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Tuesday, December 24, 2013

White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin

Got this from my pal Chaz, who had this to say in introduction of the video.

Sometimes, it takes an Australian* Atheist comedian to get to the real reason for the season and wrap it in pretty chords. Give it the full 6.5 minutes and maybe you'll get chills and perhaps a tear in your eye. You have to get past the comedy to get to the season reasoning, and for the song to become a promise to his newborn daughter.

*As Mr. Minchin is Australian, you have to keep in mind that when X-mas rolls around it's summer down under. Hence the white wine and not rum laced egg nog.


Imaginary Friends

MonsterMustDie had an imaginary friend as a child, named Mr. Pinky, who was a ghost, who ran on on batteries. You had to put batteries in him or he couldn't fly. And Mr. Pinky had a friend named Mr. Boss, who was a cigar-smoking clam.

He's telling me this story from his childhood and he adds "This is real. I'm not making this up" which sounds really strange. 

Monday, December 23, 2013

Holiday gatherings

I made it through the 15-hour days last week and was a bit broken physically by it. Legs, hips, and back were hurting from standing most of the day on a cold concrete floor. I don't think I could have made it through one more day of that kind of work without more serious consequences. I will continue to recover from the sleep deficit for the next several days. I have to admit that days lasting 15 hours made the 104-mile (round trip) commute more worthwhile than if I'd only worked 8 or 10 hours. Still not sure if it was worth the travel time and gasoline but I do have a paycheck to look forward to for what was minimum wage work that I could not have done without a car.


We got through what will probably be the last Winter Solstice party here at el Rancho de WereMonster. Someone was a complete bastard about the entire affair this year and had nothing but complaints about poor turnout and lack of appreciation and manners, for whatever reason. Really, a more emotional woman might have either cried or hit him afterwards. He decided to stay up and be a jerk for a while instead of putting his drunk self to bed like he should have. So, I suppose unless I have a very well-paying job next year to support renting a venue of my own, there are no more parties at el Rancho.

*sigh* Another reason to look forward to possibly moving back to the Fortress Of Solitude in midtown.

I know he's sick and tired of being the main bread-winner in the house. And he considers most of our visitors my friends, not his. I did invite a lot of his friends that did not come to the party. Many of them took holiday vacations out of town. Others chose something else to do with themselves that night.
Lack of work keeps me here without options because, when there is a tenant, the midtown condo is my only income source.


Speaking of holiday gatherings,
I finally got an invitation to my brother's family Christmas gathering, via my mother. I am not sure if he is aware she has invited us or not. She says he just forgot to call or email to let me know when it was. I suspect she might have taken it upon herself to invite us to his house for dinner but I never know what's up with any family goings on. I hope we are invited but I don't have any certain way of knowing. We'll just show up for dinner and hope all is well. I've got gifts wrapped that I need to deliver.


In other news, I am looking forward to an interview on Friday for a regular job near home. I hope hope HOPE that I am a good fit for the position and that they hire me. So it's not all rants and complaints for this posting. Wish me luck!

Monday, December 09, 2013

Wise Choices

Reading the article What Makes Us Happy.


Fascinating very long study that follows a group of men throughout their lives from the time they are college sophmores to beyond retirement.



"His central question is not how much or how little trouble these men met, but rather precisely how—and to what effect—they responded to that trouble. "



“Much of what is labeled mental illness,” Vaillant writes, “simply reflects our ‘unwise’ deployment of defense mechanisms. If we use defenses well, we are deemed mentally healthy, conscientious, funny, creative, and altruistic. If we use them badly, the psychiatrist diagnoses us ill, our neighbors label us unpleasant, and society brands us immoral.”



Yes. This reminds me of what Professor Dumbledore says to Harry Potter. "It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."



Also reminds me that as tweenagers, my best pal and I already figured out that its not what happens to you in life or what you have but how you react to what happens and how you use what you have. The hard part is that skill of logic and reasoning to figure out what to do. Maybe part of that is also accepting what choices you can not make for yourself so you can move forward in life without constantly what-iffing.


Then again, I also realize, in myself even now, that I have always had a paralyzing inability to see any choice in my life. Even now, where I live and who I live with does not seem like an actual choice I have but a circumstance I must deal with.

I'm just noodling this through tonight.

Friday, December 06, 2013

Work and Changes

In other news, MonsterMustDie had a business dinner with one of the owners of his company and they discussed a planned move to Highpoint, NC in the future. No date has been set and no clear definition of job status after the move was stated. It seems likely that he will have to relocate to North Carolina but they are keeping an office in Atlanta and might keep a position for him here as well. We'll just have to see how this plays out.


My midtown condo is still empty and unfinished. MonsterMustDie did not like the job the man I hired did on it so he is in the process of re-doing all of the work on the ceiling and walls now, when he feels like it. The condo is my only potential source of constant income, if I can get it finished and a responsible tenant in (NO bachelors!), preferably a single, professional woman. If MonsterMustDie continues to drag his feet on working on the place, I might be looking at a return to it if he decides to eventually move to Highpoint, NC without me. At this point, being unemployed as much and as long as I have been, I am just dead weight for him and there is nothing for me in NC.


Yes. I know I am an anxious worrier, always jumping to the worse case scenario first. Then, I have to roll back and mentally go down the more positive path. On the positive side, he could just get a better, less physically demanding, managerial position at the new Atlanta offices when they reorganize the company. I might get a new full time job soon, which would mean a steady paycheck that I could actually build a budget on. And I might have a finished condo and good tenant soon. For that matter, if I did end up back in midtown, I might still be in the running for at job at the first company I interviewed at this week and that would be extremely close to everything. Actually, either of those jobs would be easy to commute to from the city and both are jobs I could do easily. We'll see what happens.


I hope for no great disturbances in the too near future.

Work - searching

After returning from the Thanksgiving holiday trip, the focus of my week was set to be a morning job interview on Wednesday. The interview came through a temp agency I've worked for in the past. The name of the company sounded familiar and, searching my calendar, it was a company I've interviewed at independently a year ago in November. Tuesday afternoon, the temp company sent me a message saying the interview had been cancelled, stating the company no longer would have a need in that position - which sounded odd since it was temporarily filling in for someone who would be on maternity leave. I was feeling sad and defeated because that was the only thing I had scheduled for the entire week. No sooner than that was marked off my calendar, another company phoned with a new job interview for a full time position in a very convenient location doing work quite similar to what I'd done before at my "fun" job with Debbie & Burton years ago. Then, a different Temp company contacted me and set up an interview for me on Thursday morning. That saved the week for me. Wednesday's interview, which should have been the easiest, turned out to be strangely tense. I was interviewed by the owner of the company, who seemed to be at a loss of words. She kept waiting for someone else to join us for the interview. "Does she know I'm here?" "Oh yes, she knows." was the only talk of it. More pauses while she waited came and, while I should have just gone on auto-pilot and kinda directed the interview myself, the obvious discomfort she was in made me ill at ease as well. It ended up being a very awkward meeting, which was a shame. By contrast, Thursday's interview was very relaxed with a young woman who knew exactly what to talk about and was surprisingly familiar with all aspects of the marketing-design-production process and the history of the work. The location is not as convenient, but the company felt good and the commute was still reasonable. I made very good time getting there despite being stuck behind a wide-load and it's entourage the entire time I was on I-285. It appears to be an easy commute.

Thanksgiving vacation

We had a 4-day vacation in the Northeast last week, splitting our time between New Haven, CT and NYC. First, we flew up to Hartford on Thanksgiving day to visit Rick and Rachael. Rick picked us up at the airport and drove us to their house in New Haven. When we arrived, Rachael was busy cooking a dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, salad, and pumpkin pie with home made whipped cream (Rick made the whipped cream). She also had fresh roasted pecans to snack on. They even had Hawaii bread rolls. There was so much food, we did not get around to eating the salad. They've continued to make a lot of improvements to their house and it is a much cozier, nearly finished place now. Unbelievably loud little dog and friendly tabby round out the family. Friday, we went shopping at thrift shops and antique malls. In the evening, we went to Lenny's Indian Head Restaurant, where I finally got a simple lobster dinner that I've been craving. Saturday, all of us came into the city for shopping and food. It was an uncomfortably cold day for me, while I'd been fighting off illness all week. Rachael saved the day with lots of hand-warmer pouches for everyone. I slipped one in each glove and, while I was still cold, I did not shiver all day. We had a very good brunch at Prune. I had the chickpea plate while MonsterMustDie had lamb sausage. He and Rachael had the Bloody Mary (two each) that came with a shot of PBR as a palate cleanser. We finished the night at Pegu, which had delicious Earl Grey "MarTEAni"s. Rick and Rachael returned home that night, while we stayed in the floral district at the Indigo hotel. Sunday, it was just myself & MonsterMustDie. We went to the Asia Center and took the bus from there to the Noguchi Museum, which was the high point of the New York side of our trip. Monday, we got up and had breakfast at the hotel's restaurant "Blue" before heading to the airport for the trip home.