Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup -- Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup
So the last one was from the Dictionary section, in a book on Spanglish. The navel-nuzzling Goethe was from Classics, god help us, and this next little number goes straight out to my best girl from way on back in Business.
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02:18:48 AM,Friday 1 October 2004
Oh, also -- Mama, get Dad to read this. I think it may give him some giggles.
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11:01:52 AM,Thursday 30 September 2004
Y'know, I thought I was past the age that's susceptible to Werther-induced suicide. After being forced to look at the latest edition's cover for untold hours, however, I'm... I'm just not so sure anymore.
I'm a little stressed out. I want so badly to be able to do this job well. A lot of it isn't stuff that comes naturally to me; I've always been an oblivious little klutz. I fumble. I walk into doorframes. I step on people's toes. I'm not good at those subtle little butler moves. But it's valuable to me to develop this stuff. It's like I was talking about before -- being a servant for able-bodied types is a thankless task. You're there because they're lazy and you can be bought. But if you can divorce it from that sort of frustrating superfluity, there's something worthwhile about the work for its own sake.
I used to want to be a doctor because, all through my childhood, I anticipated living in an apocalyptic plague-world. I wanted to be able to do something useful in the face of such a thing. But now I feel less heroic about it all. I know that, apocalypse or not, at some point, I'll have to care for the body of someone that I love. Whether it's a kid or my parents or whoever, it's bound to happen. And if I can train myself to do it efficiently and well, and not be too rough on account of clumsiness and not be too gentle on account of timidity, I'll be glad to have done it. I've already gone a pretty good way toward it after a year and a half of Easy Street. But there's plenty I still haven't got.
I just hope I can acquire it in time to keep this job, 'cause it's pretty ideal, as far as these things go. It pays enough to keep me, it's for a fascinating woman, and it uses talents I actually have -- the other day she had me read to her from the New Yorker and I was feeling all smarty-pants for pronouncing the hard words properly. Then, of course, she spelled something out on the board, and I was baffled. "N...O...S....E. N-O-S-E. No... no sewer alligators? No sex? No sententious sentences?" Her nose was running, and I didn't even bloody notice it, much less parse it. Graaargh! Me = Dork. But then, later, she made a Louix XIV joke intended, I'm pretty sure, for my benefit and not for the extraordinarily kind and capable but less aggressively geeky guy who was training me. So maybe there's hope. I've got to practice chair-to-chair lifts this weekend. Lucky I have a girlfriend, eh? (`;
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10:54:59 AM,Thursday 30 September 2004
I look like Eustace Clarence Scrubb.
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10:54:49 AM,Tuesday 28 September 2004
Yup. This blog has officially degenerated into a chronicle of my days. Sorry about that. Friday and Saturday, I trained at the Lawyer's place. She's a great lady, but, man, it's not easy. I'm kind of tense and trying very hard to do everything just right, but I spaz out with the feeding tube and purple glop spatters everywhere, or I try to transfer her and wind up clocking her forehead on my shoulder and I can't parallel park worth a nixie's whisker and the damn respirator warning alarm makes my temples buzz. But I felt all life-or-death nervous when I started working at the bookstore, too, and now I whistle through it, so it may just be that fiddly desperate-to-please bit of me acting up, and if that's so, it'll subside once I get my feet under me. Anyway, I'm not sure if they want me back, but they seemed patient and encouraging, so I'm just waiting to hear from 'em. Friday night I had Porter and Derek over to the apartment-warming party. Such glorious boys. Man, it was nice. We told stories and Derek drew Mr. Kutler's golden mean proof and... they rule. No more, no less. We're all three of us busy, but it'd be nice if something like that could be repeated now and then. Then yesterday evening K. and I went out to tea with a gaggle of cheerful fen. And this morning, we had waffles and eggs florentine and strawberries and things. This city! Anyway, that's all. I started Kater Murr on a park bench and snerked pretty loud at the Author's Foreward. This old distinguished guy came over and asked to see the cover. "You don't see people laughing at books much, these days," he explained. I showed him, and he stalked off, with an air of satisfaction.
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06:22:50 PM,Sunday 26 September 2004
Did lots of shelving today. It's nice; meditative. Don't have to deal with customers, and sometimes you even get to sit down. Did Essays and Letters first, which was awesome, and then Religion, which was still pretty damn interesting, but then I had to venture into {gack} Personal Growth and New-Age. Now, I ask you: which of the two pairs below do you find more gorge-elevating:
Authors --
Crescent Dragonwagon
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Books --
He-Motions: Even Strong Men Struggle If The Buddha Dated
?
Yes. You see. Guh. On the subject of nausea and, um, elevating, I was amused this morning to finally realize why I don't find the stench of my building's elevator as off-putting as K. does. She walks in and goes, "Ugh! Smells like pee!" I walk in and go, "Aww! Smells like Easy Street!" I don't know why certain unseen entities take it upon themselves to pee in our elevator all the #*&#$ time, but twice a day I thank them fondly for that nostalgic evocation of good times past.
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10:26:38 PM,Wednesday 22 September 2004
Still I sing, 'Bonny boys, bonny mad boys, Bedlam boys are bonny,' for they all go bare and they live by the air and they want nor drink nor money.
Love that song. Kiped it from the dearly missed Miss Nehring. Can't stop singing it. Got my NYC library card yesterday! It'll be nice to be able to take a tasty book off the shelf and sit down and read it without feeling like a goldbricker. Gonna go stomp around the city with my girl tomorrow. Can't wait; been seeing her in snatches and overnights, and they've been unspeakably splendid, but it'll be nice to have an Adventure.
Had a job interview today, and it went so damn well. It'd be day-to-day aid and support of a retired lawyer with ALS, a job I've been scoping for months and had sort of lost hope on. But they want me after all. Her sister's a tutor at St. John's, which might have counted in my favor. They've decided to train me and see how I do before they hire me on, but the training pays nearly double what I'm making at the bookstore, and everything about it seems nearly ideal. Dunno if I'll still keep both jobs, working one full time and one part time, or if I'll have to quit the store (which would be a pity), but if I can figure something out between the two of 'em, I'll be sitting pretty.
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07:08:35 PM,Saturday 18 September 2004
They hired me on permanently at Shakespeare & Co.! This rules. It's still for not much money, but it's 40 hours a week, it'll be all mellow and lovely after rush (and maybe John Cleese will come in again -- they have a receipt signed by him posted by the time clock), and my feet have even stopped hurting, so I can stand up all day without grumbling. Also, it means not freaking out about money quite as much as I was; I'll still have to find another job, but it can be part time and less than total shiz, and I can also hold out for a lovely fulfilling full time one at my leisure. So woo. That's all. And the girl's coming over tonight, and I discovered another example of the English third person imperative (found a book on the shelf yesterday called The Kid Stays in the Picture). Oh, and I had the loveliest dream about buying great quantities of exotic candy with Moss and Julia. Except my pygmy aye-aye and my mouse lemur kept trying to bite each other's faces off, so I threw them off the roof. Still and all. Damn happy.
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08:47:49 AM,Friday 10 September 2004
Stick a few raw cabbage leaves in your ramen while it's boiling. Makes it taste almost like Real Food [tm].
It rained a lot this morning, and made me a half hour late to work. Not to worry -- so was everyone else. The buses were crammed and the subways even worse. Had to wait for three trains to go by 'til I could fit inside one, and then once I was in there... well, it was actually sort of nice. It was early, and I was sleepy, and everyone around me was completely silent and smelled faintly of damp -- but clean damp; sort of revivified post-shower shampoo waftings -- and there were tall broad ones and short plump ones and we were all standing toe to toe, stock still, breathing in and out together. It was almost comforting, in a strange way. Crechelike. Or factory-farmlike; I can't really decide. Either way, not too bad, for as long as it lasted.
I politely terminated a job interview yesterday. It was out near Coney Island, a miserable commute -- $7 an hour to breathe toxic lead fumes (circuit soldering; I did a little, for practice, and it was nice enough. Couldn't decide whether it'd be meditative or stultifying in the long run, but either way I'd prefer to keep whatever brain I have left reasonably intact.) and listen to creepy inspirational corporate quotes over the closed circuit TVs all day. No thanks. Getting anxious again. Gonna hit up the temp agencies tomorrow. Got an interview for a sleep-in job on Saturday, but I don't know if I'm that desperate yet. Trouble with the work I'm actually qualified for (teaching young'uns and taking care of the old and halt) is that I know it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life. Neither is working in a bookstore, but I won't feel like I'm dropping an honor-bound commitment if I walk out on that for my dream job. All the stuff that involves doing first-hand good in the world ties you to it, like it or not, and I'm wary of getting in if it means hurting people once I get back out. Y'know?
Rrrglph. Anyway. Things have happened that have made me happy. I went out to the country with K. and clipped thornbushes and chased kitten-shaped objects with bottlebrush tails. And last night I went out to a movie with her two best friends and another charming acquaintance. Silly movie, but a grand time. I'd be so happy if I knew I could count on it to last a while. But it won't, unless I get to hustling. So urgh. I'll go to bed and get up early and be a Grownup. Yes? Yes.
(By the way, I'm picking up Greek again. Had my mom send over my Mollin Williamson and spent the slow hours at the store writing out paradigms. Does me good. K.'s able to bring this stuff out of me by sheer force of studliness the way no tutor ever could. She makes me want to learn. Not just to match her, though of course there's some of that. I even taste the old competitive tang my nephew* used to put in my mouth all through childhood. And it's lovely; I've been missing the futile joy of trying to beat my betters. But it's more; 'cause it's nothing she's putting on me or expecting out of me. I loved Greek when I took it, but I floated through it because I could, and it all left me in a lump in the middle of Sophomore year. Now I feel like I want to whet myself with it. "Applying myself", like they say, but I mean it almost literally. Changing my habits and prodding my mind with a specific, orderly, beautiful, maddening thing. Before, I'd take things in dollops. Give 'em my attention for a while, and let 'em soak in if they cared to. And then turn to something else. But now I'm hoping to keep myself right up against it for a while, and see what shape it turns me.
*Who, by the way, is finishing up his last semester of college at the moment. His course load: Math, Shakespeare, Ethics of Political Science, Salsa
Dancing, and Billiards. ENVY.)
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09:09:25 PM,Wednesday 8 September 2004
Anne's current bout of bloggage respecting the Republican National Convention is sort of making me... happy. In a sickened, horrified kind of way. But still.
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11:07:43 PM,Wednesday 1 September 2004
Turns out I'll have to pay $6 an hour and lug my laptop 14 blocks for access to my gmail account (unless my roommate decides to start using Mozilla or Safari instead of IE), so if anyone wants to contact me, use my parfitgentil.net or catholic.org addresses, or call or text message -- nepomuk at vtext dot com, yo. And oh my god this cover of Eleanor Rigby is brainscaldingly bad. I think it's Ray Charles. But, um, it's bad. Bad bad bad. I'm out of this Starbucks for a while, until the next time I have to do my resume thang. Just got word that I may have a bed! For free! Which means my air mattress is alone and neglected, so come visit and sleep on it so I can sit on the end suddenly and bounce you out the window.
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03:09:29 PM,Wednesday 1 September 2004
I'm at my new place. Ecstatic. Using the roommate's computer, 'cause there aren't any wireless networks to mooch off of, but this'll be rectified eventually. I've got a pretty green air mattress and a ceiling fan and a fake tree (soon to be left at the curbside for some lucky pseudodendrophile to rescue and enjoy) and a trumpet to play on (last three items left behind by the roommate I'm displacing). I've got work in the morning tomorrow, so I should go to bed soon, but I'm gonna go wander slack-jawed around the neighborhood for a little bit before then. I figure I'm perfectly safe as long as the streets are lit up and the salsa keeps blaring. Went to the protests today with K. and her mom and various old friends and uncles and things. Very glad I did. Marched with the veterans and held a sign calling attention to the recent cuts in veterans' hospitals and health benefits. So shameful I want to spit. But our crowd was completely peaceful and hearteningly enormous. I love this city. I'm actually living here. It's fantastic.
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09:23:44 PM,Sunday 29 August 2004
I GOT IT!!!
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07:19:23 PM,Friday 27 August 2004
Yi yi yi yi yi! Do I have a room? Do I really? He emailed me 16 hours ago (I ain't been at my computer all day; spent the night at K.'s and had to work this morning) so I hope to Azathoth he didn't think I was waffling. But I just called his workplace and she said he stepped out for a minute and left his cel phone so I should be hearing from him soon once he picks it up again and oh please please please let this work it was my favorite place of all the scads I looked at and one of the two most compatible and easygoing of all the people I interviewed with and I'm desperate and I have to have something by Monday and aaaaaaieeeee!
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(1)
06:32:09 PM,Friday 27 August 2004
Man. The Job Service in Missoula said I typed 100 WPM, corrected to 96 for accuracy. This place is saying I do 124, corrected to 121. But it's online. Are online test certification thingies sketchier than the regular ones? Which one should I put on my resume? Should I include any of this online testing stuff at all, or is it just a big scam?
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05:02:51 PM,Thursday 26 August 2004
Laundry day is so exciting. I'm wearing black velvet pants and an oversized white t-shirt with Maxwell's equations on it.
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01:31:51 PM,Thursday 26 August 2004
Tomorrow, I think, I'll hear back from a couple people about whether I'll have a room. If not then, Friday at the latest, I'll know. And if I come up with a big nothing? Well, fortunately, the volume of "roommate wanted" posts on Craigslist has tripled over the past week; roomholders are giant procrastinators, I guess. So I may still have time to rig something up. But, man, I kinda wish I won't have to. It's fine. I'm just a little anxious. I do have to stop spending money, though. Lordy, does this city make you spend money. Yemenite restaurants, Japanese grocery stores, Bootleg Opera & Comic Book shops... it goes on like that. Good thing I've got this job. Though it's brief, it's a perfect stopgap -- the work is a piece of cake, I'm accumulating valuable "retail experience" (gawd help us), and it's even possible that I might be able to extend it past its term. Better than an eyeful of cider.
Excitement: the imps from the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab arrived today. We ordered twelve, if you remember, and got five free bonus imps into the bargain: Red Devil, Wolf's Heart, Dove's Heart, Bon Vivant, and Hollywood Babylon. We divvied 'em up, sniffed each vial, and applied our first respective doses.
Want a review? Too bad. You're gonna get one anyway. In fact, you're gonna get one every time I try a new one, until they've all been exhausted. Muaha. Serves you right for reading this blog. Whaddaya want for nothing -- Ontological Semantics? Tough titty. Gushing over gothy perfumes is what there is, and gushing over gothy perfumes is what you'll get.
I can only speak for my reaction -- if she gets it into her head to blog about it, you can find out what she thinks. I was a little put off by it, at first. The rum was strong and very sweet, and, for the first couple seconds after application, the whole thing seemed disjointed and artificial. My nose twitched, like it does at air fresheners. But then the salt took over, and I was unsettled in a different way. I'm a landlocked kid, so on the few exciting occasions I've smelled the sea (walking down to the Annapolis dock doesn't really count. Too much diesel in the air.), my nose hardly knows what to think for a few minutes. It's such a great big complicated teeming smell -- salt and seaweed and fish and murk -- that I can't decide whether it's pleasant or unpleasant until I've begun to huff it all the way into my lungs. This was just the same. The rum faded to a purr, and the salt air and leather rushed in. It mingled with her sweat deliciously. It didn't smell at all like a man's cologne; more like the sort of atmospheric scent that hangs around after spending a day in it. I liked it more and more the more it stopped smelling like perfume and started smelling like her. A boozy, smirking, piratey her. Definitely need several more exposures to decide for sure, but I'm inclined to pronounce it yum.
Several years ago, I tried on an essential oil blend from Aure's Rainbow, Kalispell's only One Stop Metaphysical Shop [TM]. (But it lies, precious, it lies! I asked for Aristotle, and they'd barely heard of him) It was called "Amber", though who knows what else went into it. To my surprise -- I never really wear scents, except the inevitable residue from my toiletries, and I'm damn particular about them -- it stunk me up real good. All smoky and translucently sweet, but not at all too sweet. When I went back to the place (under duress, I needn't add), they'd switched brands, so I couldn't nab me a bottle. Since then, I've tried everything marked "Amber" from every two-bit essential oil display across the country, and they've all been simply sickly. Good old Titus, though -- he may be a murderous old fruitbat, but he smells delicious. It's loads more complex than anything else I've ever smelled, including fancy-ass drugstore perfumes. And it's dusky and virile and, again, sweet but nothing like too sweet. Far better even than my memory of the original stuff. Won me lots of appreciative snuffing from the girl, too, so woo all over that. Might very well turn into my own walking-around scent. Never had one before, but if I were to consider it, this'd top the list. Tremendously satisfied. Can't wait to try the others.
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12:02:02 AM,Thursday 26 August 2004
Oooh! It sounds perfect! I'd better brush up on my Latin. Um... anyone got some string I can borrow?
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11:59:47 AM,Monday 23 August 2004
