On Saturday I went back to The Mall. Yes, that mall, my home-away-from-home and/or prison for five long months this winter. One thing that’s important for you to know, if you haven’t figured out already, is that I am a person at odds with myself. I wrestle with where I’ve come from and what my life is like as an adult. Every choice I’ve made has either involved me trying to improve myself, often to the point of putting on airs, like my decision to take le Fronch in le eighth grade instead of Spanish, which was a gateway drug to snobbier things; or it’s been a decision that has involved me tearing myself down back to where I think I belong, which is wearing a tube top to the monster truck rally while balancing a Solo full of SoCo on my giant pregnant belly. I dunno.

So when I was younger and first entered the horrifying world of work I made every attempt to find something dignified, or at least hip, to do. I wedged myself into the record store rat track early, and did not leave until halfway through college. I felt relieved and smug about the fact that I had avoided the mall morass that so many of my friends had gotten into, which left them glazed-looking, overly-chilled from the air conditioning, and smelling vaguely of corn dogs. And bitter about the entire human race. Very, VERY bitter. Because who doesn’t go to the mall? Especially in the middle of winter when it is pouring and the economy is utterly going to hell in the backseat of a Volkswagen?

Lesson: there is no uniting factor about who goes to the mall. The most specific thing you can say about a person who walks through the doors into the cool Muzak is that they are human beings. Probably. Other places I had worked in the past collected people with common interests. Record stores: music. Coffee houses: paying too much money to get fatter. Evictress: deadbeats. University writing tutor: weepy ESL students. You get what I’m saying here.

I had looked for professional work for about three months this summer and I was getting interviews but no offers. The closest I came was second-runner up for a company that did insurance-related stuff, which I was both relieved and disappointed not to get, since it looked like a dead-end, albeit a really comfortable one in an office downtown with plushy leather chairs, bookshelves, grandfather clocks, and potted palms. I spent more and more time on Craigslist and got increasingly farther from what I wanted to be doing category-wise: into part time and the dreaded “Misc,” which is like the job equivalent of “???” in the personals (“M seeks ? who enjoys rubbing and popping balloons, being submerged in mac-n-cheese, and Strap on Saturday“).

(On second thought this sounds kind of awesome. Email me at this domain.)

BUT I DIGRESS. Veering off into the other categories on ye olde CL led me off into exciting holiday retail opportunities. Here was a store I had shopped at for years that did not seem totally evil, and well, if it was at the crazy ghetto mall downtown, that would probably lend itself to some really great writing material later, right? I was sure if they offered me a job I would bounce out of there, having scored some rad professional gig by Christmas, tops. RIGHT? Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha.

It was cosmetics work and I jumped into it with both feet and developed a sort of a persona and look to cope with what horrors were in store. Sasha Fierce: Mall Edition. Basically I was a busted-ass version of a MAC girl with doorknocker earrings. I did interviews and copious amounts of running and sleeping on my days off.

I was also lucky enough to face my fears and snobbery on one of my very first days at work. I was outfitted in my apron and my slut warpaint when someone I worked closely with in library school (but had lost touch with after) walked in and we came face-to-face. The last time I had seen her, she was attempting to help me launch myself into the PhD program at my school. (Ah, remember that? Ass zits FTW Y/Y?) 

“SJ!” she said, looking confused. “What are you…doing here?”

This was it. I had to own it. Where could I go, anyway? There was no hiding.

“I WORK here. Crazy, huh?”

“Wow, great,” she replied. “Okay, well, see you around.” She literally started backing out slowly with one of her besties whom I recognized from grad school as well, who was standing in the doorway looking sort of perplexed at me, like I was a bug. “Take care….”

My face burned. Six years of school. I had done…things. I was a published writer, MAAAAN. People recognized me on the street and addressed me as “Asshole.” (Okay, dubious pride over the last point.) What was I doing there? I was a thirty-one-year old mallbitch who worked closing and weekend shifts and rarely saw her children. I was supposed to be lecturing someone on hidden penises in Rococco clouds or working in an art library somewhere. I should have at least married a more ballin’ drug dealer. Left turn at Albuquerque and all that. There was a lot of OH GOD OH GOD what have I done, apply booze, rinse, repeat.

That was kind of a hinge for me. I stepped out of my notion of what I should be doing and into the reality of what I was doing. The “worst” had happened: I had been spotted at the most tragic mall in Seattle in an apron, not even allowed to work the register yet, and survived. Something else happened over time, too. I came to see the mall for what it was: its own little society, with a complex social system and hierarchy. Instead of just skimming the surface I got sucked in and became part of it. More on that later.

In Other News: Tell Your Bitch to BE COOL

I will spray you with some boring truefax before I get out of here. As usual, my blog sitch is hosed. I am working on upgrading WP and closing all comments, so you should be on the comment approval tip the first time through. Also I got this hilarz craigslist computer as a gift and it is popping and locking on me. I think I need moar ramz and am hoping I can pry them out of Hester Prynne’s corpse.

Googley eyes and fringe by MOI.