There are certain items on my iPod that I have no choice but to skip over if I am in a public place. Added to that list today is anything off of Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" album.
I was meandering down one of the (normally deserted) residential streets, running a finger along the low stone wall separating the houses from the pavement when, convinced of my solitude, I gave in to the unbearable temptation to (ever-so-softly) sing along with Jimi when he got to the "some people say...daydreamin's fo-hor the...lazy minded FEW-EW-HOOLS" part in 'May This Be Love'. I had my earphones blasting, though, so it was probably more like a moderate and hideously off-key shout, because I looked up from my reverie just in time to see a guy sitting in his parked truck, eating his lunch and laughing his ass off at me. Then he gave me a thumbs up. I can only hope that meant "Right on, Hendrix girl!" and not "Your assery on my behalf is much appreciated!"
Eh, either way. Let them laugh, laugh at me. Right Jimi? I wove you.
Monday, 21 July 2008
What the fuck is "workflow"???
The fact that I was born missing the soft chunk of gray matter essential for allowing me even the most rudimentary understanding of corporate politics is something that I've always been proud of. Even after jumping ON the corporate bandwagon, which I was too mired in the muddle and existential panic of the mid-20s to properly think through, I always approached meetings and seminars and those infernal obligatory-by-implication, let's-everybody-get-wasted-and-sexually-harrass-each-other office social outings with a dismissive wrist-flick and the conviction that my ignorance simply illustrated the purity of my soul or some such dude-man bullshit.
Now thoroughly ensconced in the early-thirties rite de passage of receiving a daily skull-thwack from the crowbar of reality, however, I am growing ever more alarmed at my overwhelming ineptitude. My plaintive battle cry of "I will never understand you people!" has gotten less haughty and more panicked with each passing year, and I've come to realize that I most likely will never understand it, and not because I can't be bothered with spiritual mundanity of it all. I will never understand it in the same way that I will never understand nuclear physics or organic chemistry, and that might even be all right because lots of people don't understand those things, but that's why said people leave the nuclear physicsing and organic chemistrying to those with the capacity to deal with it. Right? One doesn't flunk basic chemistry in high school and then think, "Hey! This could be a career path!" Right? Of course not! Usually.
It's not that I simply disagree with corporate philosophy but, like so many of my colleagues, recognize that 99% of people in this world do what they gotta do and that's life, baby. My lack of understanding goes so, so far beyond that. I mean, that is what I aspire to. That's the physics. I can't even clearly define what it is about the corporate environment that I so strenuously disagree with, apart from the fact that it sucks the soul right out of my body and vomits it 40 hours per week closer to death. But doesn't it do that to everybody?
It's all very well and good to heroically suffer the indignities like a line-toeing martyr until you realize that you've been doing the same job for five years and people far stupider than you are making a lot more money and hey! Let me try that! and you come out of a meeting with Production Department upper management feeling like you've been listening to Ronnie Wood recite Japanese poetry though a voice modulator and all you can wonder is who, in fact, is the real member of the idiot masses.
Now thoroughly ensconced in the early-thirties rite de passage of receiving a daily skull-thwack from the crowbar of reality, however, I am growing ever more alarmed at my overwhelming ineptitude. My plaintive battle cry of "I will never understand you people!" has gotten less haughty and more panicked with each passing year, and I've come to realize that I most likely will never understand it, and not because I can't be bothered with spiritual mundanity of it all. I will never understand it in the same way that I will never understand nuclear physics or organic chemistry, and that might even be all right because lots of people don't understand those things, but that's why said people leave the nuclear physicsing and organic chemistrying to those with the capacity to deal with it. Right? One doesn't flunk basic chemistry in high school and then think, "Hey! This could be a career path!" Right? Of course not! Usually.
It's not that I simply disagree with corporate philosophy but, like so many of my colleagues, recognize that 99% of people in this world do what they gotta do and that's life, baby. My lack of understanding goes so, so far beyond that. I mean, that is what I aspire to. That's the physics. I can't even clearly define what it is about the corporate environment that I so strenuously disagree with, apart from the fact that it sucks the soul right out of my body and vomits it 40 hours per week closer to death. But doesn't it do that to everybody?
It's all very well and good to heroically suffer the indignities like a line-toeing martyr until you realize that you've been doing the same job for five years and people far stupider than you are making a lot more money and hey! Let me try that! and you come out of a meeting with Production Department upper management feeling like you've been listening to Ronnie Wood recite Japanese poetry though a voice modulator and all you can wonder is who, in fact, is the real member of the idiot masses.
Friday, 4 July 2008
The Shat In the Hat
Because I'm currently struggling to produce more substantial wordsmithing and yet I still long to share my innermost being with you, I embed a Youtube treasure that is particularly close to my soul.
99.89996% of everything I love about life is contained within its five minutes and two seconds, not the least of which is The Shat himself.
99.89996% of everything I love about life is contained within its five minutes and two seconds, not the least of which is The Shat himself.
Monday, 23 June 2008
Friday, 6 June 2008
Monday, 19 May 2008
Why can't I own Canadians?
I'm currently watching a thoroughly depressing episode of Dispatches that spotlights the importation of fundamentalist Christianity from the U.S. into the U.K. It seems that a growing number of Brits have got the whole schtick worked out to the letter, right down to the goldmine of fundy wisdom that includes "I have 20 grandchildren. I don't want my grandsons to think it's okay to get shit on their penis." (I'd kill for a Youtube link to insert here, but it's only just now airing. I'm sure it will come in time. For now, as hard as it may seem, you'll just have to take my word for it.) Sigh. For fuck's sake. Why, with a wealth of import-worthy fabulousness including 3 Muskateers bars and washing machine technology, does the U.K. keep scraping my homeland's colon for cultural inspiration? And, I mean, yes, thank you, Dispatches, for giving the whole thing the circus side-show Louis Theroux treatment it so richly deserves, but still, British people? I beseech you. Please. Stop it. Stop it now. And stop it good. And FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SACRED (mit irony), don't elect them to public office. The world has been through enough.
Update:
The shining paradigm of godly virtue can be found at 1:35.
Update:
The shining paradigm of godly virtue can be found at 1:35.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
The problems with today, in order of suckiness:
1. Rainiest, coldest, most minging day in recent history
2. Leaving magnificent bag of Manchego cheese, mortadella and fresh Medjool dates--purchased from the swank deli down the street expressly for my gastronomic pleasure since I knew I'd be dining solo tonight--in the fridge at work
3. Gym closed for "renovations" which, most likely, will not include the chiseling of six months' buildup of encrusted body fluids from the surfaces of the equipment
4. Perky, adorable and innovative personal trainer who thinks it would be a GREAT IDEA to do circuit training in the adjoining field in full view of the junior high rugby team (because nobody is more courteous and able to keep their opinions to themselves than thirteen year-old boys)
5. An hour and a half of progressively gustier winds and sandblastier rain whilst jumping through the mud trying to negotiate said circuit
6. The kind offer of the gym-renovation staff to let me use the stankiest toilets in the history of stank toilets to briefly mop my hair and "waterproof" mascara-streaked face with .0005-ply toilet paper before venturing back out into the monsoon to wait a further 30 minutes for the bus.
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow...cannot possibly suck so much.
2. Leaving magnificent bag of Manchego cheese, mortadella and fresh Medjool dates--purchased from the swank deli down the street expressly for my gastronomic pleasure since I knew I'd be dining solo tonight--in the fridge at work
3. Gym closed for "renovations" which, most likely, will not include the chiseling of six months' buildup of encrusted body fluids from the surfaces of the equipment
4. Perky, adorable and innovative personal trainer who thinks it would be a GREAT IDEA to do circuit training in the adjoining field in full view of the junior high rugby team (because nobody is more courteous and able to keep their opinions to themselves than thirteen year-old boys)
5. An hour and a half of progressively gustier winds and sandblastier rain whilst jumping through the mud trying to negotiate said circuit
6. The kind offer of the gym-renovation staff to let me use the stankiest toilets in the history of stank toilets to briefly mop my hair and "waterproof" mascara-streaked face with .0005-ply toilet paper before venturing back out into the monsoon to wait a further 30 minutes for the bus.
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow...cannot possibly suck so much.
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