Ugh.

I feel like I’ve been smacked with a two-by-four.

In a bad way. I think.

Or, actually, I don’t know.

This job I’ve been waiting to hear about? I found out this morning that they’ve filled all the available positions. They’ve put my application on hold. If anything opens in the next couple of weeks they’ll let me know.

I hung up the phone and started to feel queasy. I wanted to vomit.

I talked to my boss’s contact later in the afternoon, and he said in a few days he should have a better idea of whether there’ll be an opening. It didn’t sound like there were guarantees.

So I faxed my resumé to a legal temping agency today. Without steady income throughout this month, I won’t be able to pay my rent at the beginning of next month. I guess I’ll get a cash advance on my credit card if I need to. As a last resort.

I’ve also unearthed an available position in Hoboken with a major legal publishing firm, and I e-mailed them my resumé this afternoon. And I also faxed my resumé to five law firms looking for entry-level lawyers, one on Newark, four in Manhattan.

Now. My job ends in two weeks and I’m faxing out resumés NOW.

I’m a fucking idiot.

I was assuming this job was going to come through for me, and it hasn’t. If I’d begun the application process earlier, they might have had a position for me. They don’t. Other people, but not me. I put all my eggs in one basket and the basket got run over by a truck.

It’s not like this is the first time this has happened to me. It happened to me after I graduated from law school, too. As my parents have told me in the past: Jeff, you never learn.

You know, there are lots of self-critical words I could write here. And I’ve said most of them to myself today. In fact, I wrote most of them down while writing this entry but I wound up deleting them because they would seem so mopey. Anyway, criticism is the last fucking thing I need right now, from myself or from others. So if you have any, save it.

I fucked up. Okay. People fuck up. I’m moving on. Only because I don’t really have a choice.

Meanwhile I’m still on pins and needles wondering what’s going to happen with the guy from Saturday night. I decided to leave him a casual phone message last night. I said, “Hey, just wanted to let you know that I had a really good time last night, and I’d love to hang out again sometime. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Anyway, I’m going to take a nap, but feel free to give me a call if you want… as long as it’s not too late.”

He didn’t call. It must have been too late. Anyway, the next move is his.

And I’m exhausted — I still haven’t caught up on my sleep. So I’ve postponed a date that I was supposed to have tonight with this late-30ish British guy. I don’t think he’s what I want anyway. I responded to his e-mail only because his picture was kinda good-looking and he was a writer. I thought he might be interesting. But over the phone there’s no chemistry. The few times we’ve talked on the phone, he’s been a slow and shy speaker. Unfortunately he really seems to be looking forward to it, not knowing that I don’t share his enthusiasm. After we made plans via telephone a few days ago, there was a pause, and then he said, in his British accent, “So, this is going to be quite exciting, isn’t it?” Dude, have you never been on a personal ad date before? It’s not always exciting.

Tonight I’m going to do laundry and sleep.

Last night I had two weird dreams about people coming back from the dead. Actually, one of them wasn’t people. It was our old dog. I dreamed that somehow she’d come back to life and was still living in my parents’ house along with the new dog. But she was in bad condition. And when I went over to pet her, she bared her teeth and growled at me angrily. She was pissed. Almost as if she’d preferred to stay dead.

The other dream was about John F. Kennedy. In my dream, there was an alternate history. JFK wasn’t really assassinated; as we all know (in the dream), he was just presumed dead, and he wound up imprisoned on an island somewhere in the South Seas, where he was beaten and tortured until he made his way home a few years later. In the dream, I was watching a recreation of his homecoming played by actors in a TV movie. Jackie was pushing his wheelchair up the front path of their house while reporters snapped photos. He said “it’s great to be back” or something like that. The actors were remarkably similar to the real people. How postmodern.

Weird. What is my subconscious trying to tell me?

Only two things have made my day today. One is this beautiful e-mail from a fellow blogger, in regard to the guy:

listen to me and hear me now. relax. lighten up. a guy does not hook up with you, brush your knee, hold your hand, talk to you, guide you to the bedroom and make love to you until 7 in the morning because he “just wants to hook up.” no sir. he is doing that because he has a genuine need, he is *truly* attracted to you and he is comfortable with himself. relax. it’s ok. you are ok. it was good. why think so paranoidly ahead? just like it for what it is. relish it. roll in in. love it. live it and experience it. don’t worry about how much money he makes ( you are SO caught up in that….it. does. not. matter.) just go for it and take it where it leads.

how old are you? i’m 36 and it took me about 33 years to realize these things. i can only hope that you get beyond your insecurites. because, mr. tinman, there is a beautiful YOU waiting on the other side.

Thank you… I needed that.

The other thing that made my day is this. Had I been drinking water it would have come out through my nose as I laughed my head off. It’s about halfway down. You’ll know it when you see it. Thanks, RJ. I needed that.