Comparing Oneself to DJ Shadow Hurts Tremendously

So, it's true, I'm listening now to DJ Shadow's mind-fucking-blowing Endtroducing for the first time in a long time...  After the first track, I felt my very will fall apart.  Damn it.  I lost that scratched up and skipping CD a dog's age ago and so, in the same way that one might replace a blown tire or a book they continually lend out without expecting it to be returned (100 Years of Solitude in my case), I recommitted to DJ Shadow and actually purchased the album AGAIN electronically.

Here's some advice to those who steal from artists: do not steal from those you appreciate.  I know there is a new economy for talent and art.  Live shows vs. label profits, blah blah blah.  But all the same.  Refuse to steal from those you appreciate.  It makes for a better world.  And it makes you less of a dick (slightly).

The album, well, I haven't gotten through all of it, but the start of the album is like a thrust of land into the ferocious, churning waters.  What he has done with sound, I would do with the written word and tabletop game design, if I could.  But seriously, DJ Shadow is a genius, crystallized in this album.  Damn.  If you don't have it, you're missing out.

Endtroducing.  Don't steal it.  Buy it.

So I was thinking about how clumsy my tabletop game was turning out to be and how clumsy the new (and really good) tabletop games are as well...  And so I started to think about how to start all over again...  And I figured it out!

Now I have lots of work and research to do, but done quickly enough, I'll have the burgeoning, nay, bloating tabletop market overwhelmed by my genius!

(Sorry, I'm just trying to pump myself up for once)

The Last Blah Blah

So, it's time to poop or get off the pot, as some say.  The only thing this blog is doing is giving me a false sense of accomplishment by maintaining an uninteresting account of blah blah on a regular basis.  So!  Goodbye schedule and hello meaningful writing.  Hopefully, I can do meaningful writing on a semi-regular basis, but this has been garbage and for that I apologize.

Stay tuned.  Or don't I guess.  I'll post regardless.

A Coupla Daze A Christmas

Upon being a shaky believer at best, a comfortable agnostic, and an atheist that despises the first two, I don't really value Christmas much other than a chance to see family and old friends.  All the same, all the glitz and happiness that floats over the mire of anxiety, overspending, and exclusionary practices of the holiday, well, it  makes me feel good in a fuzzy kinda way.

Problem being that I got nothing done.  Jesus Christ, I have all my shopping ahead of me, and none of the fun.  And on top of that, apparently I'm really really poor now, considering my income.  So go ahead and blame me for not pulling myself up with my bootstraps.

Merry Christmas.  What a fucking world.

A little gift to myself, I'm listening now, as I write, to Sorega Doushita by the Delta 72.  I hope, when I break out and make it big, that I'm not as awesome as the Delta 72.  The trick is to make the scene as an A-.  The Delta 72 was an A+.  And so few know them or miss them now.  I saw them a few times and loved each show.  They were A+ and therefore doomed.

Same thing with writing.  Same thing with tabletop games.  Too much polish makes for slip.  A- is the level to shoot for.  When I wrote about that Game of Thrones thing, did you know that the author wrote about very detailed scenes of sexual activity between a thirty-something man and a thirteen year old girl?  The scenes are there.  I'm not worried.  It fits the world and it fits the world.  But Jesus Christ.

We Deserve Ourselves

"Apparently nobody likes working there but the pay is good."

I wrote that in my last post and didn't find it disturbing enough to recoil like I'm recoiling now. What I said is a pretty stupid thing to consider. Here I am, in one of those wonderful periods of a certain time (now) matched with a certain place (here) when people can make whatever they want of themselves with the least amount of obstruction (early 21st century USA), and all I want is a crappy job that can pay my mortgage and bills? A resound FUCK THAT is in order, it seems.


And I apologize for not realizing that sooner.


I want to be a woodworker. I want to carve beautiful things. I would love to make my own dinner set, table and chairs. I could do that, if I could find the devotion. Now's my chance. The information is in front of us more than any other generation. That's the point. We have an unbelievable amount of free information. How do we use it? Well, I guess that's up to us.


I want to be an author (I'm working on it, I swear). If I could write something that affects someone else like Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (translated, of course) affected me, I would know that I did something great. One year, I bought my bookish family a copy of 100 Years of Solitude for Christmas. Yes, all of them. They've never spoken to me about it since. It makes me worry that I'm not a part of my own family. So be it. If you haven't read the book. Do so, twice, with some time apart.


I want to be a welder. How cool would that be? Not just to mend, but to create. I see the towers of our day and wonder how they could possibly keep standing while the world spins and we all run around inside of them. There is science and art in construction (and why would we every consider them separately?).


I watched a coworker struggle to put together a sample of a certain toy chest we carry. He did it admirably, eventually. "Unscratched and square!" I said in praise. "Yeah," he said, "look at my luck." That's truth.


I want to be a musician (goddammit!). I know the theory to a point, because music (at least in these westren climes) is structured and predictable. These days, music people have the pop music stuff down, totally formulaic. And that's cool. I want to write stuff and sit on a stage at a bar and have everyone ignore me. That's a musician.


I want to do work that is worth doing. The more I think about it, the more I hate gyms. What a fucking waste. Sure, you can run a treadmill, pump deadweights, do classes... Fuck that. Because you could do physical labor for any number of worthy causes. Imagine expending your labor to improve your neighborhood. I know, weird, right?


We deserve ourselves more than anything else.

Dark to Dark

So I worked dark to dark yesterday.  I did again today.  And I will again tomorrow if the bug that's been sweeping through my coworkers doesn't land on me.

And I didn't get that management gig.  Not really surprised.  Basically it comes down to them wanting me to be a bit more familiar with the ins and outs of the store before I start running it.  Fair enough.  Unfortunately I may not be there long enough to learn.

My old buddy who left my old job before I did just called yesterday and he wants to get me a job back doing basically what it was I was doing before at a different place.  Sadly, it is tempting.  Having escaped that life, I am not terribly excited about jumping back in again, if they'd even let me.  Apparently nobody likes working there but the pay is good.  So there's that.

This year's New Year is going to be like no other.  Already, I am preparing for major changes.  It will be spectacular, most likely painful, and totally awesome.  I feel like 2013 is going to be my year.  Why?  Can't say.  Just a hunch.  Maybe it's because of that crazy Mayan calendar.  Just like to world to end on me when it's clearing going to be my year coming right up...

Whoa Whoa Whoa

Sweet Regis, it's two weeks until Christmas and I am not even thinking about it yet.  Time to start thinking about it I guess...

I was at work today and, yes, the discussion was delayed for a reason.  I just passed my ninety days and they want to do my review first before talking about any moving up in the company.  Whatevz.  There's a chance that this can all be resolved tomorrow but I'm not holding my breath.  I was told directly that these weren't intentional setbacks, but again, I'm not trying to get excited either way.  Maybe I'll know by Christmas.

Back to Christmas.  Holy crap.  I gotta get my act together.  Fortunately, I'm broke this Christmas and people aren't expecting much from me.  Phew.  What a relief!

Writing has been going pretty well lately.  I'm starting an old idea from a totally different perspective, which seems to be a more natural direction for me.  The words aren't exactly pouring out, but I'm laying some decent framework down and enjoy writing it.  Speaking of which...

Compliments Are Exhausting

I was at work a long time today and I'm pretty pooped.  Gonna keep it short.  Compliments are exhausting, sometimes.  Two individual ladies, a pair of ladies, and three couples declared with much aplomb that I was "a lifesaver", "the best help ever", "the awesomest person right now" (nice restriction and restraint to that compliment), and "simply amazing".  No kidding.  Another was "so grateful for my help" and the last was "so glad (she) came here so (she) could have (me) help (her)".  I jotted them down to remember.  And I only started jotting them down after a few had come and gone.  One added, "and knowledge is power.  And now I am powerful."  I didn't roll my eyes.  Now that's salesmanship!  

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think I've gotten that amount and that quality of praise since I was potty training.  And these compliments were from total strangers, not my mother.

During my training on the floor, yes, all 12 minutes of it, I was appalled at the salesmanship I witnessed.  Yeah, it was polished, it flowed smoothly, it was knowledgeable and even somewhat witty.  But something in the back of my head was retching.  "False!" it screamed.  And the one major thing I'm worrying about is if I'm turning into that salesman.  I don't think so.  But the worry is there.  I'd like to think that the compliments I receive means that the customers are seeing me as a force for their good.  Because, when it comes down to it, only half of my customers bought something today.  The other half had more to think about and I let them go.  Batting .500 on sales?  Is that good for a salesman?  I don't know.  But batting about .600 for awesome compliments and 1.000 for compliments in general...  Not bad, I guess.

But back to why compliments are exhausting.  It's because I have other things to do at work.  And that's all my bosses see.  For what I make, I care a literal fuckload about how my department looks and whether any of my coworkers need help or not.  But when it comes to measurable metrics in their eyes, constantly doing projects on ladders and carrying heavy objects that others refuse to move and (yes) escorting coworkers to their cars after dark takes up exactly zero time.  And when I fail to do their specific task set for me, they mention it.  "You're right," I say.  "Too many interruptions."  To which they have little to say.

At the same time, yesterday, a cohort in my department told me with a straight face that I do everything right.  I shrugged it off but he reiterated.  That puffed me up pretty good after that for a while.  I know I've written before about being complimented, but it is still a really novel thing for me coming from the workplace.  I went almost ten years either being complimented by people I didn't like or ignored at best by the rest.  There was a real dearth of thumbs-up through my first decade of work.  And I don't think I'm alone.  There are so many thankless jobs out there.  At least mine isn't thankless this time around.  It may be exhausting, and pitifully underpaid work, but it is in one sense very gratifying.

I may be the only person in the world that will be thankful when it's all said and done for having the chance to experience retail.

Contrasts (a.k.a. Upon Using Colons like a Smug SOB)

Part 1: A buddy of mine is in the dumps.  He's been there before.  I can understand a lot of what he's saying, not to the extremes he faces, but to a lesser extent.  All the same, I want to be an enabler of awesomeness for him.  It's foolish because I don't think I can really do that.  But I'm a-gonna try.

Part 2: My boss's boss's boss promised to talk to me saying, "we'll sit down sometime next week".  He raised his eyebrows and said: "and I talked to (that person that did your second interview)".  Hm.  "Okay," I said, thoroughly expressing my confusion and disappointment.  Not a good move, but hell, I was confused and disappointed.  Back to that "being a floating ball of patience" thing.  Cross-message?  He told someone that I was on the move, right in front of me.  He can say that and not sit down with me this week.  Great.  I won't condemn the whole company for the actions of one person, but when it's your boss's boss's boss, well, that's not a great sign.

Part 3: I just got done listening to my litter-mate's musical endeavors.  Wait.  If I haven't explained before, "litter-mate" is my term for the people you went through orientation at work with.  Anyway, B and me have been going back and forth for a month now and he finally remembered to bring me a CD of his stuff.  It is pretty good, terribly filthy rap.  I have a pretty good idea of which parts are his.  I listened to it twice and am still working on some of the words.  I would love to be able to go back to work tomorrow and talk to him about some of his riffs or whatever they're called.  I think it's awesome that he's doing what he's doing and am inspired to work harder to do what I do.

Mix all parts, heat to a simmer, then allow to rest.

God, I'm fucking linear.  I could probably give myself credit for being very good at being linear, but all the same...  I put down the above three points and see a triangle.  I want to help my buddy.  I want to help myself.  My litter-mate helps himself better.  I want to emulate my litter-mate.  Then I can help my buddy and myself.  Quod erat demonstradum?  Oh fuck no.

That recipe I published last time had three parts, but do you think you could separate them after they were put together?  Course not.  Any bean you push aside is sticky with cheese and leaves behind some of that "bean juice" from the can.  Hilarious.

Nothing's as simple as a triangle, shapes, one-to-one relationships.  It's all analog, messed-up, untriangulated, chaos.  If you can make sense of it, you're lying.  But that doesn't help anything, so here's my plan: it's time for my buddy and me to have another music recording session.  That's the lesson for tonight.  Here's the twist: I'm gonna dog him to lay down a track too.  Antagonizing friends, well, that can make better friends if done correctly.

I hope.

Books to Read Twice

Just got done with my second pass at George R R Martin's A Game of Thrones.  I read the four books that were out at the time, oh, a while ago.  I let a buddy of mine borrow the books and they've just come back.  I thought I'd crack open the first again, and, dang, it is so much more interesting on the second read.

Already being familiar with the main characters helps a lot.  Also having some time pass before reading the book again let me rediscover plot points and minor characters totally forgotten or never noticed.  I actually laughed a couple times when some obvious foreshadowing jumped out at me or a connection between characters was plainly stated that I didn't notice before.

All this points to the fact that George R R Martin is a great epic fantasy writer.  I'd like to take a stab at the genre sometime, but seriously, there's something wrong with the genre if you have to read the book twice to really appreciate it.  I'm not saying that the first read should always be enough.  There are plenty books out there of all kinds of genres that deserve a second read.  The reader will always pick up on the subtleties that he or she missed the first time around.  But I missed SO much on the first read of A Game of Thrones that the very surface of the story had to hold everything together enough for me to be interested in the second book... and a later second read.  Martin succeeded.  That's craft.  But if that's the standard I have to hold myself to get into the genre, well, I think I might have to approach it differently.  In fact, I know I'll have to approach it differently.

Here's the thing, with A Game of Thrones, there are just way too many people and plots to keep straight.  I guess that can happen to anyone when they write a paperback that's more than 800 pages long.  Yeesh.

Hm.  Might be time to figure out how I'm gonna crack into the fantasy genre.  I figure it's gonna form into some free online serial that just grows and grows.  It would be a first book that I didn't care about (check), it would be practice (check), and it would be out there for anyone to read (check) while playing with the idea of getting people familiar with the grand scale of an epic one chapter at a time.  Hm.  If I get good at it, monetizing options are limited, but I can't imagine that the publishing houses are going to be doing much better than the music labels soon.  They're gobbling each other up already.

Hm.

December

Just got back from a small party where I won the "Appetizer of the Chili Cook-Off Award 2012".  I was a shoe-in, being the only one to actually bring an appetizer to the soiree.  It was glop, yes, glop and chips.  Mm.  Wanna know how to make it?

Glop
One part beef, browned and drained.
One part Velveeta (Mexican is best in my opinion)
One part Brooks chili beans (hot or mild)

Put it all in a pot and melt it down, stirring occasionally, over medium low heat.  Bring a bag of tortilla chips and gorge yourself silly.

There was also one chili entry and one dessert entry.  The chili came off the the internet, a pulled chicken and corn, soupy deal that was pretty good.  The dessert was a crispy, sugary, chocolaty, butterscotchity, peanut buttery something-or-other called, uh, Scotcharoons I believe.  Also good. So everyone was a winner tonight.  The hostess was obviously disappointed at the low turnout.  I could empathize.  This is one of the main reasons why I seldom throw parties.  It's hard to find out how many of your fake friends aren't even willing to come over after all your real friends left town long ago.

December.  Damn December.  I blame it for my poopy mood.  I could say some really ugly things about it, but I wouldn't really mean them.  It's not December's fault that it resembles so many things that I don't like about myself.

Interviewed

Finally!  I had my second interview.  I'm not going to analyze it.  It went well.  And I should hear something by next week, which of course, may or may not actually happen.  I am a focused and floating ball of patience itself.  One thing I'm happy about is the fact that I could honestly tell my interviewer that I enjoyed working for the company and wanted to help it grow.

Anyway, I got a pizza in the oven (yum) and some diet sierra mist cranberry splash chilling in the fridge (yum!) so I'm a happy guy.  Laundry's in the dryer.  Got my jammy pants on.  Phew!  I'm all set.

Gameplay design continues to haunt my waking life. I need to break it down into smaller pieces or approach it from a different angle.  Hard to say.

Mele Kalikimaka.  That's easy to say.  At work, there's this version of the song that's way cooler than any version I can find.  Oh well.  Probably for the best, seeing as how I probably won't be able to stand the song by December 26.

All right.  I'll stop.  Gameplay design doesn't, uh, make itself happen.

Oh Gameplay Design, You Salty Whore

All the state lotteries have it right.  Bad odds against incomprehensible gains is the best way to take the blood out of the little people.  Sure, some idiot will become fabulously wealthy once or twice a week, but that won't change anything.  That wealth will be defrayed naturally, like a pillar of salt, sanded down by, well, sandy winds.

But on closer inspection, everything we do for fun is based on odds against gains.  Actually, everything we do for any reason is based on odds against gains (at least in this, what do they call it?, capitalistic world).  Odds against gains.

End of story: gameplay design is difficult.

Finally!  I have a second interview scheduled for a management position in a company I continue to appreciate more and more as I work there.  Sound false?  It's coz you don't work for the company I work for, fool.

This happened a couple days back, while I was leaving the store after my shift was done (names are changed to protect the innocent).  This whole conversation happened over, maybe, forty feet of walking and fifteen seconds, no lie:

Me: You're not out yet?
Dusty: I'm on my way.
Me: Darn straight!
Crusty: Bye Lightning J!
Me: Have a good night, Crusty!
Crusty: You too!
Me: See ya, Rascal!
Rascal: Hey, thanks for your help today.
Me: No sweat, man.  Have a great night, Tussle!
Tussle: Thank you!  You too!
Groove: Take it easy, LJ.
Me: Yeah, Groove, thanks. Get me that CD.  See you tomorrow!

I turned around and saw that a customer was following me out.

"You see how friendly we are?" I asked her.

"You guys are awesome!" she exclaimed.

And that's the point.

Board Game Story Design

Surprise!  Ever since I got back into designing my super-secret therefore super-awesome board game, the story has been getting a good 95% of the attention and time spent.  Don't get me wrong, gameplay design ideas are rattling away back there, way behind my eyeballs...  But I'm deeply engaged in writing out the background history of all the characters a player can play.

So tonight, I plan to devout my time to gameplay design.  It's going to be interesting to see if there's anything there...

In other news, I haven't seen my baby store crush in, like, at least a week or something.  News is going around that she's got a stomach bug.  Shoot.  I'd bring her the broth, warm and delicious.  And that's not even a euphemism.  An euphemism?  A euphemism.  I'm serious.  Mrs. Grass's coming up.

If there's anything in this world I fear, it's a stomach bug.  Last time I had one, I spent a night "sleeping" in the bathroom, promising anyone that might be listening "up there" (a.k.a. above 3 feet or so, with me slumped over the toilet or the bath or whatever) that I would never do anything bad again if I could just keep lukewarm water down long enough so I wouldn't die of dehydration.  I guess I lied, but I was under considerable duress after all.  Another reason to go to hell.  Thanks, stomach bug!

Now to devout my time to figuring out how to make an asymmetrical yet fair and engaging set of gameplay rules for my soon to be world-renowned board game.  Look out world, here it comes.  That is not a euphemism either.

Hooray for My Cousin!

So my cousin invited me over to her house for Thanksgiving.  She is awesome.  The food was awesome.  I got to bring back everything necessary for an awesome day-after-Thanksgiving sandwich.  Things are looking up.

Other than I'm supposed to be to work in 7 hours (give or take) and can't get to sleep.  Thus the (mildly) late post with little to no good material.  I have a better idea.  I'm going to work on designing my board game.  That might put me to sleep.  Goodnight.

Decadently Decadent Decadence

So HP Lovecraft is better than I feared.  Pretty good stuff.  However, At the Mountains of Madness should have been called Decadently at the Decadent Mountains of Madness and Decadence.  At ever corner, the art described in the book was always decadent.  Like, once a page, sometimes more.  It was ridiculous.  The word became a stab in my eyes each time I saw it after a while.

The real problem was he was never kind enough to clarify which way he meant to use the word.  "Decadent art" as in that it is self-indulgent and debauched or "decadent art" as in that it is decayed or debased?  That's kinda important, right?  No?  I'm sorry.  I forget that it's not cool to care about these things.  I'm not cool.

Moving along, I still haven't gotten that call for a second interview for a manager position.  Options are pouring in my mind for the next move.  What do I want to be when I grow up this time?  Policeman?  Construction worker?  Indian chief?  Leather guy?  So many choices.  Hm...

The Good Nephoo

My aunt broke her ankle recently.  I cringe just writing that.  Never broke a bone in my body.  Not sure how I've managed that.  Nonetheless, when I hear broken ankle, I can only assume a dry, scorching pain shoots up your body with that sort of thing.  Yuck.  Yuck!

So I bought her a card, $0.99, and wished her well.  I am the good nephoo.

Since the last post, it has become official.  I am Thanksgivingless this year.  I'm not too distraught.  Sometimes getting away from a tradition makes it better the next year.  I think I'll make myself something terribly unhealthy and eat as much of it as I can.  It will help me go to sleep early enough so working at 5:30am isn't so... nearly unachievable.

I just finished Voltaire's Candide.  It was okay.  What struck me most about it was how complacent everyone was with the power structure.  That is the work of a well-oiled censorship machine.  The characters of the book underwent unrelenting pain and bad luck.  A good portion was directed by the powers that be.  Never once did any character question the right of the tormentor's will.  It is quite different these days, at least in my corner of the world.

I am currently in the middle of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.  I've never read his works before.  It is not what I expected.  I cannot say that I am enjoying it much.  But it hasn't reached the point where I would abandon it.  It's only 130 pages.  I don't know though.  He seems to talk about horror instead of describing it.  I will reserve final judgment until I am done with the book an have a moment to stew over it.

I have started again at writing fiction.  Fiction is much more difficult to write than loose autobiographical garbage.  I'm thinking about using the blog occasionally to focus on fiction.

Goodbye Turkey

Relentless optimism wears me down, even when it comes from my own mouth.  So I'm going to say it:  going to work the day after Thanksgiving at 5:30 in the morning is the definition of, wait, let me try to remember what we settled on at the dogpark earlier...

Working on Black Friday at 5:30am is the definition of shitty as not real fuck.

Because "real fuck" is good! not bad.  See?  Okay, so this guy said that some dude on TV was "fake as fuck" but then got tangled up between the two ways that phrase can be applied.  After he finished mumbling about the difference between figurative "fuck" and "real fuck" I summarized and we moved on to more interesting talk...  You know, talk about the smell of the dentures of some other dude's aunt, and sleeping in a tree tent - pros and cons.

I love the dogpark.  Especially when the weather turns cold.  All you can do is suffer and talk while the pups play.  People suffering together can have wonderful conversations.

So Thanksgiving is probably out of the cards this year.  Sigh.  It's my favorite holiday too.  Oh well.  There could be worse things, like still working at my old job.

Holy crap, speaking about my old job, I haven't seen a single person from my old job in the store until this last week when three, THREE!, 3! different people came in.  I talked to two of them.  The third could go ahead and soak, in my opinion.  It was nice to see the other two.  I liked them and wish them well.

So, segues seem to be ruling this blog.  Perhaps some focus on organization needs to be implemented?  We'll see.  We'll see.

Anti-Commandeerering

So there's a cute little thing at work, no, not her, not today (though I saw her briefly, she was on her way out on my way in...), no, I'm talking about this thing managers do, just loading up your plate like any mother-in-law stereotype, but with projects instead of whatever food is equally stereotypical to the mother-in-law.  It's cute because it's a game, a cute game, where they know very well that it's impossible to get even a third of what they ask done, but with such a pile of things to do, there's no way that we'll be calling up managers and bothering them with bored and stupid questions.

The up side is that I never have to look for work to do.  That's awesome.  Makes the day fly by.  The down side is that everyone in my department is a highly trained anti-commandeerer.  Me included.  Case in point: I grabbed a pack-n-play and found out that it's the last one of its kind in the store and it's been discontinued.  Sweet!  I'll build it and knock the price down and get it out of my way.  Well.  Things come up, customer need customed and I pass the project along to the next guy.  Two days later, that same pack-n-play project was handed off again to me.  Lesson?  When ten things need done and nobody is really responsible for its completion, this kinda shit can go on ad absurdum.

Oh, and "anti-commandeerer" is just a dumb way to say a buck-passer.  I dumped two huge projects onto the person after me, but I only got told about one of them forty minutes before my shift ended...

This could be an awesome state of being if everyone in the department can agree that this is a cute game.  Unfortunately, that's not the case.  There's already sand in the vag.  People complaining about lack of communication, etc.  Whatever.  Do what you can and pass it along.  What a way to make a buck.

Oh, and yes, she was looking tasty today.  Damn.

Mmm That Damn Spark

Now, if you could just see this girl, you'd totally understand.  But man, I got it bad right now and it's messing with my head.  I feel like I'm too old for this garbage.  Guess not.  Dang.  But like I said, if you could just see her.  Mmm.

And because I am my own worst enemy when it comes to matters of attraction, there are conflicts and obstacles.  Of course, conflicts and obstacles be damned, but I can't claim ignorance of them.

I'm trying very hard not to turn this entry into a gush.  But oof.  She's fine.  My eyes go googly like ole cookie monster on a binge around her.  Very disorienting.  And I keep biting my tongue, not as a colloquialism to describe me holding back improper declarations, but because my tongue hangs out of my face and I close my mouth on it.

And we work so well together.  We work so well together.  It's amazing.  At the baby store, I mean.  We both work at the baby store.  And so she gets to see me at my stupidest.  I hope she finds it if not attractive, then at the very least cute.

Hope can also be so stupid.

And for pity's sake, this all just showed up last week.  I've been working with her for more than two months now and I didn't think too much about it until last Tuesday sometime during the day I looked at her and thought

GOOD GODDAMN!  SHE MUST BE MINE!

Maybe it was something she said or looked like or, yeah, even smelled like (let's be honest, it affects us).  I have no idea.  But the spark was sparked.  The switch was flipped (I first typed out "the flip was switched", which might be an even better phrase).  And now it's an avalanche in my poor brain.  I have this hard and fast policy about never dating coworkers that has served me well in my adult life.

It seems time for a rewrite.  More later.

Oneself

The only ways two sentient species can evolve concurrently are if the they are isolated from one another or codependent.  Otherwise, one or both will be eradicated. 

The expanses of space and time separate worlds from worlds enough for sentient species to evolve concurrently.  I hope we find some out there that were radio-happy as many years ago as they are light-years away...  Good luck to us.

The neanderthals didn't stand a chance, unless of course we weren't so different that we couldn't get it on with each other.  That's my hope.  Modern humans could use some more mixing and it seems like the stock ran out.  Oh well.

Dolphins?  Whales?  Chimps?  I don't know.  Breeding with them doesn't seem likely.  If they're the next best thing, I hope we don't screw it up too much for them.

Argh.  I apologize.  I've been trying to wrap my head around relativity lately, you know, for fun, if only to prove that I can.  And yes, there are many more interesting things to do in life, more worthwhile, mightier, greater, etc.  Everybody needs something to do when they poop.

I half-heard a weird snatch of smarty talk on NPR in the car.  I don't know what they said, but while driving and trying to descry the true form of spacetime and listening to NPR, a vision of a fast-moving photon circling about in a blur, making a shell like a gossamer sphere around, well, EVERYTHING else entered my mind.  The contents of the sphere were you, me, the earth, the sun and moon, the galaxy, the whole damn universe and, yeah, maybe more, you get the idea.

Light defines our spacetime.  Everything we see depends on light.  And such a narrow band of it!  Ugh.  Not only that, but it goes in a straight line that's bent by you and me.  And it only goes in a straight line because it traverses through time like us.  Argh.

More work to do on that.

I heard a good question again that I wasn't so ready to answer in this stupid state of mind.  She asked me who I was.

How is it that I can cut through space and time and still be me?  Am I just another thing that travels through the universe continually apologizing to itself that, while it changes, it really doesn't change that much?

I wonder.

Obama!

Hooray!

Time as a Dimension

In short, while we all wring our hands and cringe about who will be the next prez, more and more knowledge is being found.  If you don't support government funding of science, then you are a fuckwad asshole motherfucker dumbshit.  Fuck you.

Otherwise, please, enjoy this weird post, full, I'm sure, of inaccuracies...

Oh that rascally dimension Time, intertwined with such mundane and classically predictable dimensions such as up or down (yawn), to the sides (ho-hum) and out in front or back...

It happened when someone was smart enough to figure out that the most basic constant in this world (and any other) is neither death nor taxes (though those are pretty close to the top), but in fact the speed of light.  The speed of light is this existence's constant.  There are other constants.  And they're cute!  Like pi and e and slashed h plank's constant.  But what makes me shiver is a constant like the speed of light, which is politely called "c".

That "c", it's the cosmic hem.  It cannot be overcome (like what goes up, cough, must come down).  And to top it off, "c" when it's squared is the philosopher's stone between energy and mass.  You wanna make mass into energy? That's a tall order, but know when you do, the mass you have will be multiplied by the square of the speed of light before you get the equivalent energy.  Which means you shouldn't be anywhere near the transformation.

So the speed of light is cool.  And it means that the geometry of our little height, width and depth is pathetically unrepresentative in our world.

Time though, ugh.  What a bitch.  I can't say I understand it.  It progresses at different rates according to the gravitational field of where I am?  Really?  Time moves more quickly the farther I am from the center of the Earth?  Great.  What does that mean?  What does it mean to move through different rates of time?

It means that the geostationary satellites over our heads have to be "calibrated" for relativistic effects to let us know precisely where we are when we look at our phones to know.  And that's because the "gravity" up there is "less" than it is down here.  Really.

What the fuck does that mean?

There are smarter people out there that are suspending photons to motionlessness while doing the math.  There are those that claim to have found the particle equivalent to the field that bestows on us fat-asses the mass we so desperately need to lose.

I don't mean to add to the knowledge.  I guess I just had to get out what I knew, fearing a new administration that could hate science for the fact that it is also true.

Dark to Dark

Worked today, dark to dark.  It's that time of year again.  Should seem obvious, what with my voracious appetite for meaty, creamy soups.  Campbell's Chunky is holding me steady until I break out the crockpot and make myself a stew.  Or a chili.  Or baked mac n cheese.  Or a roast...  Damn.  It's kinda hard to write right now.

Marten's suggestion for a back pain simile "like a clamped tramp stamp" blows any of my musings out of the water.  I actually guffawed.  Hats off to you, sir.  Well done.

So, some somewhat disappointing news...  I haven't had that manager position interview at work yet, but I will tomorrow.  The last couple things that my boss's boss's boss said to me while we were setting up the time was:

Him: "Wow, I was told that you were an assistant manager of a grocery store."

Me: "Nope.  Supervisor in a union industrial environment."

Him: "Well, we should have the interview anyway.  See what sorts of paths we might take."

Me: "K."

So maybe baby retail management isn't in the cards.  Was kinda hoping it was.  Ah well.  I still have my writing to keep me going.  Writing like this.

Time to buy some cumin and, I don't know, northern beans...  garlic cloves...

Like Lower Back Pain

I don't know why "like lower back pain" isn't a simile more frequently used in the language to describe the special uselessness that is both debilitating and slightly humiliating yet sharply painful.  I could use that kind of phrase, ugh, frequently.  "Like a kick in the balls" is frankly overused and doesn't really apply to the uselessness involved in lower back pain.  No one would ask a man just kicked in the balls to help them lift a heavy item...  Would they?

"Hey man.  Word to the wise.  Wear a cup to keep it up.  Could you help me with this armoire?"

It's certainly possible.

But a dude with lower back pain asked to help with an armoire would either have to declare his uselessness or, more likely, try to help and make a total ass of himself with writhing and gritting of teeth, etc.

Actually, I actually do know why "like lower back pain" actually hasn't caught on (thank you otherwise worthless English degree!).  The words "like lower back pain" just doesn't flow...  buh BAH-buh buh buh...  Maybe it just needs to be punched up a bit.  Hm.

Like low back agony?  buh BAH buh BAH-buh-buh...  Better...

Like lumbar asunder?  buh buh-BAH buh-BAH-buh... With the slant-rhyme?  Too confusing.  Lumbar?  Lumber?  Meh.

Like a slipped disk?  buh buh BAH - BAH...  Very strong, but the meaning is more vague...

Like a knot in my spine?  Screw it.

Anyway, my back is friggin killing me, just getting worse and worse all day.  Kinda focuses the mind on solving certain problems.  Like how to use this pain positively...  Hey, anything for our crappy language.  We need a lower back pain related simile.

Vicarious Progress

WARNING: THIS POST IS ME SPEAKING TO MYSELF TO FIGURE OUT WHAT ME'S THINKING :END OF WARNING

These past few months I've been catching up with the enthusiasm that bookstore assistants share with me every time I bring a Discworld book up to the cash register.

If you're not familiar, Terry Pratchett has been writing books for the last, uh, thirty years or so about this place called Discworld.  A ton of people apparently enjoy it.  I wasn't familiar six months ago.  I now have just finished the eighth book that he wrote.  And now I'm beginning to see why a ton of people apparently enjoy it.  I am also beginning to understand the wincing I get from the bookstore assistants when I mention that I'm reading the books in the order that they were written.

The process that I have been able to witness by reading the Discworld books in the order that they were produced, that's really encouraging to me, though it's been universally discouraged by the bookstore assistants.  Here's my point:

Pratchett's first books are his weakest.  That stands to reason.  I won't get into the different storylines that the books get into, but by the eighth book, the four main storylines based in the Discworld are introduced with a standalone book included for seasoning.  So now, when someone at the bookstore says: "I like the Death stories best," or "the City Guard books are best," or "the Witches have the best stories," I now know what they're talking about.  Oddly, I haven't yet heard anyone say that the Rincewind stories are the best.  Of course, Rincewind stars in the first two books.  Perhaps it's the curse of the prototype.  And maybe it shows how smart Terry P is to abandon his first story to explore other options outright after two books.

All of the Discworld books are blanketed front and back with thick and high praise from many and all respectable press and periodicals and persons.  By book 8, it's beginning to earn that respect.  I finally laughed out loud like the quotes on the book promised I would since book 1.  That's a long time to wait to laugh out loud.  I don't consider myself too stonecold, at least when I'm on the couch reading.  I like laughing and it doesn't require high-intellectual material.  Ask my fishing buddies.  You wanna know what it took?  The word "statueskew".

Hilarious right?  I know.  To explain, it's just a mispronunciation of "statuesque" which, when you notice, is how someone would say "STAT-u-ESK" when they've only ever read the word without actually hearing it heard.  I suppose I only really laughed because when I was an English major, I mispronounced so many words that were new to me that I've only read without hearing...

bourgeoisie = BOR-g-WAH-see
chimera = CHIM-er-a
relevant = REV-a-lent (okay, that may be evidence for dyslexia more than anything else)

Okay, I'm being lazy.  Three is enough.

Anyway, the point!  It has been a pleasure watching Terry P's writing style improve immensely over the eight books I've read.  I don't think I've seen the same kind of progress with others, which makes me think that maybe Terry had the nuts and the good luck to get a book published when he was still basically a hack.  Good for him.  Especially because he developed into, what I am now seeing (and I have about twenty more Discworld books to read), a very accomplished writer.

It gives this unpublished hack a hope.

No. 1 Pop Song in the Year 2525

There are only three things that I took away from watching Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes and whatsherface do that Future Cop thing a while back:

1. Upon crashing, Mr. Future Policeman was instantly encapsulated by a car-filling foam that protected him from the collision.
2. Sly had to say swear words to commit violations that were printed on paper to wipe his butt after pooping...  Coz there ain't no toilet tissue in the future, people!  Major laughs!
3. Old commercial jingles (in our time, back then) became the pop songs of the future?  Quirky!  Oh, I get it.  Ad placement...

And as bad as that movie was, I have to give it credit that I remember three distinct things about it.  But only one is relevant now and that's #3.

I have the loop that Marten and I made earlier this week.  It sucks.  But what sucks more is that I'm not smart enough to figure out how to upload it to this blog.  Children just a tiny fraction of my age would run spirals around me and then spike the upload ball of this crappy song into my face.  All the same, I'm learning.  I'll get it.  JUST YOU WAIT!

Anyway, it's my thought that the evolution of our society here in the West (if we can stave off the encroachment of radical either-wingers long enough) will lead to such wonderful things as What-If Scenario Ancestor Porn Insta-Tabloids...  

(What Would You Look Like If Your Greatx14 Granddad Fucked Jodie Foster and Greatx13 Granddad Fucked Rihanna?  All-sense it happening now!)

In the end, once I upload the loop, I will definitively mark it as my first attempt at music, even though I've wistfully played much better melodies.  This little loop will be the first that my far-far-away progeny will see if they have any interest in me:

"Okay.  Scrolling back on the old ancestor line for a lark, what's this?  A song?  Wow.  That ancestor sucked.  Hard."

Yeah.  Anyway.  Weird thoughts tonight.  I think I'm done.

Wish Luck Now

Headed to work tomorrow.  Gonna take in my finely crafted (that I swear, I swear, does not look like a bunch of unimpressive hoohah...) resume in and apply for a management job.  Which one?  Who knows!  That's the joy!

I got to get my foot in there, but I have to be honest.  I don't want to be a manager yet.  I figured I'd get to know my department and then move up to lead, you know, progressively and then become the manager of my department and then, you know, round it out as the baby store manager.  How cool would that be?  I just need another six weeks.  But it has to be tomorrow and I have to have all of the answers for a guy that I barely know.  Wayyyy different than I anticipated.  No worries though.  It's all about a good night of sleep.

Speaking of a good night of sleep, there's no way I'm getting a good night of sleep!  A while back, I reviewed FTL in my own inimitable style.  And today, yes, I finally beat the game on the level of difficulty called EASY!  It only took, like, fifty tries too.  Well now, instead of being satisfied, I am driven to play it again with this quiet idea in the back of my head that I'm actually pretty good at the game...  A bunch of crap, of course, but there goes my evening.  Writing?  Bah.  Doing all the glorious things I planned to do after shedding those shackles from the old job?  Meh.

On to FTL.  This blog is totally getting in the way.  If you haven't played it yet, shame on you!

Upon the Composition of an Eight-Bar Loop

A good friend of mine invited me over to try out his music recording software etc. that he got a while back.  If I were a better blogger, I would remember what the software was called, but I don't.  So I will leave you to wonder...

Anyway, apparently the setup was a monster that drained much of my buddy's psychic fortitude.  He got so far along the process, getting all the components to agree that they all basically exist, learning how to set up inputs and record, but then just folded up and gave up.  I was there to break the ice with the difficult bitch of a recording setup and get some recording done.

Trust me, my buddy didn't recruit me because of any expertise in any of the relevant skills required.  I haven't played an instrument in years, I've never recorded, I'm not too up on the whole software / hardware aspect of things, and I haven't written a song in, well, ever.  I honestly can't say why he invited me.  In fact, thinking about it more, he didn't invite me.  I invited myself.  Hm.

Oo!  One skill I do have, I can pick a tune out on a keyboard.  I also have limited music theory knowledge.  It helped a little bit at least.  So I invited myself over and crashed his studio and after four hours of us basically futzing around, we had an eight-bar loop, made entirely on a midi keyboard.  It only has, uh, four tracks.  The first is overpopulated with bass drum, hand claps and synth horn section.  The second is a barren wasteland with six, only six! shaker shakes, though my buddy and me agree, they are pretty spectacular shaker shakes...  Then we have a left-hand piano track and a right-hand piano track.  That's it!  And really, our eight-bar loop could be condensed to four bars...

Sure doesn't sound like four hours of work.  This was a learning session though.  We didn't even know how to make a loop when we started.  Effects were not staying in line.  Inputs were being squirrelly.  I think we worked through all that crap though.

The more I talk about it, the more I wanna go back and work on more stuff.  Oh, and if my buddy could send me an mp3 of that loop, that'd be awesome.  And yes, I'd publish it.  I'm not proud.

Freedom? Heck Yes Maybe!

Freedom = Laziness + Technology Designed to Become Obsolete

At least in my case recently.  My phone did the Apple version of bluescreen, which was a silent little picture of a usb jack (obviously as the opposite end of the phone's charging cable) on the bottom, then a little arrow in the middle pointing away from the jack and towards the emblem of iTunes.

Dang it!

So I installed iTunes on my computer knowing exactly where this was going.  Yeah, it installed, but then it couldn't find my files related to it because months, MONTHS ago, my hard drive crashed and I've been delaying this day ever since.  Saw it coming, couldn't do anything about it.  With no backup ready, iTunes was going to wipe my phone clean with a reinstall of the operating system.  There goes everything.

Could this have been avoided?  Heck yes maybe!  Sure, I could've made an appointment (gag) with the nearby Apple store to have a Genius save my life (thank you Jesu- I mean - Genius!).  Passed on that.  Passed on internet, uh, research (still can't say that with a straight face) to find out if there was anything I could do to bypass the deathgrip iTunes has on it's relationship with my phone.  Passed on any sensible steps to manually save the information on my phone (spreadsheets!).  My laziness was so thorough, I didn't even try to transfer my contacts, etc. to my SIM card!  I mean, yeesh, any forensics lab would tell you that this guy just didn't care about backing his phone up.

And I didn't.  These last few days, I've been having fun trying to figure out who's texting me with the clues they send me.  I'm batting 1000 so far, no mean feat.  I'm answering every phone call, to which I am no longer accustomed:

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Uh, hey."

"Sup?"

"Is this Jesus?"

So yeah, the contacts are gone, the history is gone, the calendar is gone, but all those things need to be rebuilt every once in a great while anyway, right?  (this is what I call "defeat accommodation" )  There were contacts on that phone, many many contacts, that I could not even begin to guess why.  All that history?  Oh, that's what I texted to that one girl I stopped dating two years ago?  Awesome.  Good to know.  The loss of the calendar is kinda a pain, if only because I have to somehow figure out birthdays and anniversaries...  Wait!  Finally!  A use for facebook!

Technology changes what is required of us.  For the most part, I'd like to think for the better.  I'm of the generation, perhaps the generation on the cusp, that had to memorize phone numbers as a prerequisite to being social.  I'm not proud of the fact, or for whatever reason yearn for a return to those "simpler" times.  I'm just saying that right now I could rattle off several of my friends' phone numbers back in junior high without having any idea how to contact someone I've been good friends with for the last five years.

Is that progress?  Yes!  Does it make sense?  No!  I don't know how to call my sister right now.  How's that for hobbled?  But then again, should progress make sense?

Ptoo!

8:00am: Punched in on a shoestring.  Made it.  Do you have any memory at all at how awesome that feels when you actually still cared?  It's awesome.

9:00am: I spent most of the last hour up and down a ladder bringing product down to the floor.  If this job doesn't help me lose weight, nothing will.  But now it's time for the morning huddle.  Best chance of the whole day to make everybody laugh with the best chance of having something obvious to lampoon.  Oh, and the learning and pep talks too!  Oops.  During the discussion on why I'd need to do much more ladder work, I noticed I wasn't wearing a belt.  Dang.  I've never forgotten to wear a belt before.  It's just practical with the job.  Man.  I hope nobody notices...

10:00am: After two hours up and down a ladder, I'm less than presentable to the customers so I jet into the restroom to fix myself up a bit.  I yank out my shirt and undo my pants button to tuck it back in and PTOO!

There goes the button right into the urinal.  Oh yeah.  I also planned on peeing.  Hm.

Cut to supply closet - blue latex gloves - look of determination - snap snap like it's time to be a surgeon - tongue sticking out between the side of my lips - go into the trap of the urinal that never really flushed all that great since I started working there - flick the button around with the tips of my fingers deep in the pee-water until the button finally lands where I can grab it - pray pray pray that nobody walks in right now - throw the button into the sink and then panic that it will go down the drain - phew! nope! - carefully remove gloves - carefully! - toss - go to other sink and wash hands - look at button and regret removing gloves prematurely - pick up button and soak with soap - keep the water going until it's HOT - sear hands and wash button - drop it into pocket.

Shit shit shit.  No belt and no button makes for difficult customer service, when such service does not include the use of one's nethers.

So before I left to run home and change pants, I let everyone know why it is imperative to wear a belt to work.  I now have a bag of replacement parts, right here on my desk, right beside me, that I will take to work and put in my little cube locker I had no idea what to do with until now:

2 shoes
2 socks
1 pair o pants
1 belt
1 undershirt
1 shirt

I can just go camo or whatever if my undies are somehow ravaged...  check that.

1 pair o undies

Done.

Tardy

So I didn't write yesterday, but I have no good reason for it, so that's that.

Grape pop.  I am drinking scads of grape pop.  What's going on?  I haven't had grape pop in years.  Years! And to be honest, I wasn't really crazy about the stuff back then.

"No big deal," I said to myself.  "What's the harm?"

And then I looked at the nutritional values...  200 calories per can!  Not bottle!  200 calories per 12oz can...  Damn.  No wonder it's so good.  It's half sugar and half purple.

Whatever, just another bad habit to sweat out sometime when it's more convenient.

A convention of nightmares had their annual gala in my head last night.  I had dreams about being back at my old job, even though I knew I wasn't supposed to be there, dreams about vaguely remembered people in my life, circa high school, wandering around with me in a big church with absolutely nothing happening, and of course dreams about being chased by shadowy, clicking things that might be giant insects or robots or giant insect robots.  The chase nightmares are the worst.  I don't know who said that if you leave the awful things that are happening off-camera, the audience will conjure much worse things than would otherwise be shown.

I know that to be true, if only because I never really see the approaching, shadowy, clicking things that make me wake with a start, full of sweat.

Bad at Writing

So, I've come to the conclusion that I'm pretty bad at writing.  I'm really not getting anywhere with it.  I've got this story in my head and I can't get it out.  Whenever I try, it just sogs out and drops like oatmeal onto the floor.

I guess I'm talking about the difference between people who write and people who don't write.  Writers write junk and get better.  People who don't write, well, they wrote junk and quit, or, even worse, never wrote to begin with, the poor bastards.  So, much like this crappy blog, I gotta write a crappy story and make it better.  Coz that's what writers do.  And I want to be a writer!  I mean it.

So here's to writing.

Clopen

The clopen is upon us.  I just got home from work and am returning to open the store tomorrow morning.  I don't mind it much.  I will have the nice opportunity to clean up my own mess, which is all we need every once in awhile.  

So I was filling out a bank form online today to move some moneys.  God.  Damn.  It.  I say "bank", but what I really mean is credit union...  And credit unions are supposed to be awesome.  And they usually are.  Not today.

I have multiple certs o' deposit with them under one account.  I want to bust one before its maturity date because, you know, I work retail.  So I'm filling out the online form and it asks something like:

Amount of payment:

1.  Full account?

2.  Specific amount?

To which both I would answer "no".  But two "no"s is a no-no in this case.  Can't do it.  I have to answer either-or, when neither apply.  I want one of multiple cds broken...  It's not the full account and it's not a specific amount because I don't know what the amount will be after all the penalties and taxes are considered.  

Shoot.  So I'm overthinking it.  I should just go with one or the other and then claim ignorance when the taxman comes with his forceps.  Everybody does it every day.  I literally had to ring up someone with the same transaction five times today because they kept forgetting things, even when I asked them about it.  Four times, the answers to my simple questions changed in midstream and we had to start all over.  And remember, I work at a store that caters to parents.  Of children.  Baby human children.

Eve of Exhaustion

Can you feel it?  That burn and ache in your joints?  Shoulders, knees, ankles... even elbows and wrists and hips will occasionally cry out.  It's official.  You're back in the labor force, exchanging actual physical force for low wage compensation.  You're not complaining though.  Something in your mind, something tickling in the back there, is telling you that this is the most honest money you've made in a long time.

Don't get overblown about it.  What you do isn't noble.  But don't discount it either.  Remember how many times people appreciated your advice and expertise.  Remember how many time they were surprised by your recommendations and quickly convinced of your wisdom.  Remember the look of relief they had when, for once, you would be able to make their difficulties, real or imagined, completely disappear with a quick and easy solution.

In the last month, you have learned an entirely new set of skills and you have done so well enough to garner written notes of thanks from those you help.  And really, you're still just getting started.

Go to sleep.  It's going to be another long day tomorrow, and early too.  There are plenty of things to do but tonight, rest is on the top of the list.  This is the eve of exhaustion.

Ah, my public

Oh man.  I got to do some public speaking tonight!  It wasn't a big crowd but it was still fun.  The best part about it was that I was able to accomplish what I set out to do.  I sold the crowd ideas, unanimously!  Basically, I've been working on updating some bylaws for an organization I volunteer for and tonight was the night I got to pitch my updates to the membership.  I'm not going to say that it went off without a hitch, but as one person said to me later:

"You did that in the most interesting way possible.  Heck, I stayed awake."

High praise when you're trying to explain why seventeen changes to a set of bylaws that nobody ever intended to read in the first place are necessary.  If I can sell that, I can sell anything.

Speaking of selling things, I spent all day at the customer service desk today at work.  It's the one place where you have to know everything.  Added bonus: you have to plan a way to get a drink of water when you're at the customer service desk.  Needless to say, the learning curve is wearing grooves in the crinkles of my brain even now, hours after leaving the place.  I appreciated what a manager told me at the start of the day:

"See.  And you were all worried about running customer service by yourself Saturday.  And now, here you are, running it all by yourself today!"

She was kind enough not to mention how well I was running customer service.  The chance for practice though was good.  Saturday still kinda worries me.

I noticed today, off shift, that I was much more driven to make connections with perfect strangers.  I've never been very outgoing, but I think I'm becoming more so.  I can only attribute it to the new job.  I think it's a fantastic byproduct...

Chewed-Thumb Unlaunched Astronaut

So my computer fan (or should I say, one of my computer's fan...  Yes, I have two fans in one computer), has been intermittently making terrible, grindy noises that repair and retire from a good foot-thump to the computer's case.  Temporarily at least.  Anyway, the foot-thump isn't working as consistently these last few days, so as constant adventurer and doer-of-things-needed-done, I crawled under my own desk where the tower lurks and popped it open to see what was going on.  The fan rattles.  Check.  How to fix it?  I still have no idea.

After serious diagnostics, wiping the sweat away from my brow and resting on my back, I looked up to see the words

chewed-thumb
unlaunched
astronaut

written on the underside of my desk.

It's clearly in my own hand with block letters, written with a Sharpie pen on the unlaminated side of my cheap desk.  I have no idea when I would have written that.  But I know why.

I wrote it to surprise myself.  And I did.  Go me.

Long ago, in years that didn't start with composite numbers, photos were taken of a friend and me pretending to be astronauts.  They are excellent photos.  I wish you could see them.  Anyway, I know laying on my back after working on my computer's tower for a while might make me think of those photos (having been taken in similar fashion) and so, with mischief in mind, I might write those very words for myself when thinking the same things the next time I have a chance to do so.

Chewed-thumb?  Still to this day.
Unlaunched?  Absolutely.  Look at me.  I'm not going anywhere.  Making ends meet at best.
Astronaut?  The lynchpin that tied the message and the memory.

K.  But why can't I remember writing the message?  Well, I would invite anyone who knows me to relate how unbelievably awful my memory is.  It's horrendous.

At least I can play a joke upon myself with a weakness I possess.

And so I say, well played me, well played...

Monthiversary

So, a month's gone by since I quit my old job, which seems to be my constant preoccupation with this blog (believe me, when I find something better to write about, I will.  I just have a fantastic hang-up with this transition, currently).  Summing it up, I'd give the change positive marks, though the draw-backs are becoming more obvious as time goes by.  Writing is up.  Money is down.  Personal relationships up.  Stability down.  Exploration up.  Confidence down.  It's the trade of my safety and complacency for some adventure and change... which I've always dreamed as a better way to live life.

What I did not foresee are the costs of adventure and change.  More on that another time, perhaps.

In other, better news, I have taken the first steps towards writing something that I want to keep.  It's a story that I've been kicking around in my head and on loose sheets of paper and scraps of Word files (and yes, glorious, glorious Excel) for nearly a decade.  I think I've found a form for it that finally locks in and makes sense to me.  I hope I do it justice.

In some other, not so better news, my desire to design a boardgame has fractured into about twenty different pieces and I don't have the discipline to focus on one project right now.  It's sad really.  Something in my head tells me that I could make a fun game in about a week, but I just can't see a single project from start to finish without getting seriously distracted.

But I can't set it aside, because if I do, then quitting my old job would lose meaning.  And that bothers me a whole bunch.

Rescheduling

Okay.  I'm new to this and everything.  I thought it would be cool to post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  But, it turns out, I do my writing at night when the sun is gone and I'm inside (weird).  Anyway, I'm thinking Sunday night, Tuesday night and Thursday night are better times for this thing.

Truth be told, even writing this much on a Friday night seems like a perfectly worthless use of time.

Chicco is Eye-talian

I was learning about strollers the other day.  So, this guy who's giving me this whirlwind tour of all the differences between all these strollers that I'm supposed to be an expert on (very soon) caught me off guard:

"I really like the Keeko line," he said.

"The what?" I said.

"The Keeko line," he said.

"The Chicco line?" I said.

"Yeah," he said.

"Wow, I was saying that wrong in my head," I said.

"Yeah," he said.  "Everybody does.  It's Eye-talian."

"Ah," I said.

And I just kept my silence and the conversation continued naturally.

Yes, it's true.  I refrained from mentioning that "Eye-taly" is truly a wonderful trade partner with eye-ntristing eye-nports...  And the fact is, I didn't even have to try to hold it back.  I just noted it and stored it away to be snotty about it in this blog.

So, thank you blog!  I have become slightly more agreeable to those semi-forced to interact with me (eye-nteract) by not being a full-bored word-snob dick because I know I can just use it as fodder in my next blog with the added delight that I can claim that I'm not such a dick because I didn't call out the mistake at the time.

Wait.  That doesn't sound so good now.  Ah well.

In other news, my old employer still does not officially recognize that I no longer work for them.  This is day 28.  Oh those rascals!  I wonder if they'll send me another paycheck!

In other, other news, my family suddenly got the idea that they'd like to visit, serially and soon.  At least it's not en masse.  However, the state of things, household-wise, doesn't really lend itself towards family visitations...  Perhaps that's another thing I should focus on with this weird new life of mine...  Perhaps.

Insight?

Ah, the warm whisper of a long overdue insight...  Nothing like it really.  I was at a cash register today, getting trained.  The process of accepting and qualifying and categorizing and prioritizing and inputting and marking and filing coupons was explained to me.  It should be noted that certain coupons cannot be used for certain types of items and certain brands.  Certain coupons work on a single item while other coupons work on the entire purchase while some wily coupons of a very bastardly breed work sometimes on a single item and sometimes on the entire purchase depending on the circumstances at hand.  Manufacturer coupons are treated like cash at the end of the transaction.  Competitor coupons are honored as one of our own, though not necessarily if the customer is also asking for a price match.

I nodded happily.

"Any questions?" my trainer asked.

"How much of this do we humans have to keep straight?" I asked.

"All of it," she said.

"I see."

And in the back of my head there sprouted a little nugget, much like a seed, that spread black tendrils both fine and piercing through all the little spots in my brain that allowed me to take these rules seriously.

"Ah," I thought.  "I bet I'm giving the same dead, off-center stare to my trainer, right now, that I have seen from coworkers for the majority of my adult life...

"More work required from me because they (management up-and-ups, what-have-you) lack the skill to automate the work, well, it doesn't actually make me angry.  It just makes me not care.  Sure, I'll try to get the rules right.  But if I don't...  Who cares?"

If they cared about the rules, they'd simplify them or automate them or both.  But they don't care about the rules and neither do I.  They will say they care.  They will actually think and believe they care.  I know.  But they don't care.  They don't care because they have to follow the same rules when they run a register.  That's one thing that I LOVE about this new job compared to the old job.  Management is neck-deep in the crap right with the people on the floor.  It is a business structure to which I am not accustomed.  It is a business structure toward which I feel myself naturally gravitating.  But there is no way that the managers are keeping the coupon-rules boognish straight in their heads all the time along with everything else they are required to know.  It's too much.

But, those stares I got from my old coworkers on the floor for all those years...  I tried to explain why we "couldn't just" this or that as much as I could.  It never worked.  They gave me that dead, off-center stare that I always thought was a polite way to conceal anger.  It's not.  It's a positively honest, dead, off-center stare that shows the brain engaging the clutch and drifting into neutral.

It's so obvious now.

No Reason

There are an infinite amount of reasons to figure out what has happened to us in every way.  And, without any reason or belief, I'd say we're wrong almost a million percent of the time.  Isn't it great?

Up Early, Little Sleep

This day was bananas.  From the word go, it repeatedly smashed my surprised and oblivious face over and over into the hard surface of reality.  Up early, little sleep, making moves to satisfy the ever growing branching list of things I have to do and people I need to talk to and problems I have to solve.

Poor old me, finally growing up.

"Satisfy" is a word I know how to spell correctly even though it is obviously the wrong way to spell it.

In an interesting turn of events, I have been earnestly advised in the last 24 hours by no less than two of my long-time friends to pretend to be gay.  Needless to say, I am taking their advice to heart.  Why not?  Pretending to be gay could be interesting.  The only thing I'm worrying about of course is, well, the, you know, the hours of upkeep it'll take to pass off as a gay guy.  Every gay guy I know is put together and obviously cares about how they look.  I lack these qualities.  If I were a girl, pulling off the gay fake would be so much easier.  I know lesbians that make the expectations of straight-dude fashion sense look elite.

At a dog park, where my pup likes chewing sticks, a dedicated couple of lesbians (though not married, oh no, could you imagine what sorts of awful stuffs would happen if they could legally acknowledge their commitment to each other?  Why, the divorce rate of this country would most likely plummet as quickly as our nation's worldstage relevance!) and I were chatting it up.  One was looking handsome.  The other was looking like an extra from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure mated with the lint that clogs up your clothes dryer enough to set the house on fire.  Anyway, as the hapless straight guy, I couldn't help but think that many improvements would be made if the second lesbian would just tuck her shirt, uh, up, and then nearer to her, and then back down, you know, behind the pants...

What I'm saying is that I couldn't possibly pretend to be a gay guy because I'm much much closer to being a lesbian in many ways.  There.  I said it.

Anyway, it's not like my two friends suggested that I pretend for no reason.  They're just trying to find a good way to manage the requirements of the job I'm still training for.  Of course, it's much more interesting to me to not take their advice and see what happens.  That's what I'll do.  It might be a gear-shift without a clutch, but who remembers the smooth transitions?  If nothing else, I might see some interesting sides to a good slice of my local community.

A Poorly Written Review for Something Awesome

FTL: Faster than Light is a video game that I can get behind.  It was made by two people.  Music by another.  Writing help from some guy.  Four total.  And the game is awesome.  The graphics are a throwback and the controls are a little tricky and uninspired, but the game design is solid and most importantly, it's fun.

I don't know if the kids remember Diner Dash anymore, but FTL is kinda like that, but in space with missiles called Artemis and little crewmen called Engi.  There are more things to do than resources at hand and the fun comes from prioritizing disaster.  The game really hooks into the logic center of the brain.  Success means you are a good planner and multitasker.  Failure?  Well, don't quit your day job yet, simian, coz those stones aren't really that sharp.

Probably the biggest drawback so far is the fact that I haven't found a savepoint yet.  Maybe I'm missing something, but now is the age when people demand the right to save their progress in a game anywhere and everywhere.  Then again, I got the game for my PC @ $8.99 and it doesn't seem to be set up for mobile app-hood anyway.  I'll deal with it because this is a solid game and it validates the sometimes sketchy Kickstarter model of business.  Buy it!  I got my copy from Steam.  If you don't know what that is, I can't help you.

Largest Font Size

Largest Font Size

Well there it is.  Now I know what the largest font size is, at least for this blog.  After I quit my last job, I was sure that I would be energetic and purposeful and accomplishing things at a frantic clip.  That just ain't so.  Heck, I'm barely making a blog post here.

Today has been a complete and utter waste.  I have done so close to nothing that it would be embarrassing to to mark the difference.  But that is what tomorrows are for.

Little Time and Less Time Now

God help us and tell me that I'm wrong, but doesn't it bother anyone else that we all have little time and less time now?

I spent time today folding corrugated flaps of cardboard like a wizard.  I have all the inconsequential scratches and gouges on the inside of my forearms to prove it.  

Oddly enough, while socializing after work, a friend called me out on a bruise on my arm that I couldn't explain.  I apologized.  At the same time, I wondered if I could intrigue her with all the nicks and scoops I had on my arms as well.  

The moment passed.  

Here's my problem: I don't hold to the modern social norms that physical work is dirty work.

Here's my other problem: I don't have a good enough set of skills yet to make physical work profitable.  I need a trade.

Here's my other other problem: I don't have the patience to learn a real trade...  I might have to become, yeesh, an artist...  Whatever the fuck that means...

And Day 1 Again

So, I'm going to sit tight on some thoughts about how embarrassingly easy it was to get a job and instead focus on job: day #1 [no, it didn't take all last week to do it... in fact, it took all of six hours...  I didn't have time to write last week... I just was otherwise preoccupied... (videoGAAAAAMMMMEEESSSS)].

Anyway, job: day #1 was awesome.  But I don't mean to be biased.  This is a blog after all, and not worth its weight in electrons if it doesn't follow journalistic standards like, uh, raising hell and reporting news and taking a fair and balanced approach to stories.  

Job: day #1 was purportedly awesome to some.  To others, perhaps not quite so awesome.  There.

Pro: the little pregnant trainee beside me at one point said while our trainer was away: "If I don't get to go soon, this little man is gonna crawl out of my... woman parts... and go for me!"  I did not edit for content.  That's what she said word for word.  She wasn't talking about leaving the store.  She was talking about urinating.  

Con: the vending machine was out of both Coke and Pepsi.  This didn't bother me in the least, but there was plenty of uproar from others.  Sunkist Orange Pop quickly worked its way up to the rank of "ugly kissing cousin" in my mind, simply because everyone was grabbing it and grumbling before smashing it to their thirsty lips.

Pro: everyone at that damn store is as nice as peaches!  On the outside at least.  But who cares?  I'll take it!  This is quite the change from my old place of employment, where a sullen stare was the best one could hope for because it, at least, was not dripping sarcastic fatalism with the pointy end pointed at your guts.

Con: everyone at that damn store is as nice as peaches.  I have spent the last decade of my life pickling in a hostile workplace brine.  If these teeth aren't dulled quickly and quietly, I might face an uphill battle towards, oh, interacting on any level with my new coworkers.  I'm now the rusty garrote in the pile of strawberries.  Sure, the strawberries might be poisoned or at least fake, but they're strawberries!

Yes, I will work on my metaphors.  Check.

Pro: in five short hours, I learned everything I never knew about selling something.  Man, this information is applicable.  Of course, my dark mind see uses for this power far beyond the original intent.  How have I come this far in life without realizing the algorithm of manufacturing and satisfying desire in less than two steps?  How?  It's impossible!  But now I know... it's not not impossible...

Con: I feel a bit brainwashed.  It's nice because I don't mind.

Enough.  Overall, I dig this new job.  I figure, after adjusting for the hours I put in for my old job versus my current hourly rate, I'm making (as a rate) only 60% of what I made before, but I'm not going to see the hours I saw before, nowhere close...  That's the salaried American's dilemma:

You can figure out that your $80K salary job is shit because you put in 70 hours a week.  For an hourly worker, that would pay 85 hours worth of wage with time and a half overtime.  Now you're seeing that your $80K job at 40 hours a week gives you $38.46/hr.  Not too shabby.  But at 85 hours a week, it gives you $18.10/hr.  Less than half!  Yuck!

And you think about the kind of jobs that make a straight-up $18.10/hr.  Here's the news, those jobs are hard to find, unless you've got yourself a trade, and even if you do find one (no trade involved), you probably won't be getting 70 hours of work a week.  

Yeah, you put in 60 to 80 hours a week, but it's steady.  I'm scheduled for 10 hours of training this week.  That's it.  I have to learn the new math fast.  60% rate at a quarter of the hours does not bring the chow home to puppy, if you know what I mean.  It's a mean world out there.  Time to get to work finding other work than work, it seems.

Aaaaand... Day 2.

There was very little enjoyable sleep last night. Anxiety and fear are not good bedfellows. A dream of ex-girlfriends packed in a seaside resort, and me with no pants, and not a one of those old flames in the least bit interested in that fact, well, it doesn't take Jung to figure that one out. Heck, he'd probably get it wrong because it's so obvious (and him so dead).

Up at a quarter after five this morning. Made myself coffee for the first time in months. I'm not sure caffeine is the thing I need, but the warmth is good. Also, slight relief, my last paycheck cleared this morning. Hooray! There are very few worlds in the realm of possibility that would have denied me my check. All the same, it was one of my major worries yesterday.

Me: But what if HR puts my paycheck on hold? How will I pay my mortgage?

Me: Dude, don't worry. They won't do that.

Me: But what if they do?

Me: Dude.

On to worrying about bigger and bolder things...

PS Thank goodness I remembered how to create paragraph breaks.  That business was wigging me out yesterday.

So.

So. I really did it this time. I quit my job. A decent paying job at that. Walked out. No replacement job waiting for me. Mortgage to pay. Bills to pay. I must be insane. Right now I am scared as hell. This hormonal wash my body is providing me feels exactly like a very bad break up. Enough about that though. It's time to move, and move I shall. There's a lot of things for me to do in this world and none of them have anything to do with going to that job everyday (and I mean EVERY DAY) and rolling into a ball of stress every night. Nope. It's time to get a cheap bike, lose 40 pounds, maybe work at a book store, count my loose change, and find a way to do everything I should have been doing these last ten years. Note: what I should have been doing was to not resort to very bad behavior as a way to release all the bad feelings I got from work. My jerk days are over. That much is for sure. I am a new man. Scared as hell. But ready to see what I can actually accomplish.