Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup -- Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup
Things I've learned from Jan Potocki (Yes, I'm still reading it. It's so good, but it's so crazy and tangled and long. As soon as I get to the end of a story, I have to let my brain cool down for a while, and there are about fourteen hundred billion stories in the thing.):
* It's not a fetish. It's a literary motif.
* Velasquez the Geometer makes me want to revive the T.I.A.I.L.W. service. In a strictly Slattery sort of way, naturally.
* Jewish chicks are hot.
No, wait. I knew that one already.
_
respond?
(3)
07:10:58 PM,Thursday 30 June 2005
I'm in New York City.
I'm eating dinner:
*Microwave Pizza
*Pizza-flavored Pringles.
Weep, suckers.
_
respond?
06:44:58 PM,Thursday 30 June 2005
Just realized I'd never done a random-song favorite-line list with all my music on the same drive. So here. You don't gotta guess; just wanted to see what I came up with. You can if you wanna, though. Embarrassingly, exactly half of these were stolen from Miss Nehring's collection. So either WMP's shuffle setting has a special affinity for her music or I've just got way too much of it.
1. Slide the nail under the top and bottom buttons of my blazer.
2. He's gone with streaming banners where noble deeds are done.
3. I do hope you have the time.
4. She forgot what her Mother had told her about taking gifts from strange men.
5. Every summer we go away to Baden-Baden-Baden.
6. And where's that blasted plain?
7. Restore me the rocks where the snow-flake reposes.
8. For to cut mince pies from children's thighs with which to feed the fairies.
9. We'll all throw mud at the cook.
10. I guess my race is run.
_
respond?
(8)
05:38:06 PM,Thursday 30 June 2005
Via Porphyre.
_
respond?
03:15:10 PM,Thursday 30 June 2005
Two bits of good news today.
Well, I guess I'm a selfish bastard to call the first one good news. K.'s work in Greece got finished early, so she's coming home on Saturday instead of later in the month. The sad bit is that she was hoping to spend some time in Athens before returning, but when she went to change the ticket, the Second was the only date they had available. A pity. But there'll be many trips back to Greece in the future (and for some of 'em I'll be there too, dulgunnit); she'll be awright. All my brain can say is, "She's coming back she's coming back she's coming back," in a sort of delirious murmur.
The second bit of good news is good all round, I think, except that it means a few more months of penury, but I can work around that, and predictable poorness is a lot less stressful than the erratic finchitude I've had to put up with for the last month. I got a job! Working at Soundwriters Captioning. I had an interview and a typing test and next thing you know, I'm signing the W-2. Felt pretty damn good after trying to find tolerable steady work for almost a year now.
See, basically, at the job I'm working now, I'm scheduled to work from eleven to seven, Monday through Friday. So I call them around ten, and ask if they have any work for me. If they do, I come in. If they don't, which has been the case in, oh, twenty-five of the last thirty days or so, I call back in an hour. Same routine. Frequently it'll go that way until four or so, when I finally give up and have to give the day up for a loss. It's nerve-wracking, and over the last month, I've been working between 6 and 18 hours a week, which means my savings are blown and I have to stoop to borrowing from my parents. Not cool, y'know? It's been nice having the free time, but it couldn't have gone on much longer.
My new job? Dude. Forty hours a week, nine to five, benefits, vacation, the lot. Three month probation/training period at less than I was making out of high school, but after that point, he implied that I'd be making as much if not more than I'm making now. He says they're never at a loss for work, so there'll be no more dead weeks. I'll start as a transcriber and then, if I'm good enough, I'll move on to captioning.
And the work itself seems so much more interesting. Not just interviews but actual shows and movies, including South Park (score!). Plus good experience if I'm going down the realtime reporting route, which I'm almost sure that I am. I can work during the day and then take classes in the evenings, and it'll go more slowly, but I'll be able to pay my own way.
I need to do some more research about the possibility of stenographers being replaced with voice-recognition maskers, though. NYCI scoffs at the idea. So do plenty of current working court reporters. The guy who interviewed me seemed more dubious, though, and this place is positive that stenography is out and Voice Writing is in. I just don't know. I doubt whether the technology is up to the task right now, but I don't want to be too cocky about future prospects until I get all the facts.
Anyway. The office environment seems laid-back and friendly, it's not too far away (1 train to 96, 2,3 to Times Square, 7 to the first stop in Queens), and I think I'm really gonna enjoy the work. So woo!
Also, as of today I have officially set foot in all the city's boroughs except Staten Island. I went out to the Bronx last night to play some jazz, and that was fun, though I probably won't join the band. I want classical, damnit. Oh well. It was still a good time just to jam for a while. I've missed it.
Heh. As long as I'm being Urning McHomo this week, I might as well give you the lyrics of my new favorite cross-dressing ballad, circa 1687, found on The City Waites's Penny Merriments and published by my beloved Naxos. Notes here.
The Female Captain, or The Counterfit Bridegroom
Come all ye frolicksom jilts of the town,
Whose trade like yourselves is uncertain;
Since whoring like other professions goes down,
I'll show you a new way to good fortune:
Cheer up your hearts, to be merry prepare,
Execute but a little preamble,
I'll sing you a jest if you have not a care,
It shall give you the thorough-go-nimble.
A lady well skilled in intrigues of the town,
Reduced to a slender condition,
Who lived by the trade of shove-up-and-go-down,
Which has so long time been in fashion;
But money's so scarce and taxes so great,
Poor Cully is grown unable
To give a half-crown for a bit of his cat,
Or to put up his nag in the stable.
Resolving, at last, some new measures to try,
To raise up her fortune to riches,
She lays her profession and petticoats by,
And boldly she puts on the breeches;
Her carriage so pleasing, and full of air,
Her talk so delightful and witty,
In masculine habit she now does appear,
As gay as a beau in the city.
She takes noble lodgings, sets up for an heir,
And passes for the same, of a certain,
She bates with delusion her amorous snare,
Desiring to hook in some fortune;
A cunning old miser, full of design,
Being blessed with a pretty young daughter,
With whom our young heir did his project begin,
And craftily managed the matter.
The father being eager to make up the match,
Proposing a very good portion
Of money and plate, which the miserly wretch
Had got by his cursed extortion;
The lovers themselves did quickly agree,
The father was also consenting,
Expecting his daughter a lady should be,
And he without cause of repenting.
The day was declared to consumate the match,
With joy to the innocent creature;
The miser, being greedy and busy to catch
So hopeful a prize for his daughter;
The father provided a plentiful feast,
In grandieur they went to be wedded,
The portion was paid - but the cream of the jest
Was what they did when they were bedded.
The bridegroom had prudently got a sheep's gut,
Blow'd up very stiff as a bladder,
But what he did with it, or where it was put,
I'll leave you good folks to consider.
The innocent bride no difference knew,
And seemed to be greatly delighted,
But ladies, I warrant, there's none among you
That would be so easily cheated!
This for a month undiscovered pass'd on,
At last an old turbulent woman
(Made privy to the project when just 'twas begun,
And knew the young spouse to be no man)
One morning resolved to open the jest
Without any further delaying,
The bedclothes she tossed, showed the beard of the beast,
And pulled off the politik play-thing!_
respond?
12:21:30 AM,Wednesday 29 June 2005
I just watched the last half hour of Iron Chef. The winning contestant's dessert was made of potatoes, bananas, sugar, mustard, and mayonnaise.
_
respond?
(2)
12:01:15 AM,Wednesday 29 June 2005
Apparently my aunt told my dad that I'm queer because I must have been sexually abused during my childhood, and then implied that he was responsible. He just laughed in her face. It would have taken all my self control not to hit her. I'm one of all too few people I know who (thank God) have never suffered any kind of sexual assault or exploitation. That she could accuse her own brother of such a thing makes me want to spit. But I'm a Knight, and no Knight has ever been a homosexual. She knows what homosexuals are like -- she lived in San Francisco! So, clearly, I was damaged. What other explanation can there be?
_
respond?
(17)
09:32:03 PM,Monday 27 June 2005
This is depressingly apt. Via Plaidder.
_
respond?
(1)
03:59:22 PM,Monday 27 June 2005
Couldn't find the foragers. Either I got there too late or I couldn't distinguish them from the two busloads of tourists who showed up at the same time I did. So I foraged myself a hot dog and read in the shade for a while.
_
respond?
02:12:53 PM,Saturday 25 June 2005
I've actually been reduced to putting "sleep", "eat", and "shower" on my BlogHead LifeTools to-do list. Every morning I check the first and uncheck the other two, and it makes me feel like I did something, something, the day before, and that I have a leg up on the day to come. Some glorious night, I'll be able to check off not just those but everything else on the list except "sleep" before I go to bed, and then I'll be a grownup. I think I may have to add "get off the goddamn internet", though.
_
respond?
02:44:03 AM,Saturday 25 June 2005
Oh, and Teslamania was completely pointless, yet amusing. Basically, it was just a mad pyromaniac putting various random objects on a Tesla coil to see if they'd catch fire, including jelly beans (which we got to eat afterwards), a vase of flowers (which was kind of awesome. Lightning shot out the stamens.), a plastic doll painted silver, a bowl of flaming isopropyl, some neon tubes (which glowed at a distance of about five feet from the coil), and a flesh-colored marital aid. She was finally dissuaded from actually putting the marital aid in the bowl of fire, so that at least was a success.
The rest of the time, we got to listen to an old man tell long tortuous stories about his ex-girlfriends and the International Tesla Society's financial mismanagement to the accompaniment of a celtic harp. Then he got on the subject of Wardenclyffe and how to warp your own gravitational field. (Hint: it involves wire cages, squashed dodecahedrons, and deposits of serpentine found in Northern California. Be careful when you're driving past 'em, though, 'cause they'll suck your car in if you get too close.)
Froggin' crackers, the lot of 'em. But a pleasant evening out.
_
respond?
02:18:32 AM,Saturday 25 June 2005
Damnit, why isn't K. modeling anymore? I would kill to see her in something like this. (Via Registan, via Odious.)
_
respond?
(5)
02:10:36 AM,Saturday 25 June 2005
This looks intriguing too. Considering what this city smells like in the summer, I'd be a bit reluctant to put any of it in my salad, but it'd be a nice botany lesson, anyway.
_
respond?
(3)
05:17:48 PM,Friday 24 June 2005
This just in from Paros: "Greek latkes" (crunchy zucchini fritters with dill, egg, and fresh yogurt) are called Kolokythokeftadakia.
_
respond?
12:08:18 PM,Friday 24 June 2005
(Or, uh, I will be. Eventually. Getting a little excited over the whole thing.)
_
respond?
(1)
02:07:58 AM,Friday 24 June 2005
So I didn't get to work today (actually, I could have, but I decided to turn down the only thing they offered me, a reality show that's so odious even to my jaded sensibilities that I had to stop and force down my revulsion while typing it in on Wednesday), but I did plenty else besides.
I went to the open house at the New York Career Institute, and heared their spiel, and got to play with the stenotype machine. It decided me. I'm gonna go for it. I'll have to borrow money and live sparely for a year or two, but it'll be worth it.
Then I wandered down to the Village for a while before the Frontalot show. I finally got to go into the Strand and the Chess Store. Frontalot, of course, was totally badass. Even though it was freakin' Pride weekend in freakin' Greenwich Village, and he didn't play "I <3 Fags", I forgive him. He said he just forgot to rehearse it. But he is such a sexy sexy spaz, and his backup band, Charisma+1, Black Lotus, and the immortal DJ CPU, were tight as ever. So glad I went. Got a CD, too.
But, dude -- remember this? That was me simultaneously being remembered by the Peace Corps and being rejected for a job after a promising interview, the first time I came to New York to meet K. The couple who interviewed me were SITTING IN FRONT OF ME AT THE SHOW. I didn't even recognize 'em, but they remembered me, all right. (And thought my name was "Mirabelle", but hey.) Turned down for a job that I really wanted but which wound up being a clear stroke of good fortune in the long run? Ha! Heard and recorded, sir.
Oh yeah. Recorded. I was totally gonna pirate the concert, but I keep forgetting that I lent my second battery to K. for the trip and not charging it up twice as often accordingly, so I got about thirty seconds of "Message Number 419" and then fizzle. Oh well.
Speaking of omens, a giant green dragonfly flew in my window today and hung out in my room for about an hour while I was talking to my mom on the phone. Amazing thing.
Then, after the show, I tried to strike up a conversation with these two cool-looking chicks, one of whom was apparently the sister of Frontalot's girlfriend, and the other of whom was wearing a tie. They were nice. The latter gave me the Magic card Front threw at her during "Hassle the Dorkening". But I was too shy to keep it going, and marched off in the wrong direction after just a couple sentences. Making friends is hard.
I was thinking of going out to a club after, but I figured it'd make more sense to sleep and charge up for the weekend. I got plenty of vicarious slip-and-slide action on the train platform, though. Four young queens from the House of Ninja (in boy drag, but the moves were there) had a voguing battle that continued onto the train for at least three stops. Perfect end to a wackass evening.
_
respond?
01:56:44 AM,Friday 24 June 2005
"Hangs like flax on a distaff"?
_
respond?
(1)
01:19:52 AM,Friday 24 June 2005
