There are many things that irritate me. Here are two I would like to focus on for the moment, though they don't necessarily have anything at all to do with my current life situation.
(1) The conflation of age and wealth. I have seen this from many sources over the years, and it smacks of two complementary shades of class privilege. I'm sure you've heard it, the assertion that maturity equates to fiscal stability, that a real grown-up has passed the "student" phase of life and can now support hirself. Sound familiar?
This both denigrates any poor adult, ignoring the possibility of existing as both mature and destitute, and assumes for "everyone" the luxury of having a student period of one's life in which money is in short supply but educational capital is being gained so it all balances out in the end. I can't stand this attitude. I am relatively poor, and will probably stay so even as I get older. I come from a fairly wealthy background, and I did/do have the luxury of trading in potential financial capital for educational, but I don't see it as something that I will then trade back for future financial prosperity. And I am far from the poorest adult in Los Angeles.
To return to a common refrain of mine, ride the bus. You'll see a lot of totally mature adults who still have to pinch pennies.
(2) Supervisors who are unwilling/unable to do the work of the people they supervise. I had a boss like this once in my library-worker days. She was (briefly) in charge of the entire library, but completely incapable of as simple a task as checking a book out to a patron. She didn't last long in that job, a fact for which I remain grateful, several years later.
This naked incompetence, however, pales in comparison to the boss who considers it beneath hir to do the work of hir underlings. You may have known such a boss. Ze sneers just a little at the things that you do all day. Ze thinks your work is probably not worth the time it takes to complete, but assigns it to you anyway to keep you busy. Ze is a foreman who never works a day on the assembly line, an executive chef who won't chop carrots, a bureaucrat so important ze can't possibly talk directly to someone who needs help with their insurance paperwork.
If you can't or you won't do it yourself, you have absolutely no right to tell anyone else how or when or even why to do it. Get your damn hands dirty. Work side by side with the people you direct and they will respect you a lot more.
I'm thinking of making a series out of posts about things that irritate me. There are so many. Stay tuned for (3) People who stand in the middle of the aisle at the front of the bus and (4) The constant smell of urine around Laurel Animal Hospital. That should do nicely for our next episode.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Things are looking up
Many positive things today. First CSA box, overflowing with lovely (local, organic, cooperatively grown, cheap-as-dirt) produce. Dinner with friends who may or may not have code names yet, but whose designations I have forgotten; I shall call them Bebop and Rocksteady, in honor of cowboys, cats, and one of the best cartoons of the 1980s. Long conversation with a friend I never see, code name BoD I believe. I really need to start remembering the code names I invent. Also, started re-watching the sixth season of Deep Space Nine, and it turns out that Major Kira's hair is back to the right color. Finally.
Most positive of all, however, was the conversation with parents. No medical news as such, but good news of other kinds, mostly psychological/psychiatric. I am feeling far better than I have of late, largely due to this news. Thanks to all who have put up with my moodiness and general intolerability; as morale improves, the floggings should let up.
Also, Slings and Arrows delights and amuses me. And makes me miss the theatuh. Can I please have two charming old British men to provide real-time comic relief and sing funny Shakespeare songs? Please?
Most positive of all, however, was the conversation with parents. No medical news as such, but good news of other kinds, mostly psychological/psychiatric. I am feeling far better than I have of late, largely due to this news. Thanks to all who have put up with my moodiness and general intolerability; as morale improves, the floggings should let up.
Also, Slings and Arrows delights and amuses me. And makes me miss the theatuh. Can I please have two charming old British men to provide real-time comic relief and sing funny Shakespeare songs? Please?
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Long day
Today was an extremely cranky day. Everything that happened made me sulk more. Great. What a way to spend the day in between two twelve-hour workdays.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Up and down, back and forth
Today had highs and lows. A few of them:
1. Armenian string cheese. Clearly a high.
2. Overslept for the first time in...two years? More? Low.
3. Pillow Talk, starring Doris and Rock, plus Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter, Mary McCarty, and others. Very, very high.
4. Had some abrasive moments at work. Felt shitty all day as a result. Tried to combat this with Reese's peanut butter cups. Felt sick on top of shitty as a result. Low.
5. One of my wonderful temporary coworkers is staying around an extra several months! High!
6. Missed a call from a friend I hadn't spoken to in ages and really wanted to talk to. Low.
That's all I think I want to go into here and now. But hey, getting back into the blog is a high too. We'll see if that sticks.
1. Armenian string cheese. Clearly a high.
2. Overslept for the first time in...two years? More? Low.
3. Pillow Talk, starring Doris and Rock, plus Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter, Mary McCarty, and others. Very, very high.
4. Had some abrasive moments at work. Felt shitty all day as a result. Tried to combat this with Reese's peanut butter cups. Felt sick on top of shitty as a result. Low.
5. One of my wonderful temporary coworkers is staying around an extra several months! High!
6. Missed a call from a friend I hadn't spoken to in ages and really wanted to talk to. Low.
That's all I think I want to go into here and now. But hey, getting back into the blog is a high too. We'll see if that sticks.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
A few updates
1. I am back in California, and have been for a while.
2. I am working full time at Vote for Equality. It is utterly exhausting, often frustrating, and superbly distracting.
3. Skittles are now officially vegetarian!! I don't know when this changeover happened, but I am so, so grateful.
4. My mom is waiting on news/test results from the latest doctor. Nothing so far.
5. I am seeing someone. Not in the therapy sense; in the dating sense. Thus far, it is a happy thing, but I feel that announcing things on the internet has a tendency to make them spiral into a whirlpool of confusion, disarray, and imminent dissolution. Therefore, I will restrain myself from posting at length on this topic.
6. I will be on television on Monday. I anticipate my fifteen minutes of fame being limited to about two actual minutes, but we shall see.
2. I am working full time at Vote for Equality. It is utterly exhausting, often frustrating, and superbly distracting.
3. Skittles are now officially vegetarian!! I don't know when this changeover happened, but I am so, so grateful.
4. My mom is waiting on news/test results from the latest doctor. Nothing so far.
5. I am seeing someone. Not in the therapy sense; in the dating sense. Thus far, it is a happy thing, but I feel that announcing things on the internet has a tendency to make them spiral into a whirlpool of confusion, disarray, and imminent dissolution. Therefore, I will restrain myself from posting at length on this topic.
6. I will be on television on Monday. I anticipate my fifteen minutes of fame being limited to about two actual minutes, but we shall see.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
No business like it
On this trip to New York, now so near its end, I have seen two shows. One was the off-Broadway Coraline, a musical adaptation of Neil Gaiman's eerie, unsettling children's novella. The second, tonight, was Broadway's Next to Normal.
I have many thoughts on both shows, but only a few I want to put into writing at the moment. Coraline was enjoyable, and Stephin Merritt's music was suitably otherworldly, but emotional connection was largely absent. I think that was intentional, as the entire production aimed at alienation and displacement, but it left me feeling a bit empty afterward. Luckily a confection that appeared to be a Reese's pieces tart (who knew?), which I discovered at a nearby bakery, took care of that emptiness.
Next to Normal was fucking brilliant. Just the best experience I've had on Broadway since...Avenue Q? Probably better than that. This may not come as a shock to anyone, but I cry at a lot of plays, movies, whatever. For this one, I was crying from the first scene through to intermission, and for most of the second act as well. The emotion was right there, but not cheesily overstated. The singing was excellent, particularly from Jennifer Damiano as Natalie and Kyle Dean Massey, replacing Aaron Tveit as Gabe. Damiano, by the way, is also an amazing piano mime--she faked a Mozart sonata while singing and did it well enough that even from my bird's eye view (in the very last row) of her fingers, I believed her. Massey has both the vocal chops and the--sigh--gorgeous face and body to replace Tveit. Alice Ripley (Diana), the Tony-winning star, was a fantastic actress, but her voice had a couple of distracting issues, one being that she tended to go flat at the ends of a whole lot of her lines. The other was a sort of sultry darkness to her tone that didn't really suit her character at all, but probably will get her tons of other roles after this, so whatever. Michael Berry, stepping in for J. Robert Spencer, had excellent stage presence and a great voice that seemed just a hair out of its register as Dan, losing some of the lower notes in the hubbub. Adam Chanler-Berat (Henry) and Louis Hobson (two self-righteous doctors), though they had less to do, did it quite well. If I were Natalie, I'd totally smoke up with Chanler-Berat and his adorable homemade apple-bong.
The show is full of surprises, and I won't give anything away, but I will say that Natalie is as much the star of the show as Diana, in my view. Maybe that was just Damiano's performance, which really demands more recognition than I've seen in any of the press, or maybe it was my musicologist's bias toward the better musician, or even more likely maybe it was me identifying with the children more than the parents in the story, but she seemed right at the center of it all.
I haven't felt this good about a new musical on Broadway in ages. And by "good," I don't mean amused or pleased. I mean, rather, torn up inside in a way that seems emotionally valid.
Now, to end on a lighter note, I am reading about the almost unbearably wonderful concept of Rowan Atkinson as Fagin in Oliver! Ben Brantley is a total ass in this article, as he often is, but at least he makes me aware of (and thereby allows me to fantasize about) shows in London out on which I would otherwise totally miss.
I have many thoughts on both shows, but only a few I want to put into writing at the moment. Coraline was enjoyable, and Stephin Merritt's music was suitably otherworldly, but emotional connection was largely absent. I think that was intentional, as the entire production aimed at alienation and displacement, but it left me feeling a bit empty afterward. Luckily a confection that appeared to be a Reese's pieces tart (who knew?), which I discovered at a nearby bakery, took care of that emptiness.
Next to Normal was fucking brilliant. Just the best experience I've had on Broadway since...Avenue Q? Probably better than that. This may not come as a shock to anyone, but I cry at a lot of plays, movies, whatever. For this one, I was crying from the first scene through to intermission, and for most of the second act as well. The emotion was right there, but not cheesily overstated. The singing was excellent, particularly from Jennifer Damiano as Natalie and Kyle Dean Massey, replacing Aaron Tveit as Gabe. Damiano, by the way, is also an amazing piano mime--she faked a Mozart sonata while singing and did it well enough that even from my bird's eye view (in the very last row) of her fingers, I believed her. Massey has both the vocal chops and the--sigh--gorgeous face and body to replace Tveit. Alice Ripley (Diana), the Tony-winning star, was a fantastic actress, but her voice had a couple of distracting issues, one being that she tended to go flat at the ends of a whole lot of her lines. The other was a sort of sultry darkness to her tone that didn't really suit her character at all, but probably will get her tons of other roles after this, so whatever. Michael Berry, stepping in for J. Robert Spencer, had excellent stage presence and a great voice that seemed just a hair out of its register as Dan, losing some of the lower notes in the hubbub. Adam Chanler-Berat (Henry) and Louis Hobson (two self-righteous doctors), though they had less to do, did it quite well. If I were Natalie, I'd totally smoke up with Chanler-Berat and his adorable homemade apple-bong.
The show is full of surprises, and I won't give anything away, but I will say that Natalie is as much the star of the show as Diana, in my view. Maybe that was just Damiano's performance, which really demands more recognition than I've seen in any of the press, or maybe it was my musicologist's bias toward the better musician, or even more likely maybe it was me identifying with the children more than the parents in the story, but she seemed right at the center of it all.
I haven't felt this good about a new musical on Broadway in ages. And by "good," I don't mean amused or pleased. I mean, rather, torn up inside in a way that seems emotionally valid.
Now, to end on a lighter note, I am reading about the almost unbearably wonderful concept of Rowan Atkinson as Fagin in Oliver! Ben Brantley is a total ass in this article, as he often is, but at least he makes me aware of (and thereby allows me to fantasize about) shows in London out on which I would otherwise totally miss.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Urgh
Can't sleep. Sneezing too much. And I already took an allergy pill.
I miss my non-dusty apartment and my apparently pollen-free city!
I miss my non-dusty apartment and my apparently pollen-free city!
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