people, like my father, try to encourage me by saying that this moment in my life is “fleeting” and “exciting.”  Hmm.  Maybe life will get more exciting when I can finally stop living out of a suitcase or sleeping on the floor.  (Futons and air mattresses will be your best friends.)

And “fleeting”? Fleeting?  I think of fleeting as a short horse race, or as the time it takes me to eat three chocolate muffins.  Or an entire pizza.  But fleeting as applied to this transition time just feels…unfair.  “Painfully sluggish” would be more appropriate.

But wait.  When I began college, people warned me that it would “go by so fast.”  I scoffed – four years away from my family and my mountains and my dogs and horses is an awfully long time.  But in retrospect, yes, it did go by quickly. Much too quickly.  It was almost…fleeting.

Odd. Fleeting = college experience = times it takes me to eat an entire pizza.  ...Those shouldn't match.

I have a theory.  “Fleeting” is a special word, one that people use to refer to events that have passed, events that are now “past.”  In particular, special events.  (Yes, I classify "eating pizza" as a special event.)  College was fleeting.  Someday, I will be able to say that this time, too, was fleeting.

When that day comes, I will treat myself to a fancy drink at the nearest bar.  Maybe a couple fancy drinks.  Cheers.

A roof over my head

So you know that picture I posted at the end of my last post, as kind of a joke? The one that said “And then the plan went horribly awry”? This is where I explain how that joke isn't such a joke anymore.

One skill that all recent grads need to master is flexibility. As an experienced international traveler, I thought I dominated this. Yeah, I thought smugly to myself, I am SO flexible. Flexible like a rubber band, flexible like Mr. Fantastic, flexible enough to handle pretty much anything, because I’m a GROWN-UP now.

Hmm, maybe I was a bit prideful, too?

God has been teaching me that no matter how much I think I’ve developed a certain skill, I can always use more practice.  Case in point: Playing musical-housing-situation in DC with scarce funds and limited mobility.  It’s a really fun game. You should try it sometime. You get to meet interesting people (like strangers on the sidewalk who inform you that your chosen apartment is in a really unsafe neighborhood), sleep in unusual places (floors, futons and couches), and mooch off your friends (sorry guys, I’ll have my life figured out eventually). You learn to function on a bare minimum of sleep and an absolute max of stress, and you try to rationalize an hour-and-a-half commute to work.

Perhaps some background information would be helpful?  I moved to DC. I stayed with some friends for a few days, then I lugged my bags 7 blocks away to my own, new apartment. Enjoyed about 2 days of feeling accomplished, then met multiple random strangers who told me I hadn’t chosen the safest neighborhood.  Enter period of self-doubt and inner turmoil. Run frantically around the city like a naive little chicken with her head cut off searching for alternate housing. Put new roommate and landlord in a predicament because they *might* have to find a new tenant, but then again, they might not.

I told myself I would have a definite answer to my housing question by this weekend, but due to events beyond my control that isn’t possible. Maybe in another week?

This is the key phrase: due to events beyond my control.  Recent grads will have to learn to make peace with this phrase.  I cannot control all the variables that make up my life. And it is futile and frustrating to try.  Maybe I should sit back and let Someone else take charge? Maybe I should pause to reconsider God’s sovereignty?

Maybe I should count my blessings, instead of my woes.  I have a friend in a much more terrible housing situation than I.  One of my buddies has an even longer commute to work than mine.  I pass people in the street everyday who don’t have a place to live, who don’t have a family supporting their every step, who have much less hope. 

Despite my uncertainties, I know I’m taken care of.  When it rains – literally or metaphorically – at least I have a roof over my head. Even if I haven't officially signed the lease on it yet. (And even if the AC unit leaks water into the house when it rains, as I discovered a few minutes ago.)