I can't get it out of my head

Somewhere, I'm not sure where, I saw this separated-at-birth. Maybe on the Daily Show or on one of your blogs, but when I google it I can't find a link so I'm recreating what I see every time I see a picture of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. Personally, I would have gone for a different look to avoid the comparison, but that's just me.

Coffeehouse blogging, revisited

I've always liked blogging on free wifi at a local coffeehouse, so it seems appropriate that I revive my blogging habit with one of these sessions. I've been meaning to start back for awhile now, but protracted unemployment and gap-year soul searching made it much less fun to keep you all filled in on my life. This was compounded by my mom's sudden illness and death. Losing a loved one can really take it out of you. But I've had my time off, it's been 4 1/2 months since my last post and two months pretty much to the day since my mom died, and I need to get back among the living. So here goes.

I'm killing time in the Twin Cities...I'd been on a week-long junket to Minneapolis and Decorah and had intended to head back to Chicago last Friday, but between snow storms and necessary meetings and a few other last minute developments, it started sounding dumb to drive back to the Windy just to get on a plane on Thursday AM to fly back here. I had nothing exceptionally pressing that couldn't be done from here so I accepted an invitation to hang out. It's been a good decision...I got to go to my middle nephew's football game last night (they won,) I've had nice evenings with friends and family and I took a long walk along the River this lovely fall morning. All good.

So now I'm sitting at a neighborhood Dunn Bros and I'm thoroughly enjoying the people watching. It's mostly just local folks...a couple of work-from-home types who've set up their office here for the day, a guy in scrubs working frantically on some document I can only assume will mean life or death down the line, a couple of retirees sipping coffee and talking a bit too loudly because their hearing aids can't cancel out the background noise. The usual.

I do have a quick question for the guy over to my left. Do you really think she'll go out with you? Or will you be paying her?

Let me paint you the picture. He's probably mid-forties, but an old-looking mid-forties. (What since I'm a young-looking early-forties type it has become very important to define the subsets of this age group.) He looks like an unholy marriage of Geraldo Rivera and Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter!. He's wearing a burgundy MOCK turtleneck (as if a standard turtleneck wouldn't be bad enough,) and waist-defining mom jeans with a braided belt that make him look like a woman from behind. And I know from standing five feet from him while I was waiting for my coffee that he smells like hair oil and patchouli day-old underwear. He's got a big fancy computer with a giant screen and it looks like it has many bells and whistles, but it also just looks really heavy. I suppose it helps him get his exercise carrying that behemoth around, so I shouldn't judge.

About fifteen minutes ago I got a little worried. He was doing the conspicuous nonchalant-stretch-check-out maneuver and his gaze settled on me. Yikes. Please don't talk to me.

WELL. I guess I've learned not to flatter myself and assume I'm attracting attention. Turns out he wasn't so much scoping me out as verifying that I wasn't paying him any mind. (We professional eavesdroppers know how to appear unobservant, so there's no way he could discern my general nosiness.) Because now he's cruising a babe site checking out hotties.

He seems to be especially interested in tall, dark leggy types who sit spread-legged on hoods of cars, drape across motorcycles with their buttocks slipping out from the hem of their lowcut dress, or who pose midway through a full bend-and-snap to make a pouty, little girl face at the camera. I think it may be a chat room because it has the look of a posting board, or possibly it's some specialized dating or escort hire. At any rate, he's had to tip his chair back now.

I'm not sure why this guy creeps me out so much. I'd like to think his general unattractiveness and personal odor weren't at the root of it and it's just the cyber-ogling that is making me squirm. But of course you, dear readers, know me too well, and are well aware that his unfashionable attire and bad hygiene freaked me out the moment I saw him. The big-busted-Russian-mailorder-bride-lust is just frosting on the fruitcake. And somehow, my general misanthropic, obsessive-compulsive craziness has started to sing quietly within me, and it has made me feel like reengaging, like rejoining the conversation, like blogging.

And I find his obliviousness and single-minded tantric ookieness to be a perverted ray of sunshine in my run of dreary days. I guess it's nice to know that hope springs eternal. I'm due for some hope, that's for sure.

Plate o' shrimp, vol 8

The 2 millionth Eagle Scout

The world's most famous Senior Wilderness Guide

Sometimes life does imitate art. Squirrel!

Back to normal

The temp job aggravated my asthma, so I quit it and asked to be reassigned. I've been registering with other temp agencies, too, though, and I'm hoping that within a week or two I'll have a better temp option to tide me over until I find the long term position.

I need the money, but my sanity/health was more important. As it was, by last Tuesday I was coming home and going straight to bed, and I spent the weekend there, as well.  Very good riddance.

On the positive side, it meant that today I could go back to my daily routine.  And since it was a lovely day, Cali and I stopped for a mango italian soda at Julius Meinl mid-walk, where she lazed in the sun and I read a chapter of TC Boyle's latest, The Women.  All in all, I'd say a banner day. It might have been a better day if we'd had coffee and that yummy lavender lemon cake at Julius Meinl, but all in all I can't really complain. I'm feeling much better.

Oh. And here's what I'm trying to work out on the ukulele.  

This week's revelations, vol 2

I cannot tell you how much I wanted to buy this.

This week's revelations, vol 1.

And next time he's taking the bathrobe.

Hey you. Straighten up.

I live by a code - a clearly defined set of policies that specifies which personal behaviors are acceptable, which are rude, which are annoying and which ones are deal breakers. I've been like this for some time now - in fact, sometimes I wonder how I got this way, because it's not actually normal. And, since I sometimes come off as a bohemian lefty what with my flyaway hair and funked up trendy style, people are often taken aback by my standards. They expect this sort of judgment to come with a string of pearls and a twin set.

The good thing about policies is that they give me a very specific prism through which to analyze the world. For example: my policies protect me from people who only have friends from the present stage of their lives - they are not to be trusted with your heart, ever, because you're only as good as what you can do for them right now. My policies tell me that hoarders are trouble any way you slice it - not only is hoarding likely a symptom of some big dark psychological monster lurking in the shadows, even in the best case scenario you'll eventually end up cleaning up after them, and that will really suck. (You can only imagine how I feel about people who don't clean their bathrooms.)

I follow my own rules and policies, so it's really easy to trick myself into doing things. For example, I believe that cheating is always bad. Always. So, let's say I don't want to finish folding my laundry...left to my own devices, I'll just stack it on my cedar chest for a week or two and slowly wear my rumpled clothes. However, since I'm watching a Cubs game where the score is 8-2 in the middle of the 9th, I can make a bet with myself that if the Dodgers win I have to fold my laundry immediately. Chances are I'll soon be folding my clothes because to leave them in a heap would now be cheating. Stupid? Yes. But you'd be amazed at the things I've made myself do just because I was playing some game of chance with myself.

My policies help me set priorities, make me socially savvy and help me get more from my interaction with the world. And they make me more open to other opinions and ideas, too, because there aren't actually that many of them when you get right down to it. Policies only apply to things that are of extreme importance to me...most other things are open to discussion and I'll give a wide berth to all manners of eccentricities and behaviors. (Plus, there is the over-riding policy that, in general, fighting and grudge holding should be reserved as a final option, so I generally give people a lot of rope before I tighten any nooses.) Of course, our world is yin and yang, so there's a dark side to having policies, too. And here's mine: because policies are reserved for things that are really really important to me I have a hairpin trigger where policy violations are concerned, and in the past few months I've found myself completely tweaked off by strangers violating one of my deeply entrenched policies - and when I say tweaked, I mean really, really pissed off.

The policy in question: You, as a person, are 100% responsible for politely interacting with others, and part of this entails responsibly taking up appropriate space in the world without thoughtlessly imposing on others. Violation of this policy will get you a serious verbal reprimand, usually with place-putting precision to be sure there is no ambiguity that an offense was committed.

Violation No 1: I believe you may have heard me bitching about mommies and their baby barges? It's a public walkway, not your personal parking spot. Or your private classroom to teach skills your toddler can't comprehend and won't use for another 15 years. Or a virtual phone booth for you to stand and have your pointless conversation about what to have for dinner. Move over, Babyweight.

Violation No. 2: Parking spots are first come first served. Or, more precisely, first CAR, first served. There is no such thing as saving a parking space. You do not, ever, get out of a car and run into a space on the opposite side of the street and stand there to save it while your driver goes another block or two to turn around and come back at it. You do not, ever, go downstairs when your friends call you from the Kennedy to tell you they're at the Irving Park exit and stand in a space to hold it while they are stuck in Cubs traffic. Holding parking spots is not like holding movie theater seats while a friend gets popcorn. It's like queue jumping at Ikea on a Saturday afternoon. You deserve to be trampled by angry Swedes.

Violation No. 3: While cars do not interact with their surroundings once parked, going to a movie is generally something you do with friends, and therefore it is reasonable to want to sit with the people you came with. However, if you know a theater is going to be crowded it is unbelievably rude to sit your group down with one seat on either side of you. This means that later, when a couple comes in and looks for seats, they are going to have to split up and bookend you and your lazyass friends. Is it that difficult to pay attention and move your group over a seat to give people a chance to sit together? Or do you just like being a complete tit?

Violation No. 4: I realize you are on your front porch and should be able to have any conversation you wish. But must you shout into your phone? It's making me uncomfortable, because in the time it takes my dog and I to walk from first to last earshot of you I learn that you have a yeast infection, your friends don't like your boyfriend, and you don't like having sex with the cat looking at you. This is not information I needed about you. You're a stranger.

Violation No. 5: Back to the seat saving thing. Let's say you have a large group coming to a concert/movie, etc. with open seating. Sit someplace that obviously has room for all of you, and make sure you save that space if you want to sit together. Don't go sit someplace that has almost enough space and then try to cram your late arrivals in next to the people that got there before you, because now the early birds have to be considerate and try to accommodate you, but in doing so they will get stuck with bad seats that have obstructed views and no access to the aisle. This is all your fault, and it serves you right if the old lady in front of you has smelly silent acid farts all the way through the program.

I'm giving you notice. Stop this behavior immediately, or it is completely within my rights to start enforcing. And it will NOT be pretty. According to the policy, all bets are off.

And FYI, the Cubs lost. This draft was saved mid-way, and my laundry is now put away.

Always on the edge of controversy

Susan Boyle didn't win Britain's Got Talent, but predictions are that she's going to be a worldwide mega-star and make millions of dollars. Maybe, maybe not. Personally, I think she's a singing Rubik's cube, or possibly more of a Chia pet that can carry a tune.

I'm not suggesting for a second that she isn't talented...on the contrary, she has a lovely voice and a story that underdog-lovers and people tired of picture-perfect-looks as a requirement for fame eat up like it's candy. But I just don't see that her pretty voice alone is going to make her a mega-star. There is no one like her out there making records, and it's not because she is such a unique talent but more because there isn't a big market for her style of singing. Opera people want real opera. Pop people want pop music with a bit more rhythm and a trendy style. Easy listening people have Barry Manilow and greatest hits albums from Paul Simon. Showtunes folks have original cast albums. Rockers wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole.

But then again, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban fans need a female voice in their collection. In which case, Susan Boyle is mere moments away from riches the world has never known.

Making temping more charming

I'm amending the post below with italics so I can get my frustrations out before I go to work tomorrow. I figure if I can tell someone (you) what I think should be done differently, then it will be easier to let it go and just enter the dang data like a good drone.

Oh, the charms of temping

Let me preface this post by saying that I am really pleased to finally have a temp job. I am getting closer to an actual job, as well, but in the meantime I'm really happy to have income again. But I'd forgotten how truly ridiculous temping can be. Here's what I walked into:

- I'm doing data entry at an insurance company, though our actual client is a law firm I think. We're bar coding every file in the history of the company so they can find the relevant hard copy should it be required to defend them in a lawsuit. Data entry itself is never interesting. But that's part of temping...the work is SELDOM interesting...and so it is what it is and I'm fine with that.
- I was told that the company is business casual but that I should dress closer to business since it was my first day. In reality, we are not working in the main offices and all 30 temps AND the supervisors were in jeans, sweats, and other casual clothing. But I looked nice in my trouser suit. This job is not pleasant, and I think my temp agency knew it was not pleasant. Therefore hiding this fact by disguising the dress code doesn't help. Better to prepare me for what I'm walking in to. In some ways, being told you're going to work in a casual environment is a selling point for a temp job.
- The reason for the casual attire is that we are digging through files in various states of decay. Some are just dusty and full of residue from the carbon copies (or worse, the carbon-less copies) of forms in the files. My lovely trouser suit now needs dry cleaning. This was the more important detail for full disclosure in advance of me confirming that I'll take the position. I'm sure they left out this information because they feared people would turn the positions down and they really needed to fill them...a valid concern. However, they were assuming that the fact that this job is a manky, dusty mess would generate automatic refusals, and that is not necessarily true. It's just as likely people would view it as a challenge and dive right in...and if they really were turned off and unwilling to take this on then they would say "no" upfront, never be introduced to the client, and the agency could be sure they're sending in people who will stick with it, thus preserving their credibility. Of course, they did NOT share the details of the work, and now I have a security pass, a dry cleaning bill and I feel completely duped. I'll be switching temp agencies as soon as I can, partly because the one I'm currently working with will blacklist me if I cut out of this assignment early, and partly because I now don't trust my employers.
- Luckily, they have gloves and breathing masks available if the crap gets to you. I will look like a dork as the only one wearing them, but my allergies and asthma require it if I'm going to stick with this.
- The room is set up with boxes around the perimeter and folding tables and plastic study hall chairs at the work stations. As part of my orientation my supervisor said that she knows the chairs are horribly uncomfortable so there's no need to complain to her. She doesn't want to hear it and it won't help because she won't get us something else. (Screw you, OSHA!) You'd think a lawyer who's acting as the project manager would know enough not to say something like this, what since it exposes them to all sorts of legal issues. In the strictest sense, the employer should realize they're breaking every ergonomic work standard in the book and be making an effort to change this, rather than keeping the end client's cost low by compromising the workspace health standards for their employees. As far as I'm concerned, this is an absolute and a huge error in judgment. That said, if they really ARE going to intentionally allow this sort of work environment, they should at least make employees feel they can bring up concerns and that they will try to help if they do...most people will look the other way anyway so they won't have to do a thing.
- On the upside, we have windows. Of course, we don't have access to water coolers, office coffee, vending machines, refrigerators or microwaves...but there are restrooms so at least that's something. A small fridge and a microwave for the duration of the project cost less than one week of my time. If they don't want to advocate for access to the main kitchen for the temp workers, then it wouldn't be that hard to set up a makeshift one temporarily. Heck, even just a fridge and a water cooler would be enough.
- So what am I doing with my MBA you ask? Well, I get a box of files. I go through each folder or document, find the policy number and type it into Lotus Notes to print a label. I stick the labels on the folders (which means I create folders for the loose papers,) and then I put a shipping label on the box and stack it in another corner. Repeat. Not interesting, but in itself not criminal.
- I do this from 830 - 530 every day. We do get breaks...there are mandatory 15 minute breaks from 1015 - 1045 (teams are divided into two groups and take turns,) a mandatory unpaid lunch from 1230 - 130, and another round of 15 minute breaks in shifts from 315 - 345. These times are when we are allowed to use the restroom, unless of course we have an emergency and ask a supervisor. And there is no deviation...don't even think about asking to work through your lunch to leave an hour early for an appointment, or to take your break in the other group's 15 minutes of rest. I mean, we have standards and rules, people. Every one of the people working on this project are paralegals, lawyers or other professionals. Having rules that can be bent when necessary should be completely allowed. There is no real benefit to this military precision, unless creating a sweatshop environment is helping the project.
- The upside of this is that with all the saved podcasts on my iPod, I should have plenty of time to get caught up on my Manager Tools. Of course, iPods, radios or other distractions are not allowed. Ditto for internet access or excessive chatting, because we need to concentrate. See my point above...this would be a simple way to improve employee morale, and the likelihood of it affecting our work is slim considering the backgrounds of the workers.
- They frown upon requests for time off or absences for interviews and other things that might indicate you aren't dedicated to three straight months of this. Don't be ridiculous. Of COURSE no one is dedicated to three months of this. Personally, if I were the project manager I'd lay the expectation with the temp agency that we expect the employees to be there, but that requests for absences would be allowed within reason with prior notice. The temp agency could then establish rules/timelines of notification, etc. for absences to keep things under control, which would give them recourse if a temp abused their good will. This would actually encourage a lot of people to really commit to this...it would be guaranteed work for the summer, at a reasonable wage with flexibility for an afternoon off now and again when you need to go on an interview. So what if the work is messy and a bit dull...at least you have money coming in and can still keep your job search going. For someone like me, that kind of policy would make this job go from necessary evil to opportunity.
- And did I mention that most of the 30 other temps in the room are lawyers and paralegals? If this group is any indication, it's the short guys, minorities and women that are getting laid off at the big firms. This is my problem. I mean, they can't help it that they're lawyers.

I'm glad I had one Friday to work and now I've got the weekend to prepare for next week. I'll come in casual clothes with non-perishable food items to avoid an expensive purchased lunch, and a bottle of water so I don't have to buy it in the expensive store downstairs. A person's got to do what a person's got to do, after all, and I need the money so I'll do this. But fingers crossed Whole Foods or the Art Institute come through for work to get my by instead.