Hell Temp

Yesterday was my last day in the shoe section of the Crap Factory. For the past few days, I've been going from meeting to meeting, trying to explain to people the work I've been doing and what next steps they need to take after I'm gone. (They always look terribly sorrowful when they hear I'm leaving; I always act distraught and ready to rend my clothes with grief that I have to go.) So for the last few days I've been the Temp With Nothing To Lose.

It's fun when there are no worries about being fired. I'm the temp who's been there for two whole weeks, and I'm totally running roughshod over the meetings and everyone in them. They graciously allot me an hour to sum up the last two weeks' of extensive work and the next three months' of stuff they'll need to do, and then try to spend the next 54 minutes of my time yakking about bullshit. You wanna yak? Go to Tibet. Hell Temp says work now, babble when I'm gone.

It was great. Everytime someone went off topic, I beat them with information, grabbed them by the hair and dragged them back to the Pertinent Cave. Socialize with someone who likes you, we've got work to do. I was all over the projector, whipping up screens full of necessary information like a crazed shoe-zealot who went to prison and found Sneaker Jesus or something. (Oh Mary, Mother of Espadrilles, hear our prayer). I was Donald Trump minus the comb-over and the penis envy.

Maybe it's working with Junior High School Students, but I suddenly lost all patience for diplomacy in the face of immaturity. I realize that these people must continue working together, and so for them, being polite, reaching for consensus, avoiding conflict -- these things have value. When you've already packed the contents of your desk in your backpack and can literally count the minutes till final departure, then it's hell bent for leather and Katie, bar the doors. "This is what you're going to do," I told them, on the strength of two-weeks' knowledge and experience. "Not that. This. This is what you've been doing wrong all along. This is how I've set you on the path to rightness. Don't screw it up; I'm not coming back to fix it again."

Even the Shoe Fairy couldn't keep up. Now, he was a challenge, but Hell Temp never shirks a good fight. Shoe Fairy is well over 6 feet and has a voice that manages to be simultaneously shrill and booming. That boy goes to 11. That's OK -- Hell Temp goes to 13. We had those flimsy cubicle walls rattling with the sheer force of our dedication to each being louder than the other. Shoe Fairy thinks it's OK to have unisex shoes. Hell Temp disagrees. Hell Temp says it makes sense to have men's shoes in the men's section and women's shoes in the women's section, even if you have to list some shoes twice or thrice, even. Hell Temp doesn't like the "industry convention" of listing men's sizes as the standard and women's as the deviation. It's messy to have a "size 9" and a "women's size 9" in the same size listing, but Hell Temp graciously accedes to having a "Men's 9, Women's 11" which is what she was shooting for in the first place.

I whirlwinded through my last few days like the Tasmanian Devil on meth. I cut through meeting-babble like a hot knife through tofurkey, leaving bodies and bruised egos in my wake. I wasn't deliberately unkind (except for treading on the Shoe Fairy's Weejuns, smoked hickory, Men's size 11), but I brooked no bullshit. And when my replacement arrived, I dumped it all in her lap, apologized for the remaining chaos and headed for the door like Sneaker Jesus himself had ordained it. Hallelujah!

Nothing More Humbling than a How-To

I was perusing some sites this morning that offer great advice on how to become a professional blogger (don't worry -- I'm not going to ask you to pay for this crap), and one bit of advice I came across over and over again was that One Must Build One's Portfolio. Very well. My portfolio is a little lean on acceptable blogs for job hunting, so, I thought to myself, I'll just quickly cobble together an article or two, toss them into the old 'folio and fling them at target blogjobs.

One sample article should be a "how-to," according to the advice-givers. Fine, I thought. I can do stuff. I'll just sit right down and write myself a set of snazzy instructions on something fun, worthwhile, low-fat and environmentally friendly. It took me almost a full minute before I asked Toasty for help.

Turns out, I don't know how to do ANYTHING. Seriously. I have somehow bumbled along to nearly-40 without mastering a single skill. Now that's impressive. (How-To Survive on the Kindness of Others? No . . . )

I'll write a how-to on climbing! Yes! I refuel my brain juice (coffee), flex my fingers, crack my knuckles, and . . . hmmmm. OK, where to start? Gear? Technique? Terms? I decide to dive in and figure it out later. "So you want to start rock climbing," I type. Ugh. But I soldier on, thoughts of job offers dancing in my head. "First, you'll need a partner." How do you get one of those? "Try posting a notice at your local gym, or failing that, hang out at popular local crags. Unless, of course, you live in a crag-free area like vast portions of the midwest in which case, you're on your own." Not terribly helpful.

I witter on like this for another 150 words or so before giving up. What I really know about climbing is that singing helps when you're scared and never do a double rappel with Ed.

As ever, Toasty comes through in a pinch. He gave me a great idea for a post (which I'm not going to share as I may post it here later), and while it'll require fairly extensive research in order for me to look like I knew how to do this all along, it is at least an idea that'll work.

How to Pick a Fabulous Boyfriend and then Exploit Him for All He's Worth. by me.

Habits

I've decided to start smoking and tell people I'm trying to give up chewing gum.

Bye Bye, Crap Factory

Well, so much for my perfect arrangement of "freelance in the morning, work part-time at soul-snatching, life-sucking Crap Factory in the afternoon." The glorious arrangement that allowed me to (pretend to) be an artist without the starving part lasted a total of . . . one day. The Crap Factory giveth and it taketh away. Apparently it was just kiddingeth. They gave me the old "40 Hours or Else" ultimatum, and I told them where they could dunk it. Ok, I actually pretended to hem and haw for 24 hours, I "thought about it," I "gave it serious consideration," and then I sadly, with great reluctance and a private happy dance in the disabled stall, chose "or else."

The decision actually took about 24 nano-seconds, but I wanted to let them down easy.

Seriously, the junior high kids are nice. They offer me bubble gum and candy necklaces and they invite me to sleep-overs and try to trade my veggie burger for the pb&js their moms made them for lunch, and my boss says we're "like, best friends forever!" but as soon as I finish signing all the year books tomorrow, I'm outta there.

There have been great things about the job. Like, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a paycheck soon. And as I'm culling their on-line catalog (that's what I do -- I cull the catalog) I occasionally come across things like the Disney 4-pk High School Musical Panties which cracked me right the heck up there at my stupid desk. Or today's Friggin' Pants. Not just any pants, mind you, but Friggin Chino Pants! Or the Prissy Sandals! Seriously, is no one paying attention but me? Am I alone on this, or are these fucking hilarious?!

But, as Toasty mentioned and DK seconded, the job has been a gold mine for bloggable moments. The other day I decided to take the bus to work. As usual, I was running pretty late, so I quickly made myself a scrambled egg sandwich and raced out the door. I hurried several blocks to the bus (nearly having to do a self-Heimlich at one point when a chunk of egg tried to wrestle its way down my windpipe), jumped on the bus and thought to myself, "Did I turn the stove off?"

I dithered. I called my upstairs neighbor to go check for me, but she wasn't home. I'd have to get off now or the bus would carry me away. No one was around that could help and I wasn't about to enlist poor E. to save me AGAIN. So I got off the bus and hoofed several blocks back to my apartment. (Hey, I have cats. If I leave the stove on, the next thing I know, they'll be stir-frying a tufted tit-mouse in there or something.) I race in the door only to discover that yes, I did actually leave the stove on. I shut off the stove, lock the back door which I've just discovered is open and offer up gratitude to the universe. But now I'm going to be late for work. It's my first day of working part-time, and I REALLY don't want to discuss the fact that I'm running this late to be at work at NOON, just shaddup about it, I know, I know.

Anyway.

The only option now is to ride my bike. It's raining, I don't have time to locate my rain gear and change clothes and pack up the good clothes, blah blah blah, so I just change into my bike shoes, loop one of those goofy velcro thingies around one ankle and take off. Halfway down that giant hill by PacMed/Amazon.com, I discover that my brakes aren't really working very well (translation: not at all) on this wet day, so I do a semi-truck-style-escape-route and duck into the Amazon driveway which is mercifully free of traffic. I scoot up their drive (speed dropping now from world-is-giant-blur to world-is-hazy-plus-my-glasses-are-foggy-and-covered-in-raindrops-which-might-explain-some-of-the-haze), zoom across the front of their building, and rocket out the other side. OK, not the greatest strategy, but I did slow down a little bit, at least. I manage not to broadside any of their shuttle buses, and I'm off and racing down the hill again, this time on the east side. My brakes still aren't gripping too well, but I'm late and don't care anymore. After all, the Crap Factory awaits!

I was 3 minutes late to work. I was dripping, sweaty, red-faced and incoherent, but I was (nearly) on time. Never mind that I nearly splattered myself against the far side of the parking garage because it's a pretty steep ramp to get down there and my brakes STILL haven't dried out. Never mind that I'm soaking from the knees down and my bike shoes make squealing sounds like maybe I store cat toys in them. Never mind that I still have to navigate the three elevators and two escalators it takes me to get to my desk in this building that's more paranoid than a pot addict in a room full of mirrors. As I grumbled and squeaked and dripped my way to my desk, I comforted myself that this was great blog fodder.

I won't miss the job. But I will have to go back to making shit up.

Tea Badging

So, there I am, first day at my brand-spanking-new temp. job. I'm already feeling those stomach quakes of, "dear god, this is going to suck, what did I let myself in for," but I'm gamely ignoring them for the moment.

After staring at the same spreadsheet for a couple of hours, I decide to wander to the kitchenette area for a cup of tea. (I love how companies give you lousy jobs at crap pay, but the "free tea!" and "free hot water!" are always enthusiastically pointed out on the introductory tour.) I have on my proper plastic ID badge, suspended around my neck by a neon purple string, so that I can move about the company at will, unchallenged. The color of the badge identifies me as a temp, so I can almost feel the smug as I move through the endless, twisty corridors.

After fruitlessly consulting the map on the wall and finally asking directions, I locate the kitchenette and, shortly thereafter, the Free Tea! and Free Hot Water! I make my tea and wander back to my desk. This takes some time. I wish they had Free Sherpas! to guide us around the bloody place -- the layout was apparently designed by an agoraphobe with a grudge.

Back in the office, I stand taking orders from the junior high school student who is nominally my "boss" and will be, until I throw myself off the building. We've been chatting for several minutes before I realize my fingertips have stopped sweating and I can probably take a sip from my tea now. I raise the cup to my lips, only to discover that my badge has been resting in my tea for god-knows-how-long. There is a neon purple bridge between my neck and my cup. Embarrassed, I dunk my badge in and out of my tea a few times and then pretend to squeeze it, trying to make a joke of the stupid thing I've just done.

The junior high school student is horrified.

I am clearly damaging precious company property. I apologetically dab the plastic badge with a napkin (the JHSS has handed me several, plus she's trying to shove an entire box of Kleenex down my shirt) and go test it on the nearest door. No harm done.

It's not like I poured my tea into the DVD slot on my computer or dunked my laptop in it. It's a cheap, plastic badge with an appallingly bad picture on it. I guess it's too much to ask that these people develop an even rudimentary sense of humor about such things. My first thought when I realized my badge was soaking in my tea? This is so going in my blog.

This Cubicle Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us. So I'll Leave.

OK, I've been in the corporate world for a grand total of . . . . carry the 9 . . . two days. And already there's a major brouhaha a'brewin', and I'm just to the left of the thick of it.

Actually, it has nothing whatsoever to do with me, except that I was sitting at the "temp's desk" (the one with cigarette burns and the drawer that only fits on its runners upside down) waiting to be given an order by someone 2/3rds my age and desperately trying to keep the "I have a Master's Degree so fuck off with your photocopies, thank you" off my face.

I've been in the office for about 11 minutes when in storms a man who embodies every single gay male stereotype we all love to hate, right down to the be-tassled loafers and the lisp. He liberally doused the office with indigation-fueled spittle, literally put his foot down (I've never actually seen anyone do that before, it's an oddly precise gesture), made several squealing noises and hit someone with his purse before storming back out again.

I work in shoes.

Not literally in shoes, although I am wearing a pair at work, but I mean I'm working in the shoe department. I had to sheepishly admit today that I have no idea what "espadrilles" are and whether or not a Croc (sp?) qualifies as a "loafer" or a "slide." When I was 10, I knew what a slide was. Now I come to find out I was mistaken. My world fails to crumble.

But back to the drama. There was some hissing of the sort that tells you that somewhere nearby there's a Japanese person who's very very angry. Office drama is kind of funny, though, because the normal weapons of conflict are missing or inappropriate. You can't slam a door when you're exiting a cubicle, or you're liable to bring the entire rabbit warren down in a sort of cheap, tweedy domino effect, cubicle walls bouncing off the shiny, sweaty heads of middle management. You can't shout because then other people will know the actual terms of the debate rather than the hastily whispered, hugely apocryphal water-cooler version. You can't throw things because, hey, we're all professionals here; I'll just bad-mouth you to Suzy during recess instead.

I've been in academia a long time. I don't want anyone to get the idea that there are no dramas there; there are plenty of dramas. It's just that teachers, particularly part-time college teachers, rarely see each other except when our breaks happen to coincide or at once-a-quarter staff meetings where we all ignore the boss and pass notes about each other. Our dramas always happened, therefore, in super slo-mo, and by the time we got around to the next opportunity to snipe at each other, we'd all forgotten what the incident was about and whose turn it was.

So what will I do for drama if I actually manage to get this freelance writer career thing going? I suppose I could tell one cat lies about the other, but that has limited traction. They usually gang up on me, playing turd football in the living room while I'm trying to concentrate. I suck at turd football, and they know it. They always pick me last.

In case you're wondering how the story of the livid shoe fairy turned out, well, it's not over yet. Like a daytime soap opera, story lines at the office rarely come to a conclusion, they just morph into new story lines. By tomorrow he'll likely be falsely accused of murder shortly before discovering that he's really a prince of some tiny island nation which is actually filmed on a back lot somewhere in Hollywood, and his despotic twin brother will come to the office to kill him but he'll accidentally kill some nameless, innocent bystander who's incidental to the soap opera and therefore disposable. Someone like. . . .

Shit. The temp.

Sugar and Spice and Sensible Shoes

So some very good friends of mine lent me the DVDs of The L Word. Toasty and I curled up on the couch this weekend and watched the pilot episode (1 & 2) and episode 3. So far I like it, although there are so many women in it that we're going through that whole "getting to know you phase" of having to ask each other, "now, is that the one who's trying to get pregnant?" and "hang on, I thought the curly haired one was the sister of the dark-haired one?" And it's a bit like coming in on a conversation in progress. There are already dramas and histories in play here, and I have to figure out why the sisters are mad at each other and the tennis player is such a flaming neurotic. Obviously, I don't have their names mastered yet (except Shane, whose name comes up about every eleven seconds), but it's refreshing not to be able to designate any particular woman just by saying that "she's the lesbian."

So in episode 3 (and watch out -- spoiler coming) the neurotic tennis player finds herself attracted to the sous chef at her club. The sous chef is a woman, naturally, and so begins the mystery: is she or isn't she?

(A little side note here on generational differences: I can't imagine my mom asking herself, now, before I get into all this, is George straight or gay?)

Friends of the tennis player agree to help and secretly put the suspect sous chef through a whole range of tests, checking her fingernails, her shoes, her walk. Said sous chef comes down pretty firmly . . . on the fence. She's not androgynous or secretive or anything like that, she's simply not giving anything away. It was pretty funny hearing them run through the list of things I would assume were sort of offensive stereotypes: short hair, trimmed fingernails, the ever-popular sensible shoes. So I couldn't help but wonder where I'd fall on the Straight <----->Lesbian spectrum of social clues.

I realize that Toasty is a bit of a give-away, but without him in the picture, how good would I be at deflecting gaydar?

I have short, often ragged fingernails (I'm a rock climber, and I wear contacts and don't enjoy poking my own stupid eye out). I rarely wear skirts or dresses, mostly because my lifestyle and my job don't require them. I have long hair (one for the "straight" column). On the show, they "tested" the sous chef by kissing in front of her. She didn't flinch, but neither did she stare. Now, this one I kind of object to. I find all excessive PDA uncomfortable, straight or gay. I don't flinch (usually), but neither do I stare. It seems unfair to me to assume that anyone who flinches is doing so from homophobia rather than just from being -- like so many of us -- awkward around tongue-wrestling couples of any description. Anyway, I am not polished or fashionable or particularly concerned about my hair or my makeup. Sorry, Toasty. If we're speaking in stereotypes here, I'm looking a little lezzy.

But I'm really interested in what this says about straight women and lesbian women. We're very quick to categorize, mainly, I think, because we're too lazy or scared to find out the truth through, oh, I don't know, actual human interaction. If you're really so desperate to find out information about a person -- straight or gay, liberal or fatheaded, rich, poor, smart or stupid -- it is possible to do this novel thing called "getting to know someone." If I'm that curious about a person, then I should ask. It's time to stop being so sensitive about labels. It's not an insult to call someone a lesbian, so why should it be awkward to ask them if they are?

And yet it is. Asking a stranger outright about their sexual orientation (I love that -- it makes it sound like we're all running around in the woods looking for flags that say "straight" or "gay") would brand me instantly suspicious. What are my motives for asking? Do I want to eliminate them as a friend, employee, partner, living human being?

I liked the way the show dealt with the question. The sous chef knew she was under scrutiny, so she put all doubts to rest by shoving the tennis player against the lockers and giving her a kiss that ended the debate. (Of course she was a lesbian -- in this section of LA, they're all lesbians, and the straight women are a little thin on the ground.) While I prefer my own "getting to know you" activities to involve a little more conversation prior to the locker-shoving, lip-chapping tongue-lock (and FYI, folks, not all my getting-to-know-you conversations lead to that), it was cute and funny and sweet in a rather aggressive sort of way.

So, there you go. When it comes right down to it, we're all still using the same old set of tired social cues to determine whether or not someone's worth getting to know. But at least we're now aware of our tired social cues and looking to expand the lists a little.

And speaking of gaydar, I knew she was a lesbian back when she was still excited about her yogurt.

I Don't Care What Color My *&#%ing Parachute Is

As long as the damn thing opens.

So, last week I did one of those half-brave, half-stupid things about which epic ballads are never written. I quit my jobs. All of them.

On the strength of several people telling me I have a modicum of writing talent (not all of them related to me or friends with me or owing me money), I gave up both my day jobs and my night job. It's Wednesday of the first week of being gainfully unemployed, and I'm starting to panic.

While being without a steady source of income is something of a family tradition, I'm not terribly comfortable with it. I make fun of my wee little cave, but that doesn't mean I want to lose it. I'd suck as a homeless person. Remember the toilet incident and the subsequent I-can't-believe-I-have-to-pee-in-the-park meltdown? Now try to imagine me carrying around all my earthly belongings, my two fat cats, and trying to find a place to plug in my electric toothbrush that also has WiFi. It just wouldn't work. And what would Chase Manhattan do with my cave, anyway? Open up a very tiny, very dark, very cramped Beacon Hill branch?

So I'm feeling a bit stressed. Stress is a funny thing. It's a bit like having an annoying roommate of the kind that sneaks up behind you and jabs you in the ribs when you were having an otherwise very nice afternoon. It lurks around dark corners and hides in the "balance" column of my checking account keeping-track thingy. It makes me hungry, then totally puts me off my food, and it turns me into a snapping turtle every time poor Toasty fails to be appropriately sympathetic.

Tonight stress made me go for a run. Actually, I made me go for a run, because I like to think of myself as the kind of person who, when stressed, does something like jogging. This fantasy version of myself is at constant war with my real self who wants to put on her jim jams and fold up on the couch, weeping into a mutantly oversized bowl of popcorn.

But, if I tally up the pros and cons, the yays and the boos, in the end I'm still coming out ahead. I won't be commuting this fall, which means I can put my rabid, mouth-frothing, screaming, cursing but still admirably articulate driver-self on hold for the time being. I won't be teaching, which means I'll probably like people generally a whole lot better. I'll be able to spend more time with the people I care about, maybe even go jogging from time to time.

And who knows? I might just end up with the job that was worth getting all stressed out for.

Putting the Tic in Domestic

My cousin and his girlfriend are coming up for a weekend visit. You can tell that I like these people because I'm cleaning my apartment.

I don't clean. Occasionally I get these mad fits of tidying where I scurry around tucking the debris of my life into convenient holes, but mostly I live in a fairly generous mess. I don't mind it too much; it's the nature of living a rather over-sized life in an under-sized space. (By "over-sized" I mean that I have enough gear to outfit the 2010 Olympics, if they don't mind sharing.) But sometimes the mess gets to me.

When I have to move my ski boots and the huge Tupperware container that holds my scuba gear in order to clean out the cat box (oh yeah, and roll the bike over to the other side of the room), I start to get annoyed. As puffs of cat hair waft up around me, leaving me the center of a swirl of tiny, black, furry clouds, I contemplate getting the girls laminated. I do not understand the mute attraction of toothpaste and reflective surfaces and how my bathroom mirror can be clean one moment and look like the ground at Madison Square Garden after New Year's the next. Why do furballs congregate under the table legs? Why are cats only sick on absorbent surfaces?

Every time I have to shove several somethings out of the way to get to the something I was going for, I contemplate moving. I have to fight my way to the shoe section of my closet each morning, not because I have so many clothes, but because it is very nearly the only storage space I have. It becomes easier to just leave the shoes out of the closet: running shoes in the bathtub (they're dirty, it make sense), bike shoes to the right of the couch; boots to the left. My flip flops near the back door for easy access when feeding the guest cat. Slippers wherever I last left them. My living room is a shoe slalom.

The worst is the paperwork. I bloody hate paper. Piles of the stuff are heaped up everywhere. I never know when it's OK to throw something away. I've had this light bill since 1997; I've moved four times since then. Am I allowed to throw it away? Must I shred it, since it has my name and my address-four-times-removed on it? I have a shredder, but it's "home style," which means it can just about hack its way through a receipt from Safeway, but ask it to shred actual paper and it chokes and whines and coughs through it before spitting out a paper that's not so much shredded as neatly creased along vertical lines.

And don't get me started on "environmentally friendly" cleaning products. Now, I'm a dedicated greenie with the bike scabs to prove it, but seriously, people, this stuff is crap. It's "environmentally safe" because it's water. Yes, it is "safe:" grit, goo, sticky patches, unidentifiable bits of crunchy matter have nothing to fear from this stuff. I spray it on, liberally dousing whatever alien substance has landed on my countertop, give it a second or two, then pass a rag right over the top of it. The cleaner doesn't even penetrate the top layer. I douse it again, thinking, generously, that perhaps I missed. Perhaps I was unable to spray accurately from a three-inch distance. The goo is not only undaunted, it is downright smug. It's a barnacle that I'm trying to loosen with Silly Putty. I keep the green products around only to maintain my environmentalist credentials, but when no one's looking, I bring out the stuff with the skulls and crossbones, the stuff that smokes a little when you open the lid, the stuff that requires gloves and a mask, if not a full-on hazmat suit, the stuff that says "use only in an adequately ventilated space." It cuts a wide, vicious swath through the dirt (and possibly the top layer of the surface I'm cleaning). It is the scorched-earth policy in the domestic War on Counter Nubbins.

My cousin just called and is on his way. This is unfortunate. When I clean, I take breaks. I have to. The label on the cleaning fluid says so. My last break was about 30 minutes, meaning I'm 30 minutes behind in my cleaning. So please excuse me while I find some empty places to shove shit into.

"Cultural Traditions" We Can All Do Without

1. harpooning whales
2. infanticide of females
3. ritual circumcision of either gender
4. suttee
5. burkhas
6. hazing

Why do we have this idea that because something has been done for hundreds or thousands of years, that that automatically makes it acceptable? There are so many bad behaviors that hide under the title of "tradition," safe from scrutiny and utterly immune to change.

This is by no means a complete list, it's just what I can think of right now, a few minutes after an NPR report on five testosterone-poisoned sons of bitches who went out and tortured and killed a gray whale, calling it their "cultural tradition," as if that somehow made it worthy of our respect or at least our tolerance.

Fat chance, fuckers. There are lots of evil behaviors in every culture that must be wiped out. Cultural blindspots happen, but when they are finally nudged into our line of vision, it's time to look closely and see what it is we're thoughtlessly preserving. Is it worthy of our efforts to hold onto it? If not, it's time to let it go.

To contact the responsible tribe and make your anger known, here's the contact information.

Makah Tribal Council
PO Box 115
Neah Bay, Wa
(360) 645-2201
makah@centurytel.net

Even My Mother Thinks I Should Sell Myself

Ok, so I've been job-hunting, pretty seriously, since about mid-January. I've written dozens of cover letters, each intended to be the definitive statement on Me and Why I'm Wonderful, each more an apologetic "sorry to make you read this, but I'm looking for a job would you mind reading it, so sorry, thank you." Obviously, I have yet to master the fine art of Selling Myself.

If these were the old, pre-tech days, I'd have a trash can full and overflowing with wadded-up rejects. I tried the humorous approach ("I am an editor who can ferret out mistakes like a pet up a pantleg"); I tried the ultra-professional angle ("I am highly intolerant of errors and vigilant in maintaining voice and message"). I went with conversational and friendly ("I'd love to join the staff of your nature magazine and be a writer of environmental wrongs!") And I briefly considered employing guilt ("I went to school for six years and all I got was this lousy temp job.") I am now bordering on the desperate ("My mother thinks I'm smart.") The whole thing has me so stressed out, I'm actually dreaming about zombies. Zombies. Who dreams about zombies, for crying out loud? It's not like anyone actually wants my brain, for eating or otherwise.

It's not that I truly think I'm pathetic and have nothing to offer. On the contrary, I probably have a little too much faith in myself (blame my most excellent friends who give me so much praise I'm lucky I can lever my bloated head through the front door of the Pub). Perhaps I am aiming a bit high, jobwise. But I also witness sub-standard writing a million times a day: poor grammar, terrible spelling, a complete inability to put a cohesive sentence together. And that's from the president!

So it's back to the drawing board for me. Back to lists of "power words!" (developed rather than did; facilitated over helped; consolidated in place of put together in a big pile; allocated instead of stuck an underling with because I'm too lazy to do myself). Back to deciding between the assertive "Thank you for your time; I'll call next week to arrange an interview" and the modest, "Thank you for your time; I look forward to hearing from you soon" when in fact what I really mean is, "I can do the effing writing job, note the accurate use of semi-colons; call me as soon as you get this, and let's talk compensation" (rather than money).

Wish me luck. Or advocate an expedited, successful resolution. Whatever.

Silent Knight Wholly Crappy Night

My fire alarm is trying to kill me. Or at least it's trying to get me fired.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the fire alarm supposed to help people? I mean, at the very least, isn't it supposed to sit there quietly, minding its own business, until there's something to get worked up about, like, say, a fire? Either the fire alarm system in this building has been planted by nefarious Republican sympathizers who don't like me blog-sniping at Bush et al, or it really thinks firemen are cute.

Three times last week my fire alarm system got lonely and bored and called the fire department to entertain itself. It did this Victorian romance-heroine swooning thing, all helpless and save-me, save-me. If it had eyelashes, it would be batting them; if it had a bosom, it would be heaving. My fire alarm has a thing for men in uniform, and it knows how to bring them around in numbers.

So, as the firemen got crabbier and crabbier about being dragged over in full battle-regalia just to push the "reset" button, we called in the alarm people, and they fixed it. . . . .

Or did they?

This morning, 3.30 a.m., the beast awakens again. And this is where it's really clever: it doesn't do the full-on klaxons blaring, lights flashing, we're-all-going-to-die floor show, it just starts beeping. Shrilly. Just beyond my bedroom door.

I am a bad sleeper. I've never been good at it. It's fortunate I didn't go to kindergarten because I would have flunked Napping for sure. I wake up easily and frequently and can count on one hand the number of times in my adult life that I've slept clear through the night. I fall asleep easily, but staying there is the hard part.

So when the fire alarm starts bitching, I leap from bed and race to my front door. (Beebee, the dumber of my cats, does her usual self-preservation thing of diving under the bed and heading for the center.) The fire alarm box is in the front hallway, just beyond my bedroom wall. There's no smoke, no heat, no flames, no nothing, just a screeching alarm box. The words flashing across its screen are "failure . . . . information lost." Well, hell, I forget things too, but that doesn't mean I call in the cavalry.

I stand at the front door, waiting for the firemen to arrive. They don't. No one is disturbed by the alarm but me -- no heads poke out of doors, no one comes out, rubbing sleep from their eyes, ready to leap into action and help me shut the bloody thing up. I am alone with this shrill, beeping, Alzheimer'd horror of an alarm system.

After half an hour of wrapping a pillow around my head (right up there with writing a protest letter to the government and sending out my resume for favorite acts of futility), I get fed up and go back out to get a phone number so I can call the alarm people. There are no phone numbers. There are no names. Nothing. But, in a great burst of unintended irony, I discover that the brand name of the system is . . . wait for it . . . "Silent Knight." This makes me laugh out loud, though my upper lip is so curled with disgust I nearly sprain something.

Back inside, I look up Silent Knight in the phonebook. There's a number, so I call it. It takes a couple of tries for the call to go through, but finally I reach this poor guy who was obviously asleep. I feel bad, but it passes. He patches me through to the monitoring service who put me on hold for about fifteen minutes and then hang up on me. I feel much safer: I have an alarm that goes off for no apparent reason and a monitoring service that can't be bothered to monitor. This happens twice. I give up and wrap the pillow around my head again.

Finally, at 4.45 a.m., the fire department shows up. It's the whole dog-and-pony show again as they pull up with two (2) trucks, trudge in with all their gear and oxygen tanks, and almost immediately trudge back out again. This alarm malfunction, they say, is beyond their control. Even pressing the almighty, all-powerful Reset Button is not going to work. Not this time. To bring back the peace and restore sanity to the land of Condominiuma, we must seek to find . . . the Code. Seven digits which, when typed in in proper order, will save us all. The tromping of pissed-off firefighters has finally alerted the rest of the building to the fact that Something Is Going On (though it's really Nothing At All), and the guy from the top floor arrives.

He is the Keeper of the Code.

But -- he doesn't know where It is.

In a move similar to ducking under a desk during a nuclear attack, I wrap my pillow around my head again and try to survive. Ok, that's really nothing at all like desk + holocaust, but at 5 a.m., it kinda feels like it. I now have a gonzo whopper of a headache, and I'm supposed to be at a new job in Bellevue by 8.15 (don't get excited, it was just a temp. job). The top floor guy apparently undertakes a Quest for the Code, because about 45 minutes later, the beeping mercifully stops. I manage to drop off to sleep a full and restful 45 minutes before my alarm is due to go off. The alarm I set. The one that goes off when it's told to. I'm considering taking my bedside alarm out into the hallway and having it give the fire alarm a good talking-to.

I made it to the temp. job on time and managed to ingest enough liquid sleep in the form of coffee to survive the day. But the next time the firemen show up for no other reason than because my fire alarm is bored, I'm gonna have to borrow the ax.

Another One Bites the Dust

(Thanks to All Hat No Cattle for this unauthorized use of their picture.)

It's bye bye, Bertie, and it couldn't happen to a more deserving guy. With Karl Rove also exiting, one gets the mental image of rats scurrying off a ship that is not only sinking but making that giant sucking sound as it goes under.

The Life Outside My Door

Those who know me at all know I'm a critter person. Finned, feathered or furry, I love 'em all. (I'm not crazy about the multi-legged, antennae'd crowd, but I'm working on it.) My friend E. calls me "Jim" from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, and to a certain extent, she's right. It can have fangs flashing, hackles raised, deep-throated growling going on, but if it's furry, finned or feathered, I'll likely try to make friends with it. And since I still have all my fingers (attached -- not, like, in a jar next to the bed), I reckon I've been pretty successful so far.

I dig critters. I can't help it. Some people are addicted to gambling. Some people have this deep biological need to spawn. Some people live in Springfield, Illinois. There are lots of inexplicable behaviors out there -- this is mine.

When I was 19, I gave up eating critters because I just couldn't do it anymore. The Donner party may have started in my home town, but I, for one, don't eat my friends.

But everything, and I mean everything, eats cat food. Who knew? It must be like manna from heaven, this stuff, because it's rare that I walk by my backdoor and there isn't something out there, face down in the bowl I leave out for my "guest cat," Siam. And after dark, it's even crazier. I have now learned to recognize the different crunching sounds made by cats, raccoons and opossums. (The stellar jays don't chew, so them I recognize when I hear what sounds like a herd of old ladies bitching about the service.)

My cats -- the indoor-only ones -- love to sit, perfectly safe, inside the gated back door and stick their perfectly safe tongues out at the raccoons. The raccoons, when finished with all the cat food, wrap their tiny little hands around my gate like prisoners who have been extraordinarily rendered to my back door. They can usually wheedle a second scoop of Purina for their efforts.

I try not to feed the critters too much. I don't want them to get dependent on me (except for Siam, who has a disability and can eat at my door as long as she needs), and I don't know if cat food fulfills all their nutritional needs. It's a little like Halloween, actually; they come around with their masks and knock politely, and I give them some treats and warn them to be careful and look both ways if they're planning to cross a street any time soon.

Hey, if you were that cute, I'd give you cat food too.

Rove Goes!

Karl Rove is set to resign by the end of August, so the race to destroy what little of America's democracy is left is on.

Apparently, and I know this is going to come as a shock, Rove is resigning to spend more time with his family. As excuses go, this one is thinner and less credible than Posh Spice. I realize it sounds better than, "I'm hoping the Democrats won't try to indict me on my many crimes, so I'm hightailing it to some island with an inbred, drooling, monkey-faced monarch I can manipulate and without an extradition treaty," and since when has Karl Rove ever opted for the truth? He leaves office as his entered it: with a smug smile on his face, a ready lie on his lips, and George W. Bush's testicles still firmly gripped in his white, doughy, fat little hands.

I'll celebrate anyway.

I'll celebrate even though his resignation will be as meaningless as his pledge to support the Constitution. I'll celebrate despite the fact that he'll still have a white-knuckled grip on the reins of power, and the Dems in Congress have so far proved unable or unwilling to undo the vast damage he has done. Why the yippees and the confetti?

Executive privelege. Civilians don't have it.

It'll be interesting to see if the Dems. have the will to go after Rove. Everybody knows the man is evil and his plan to attack Iraq was probably hatched over a bubbling cauldren of boiled virgins. Just because the "architect" of this murderous, misbegotten house of cards is resigning doesn't mean he's no longer responsible for what he set in motion.

Rove isn't going to sit quietly in Ingram, Texas, after all; he'll be on the phone daily, issuing orders, making threats, leaking names. It's time to hold the man accountable, and if he won't obey subpoenas, then we send an officer of the law to go get him. Yes, he's going to stick his tongue out and go "nyah nyah nyah" and try to hide behind the White House and executive privelege, but he's an ordinary citizen, despite the horns and pointy tail. Go get the bastard and put him in jail, if he won't comply. We have the power and the authority. If you have to wait until September 1st to get him out from behind Cheney's skirts, then fine. We've waited through 6 1/2 endless years; we can do another 18 days standing on our heads.

So, as Karl Rove emerges from the White House, head covered to avoid direct sunlight, we will begin hearing the voices which will no doubt be raised in nauseating praise of his commitment, his loyalty, his unwavering determination to support George W. in all his nefarious schemes. As he joins the swelling ranks of former Bush MisAdministration officials, he will be lauded by the last remaining neocons as a true patriot, a genius, a warrior.

Stomach-churning though that praise will be, we'll get through it with our eyes on the prize: he's leaving. And that's got to be good.

Now, who has Dog the Bounty Hunter's phone number?

Smoked by an Angel

OK, so have you ever pointed to a thick trail of smoke in the sky and said, "That's my smoke right there. That smoke's for me"? I'll bet not. I have. And here's why:

On Saturday, BF Toasty and I had planned to ride our bikes to the I-90 bridge to watch the Blue Angels do their annual thing of buzzing around noisily and generally being REALLY FRICKIN' COOL. Now, I'm as anti-militaristic as they come, and generally people in uniform had better be bringing me my mail or otherwise effing off, but I love the Angels. Can't help it. The noise, the speed, I love it. I would love it less if they were dropping bombs on my house rather than flying really really close together to impress me with how really really close they can get without whacking each other out of the sky, but there you are. So far so good.

Anyway, Toasty had stuffed his oversized bike into his car, and now the two were more thoroughly joined than a pair of amorous weimaraners.(fahrfegnugen!) He did a lot of tugging, I considered throwing a bucket of cold water on them, and by the time he got them apart, the Angels were already in the air. Too late to bike to our usual vantage point, we opted for cold drinks on the roof of my building.

I live on Beacon Hill, and my building has a sweet open rooftop deck from whence one might at least see the Blue Angels turn around. (It has to be a pretty nifty piece of machinery for me to be excited to see it turn around, for crying out loud.) So we stood and watched the Angels make a cul-de-sac out of a bit of sky over our heads.

At one point, the formation of four looped out from the lake, made a giant U-ey out of Elliot Bay, then headed back, my building dead ahead. They were coming straight at us, and me being the major Angel-hag, I started jumping up and down and waving. And then. Oh, then. Just as they came at us, the number four guy at the bottom of the diamond shot us a second's worth of smoke.

There's no smoke like Angel smoke, baby.

So, to the pilot in jet #4, the guy who would be playing 2nd base if this were a baseball diamond tipped up at home plate, thanks for the hello, Blue Angel style. You have no idea how you made my day.

Pen Snob

a Westminster Teal by Conway Stewart. One of only 100 made in the model of the original pen.

OK, and I don't really want an answer to this question, but what does it say about me that I have a "loaner" pen? I realized this the other day when one of my students asked to borrow a pen. I brought out my cheap Japanese pencil case (which I NEED -- it keeps the pens from stabbing holes in my pricey, posey, Timbuktu I'm-a-biker bag so just shut the heck up), dug through the pens in there, and was genuinely relieved to discover that I had a loaner.

The loaner, just like at the auto shop, is the crappy one. It's your basic narrow-barrelled ballpoint snoozer pen. It has no character, no vibrancy, it's just a pen, and I likely stole it from some place dull like a bank or one of my many schools. It may write perfectly well for years and years, or it may inexplicably stop writing in the middle of the next sentence. "Inexplicably" because you can't see the ink cartridge inside it, and you can't exchange it for another. It is, above all else, disposable.

The other pens in my case are these: a fabulous ultra-fine-tip marker bought at a Japanese store in Alderwood Mall. (My Japanese students always have the best pens.) I have a disposable fountain pen which I use only sparingly because of its transient nature. I have a mechanical pencil that uses the finest lead. You know the kind -- you look at it too hard and the lead snaps and puts out the eye of a boy across the room. These are not loaners, so don't even ask.

OK, even I acknowledge that my attachment to my writing instruments borders on the obsessive, but let me ask you this: what do you have that you won't loan out? Bloggers, let me hear it. Commentors, you too.

Incidentally, my loaner pen, the one I handed over to the kid in my class on Monday, never came back. Today's Friday. Having a spare loaner means I don't have to hunt the kid down and snap pencil lead in his eye.

Butt of Course

Bush to have colonoscopy at Camp David

Millions plead with doctors to locate and remove:

1. Bush's brain
2. John McCain's nose

Open Letter to Michael Vick

You don't just deserve suspension from the NFL. You don't just deserve jail time in the decades and fees in the 7 digits. You deserve a baseball bat to the side of the head. Repeatedly.

I'm not ordinarily an advocate of violence, but your behavior puts you right at the top of my People Who Desperately Need Six Kinds of Shit Kicked Out of Them, momentarily displacing Dick Cheney, which is a feat.

I sincerely hope that your professional life is over and that one day I see snaking pickles out of my toilet. I've got a bathtub and a toaster with your name on them.

For No Particular Reason

Was reading on Bladio Blogio a list of things which make her feel better on a slow-moving Monday. As I'm having a drag-your-feet Wednesday, I thought I might post up a picture that makes me laugh.

This is Beebs. Her name is actually Blackberry, but I doubt she's ever heard anyone call her that. She's always been Beebee or The Beebs. I call her my cheerleader cat -- cute, but a little ditsy and not the sharpest claw on the paw. If she had gone to high school, she would likely have been voted Most Likely to Be Startled by Sunrise. But she knows the value of a sunlit belly, and that's no small thing. (and neither is her belly, but she is on a diet)