indeed.  a dream job has been acquired.  i would not want my current employer to read some of the things i said in one of december's posts.  or, maybe i would.  maybe if my employer actually cared enough to take the time to read a blog that no one else in the whole world probably reads, she would also understand that the fact that i'm working there, excited to be there, and tolerating a longish commute, and getting there on time (omg, the first place ever where i'm the only one who's almost always on time, not including managers, who are usually on time), and that i take pride in my job, means that i really want to be there.  because if it was just some shitty job i hated, then i would resent the long ride to work.  this morning, in L.A., it rained.  doesn't rain very often, so why would i expect this?  argh.  the ride was extra long and my knees were soaked, as well as part of my only partially waterproof jacket (i forgot my leather jacket at a friend's house, dammit!), and people were doing their typical driving-like-idiots thing in the rain.

why do i love my job?  well, i get to work in the largest antique hardware shop in the country.  by largest, i mean, largest inventory.  i can think of no better way to become truly acquainted with this stuff other than to work with it.  and it gets better, folks.  it gets much better.  the job starts at $10/hr, which isn't great compared to some of the jobs i've worked, but also isn't terribly low like so many more that i've worked.  and my coworkers keep cautioning me against thinking poorly of the job for its terrible pay.  finally i got one of them to give me a clue as to what i might earn when i'm considered a safe bet with the business.  the answer was vague, but $20/hr was my memory, or maybe he said twenty-something.  they also offer me health insurance and a few other benefits, which i won't select because spouse benefits through disney are so much better, so i'm staying on my wife's plan.  anyhow, it's not just a menial job with no potential.  i have so much to learn at this job, and the potential to increase my income substantially.  and i can fully enjoy it through this whole process and would, in fact, feel like the luckiest bitch in the world to keep hold of.

a bit of back story might be in order...  so, in 2003, i got my associates degree in "computer programming and software technology", which sounds cheesy, but it was actually an excellent education.  on par with and in many cases surpassing the quality of instruction at CSULA.  anyhow, with this mini-degree, i got a job that for the first time ever, i could pay the bills in an adorable, 1000-sq-ft, 1920s apartment, with a roommate, in east hollywood *right* on the border of los feliz.  when i met my wife on friendster, i described myself as living in los feliz and she, of course, actually lived in silverlake where she said she did.  at this job, i always had a motorcycle to get me there, instead of the bus.  wifey-poo bought me my current bike back in the early days (2004) and it's in terrific shape, still, with very low mileage, and now i can actually navigate the confusing and congested commute from northeast L.A. to the southern edge of west hollywood.  i super love that lady.  she has never once nagged me about having bought me that bike.

okay, tangents abound.  maybe i should smoke less pot?  no, what am i thinking?  the doctor knows best, and my pot doctor says i should smoke "the pot" [please refer to stephen colbert if you don't get this joke] to relieve my insomnia and anxiety.  so, as the shit progressed, i went back to school because i wasn't content with my academic achievement, among other things.  i also aspired to a higher rate of pay.  at my new job, i'm starting again at $10/hr, same as i was making when i started the job where my raise was not substantial enough to retain me.  before the hope for a decent wage evaporated in front of my eyes, i was employed happily, as one of a two-person team that designed and coded the website for an entire company with a huge inventory that kept growing by a few products a week.  but after two years, i decided i was unsatisfied with my increase in pay (i started at $10/hr there, and was making some odd amount like $12.37 when i left), and that this was not the career track i wanted to stay on.

i actually LOVE computer programming.  i still miss the type of thinking and problem-solving involved in doing it and studying it.  but shortly after re-entering college to get my computer science degree, i realized i didn't have the attention span to finish such a heavy course load.  i got up to calculus 2, having started back in 2001 with college algebra after doing poorly on a placement test, more than 3 years since i'd last taken a math class.  and since i didn't finish 11th grade, i only took half of trig/pre-calc.  my 2001 math placement test was disappointing, though, because my first semester of college, in 1998, i placed into calculus 1.  if i'd taken it that semester, instead of deciding i could put math off till the following year, i'd have had the prerequisite to enter into calculus 2 immediately upon returning to school.  instead, my college math sequence consisted of college algebra, trigonometry, precalculus, calculus 1, retook calculus 1 after two years' absence from school, calculus 2, discrete math, and calculus 3 but i dropped it because i did VERY badly on the midterm.  that is 8 semesters of math classes, instead of 2, and i still had some 5 math classes to complete.  add to that, of course, a boatload of physics courses, an entire track of an upper-division computer science theme courses, and the lack of time for any electives that would make me a well-rounded, liberal arts-educated individual, and i was growing tired of the lengthy process.

right then, in this turmoil, there was a life-changing lecture i attended at the library downtown.  i'd always loved interior design and architecture, and i'm decent at renderings and great at math, so i thought i'd become an architect, and also find a vehicle to combat the human-created suffering endured as victims of pollution, poverty, illness, addiction, and misfortune.  but i am ready to be done with school.  i don't want to embark on an intense THREE-YEAR journey toward a Master of ARCHitecture.  no way.  i'm almost 30.  i'll be lucky if i've got my bachelors finished by 30.  plus architects design and coordinate the construction of new structures.  i am magnetically drawn to all things historic and design-related, as long as they don't suck.  what i mean is that i LOVE the story of the evolution of human culture, in the context of periodicals, literature, artistic expression, artifacts, and architecture.  for example, my most favoritest examples of beautiful domestic design would come from art nouveau and arts & crafts styles.  but both genres also contain an abundance of stuff that i just lurch at.  :P  victorian architecture makes me piss myself, it's so amazing.  but their taste in hardware was split, halfway down the middle, i think, between *amazing* and *amazingly tacky*.  but the whole evolution of it all and the recursiveness, sorta, of revival styles, is all very interesting  to me.

so, where better than an antique (and vintage, and reproduction, and modern, and contemporary) hardware store, for me to discover more about all kinds of fabulous history?  it's fantastic.  and the coworkers say i could be making twice as much if i put in a few good years.