So here's Kate's situation at the moment:
Hurricane rips roof off building where she lives--when able to move back to her town with suitable services restored, she'll have to move into a different place.
Her senior year of high school is completely messed up and vacations will be reduced to make up for the lost month of September.
Becomes very... fond of new friend staying together at her mom's--friend is supposed to go to Coldplay concert with her tonight--last minute bailout.
Was supposed to fly to the concert--No New Orleans to fly out of, so it's the long drive to Alabama .
At least she has the concert to help her escape things for a few hours. Oh wait--now she's in Alabama for the concert tonight and she finds that Chris Martin is sick and THE CONCERT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.
Those of you who read and comment on her blog occasionally--Jatue, B.G.--go visit and drop a note of encouragement. I feel so sorry for her for all thic crap right now.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a
Writer
Oh—you’re the kid who won that story contest a while back. Yeah, I guess I could tell you about being a writer if you want a good hobby for when… what? You want to make a living at it? Okay, then that’s different…
You’ll head off to college after high school and do the general first year or two in the Arts faculty, and then when you get a chance you’ll apply to the writing coop or English honors program. Either way, you'll have to show some college writing teachers what you’ve got to offer. Don’t be surprised if they’re not gushing over anything you do. You see, most writing instructors are simply frustrated writers—if they had their preference, they’d be writing too, but they can’t make a living at it so they toil in academia where they have come to the conclusion that no one actually will succeed in the profession that has been so fickle to them.
In spite of their lack of support, you begin to develop your own unique style—well, not exactly unique—face it, there are so many writers out there all you can hope is that you’re not so very obvious when you mimic Hemingway or imitate Sylvia Plath. While you are struggling to please your professors, you also begin sending off short works to various magazines, and begin working on what you come to describe as your “major opus”—a work so dear to your heart that you begin celebrating its birthday and think of it as family.
In your senior year in college you take up with another young writer—you’ve been pretentiously ambiguous about your sexuality for a couple of years but you decide to settle on this dark young poet who writes his most edgy works while recovering from his all too common three-day drunken benders. You keep his printer in ink, make him breakfast and ensure the world doesn’t bother him when he’s writing. You try not to look hurt when he refuses to show you his work, and you manage not to cry when he mocks the few things you show him. One night he even goads you into burning your "baby". You plan to leave him countless times but every time he’s on his tenth martini and slurs that you’re his “muse”, you succumb to your codependent tendencies and unpack your bags.
Money is tight when the two of you move in together after graduating with worthless bachelors’ degrees so you take a job as a phone harasser for a loans collection agency while he continues to drink and occasionally write. After you receive an eviction notice because he spent your rent money on a beer bong and a party while you were out of town one weekend you decide you’ve had enough. You sneak out while he’s asleep and rent a small apartment across town. You decide to forget your writing dream and enroll in a graduate business program. It’s deadly dull, but at least you feel there’s some money at the end of this obstacle course.
Meanwhile, only a few weeks after you leave your ex is suddenly discovered as a “bright new literary star”, which simply means that he had the good fortune to step into traffic and be hit by Oprah’s chauffeur. Fearing a lawsuit, Oprah befriends him and puts his poetry anthology “Blood in my Urine” on her monthly book club recommended list. Soon your old boyfriend is being feted by pretentious semiliterates throughout the English-speaking world, while you write insincere papers for soulless business professors. It shocks you when your suddenly successful ex calls you and invites you for dinner. He had hired a private investigator to unravel the mystery of your sudden disappearance, and once he has found you, he immediately proposes.
Your heart overrules your doubts and you say yes. Within a few days you’ve once again moved in together and you’re suddenly sharing the fruits of his newfound wealth. He boasts of his six-month long sobriety to you, but within another month the two of you are screaming at each other daily and you realize sadly that it was the drunk you fell in love with, and his sober self is a tiresome bore. You resolve to leave one night when he’s in the middle of a rant about your many shortcomings when suddenly he stops, clutches his chest and then falls to the floor, dead.
The outpouring of grief by his admiring public is intense but shortlived. As you are cleaning out his den a few weeks later, you discover some unpublished poems and take them to his publisher. Soon you’re collecting royalties for the posthumous anthology and you realize that there’s still some money left in his reputation. You quietly begin writing bogus poetry you attribute to him—long hours of listening to his cynical diatribes have made you uniquely qualified to counterfeit his work.
It’s only when you get even greedier and recycle some of your old work from college that an old teaching assistant from your former university blows the whistle on you and your lucrative income vanishes instantly. Because you were unprepared for it, you had no chance to save, and before long you’re desperate for cash. Unfortunately the writing bug has returned to you full force and you cannot bring yourself to return to the mundane demands of any other career. Still, your work is hardly of a caliber to attract attention in the right circles, and before long you are forced to turn to writing pornography—a 150 page predictable piece of trash pays a few hundred dollars, and your prose is a slight cut above the tripe most of your fellow pornographers produce.
If you’re lucky, one day you’ll get a chance to write a screenplay for one of your novels. I doubt it will be difficult.
Oh—you’re the kid who won that story contest a while back. Yeah, I guess I could tell you about being a writer if you want a good hobby for when… what? You want to make a living at it? Okay, then that’s different…
You’ll head off to college after high school and do the general first year or two in the Arts faculty, and then when you get a chance you’ll apply to the writing coop or English honors program. Either way, you'll have to show some college writing teachers what you’ve got to offer. Don’t be surprised if they’re not gushing over anything you do. You see, most writing instructors are simply frustrated writers—if they had their preference, they’d be writing too, but they can’t make a living at it so they toil in academia where they have come to the conclusion that no one actually will succeed in the profession that has been so fickle to them.
In spite of their lack of support, you begin to develop your own unique style—well, not exactly unique—face it, there are so many writers out there all you can hope is that you’re not so very obvious when you mimic Hemingway or imitate Sylvia Plath. While you are struggling to please your professors, you also begin sending off short works to various magazines, and begin working on what you come to describe as your “major opus”—a work so dear to your heart that you begin celebrating its birthday and think of it as family.
In your senior year in college you take up with another young writer—you’ve been pretentiously ambiguous about your sexuality for a couple of years but you decide to settle on this dark young poet who writes his most edgy works while recovering from his all too common three-day drunken benders. You keep his printer in ink, make him breakfast and ensure the world doesn’t bother him when he’s writing. You try not to look hurt when he refuses to show you his work, and you manage not to cry when he mocks the few things you show him. One night he even goads you into burning your "baby". You plan to leave him countless times but every time he’s on his tenth martini and slurs that you’re his “muse”, you succumb to your codependent tendencies and unpack your bags.
Money is tight when the two of you move in together after graduating with worthless bachelors’ degrees so you take a job as a phone harasser for a loans collection agency while he continues to drink and occasionally write. After you receive an eviction notice because he spent your rent money on a beer bong and a party while you were out of town one weekend you decide you’ve had enough. You sneak out while he’s asleep and rent a small apartment across town. You decide to forget your writing dream and enroll in a graduate business program. It’s deadly dull, but at least you feel there’s some money at the end of this obstacle course.
Meanwhile, only a few weeks after you leave your ex is suddenly discovered as a “bright new literary star”, which simply means that he had the good fortune to step into traffic and be hit by Oprah’s chauffeur. Fearing a lawsuit, Oprah befriends him and puts his poetry anthology “Blood in my Urine” on her monthly book club recommended list. Soon your old boyfriend is being feted by pretentious semiliterates throughout the English-speaking world, while you write insincere papers for soulless business professors. It shocks you when your suddenly successful ex calls you and invites you for dinner. He had hired a private investigator to unravel the mystery of your sudden disappearance, and once he has found you, he immediately proposes.
Your heart overrules your doubts and you say yes. Within a few days you’ve once again moved in together and you’re suddenly sharing the fruits of his newfound wealth. He boasts of his six-month long sobriety to you, but within another month the two of you are screaming at each other daily and you realize sadly that it was the drunk you fell in love with, and his sober self is a tiresome bore. You resolve to leave one night when he’s in the middle of a rant about your many shortcomings when suddenly he stops, clutches his chest and then falls to the floor, dead.
The outpouring of grief by his admiring public is intense but shortlived. As you are cleaning out his den a few weeks later, you discover some unpublished poems and take them to his publisher. Soon you’re collecting royalties for the posthumous anthology and you realize that there’s still some money left in his reputation. You quietly begin writing bogus poetry you attribute to him—long hours of listening to his cynical diatribes have made you uniquely qualified to counterfeit his work.
It’s only when you get even greedier and recycle some of your old work from college that an old teaching assistant from your former university blows the whistle on you and your lucrative income vanishes instantly. Because you were unprepared for it, you had no chance to save, and before long you’re desperate for cash. Unfortunately the writing bug has returned to you full force and you cannot bring yourself to return to the mundane demands of any other career. Still, your work is hardly of a caliber to attract attention in the right circles, and before long you are forced to turn to writing pornography—a 150 page predictable piece of trash pays a few hundred dollars, and your prose is a slight cut above the tripe most of your fellow pornographers produce.
If you’re lucky, one day you’ll get a chance to write a screenplay for one of your novels. I doubt it will be difficult.
Monday, September 12, 2005
grrrrr...
So the travel company--I won't name them since they're huge and then I'd end up getting traffic I didn't want right now--who's doing our New York trip today tells me when I PHONE THEM that there's a problem since there's no other group to pair us with when we plan to go. Yes, we're not a huge group, but I was never told that would be a problem--there are 14 of us travelling all together. Anyway, the choices that her company seems to be giving us are
a) go during the spring, say March. NO THAT WON'T WORK WE HAVE KIDS ON BAND TRIPS AND THAT'S WHEN OUR SHOW IS.
b) cancel the trip outright and they'll refund our money. LOVELY--MY FIRST BIG TRIP AND IT FLOPS; WON'T THAT MAKE EVERYONE WHO'S LOOKING FORWARD TO IT HAPPY.
c) do it as a "private" tour, which means we add an amount per person to do that--she suggested $150 per person. RIGHT--HEY FOLKS, JUST THOUGHT I'D TELL YOU WE NEED MORE MONEY FROM ALL OF YOU WITHOUT WARNING--YOU'RE OKAY WITH THAT, RIGHT?
Sorry--I hate capitalization yelling, but this is crap. I told her to work really hard on that number for the private trip and get back to me. I'm not happy. If I wasn't already paying the 99 bucks per for everyone's comprehensive travel insurance package and doing the subsidies for all my program kids, it might be easily done. As it is, when I catch my breath and think about it, I know I can probably pull it off.
It just cuts into money that should be there for other things.
It's also too late to switch tour companies, as has already been suggested to me, and arranging a tour ourself at this late date isn't possible for the price per person we'd have to work with.
The company isn't some little mickey mouse one--it's the same one that did Kate's school trip to Germany a few months ago. I wonder how long it would've taken for them to spring this on me if I hadn't phoned today?
*sigh*
a) go during the spring, say March. NO THAT WON'T WORK WE HAVE KIDS ON BAND TRIPS AND THAT'S WHEN OUR SHOW IS.
b) cancel the trip outright and they'll refund our money. LOVELY--MY FIRST BIG TRIP AND IT FLOPS; WON'T THAT MAKE EVERYONE WHO'S LOOKING FORWARD TO IT HAPPY.
c) do it as a "private" tour, which means we add an amount per person to do that--she suggested $150 per person. RIGHT--HEY FOLKS, JUST THOUGHT I'D TELL YOU WE NEED MORE MONEY FROM ALL OF YOU WITHOUT WARNING--YOU'RE OKAY WITH THAT, RIGHT?
Sorry--I hate capitalization yelling, but this is crap. I told her to work really hard on that number for the private trip and get back to me. I'm not happy. If I wasn't already paying the 99 bucks per for everyone's comprehensive travel insurance package and doing the subsidies for all my program kids, it might be easily done. As it is, when I catch my breath and think about it, I know I can probably pull it off.
It just cuts into money that should be there for other things.
It's also too late to switch tour companies, as has already been suggested to me, and arranging a tour ourself at this late date isn't possible for the price per person we'd have to work with.
The company isn't some little mickey mouse one--it's the same one that did Kate's school trip to Germany a few months ago. I wonder how long it would've taken for them to spring this on me if I hadn't phoned today?
*sigh*
Sunday, September 11, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a
Tourist Trap Operator
Hi kid--Your family has that dollar store in the strip mall, right? Did you know your toothpaste tastes like soap? So what do you want to... Oh, hmm--well, I can see the connection I guess, since tourists are good at paying for absolute crap merchandise if you market it right. It will go something like this:
You'll move to some small town, preferably located near a beach, mountains or hot springs--or any other kind of natural phenomenon that can be marketed. Remember, that stink from the hot springs is "therapeutic" rather than toxic.
You'll buy or build a small retail outlet near the center of town. You won't rent because you don't want someone evicting you and stealing your idea if you become a success. Besides, with the ingenuity you and the other members of the local chamber of commerce will bring to the task of creating a tourism destination you figure the property will be a good investment.
It won't be easy at first--the locals are an odd bunch, probably due to the small gene pool created by years of inbreeding--but eventually you figure out the only way into their trust and you marry a local girl. Fortunately her six toes are from a recessive gene and your two girls seem comfortingly normal.
The hot springs aren't enough to make the town boom, you figure out, so you bring a brainstorm to the city council and convince them the town needs a mythological creature to pull in the crowds and market souvenir merchandise. You propose "Mort the Giant Rat", which seems original to anyone who doesn't know your kids' propensity for watching "The Princess Bride" five nights a week. The council agrees--although some wonder about the repulsiveness of the creature until you share a portfolio of Mort charicatures you had done by a local artist--he's almost cuddly in the poses with a variety of local merchanise and produce.
Still, the goal is to create interest, so while the marketing version of Mort is friendly, you simultaneously develop a ficticious folklore about giant rats who inhabited the murky past of your small community. Soon cryptozoologists are among the hundreds who flock to wander the back trails in search of the legendary "rodentia gigantisimus" as you and your colleagues dub it. The growth of the town continues, and although some items, like the local eatery's "ratburgers" don't sell well, most find the tourist trade increasingly lucrative.
Of course, there is still the offseason. The winter months are grey and depressing, and your girls join the local children who wander the empty streets seeking distraction. Since the local police maintain their manpower year-round, all they have to do in the offseason is hunt for drugs and confiscate alcohol from teens. In despair local youth turn to glue and gasoline for their highs, and soon you're among the many parents who ship their kids off to boarding school to save them from tragedy.
By the following season you've added a new attraction--a local craftsman, related like most to your wife, builds you a giant rat trap which you locate at the front of your property, even though you dipped into the town treasury to pay for it. Some other merchants are angry at first, but you assuage them by having giant yellow rat prints painted on the town boardwalk and have the tracks enter those businesses who contribute to your campaign to become mayor. When you win you get to sit in a convertible at the front of the "rat race", the annual parade which kicks off the weeklong "Plague Festival". It's going so well you buy up property outside town you can't really afford and begin building a resort which will stretch your budget to the breaking point.
Unfortunately, at about that time an unlucky tourist will trigger the rat trap in front of your store--you hadn't realized your dimwitted cousin-in-law would make it a functioning device--and the result is one man dead, a couple both paralyzed for life, and a busload of children in need of months of trauma counselling. The town becomes even more crowded with tabloid news crews for a few days, and then the downturn begins. Locals blame you for the destruction of the tourist trade, and soon only a few ghouls come to look at the site of the tragedy, and even the hot springs can't escape the malaise that hangs over the town.
You declare bankruptcy after first alienating your wife and all of her relatives by trying to sue her cousin for his deadly mousetrap construction. He has no assets and leaves town and you are financially destroyed by the first few lawsuits to get to court.
Your daughters are forced to return home and when your wife leaves you they join her. Her relatives give her a portion of the moonshine revenue to start a new life as a maid in a large Las Vegas hotel and casino. She and your daughters stop writing you after six months, and you hear nothing for two years from them as you drink most of the little money you are able to glean from the occasional visitor. You become more and more isolated from the villagers who hate you and have to pay a local ne'er do well to buy groceries for you so you needn't mix with people who'd rather spit on you than serve you.
After a lively night of heavy drinking, the patrons of a local pub head to your home with torches, while you read a letter you received from your ex-wife earlier in the day--apparently your daughters are ironically both serving the needs of tourists in ways that are only legal in Nevada. You don't notice the crowd outside until the molotov cocktails come crashing through your windows.
The next year the locals concoct a story about how you were in league with the devil and you and your home spontaneously combusted. They have their most profitable summer in a decade, and they become nostalgic enough about your good years that within a few months practically no one urinates on your grave any more.
Hi kid--Your family has that dollar store in the strip mall, right? Did you know your toothpaste tastes like soap? So what do you want to... Oh, hmm--well, I can see the connection I guess, since tourists are good at paying for absolute crap merchandise if you market it right. It will go something like this:
You'll move to some small town, preferably located near a beach, mountains or hot springs--or any other kind of natural phenomenon that can be marketed. Remember, that stink from the hot springs is "therapeutic" rather than toxic.
You'll buy or build a small retail outlet near the center of town. You won't rent because you don't want someone evicting you and stealing your idea if you become a success. Besides, with the ingenuity you and the other members of the local chamber of commerce will bring to the task of creating a tourism destination you figure the property will be a good investment.
It won't be easy at first--the locals are an odd bunch, probably due to the small gene pool created by years of inbreeding--but eventually you figure out the only way into their trust and you marry a local girl. Fortunately her six toes are from a recessive gene and your two girls seem comfortingly normal.
The hot springs aren't enough to make the town boom, you figure out, so you bring a brainstorm to the city council and convince them the town needs a mythological creature to pull in the crowds and market souvenir merchandise. You propose "Mort the Giant Rat", which seems original to anyone who doesn't know your kids' propensity for watching "The Princess Bride" five nights a week. The council agrees--although some wonder about the repulsiveness of the creature until you share a portfolio of Mort charicatures you had done by a local artist--he's almost cuddly in the poses with a variety of local merchanise and produce.
Still, the goal is to create interest, so while the marketing version of Mort is friendly, you simultaneously develop a ficticious folklore about giant rats who inhabited the murky past of your small community. Soon cryptozoologists are among the hundreds who flock to wander the back trails in search of the legendary "rodentia gigantisimus" as you and your colleagues dub it. The growth of the town continues, and although some items, like the local eatery's "ratburgers" don't sell well, most find the tourist trade increasingly lucrative.
Of course, there is still the offseason. The winter months are grey and depressing, and your girls join the local children who wander the empty streets seeking distraction. Since the local police maintain their manpower year-round, all they have to do in the offseason is hunt for drugs and confiscate alcohol from teens. In despair local youth turn to glue and gasoline for their highs, and soon you're among the many parents who ship their kids off to boarding school to save them from tragedy.
By the following season you've added a new attraction--a local craftsman, related like most to your wife, builds you a giant rat trap which you locate at the front of your property, even though you dipped into the town treasury to pay for it. Some other merchants are angry at first, but you assuage them by having giant yellow rat prints painted on the town boardwalk and have the tracks enter those businesses who contribute to your campaign to become mayor. When you win you get to sit in a convertible at the front of the "rat race", the annual parade which kicks off the weeklong "Plague Festival". It's going so well you buy up property outside town you can't really afford and begin building a resort which will stretch your budget to the breaking point.
Unfortunately, at about that time an unlucky tourist will trigger the rat trap in front of your store--you hadn't realized your dimwitted cousin-in-law would make it a functioning device--and the result is one man dead, a couple both paralyzed for life, and a busload of children in need of months of trauma counselling. The town becomes even more crowded with tabloid news crews for a few days, and then the downturn begins. Locals blame you for the destruction of the tourist trade, and soon only a few ghouls come to look at the site of the tragedy, and even the hot springs can't escape the malaise that hangs over the town.
You declare bankruptcy after first alienating your wife and all of her relatives by trying to sue her cousin for his deadly mousetrap construction. He has no assets and leaves town and you are financially destroyed by the first few lawsuits to get to court.
Your daughters are forced to return home and when your wife leaves you they join her. Her relatives give her a portion of the moonshine revenue to start a new life as a maid in a large Las Vegas hotel and casino. She and your daughters stop writing you after six months, and you hear nothing for two years from them as you drink most of the little money you are able to glean from the occasional visitor. You become more and more isolated from the villagers who hate you and have to pay a local ne'er do well to buy groceries for you so you needn't mix with people who'd rather spit on you than serve you.
After a lively night of heavy drinking, the patrons of a local pub head to your home with torches, while you read a letter you received from your ex-wife earlier in the day--apparently your daughters are ironically both serving the needs of tourists in ways that are only legal in Nevada. You don't notice the crowd outside until the molotov cocktails come crashing through your windows.
The next year the locals concoct a story about how you were in league with the devil and you and your home spontaneously combusted. They have their most profitable summer in a decade, and they become nostalgic enough about your good years that within a few months practically no one urinates on your grave any more.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
A Link Blog
This morning I drove my niece into town to stay with my wife's sister and her family tonight. Tomorrow afternoon I pick her up and take her to the airport and she heads to go live with her family for a few months before heading off to India after Christmas where she'll be volunteering in an orphanage for a year. I got to work and had to put away all my theatre seats before first block--fortunately Marcela stopped by and have me a hand. and had a nice Drama 9 class, and then in my spare had a much needed chat with R, who once again has the sacred keys to the theatre/booth and we went on our first Starbucks run of the new school year.
I enjoyed talking yesterday on the phone to Kate for the first time. She needs not be so touchy about cracker jokes though. Today I received the paperwork to make Bay one of my T.A.'s for this semester. At lunch, Milly was putting masking tape on people's backs and writing messages on them. She put one on my back that said something like "this beard needs shaving". The funny part was that after lunch I forgot about the tape and I went to my afternoon grade 9 English class with it still stuck on my back, where I am sure my students saw it every time I turned to write on the whiteboard and thought "what a loser".
When I got home I had a chance to chat with my friend sshhh, who works here. Then my daughter got home from her appointment to have her cast removed, and we discovered, as my wife had suspected a month ago when she got the cast on, that the bones hadn't quite been aligned and so the healing is going slowly and she has now got a "splint" half cast, which really disappointed her--crying time--so I promised her a trip to her favorite restaurant, and we even let her order one of the "expensive kid's drinks" instead of just the regular pop.
My wife wasn't suprised since the cast was put on in Powell River, where my wife, who is a nurse, has always been less than impressed by the quality of the health care she's heard about from my parents or seen firsthand on the occasions we've needed to use it up there. So now it looks like two more weeks of cast for the kid who had hoped to come home and jump in the pool that I rushed home from work to prepare.
Later, after supper, I talked to Katie on msn for the first time. While we were talking I noticed I had received an email from the recently invisible Camila, who briefly informed me of the main reason for her invisibility. Ahh, gossip from the eastern time zone...
Sorry if I didn't include some of you--this kind of post is more work than usual...
I enjoyed talking yesterday on the phone to Kate for the first time. She needs not be so touchy about cracker jokes though. Today I received the paperwork to make Bay one of my T.A.'s for this semester. At lunch, Milly was putting masking tape on people's backs and writing messages on them. She put one on my back that said something like "this beard needs shaving". The funny part was that after lunch I forgot about the tape and I went to my afternoon grade 9 English class with it still stuck on my back, where I am sure my students saw it every time I turned to write on the whiteboard and thought "what a loser".
When I got home I had a chance to chat with my friend sshhh, who works here. Then my daughter got home from her appointment to have her cast removed, and we discovered, as my wife had suspected a month ago when she got the cast on, that the bones hadn't quite been aligned and so the healing is going slowly and she has now got a "splint" half cast, which really disappointed her--crying time--so I promised her a trip to her favorite restaurant, and we even let her order one of the "expensive kid's drinks" instead of just the regular pop.
My wife wasn't suprised since the cast was put on in Powell River, where my wife, who is a nurse, has always been less than impressed by the quality of the health care she's heard about from my parents or seen firsthand on the occasions we've needed to use it up there. So now it looks like two more weeks of cast for the kid who had hoped to come home and jump in the pool that I rushed home from work to prepare.
Later, after supper, I talked to Katie on msn for the first time. While we were talking I noticed I had received an email from the recently invisible Camila, who briefly informed me of the main reason for her invisibility. Ahh, gossip from the eastern time zone...
Sorry if I didn't include some of you--this kind of post is more work than usual...
Friday, September 02, 2005
Participant list...
for the Delurking Day in support of Hurricane Katrina victims is at Ella's blog.
Go. Read. Comment. Cost us money. Donate yourself.
j.
I should give something for people to read, I just decided, so for those of you wandering to this blog just to say hi today, you can have a look at these old posts:
A poem by the "Emo Child" (though Alex rightly points out she sounds more goth than emo)
Ilsa the Costco Girl
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as an Art Critic
The Kid Who Sits Behind You Explains "Romeo and Juliet"
Let's give them something to talk about
Sorry--cheesy title for a serious entry.
I figure if I'm doing the delurking day thing tomorrow (see below) then I'd best get some topics out there for commenting. BTW, I get an alert like many of you for each comment added anywhere on my blog, so you can go comment on something from last January and I'll still count it.
First, I'm barely able to tear myself away from the coverage of the disaster on the various news outlets--it's hard to even comprehend the level of this. Rampant snipers, corpses floating by, people dying in their homes with no one to rescue them, hospitals moving everyone to the upper floors to protect them from looters and chaos, and finally the military showing up several days late.
Oh, and on one station a commentator pointing out that 40% or more of the national guard members who'd be around for this sort of thing are instead in Iraq, and then asking what would happen if now there was a major terrorist incident or an earthquake in southern california. He followed that with bringing up the renewed push for a return of the draft...
Had a few good chats with Kate since she got back online. She's still at her mom's in B.R. and they've got another family of N.O. refugees staying there at the moment. School back in Mandeville is apparently scheduled to restart in early October. Lots of uncertainty--her dad's place of employment was located right near where the levee broke so it doesn't exist as a building anymore. They're also looking at having to move homes now, due to hurricane damage as well.
Here in my household we've begun once more discussing the need for better emergency supplies on hand--I wonder how many of you have such? K. can correct me but I seem to recall years ago when I boarded in the basement suite of an LDS family that they were supposed to keep two months supply of goods on hand--whether that was a local practice or a church teaching I don't know.
Back almost a decade ago when we had the freakish snowstorm that paralyzed this city--bodies were left in houses where people died for several days because no help could get through, etc.--we realized how much having a good relationship with neighbors can help. Our little cul-de-sac of 11 houses all pulled together to clear the street and look after the elderly residents--trudging on foot to the one grocery store we knew was open.
We also discovered that when the electricity and cable were on, television was useless--locally they just ran regular programming and didn't seem to acknowledge the problem. Meanwhile, one local radio station essentially ran the town for a week. It was that station who alerted people that an elderly person's roof needed shovelling off or it was in danger of collapse--a bunch of roofs did in fact collapse--or that a dialysis patient desperately needed a snowmobile ride to the hospital.
That's another tragic part of the crisis in the hurricane's aftermath--the poor who have survived but who need dialysis or insulin and can't get it in the chaos that exists right now.
Question for Ella--if a disaster on a large scale happened where you work and live, would you be the one sitting there with a shotgun protecting the inventory, or would you walk away and leave the door unlocked as you go?
Then there's the debate about our role as teachers if the big earthquake comes here while school is in session--how many of us must stay and how long? What about our own families and finding our kids?
Lots to think about right now.
If you wish to donate, there are lots of pages and locations but I'll just pass along a link page on the CNN site:
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/katrina/help.center/
I start counting at midnight tonight.
I figure if I'm doing the delurking day thing tomorrow (see below) then I'd best get some topics out there for commenting. BTW, I get an alert like many of you for each comment added anywhere on my blog, so you can go comment on something from last January and I'll still count it.
First, I'm barely able to tear myself away from the coverage of the disaster on the various news outlets--it's hard to even comprehend the level of this. Rampant snipers, corpses floating by, people dying in their homes with no one to rescue them, hospitals moving everyone to the upper floors to protect them from looters and chaos, and finally the military showing up several days late.
Oh, and on one station a commentator pointing out that 40% or more of the national guard members who'd be around for this sort of thing are instead in Iraq, and then asking what would happen if now there was a major terrorist incident or an earthquake in southern california. He followed that with bringing up the renewed push for a return of the draft...
Had a few good chats with Kate since she got back online. She's still at her mom's in B.R. and they've got another family of N.O. refugees staying there at the moment. School back in Mandeville is apparently scheduled to restart in early October. Lots of uncertainty--her dad's place of employment was located right near where the levee broke so it doesn't exist as a building anymore. They're also looking at having to move homes now, due to hurricane damage as well.
Here in my household we've begun once more discussing the need for better emergency supplies on hand--I wonder how many of you have such? K. can correct me but I seem to recall years ago when I boarded in the basement suite of an LDS family that they were supposed to keep two months supply of goods on hand--whether that was a local practice or a church teaching I don't know.
Back almost a decade ago when we had the freakish snowstorm that paralyzed this city--bodies were left in houses where people died for several days because no help could get through, etc.--we realized how much having a good relationship with neighbors can help. Our little cul-de-sac of 11 houses all pulled together to clear the street and look after the elderly residents--trudging on foot to the one grocery store we knew was open.
We also discovered that when the electricity and cable were on, television was useless--locally they just ran regular programming and didn't seem to acknowledge the problem. Meanwhile, one local radio station essentially ran the town for a week. It was that station who alerted people that an elderly person's roof needed shovelling off or it was in danger of collapse--a bunch of roofs did in fact collapse--or that a dialysis patient desperately needed a snowmobile ride to the hospital.
That's another tragic part of the crisis in the hurricane's aftermath--the poor who have survived but who need dialysis or insulin and can't get it in the chaos that exists right now.
Question for Ella--if a disaster on a large scale happened where you work and live, would you be the one sitting there with a shotgun protecting the inventory, or would you walk away and leave the door unlocked as you go?
Then there's the debate about our role as teachers if the big earthquake comes here while school is in session--how many of us must stay and how long? What about our own families and finding our kids?
Lots to think about right now.
If you wish to donate, there are lots of pages and locations but I'll just pass along a link page on the CNN site:
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/katrina/help.center/
I start counting at midnight tonight.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Delurking day to support hurricane victims
For everyone who comments on Saturday I'll be donating a dollar to the Red Cross to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina. (No, Kate, I won't just turn it into a starbucks card for you.) Seriously, though--it's a great cause and if you want to participate or know more, go read about the idea on Ella's blog.
Do it.
(Oh, and for you bright sparks who think you can make 700 comments that day--it's sadly one per customer.)
J.
Do it.
(Oh, and for you bright sparks who think you can make 700 comments that day--it's sadly one per customer.)
J.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
For those of you who read Kate's blog
like Rach, Jatue, B.G. and any others...
I got a text message on my cell phone from her about 90 minutes ago. She says her stuff is apparently okay but many of her friends are not so lucky. There is no electricity. I doubt she'll be updating anytime soon.
I've tried phoning back to the number she gave me 3 times but "all circuits are busy" which is understandable considering the magnitude of what's happened down there.
The most important thing is she's okay.
J.
I got a text message on my cell phone from her about 90 minutes ago. She says her stuff is apparently okay but many of her friends are not so lucky. There is no electricity. I doubt she'll be updating anytime soon.
I've tried phoning back to the number she gave me 3 times but "all circuits are busy" which is understandable considering the magnitude of what's happened down there.
The most important thing is she's okay.
J.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
so brutal
I was looking at the pics this morning on the NY Times website of the New Orleans area. It's scary--places with 20 feet of water, 80% of the city flooded--and significant loss of life.
I can't really imagine what Kate and everyone else is going to be going home to. Over two million people are without electricity so I doubt we'll hear soon, either.
I can't really imagine what Kate and everyone else is going to be going home to. Over two million people are without electricity so I doubt we'll hear soon, either.
Monday, August 29, 2005
The Kid Who Sits Behind You Explains
Just Lather, That's All
So this is a short story and not some stupid long novel so I already like finished the whole thing and I still had time to play warcraft and go outside and smoke up.
The story's about this barber who's some kind of 'rebel' which probably means he wore a leather jacket and stuff (cause on account of this was written back in the day but in spanish my teacher said but I bet they still had kickass cars and drag races and stuff) and anyway, this barber's just minding his own business and then this Captain Torres guy comes in.
The barber freaks out, on account of I think this was back in the day when there was some lamewad music group called the "The Captain and Ten Eels" so this captain was really some celebrity. Anyway the barber was all nervous since he had to shave this captain guy (and if he's like all those sea captains in the cartoons and stuff he's probably got some big gross tangly beard) and he was afraid he'd cut this guy and then the captain's posse would hang him or something.
Oh, and he got really sweaty, which was kinda gross.
So this is a short story and not some stupid long novel so I already like finished the whole thing and I still had time to play warcraft and go outside and smoke up.
The story's about this barber who's some kind of 'rebel' which probably means he wore a leather jacket and stuff (cause on account of this was written back in the day but in spanish my teacher said but I bet they still had kickass cars and drag races and stuff) and anyway, this barber's just minding his own business and then this Captain Torres guy comes in.
The barber freaks out, on account of I think this was back in the day when there was some lamewad music group called the "The Captain and Ten Eels" so this captain was really some celebrity. Anyway the barber was all nervous since he had to shave this captain guy (and if he's like all those sea captains in the cartoons and stuff he's probably got some big gross tangly beard) and he was afraid he'd cut this guy and then the captain's posse would hang him or something.
Oh, and he got really sweaty, which was kinda gross.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a
Fast Food Manager
So, you want to be "lovin' it" for the next four decades or so, kid? You're the one who always looks so happy there in the drive thru... oh, really? Well, your parents will stop weeping about this idea in a month or two--after all, they've got to be proud of that older sister of yours. Feature dancer at the downtown show bar... Tell her that it's embarassing when she waves to her old teachers from onstage, er--I mean, the shop teachers told me she does that sometimes; I wouldn't know myself.
Anyway--back to your future managing the golden arches. First of all, they'll probably test your IQ and your personality to make sure you're smart and ambitious enough to staff the restaurant and do the promotional stuff, but not so gifted as to want to put a gun in your mouth after a couple years. No doubt you'll work your way up locally as first a shift manager, and then assistant, and then one day it will be your turn to don the golden name tag.
Don't expect it to be easy. Once you're past 20, girls don't see dating someone like you as a great catch--you might understand there's good things ahead if you're loyal to the corporation, but they see you as a loser they'd be ashamed to bring to a thanksgiving dinner and have sit at a table with their sister's husbands who all have more impressive careers.
Ironically, at the same time as you strike out at the bar every time they ask you what you do for a living, you'll have 16 year old girls offering you 5 minutes of paradise in the stock room for a pathetic promotion to the drive-thru window, so you'll have to be careful to cover your backside, since even if you behave, the rejected ones can still say something happened. To be safe you'll put the guy who's been there longest on the window job--with only his pathetic dreams of rock stardom to hold onto, it's already clear to all the other staff that he's a "lifer". Still, even though you duck the sexual harassment complaint by that little maneuver, you'll still end up in the headlines when it turns out mister rock star is dealing drugs to the cars that pull up each night.
Head office cringes at the bad publicity and quickly gets you out of town--you're given the management responsibilities for a new outlet in a small town a couple hundred miles away. It wouldn't be big enough to have a franchise if it weren't for all the traffic that goes through on the main highway through the center of town. You get to hire the entire staff, which is harder than back in the city since there's a much smaller pool of candidates, but soon you've got a full crew, even if there's a number of sibling teams who bicker constantly until you figure out not to schedule their shifts together.
The small town realities hit you quickly. You realize after the fiasco at your last restaurant that you have to make this one work, but there's some resistance in town--especially from "Mom and Pop's", the local cafe that's been in operation for almost 20 years. Some people make it almost a moral issue to patronize the older establishment and boycott yours, seeing as you represent all that is evil with corporate globalization. Nonetheless, some of those same people have no problem coming to you with cap in hand every time some charity or team needs sponsoring--they expect you to have the bottomless pockets of a huge multinational corporation, and think you mean and stingy when you have to turn some of them away.
It gets even more uncomfortable when "Mom and Pop's" daughter is sent to the city, ostensibly for treatment for a serious eating disorder. They make no secret of the fact that the treatment is expensive and their income reduced with the arrival of your fast food place. You can't avoid contributing substantially to her treatment fund, even though you receive little or no credit for doing so.
A few months later you're visiting relatives back in the city and you find out your niece rooms in the same dorm with the "poor anorexic", and she laughs at your questions about the girl's condition. Apparently the whole thing was a scam and the girl has used the "treatment money" to buy a car. Still, you realize you'd best not say anything back in town, and you bite your tongue every time some old dear prattles on about "that poor girl".
It's only a few months later when "Mom" is apparently diagnosed with some mysterious tumor, and she also is the recipient of local business largesse, and once again you're hit for a major contribution. Your niece tells you the mother had a nice visit in the city, using that cash to take all the dorm girls out for an expensive dinner, and showing them her purchases from a couple of days' shopping at a variety of exclusive shops.
This time you've had enough, and when "Pop" comes around with a group from the local chamber of commerce collecting for a scholarship for his "dyslexic" son, you explode, and scream forth all your accusations, only to find yourself punched by a local town councilman who calls you a variety of disgusting names, and then leads the group to the local newspaper where an exposé on your wicked heartlessness is quickly added to the front page of the next day's edition.
Within days parents have forced most of your employees to quit, and the head office damage control team shows up and gives you a choice--quit outright and forget about the pension you've been depending on, or take a transfer to Beirut, which they assure you is much more peaceful than it used to be.
You think about it for a while and realize you have no marketable skills and no money to go to college, so you accept the offer. You work well as the second in command at the Beirut outlet until you are mistakenly kidnapped by terrorists--you look strikingly like the Belgian ambassador--and they kill you in disgust when they discover their error.
Your pension is sent back to the small town you fled and dumped into yet another fund to help pay for Mom and Pop's irish setter's treatment for canine depression. Nobody notices.
So, you want to be "lovin' it" for the next four decades or so, kid? You're the one who always looks so happy there in the drive thru... oh, really? Well, your parents will stop weeping about this idea in a month or two--after all, they've got to be proud of that older sister of yours. Feature dancer at the downtown show bar... Tell her that it's embarassing when she waves to her old teachers from onstage, er--I mean, the shop teachers told me she does that sometimes; I wouldn't know myself.
Anyway--back to your future managing the golden arches. First of all, they'll probably test your IQ and your personality to make sure you're smart and ambitious enough to staff the restaurant and do the promotional stuff, but not so gifted as to want to put a gun in your mouth after a couple years. No doubt you'll work your way up locally as first a shift manager, and then assistant, and then one day it will be your turn to don the golden name tag.
Don't expect it to be easy. Once you're past 20, girls don't see dating someone like you as a great catch--you might understand there's good things ahead if you're loyal to the corporation, but they see you as a loser they'd be ashamed to bring to a thanksgiving dinner and have sit at a table with their sister's husbands who all have more impressive careers.
Ironically, at the same time as you strike out at the bar every time they ask you what you do for a living, you'll have 16 year old girls offering you 5 minutes of paradise in the stock room for a pathetic promotion to the drive-thru window, so you'll have to be careful to cover your backside, since even if you behave, the rejected ones can still say something happened. To be safe you'll put the guy who's been there longest on the window job--with only his pathetic dreams of rock stardom to hold onto, it's already clear to all the other staff that he's a "lifer". Still, even though you duck the sexual harassment complaint by that little maneuver, you'll still end up in the headlines when it turns out mister rock star is dealing drugs to the cars that pull up each night.
Head office cringes at the bad publicity and quickly gets you out of town--you're given the management responsibilities for a new outlet in a small town a couple hundred miles away. It wouldn't be big enough to have a franchise if it weren't for all the traffic that goes through on the main highway through the center of town. You get to hire the entire staff, which is harder than back in the city since there's a much smaller pool of candidates, but soon you've got a full crew, even if there's a number of sibling teams who bicker constantly until you figure out not to schedule their shifts together.
The small town realities hit you quickly. You realize after the fiasco at your last restaurant that you have to make this one work, but there's some resistance in town--especially from "Mom and Pop's", the local cafe that's been in operation for almost 20 years. Some people make it almost a moral issue to patronize the older establishment and boycott yours, seeing as you represent all that is evil with corporate globalization. Nonetheless, some of those same people have no problem coming to you with cap in hand every time some charity or team needs sponsoring--they expect you to have the bottomless pockets of a huge multinational corporation, and think you mean and stingy when you have to turn some of them away.
It gets even more uncomfortable when "Mom and Pop's" daughter is sent to the city, ostensibly for treatment for a serious eating disorder. They make no secret of the fact that the treatment is expensive and their income reduced with the arrival of your fast food place. You can't avoid contributing substantially to her treatment fund, even though you receive little or no credit for doing so.
A few months later you're visiting relatives back in the city and you find out your niece rooms in the same dorm with the "poor anorexic", and she laughs at your questions about the girl's condition. Apparently the whole thing was a scam and the girl has used the "treatment money" to buy a car. Still, you realize you'd best not say anything back in town, and you bite your tongue every time some old dear prattles on about "that poor girl".
It's only a few months later when "Mom" is apparently diagnosed with some mysterious tumor, and she also is the recipient of local business largesse, and once again you're hit for a major contribution. Your niece tells you the mother had a nice visit in the city, using that cash to take all the dorm girls out for an expensive dinner, and showing them her purchases from a couple of days' shopping at a variety of exclusive shops.
This time you've had enough, and when "Pop" comes around with a group from the local chamber of commerce collecting for a scholarship for his "dyslexic" son, you explode, and scream forth all your accusations, only to find yourself punched by a local town councilman who calls you a variety of disgusting names, and then leads the group to the local newspaper where an exposé on your wicked heartlessness is quickly added to the front page of the next day's edition.
Within days parents have forced most of your employees to quit, and the head office damage control team shows up and gives you a choice--quit outright and forget about the pension you've been depending on, or take a transfer to Beirut, which they assure you is much more peaceful than it used to be.
You think about it for a while and realize you have no marketable skills and no money to go to college, so you accept the offer. You work well as the second in command at the Beirut outlet until you are mistakenly kidnapped by terrorists--you look strikingly like the Belgian ambassador--and they kill you in disgust when they discover their error.
Your pension is sent back to the small town you fled and dumped into yet another fund to help pay for Mom and Pop's irish setter's treatment for canine depression. Nobody notices.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
State your quest
The weekend thus far:
Friday was nice--the kidlets did an overnight at the inlaws and Judy and I went out for supper downtown. Moxie's for those who know Victoria, seems to have a hiring policy that goes something like this--"you must be good looking enough to be on a magazine cover to wait tables here". My wife and I both noticed this to be true of both the guys and the girls working at least that night. Nice to know that the staffing policies of The Keg from my university days still live on, at least at that restaurant.
Then we wandered downtown and ended up at the tourist trap gelato place where R. is now working--poor kid, she's worked about 30 hours this weekend or something insane. Anyway, it was nice to see her there and take a pic of her in her "uniform". I don't know that my credit rating would allow me to patronize that place too often though. Crazy expensive, but I guess the tourists just off the boat can be assured it's merely the "exchange rate" at work.
Yesterday we had a nice barbecue at my wife's sister's place, and her husband and I were in the liquor store when I discovered this to my great delight:
I'll let you know how it tastes. I really just wanted the bottle, anway.
Friday was nice--the kidlets did an overnight at the inlaws and Judy and I went out for supper downtown. Moxie's for those who know Victoria, seems to have a hiring policy that goes something like this--"you must be good looking enough to be on a magazine cover to wait tables here". My wife and I both noticed this to be true of both the guys and the girls working at least that night. Nice to know that the staffing policies of The Keg from my university days still live on, at least at that restaurant.
Then we wandered downtown and ended up at the tourist trap gelato place where R. is now working--poor kid, she's worked about 30 hours this weekend or something insane. Anyway, it was nice to see her there and take a pic of her in her "uniform". I don't know that my credit rating would allow me to patronize that place too often though. Crazy expensive, but I guess the tourists just off the boat can be assured it's merely the "exchange rate" at work.
Yesterday we had a nice barbecue at my wife's sister's place, and her husband and I were in the liquor store when I discovered this to my great delight:
I'll let you know how it tastes. I really just wanted the bottle, anway.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As A
Tour Guide
Oh, I know you--you're that foreign languages club kid. How many you speak now, anyway? Oh--well, German could be valuable, I guess. You taking anything special course wise this year? Tourism, eh? Great program that--preparing kids for the minimum wage careers of the future. So--a career in tourism? How 'bout you try travel agent? Yeah, I guess, but office work ain't so terrible... all right then, tour guide it is.
So, you'll get on the local tourist runs--seasonal work, low pay, occasional tips. In return, you'll deal with the idiosyncracies of weirdos from all nations. You can't help but make mistakes too, using the wrong word for something and offending an entire busload of people by accident, but still, at least you'll get to know the three or four bus drivers who become your regular companions driving around the same tired tourist traps for four or five months a year. Naturally, since you speak German, you'll get those groups most, and you'll begin to develop some strange suspicions--you walk off the bus for a moment and get back to overhear the words "fourth reich" muttered in clipped Prussian accents and then they all look shifty and change the subject when they see you to something more innocuous.
If it only happened once or twice, you'd ignore it, but it happens over and over, and you get a little worried when you hear too many of them humming songs you recognize from archival footage of rallies at the Brandenburg Gate during the late 1930s. Finally you decide something is up--perhaps these bus trips are some sort of front for neo-nazi plotting, and you report your suspicions to your supervisor. He looks at you incredulously, and recommends stress leave. You realize his last name is Von Braun, and decide he's in on it--so you go to the government, to tip them off about the plot.
Eventually you get a little "holiday" in a psychiatric respite center, and it's only when one of your fellow employees feels guilty and sends you an anonymous letter that you clue into the fact that each time you stepped off the bus your "friends" the bus drivers clued the passengers in to a little "let's freak out the tour guide" game they enjoyed playing so much. Seems they figured with their air brakes tickets they shouldn't be making 50 cents an hour less than you.
You are released from the psych ward, and you abandon local tour work to take a job with a group that tours elderly north americans through europe. Of course, the tours are not sightseeing as much as endurance, since one really can't "do" seven countries very well in ten days, and you're forever having to go out hunting for the one or two old dears who get lost and haven't made it back to the bus. Plus, the air conditioning invariably dies just as you hit the hottest part of your trip, and I won't even begin to describe the repulsiveness of the "biffy" at the back of the bus--you do your best to dissuade your charges from ever using it, but they're old and stubborn, and along with the broken air conditioner that disfunctional bus accessory also makes the trips even more hellish.
Every so often one of the groups includes a younger man--perhaps the child of one of the elderly tour members--and the ancient busybodies make it their business to matchmake you, thereby guaranteeing that no romance will ever develop. Pushy local bus drivers hit on you regularly as well, but you know they're just after a quick fling or a chance at getting out of their country's hellish economic situation by following you back to the land of the free.
Still, despite all this, you fall for one driver--Pedro--four years into the monotony of the job. He seems different--he's cute, he listens and he seems to care. You fall into a romance almost without realizing it, and actually begin to feel the unfamiliar sensation of happiness. You don't even notice the tour company supervisor sitting near the front of the bus when you step up from the Roman street to plant a kiss on Pedro's cheek, and squeeze his shoulder. His pulling away and yelling seem strange, and then he immediately files a complaint to the already disapproving supervisor sitting nearby. You are fired and sent home immediately.
Not to worry, though--there are plenty of souvenir shops or whale-watching ticket booths around. There's always lots of low-paying deadend part-time seasonal tourism jobs for someone with your training and skills. Plus you'll be familiar enough with the youth hostel system that you'll be able to negotiate a monthly rent for your accomodations--which is good, because it's all you'll ever be able to afford.
And you'll still have enough left for an adequate supply of kraft dinner and lice shampoo as well.
Guten tag.
The other 44 Career Counsellor posts can be found here.
Oh, I know you--you're that foreign languages club kid. How many you speak now, anyway? Oh--well, German could be valuable, I guess. You taking anything special course wise this year? Tourism, eh? Great program that--preparing kids for the minimum wage careers of the future. So--a career in tourism? How 'bout you try travel agent? Yeah, I guess, but office work ain't so terrible... all right then, tour guide it is.
So, you'll get on the local tourist runs--seasonal work, low pay, occasional tips. In return, you'll deal with the idiosyncracies of weirdos from all nations. You can't help but make mistakes too, using the wrong word for something and offending an entire busload of people by accident, but still, at least you'll get to know the three or four bus drivers who become your regular companions driving around the same tired tourist traps for four or five months a year. Naturally, since you speak German, you'll get those groups most, and you'll begin to develop some strange suspicions--you walk off the bus for a moment and get back to overhear the words "fourth reich" muttered in clipped Prussian accents and then they all look shifty and change the subject when they see you to something more innocuous.
If it only happened once or twice, you'd ignore it, but it happens over and over, and you get a little worried when you hear too many of them humming songs you recognize from archival footage of rallies at the Brandenburg Gate during the late 1930s. Finally you decide something is up--perhaps these bus trips are some sort of front for neo-nazi plotting, and you report your suspicions to your supervisor. He looks at you incredulously, and recommends stress leave. You realize his last name is Von Braun, and decide he's in on it--so you go to the government, to tip them off about the plot.
Eventually you get a little "holiday" in a psychiatric respite center, and it's only when one of your fellow employees feels guilty and sends you an anonymous letter that you clue into the fact that each time you stepped off the bus your "friends" the bus drivers clued the passengers in to a little "let's freak out the tour guide" game they enjoyed playing so much. Seems they figured with their air brakes tickets they shouldn't be making 50 cents an hour less than you.
You are released from the psych ward, and you abandon local tour work to take a job with a group that tours elderly north americans through europe. Of course, the tours are not sightseeing as much as endurance, since one really can't "do" seven countries very well in ten days, and you're forever having to go out hunting for the one or two old dears who get lost and haven't made it back to the bus. Plus, the air conditioning invariably dies just as you hit the hottest part of your trip, and I won't even begin to describe the repulsiveness of the "biffy" at the back of the bus--you do your best to dissuade your charges from ever using it, but they're old and stubborn, and along with the broken air conditioner that disfunctional bus accessory also makes the trips even more hellish.
Every so often one of the groups includes a younger man--perhaps the child of one of the elderly tour members--and the ancient busybodies make it their business to matchmake you, thereby guaranteeing that no romance will ever develop. Pushy local bus drivers hit on you regularly as well, but you know they're just after a quick fling or a chance at getting out of their country's hellish economic situation by following you back to the land of the free.
Still, despite all this, you fall for one driver--Pedro--four years into the monotony of the job. He seems different--he's cute, he listens and he seems to care. You fall into a romance almost without realizing it, and actually begin to feel the unfamiliar sensation of happiness. You don't even notice the tour company supervisor sitting near the front of the bus when you step up from the Roman street to plant a kiss on Pedro's cheek, and squeeze his shoulder. His pulling away and yelling seem strange, and then he immediately files a complaint to the already disapproving supervisor sitting nearby. You are fired and sent home immediately.
Not to worry, though--there are plenty of souvenir shops or whale-watching ticket booths around. There's always lots of low-paying deadend part-time seasonal tourism jobs for someone with your training and skills. Plus you'll be familiar enough with the youth hostel system that you'll be able to negotiate a monthly rent for your accomodations--which is good, because it's all you'll ever be able to afford.
And you'll still have enough left for an adequate supply of kraft dinner and lice shampoo as well.
Guten tag.
The other 44 Career Counsellor posts can be found here.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Poetry by the Emo Child
Parentals
Dear, would you mind coming down to dinner?
Mortal food pleases me not, mother
I sit and contemplate my surroundings
Too middle class, too white, too suburban.
My room should have stalactites
And stalagmites,
Chewing intruders.
Honey, how come you never bring any boys to the house ?
Do you really want to hear the answer to that?
How about something angstful and easy...
The boys at my school are stupid
I'm not really as popular as the cheerleader sluts
I'm saving myself for...
No not even I can say that with a straight face
And that's what you want, isn't it mother...
A "straight" face.
I see you wondering as you timidly tiptoe into my room
Glancing at things you cannot begin to comprehend
So much.... black, really dear--doesn't it depress you?
You continued breathing depresses me, mater dearest
But I can't change that... just yet.
I see those books you bring home from the library
"How to Talk to Your Troubled Teen"
I peruse it them while you sleep.
My responses are more disturbing
When I script them first.
Please sweetheart, wouldn't you prefer a tidy room?
Fire is the ultimate cleanser, mother.
Maybe your father can talk some sense into you...
He can't even make eye contact
Maybe he's noticed his liquor decanters
Are slowly filling with water.
Or maybe...
I found his secret stash of porn--old school, VHS.
I did a little editing...
Videos of my birthdays, preschool graduations, and such
In place of the money shots.
I wonder if he's noticed?
I think it's time
For a bigger allowance.
Dear, would you mind coming down to dinner?
Mortal food pleases me not, mother
I sit and contemplate my surroundings
Too middle class, too white, too suburban.
My room should have stalactites
And stalagmites,
Chewing intruders.
Honey, how come you never bring any boys to the house ?
Do you really want to hear the answer to that?
How about something angstful and easy...
The boys at my school are stupid
I'm not really as popular as the cheerleader sluts
I'm saving myself for...
No not even I can say that with a straight face
And that's what you want, isn't it mother...
A "straight" face.
I see you wondering as you timidly tiptoe into my room
Glancing at things you cannot begin to comprehend
So much.... black, really dear--doesn't it depress you?
You continued breathing depresses me, mater dearest
But I can't change that... just yet.
I see those books you bring home from the library
"How to Talk to Your Troubled Teen"
I peruse it them while you sleep.
My responses are more disturbing
When I script them first.
Please sweetheart, wouldn't you prefer a tidy room?
Fire is the ultimate cleanser, mother.
Maybe your father can talk some sense into you...
He can't even make eye contact
Maybe he's noticed his liquor decanters
Are slowly filling with water.
Or maybe...
I found his secret stash of porn--old school, VHS.
I did a little editing...
Videos of my birthdays, preschool graduations, and such
In place of the money shots.
I wonder if he's noticed?
I think it's time
For a bigger allowance.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
The Kid Who Sits Behind You Explains
The Plague - by Albert Camus
This book is like some dental hygiene thing, I think. See, there's this place called "Oran" which is like some town in Africa which totally sounds like the name of a toothbrush, and everybody's just ignoring these rats that are croaking all over the place because they've got "the plague", which I think is that gross stuff that gets on your teeth and they give you those red pills to chew and it's all "look you've got plague on your teeth" but my friend Jake says that it's called "plaque".
No way Jake--that's what they call those boy scout things up on my wall that my mom won't let me take down because she said they'll remind me that I "still had potential to make something of your life". Right. I quit that lameass club cause on account of one day my grandpa was over and he was kinda loaded and he took me aside after I came home from scouts and he said "What the hell is this sissy outfit" and something about how scouts is filled with perverts and stuff and so I quit cause that old man rocks when he ain't going on forever about some stupid car he had back in 1950 something.
Anyway, I don't quite get how the rats get bad teeth and all, but they start showing up dead all over town and the people just igore them cause they want to party and not brush their teeth. And then it's too late and they all start dying from this "bubonic plague" which is like when your gums get so infected your whole body is like one giant cavity with tooth decay coming out your armpits and it's hella disgusting.
Then the book goes on forever about nothing, really, ceptin' how this priest is all "God wants us to learn from this" and this doctor who's all "yeah right" and this reporter dude who pays some guys so sneak him out of town and ain't even pissed when they don't and a bunch of people are dead and then the plague ends and people are kind of happy when they see some rats again.
I guess they kinda missed the rats. I gotta go brush my teeth now.
This book is like some dental hygiene thing, I think. See, there's this place called "Oran" which is like some town in Africa which totally sounds like the name of a toothbrush, and everybody's just ignoring these rats that are croaking all over the place because they've got "the plague", which I think is that gross stuff that gets on your teeth and they give you those red pills to chew and it's all "look you've got plague on your teeth" but my friend Jake says that it's called "plaque".
No way Jake--that's what they call those boy scout things up on my wall that my mom won't let me take down because she said they'll remind me that I "still had potential to make something of your life". Right. I quit that lameass club cause on account of one day my grandpa was over and he was kinda loaded and he took me aside after I came home from scouts and he said "What the hell is this sissy outfit" and something about how scouts is filled with perverts and stuff and so I quit cause that old man rocks when he ain't going on forever about some stupid car he had back in 1950 something.
Anyway, I don't quite get how the rats get bad teeth and all, but they start showing up dead all over town and the people just igore them cause they want to party and not brush their teeth. And then it's too late and they all start dying from this "bubonic plague" which is like when your gums get so infected your whole body is like one giant cavity with tooth decay coming out your armpits and it's hella disgusting.
Then the book goes on forever about nothing, really, ceptin' how this priest is all "God wants us to learn from this" and this doctor who's all "yeah right" and this reporter dude who pays some guys so sneak him out of town and ain't even pissed when they don't and a bunch of people are dead and then the plague ends and people are kind of happy when they see some rats again.
I guess they kinda missed the rats. I gotta go brush my teeth now.
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As A
Newscaster (by request)
Ahh--I remember you. You know when you taped me by the principal's car after that staff party? I wasn't really peeing... It was all just a joke. You have destroyed that video, right? Good. So, you want to be a newscaster? Hmmm--I think it will look something like this.
First of all, you've got that combination of "pretty" and "authoritative" that will give you a leg up on the competition. Sure, if you looked good and were a visible minority, you'd get there quicker, but still, you've got the right... tools for the job.
You'll need to take some sort of training--there's hundreds of programs all over that will let you study broadcasting while practicing in the college's studio and then working as an unpaid intern--which is another word for slave--at the local cable access station. At the station you'll run cameras, aim lights, and help prep guests and on-air "talent"--though calling the bunch of freaks and weirdos that vie for time on those stations that nobody watches is stretching it just a bit. You'll chuckle at the program warning that UFO's have landed and the aliens are among us, and you'll cringe every time you get assigned to tape "The Golden Age Nudist Music Appreciation Show" with naked 70 year olds dancing to scratchy jazz standards.
Eventually you'll get your chance in front of the camera. It may be a local dog show, or the big scout jamboree, but you'll get to lead a one-man camera crew around while you stick a microphone in front of a variety of inarticulate clods. Your parents' investment in your teeth and your perfect skin mean that the camera is your friend, and it isn't long before a real station agrees to let you do your next work experience placement in their newsroom.
You thought you'd been blessed with a clean, wholesome beauty, but soon you're having an anxiety attack whenever a small pimple appears on your face, and you borrow money from your parents to finance the plastic surgery you're convinced you need until too late you realize it was just the wonky picture tube on your old television that made your nose look crooked. Still, you become skilled at doing the fluff "around town" pieces for the evening news, and when your internship is finished, you are offered a job which pays pathetically little, but gets your face on the screen.
You do that mundane schtick for a year or two, and then when one of the two regular evening news anchors takes a job in a bigger market, they decide to give you a shot at the coveted anchor chair. You aren't the most experienced or most qualified for the job, but the producer knows you'll look good in those ads on the sides of buses, and you'll distract from the bulbous alcoholic's nose that dominates every shot of your veteran anchor partner. He, of course, soon resents your easy rise to equality with him, and takes every opportunity to belittle your work to the rest of the crew. You ignore him as best you can, and the public warms to you quickly.
Just as you ready to sign a new contract at the end of your first year, expecting a nice raise, there's a newsroom coup, and your producer is fired, and the new one, at the senior newscaster's urging, decides not to renew your contract. Fortunately for you, your new producer will land a good job in another city, and he'll bring you along to his new station.
His mentorship comes with a price, though. He knows you and he are both new to the city you now call home, and he manages to monopolize all your free time until suddenly you wake up and find yourself in a relationship with him. Since you'd been staying at his place anyways until you "settled in", it's an easy transition to make from employee to lover, and your new colleagues assure each other that it's only your willingness to "put out" for your producer boyfriend that got you your new job in the first place.
The constant backbiting grates on you, and one day you decide to test their theory, and you break up with your controlling partner. He assures you that your job is safe, but one day, while you are describing the horrible death toll in the fiery crash of a busload of orphans, he stands beside the camera you are forced to look at, and begins doing his one-man three stooges routine that always cracks you up. You end up giggling on the tag line "and only two of the children survived, and they will be horribly scarred for life" and as you prepare to go to commercial, you burst out in horribly inappropriate guffaws.
This ends your career. No one will corroborate your story about your ex-boyfriend distracting you, and the actual clip of your gaffe somehow finds its way to all the news outlets in the English-speaking world, and you become a topic of vitriolic editorials on the insensitivity of modern media.
You hide in your parents' basement for six months after losing that job, and eventually you regroup and take the only job in broadcasting offered you.
You become the host of a late night infomercial "talk show" focused on promoting a sketchy herbal libido enhancer. Each night you sit on a semicircular couch surrounded by an aging male porn star, an exotic dancer, and an ersatz "doctor" and you furrow your brow and nod supportively as you ask carefully scripted questions about erectile dysfunction and herbal remedies for such.
You tape seven such shows, which run on stations all over North America in the inexpensive late night time slots, and your parents plead with you to adopt a new "performer" name. You collect royalties for these shows and travel to trade fairs featuring the same product--you won't be rich, but you'll get by, until one day when Conan O'Brien does a "where are they now" segment which flashes your laughing at orphans embarassement and then segues to your herbal sex enhancement informercials.
Your employer realizes you are still a laughing stock, and your disgrace is complete when the herbal enhancement company decides you are too ridiculous to even speak for them.
You spend the rest of your days making a pittance as a guest speaker in media ethics courses and selling mail order fruit preserves from your home. On your 40th birthday you receive a card from your former producer/boyfriend with two words scrolled neatly inside:
"You Lost"
Oh, you've got to run now? You're sure that tape was erased, right? Thanks, kid--I appreciate it.
Ahh--I remember you. You know when you taped me by the principal's car after that staff party? I wasn't really peeing... It was all just a joke. You have destroyed that video, right? Good. So, you want to be a newscaster? Hmmm--I think it will look something like this.
First of all, you've got that combination of "pretty" and "authoritative" that will give you a leg up on the competition. Sure, if you looked good and were a visible minority, you'd get there quicker, but still, you've got the right... tools for the job.
You'll need to take some sort of training--there's hundreds of programs all over that will let you study broadcasting while practicing in the college's studio and then working as an unpaid intern--which is another word for slave--at the local cable access station. At the station you'll run cameras, aim lights, and help prep guests and on-air "talent"--though calling the bunch of freaks and weirdos that vie for time on those stations that nobody watches is stretching it just a bit. You'll chuckle at the program warning that UFO's have landed and the aliens are among us, and you'll cringe every time you get assigned to tape "The Golden Age Nudist Music Appreciation Show" with naked 70 year olds dancing to scratchy jazz standards.
Eventually you'll get your chance in front of the camera. It may be a local dog show, or the big scout jamboree, but you'll get to lead a one-man camera crew around while you stick a microphone in front of a variety of inarticulate clods. Your parents' investment in your teeth and your perfect skin mean that the camera is your friend, and it isn't long before a real station agrees to let you do your next work experience placement in their newsroom.
You thought you'd been blessed with a clean, wholesome beauty, but soon you're having an anxiety attack whenever a small pimple appears on your face, and you borrow money from your parents to finance the plastic surgery you're convinced you need until too late you realize it was just the wonky picture tube on your old television that made your nose look crooked. Still, you become skilled at doing the fluff "around town" pieces for the evening news, and when your internship is finished, you are offered a job which pays pathetically little, but gets your face on the screen.
You do that mundane schtick for a year or two, and then when one of the two regular evening news anchors takes a job in a bigger market, they decide to give you a shot at the coveted anchor chair. You aren't the most experienced or most qualified for the job, but the producer knows you'll look good in those ads on the sides of buses, and you'll distract from the bulbous alcoholic's nose that dominates every shot of your veteran anchor partner. He, of course, soon resents your easy rise to equality with him, and takes every opportunity to belittle your work to the rest of the crew. You ignore him as best you can, and the public warms to you quickly.
Just as you ready to sign a new contract at the end of your first year, expecting a nice raise, there's a newsroom coup, and your producer is fired, and the new one, at the senior newscaster's urging, decides not to renew your contract. Fortunately for you, your new producer will land a good job in another city, and he'll bring you along to his new station.
His mentorship comes with a price, though. He knows you and he are both new to the city you now call home, and he manages to monopolize all your free time until suddenly you wake up and find yourself in a relationship with him. Since you'd been staying at his place anyways until you "settled in", it's an easy transition to make from employee to lover, and your new colleagues assure each other that it's only your willingness to "put out" for your producer boyfriend that got you your new job in the first place.
The constant backbiting grates on you, and one day you decide to test their theory, and you break up with your controlling partner. He assures you that your job is safe, but one day, while you are describing the horrible death toll in the fiery crash of a busload of orphans, he stands beside the camera you are forced to look at, and begins doing his one-man three stooges routine that always cracks you up. You end up giggling on the tag line "and only two of the children survived, and they will be horribly scarred for life" and as you prepare to go to commercial, you burst out in horribly inappropriate guffaws.
This ends your career. No one will corroborate your story about your ex-boyfriend distracting you, and the actual clip of your gaffe somehow finds its way to all the news outlets in the English-speaking world, and you become a topic of vitriolic editorials on the insensitivity of modern media.
You hide in your parents' basement for six months after losing that job, and eventually you regroup and take the only job in broadcasting offered you.
You become the host of a late night infomercial "talk show" focused on promoting a sketchy herbal libido enhancer. Each night you sit on a semicircular couch surrounded by an aging male porn star, an exotic dancer, and an ersatz "doctor" and you furrow your brow and nod supportively as you ask carefully scripted questions about erectile dysfunction and herbal remedies for such.
You tape seven such shows, which run on stations all over North America in the inexpensive late night time slots, and your parents plead with you to adopt a new "performer" name. You collect royalties for these shows and travel to trade fairs featuring the same product--you won't be rich, but you'll get by, until one day when Conan O'Brien does a "where are they now" segment which flashes your laughing at orphans embarassement and then segues to your herbal sex enhancement informercials.
Your employer realizes you are still a laughing stock, and your disgrace is complete when the herbal enhancement company decides you are too ridiculous to even speak for them.
You spend the rest of your days making a pittance as a guest speaker in media ethics courses and selling mail order fruit preserves from your home. On your 40th birthday you receive a card from your former producer/boyfriend with two words scrolled neatly inside:
"You Lost"
Oh, you've got to run now? You're sure that tape was erased, right? Thanks, kid--I appreciate it.
Friday, July 29, 2005
Pacific Heights
Anyone remember that movie with Michael Keaton as the insane tenant from hell?
I just read Jenny's blog (Laughing Gas and Ennui on the right there) and she told about her old apartment from hell. I couldn't begin to match the awfulness of the place, but I've lived in a few not great spots myself.
There was the high rise in Prince Rupert--moved there after I got tired of the stereo wars with the guy next door, and my car always getting vandalized by the punk kids out on the street where I had to park--though I got my revenge; on the day I left, when I could see them watching from the window, I deliberately ran into their hockey net and then backed over it a couple times...
The high-rise was soundproof, which I wanted, but unfortunately, I lived on the 9th floor, and the heat usually only went up to the 5th--I remember frequently having ice on the inside of my windows. A girl who worked with me also told stories of the creepy building manager (she was on the 11th floor) who used to proposition her until she threatened him, and would use his key to go into her apartment when she wasn't home.
I lived across from the emergency entrance to Vancouver General for a while--in an old unsecure building in a sub-ground floor apt. My roommate, who'd lived there longer, told me of a time a whacked out guy tried to break into his suite with an axe, while my friend was inside. (It was, after all, right near the drug treatment center as well)
My wife and I took an apartment just before we got married that we thought was nice--expensive rent, but it was brand new--we were the first people in the suite ever--and had a fireplace, 5 appliances, two bathrooms, etc. and a great view. Problem was--they wanted to fill the apartments so they could get a year's worth of renting from everyone and then go condo. It's a trick developers use so they don't have to sell the suites as "new", which would mean, up here, that there's an additionaly 7% GST tax on them, which might scare buyers away.
It also wasn't a great neighborhood. There were half a dozen breakins in the "secure" underground parking and in one a car got stolen--we were only there for 7 months--the management figured some guys living in the building were helping or doing it. I remember our downstairs neighbor would get drunk and then forget which floor he lived on and we'd hear him trying to make his key work in our door, and then when you looked out the peephole he was swaying down on all fours. Vomit in the elevator was another nice surprise from time to time...
Drunk guy eventually moved, and potheads moved in, who needed to smoke dope on their balcony every night around 1:30 a.m., which meant them talking loud and essentially making our bedroom a second-hand smoke hotbox.
There were four guys maybe 20 years old across the hall--they got the locks changed on one of their buddies and he pounded walls and screamed for several hours... The building was built so crappy the doors would keep getting out of alignment and then not be lockable, so we'd have to leave our place unlocked for days at a time. They had to re-hang the doors to our balcony 4 times in the few months we lived there, and there was a gap between the top of one wall and the ceiling where it had "settled".
The cops were regular visitors to the building--including the paddy wagon one time, I recall.
It got really funny when they decided to "go condo". They wanted the place to look good for prospective suckers, er I mean, customers, and so that meant, for instance, a daily battle with the person who scratched profanities onto the elevator door--it was probably repainted 10 times in two months.
It was also funny when we got our "condo notice", offering to sell us the suite at the end of our one-year lease. I think I told the realtor "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes". Even so, because we looked after our place, and had nice furniture, a couple of the realtors begged us to let them show ours to prospective buyers--not the realtor who was actually selling our suite--so we agreed, our condition being that we could get out of our lease early. (We bought a house and fled.) The realtors made a point of trying to show it when we weren't home--not out of respect for our privacy, but because we were always careful to show the prospective buyers the problems, and list the litany of complaints.
We drive buy there fairly often, and always feel sorry for the folks who bought in. They've already had to all shell out probably 10 grand each for the outside to be redone, as it was another of this areas infamous "leaky condos".
Still, all of this seems like petty annoyances compared to what Jenny had. Go read her post.
I just read Jenny's blog (Laughing Gas and Ennui on the right there) and she told about her old apartment from hell. I couldn't begin to match the awfulness of the place, but I've lived in a few not great spots myself.
There was the high rise in Prince Rupert--moved there after I got tired of the stereo wars with the guy next door, and my car always getting vandalized by the punk kids out on the street where I had to park--though I got my revenge; on the day I left, when I could see them watching from the window, I deliberately ran into their hockey net and then backed over it a couple times...
The high-rise was soundproof, which I wanted, but unfortunately, I lived on the 9th floor, and the heat usually only went up to the 5th--I remember frequently having ice on the inside of my windows. A girl who worked with me also told stories of the creepy building manager (she was on the 11th floor) who used to proposition her until she threatened him, and would use his key to go into her apartment when she wasn't home.
I lived across from the emergency entrance to Vancouver General for a while--in an old unsecure building in a sub-ground floor apt. My roommate, who'd lived there longer, told me of a time a whacked out guy tried to break into his suite with an axe, while my friend was inside. (It was, after all, right near the drug treatment center as well)
My wife and I took an apartment just before we got married that we thought was nice--expensive rent, but it was brand new--we were the first people in the suite ever--and had a fireplace, 5 appliances, two bathrooms, etc. and a great view. Problem was--they wanted to fill the apartments so they could get a year's worth of renting from everyone and then go condo. It's a trick developers use so they don't have to sell the suites as "new", which would mean, up here, that there's an additionaly 7% GST tax on them, which might scare buyers away.
It also wasn't a great neighborhood. There were half a dozen breakins in the "secure" underground parking and in one a car got stolen--we were only there for 7 months--the management figured some guys living in the building were helping or doing it. I remember our downstairs neighbor would get drunk and then forget which floor he lived on and we'd hear him trying to make his key work in our door, and then when you looked out the peephole he was swaying down on all fours. Vomit in the elevator was another nice surprise from time to time...
Drunk guy eventually moved, and potheads moved in, who needed to smoke dope on their balcony every night around 1:30 a.m., which meant them talking loud and essentially making our bedroom a second-hand smoke hotbox.
There were four guys maybe 20 years old across the hall--they got the locks changed on one of their buddies and he pounded walls and screamed for several hours... The building was built so crappy the doors would keep getting out of alignment and then not be lockable, so we'd have to leave our place unlocked for days at a time. They had to re-hang the doors to our balcony 4 times in the few months we lived there, and there was a gap between the top of one wall and the ceiling where it had "settled".
The cops were regular visitors to the building--including the paddy wagon one time, I recall.
It got really funny when they decided to "go condo". They wanted the place to look good for prospective suckers, er I mean, customers, and so that meant, for instance, a daily battle with the person who scratched profanities onto the elevator door--it was probably repainted 10 times in two months.
It was also funny when we got our "condo notice", offering to sell us the suite at the end of our one-year lease. I think I told the realtor "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes". Even so, because we looked after our place, and had nice furniture, a couple of the realtors begged us to let them show ours to prospective buyers--not the realtor who was actually selling our suite--so we agreed, our condition being that we could get out of our lease early. (We bought a house and fled.) The realtors made a point of trying to show it when we weren't home--not out of respect for our privacy, but because we were always careful to show the prospective buyers the problems, and list the litany of complaints.
We drive buy there fairly often, and always feel sorry for the folks who bought in. They've already had to all shell out probably 10 grand each for the outside to be redone, as it was another of this areas infamous "leaky condos".
Still, all of this seems like petty annoyances compared to what Jenny had. Go read her post.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Poetry by the Emo Child
Hating my Sheep
"Teach us," they beg.
I pause, and peer over my book
Lovecraft--the cover art usually shields me
But these two br0ke through.
I don't speak, but sit up and glare
At least a year younger than me,
Their piercings red, raw and new
I am the next step on their journey.
"Go eat a spider" I tell them.
They look at me blankly. I smile...
"Or milk and cookies, if you're weak"
Their fear is pleasing to me.
The next week is filled with tests;
They run naked at midnight in the graveyard
Panhandle in front of the school
Sit under my fast food table,
And bark like dogs.
"Is this... some kind of hazing?"
The question hangs there.
I shake my head.
"This is life." They think it deep
and nod without understanding.
Hiding from them is futile,
But then, I don't really blend in
And they find me and stare,
Expectantly.
"I want silence, not subjects"
But they are persistent.
Against my better judgement,
I even learn their names.
Then one night as I wander in,
My father waits--he's nervous, as usual
And stammers about a phone call
From some shrill suburban shrew
I just stare at my nails
And ten pretty skulls stare back.
She asked him to "reign me in"
As if such were possible.
I'm a bad influence, apparently.
I'd rather be no influence at all
To wannabes who look for something
To fill the empty space
Where Hilary once smiled on their walls.
They vanish after that.
Lovecraft doesn't notice,
And neither do I.
"Teach us," they beg.
I pause, and peer over my book
Lovecraft--the cover art usually shields me
But these two br0ke through.
I don't speak, but sit up and glare
At least a year younger than me,
Their piercings red, raw and new
I am the next step on their journey.
"Go eat a spider" I tell them.
They look at me blankly. I smile...
"Or milk and cookies, if you're weak"
Their fear is pleasing to me.
The next week is filled with tests;
They run naked at midnight in the graveyard
Panhandle in front of the school
Sit under my fast food table,
And bark like dogs.
"Is this... some kind of hazing?"
The question hangs there.
I shake my head.
"This is life." They think it deep
and nod without understanding.
Hiding from them is futile,
But then, I don't really blend in
And they find me and stare,
Expectantly.
"I want silence, not subjects"
But they are persistent.
Against my better judgement,
I even learn their names.
Then one night as I wander in,
My father waits--he's nervous, as usual
And stammers about a phone call
From some shrill suburban shrew
I just stare at my nails
And ten pretty skulls stare back.
She asked him to "reign me in"
As if such were possible.
I'm a bad influence, apparently.
I'd rather be no influence at all
To wannabes who look for something
To fill the empty space
Where Hilary once smiled on their walls.
They vanish after that.
Lovecraft doesn't notice,
And neither do I.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
A High School Journalism Teacher
Oh--I remember you. You're the kid who did the exposé on how the flashlight batteries in the emergency kits hadn't been replaced for three years--hard hitting stuff, that. Really? I'd a figured you'd want to run the foreign desk at the Washington Post some day or something... A journalism teacher? You realize I've already got a stack of brochures about teaching on the...no, not journalism specifically. Why didn't you talk to Ms. Willings? Oh right, the stress leave thing. Too bad that--they say she's getting better though--apparently the maniacal giggling at the sight of newsprint responded well to the risperidone...
Okay, I think we've both seen first hand what can happen to a young, bright woman like yourself after a decade or two of journalism instruction, but you think you can handle it, so here goes:
You'll attend university and study journalism. Remember the ideals and values they try to instill, because once you're in the classroom, you'll look back and giggle at their naivete. After your bachelors, you'll do the post degree work and a practicum required for your first teaching job, where you'll realize, to your chagrin, that journalism will occupy no more than one quarter of all the classes you're paid to teach, but take up three-quarters of your waking hours. The horrific marking load of your English classes you'll have to take care of late at night after crawling home from your gruelling attempt to meet yet another yearbook deadline.
It won't just be the yearbook, though--you'll have the school newspaper to contend with as well. In the old days, it was just a few sports results and some jokes lifted from the Reader's Digest printed on an old ditto machine, but now it gets distributed on the internet for the world to see, and everyone from the crankiest PTA member to the district's paranoid legal team can analyze every nuance of every word on the world wide web. Your adminstration sees your work as potentially embarassing at best, and continues to censor your paper for fear of expensive legal consequences.
The final crisis for the paper comes the morning you release the edition with the explosive story about how the money for new field hockey sticks has vanished while the teacher's lounge suddenly has been furnished with deluxe espresso machines and a new flat screen television. You pick up your copy that day to find your students' hard work has been deleted, and replaced with an editorial by the principal denouncing the societal decay evidenced by the recent spate of new graffiti by local "tag" artists.
You are furious, but are called into the office where you bite your tongue and hear that your funding for the newspaper has been cut, and you are ordered to focus all of your attention on finishing the yearbook on time. Since you've no longer got the responsibility for the paper, your principal feels justified in adding a remedial English class to your already soul-destroying teaching load. It becomes even worse when you call together your students and they accuse you of being a collaborator in the muzzling of free speech, and you go to your car that night to find several swastikas scratched into the paint.
They soon find an outlet for their anger, though--an underground newspaper whose masthead features an amazingly good charicature of you burning the bill of rights. Even though you're the most frequent target of their mocking and wrath, the rest of the staff somehow has the idea that you're involved in the illicit scandal sheet, and they ostracize you for it. The students you counted on to help you with the yearbook all walk out on you two weeks before your final deadline, and you're forced to complete using the worst kids from the "behavior mod" class who've been compelled to assist you as punishment for setting up a meth lab in an unused chemistry classroom.
The yearbook is completed on the strength of your will and a two-week ephedrine high. When it comes back from the publishers you feel a moment of pride in your accomplishment--perhaps "instant" would be a better word--and then the recriminations begin.
You used a photo taken of the football team when the star receiver was home sick. You forgot the school's macrame club entirely--though since they only had one meeting it's not hard to understand. Still, understanding is what each shrill complainer has little of. The worst of it all stems from a seemingly minor mistake. You mispelled the last name of a late arrival to the school--his 12 syllable moniker has only two vowels in it and is entirely unpronounceable, but still, you listen to the complaints of his family. It seems that the resulting spelling is the last name of the death squad commander who executed all their relatives and caused them to flee the country with no more than the clothing on their backs.
After you apologize for the 10th time, you finally go home, ready to sleep for a week. You are woken by the explosion in your kitchen that narrowly misses killing you. It seems the internet version of the spelling mistake attracted some attention from the secret police of the obscure eastern european country whose shadowy politics have now targeted you as a person of interest.
The school determines you to be a risk, and hides you out in the juvenile detention home, where you teach future drug dealers and hit men basic academic skills, while you spiral downwards past anger into depression and serious paranoia.
When the danger to you is determined to be over, the school reinstates you to your old job, but insists you continue it as part of the newly expanded behavior mod. program. Functional illiterates become your only companions as you struggle through the long days and lonelier evenings.
The final straw comes as you're nearing the yearbook deadline the following year, and you discover you can't install the desperately needed pagemaker update when it finally arrives because none of your school computers have sufficient memory capability.
The psychiatric crisis team is gentle as they finally get into the principal's office, where you holed up for two hours, after stripping off all your clothes and fending off all who tried to approach with the power washer you stole from the maintenance crew.
Tranquil Oaks is a lovely place--as long as you swallow the pills--and you and your former mentor spend many evenings writing editorials on the backs of the old Yahtzee scorepads, which only the two of you ever read.
So--that's it, kid. Oh here--you dropped the brochure for the "Future Journalists of America" camp you're going to next week. Have fun.
Oh--I remember you. You're the kid who did the exposé on how the flashlight batteries in the emergency kits hadn't been replaced for three years--hard hitting stuff, that. Really? I'd a figured you'd want to run the foreign desk at the Washington Post some day or something... A journalism teacher? You realize I've already got a stack of brochures about teaching on the...no, not journalism specifically. Why didn't you talk to Ms. Willings? Oh right, the stress leave thing. Too bad that--they say she's getting better though--apparently the maniacal giggling at the sight of newsprint responded well to the risperidone...
Okay, I think we've both seen first hand what can happen to a young, bright woman like yourself after a decade or two of journalism instruction, but you think you can handle it, so here goes:
You'll attend university and study journalism. Remember the ideals and values they try to instill, because once you're in the classroom, you'll look back and giggle at their naivete. After your bachelors, you'll do the post degree work and a practicum required for your first teaching job, where you'll realize, to your chagrin, that journalism will occupy no more than one quarter of all the classes you're paid to teach, but take up three-quarters of your waking hours. The horrific marking load of your English classes you'll have to take care of late at night after crawling home from your gruelling attempt to meet yet another yearbook deadline.
It won't just be the yearbook, though--you'll have the school newspaper to contend with as well. In the old days, it was just a few sports results and some jokes lifted from the Reader's Digest printed on an old ditto machine, but now it gets distributed on the internet for the world to see, and everyone from the crankiest PTA member to the district's paranoid legal team can analyze every nuance of every word on the world wide web. Your adminstration sees your work as potentially embarassing at best, and continues to censor your paper for fear of expensive legal consequences.
The final crisis for the paper comes the morning you release the edition with the explosive story about how the money for new field hockey sticks has vanished while the teacher's lounge suddenly has been furnished with deluxe espresso machines and a new flat screen television. You pick up your copy that day to find your students' hard work has been deleted, and replaced with an editorial by the principal denouncing the societal decay evidenced by the recent spate of new graffiti by local "tag" artists.
You are furious, but are called into the office where you bite your tongue and hear that your funding for the newspaper has been cut, and you are ordered to focus all of your attention on finishing the yearbook on time. Since you've no longer got the responsibility for the paper, your principal feels justified in adding a remedial English class to your already soul-destroying teaching load. It becomes even worse when you call together your students and they accuse you of being a collaborator in the muzzling of free speech, and you go to your car that night to find several swastikas scratched into the paint.
They soon find an outlet for their anger, though--an underground newspaper whose masthead features an amazingly good charicature of you burning the bill of rights. Even though you're the most frequent target of their mocking and wrath, the rest of the staff somehow has the idea that you're involved in the illicit scandal sheet, and they ostracize you for it. The students you counted on to help you with the yearbook all walk out on you two weeks before your final deadline, and you're forced to complete using the worst kids from the "behavior mod" class who've been compelled to assist you as punishment for setting up a meth lab in an unused chemistry classroom.
The yearbook is completed on the strength of your will and a two-week ephedrine high. When it comes back from the publishers you feel a moment of pride in your accomplishment--perhaps "instant" would be a better word--and then the recriminations begin.
You used a photo taken of the football team when the star receiver was home sick. You forgot the school's macrame club entirely--though since they only had one meeting it's not hard to understand. Still, understanding is what each shrill complainer has little of. The worst of it all stems from a seemingly minor mistake. You mispelled the last name of a late arrival to the school--his 12 syllable moniker has only two vowels in it and is entirely unpronounceable, but still, you listen to the complaints of his family. It seems that the resulting spelling is the last name of the death squad commander who executed all their relatives and caused them to flee the country with no more than the clothing on their backs.
After you apologize for the 10th time, you finally go home, ready to sleep for a week. You are woken by the explosion in your kitchen that narrowly misses killing you. It seems the internet version of the spelling mistake attracted some attention from the secret police of the obscure eastern european country whose shadowy politics have now targeted you as a person of interest.
The school determines you to be a risk, and hides you out in the juvenile detention home, where you teach future drug dealers and hit men basic academic skills, while you spiral downwards past anger into depression and serious paranoia.
When the danger to you is determined to be over, the school reinstates you to your old job, but insists you continue it as part of the newly expanded behavior mod. program. Functional illiterates become your only companions as you struggle through the long days and lonelier evenings.
The final straw comes as you're nearing the yearbook deadline the following year, and you discover you can't install the desperately needed pagemaker update when it finally arrives because none of your school computers have sufficient memory capability.
The psychiatric crisis team is gentle as they finally get into the principal's office, where you holed up for two hours, after stripping off all your clothes and fending off all who tried to approach with the power washer you stole from the maintenance crew.
Tranquil Oaks is a lovely place--as long as you swallow the pills--and you and your former mentor spend many evenings writing editorials on the backs of the old Yahtzee scorepads, which only the two of you ever read.
So--that's it, kid. Oh here--you dropped the brochure for the "Future Journalists of America" camp you're going to next week. Have fun.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Look over my shoulder...
for a minute.
I'm actually going through articles and such to "situate" my project work. While looking for some historical background, I often find little gems that make me realize how much, I hope, things have changed.
Keep in mind, as you look at these, that I'm one who warns my students against judging Shakespeare, for example, by the standards of our time. You shouldn't assume by looking at Shrew that he's a misogynist or that the character of Shylock is evidence of a streak of racism than was anything more than typical of his day.
That said, I think it best you actually look at them as these were printed in the books where I found them:
This first one is from The Teacher's Technique, which was published in 1949 and is by one Charles Elmer Holley, who worked at the University of Idaho. You probably don't need to enlarge it to read it.
The second is from a book published in 1877 in Montreal, titled The Art of Teaching. This one you'll need to enlarge--it's providing a list of characteristics under the title "Synopsis of Human Nature". It's best if you just have a look for yourself. You'll need to click to enlarge it.
I'd say it's just more evidence of things as they used to be, except I also was reading American Education: Its Principles and Elements which was published in 1851, and can only be described as very enlightened and forward thinking in much of its content. Plus it's just cool to have a book this old to peruse. It has a stamp labelling it property of the "Library of St. Charles College Seminary" Columbus, Ohio. Then in one corner you can see the sticker of a Columbus book retailer.
Since I'm going to be slogging though stuff like this for a while, be warned you might see more posts like this one.
I'm actually going through articles and such to "situate" my project work. While looking for some historical background, I often find little gems that make me realize how much, I hope, things have changed.
Keep in mind, as you look at these, that I'm one who warns my students against judging Shakespeare, for example, by the standards of our time. You shouldn't assume by looking at Shrew that he's a misogynist or that the character of Shylock is evidence of a streak of racism than was anything more than typical of his day.
That said, I think it best you actually look at them as these were printed in the books where I found them:
This first one is from The Teacher's Technique, which was published in 1949 and is by one Charles Elmer Holley, who worked at the University of Idaho. You probably don't need to enlarge it to read it.
The second is from a book published in 1877 in Montreal, titled The Art of Teaching. This one you'll need to enlarge--it's providing a list of characteristics under the title "Synopsis of Human Nature". It's best if you just have a look for yourself. You'll need to click to enlarge it.
I'd say it's just more evidence of things as they used to be, except I also was reading American Education: Its Principles and Elements which was published in 1851, and can only be described as very enlightened and forward thinking in much of its content. Plus it's just cool to have a book this old to peruse. It has a stamp labelling it property of the "Library of St. Charles College Seminary" Columbus, Ohio. Then in one corner you can see the sticker of a Columbus book retailer.
Since I'm going to be slogging though stuff like this for a while, be warned you might see more posts like this one.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Poetry by the Emo Child
At the Bus Stop
They think they're funny, the uber twinks
Speaking louder for my benefit
"Rocky Horror playing somewhere, freak?"
I turn slowly, stare, and lick my lips.
I ignore both of them, as they giggle about the weekend ahead
Whoring themselves to whoever kicks the most touchdowns..
or whatever the hell those acne steroid freak boys do.
Then I see it--probably was a squirrel, before Goodyear got it.
Now it's a lovely compact model,
If you don't mind the oozing.
I find a suitable stick,
While the twinks pretend not to watch
Fearing, perhaps, I'll swing it in my wrath.
But no, delicately I pick up the pancaked vermin,
Angering the swarm of feeding flies,
And approach them, grinning--I show my filed fangs.
"Get away from us you freak!"
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that...
"Look!" I shout, "It's your soul on a stick!"
They run, their fear unmasked, up into a nearby yard.
I laugh, my favorite, crazy laugh.
The bus has already pulled up, and I step in
Enjoying a laugh with the young bus driver
As we watch the pit bull chase them from the yard.
I sit near the front as we pull away
The driver eyes me in his mirror,
While I contemplate his dreads
"You're insane," he smiles. "I like that"
He invites me to "party" with his friends that weekend.
I smile and say nothing.
I won't let my soul become a pancake
Just yet.
They think they're funny, the uber twinks
Speaking louder for my benefit
"Rocky Horror playing somewhere, freak?"
I turn slowly, stare, and lick my lips.
I ignore both of them, as they giggle about the weekend ahead
Whoring themselves to whoever kicks the most touchdowns..
or whatever the hell those acne steroid freak boys do.
Then I see it--probably was a squirrel, before Goodyear got it.
Now it's a lovely compact model,
If you don't mind the oozing.
I find a suitable stick,
While the twinks pretend not to watch
Fearing, perhaps, I'll swing it in my wrath.
But no, delicately I pick up the pancaked vermin,
Angering the swarm of feeding flies,
And approach them, grinning--I show my filed fangs.
"Get away from us you freak!"
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that...
"Look!" I shout, "It's your soul on a stick!"
They run, their fear unmasked, up into a nearby yard.
I laugh, my favorite, crazy laugh.
The bus has already pulled up, and I step in
Enjoying a laugh with the young bus driver
As we watch the pit bull chase them from the yard.
I sit near the front as we pull away
The driver eyes me in his mirror,
While I contemplate his dreads
"You're insane," he smiles. "I like that"
He invites me to "party" with his friends that weekend.
I smile and say nothing.
I won't let my soul become a pancake
Just yet.
Sitting here at my muggle artifact...
My, that sounded geeky, didn't it?
I finished it yesterday morning--now my son can enjoy it without worrying that I'll grab it if he puts it down. Don't worry, no spoilers here--but I'd warn you to avoid Alex's last post if you haven't finished it yet--that's "five wall" on the right, but she's changed and moved the blog this week so I guess I should update the link.
Thus far, I know the following people have also finished it. Kate (less than 24 hours after it went on sale), Milly, B.G., Alex, and from a comment she made, Camila. If you want to give it your rating out of 10 without putting in spoilers do so. I'm saying 8 for this one. My least favorite was 5, which I'd give a 5.
I'm going to post some more emo poetry now, I think.
I finished it yesterday morning--now my son can enjoy it without worrying that I'll grab it if he puts it down. Don't worry, no spoilers here--but I'd warn you to avoid Alex's last post if you haven't finished it yet--that's "five wall" on the right, but she's changed and moved the blog this week so I guess I should update the link.
Thus far, I know the following people have also finished it. Kate (less than 24 hours after it went on sale), Milly, B.G., Alex, and from a comment she made, Camila. If you want to give it your rating out of 10 without putting in spoilers do so. I'm saying 8 for this one. My least favorite was 5, which I'd give a 5.
I'm going to post some more emo poetry now, I think.
Monday, July 18, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As a
Herbalist (by request)
You want to be what? A herbalist? You sure you're thinking of the right thing? You're not that boy who hangs out with those "wiccan" girls who keep burning incense in the back gym stairwell? Mind you, I'll admit it smells better now that... Oh, that's not you? Wait a minute--I remember you--you're that kid who got rushed to the hospital when they thought your appendix was going to burst last year, and you had the emergency surgery. What's the matter, couldn't get your hands on enough medicinal leeches that day?
I'm not completely up on this one, but I think you might expect a rather unusual career path. First of all, most of your relevant texts were likely written back when parchment and latin were a lot more popular. You'll need to know where to get the herbs in question, of course, and that means a lot of midnight trips to obscure locations under a full moon. It's still better than trusting the pharmacy's "natural" line--most of that crap is just placebo pills the drug companies have left from old research studies--kind of like how the big oil companies are buying up all the electric car patents so they can continue their monopoly.
You'll probably apprentice under "madame" something, and your duties the first six months will be putting herbal poultices on the various maladies suffered by her 57 cats. Over time you'll realize that you can only learn so much from her, and you're not really interested in crystal therapy and aura interpretation. One afternoon as she's doing her weekly tarot session down at the senior's center, you "borrow" a couple of relevant books, and open up your own herbal therapy spa in your small rental home.
This begins a regular cycle of interactions with police--the neighbors don't like you running a business from the house in the first place, and after each delivery from the hydroponics store, one of them calls the drug tip line and you are subjected to yet another raid. The police should give it up after the first few times, but your indiscreet remarks quoted in a local newspaper about the value of marijuana as a "nature's analgesic" convince the authorities that it's only a matter of time before they bust you on a narcotics charge.
Eventually, though, you make enough to buy a small farm and grow your herbs there. You develop your own product line, and soon you're selling natural remedies across half the continent. Unlike the competitors, which are all marketed by the same one or two multinational drug companies under a variety of brand names, your therapeutic herbs actually contain the ingredients listed on the bottle.
The drug companies don't like independent upstarts, and soon they're battling you with all three of their best weapons. They cut all their own products' prices to below cost--they can weather the financial beating better than you can, but you still have to drop yours to be competitive. Second, their huge advertising budgets make newspapers and magazines willing to do "exposés" on your operation, equating you with shyster "psychic surgeons" and those who peddle laetrile to cancer victims. It doesn't help matters when one of the writers in your own online newletter refers to the danger presented to our bodies by "free radicals" and the next thing you know, those two little words have the Department of Homeland Security running a full scale investigation on you and everyone who's ever worked for you.
The final tool of the drug companies is litigation. They have huge legal budgets and cutthroat lawyers on retainer--face it, these are the people that gave the world thalidomide and they know how to play hardball--and they'll saddle you with one nuisance lawsuit after another. They know they won't win most of them, but it's fiscal bleeding they seek, and eventually they'll push you past the breaking point.
You'll end up as sales clerk in a herbal tea shop. You won't get rich, but every christmas--sorry, I mean winter solstice--they'll give you a lovely bottle of hemp oil in thanks for your loyal but mind-numbing service.
You want to be what? A herbalist? You sure you're thinking of the right thing? You're not that boy who hangs out with those "wiccan" girls who keep burning incense in the back gym stairwell? Mind you, I'll admit it smells better now that... Oh, that's not you? Wait a minute--I remember you--you're that kid who got rushed to the hospital when they thought your appendix was going to burst last year, and you had the emergency surgery. What's the matter, couldn't get your hands on enough medicinal leeches that day?
I'm not completely up on this one, but I think you might expect a rather unusual career path. First of all, most of your relevant texts were likely written back when parchment and latin were a lot more popular. You'll need to know where to get the herbs in question, of course, and that means a lot of midnight trips to obscure locations under a full moon. It's still better than trusting the pharmacy's "natural" line--most of that crap is just placebo pills the drug companies have left from old research studies--kind of like how the big oil companies are buying up all the electric car patents so they can continue their monopoly.
You'll probably apprentice under "madame" something, and your duties the first six months will be putting herbal poultices on the various maladies suffered by her 57 cats. Over time you'll realize that you can only learn so much from her, and you're not really interested in crystal therapy and aura interpretation. One afternoon as she's doing her weekly tarot session down at the senior's center, you "borrow" a couple of relevant books, and open up your own herbal therapy spa in your small rental home.
This begins a regular cycle of interactions with police--the neighbors don't like you running a business from the house in the first place, and after each delivery from the hydroponics store, one of them calls the drug tip line and you are subjected to yet another raid. The police should give it up after the first few times, but your indiscreet remarks quoted in a local newspaper about the value of marijuana as a "nature's analgesic" convince the authorities that it's only a matter of time before they bust you on a narcotics charge.
Eventually, though, you make enough to buy a small farm and grow your herbs there. You develop your own product line, and soon you're selling natural remedies across half the continent. Unlike the competitors, which are all marketed by the same one or two multinational drug companies under a variety of brand names, your therapeutic herbs actually contain the ingredients listed on the bottle.
The drug companies don't like independent upstarts, and soon they're battling you with all three of their best weapons. They cut all their own products' prices to below cost--they can weather the financial beating better than you can, but you still have to drop yours to be competitive. Second, their huge advertising budgets make newspapers and magazines willing to do "exposés" on your operation, equating you with shyster "psychic surgeons" and those who peddle laetrile to cancer victims. It doesn't help matters when one of the writers in your own online newletter refers to the danger presented to our bodies by "free radicals" and the next thing you know, those two little words have the Department of Homeland Security running a full scale investigation on you and everyone who's ever worked for you.
The final tool of the drug companies is litigation. They have huge legal budgets and cutthroat lawyers on retainer--face it, these are the people that gave the world thalidomide and they know how to play hardball--and they'll saddle you with one nuisance lawsuit after another. They know they won't win most of them, but it's fiscal bleeding they seek, and eventually they'll push you past the breaking point.
You'll end up as sales clerk in a herbal tea shop. You won't get rich, but every christmas--sorry, I mean winter solstice--they'll give you a lovely bottle of hemp oil in thanks for your loyal but mind-numbing service.
Friday, July 15, 2005
TGIF
Yeah, the roofers are DONE--woot!
Tonight I'm trekking down to Fairfield to see Milly's show. I'm sure my delicate sensibilities will be offended. (If you want to know why, follow the undead Alice link on the right and read the last couple of posts)
And I think the Starbucks girls undercharged us on purpose--I questioned them after I got the total and there's no way the three of us should've gotten our drinks for under 3 bucks total but they stood firm so who am I to question.
It is dangerous having a starbucks within walking distance from the house, though. Far too easy...
Katiedid--Your husband has a John Denver collection? I'm so very, very sorry. (Have you ever read Hunter S. Thompson's account of his time in Aspden when he lived next door to John Denver--Thompson's run for mayor is wonderful reading)
Tonight I'm trekking down to Fairfield to see Milly's show. I'm sure my delicate sensibilities will be offended. (If you want to know why, follow the undead Alice link on the right and read the last couple of posts)
And I think the Starbucks girls undercharged us on purpose--I questioned them after I got the total and there's no way the three of us should've gotten our drinks for under 3 bucks total but they stood firm so who am I to question.
It is dangerous having a starbucks within walking distance from the house, though. Far too easy...
Katiedid--Your husband has a John Denver collection? I'm so very, very sorry. (Have you ever read Hunter S. Thompson's account of his time in Aspden when he lived next door to John Denver--Thompson's run for mayor is wonderful reading)
Thursday, July 14, 2005
If I had a hammer...
I could join the pounding that's shaken our house for two days now. Fortunately, it looks like they may finish it today--though it's getting close to four now and I'm not sure if they'll want to go home on time or just get the roof done with. It does look better, though.
Fortunately for my kids, they were at their cousins' throughout the roof work until just now, and my wife is working all this week, so she missed it too. Lucky me.
I realized yesterday that there's a quality of life I like about our city--not just the climate, which despite the whining about the rain is pretty great, and the scenery, etc.--but it's about the right size.
I know lots of my students who find it too small--that's typical of kids everywhere, though. I've lived in a small town. There's more to do and see here. For instance, the new arena opened a few months ago, and in the first six months the concerts in there have included (will include):
Rod Stewart
Cher
Bob Dylan
Avril Lavigne
Black Eyed Peas
Def Leppard
Paul Anka
Robert Plant
Sarah McLachlan
Obviously not as big as maybe Vancouver or Seattle gets, but still recognizable names among them. (Yes, Rizz, I chose NOT to mention Tom Jones on purpose *shudder*)
I was sitting in the dentist's chair looking out across the parking lot to an apartment I lived in while I was a university student 20 years ago. I go to the music store to buy the trumpet we'd been renting and find a former student--from the first musical I did in my school; she's now a music teacher--starting her first day of work there. I hit McD's for lunch and see students I know--present and past.
And so on...
I liked living in Vancouver. There was more there, obviously--but now we spend our money on new roofs rather than concerts, anyway. *sigh*
I should steal some tourist info pics and post them or something. In spite of the things we all whine about from time to time, it really is a nice place to live.
(Then again--I've been looking at R's pics from Finland and they look nice too)
Maybe you should drop links in your comments of websites that show off your communities, if you like. (Kate--Mandeville can't be as bad as you say) :-)
Fortunately for my kids, they were at their cousins' throughout the roof work until just now, and my wife is working all this week, so she missed it too. Lucky me.
I realized yesterday that there's a quality of life I like about our city--not just the climate, which despite the whining about the rain is pretty great, and the scenery, etc.--but it's about the right size.
I know lots of my students who find it too small--that's typical of kids everywhere, though. I've lived in a small town. There's more to do and see here. For instance, the new arena opened a few months ago, and in the first six months the concerts in there have included (will include):
Rod Stewart
Cher
Bob Dylan
Avril Lavigne
Black Eyed Peas
Def Leppard
Paul Anka
Robert Plant
Sarah McLachlan
Obviously not as big as maybe Vancouver or Seattle gets, but still recognizable names among them. (Yes, Rizz, I chose NOT to mention Tom Jones on purpose *shudder*)
I was sitting in the dentist's chair looking out across the parking lot to an apartment I lived in while I was a university student 20 years ago. I go to the music store to buy the trumpet we'd been renting and find a former student--from the first musical I did in my school; she's now a music teacher--starting her first day of work there. I hit McD's for lunch and see students I know--present and past.
And so on...
I liked living in Vancouver. There was more there, obviously--but now we spend our money on new roofs rather than concerts, anyway. *sigh*
I should steal some tourist info pics and post them or something. In spite of the things we all whine about from time to time, it really is a nice place to live.
(Then again--I've been looking at R's pics from Finland and they look nice too)
Maybe you should drop links in your comments of websites that show off your communities, if you like. (Kate--Mandeville can't be as bad as you say) :-)
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Poetry by the Emo Child
I am the Slug Goddesss
I don't usually get up early
Who wants middle class breakfast?
"You were home late last night"
Not by Transylvanian time, idiots
But those spring mornings, damp...
Dew-covered grass--they are out there
My loyal subjects.
They don't understand me,
(They can join a big club)
But somehow they know I am
I AM. If only they could please me...
Some do, a swirly pattern of slime on the deck
Makes me pause.
That one will be spared, as will the one whose dots
Mirror the freckles on my nose, that I hide so well;
(It's not clown makeup, dammit)
I bring saline judgement in my right hand
The sodium wrath that comes down from on high
Brimstone, without the treacle...
Tomorrow I will sleep in again
Judgement is a sometimes thing.
I don't usually get up early
Who wants middle class breakfast?
"You were home late last night"
Not by Transylvanian time, idiots
But those spring mornings, damp...
Dew-covered grass--they are out there
My loyal subjects.
They don't understand me,
(They can join a big club)
But somehow they know I am
I AM. If only they could please me...
Some do, a swirly pattern of slime on the deck
Makes me pause.
That one will be spared, as will the one whose dots
Mirror the freckles on my nose, that I hide so well;
(It's not clown makeup, dammit)
I bring saline judgement in my right hand
The sodium wrath that comes down from on high
Brimstone, without the treacle...
Tomorrow I will sleep in again
Judgement is a sometimes thing.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Anakin as a troubled teen...
"Life as a House"
We watched it tonight, and it wasn't bad. I certainly don't think much of Hayden Christenson's acting in Star Wars--how many variations of "petulant" can get you through two movies? I have to say, though, that the role they gave him in this movie worked better for him. Kevin Kline is pretty good, as usual, and really, while it's maybe somewhat formulaic, the show has a nice feel to it, and I'd recommend it as a cheap rental.
Bought some books yesterday, and finally getting around to reading Camus' The Plague, which I've meant to do for years. It might be too obscure for the Kid Who Sits Behind You , though.
I had a idea for a witty (or less boring, at least) post but it involved a Missy Elliott song that I must've heard 50 times in my booth while people were dancing down below, but I couldn't find it after downloading about 7 in hopes I'd guessed right. Oh well. If Bayley, or perchance Nicole, happens to read this, maybe email me because i think you'd be able to steer me in the right direction.
meanwhile, I seek new inspiration, or at least another career to write about.
We watched it tonight, and it wasn't bad. I certainly don't think much of Hayden Christenson's acting in Star Wars--how many variations of "petulant" can get you through two movies? I have to say, though, that the role they gave him in this movie worked better for him. Kevin Kline is pretty good, as usual, and really, while it's maybe somewhat formulaic, the show has a nice feel to it, and I'd recommend it as a cheap rental.
Bought some books yesterday, and finally getting around to reading Camus' The Plague, which I've meant to do for years. It might be too obscure for the Kid Who Sits Behind You , though.
I had a idea for a witty (or less boring, at least) post but it involved a Missy Elliott song that I must've heard 50 times in my booth while people were dancing down below, but I couldn't find it after downloading about 7 in hopes I'd guessed right. Oh well. If Bayley, or perchance Nicole, happens to read this, maybe email me because i think you'd be able to steer me in the right direction.
meanwhile, I seek new inspiration, or at least another career to write about.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Poetry by the Emo Child
Build Your Own Emo Boy
I used to have a boy...friend
Saturdays his parents weren't home,
He'd hope for much more
I'd always disappoint
We sat, watching his Monty Python tapes
He'd ask why I didn't laugh,
And I'd tell him--I'm laughing on the inside...
Then offer to slice myself open so he could see.
He didn't like me like that
And went back to his Warcraft World
While I rummaged through his parents' things
Looking for proof of their infidelities.
I liked the "spam" song--I changed it to "angst", though
And sang it nonstop for three days.
One day he gave me a box, asked me to try it on.
"It's a Seven of Nine costume--it cost me 200 bucks"
I swore at him, and called him a trekkie perv.
"Trekker" he corrected me.
I took the costume away, and snip snip--
it fit the dog perfectly.
"You're going to break up with me, aren't you?"
I shook my head. "Not yet.
I must do much more damage before I set you free"
He looked sadder at my truth
So I chased him around the room
With my home piercing kit.
I don't see him much any more...
Because he never leaves his house.
That was my most successful relationship
No court orders in sight.
I used to have a boy...friend
Saturdays his parents weren't home,
He'd hope for much more
I'd always disappoint
We sat, watching his Monty Python tapes
He'd ask why I didn't laugh,
And I'd tell him--I'm laughing on the inside...
Then offer to slice myself open so he could see.
He didn't like me like that
And went back to his Warcraft World
While I rummaged through his parents' things
Looking for proof of their infidelities.
I liked the "spam" song--I changed it to "angst", though
And sang it nonstop for three days.
One day he gave me a box, asked me to try it on.
"It's a Seven of Nine costume--it cost me 200 bucks"
I swore at him, and called him a trekkie perv.
"Trekker" he corrected me.
I took the costume away, and snip snip--
it fit the dog perfectly.
"You're going to break up with me, aren't you?"
I shook my head. "Not yet.
I must do much more damage before I set you free"
He looked sadder at my truth
So I chased him around the room
With my home piercing kit.
I don't see him much any more...
Because he never leaves his house.
That was my most successful relationship
No court orders in sight.
Poetry by the Emo Child
Sisterhood
Placards in hand, they march
In front of the
"Have the baby, raped girl or you'll go to hell" clinic
I pause--and one looks at me, her eyes full of sincerity
And passion.
"Sandra Day O'Connor's gone!"
I nod--and notice her sign.
"Keep your hands of my womb"
"What about your pancreas?" I ask.
She looks at me, confused. Nothing unplanned has ever
Happened in her 4.0 GPA world
"What?"
"I don't want anyone's hands on my pancreas."
She steps back, confused.
I laugh my crazy laugh
The one that makes my mother take her pills
and my father turn up the TV volume.
Then she sees, "Your eyes..." she whispers
My beautiful yellow evil Anakin eyes.
I bought them off Ebay--cheap
The previous owner was deceased
Apparently driving with them is unwise
Now I see through the eyes of a dead man.
Placards in hand, they march
In front of the
"Have the baby, raped girl or you'll go to hell" clinic
I pause--and one looks at me, her eyes full of sincerity
And passion.
"Sandra Day O'Connor's gone!"
I nod--and notice her sign.
"Keep your hands of my womb"
"What about your pancreas?" I ask.
She looks at me, confused. Nothing unplanned has ever
Happened in her 4.0 GPA world
"What?"
"I don't want anyone's hands on my pancreas."
She steps back, confused.
I laugh my crazy laugh
The one that makes my mother take her pills
and my father turn up the TV volume.
Then she sees, "Your eyes..." she whispers
My beautiful yellow evil Anakin eyes.
I bought them off Ebay--cheap
The previous owner was deceased
Apparently driving with them is unwise
Now I see through the eyes of a dead man.
Poetry by the Emo Child
A Hobo Stole My Digicam
I left it sitting there, on the grass
Time-lapsing the flies on the dead bird
I should've noticed him--matted beard
Crazy eyes, yelling at his shopping bags
But Dashboard Confessional filled my head
and blinded my eyes...
Then it was gone.
I stopped, dumbstruck.
My camera, my love--so much, carried in its soul
And now in the clutches of Mr. Stinky.
Would he look? Would he see?
The photos I took for Suicide Girls
Simple, my friends said--just lie about your age
And now, in his filthy clutches, with me
Underdeveloped and Overexposed.
What if they get on the internet now?
Maybe then my mother will notice the cuts...
I shed a single tear.
I left it sitting there, on the grass
Time-lapsing the flies on the dead bird
I should've noticed him--matted beard
Crazy eyes, yelling at his shopping bags
But Dashboard Confessional filled my head
and blinded my eyes...
Then it was gone.
I stopped, dumbstruck.
My camera, my love--so much, carried in its soul
And now in the clutches of Mr. Stinky.
Would he look? Would he see?
The photos I took for Suicide Girls
Simple, my friends said--just lie about your age
And now, in his filthy clutches, with me
Underdeveloped and Overexposed.
What if they get on the internet now?
Maybe then my mother will notice the cuts...
I shed a single tear.
Poetry by the Emo Child
My Cat Would Eat Me if I Were Small
Pippy doesn't fool me
Late at night, when she curls up
Beside my Sylvia Plath action figure...
Were I the size of a mouse
Slash, slice, chomp--I'd be done
Not that anyone would care
Except my tarantula would starve.
I let Pippy sleep in my room each night
They say keep your friends close,
and your devil-spawn, clawed beasts
Even closer.
Pippy doesn't fool me
Late at night, when she curls up
Beside my Sylvia Plath action figure...
Were I the size of a mouse
Slash, slice, chomp--I'd be done
Not that anyone would care
Except my tarantula would starve.
I let Pippy sleep in my room each night
They say keep your friends close,
and your devil-spawn, clawed beasts
Even closer.
Friday, July 08, 2005
I suppose the original blog title gave it away...
Yes, I am a Simpsons addict. My students accuse me of always finding a Simpsons episode analogous to whatever I am teaching--but it's always so relevant.
The "Stonecutters" episode alluded to in the last couple of posts is one of my favorites--partly because it makes fun of freemasons (sorry if any of you are involved) and Patrick Stewart of Star Trek is the guest star. The song the stonecutters sing is perhaps the highlight, but there's also the moment when Homer, who has failed as a stonecutter, has been walking around naked dragging the huge "rock of shame" attached by a chain to a collar around his neck. At that point they notice he has a birthmark that makes him "the chosen one":
Number one (Patrick Stewart's character ): Remove the rock of shame.
Homer: Woo-hoo!
Number One: Attach the rock of triumph.
At this, an even bigger rock is chained around Homers neck.
Homer: D'oh!
I'll try to find something else to talk about for the next sixty posts or so...
The "Stonecutters" episode alluded to in the last couple of posts is one of my favorites--partly because it makes fun of freemasons (sorry if any of you are involved) and Patrick Stewart of Star Trek is the guest star. The song the stonecutters sing is perhaps the highlight, but there's also the moment when Homer, who has failed as a stonecutter, has been walking around naked dragging the huge "rock of shame" attached by a chain to a collar around his neck. At that point they notice he has a birthmark that makes him "the chosen one":
Number one (Patrick Stewart's character ): Remove the rock of shame.
Homer: Woo-hoo!
Number One: Attach the rock of triumph.
At this, an even bigger rock is chained around Homers neck.
Homer: D'oh!
I'll try to find something else to talk about for the next sixty posts or so...
Who keeps Atlantis off the Maps, Who Keeps the Martians Under Wraps...
It's summer, so we watch movies. Tonight, M. Knight Shamalamadingdang's "The Village". After quite liking "The Sixth Sense", being rather comme ce, comme ça about "Unbreakable", and enjoying the rather heavy handed "Signs", I would say this movie was weak. Once there were no real monsters, where's the fun?
Has anyone seen "Adaptation" with Nicholas Cage in dual roles as twin brothers? It's kind of bizarre in that it asks you to think about the writing of the movie as you watch it--it sort of grew on me as it went along, and I think I might make directing and scriptwriting kids watch it because it breaks some rules and calls attention to the fact it's doing so.
In an act of impeccable timing, I sent out a mass email to the musical folks saying I'd be in my theatre with Grease DVDs and tapes from 10:30 to noon this morning. Lucky me--a p.a. announcement comes on at 11:15 saying they're going to be testing the fire alarms for the next 40 minutes...
Still, I got rid of all the dvds and most of the videos.
Must run to bed--driving up island to pick up my daughter from camp tomorrow.
Has anyone seen "Adaptation" with Nicholas Cage in dual roles as twin brothers? It's kind of bizarre in that it asks you to think about the writing of the movie as you watch it--it sort of grew on me as it went along, and I think I might make directing and scriptwriting kids watch it because it breaks some rules and calls attention to the fact it's doing so.
In an act of impeccable timing, I sent out a mass email to the musical folks saying I'd be in my theatre with Grease DVDs and tapes from 10:30 to noon this morning. Lucky me--a p.a. announcement comes on at 11:15 saying they're going to be testing the fire alarms for the next 40 minutes...
Still, I got rid of all the dvds and most of the videos.
Must run to bed--driving up island to pick up my daughter from camp tomorrow.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Damn you, Hotmail!
I so waaant to send this right now!
Quit your whinin' and get back to work.
I definitely need to copy my contact list onto my yahoo mail.
Quit your whinin' and get back to work.
I definitely need to copy my contact list onto my yahoo mail.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a
Baker
Hey, you got an extra donut in there for me? Oh, they're for later--yeah, whatever. Soooo..., you're gonna be a baker, huh? Here's what's in store, the way I figure:
You'll probably have no trouble getting an apprenticeship, judging from the number of bakeries you already frequent--no doubt you can talk some fifth generation baker who's heartbroken that his son Gianni refuses to take up the family business to take you on. After you listen to several hours of "You will make me proud and be my son now like he would if I had stayed in the old country" as your future employer grows drunker on the wine he keeps in the back, your apprenticeship is firmly in place.
You're ambitious, and you learn quickly, and one thing you soon realize is that if you're going to keep up the pace in his kitchen and handle the heat of the ovens, you're going to need to shed the extra 30 pounds you're carrying. Look kid, I can say that if anyone can--I'm not exactly svelte here myself. Your working hours take a little getting used to, but after a while it seems normal to set your alarm for 3 a.m., and when you finish work before noon, you can get into the gym to burn off calories before the crowds arrive.
You alternate your time between the bakery and the community college where you're getting your "formal" training. It's there that you adopt the ancient emnity between your kind--bakers--and your hated rivals, the pastry chefs. Your jealousy and hatred is something almost innate whenever you see their smirking, superior faces--not unlike the unbridled loathing the mere optician feels for his nemesis, the optometrist.
Your life isn't all breads and pies, however, and you pine for a normal social life when your evenings end around the same time most of your friends are just heading out for a night on the town. Your sleep patterns suffer for it, but you learn to compensate for a week's worth of early morning loneliness with increasingly wild and debauched weekend adventures.
Eventually, though, you tire of mindless hedonism, and when you ask out the cute college girl who mans the bakery's counter one summer, you're happy that she accepts, and soon you're in your first serious relationship. The problem is, unlike you, she keeps normal hours, and you can't rightly expect her to stay home nights because you have to get up early. Instead, you wallow in jealously imagining her out with other guys as you knead dough alone at 4 a.m.--after all, her inhibitions only vanish late in the evening, when you're hardly ever around.
Despite your jealousy and paranoid delusions, you make it through your apprenticeship successfully, with a tentative hold on both your sanity and your romance. Your boss looks worried each morning at six a.m. as you call your girlfriend's house and hang up when she answers, but he has seen that look in your eyes, and knows better than to ask questions. He seems almost relieved when you tell him you've bought a small bakery across town and he wishes you success.
You now work alone most of the time, and you feel that as a young, enterprising businessman, you are ready to take the next step. You propose to your girlfriend, and struggle to maintain composure when she hesitates and asks for time. For the next few weeks, you're on your best behavior, and work to overcome one of the main stumbling blocks to your relationship--the low opinion her parents have of you. Their hopes for their daughter involved her marrying a doctor or a lawyer, someone able to maintain the silver spoon lifestye to which she'd become accustomed. She'd only worked in the bakery originally to buy a better stereo for the BMW her parents gave her on her 18th birthday.
Disaster strikes one evening when her parents invite you to dinner. On the way there she warns you that she may have given them the mistaken idea that you are a pastry chef, and that they have invited her cousin Robert, which she pronounces the french way, to meet you that evening. Robert is, in fact, a real pastry chef.
You maintain a sullen silence through most of dinner. Robert more than makes up for your aloofness with his witty stories of Paris, where he is studying at a world-renowned pastry institute. His faux french accent makes your blood boil, and it's worse when he insists on referring to himself as a "patissier". Eventually you jump to your feet and hurl the invective that's built up for four years inside you, ever since the community college pastry chefs so soundly defeated the much inferior bakers' softball team, and mocked you for months about it.
Your girlfriend is weeping as she leads you outside; you almost fight past her to attack her cousin once more when you hear his parting shot about "pop tarts". She tearfully gives you back her ring, and you close the bakery and get drunk for three days.
After the hangover wears off, you throw yourself into your work with renenewed passion, and manage to keep busy enough to numb the pain of your broken heart. You struggle to stay away from her, and resist the urge to start making your early morning phone calls again.
Just when you debate terminating your pathetic life, she walks in the front door of the bakery and confesses her misery since your breakup. The two of you hop on a plane to Vegas and a quickie wedding. When you get back, she replaces the counter girl and the two of you work to make the business a success together--you don't have any choice; her parents will cut her off completely when they learn of the marriage.
It's a few months before your paranoid jealousy begins again. You shift her hours to more closely match your own--who cares that no customers want to shop at 6:00 a.m.--and you hire a part time staffer to serve the late afternoon crowd. Still, you barely avoid criminal charges when you mistakenly take a customer's offhand remark "nice buns" for a pass at your wife.
After six months the love of your life realizes her mistake, and runs off in the middle of the night--it isn't tough, after all, since you're already at work. You try desperately to find her, but all her parents will tell you is that she's gone to Europe. You hire a detective, who discovers that she went to stay with Robert, and she's taken up with one of his pastry chef friends.
It's only the conscientious work of Air France security personnel that save her life and put you behind bars until your transfer to the criminal psych ward finishes your career as a baker--at least on the outside. You do become very skilled at producing some of the finest waffles the other prisoners have ever seen; unfortunately their comments about buns do have a second meaning.
What? No, I'm not upset about the donut thing--some people are a little more possessive than others, that's all.
The 40 other career counsellor posts are here.
Hey, you got an extra donut in there for me? Oh, they're for later--yeah, whatever. Soooo..., you're gonna be a baker, huh? Here's what's in store, the way I figure:
You'll probably have no trouble getting an apprenticeship, judging from the number of bakeries you already frequent--no doubt you can talk some fifth generation baker who's heartbroken that his son Gianni refuses to take up the family business to take you on. After you listen to several hours of "You will make me proud and be my son now like he would if I had stayed in the old country" as your future employer grows drunker on the wine he keeps in the back, your apprenticeship is firmly in place.
You're ambitious, and you learn quickly, and one thing you soon realize is that if you're going to keep up the pace in his kitchen and handle the heat of the ovens, you're going to need to shed the extra 30 pounds you're carrying. Look kid, I can say that if anyone can--I'm not exactly svelte here myself. Your working hours take a little getting used to, but after a while it seems normal to set your alarm for 3 a.m., and when you finish work before noon, you can get into the gym to burn off calories before the crowds arrive.
You alternate your time between the bakery and the community college where you're getting your "formal" training. It's there that you adopt the ancient emnity between your kind--bakers--and your hated rivals, the pastry chefs. Your jealousy and hatred is something almost innate whenever you see their smirking, superior faces--not unlike the unbridled loathing the mere optician feels for his nemesis, the optometrist.
Your life isn't all breads and pies, however, and you pine for a normal social life when your evenings end around the same time most of your friends are just heading out for a night on the town. Your sleep patterns suffer for it, but you learn to compensate for a week's worth of early morning loneliness with increasingly wild and debauched weekend adventures.
Eventually, though, you tire of mindless hedonism, and when you ask out the cute college girl who mans the bakery's counter one summer, you're happy that she accepts, and soon you're in your first serious relationship. The problem is, unlike you, she keeps normal hours, and you can't rightly expect her to stay home nights because you have to get up early. Instead, you wallow in jealously imagining her out with other guys as you knead dough alone at 4 a.m.--after all, her inhibitions only vanish late in the evening, when you're hardly ever around.
Despite your jealousy and paranoid delusions, you make it through your apprenticeship successfully, with a tentative hold on both your sanity and your romance. Your boss looks worried each morning at six a.m. as you call your girlfriend's house and hang up when she answers, but he has seen that look in your eyes, and knows better than to ask questions. He seems almost relieved when you tell him you've bought a small bakery across town and he wishes you success.
You now work alone most of the time, and you feel that as a young, enterprising businessman, you are ready to take the next step. You propose to your girlfriend, and struggle to maintain composure when she hesitates and asks for time. For the next few weeks, you're on your best behavior, and work to overcome one of the main stumbling blocks to your relationship--the low opinion her parents have of you. Their hopes for their daughter involved her marrying a doctor or a lawyer, someone able to maintain the silver spoon lifestye to which she'd become accustomed. She'd only worked in the bakery originally to buy a better stereo for the BMW her parents gave her on her 18th birthday.
Disaster strikes one evening when her parents invite you to dinner. On the way there she warns you that she may have given them the mistaken idea that you are a pastry chef, and that they have invited her cousin Robert, which she pronounces the french way, to meet you that evening. Robert is, in fact, a real pastry chef.
You maintain a sullen silence through most of dinner. Robert more than makes up for your aloofness with his witty stories of Paris, where he is studying at a world-renowned pastry institute. His faux french accent makes your blood boil, and it's worse when he insists on referring to himself as a "patissier". Eventually you jump to your feet and hurl the invective that's built up for four years inside you, ever since the community college pastry chefs so soundly defeated the much inferior bakers' softball team, and mocked you for months about it.
Your girlfriend is weeping as she leads you outside; you almost fight past her to attack her cousin once more when you hear his parting shot about "pop tarts". She tearfully gives you back her ring, and you close the bakery and get drunk for three days.
After the hangover wears off, you throw yourself into your work with renenewed passion, and manage to keep busy enough to numb the pain of your broken heart. You struggle to stay away from her, and resist the urge to start making your early morning phone calls again.
Just when you debate terminating your pathetic life, she walks in the front door of the bakery and confesses her misery since your breakup. The two of you hop on a plane to Vegas and a quickie wedding. When you get back, she replaces the counter girl and the two of you work to make the business a success together--you don't have any choice; her parents will cut her off completely when they learn of the marriage.
It's a few months before your paranoid jealousy begins again. You shift her hours to more closely match your own--who cares that no customers want to shop at 6:00 a.m.--and you hire a part time staffer to serve the late afternoon crowd. Still, you barely avoid criminal charges when you mistakenly take a customer's offhand remark "nice buns" for a pass at your wife.
After six months the love of your life realizes her mistake, and runs off in the middle of the night--it isn't tough, after all, since you're already at work. You try desperately to find her, but all her parents will tell you is that she's gone to Europe. You hire a detective, who discovers that she went to stay with Robert, and she's taken up with one of his pastry chef friends.
It's only the conscientious work of Air France security personnel that save her life and put you behind bars until your transfer to the criminal psych ward finishes your career as a baker--at least on the outside. You do become very skilled at producing some of the finest waffles the other prisoners have ever seen; unfortunately their comments about buns do have a second meaning.
What? No, I'm not upset about the donut thing--some people are a little more possessive than others, that's all.
The 40 other career counsellor posts are here.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
paranoia, brain destroyer...
I warned Kate about keeping stats and how it can make you paranoid. Thing is, getting about 90 hits+ a day right now, I don't bother much with specifics, but I know, for instance, that the majority of my visits come from the northeastern U.S. and western Canada. I see a little Finland flag, and I know that my friend R. visited from there.
But every so often a specific server of origin will tweak my interest. Look what came by this morning:
(you can click on it to see it full size)
Yeah, I guess maybe that "sleeper cell" comment I made in response to Camila's comment a few days ago wasn't all that wise...
But every so often a specific server of origin will tweak my interest. Look what came by this morning:
(you can click on it to see it full size)
Yeah, I guess maybe that "sleeper cell" comment I made in response to Camila's comment a few days ago wasn't all that wise...
Monday, July 04, 2005
Happy 4th
to all my american blog visitors. My guess is that I know much more about your country's history than all of you combined know about mine, but that's only to be expected with the exposure to US media we have here.
I think two of my favorite documentary series were Ken Burns' on the Civil War, and the one he did about the American presidents. My family couldn't quite get my taping these shows and insisting on watching them all, but then I don't quite get how they can stand watching those American and Canadian idol shows.
So, my question, should you choose to answer, is "Who is your favorite president"? You don't have to think he was the best president, it might just be one you've always felt more partial to than the others. Of course, you could also give your most hated, if you preferred.
I've always been partial to Woodrow Wilson, though he couldn't get the states to join the League of Nations, and Jimmy Carter, because despite some of the shortcomings his administration had, he always seemed (and still seems) like a genuinely decent man.
Enjoy your day. Wear sunscreen.
I think two of my favorite documentary series were Ken Burns' on the Civil War, and the one he did about the American presidents. My family couldn't quite get my taping these shows and insisting on watching them all, but then I don't quite get how they can stand watching those American and Canadian idol shows.
So, my question, should you choose to answer, is "Who is your favorite president"? You don't have to think he was the best president, it might just be one you've always felt more partial to than the others. Of course, you could also give your most hated, if you preferred.
I've always been partial to Woodrow Wilson, though he couldn't get the states to join the League of Nations, and Jimmy Carter, because despite some of the shortcomings his administration had, he always seemed (and still seems) like a genuinely decent man.
Enjoy your day. Wear sunscreen.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Something very strange is going on..
..with blogger. This afternoon I deleted about 20 posts and edited at least a dozen others. This evening, half the changes I made are undone. Plus, a comment I added to one of my posts was gone.
I don't understand this--it's like an earlier saved version of the blog replaced what was there. I've been playing on blogger for over a year, so I know how to delete things, yet this makes no sense to me.
Time for a good alternate universe theory...
I don't understand this--it's like an earlier saved version of the blog replaced what was there. I've been playing on blogger for over a year, so I know how to delete things, yet this makes no sense to me.
Time for a good alternate universe theory...
Saturday, July 02, 2005
The week that was...
First, a note--yesterday, two different high school aged bloggers I link to (well, I have to fix "Freebasing chicken nuggets--she's moved) commented on Sandra Day O'Connor's leaving the U.S. Supreme Court. Now--are all high school kids across America deeply aware of this and talking about it? It would be encouraging, but I suspect these are more the exception. As long as they end up ruling the country one day, it's all good.
So the week ended well--so far no further problems with the insane dance teacher--though the custodian who was there that evening told me even more stuff that convinces me she was having a bad drug reaction or something...
I'm organizing my life for university studies over the next two months, which probably means more blog blathering than usual--I do a lot of my work surfing the grad studies databases for articles and it's simply too easy to take procrastination breaks.
Now I'm off to make waffles. (REAL, HOMEMADE WAFFLES, that's right...)
So the week ended well--so far no further problems with the insane dance teacher--though the custodian who was there that evening told me even more stuff that convinces me she was having a bad drug reaction or something...
I'm organizing my life for university studies over the next two months, which probably means more blog blathering than usual--I do a lot of my work surfing the grad studies databases for articles and it's simply too easy to take procrastination breaks.
Now I'm off to make waffles. (REAL, HOMEMADE WAFFLES, that's right...)
Friday, July 01, 2005
The first real day of summer holidays
This new photo thing on blogger is tres annoying on my mac.
Happy Canada Day, folks. It must be some sort of strange latent patriotism that caused me to go on a little nationalist rant on Camila's blog comments--sorry about that. The nice thing is that I know the H-burg kids are cool enough not to be worried about it.
I've got a strange ancestry working in this area. My dad's mom's family traces back bloodlines that include a "Dirigerie (sp?) Priest" who came over on the Mayflower, and eventually sent for his family in England to join him, but he died before they arrived and his wife ended up marrying someone else in the colonies. My dad's dad's family came to North America from Ireland--a father and son together--to fight the Americans in the War of 1812.
The majority of people who read this blog are Americans, and of course, I love you all. I don't have to agree with everything your country does, and to honest, I don't agree with everything my country does either.
I'm even growing tolerant enough to admit there are some decent american beers.
I don't think we'll be going downtown for the fireworks this year. To my Canadian friends, happy Canada Day, and to my U.S. friends, happy 4th of July.
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