A New Boutique

Ah, sir, welcome to the Change Boutique.
    Actually, I think I'm in the wrong…
Nonsense, sir, you wouldn't have been able to find this establishment if it weren't your time.
   So why am I here?
That is the question, isn't it? Have you undergone some sort of drastic life change recently?
   Not really. Well.. I was one of the millions of people who lost their jobs last year.
That counts.
    But I was cool with it. Really. I had money saved up and with an unemployment check coming in I made it work.
Are you still 'between assignments?'
   Hey, funny, that's what I called it. No, I found a gig. Contract work.
And?
    I'm doing doing the same stuff I was doing nine years ago.
Ah… a step back.
    Kind of. But they're paying me pretty well. I just don't want to that work any more.
So, not recently unemployed, then re-employed at something you'd rather not be doing.
   It brings in rent money, can't ask for more than that.
Actually, you can. Anything else?
   I'm trying to get a franchise started back in my home town.
That's certainly a change.
   Wait, are you taking notes?
Of course, sir. Is there anything else, anything big that's happened to you lately?
   No. Well, my father died.
That's very big. My condolences. How are you holding up?
   Some days are better than others. Some days are way worse.
Feeling your own mortality, then?
   Big time. And I'm not married and I don't have any kids.
Do you want those things?
   Absolutely.
Wow, just a barrel of conflict here. What else is happening?
   I'm trying really hard to sell my writing.
Ah… you want that particular change then, you want to make a living as a writer?
   Of course.
And you feel you're being kept from it?
   Well… I suppose…
I can say without equivocation, sir, that you belong here in the Change Boutique.
   I don't like dealing with this kind of stuff.
Of course you don't. That’s why you need our help.
    Who are you?
Just relax, sir. Go with the flow.
    I can't. I want to fight this, try to swim out of the rip tide.
Struggling will only tire you out more.
   Crap… do you mind if I cry? Maybe just a little?
You go right ahead, sir.

Copper Tastes Bad

Over the past three days plumbers have replaced the hot and cold water pipes in my building. Aside from the plaster bits on my bathroom floor and the long sheets of plastic lining my carpet, the plumbers left something else.
   Really, really, really gross tasting water.
   Fresh copper pipes make water taste horrible. Awful, like blood when you bite the inside of your mouth. Just nasty, or, as my sister used to say in high school, 'rasty.'*
   I don't know what to do, that's the sink where I brush my teeth. I rinse my mouth out there, and I don't want to go to sleep with coppery-fresh breath. So I'm thinking I need to go get a supply of Perrier and swish with that for a while, until the new copper gets a sheen of mineral slime on the inside and it stops tasting horrible.

You know... there are times I'm really thankful that the most I have to worry about is that my bathroom water tastes bad. I could be living in Somalia or Afghanistan or some other place where the best water is the one with least amount of parasites and a safe home is a distant memory.
   Maybe I'm just gonna drink the damned copper water and count my blessings.


* Really nASTY

House In Order?

Some people I know, women mostly, have in mind exactly what they're looking for in a house: square footage, paint colors inside and out, two-story or one, decorating concepts, kinds of towels for the bathroom, number of bedrooms, all that stuff. This does not mean they're actually living in that dream home, but they do have a very definite picture in their minds.
   I don't have a vision of a home. Never have. For years now as far as I've been concerned I just needed a roof over my head, three hots and a cot. Anything else was just luxury.
   Back when I took a lot of art classes in high school and college we did create some floorplans, the idea was to teach us basic drafting and control to go with the crazy abandon art students arrive with. I came up with blue-sky kid stuff kinds of things, like a volcano secret lair with a firepole like Batman had and access to a subterranean river like the Avengers did. I also did one that resembled a beehive for some reason I can't recall now. Nothing serious. But the girls… they were on it. Sun rooms, kitchens (which I had neglected), conservatories, separate bedrooms for their three kids – they always seemed to want three kids – and huge closets and painted accent walls and swatches and samples and all that business. Jeez…
   Before now, and I mean right now, as I write this, I never saw how I suffered for that lack of vision. Nothing to strive for, as it were, no concept of where I was going. And I don't mean just with the house stuff, I mean generally, across the board. I've always known I wanted to be a published author, since I was about eight years old, but I never really had much more than a vague notion that I would write novels – maybe comic books if I was lucky - and then see my name in print. The middle bit I assumed would take care of itself (thinking just like the underpants gnomes). Same thing with getting married, having kids, leading a life of purpose, all that jazz; I knew I wanted to do those things, but I didn't really have a vision for how to accomplish them. I did all right, made a few bucks, got on TV a few times, met some nice people and went across the world. But I haven't yet mastered the things that really matter, or at least that I think should really matter.
   I know I'm not unique in this, most people in the world are just trying to get by day to day. But that doesn't mean that I have to join in with them. Goals with no plan are just dreams, after all. It takes a fair bit of planning and execution to bring about the things you want to see in your world.
   So here's the deal: at risk of sounding like a bad self-help infomercial, I'm going to start putting some effort into planning out how I'm going to achieve what I want. Trouble is, I haven't done the best job with this so far, so I'm not really certain how to start. I'll figure it out. I hope.

I'm Still Not Satisfied

I'm fickle.
   I've come to this realization slowly, but I think it's accurate. At least I'm fickle when it comes to work. Let me 'splain.
   I've been at my contract gig for about eight weeks now, and I've been largely unsupervised. Not that I'm slacking off, but what I do is so different from what the others in the office do that they don't know enough about it to give me effective direction. However, having been in charge of contractors before, I know I would do things differently.
   So I'm taking a point away from them for not supervising me or my work properly.
   But today one of the managers was starting to take an interest in what I've been doing, and giving me some minimal instruction and direction. And while I was pleasant and nodded and agreed with what he was saying (I was doing it anyway), in the back of my mind I was thinking 'dude, just leave me alone.'
   So I'm now taking a point away from them for trying to supervise me and my work.
   See? Fickle.
   Either I want them to treat me the way I treated contractors I was in charge of previously, or I don't. I can't have it both ways. But I want it both ways. I want to be unhappy no matter which way my fortunes turn. Can't they understand that?
   Now I'm going to practice for tomorrow. I'm going to resent having the TV on, then I'm going to turn it off and resent it not being on. I'm going to be dissatisfied with my un-brushed teeth, then I'm going to brush them and be unhappy with that too. And then I'm going to be upset with my sink full of dishes, and when I put them all in the dishwasher I'm going to resent the fact that I have to turn it on.
   Ahh... it feels good running a game no one can possibly win.

COMMUTE - there - 35 minutes      back - 40 minutes, it took me 20 minutes to go 6 miles. That just ain't right.
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 39 days

Introspection

I had to go down to Old Town today, and as I walked there and back I learned a few things about myself.

   I don't expect homeless people to be very tall. Certainly not 6'5". I don't expect them to look something like Garrison Keillor either. I like my homeless people to be smaller than me, and sickly, it makes me feel safer.

   Looking for a business I don't know the name of with a half-remembered address from someone who's never been to Pasadena is an ill-advised venture. But it does get me out of the house for an hour or so.

   If I'm distracted - really not paying attention - say, looking for an address or a business that doesn't exist, people give me a lot of room. I don't know if I look like I might start swinging, or if people suddenly become more courteous, but the end result is the same, they stay away. And I'm cool with that.

   It bothers me when women pushing baby strollers also have little pocket dogs trailing on a leash behind them. There seem to be plenty of them in Old Town during the day, and I don't know if they're treating the tiny dog like a baby or treating the baby like a tiny dog. Kind of creeps me out and I never realized it before.

   I don't mind when skateboarders almost commit suicide by rolling through a crosswalk when cars are turning left. It does bother me when pedestrians do stupid things, I really don't want to see anybody killed, but, surprisingly enough, the same does not apply to skateboarders. Who knew? Douchebags shouldn't be riding on the sidewalk anyway.

   Evidently I don't look like someone who wants to receive the word of God. A roly-poly fellow with a scraggly beard and a stained jacket was handing out Jesus literature while I waited at a crosswalk. He tried to give a pamphlet to everyone but me, and, to tell you the truth, I was a little disappointed. Maybe he could tell I was distracted.

Uneasy Dreams

Have you ever eaten something really spicy or really rich and then you have some freaky sort of dream that night? Seems common enough, and it happens to me from time to time.
   But I gotta tell you, if I start pondering imponderables just before bed, or in bed... look out.
   So, last night I was laying in bed and I started thinking about stuff. The kind of stuff I think about - I've discovered over the years - is not necessarily what other people think about. Specifically, I was thinking about two things, bent time again and the nature of sub-atomic particles. I still haven't figured out what bent time is, but I'm working on it, and the imprecise nature of our models of sub-atomic particles has always bothered me, since high school. For instance, if you measure an electron one way it acts like a particle, but if you measure it another way it acts like a wave. What does that really mean? At the very least it means an electron is neither a particle nor a wave but another thing entirely. But what is that other thing?
   Anyhoo... after about half an hour of thinking this stuff over I fell asleep, only to have some of the freakiest dreams ever. I don't remember them really, they're kind of hazy and indistinct, but I do remember waking up thinking 'what the hell is wrong with me? Why am I dreaming this stuff?' The only part I remember specifically is when I was dreaming about the curvature of space-time (so sue me, I'm weird), and I thought that I probably shouldn't go too much farther down the line of reasoning I was following, because I might think myself out of existence. How's that for seriously f'ed-up dreaming?
   I think I'm on to something, though. My mind wouldn't shut me down unless I was pretty close to some kind of revelation. So if I suddenly cease to exist you'll know that I figured out something big. Unless my ceasing to exist is retroactive along the curvature of space-time, and nobody remembers that I ever was here... aw, crap, it's gonna be a long night.

Puppet Veracity

I don't think I'm alone when I say that ventriloquist's dummies kind of creep me out. Unless you're a ventriloquist yourself, I think it's a safe bet that almost everybody gets a little shiver when those lifeless doll's eyes turn your way.
   Yet I am completely entranced by puppets. If I find the puppet section in a toy store, watch out, I'm trying on every one that will fit on my meaty mitts. Especially if it's a dinosaur. Unlike ventriloquist's dummies - which really will murder you in your sleep - puppets are friendly and plush and adorable. And Craig Ferguson likes them too, so that's an endorsement right there.
   Puppets attract people, when you see someone with a puppet on their hand you want to go towards them; when you see someone with a ventriloquist's dummy you want to get as far away as possible. And when you have a puppet on your hand, you can get away with saying things you never could otherwise. 'You could stand to lose a few pounds, honey.' I didn't say it, the puppet did. 'Boy, this meatloaf is so dry it could choke a corpse.' Now, Mr. Dino, don't get sassy.
   I think everybody should get a puppet alter-ego, that way you could say everything you're really thinking and yet claim the notions came from somewhere else.
   To the scrawny white guy in Best Buy: 'Okay, Brandon or Cody or Jordan or whatever your name is, you get paid to know about the features of this TV, not to play Rock Band all day.'
   To your boss: 'Yes, I do mind, and no, I'm not working late. Suck it.'
   To the guy at the car wash: 'I know you're new to this country, but the car is supposed to come out cleaner than it went in.'
   To the Post Office clerk: 'Hey bitch, don't walk away from the window when I'm next in line.'

See? It'll be like one great big therapy session, all the time. What could go wrong?

Furniture Store Conundrum

There are many things that bother me about this economic downturn - oddly enough me being unemployed isn't one of them - but there's one thing in particular that's got my head spinning. Why is it that when a furniture store goes out of business, somebody puts another furniture store in exactly the same spot?
   Two blocks up from my house there was a furniture store, right on Colorado, which went out of business about two years ago. The place was empty for a few months, then - BAM! - another furniture store. Three blocks down from that one, near the Carvel ice cream place, a sofa store went out of business, and, sure enough, another one goes in its place.
   There were two - TWO - furniture stores near the gym where I work out, one across the street from the other. You can see them in the first Transformers movie, when Shia Laboef is chasing his yellow car. Anyhoo... earlier this year both stores went out of business within one month of each other, complete with the 'Everything must go!' signs and 'Auction today' signs. And then... you guessed it, one month later there's a furniture store in the exact same place.
   Is this part of an MBA education? If one particular type of business fails, then go ahead and put exactly the same business in exactly the same location? Is this the 'lightning never strikes twice' theory of business? Am I the only one bothered by this? And why does Ikea thrive while real furniture stores tank miserably? What do those Swedes know that we don't?

Don't get me started on the Oriental rug places... jeez, how many rugs can one society purchase?