It's just for a little craft show, but I am excited.
They would not have been my first choice, but I found sprayers cheap and let that guide me. So... I will do an itsy-bitsy test run of a holiday fragrance. If things get here in time and unbroken. If I get it done. If if if.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Yesterday afternoon, the SSA
So, being now unemployed, and being as how yesterday was miscarriage #5, I was more or less at a loss for what to do with myself. Pat had to take a trip to the Social Security Administration for something to do with one of his clients, and offered me a ride-along so I could have his company. I leapt at the chance.
When we walked in, it immediately reminded us of the Banco de Credito in Pacasmayo, Peru. You took a number, part of the three distinct customer numbering systems in place, and took a seat. One of the two overworked counter people punched "next" and your number came up on the overhead LED display. The semi-recumbent security guard, clearly a man of character in his late 50s or early 60s, and looking a little menacing in his blue uniform, would yell the numbers if he felt they had been sufficiently ignored after popping up on the LEDs. Yep. Banco de Credito.
After we sat down, the next thing I noticed was the crazy lady. She was an old hippie burnout wearing a thin brown cotton caftan imprinted with fish skeletons and ankhs. And she was remonstrating with the infinitely patient counter person helping her, about how her phone had been turned off SOMEhow because SOMEbody was stealing her mail and plotting against her, so please don't mail the check to the P.O. box... and what race was she? What kind of question is that? Don't you know Hawaiians should be considered Samoan (and no, she did not consider herself either of those things)? Was anything going to be done about this shameful misclassification of race? Etc., etc. In between bouts of driving the counter person crazy, she would shadowbox and argue with her invisible companions, "Caesar" over her left shoulder, "Socrates" over her right.
Clearly, she was batshit insane. Yes/no answers took on revenant qualities as she dissected their philosophical import. She paused mid-argument with Socrates, swiveled around to meet my surprised gaze, and waved. Great. My crazy-person magnet was still fully armed and operational, so to speak. I wished my brother were there; he has a crazy-person magnet too, but its polarity is reversed or something, because when we are together crazy people do not approach us. Socrates fortunately distracted her from pursuing the relationship, and the counter person met my eyes mid-eye-roll-to-heaven and returned my smile with relief.
A custodian armed with a small, apartment-style vacuum cleaner wandered out with an evident lack of hurry, the attachment under his arm. The security guard stopped him and told him that Ms. _____ was here to see him. He clearly didn't know who that was or why she'd want to see him... so he followed the security guard's gaze and pointed finger to the batshit-insane, caftan-wearing, shadow-boxing-with-Caesar woman. The custodian responded with a shuddering sigh of horror and began ineffectually poking the undersized vacuum attachment around the floor, forcing people to move their feet.
The custodian stopped at a puddle of water darkening the blue military-grade shitty carpet, having vacuumed a few square inches with seemingly totally random attention (whilst neglecting most of the carpet.) "Is this water?"
The security guard. "Yeah, I think so."
"You THINK so, or you KNOW so?"
"Yeah, I think it's water."
"You THINK so? I ain't vacuuming piss again -- it messes up the vacuum."
"Go for it, I'm pretty sure it's water."
"You're PRETTY sure? Aw, HELL naw." He wandered away from the puddle and the 95% unvacuumed carpet and started trying to pick up a paperclip outside the front door with the underpowered machine. We were done, and slipped past him into the bright day. He continued trying to vacuum the paperclip off the concrete until we had driven away.
When we walked in, it immediately reminded us of the Banco de Credito in Pacasmayo, Peru. You took a number, part of the three distinct customer numbering systems in place, and took a seat. One of the two overworked counter people punched "next" and your number came up on the overhead LED display. The semi-recumbent security guard, clearly a man of character in his late 50s or early 60s, and looking a little menacing in his blue uniform, would yell the numbers if he felt they had been sufficiently ignored after popping up on the LEDs. Yep. Banco de Credito.
After we sat down, the next thing I noticed was the crazy lady. She was an old hippie burnout wearing a thin brown cotton caftan imprinted with fish skeletons and ankhs. And she was remonstrating with the infinitely patient counter person helping her, about how her phone had been turned off SOMEhow because SOMEbody was stealing her mail and plotting against her, so please don't mail the check to the P.O. box... and what race was she? What kind of question is that? Don't you know Hawaiians should be considered Samoan (and no, she did not consider herself either of those things)? Was anything going to be done about this shameful misclassification of race? Etc., etc. In between bouts of driving the counter person crazy, she would shadowbox and argue with her invisible companions, "Caesar" over her left shoulder, "Socrates" over her right.
Clearly, she was batshit insane. Yes/no answers took on revenant qualities as she dissected their philosophical import. She paused mid-argument with Socrates, swiveled around to meet my surprised gaze, and waved. Great. My crazy-person magnet was still fully armed and operational, so to speak. I wished my brother were there; he has a crazy-person magnet too, but its polarity is reversed or something, because when we are together crazy people do not approach us. Socrates fortunately distracted her from pursuing the relationship, and the counter person met my eyes mid-eye-roll-to-heaven and returned my smile with relief.
A custodian armed with a small, apartment-style vacuum cleaner wandered out with an evident lack of hurry, the attachment under his arm. The security guard stopped him and told him that Ms. _____ was here to see him. He clearly didn't know who that was or why she'd want to see him... so he followed the security guard's gaze and pointed finger to the batshit-insane, caftan-wearing, shadow-boxing-with-Caesar woman. The custodian responded with a shuddering sigh of horror and began ineffectually poking the undersized vacuum attachment around the floor, forcing people to move their feet.
The custodian stopped at a puddle of water darkening the blue military-grade shitty carpet, having vacuumed a few square inches with seemingly totally random attention (whilst neglecting most of the carpet.) "Is this water?"
The security guard. "Yeah, I think so."
"You THINK so, or you KNOW so?"
"Yeah, I think it's water."
"You THINK so? I ain't vacuuming piss again -- it messes up the vacuum."
"Go for it, I'm pretty sure it's water."
"You're PRETTY sure? Aw, HELL naw." He wandered away from the puddle and the 95% unvacuumed carpet and started trying to pick up a paperclip outside the front door with the underpowered machine. We were done, and slipped past him into the bright day. He continued trying to vacuum the paperclip off the concrete until we had driven away.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
I know some of you invited me to add you, and yet I am having the hardest time finding you on Facebook. For some of you, this is because I typo'd and only just corrected it (Robert!) For others, it's because I don't know your handles.
Please feel free to add me at literaryequivalent AT yahoo DOT com with the usual symbols in place of the capitalized words. I would love to connect with you.
Please feel free to add me at literaryequivalent AT yahoo DOT com with the usual symbols in place of the capitalized words. I would love to connect with you.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Interesting article - social overeating
Here's the article, from Time magazine.
Let's not equate overeating socially with obesity, as the article writer seems to have done. That seems to overdetermine the interpretation. But let's focus, more productively, on social comfort acting as a "permission" to eat as much as one desires. Doesn't that mean that eating alone (and therefore in ultimate comfort) is more dangerous than going back to school? Decent study, idiotic interpretation, in my estimation.
Groups who work with eating disorders have known for a long time that eating disorders closely resemble other addictive behaviors (such as alcoholism). If one shouldn't drink alone, should one eat alone? Shouldn't we worry more about our kids during summer, when they are definitively comfortable?
If not, it's because they're getting the other part of the equation... exercise. I have witnessed schools becoming more institutional and prisonlike over my lifetime, focused upon care, control, & custody of the children entrusted to them for increasingly longer hours. Kids are no longer allowed off campus at lunchtimes, and homework assignments just keep getting more time consuming (not better, just more time consuming). When are they supposed to go exercise during the school year?
The Time article seems to me to be a great example of blaming the victim. Or, in this case, the victim's subconscious.
Bah.
Let's not equate overeating socially with obesity, as the article writer seems to have done. That seems to overdetermine the interpretation. But let's focus, more productively, on social comfort acting as a "permission" to eat as much as one desires. Doesn't that mean that eating alone (and therefore in ultimate comfort) is more dangerous than going back to school? Decent study, idiotic interpretation, in my estimation.
Groups who work with eating disorders have known for a long time that eating disorders closely resemble other addictive behaviors (such as alcoholism). If one shouldn't drink alone, should one eat alone? Shouldn't we worry more about our kids during summer, when they are definitively comfortable?
If not, it's because they're getting the other part of the equation... exercise. I have witnessed schools becoming more institutional and prisonlike over my lifetime, focused upon care, control, & custody of the children entrusted to them for increasingly longer hours. Kids are no longer allowed off campus at lunchtimes, and homework assignments just keep getting more time consuming (not better, just more time consuming). When are they supposed to go exercise during the school year?
The Time article seems to me to be a great example of blaming the victim. Or, in this case, the victim's subconscious.
Bah.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Ay, ay ay
This article greeted me in my morning rounds of the Internet. It's a little summary of Levi Johnston's Vanity Fair article, where he dishes on Sarah Palin. While his quotes sound authentically felt to me, I certainly recognize that people's interpretation of events changes in retrospect with their current situation... we can't help but to spin things, in our self-concept, our lives, and our utterances. It's part of being human; we are poorly, if at all, subjective.
However, the commentary/wrangle/all-out food fight at the end of this is why I included it here. If you enjoy watching drama, by all means enjoy it. It's a fine example of we primates in our poop-flinging phase.
However, the commentary/wrangle/all-out food fight at the end of this is why I included it here. If you enjoy watching drama, by all means enjoy it. It's a fine example of we primates in our poop-flinging phase.
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