Week Two

What am I here for?

I left my home to disappear is all

I'm here for myself

Not to know you, I don't need no one else

Fit in so good the hope is that you cannot see me later

You don't know me, I am an introvert, an excavator

I'm ducking out for now, a face in dodgy elevators

Creep up and suddenly I found myself an innovator

I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up

If I can stand up mean for the things that I believe

Week two down, six to go. Anxiety levels continue to fluctuate, based on how many things I manage to mess up at work and how many hours have passed since I've heard the reassuring voice of a friend telling me I will neither die alone in museum storage nor in my current basement dwelling. 

If this is my first experience in a real world job scenario, I can only say that it has thrown things into horrifying perspective. I feel like my brain speaks a different language than everyone else (or maybe I just can't process information that is not snark), and my ever more invasive social phobia ensures that I'm too busy trying to escape imaginary judgment to really keep track of where I put those files/box/priceless museum object. What the hell am I doing here? How am I supposed to supervise the photography intern, who got here two weeks before me and is a legit photographer to boot? Why did I ever think it was a good idea to pursue a field that is famous for its high competition and laughable wages? I've had a terrifying glimpse into my future, and it bears a depressing resemblance to my present.    

The only good story from this week is from when the other intern and I were helping with an installation in the main exhibit hall. My unnamed-for-legal-reasons place of employment functions as the state museum, so the main attraction is an exhibit about the state's history from prehistory to today. The prehistory bit naturally has panels and artifacts dealing with Native Americans, but for some reason they also saw a need for some weird mannequins and animals that I sincerely hope were never alive. The animals are our focus here, because they move. Yes. Animatronic animals in an exhibit about the state's inhabitants after the Ice Age. Is this really necessary? Debatable. Is it necessary that they also be motion sensitive, so they only spring to life when you walk by? I think not! Even better, most of them are hidden so you just get a glimpse from your periph. This was clearly set up with the express intent of scaring people.

Anyway, other intern girl and I were helping set up some cases in the hall. We were walking through the exhibit on our way to set up and label guns/hats/beaver pelts/whatever the hell else they wanted to put in there when we passed the Native American section. Intern girl sees the hidden raccoon on the wall move (and to be fair, he does seem to be waving a bone, which is objectively frightening) and does a legit Oscar-worthy scream of horror. I had been trying really hard all week to be friendly and make an alliance with her, but when this happens I abandon all pretenses of politeness and laugh so hard I was afraid of wetting myself. 

ALB: Are *laugh*  you *snort* okay? *wiping away tears*

IG: Yeah. I have a fear of like wax figures. This is awful.

ALB: Well, these aren't wax, or people. Are you afraid of taxidermy, too? Or just things that move? 

IG: *no reply, as she has seen the dog in the corner tilt its head and has succumbed to wide-eyed shock*

It was just too much for her. She closed her eyes, stuck out her arm, and made me lead her through the rest of the exhibit like a cartoon blind man til we got passed everything that moved. What. The. What.

I came home this weekend to postpone the suicide by puzzle piece that will inevitably claim me up north before the summer's up. I grabbed the kitchen trash bag as I left, intending to ditch it when I stopped at the gas station. Events overcame me, as they so often do, and I ended up driving four hours with a Wal-mart bag full of loose spaghetti in the backseat. Not to mention the half loaf of French bread, which I purchased last week just in case I suddenly became eight people who were capable of demolishing such a hefty piece of baked goods before the mold set in. 

My life is like this, and I don't know how much longer I can handle it.