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...