Shine until tomorrow

Just after I got back from my second break, one of the production managers, Jeff, came and got me from my register and brought me to a big pile of pictures in the back of the store and told me to price them.

Ha ha what?

They were all of the nicer pictures that had collected in the jewelry room, ostensibly to be put in the silent auction, but there were just so many of them it would've taken the better part of a year of steady auctions to get them all out. Mary decided to skip that bother and just put them directly on the floor. And for some reason, Mary decided that I would somehow know better how to price them than the actual pricers. I think she's somehow got it in her head that I am some kind of walking antiques roadshow. In reality I was kind of at a loss, but I was not about to contradict the woman who signs my paychecks so I just kind of haphazardly went for it. I think I did pretty well. I'd thought it would be more Jeff doing the pricing, with me just there to offer my two cents, but it turned out to be the other way around.

I did fall completely in love with one picture, though. It looks to be a very large old photograph of a young couple, whom I can't imagine to be anything but very Irish, set in a heavy wooden frame. I'm not sure what it is about it, exactly, but something in me begs that I have it. It's like my couch in picture form. And I had to go and price it at $60. Even with my discount, I'm looking at around $45 for this picture. And I would have to convince Mara to give me a ride home from work because it's too big to take on the bus. AND I would have to find a place to store it until I could hand it over to mom and dad so some kind of storage plan could be sorted out. That's a lot of ands. I'm so afraid it'll sell before I can figure out a way to get it, but I just don't knooooooow... :(

There is still a light that shines on me

Oh geez, how did I forget to tell this story until just now? Last Tuesday, when dad was dropping me off at work, I saw the jewelery pricer, Theresa, taking a smoke break outside the front of the store. I like Theresa. I waved as we walked past, she waved, we went in. Dad shopped around after I clocked in and eventually left with his usual assortment of vague wiring. About fifteen minutes after dad left, I bumped into Theresa again while picking shirts up in the women's department. She leaned over and elbowed me. "So," she asked slyly, " was that your boyfriend?"

WHAT

NO

NO ACTUALLY THAT WAS MY DAD

It's gonna be a pretty long time before I let her forget that one.

And when the night is cloudy

So sometime during the night, my alarm clock bundled up into a blanket and fell into the space between the wall and the mattress, so when it went off it was too quiet to wake me but just barely loud enough so I could hear it.

I react adversely to alarms. I never remember it when I wake up later, but Mara tells me that when her phone alarm goes off in the morning, she has witnessed me "getting some serious air" in reaction to the noise, even though I don't actually wake up. I guess it's one thing if it's somebody else's alarm. I don't, for example, bust down the door in a blind panic when Erik's alarm starts going off. That is Somebody Else's problem. But if I set that alarm and it's going off and I can't get to it, god help us all.

I was in the midst of a dream when it started, and in the dream I knew there was some kind of alarm sounding, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I started slapping at things, in the dream, trying to shut off the sound, but nothing worked, no button would stop the beeping. It was just me, the noise, and the stupid plot of the dream that I don't really remember except for it being vaguely Rockford Files-y around the edges. I don't recall the story, and it wasn't important except for the fact that there was some kind of story and I had to play along with it like everybody else in the dream except there was this sound, this incessant, godawful, soul-grating alarm clock sound constantly buzzing in the background and it filled my ears and stopped my brain dead in its tracks, I couldn't think or speak or do anything except feel my skin crawl and pray, pray in my sleep for the noise to end OH GOD I'M IN HELL

Then I drifted close enough to the surface of consciousness to realize what was going on and dug the alarm out from the side of the bed.

Seriously, I can't handle that. I can't handle alarms. Whether it's the shriek of the teakettle or the relentless squawk of the clock, I have to make it stop as fast as I can or it will drive me mad. I think the fastest way to get me to break during interrogation would (for lack of a baseball bat and meaningful glances at my knees) be to lock me in a bare cell with a dummy alarm clock and pipe in the alarm noise and I would just be sitting there jabbing every button on the clock to make it stop but it wouldn't stop and I wouldn't know why and oh man, five minutes of that and I would tell anybody anything, please, just make it stop

kaze no naka ni (kaze no naka ni) kaze no naka ni, yeah

It sounds like Erik is taking a more traditional alarm sound for a test drive this morning, which shows initiative, and also means I got to listen to the melodious sound of NER FM playing The NerNer's latest hit "NER NER NER NER NER NER NER NER" for about ten minutes today while I was getting out of the shower and dressing. If you're faced with irritating, repetetive noise, I find it's a lot more bearable when you pretend it's the emergency evacuation alarm on your starship, and while the rest of the crew is running amok in a haze of panic and trying to pile into escape pods, you are just taking your time getting ready because you are just that bad, and those Klingons are never going to even know what hit them (as soon as you get your pants on) because they'll be too dead to know anything.

Then the alarm stopped so I guess I killed them all. Then you kind of have to strike really menacing poses, like you're channeling James Dean and Rambo at the same time and they're both dual wielding pancor jackhammers, because that's just what you do after you kill a bunch of Klingons.

Uh oh, there goes the alarm again! General 'tlhingon'PuJ must have called for backup!

Everybody need my sunlight

Blah, winter is fired. Aside from last weekend's "sledding by any means necessary" adventure, I have gotten nothing worthwhile out of the weather. Even the snow is still that unpleasant fluffy business. Who wants that crap? It doesn't pack into snowballs or snowmen or good sled trails. It just fluffs around and acts all sullen. Hey, snow, it's winter. We're all cold. We're all a little damp. Quit acting like you're the only one around and get exciting.

I mean really.

I got Anthony Bourdain's new book, The Nasty Bits, free in the mail the other day, and I have been rather enjoying it. Ostensibly it's about one crotchety New York chef's love/hate relationship with being a chef, but the more he waxes fondly irritable about the addictive combination of unique pressures and deranged environment found in kitchens, the more I find myself thinking not about the food industry but about working backstage on plays. Man, if only that was a real job and not the competetive, unpredictable, unreliable mess it is, I would be all over that. Figures everything I would actually want to do is useless niche crap.

daremo ga minna Flower

So I hate Erik's alarm clock with an unholy passion pretty much, yeah. If I wanted to be woken up at the crack of dawn on my day off to the radio suddenly blaring cranked up to 11, I'm pretty sure I could arrange something on my own terms. I think it even woke Mara up, which is pretty amazing since nothing short of gunfire or her phone alarm can wake her usually. At least it's Jack FM, so I can pretend to myself that I wanted to listen to the radio really freaking loud. Unless it's Georgia Satellite's "Keep Your Hands To Yourself" which I cannot abide. I had to get out of bed and pound on his door for that one.

I mean, I am not an especially light sleeper, I'm just the only one of us who wakes up to things. Mara's got herself trained to wake up to whatever noise her cell phone makes, and then sleeps through the fire alarm. Erik could probably nap through world war three. Mara probably could too, come to that, provided nobody tried to call her to tell her world war three was underfoot. Once when the building fire alarm was going off I tried to wake her up to ask her if that's what it was because I'd never heard it before, and she looked me in the eye, told me flatly she didn't hear anything, and went back to sleep. The noise was like a foghorn with emphysema. I just don't understand how that gets missed.

It wouldn't be so bad if his plan wasn't to hit snooze for two hours before finally getting up. Oh here we go again ANY WAY YOU WANT IT THAT'S THE WAY YOU NEED IT ANY WAY YOU WANT IT so do you think he'll wake up this time? Because that's the way I want it.

Everybody is a sunshine

So I got this fancypants cookbook from work the other day. I knew straight off what I was getting--every other word ends in -ouille or -accia or -floccinonfaciotouille or whatever, and frankly I'm a little put off about attempting to make anything I can't actually pronounce, but it's the Union Square Cafe cookbook (which I walked past every day when I was visiting Laura Berger in New York) so I figured oh heck. Worst case scenario: it just sits haughtily among my other cookbooks lookin' snooty and if anybody points at it and goes "ooh, what about some of those" I can just wave my hand and respond with a flippant "oh those?" as if to imply that I'm a bit advanced for that sort of thing, how quaint of you to suggest it.

I'm pretty sure I can handle that sort of worst case scenario.

It's there at your command

Went to meet some internet locals at a Dunn Bros downtown, which was an amazing adventure because I did not actually know where this Dunn Bros was, nor was I quite sure of which bus I needed to ride, and also it is approximately -300 degrees outside before windchill. I had to call Mara as I wandered aimlessly across streets and avenues so she could give me directions. Then my phone died, so I just picked a direction and went. It was the right direction. I have never been happier in my life to find myself in a coffee shop.

Eventually I thawed out as more internet goons accumulated, and we took off to Block E to watch "Children of Men." Which I loved. Then all of the 21+ age group (aside from yours truly) took off for the bars, and the rest of us took off for home. Which was another adventure, because by midnight the buses are either infrequent or not running at all, and I wasn't sure I was getting on the bus bound in the right direction, but I couldn't afford to be wrong because who knows when the next bus would pass? I lucked out and got the right way. Now I am home, slowly thawing by the light of the computer monitor. I have to be up in six hours to go to work. DAMN YOU WORK

Also, I was all braced against the cold wind and not really looking where I was going and I hit my head on the Mary Tyler Moore statue in Nicollet Mall. I will probably feel stupid about that for the rest of my life.

Children of Men really was an excellent movie. There's always been a little corner of my heart dedicated to all things post-apocolyptic, and this movie had such a gritty surreality to it that all at once you were removed from the now and a little frightened by the echoes of possibility.

And, y'know, having Clive Owen as the lead is nothing to shake a stick at.

Just one key unlocks them both

I've developed a nasty tendency to put on my headphones, listen to whatever on my computer, then get up to walk away and clothesline myself because I'm still wearing the headphones. At least I've mostly stopped hitting my head on the beams under my loft, though. That would really suck to rip both of my ears off and permanently dent my skull in the same wacky accident.

And last night at work I had to chase down a horde of excited little kids on bikes and turn them into a horde of sullen little kids not on bikes. It took a while, because they tended to scatter as soon as they saw me coming, but for the most part they stayed off their bikes once I told them to knock it off. Not one kid, though. I caught him once, told him to get off the bike, watched him walk around the corner and hop right back on the bike, and then chased him down. I told him to get off the bike again, and he started to try to pedal away, so I grabbed the handlebars to stop him and that's when he glared at me and wailed "NOOOOOO!" and bared his teeth and lunged for my arm. GET OFF THAT BIKE RIGHT NOW, WHERE IS YOUR DAD. WE ARE GOING TO FIND YOUR DAD RIGHT NOW. I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ACTUALLY JUST TRIED TO BITE ME.

I mean good grief. Catching rabies from some little rat kid on a bike has never been on my to-do list.

All in your trembling hand

I am eating a grilled spam and vegemite sandwich. I don't really have an explanation for why. I guess I felt like uniting the midwest with the outback in unholy sandwich matrimony, and now I'm just hoping there isn't an annullment in my stomach later. It actually wasn't too bad, though. Guess what I'm bringing to next Christmas! :D

Just kidding.

Maybe.

You hold the key to love and fear

I forgot to check on the internet for a few days, and I came back to find out that Mary had her baby! She was saying last month that so long as she gave birth sometime after 11:59 on December 31st, she would be covered by insurance. Braiden was born early afternoon on January 1st. That is living on the edge. I was actually planning on calling Mary to see if she wanted to hang out today, but something tells me she will have better things to do with her time for a while. You know how moms are.

You must understand

Laura was in the neighborhood today to check out the apartment building across the street, and I just went along with her to have a second look. The landlord, who reminds me of nobody so much as a perfect combination of Grandpa Lowell and Mr. Rogers, said the building was constructed in 1928. It's dingy around the edges, with slightly peeling walls and dimly lighted hallways and everything squeaks like a devil rat, but I dunno, there's just something about it...maybe it was the old house smell, or the squeaky hardwood flooring, or the glass doorknobs, or some combination of everything, but whatever it was sent me straight back to 11th ave.

That was always my favorite house. After years of living in the 2311, and now the 704, I had rather forgotten what is was that I liked about it so much, and now that I notice all the little details and differences, I don't know what ever compelled me to settle for less. I'll take drafts if it means the windows are wide and sills deep. I'm ok with flooring that sounds like the cricket verson of ozzfest if they're warm and worn and wooden. The walls can peel a little here and there if there's a little door that opens to let an ironing board fold out. I don't even iron anything, I just want stuff to fold out of the walls, it's so Bond. Ironing bond. I want slightly chipped porcelain fixtures in the bathrooms. I want my sofa to feel at home.

So yeah, basically I am looking forward to the end of the lease.

I hear they're ok with cats there.

If you hear the song I sing

Work has been downright mind-numbing these past few days. It's like 2007 brought with it a wash of ennui, and I find the minutes drag by like nails down a chalkboard, so slow it makes your skin writhe.

It doesn't help that Carmen is up visiting from Missouri, either. Nothing against Carmen, of course, it's just that coming home from a day spent getting steadily more and more burnt out on people, the last thing I want to do is be sociable with yet another total stranger. Erik and Mara may be thrilled to pieces that she's here--and if it were I in their stead, I would be too--but yesterday I just went straight to bed after work mostly to avoid having to deal with another person, and if I had not come home to find the three of them were out somewhere, I probably would have done the same thing again today. It's too much work. I just don't even want to deal with it.

I want a cat.