IPOD
RADIO
Well, I hate to supersede my fun blog about hangin' with Thora but time marches on.
Coke is getting to be brutally hard work. Wednesday I had to take two pallets of soda down a long flight of stairs and I'm still healing up from that. My boss says that when they redo the routes and schedules I won't have the three day weekends. The three days gives me more time out of the shadow of work. If I had two/dayoff/two/weekend it wouldn't be quite as intense a four day physical crush but the single day off wouldn't be much as I'd be haing to go to bed early for my 345 wake up alarm.
Yesterday in the super crappy weather a tanker truck carrying jet fuel went off the road on 91 in chicopee and the driver was burned over 70% of his body. But still lately I see guys driving around home heating oil and propane trucks and It strikes me that that job really might not be too bad. Yeah you're working in all weathers and a lot in the fall when I'd like to do some hunting, and you can get laid off in the summer. But that would agree with me actually. I'd like to a summer vacation and take a bike trip across the usa and have a job to go back to when that was over with.
It's totally improper to talk about your personal finances but I've a streak of not giving a fuck about social graces. I did my income taxes last week and found that in 07, when I worked 11 out of 12 months, I made 23,517 dollars. One does not need to put oneself 5500 in the hole for trucking school to be able to make 23k a year. Probably most pizza delivery people equal or beat that. I hate money and i think that if god exists, he's sent his only son in the form of money this time around and he totally fucking hates me. To add injury to insult the IRS decided to count the difference of what I saved when I settled a debt with a credit card company as income and the tax on that eats up most of my income tax return.
Last night at the open mic I forgot the words to one of the songs I like to play. I'm getting past my stage fright problem but I didn't know how tired I was until I blanked on the song. But there were other songs I could still do. I often think that one of the horrors of work is that it reduces you into something that can't do anyting else but work. That is being more negative than necessary though. It would have helped if I'd just headed down to barnes and noble and grabbed a nap in one of the overstuffed armchairs. Tonight I'm going to a party of someone who plays the open mic who's celebrating her divorce. One disadvantage of being less pathologically introverted than I once was is that I now somewhat know people who don't have cars and thus I find myself having offered someone a ride to the party, which creates a vexing restriction on my schedule if that person proves to want to go. Which now that I've typed it out does seem a totally stupid thing to whine about.
But the last thing I'll whine about is that my fretting hand fingertips are really sore from tossing the soda around. Something about the short fingernails. Whatever.
Max offers everyone a purr of contentment, and of lassitude.
jbl
Coke is getting to be brutally hard work. Wednesday I had to take two pallets of soda down a long flight of stairs and I'm still healing up from that. My boss says that when they redo the routes and schedules I won't have the three day weekends. The three days gives me more time out of the shadow of work. If I had two/dayoff/two/weekend it wouldn't be quite as intense a four day physical crush but the single day off wouldn't be much as I'd be haing to go to bed early for my 345 wake up alarm.
Yesterday in the super crappy weather a tanker truck carrying jet fuel went off the road on 91 in chicopee and the driver was burned over 70% of his body. But still lately I see guys driving around home heating oil and propane trucks and It strikes me that that job really might not be too bad. Yeah you're working in all weathers and a lot in the fall when I'd like to do some hunting, and you can get laid off in the summer. But that would agree with me actually. I'd like to a summer vacation and take a bike trip across the usa and have a job to go back to when that was over with.
It's totally improper to talk about your personal finances but I've a streak of not giving a fuck about social graces. I did my income taxes last week and found that in 07, when I worked 11 out of 12 months, I made 23,517 dollars. One does not need to put oneself 5500 in the hole for trucking school to be able to make 23k a year. Probably most pizza delivery people equal or beat that. I hate money and i think that if god exists, he's sent his only son in the form of money this time around and he totally fucking hates me. To add injury to insult the IRS decided to count the difference of what I saved when I settled a debt with a credit card company as income and the tax on that eats up most of my income tax return.
Last night at the open mic I forgot the words to one of the songs I like to play. I'm getting past my stage fright problem but I didn't know how tired I was until I blanked on the song. But there were other songs I could still do. I often think that one of the horrors of work is that it reduces you into something that can't do anyting else but work. That is being more negative than necessary though. It would have helped if I'd just headed down to barnes and noble and grabbed a nap in one of the overstuffed armchairs. Tonight I'm going to a party of someone who plays the open mic who's celebrating her divorce. One disadvantage of being less pathologically introverted than I once was is that I now somewhat know people who don't have cars and thus I find myself having offered someone a ride to the party, which creates a vexing restriction on my schedule if that person proves to want to go. Which now that I've typed it out does seem a totally stupid thing to whine about.
But the last thing I'll whine about is that my fretting hand fingertips are really sore from tossing the soda around. Something about the short fingernails. Whatever.
Max offers everyone a purr of contentment, and of lassitude.
jbl
Hey Folks
This sunday I had the rare pleasure of meeting the gorgeous vampiress, Miss Thora Zine!
'Twas the Blacksun Festival down at Yale University in New Haven Connecticut. Blacksun is a great gathering of goths for the purpose of listening to music and various other fabulous activities. When I got down there before meeting up with Thora I joined up with a Goth photo Safari.
We wandered around the Yale campus a bit.
Photographing goths atop monuments
And looking lovely on various building structures
Chaining each other up in graveyards
and hanging from trees
There was a blond girl getting more attention than the red haired girl but I thought the latter was markedly cuter. And her boob popped out a couple of times when whe was hanging from this tree and that in of itself was enough to qualify the day as a fine one indeed.
I also found Othniel Charles Marsh's tombstone in that graveyard. He was a famous dinousaur digger in the 19th century and very nearly as cool as a goth girl with a boob popping out a bit.
Later on when I met miss Thora Zine we discovered a shared appreciation for art
Anyway, Thora is an exquisite creature, much like the cats we both appreciate.
At one point we were wandering from one venue to another and I got a cell phone call from my mom who wanted to talk about what we'd be doing for my birthday, which is thursday. She asked where I was and I said I was down in New Haven hanging out with a friend from california. If she asks again I shall say it was with a friend from college or something. It could get complicated to explain in detail exactly what I was doing hanging out at a goth festival with a dominatrix from california who I know from a nudie website and with whom I mostly converse about cats. Not that I can't do that sort of thing, it's just culturally a bit outside my mom's sphere.
We hung out with some friends of hers from the band Attrition. The british pronunciation of the word "dork" is hilarious but the brits don't apparently use it.
Well anyway, I just sit and smile despite myself looking at all the pictures I took that day. Lucky I charged my batteries. Times like that come to an end much too soon. I'm still just a dork but I like that sometimes I manage to break out a bit and have a good time with interesting people, even when I'm not a fabulous mixer. A thousand thanks to ScotyRock for letting us crash at his place.
My cat max has an eye infection. He doesn't care for the treatment plan, but them's the breaks. I think maybe i should cover up the keyboard on my laptop with plastic because he likes to roll in dirt outside and a lot of it gets on my computer when he walks over it or sits on it or rests his chin on it while I'm typing which is precisely what he's doing right now as I type this.
Good night folks. Hafta turn in to be up at 345 to give max his eye ointment and then head off to work. Next week I'm going to be going out solo and I'm rather nervous about the spectacular ways in which I will doubtless screw up. Whatever. Onward and upward.
smooch smooch
Liz
This sunday I had the rare pleasure of meeting the gorgeous vampiress, Miss Thora Zine!
'Twas the Blacksun Festival down at Yale University in New Haven Connecticut. Blacksun is a great gathering of goths for the purpose of listening to music and various other fabulous activities. When I got down there before meeting up with Thora I joined up with a Goth photo Safari.
We wandered around the Yale campus a bit.
Photographing goths atop monuments
And looking lovely on various building structures
Chaining each other up in graveyards
and hanging from trees
There was a blond girl getting more attention than the red haired girl but I thought the latter was markedly cuter. And her boob popped out a couple of times when whe was hanging from this tree and that in of itself was enough to qualify the day as a fine one indeed.
I also found Othniel Charles Marsh's tombstone in that graveyard. He was a famous dinousaur digger in the 19th century and very nearly as cool as a goth girl with a boob popping out a bit.
Later on when I met miss Thora Zine we discovered a shared appreciation for art
Anyway, Thora is an exquisite creature, much like the cats we both appreciate.
At one point we were wandering from one venue to another and I got a cell phone call from my mom who wanted to talk about what we'd be doing for my birthday, which is thursday. She asked where I was and I said I was down in New Haven hanging out with a friend from california. If she asks again I shall say it was with a friend from college or something. It could get complicated to explain in detail exactly what I was doing hanging out at a goth festival with a dominatrix from california who I know from a nudie website and with whom I mostly converse about cats. Not that I can't do that sort of thing, it's just culturally a bit outside my mom's sphere.
We hung out with some friends of hers from the band Attrition. The british pronunciation of the word "dork" is hilarious but the brits don't apparently use it.
Well anyway, I just sit and smile despite myself looking at all the pictures I took that day. Lucky I charged my batteries. Times like that come to an end much too soon. I'm still just a dork but I like that sometimes I manage to break out a bit and have a good time with interesting people, even when I'm not a fabulous mixer. A thousand thanks to ScotyRock for letting us crash at his place.
My cat max has an eye infection. He doesn't care for the treatment plan, but them's the breaks. I think maybe i should cover up the keyboard on my laptop with plastic because he likes to roll in dirt outside and a lot of it gets on my computer when he walks over it or sits on it or rests his chin on it while I'm typing which is precisely what he's doing right now as I type this.
Good night folks. Hafta turn in to be up at 345 to give max his eye ointment and then head off to work. Next week I'm going to be going out solo and I'm rather nervous about the spectacular ways in which I will doubtless screw up. Whatever. Onward and upward.
smooch smooch
Liz
Well hello
About time for an update, maybe not too much to report. Like last time I'm still real concerned about keeping up with the workload when they turn me loose solo. My brother has not been able to keep up with his loads and has brought stuff back to the DC having been unable to finish.
Friday I bumped into an electric company truck who parked right behind me just after I got into my truck and I didn't see him. There was literally nothing behind me, I back up to go around the car parked in front of me, and Bam! WTF? I couldn't see him out the driver's side mirror, Fortuantely it was a very minor ding on his bumper and the driver didn't give a crap because it wasn't his vehicle. Lesson learned, always assume some idiot is going to pull up right behind you when you're not looking, and always leave yourself room in front of where you are to get clear of your parking space.
That cold I had really got around, lots of people didn't do open mic last week apparently. I still have some snot generation going in my chest and an ugly scabby spot where I got my cold sore from kleenex rubbing on my lip. Maybe you'd find it more rewarding to read someone else's blog, but you got this far.
Since I've nothing really meaningful to report, I'll wrap max in a scarf and take pictures of him.
After some initial perplexity about what to do about about this scarf thing, he comes to accept it and his tranquility remains imperturbable.
About time for an update, maybe not too much to report. Like last time I'm still real concerned about keeping up with the workload when they turn me loose solo. My brother has not been able to keep up with his loads and has brought stuff back to the DC having been unable to finish.
Friday I bumped into an electric company truck who parked right behind me just after I got into my truck and I didn't see him. There was literally nothing behind me, I back up to go around the car parked in front of me, and Bam! WTF? I couldn't see him out the driver's side mirror, Fortuantely it was a very minor ding on his bumper and the driver didn't give a crap because it wasn't his vehicle. Lesson learned, always assume some idiot is going to pull up right behind you when you're not looking, and always leave yourself room in front of where you are to get clear of your parking space.
That cold I had really got around, lots of people didn't do open mic last week apparently. I still have some snot generation going in my chest and an ugly scabby spot where I got my cold sore from kleenex rubbing on my lip. Maybe you'd find it more rewarding to read someone else's blog, but you got this far.
Since I've nothing really meaningful to report, I'll wrap max in a scarf and take pictures of him.
After some initial perplexity about what to do about about this scarf thing, he comes to accept it and his tranquility remains imperturbable.
cough cough sneeze sniffle cough
It just might have been sand
It might just have been sand
It might have just been sand
It might have been just sand
Virus got me. I don't think I was sick a day in the whole year I was out over the road, not during my last two months not working waiting on coke, then I get a virus that makes me call out day two of my new job at coke. I understand this isn't a great sort of first impression to make at your new job. Went to work yesteday morning but I didn't do open mike night. My guitar playing isn't quite strong enough to stand on its own without at least my usual umimpressive 1.5 octave vocal range.
Coke isn't too bad, except for hauling things upstairs on a hand truck. Doesn't entirely agree with my back but then I've been doing nothing for two months. The job isn't too hard with two guys doing a route, a train er and ee doing the work of a single man, but I'm a little worried about keeping up when they have me go solo. My brother works there. He just started being a solo driver after working there a long time doing merchandising
and then getting trained on driving the trucks.
It's a little disconcerting how small a space you can get into with a 35 foot trailer and a single axle day cab truck when you're used to the monsters I've been driving around this past year, that are a good 20 feet longer.
One thing that worries me is that sometimes apparently they'll put a day's work on a 45 foot trailer, my trainer called that a nightmare to manage, and he's won at least one truck rodeo that he mentioned. Truck drivers' needs are too often ignored by all kinds of people, who plow up heaps of snow or park vehicles or come up with other ways to obstruct drivers from doing their jobs. We have a problem in that we all have the same skill set and we can be replaced in a heartbeat if we don't like what's going on in a given position, so noone finds it necessary to make any accomodations for us.
Well, my antisocial evening turned into a social one after all when a friend of mine up in canada noticed I was online and we had a nice instant message conversation, or whatever the correct term is for doing that on google.
It just might have been sand
It might just have been sand
It might have just been sand
It might have been just sand
Virus got me. I don't think I was sick a day in the whole year I was out over the road, not during my last two months not working waiting on coke, then I get a virus that makes me call out day two of my new job at coke. I understand this isn't a great sort of first impression to make at your new job. Went to work yesteday morning but I didn't do open mike night. My guitar playing isn't quite strong enough to stand on its own without at least my usual umimpressive 1.5 octave vocal range.
Coke isn't too bad, except for hauling things upstairs on a hand truck. Doesn't entirely agree with my back but then I've been doing nothing for two months. The job isn't too hard with two guys doing a route, a train er and ee doing the work of a single man, but I'm a little worried about keeping up when they have me go solo. My brother works there. He just started being a solo driver after working there a long time doing merchandising
and then getting trained on driving the trucks.
It's a little disconcerting how small a space you can get into with a 35 foot trailer and a single axle day cab truck when you're used to the monsters I've been driving around this past year, that are a good 20 feet longer.
One thing that worries me is that sometimes apparently they'll put a day's work on a 45 foot trailer, my trainer called that a nightmare to manage, and he's won at least one truck rodeo that he mentioned. Truck drivers' needs are too often ignored by all kinds of people, who plow up heaps of snow or park vehicles or come up with other ways to obstruct drivers from doing their jobs. We have a problem in that we all have the same skill set and we can be replaced in a heartbeat if we don't like what's going on in a given position, so noone finds it necessary to make any accomodations for us.
Well, my antisocial evening turned into a social one after all when a friend of mine up in canada noticed I was online and we had a nice instant message conversation, or whatever the correct term is for doing that on google.
All dressed up and no place to go.
Tonight I showed up at my friday night guitar playing place and it was closed due to inclement weather. Wimps. I even brought two guitars because there's always somebody breaking a string or showing up with no instrument that wants to play.
I guess I've just been the usual me lately. Wanting to buy things I don't need. Worrying about money and bills and such. At least it looks like Coke is coming through, been playing phone tag with some bureaucrat about my start date. The character of Coke initially seems very much to be the massive slow bureaucracy that was described to me. At least it's a four day week albeit with ass-early workdays.
Also the Jazz band that I like to go see on Saturday evenings isn't getting together this weekend of the next, so It's going to be a rather musically sparse weekend I guess. But with the fresh snow there should be some good pictures to go out and find. Unfortunately the aperture on my 4x5 lens is hanging up and needs repair when I have a little cash. I still have my RB to fall back on. It's even heavier than my Speed Graphic though. Maxes out what my tripod can support. And the 120 back often acts a little funky.
Lizardo wants a DSLR. A sony to use them Maxxum lenses on. Vexing question as to how much you want to spend to be how current in the technology. Get a 10mp A100, ($600)or a 12mp A700?($1200) Also dpreview.com just had a report that sony's just announced a 24 mp sensor, so should I wait for that to appear in a camera, and how much is that going to cost? and what will be on the horizon then?
Whatever. I guess me not rambling about my neuroses makes for a short blog.
aleikum salaam
Liz.
Tonight I showed up at my friday night guitar playing place and it was closed due to inclement weather. Wimps. I even brought two guitars because there's always somebody breaking a string or showing up with no instrument that wants to play.
I guess I've just been the usual me lately. Wanting to buy things I don't need. Worrying about money and bills and such. At least it looks like Coke is coming through, been playing phone tag with some bureaucrat about my start date. The character of Coke initially seems very much to be the massive slow bureaucracy that was described to me. At least it's a four day week albeit with ass-early workdays.
Also the Jazz band that I like to go see on Saturday evenings isn't getting together this weekend of the next, so It's going to be a rather musically sparse weekend I guess. But with the fresh snow there should be some good pictures to go out and find. Unfortunately the aperture on my 4x5 lens is hanging up and needs repair when I have a little cash. I still have my RB to fall back on. It's even heavier than my Speed Graphic though. Maxes out what my tripod can support. And the 120 back often acts a little funky.
Lizardo wants a DSLR. A sony to use them Maxxum lenses on. Vexing question as to how much you want to spend to be how current in the technology. Get a 10mp A100, ($600)or a 12mp A700?($1200) Also dpreview.com just had a report that sony's just announced a 24 mp sensor, so should I wait for that to appear in a camera, and how much is that going to cost? and what will be on the horizon then?
Whatever. I guess me not rambling about my neuroses makes for a short blog.
aleikum salaam
Liz.
Look, it's another post about my thought processes.
Ever been in that situation where you point out something bad in your work situation and your supervisor says "give it a chance" or something of that nature? What that means, of course, is that your supervisor doesn't give a rat's ass about things that cause problems for you, because they don't cause problems for him, and he is not going to do any work to fix problems for you.
Well, this morning it occurred to me that most often I'm just that kind of asshole to my future self. I choose to take the path of least resistance and do things to get me through time rather than use time, to idle time away rather than exert myself. My guitar ability will only be at issue on friday night, so why exert myself for something far off? It's the same with my photography. It's quite a lot of work to make something of photography, and not doing so I leave myself without options or hopes for a more rewarding career than driving vehicles and delivering merchandise. I think that I'm not really an artist or a musician, I'm not "into" those things. I'm a tourist, not an artist. What I most want is not to be stressed, rather than do things that could be stressful, that require some exertion.
Problem with that is taking the path of least resistance leads ultimately to death. It's easier to let yourself slip away when you're older rather than strive to keep your mind alive and vital.
I was thinking about Joseph Campbell's saying "follow your bliss". I think that whether it's because of ADD or just lassitude and anxiety, I don't feel like bliss is attainable. It seems to me that bliss is when you're enraptured in oneness with process. Doing music or art. You really have to be able to lock down your awareness to do that. I could do it when I was doing wheel thrown pottery. It's also why you'll often see me at the mall food court eating wendy's. Something in the food seemed to clear my thoughts and I could read. . It might also be that a large noisy open space is somehow realeasing stress in my mind. I remember once in high school I was reading something in an extremely noisy school cafeteria and a teacher came up to me and asked how I could study in that environment. I was focused and the environment was either irrelevant or maybe drowning out extraneous thoughts.
I've also got to remember to look into herbal antianxiety supplements and see if they help at all.
I sometimes think that I'd be ok if somehow I could feel assured that I could make a living stiving to do something worth doing, like the photography. I guess a lot of great art has been made by people who didn't feel OK but they made art anyway. You could say that the challenge of life is to try to do worthwhile things under unfavorable conditions, with no assurance of financial stability, with no underlying safety net or any protection of the worth or dignity of your potential. The human race disrespects itself quite profoundly in the way it reduces human potential to matters of dollars and cents, with the least interesting ox-people having the advantage, having nothing in their minds to interfere with their hauling at the yoke, earning the check. They don't understand creative people and to a great extent it's in their best interests not to be able to.
Whatever. I do at least have guitar calluses now, which makes typing feel weird, and some 4x5 negatives waiting to be developed; it's not like i've given myself 100% over to lassitude and anxiety, though I could certainly have done a far better job than I have.
Ever been in that situation where you point out something bad in your work situation and your supervisor says "give it a chance" or something of that nature? What that means, of course, is that your supervisor doesn't give a rat's ass about things that cause problems for you, because they don't cause problems for him, and he is not going to do any work to fix problems for you.
Well, this morning it occurred to me that most often I'm just that kind of asshole to my future self. I choose to take the path of least resistance and do things to get me through time rather than use time, to idle time away rather than exert myself. My guitar ability will only be at issue on friday night, so why exert myself for something far off? It's the same with my photography. It's quite a lot of work to make something of photography, and not doing so I leave myself without options or hopes for a more rewarding career than driving vehicles and delivering merchandise. I think that I'm not really an artist or a musician, I'm not "into" those things. I'm a tourist, not an artist. What I most want is not to be stressed, rather than do things that could be stressful, that require some exertion.
Problem with that is taking the path of least resistance leads ultimately to death. It's easier to let yourself slip away when you're older rather than strive to keep your mind alive and vital.
I was thinking about Joseph Campbell's saying "follow your bliss". I think that whether it's because of ADD or just lassitude and anxiety, I don't feel like bliss is attainable. It seems to me that bliss is when you're enraptured in oneness with process. Doing music or art. You really have to be able to lock down your awareness to do that. I could do it when I was doing wheel thrown pottery. It's also why you'll often see me at the mall food court eating wendy's. Something in the food seemed to clear my thoughts and I could read. . It might also be that a large noisy open space is somehow realeasing stress in my mind. I remember once in high school I was reading something in an extremely noisy school cafeteria and a teacher came up to me and asked how I could study in that environment. I was focused and the environment was either irrelevant or maybe drowning out extraneous thoughts.
I've also got to remember to look into herbal antianxiety supplements and see if they help at all.
I sometimes think that I'd be ok if somehow I could feel assured that I could make a living stiving to do something worth doing, like the photography. I guess a lot of great art has been made by people who didn't feel OK but they made art anyway. You could say that the challenge of life is to try to do worthwhile things under unfavorable conditions, with no assurance of financial stability, with no underlying safety net or any protection of the worth or dignity of your potential. The human race disrespects itself quite profoundly in the way it reduces human potential to matters of dollars and cents, with the least interesting ox-people having the advantage, having nothing in their minds to interfere with their hauling at the yoke, earning the check. They don't understand creative people and to a great extent it's in their best interests not to be able to.
Whatever. I do at least have guitar calluses now, which makes typing feel weird, and some 4x5 negatives waiting to be developed; it's not like i've given myself 100% over to lassitude and anxiety, though I could certainly have done a far better job than I have.
I am, indeed, a ray of sunshine.
Today I went up to greenfield for my prehire drug screen and physical. It was all women at the clinic. In contrast to all the previous employment physicals the doctor just asked me if I had any hernias rather than actually checking my balls for such. Sigh. Been a while since a woman has checked out my balls.
Not actually feeling much like a ray of sunshine. Vexes me that my wants are meaningless. Just have anxiety and avoidant behavior patterns. Get stuck where I don't do anything because I'm anxious about the stress of doing things, and I get caught up in the stress and anxiety and frustration of being (doing) nothing. Right now I'm anxious about something going wrong with my hiring process and when that's over I'll be anxious about having to face my job. I'll be anxious about having to go out in snowy conditions. I'll be anxious about my health, I'll be anxious about my car. I'll be anxious about not having time to do something meaningful with my life and anxious about having to face free time when I do have it, being faced with the stess of exertion to better myself versus the profound disappointment in myself I feel when I just squander all my free time. I'll be anxious about what to say to attractive women, anxious about alienating them by saying the wrong thing and anxious about losing chances by never saying anything. Anxious about the numbers I'll find printed on my bills, anxious about my bank statement. It's like a dense floury shortbread encasing your heart and mind, a continuous tense knit in my brow.
Weird thing is I'm actually much better now than I used to be. I don't live on antacids any more. Just walking around I don't feel as heavy. Whatever.
Today I went up to greenfield for my prehire drug screen and physical. It was all women at the clinic. In contrast to all the previous employment physicals the doctor just asked me if I had any hernias rather than actually checking my balls for such. Sigh. Been a while since a woman has checked out my balls.
Not actually feeling much like a ray of sunshine. Vexes me that my wants are meaningless. Just have anxiety and avoidant behavior patterns. Get stuck where I don't do anything because I'm anxious about the stress of doing things, and I get caught up in the stress and anxiety and frustration of being (doing) nothing. Right now I'm anxious about something going wrong with my hiring process and when that's over I'll be anxious about having to face my job. I'll be anxious about having to go out in snowy conditions. I'll be anxious about my health, I'll be anxious about my car. I'll be anxious about not having time to do something meaningful with my life and anxious about having to face free time when I do have it, being faced with the stess of exertion to better myself versus the profound disappointment in myself I feel when I just squander all my free time. I'll be anxious about what to say to attractive women, anxious about alienating them by saying the wrong thing and anxious about losing chances by never saying anything. Anxious about the numbers I'll find printed on my bills, anxious about my bank statement. It's like a dense floury shortbread encasing your heart and mind, a continuous tense knit in my brow.
Weird thing is I'm actually much better now than I used to be. I don't live on antacids any more. Just walking around I don't feel as heavy. Whatever.
Well hello again.
Yesterday's questionnaire went well and the guy I was talking to wants to hire me; now they're going to do some other checks on my background and driving records, so hopefully that will be OK.
Yesterday I wasn't feeling super hot about it though, but that's just because my workday will start at 530 am which means getting up no later than 430 to get up there. That pretty much sucks but what are you gonna do. There's not too many ways to completely avoid suckitude.
Snowing here today so hopefully I'll be able to find some good snowy landscape pics tomorrow.
I"m feeling calmer today though.
Last night at the open mic I wasn't getting the feeling that I was capturing the audience's attention that much, but really the thing is not to give a shit. It's just a bunch of randoms playing to a bunch of randoms. Certainly I was no worse than at least a couple other people who played. I'm still not really used to being the center of attention and I kind of have to get warmed up and steel myself for it, but I still have cold sweaty hands and incipient panic symptoms when I'm sitting there with a mic in front of me. Not as bad as last time.
I remember an intervew, or maybe it was in Walk this Way, the autobiography of Aerosmith, where Steven Tyler talks about the first time he discovered Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton, it might have specifically in reference to their cover of the song Rattlesnake Shake, but anyway he said that they had a really badass loose groove, they were terrible and couldn't tune their instruments, but it didn't matter because they had that groove. Fantasia also gave some advice to the contestants when she made a guest appearance on Idol the season after she won, she told them to be bad, to let it all hang out. To loosen up.
I actually try to do that when I play. Most of the people there tend to play a little faster than me and it throws me off. The cute girl really likes to play the song Pink, but she's really hyper and runs at higher rpms than I do, even though she isn't at all anxious, and I had to stop her and tell her to slow down. I laid down the groove for her but she still pushed it a bit fast.
Some days I think about playing bass. I found some Modern Electric Bass lessons on youtube where Jaco Pastorius put in a guest appearance and if anything would ever want to make play bass that would, until you go into a guitar shop and pick up a bass and the thing is enormous, with strings like electrical wires and frets tremedously far apart. Jaco had years of experience and tremendous talent and big hands. He also had an exremely aggressive mindset that got him killed a couple years after he made those videos. I guess I'm at the unhealthy other end of the aggression scale. It makes me an unbeleivably bad chess player even though I'm fantastic at scrabble. And it makes me incapable of approaching women.
and now something somewhat different
Few years ago I when I moved to springfield and I was looking for jobs I applied at Rent a Center before I understood just what they were. What they do is that they provide merchandise at high cost to people who are poor, and you can see from how RAC does business poor people are that way at least some of the time because they have poor impulse control. At least it seems that way to me. If you go into one, they have giant stereo speakers, and it seems to me that those things at least, that can be had for no money down, just renting to own and paying twice as much as you would pay, paying all in one shot, are things that target people who have poor impulse control, by overwhelming their senses.
I'm real susceptible to that, I have a problem with wanting to buy cameras or musical instruments. Used to be with guns but less so with them nowadays. Day or two ago I head the song "every rose has its thorn" on the radio and investigating found it to be quite playable and I did it at the open mic last night. But i came across a "chipmunk" version of every rose on youtube and I thought it was hysterical. Things like that are very funny if you only listen to them infrequently. Grandma got run over by a reindeer was funny the first time but was about like fingernails on chalkboard by the hundredth time. But anyway, the in chipmunk version of every rose the guitar part sounds a little like mandolin, so I idly went on ebay to look up mandolas and I came across one with incredible inlay work from an ebay store in taiwan. Looking into that store I found all kinds of incredible looking intruments, really cheap, even counting a hundred bucks to ship them overoceans. And the store has five thousand feedbacks 99.8% positive. Some of the feedbacks indicate things you might expect, a guitar would have a high action and need a setup. Well if you could get solid spruce and indian rosewood for six hundred bucks it not too unreasonable to knock out the nut and bridge and rasp them down a bit on an emery board. Anyway, this is just me being dazzled by fancy engraving and the possibility of getting a great bargain. I don't seem to have an off switch with respect to these particular cognitive processes. Or rather I did develop one, but I haven't been using it for a while. I worked out this mental exercise where if I wanted to buy a gun I didn't need I would imagine myself out on a vast lake in a boat, and I would lower the gun into the water and watch it disappear into the depths, repeat until the desire was let go of as well. I guess I should just be doing this with these guitars and basses that dazzle me. But in a way I rather like the feeling of desire, and the excitement of shopping for things and finding things and maybe getting them. It might not be a bad way to go, by way of getting a bass or a 12 string guitar.
Other times I remind myself that the only resources that matter are body, mind, and time.
But another thing comes to mind, recalling my investigation of work at Rent a Center is that the guy who was the manager was just like the bail bondsman in Jackie Brown, a quentin tarantino film, lesser known but one that I love, just because I love listening to the characters talk. Anyway, the JB bail bondsman and the RAC manager were basically the same guy, which you could describe as some kind of People Person in rather a weird way, in that they are actively engaged with making money off of and dealing with desperate people at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. The guy at RAC tried to tell me that they do not "exploit" the poor but he got me thinking about it and I think that that is exactly what they do. I think that if you were to make a visit to a large city, you might for example map out the rent a centers and go to the areas where RACs are not found.
I'm wondering just now about how maybe I don't really love art in the sense of doing, maybe just being dazzled by it i desire it, but I'm not so enthused when confronted but the demands of doing it. Like seeing a pastorius jazz bass lesson and then picking up a real bass yourself. But on the other hand I did so much pottery that I don't know what to do with all the stuff I have, and even though I don't need five guitars and play just one of them 99% of the time, I do in fact put in time and effort to develop my abilities in that area. So for me consumerism and art are maybe blended. Don't know if it's healthful or unhealthful. To be a great guitarist with just one guitar, or just to have pencil and paper and do real art with that, is something like clear spring water, where being just a fair guitarist and a decent photographer with way too many cameras is maybe like root beer or a milkshake, it's sort of flavorful and warm and friendly, but not as clear and penetrating.
Well I guess you could call this a "record of thought processes blog".
smooch smooch
Lizardo
Yesterday's questionnaire went well and the guy I was talking to wants to hire me; now they're going to do some other checks on my background and driving records, so hopefully that will be OK.
Yesterday I wasn't feeling super hot about it though, but that's just because my workday will start at 530 am which means getting up no later than 430 to get up there. That pretty much sucks but what are you gonna do. There's not too many ways to completely avoid suckitude.
Snowing here today so hopefully I'll be able to find some good snowy landscape pics tomorrow.
I"m feeling calmer today though.
Last night at the open mic I wasn't getting the feeling that I was capturing the audience's attention that much, but really the thing is not to give a shit. It's just a bunch of randoms playing to a bunch of randoms. Certainly I was no worse than at least a couple other people who played. I'm still not really used to being the center of attention and I kind of have to get warmed up and steel myself for it, but I still have cold sweaty hands and incipient panic symptoms when I'm sitting there with a mic in front of me. Not as bad as last time.
I remember an intervew, or maybe it was in Walk this Way, the autobiography of Aerosmith, where Steven Tyler talks about the first time he discovered Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton, it might have specifically in reference to their cover of the song Rattlesnake Shake, but anyway he said that they had a really badass loose groove, they were terrible and couldn't tune their instruments, but it didn't matter because they had that groove. Fantasia also gave some advice to the contestants when she made a guest appearance on Idol the season after she won, she told them to be bad, to let it all hang out. To loosen up.
I actually try to do that when I play. Most of the people there tend to play a little faster than me and it throws me off. The cute girl really likes to play the song Pink, but she's really hyper and runs at higher rpms than I do, even though she isn't at all anxious, and I had to stop her and tell her to slow down. I laid down the groove for her but she still pushed it a bit fast.
Some days I think about playing bass. I found some Modern Electric Bass lessons on youtube where Jaco Pastorius put in a guest appearance and if anything would ever want to make play bass that would, until you go into a guitar shop and pick up a bass and the thing is enormous, with strings like electrical wires and frets tremedously far apart. Jaco had years of experience and tremendous talent and big hands. He also had an exremely aggressive mindset that got him killed a couple years after he made those videos. I guess I'm at the unhealthy other end of the aggression scale. It makes me an unbeleivably bad chess player even though I'm fantastic at scrabble. And it makes me incapable of approaching women.
and now something somewhat different
Few years ago I when I moved to springfield and I was looking for jobs I applied at Rent a Center before I understood just what they were. What they do is that they provide merchandise at high cost to people who are poor, and you can see from how RAC does business poor people are that way at least some of the time because they have poor impulse control. At least it seems that way to me. If you go into one, they have giant stereo speakers, and it seems to me that those things at least, that can be had for no money down, just renting to own and paying twice as much as you would pay, paying all in one shot, are things that target people who have poor impulse control, by overwhelming their senses.
I'm real susceptible to that, I have a problem with wanting to buy cameras or musical instruments. Used to be with guns but less so with them nowadays. Day or two ago I head the song "every rose has its thorn" on the radio and investigating found it to be quite playable and I did it at the open mic last night. But i came across a "chipmunk" version of every rose on youtube and I thought it was hysterical. Things like that are very funny if you only listen to them infrequently. Grandma got run over by a reindeer was funny the first time but was about like fingernails on chalkboard by the hundredth time. But anyway, the in chipmunk version of every rose the guitar part sounds a little like mandolin, so I idly went on ebay to look up mandolas and I came across one with incredible inlay work from an ebay store in taiwan. Looking into that store I found all kinds of incredible looking intruments, really cheap, even counting a hundred bucks to ship them overoceans. And the store has five thousand feedbacks 99.8% positive. Some of the feedbacks indicate things you might expect, a guitar would have a high action and need a setup. Well if you could get solid spruce and indian rosewood for six hundred bucks it not too unreasonable to knock out the nut and bridge and rasp them down a bit on an emery board. Anyway, this is just me being dazzled by fancy engraving and the possibility of getting a great bargain. I don't seem to have an off switch with respect to these particular cognitive processes. Or rather I did develop one, but I haven't been using it for a while. I worked out this mental exercise where if I wanted to buy a gun I didn't need I would imagine myself out on a vast lake in a boat, and I would lower the gun into the water and watch it disappear into the depths, repeat until the desire was let go of as well. I guess I should just be doing this with these guitars and basses that dazzle me. But in a way I rather like the feeling of desire, and the excitement of shopping for things and finding things and maybe getting them. It might not be a bad way to go, by way of getting a bass or a 12 string guitar.
Other times I remind myself that the only resources that matter are body, mind, and time.
But another thing comes to mind, recalling my investigation of work at Rent a Center is that the guy who was the manager was just like the bail bondsman in Jackie Brown, a quentin tarantino film, lesser known but one that I love, just because I love listening to the characters talk. Anyway, the JB bail bondsman and the RAC manager were basically the same guy, which you could describe as some kind of People Person in rather a weird way, in that they are actively engaged with making money off of and dealing with desperate people at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. The guy at RAC tried to tell me that they do not "exploit" the poor but he got me thinking about it and I think that that is exactly what they do. I think that if you were to make a visit to a large city, you might for example map out the rent a centers and go to the areas where RACs are not found.
I'm wondering just now about how maybe I don't really love art in the sense of doing, maybe just being dazzled by it i desire it, but I'm not so enthused when confronted but the demands of doing it. Like seeing a pastorius jazz bass lesson and then picking up a real bass yourself. But on the other hand I did so much pottery that I don't know what to do with all the stuff I have, and even though I don't need five guitars and play just one of them 99% of the time, I do in fact put in time and effort to develop my abilities in that area. So for me consumerism and art are maybe blended. Don't know if it's healthful or unhealthful. To be a great guitarist with just one guitar, or just to have pencil and paper and do real art with that, is something like clear spring water, where being just a fair guitarist and a decent photographer with way too many cameras is maybe like root beer or a milkshake, it's sort of flavorful and warm and friendly, but not as clear and penetrating.
Well I guess you could call this a "record of thought processes blog".
smooch smooch
Lizardo
Well, I'm off to reliable temps to try and get something to tide me over until coke hopefully calls me back.
Kinda feeling like crap.
edit
well, yesterday before i went into Reliable Temps I got a hold of coke and they want me to go in on friday for some bullshit questionnaire, whatever. it's a step.
I'm kind of frustrated with myself for not making better use of all the free time I've had lately. I have periods of motivation where I practice some guitar or go out and take some photographs. interspersed with long bouts of slackitude. web surfing and sleeping. shopping for things I don't need and/or can't afford.
I've started putting up a few of my pictures on my deviant art account. so far all of the people who have commented on my pics seem to be girls averaging 18 years old. lot of them from the uk. I need to learn to do something that would be appealing to thirtyish women living in new england. but then they might want me to have a real job and to start having babies so maybe I should just keep up what I'm doing.
Kinda feeling like crap.
edit
well, yesterday before i went into Reliable Temps I got a hold of coke and they want me to go in on friday for some bullshit questionnaire, whatever. it's a step.
I'm kind of frustrated with myself for not making better use of all the free time I've had lately. I have periods of motivation where I practice some guitar or go out and take some photographs. interspersed with long bouts of slackitude. web surfing and sleeping. shopping for things I don't need and/or can't afford.
I've started putting up a few of my pictures on my deviant art account. so far all of the people who have commented on my pics seem to be girls averaging 18 years old. lot of them from the uk. I need to learn to do something that would be appealing to thirtyish women living in new england. but then they might want me to have a real job and to start having babies so maybe I should just keep up what I'm doing.
Hey
Still waiting on coke. talked with them, and they just tell me what a nice slow bureaucracy they are. Whatever. I guess my shot at getting in there is tolerable. I guess I'll have to go to a temp agency so as not to blow all my savings waiting. There are other jobs but this is the one I want.
Played some geetar again last night. Not as many people showed up because of the winter weather. People stay home because of the rain. I've had to drive big rigs in major winter storms, and my response to people not driving because of some rain is that fingers curled jerk-off gesture.
Well anyway that darling little cutie showed up. I don't really think I'm likely to get her naked but she's damn pleasant company and playing geetars with a girl is really just fine as you don't get to shag all the girls you meet, although you could just say that's what a loser would say.
The time I've had to practice guitar has led to me improving some, but the people at the open mic sure do keep me humble. There's not a snooty neuron among them but their sheer musical ability is quite daunting to try to keep up with. Whatever, just hafta keep at it.
hakuna matata
liz.
Still waiting on coke. talked with them, and they just tell me what a nice slow bureaucracy they are. Whatever. I guess my shot at getting in there is tolerable. I guess I'll have to go to a temp agency so as not to blow all my savings waiting. There are other jobs but this is the one I want.
Played some geetar again last night. Not as many people showed up because of the winter weather. People stay home because of the rain. I've had to drive big rigs in major winter storms, and my response to people not driving because of some rain is that fingers curled jerk-off gesture.
Well anyway that darling little cutie showed up. I don't really think I'm likely to get her naked but she's damn pleasant company and playing geetars with a girl is really just fine as you don't get to shag all the girls you meet, although you could just say that's what a loser would say.
The time I've had to practice guitar has led to me improving some, but the people at the open mic sure do keep me humble. There's not a snooty neuron among them but their sheer musical ability is quite daunting to try to keep up with. Whatever, just hafta keep at it.
hakuna matata
liz.
