I was going to leave this blog fallow until next semester, but since I've noticed people are actually still stopping by, if only to lurk, I figure I'll keep updating. I was going to write a long and pointless treatise about all the books I've read recently, but hey, no one cares. But I did read one, Wabi Sabi for Writers by Richard R. Powell, which might interest some people.
I'm not a writer, but I'm reading books about writing at the moment because... because. Anyway, this one was much more philosophy than actual writing advice, which could be summarised as 'show don't tell', and 'nature is nice'. So if you're looking for a practical manual for writing, this is not your book. In fact when I tried writing just after reading it I felt completely restricted. I wrote a couple of sentences which were pretty good, but I couldn't keep it up. But then, I'm an editor at heart and I find it difficult to write (and boy does it have some nice things to say about editors! Basically, I'm really selfless and humble and awesome. Rad). I really enjoyed reading it anyway, which must mean I'm getting old because I don't read non-fiction. It was just a nice thing to read, and the history of haiku was very interesting. I doubt I'll ever be concise enough for haiku but I felt by reading this book I started to understand it a bit.
Also, I have a Tumblr, which (as you might guess by the name) is mostly just a depository for bits gleaned from other people's gleanings. Which, you know, is the essence of Tumblr, really. I am about to post some pictures of a cat, though, so you know. Exciting things afoot. I spend so much time on the internet, having an actual live cat in my house is like a real life meme. Every time it does something I'm like, I could caption the hell out of that. I'm still trying to figure out how to get it to do surprised kitty. If it was bigger, I'd try throwing it. But I'm pretty sure the Cat Protection Society would have something to say about that. Something like, 'Hey! No throwing the cats!'
2.12.10
28.11.10
10.10.10
After Suspicion - Rita Felski
I don't know what I was doing the first time I read this essay but I sure as heck wasn't reflecting on it or considering how or why it might be meaningful. Probably I reflected on how nice and short it was.
On second approach I found it similar in some ways to the Smith reading, but much less daunting in terms of both the scope and nature of the text and the scope of its proposition. What Felski is asking is, instead of a database of historical and cultural contingencies affecting the ascription of value, for theory to recognise and question 'how and why particular texts matter to us.' Her proposed approach of 'neophenomenology' (and did I have fun reading the Wikipedia article on phenomenology OR WHAT) seems like an interesting way to allow the personal meaning of a text to enter into critical discussion. By acknowledging 'how structures of feeling and interpretative registers are modulated across space and time' (sorry, I'm obsessed), we may be able to move beyond suspicion and mistrust of the text to 'develop more compelling and comprehensive accounts of why texts matter to us.'
This, I think, is interesting. I've often found with literary theory that I'm not given any good reason why a text is important or valuable, and that although I almost always find that, to me, it IS important and valuable, the hows and whys of that value are inconsequential compared to the post-colonial or feminist or cultural reading I am supposed to be subjecting it to. These readings, as Felski says, do yield satisfying results of their own, but I'm also interested in the reasons why I was so utterly engrossed in What Maisie Knew when I know others found it tedious.
The difficulty with this approach seems to me to be the relevance such a reading might have, and its possible scope. For whose benefit would these readings be made? Really, the Smith article stopped short of detailing her changing personal response to the sonnets throughout her life not because it would be too long, but because it would be too boring. I'm interested in why people I know liked or didn't like certain texts, but generally that's because I care about them as people, not because their personal responses are particularly illuminating. But perhaps this issue is not so much about the relevance of a reflective reading so much as the potential for such a reading to remain superficial and formulaic, or to regress to high school level analysis ('Imagery creates images in the responder's mind, which makes them interested.' 'Rhetorical questions make readers question their own ideas'). The basis of phenomenology seems to be the study of how objects are perceived to all consciousnesses, which, as we saw in the Smith reading, would be an impossible way to approach literature. I'd like to read more about, and perhaps an example of, the approach Felski is proposing.
On second approach I found it similar in some ways to the Smith reading, but much less daunting in terms of both the scope and nature of the text and the scope of its proposition. What Felski is asking is, instead of a database of historical and cultural contingencies affecting the ascription of value, for theory to recognise and question 'how and why particular texts matter to us.' Her proposed approach of 'neophenomenology' (and did I have fun reading the Wikipedia article on phenomenology OR WHAT) seems like an interesting way to allow the personal meaning of a text to enter into critical discussion. By acknowledging 'how structures of feeling and interpretative registers are modulated across space and time' (sorry, I'm obsessed), we may be able to move beyond suspicion and mistrust of the text to 'develop more compelling and comprehensive accounts of why texts matter to us.'
This, I think, is interesting. I've often found with literary theory that I'm not given any good reason why a text is important or valuable, and that although I almost always find that, to me, it IS important and valuable, the hows and whys of that value are inconsequential compared to the post-colonial or feminist or cultural reading I am supposed to be subjecting it to. These readings, as Felski says, do yield satisfying results of their own, but I'm also interested in the reasons why I was so utterly engrossed in What Maisie Knew when I know others found it tedious.
The difficulty with this approach seems to me to be the relevance such a reading might have, and its possible scope. For whose benefit would these readings be made? Really, the Smith article stopped short of detailing her changing personal response to the sonnets throughout her life not because it would be too long, but because it would be too boring. I'm interested in why people I know liked or didn't like certain texts, but generally that's because I care about them as people, not because their personal responses are particularly illuminating. But perhaps this issue is not so much about the relevance of a reflective reading so much as the potential for such a reading to remain superficial and formulaic, or to regress to high school level analysis ('Imagery creates images in the responder's mind, which makes them interested.' 'Rhetorical questions make readers question their own ideas'). The basis of phenomenology seems to be the study of how objects are perceived to all consciousnesses, which, as we saw in the Smith reading, would be an impossible way to approach literature. I'd like to read more about, and perhaps an example of, the approach Felski is proposing.
The 'Failure' of Henry James's New York Edition - Eric Leuschner
You might not have heard of Coralie Bickford-Smith, but I can guarantee that as someone who's visiting this blog you've seen, and most likely coveted, her work (and I posted a link to her incredible Fitzgerald editions a few weeks ago). Reading through the first half of this essay I was reminded of Bickford-Smith's various Penguin editions, and wondered what exactly they say about the buyer and the work. Someone else in the course (I forget who, I'm sorry!) has suggested that the orange Penguin editions act as a kind of 'uniform' for the books, putting each text on a level playing field, at least aesthetically. On the contrary, I think all of Penguin's editions act in exactly the opposite way, by marking out a text as worthy. You can pick up any of these, they say, and you'll be on the money (the cultural currency money, that is). Bickford-Smith's editions go beyond that, and distinguish the texts (since she generally designs for older, well-established works like Oliver Twist, Moby Dick etc.) not only from other books, but from other copies of the same book. Her designs flatter not only your taste in books, but your aesthetic tastes as well. The hardcover copy of Great Expectations with the chandeliers all over says something quite different to the sombre black spined Penguin Classics paperback.
I'm talking about these editions here because I think they are the modern equivalent of the collected editions Leuschner is talking about. They allow you to put your own stamp on the author, to make a claim on the text, by choosing an edition that reflects you and your own tastes, and to a certain extent your own perceptions of what the text is. My understanding of what Great Expectations is will lead me to choose either the black Classics edition or the graphic clothbound Bickford-Smith edition. This way of looking at the notion of the edition was the only way I could comprehend how on the one hand Leuschner could be saying that the collected editions allow the collector to have the author 'visit', and on the other that this is a 'form that implicitly erases the author.'
At first I thoroughly disagreed with the latter argument. How could an edition of an author's collected works, with his monogram on the cover and his initials watermarked on every page, possibly 'erase' the author? Obviously the form elevates the author, in this case James, but it does so by selling him to a discerning audience. The book's physical form is clearly the most important marker in this commodity.
However, I wouldn't be as quick as Leuschner to write off the importance of binding, as he does in the first half of this essay by quoting rather facetiously from Victorian articles defending expensive editions over cheap paperbacks. Yes, an expensive or particularly attractive binding is a marketing ploy. But a cheap binding is one as well, and a book deserves decent binding. I've been complaining that I picked up the new Jonathan Franzen book and at $33 the cover still feels like the cover of a proof, cheap and flimsy. And that is a big book, it's going to take a beating. I'll still buy it, of course, because the content is more important than the cover, but I don't think books are such a sacred metaphysical experience that their physical trappings can be altogether ignored.
By the way, I thought the difference between the public Henry James, calling his readers 'monsters' and himself a 'conjuror', and the private James writing to his publishers, 'The whole is a perfect felicity, so let us go on rejoicing', was incredible. I know I'm not supposed to, but I find the figure of James himself completely fascinating, he seems such an intriguing character. Seriously, Henry James, what is he LIKE?
I'm talking about these editions here because I think they are the modern equivalent of the collected editions Leuschner is talking about. They allow you to put your own stamp on the author, to make a claim on the text, by choosing an edition that reflects you and your own tastes, and to a certain extent your own perceptions of what the text is. My understanding of what Great Expectations is will lead me to choose either the black Classics edition or the graphic clothbound Bickford-Smith edition. This way of looking at the notion of the edition was the only way I could comprehend how on the one hand Leuschner could be saying that the collected editions allow the collector to have the author 'visit', and on the other that this is a 'form that implicitly erases the author.'
At first I thoroughly disagreed with the latter argument. How could an edition of an author's collected works, with his monogram on the cover and his initials watermarked on every page, possibly 'erase' the author? Obviously the form elevates the author, in this case James, but it does so by selling him to a discerning audience. The book's physical form is clearly the most important marker in this commodity.
However, I wouldn't be as quick as Leuschner to write off the importance of binding, as he does in the first half of this essay by quoting rather facetiously from Victorian articles defending expensive editions over cheap paperbacks. Yes, an expensive or particularly attractive binding is a marketing ploy. But a cheap binding is one as well, and a book deserves decent binding. I've been complaining that I picked up the new Jonathan Franzen book and at $33 the cover still feels like the cover of a proof, cheap and flimsy. And that is a big book, it's going to take a beating. I'll still buy it, of course, because the content is more important than the cover, but I don't think books are such a sacred metaphysical experience that their physical trappings can be altogether ignored.
By the way, I thought the difference between the public Henry James, calling his readers 'monsters' and himself a 'conjuror', and the private James writing to his publishers, 'The whole is a perfect felicity, so let us go on rejoicing', was incredible. I know I'm not supposed to, but I find the figure of James himself completely fascinating, he seems such an intriguing character. Seriously, Henry James, what is he LIKE?
9.10.10
Contingencies of Value - Barbara Herrnstein Smith
Well, I certainly chose a humdinger for my second blog. 'I'll pick this one,' she says. 'Never mind that it's a million trillion pages long,' she says.
So, I learnt (or re-learnt) a lot of very nice words from this reading, including 'axiological', 'hermeneutic' and 'hypostasization', and for that I thank Smith. But I was, like I'm sure many were, a wee bit skeptical about the proposed 'project' of devising 'descriptions and accounts of all the other phenomena and activities involved in literary and aesthetic evaluation in relation to our more general understanding... of human culture and behavior.' What a grand idea! I thought perhaps it might work as an approach to the evaluation of a text, perhaps as an alternative branch of theoretical investigation, but as a project? The mind, it boggles. So really, although I sympathised to a certain extent with her criticism of the rather teleological way the canon is built and defended ('We've always called this a classic, and thus it's a classic') I couldn't help but see all that came after in the light of this monstrous task I knew she was proposing.
One part I found interesting in a lot of ways was the idea, which I've recognised in many forms before, that any attempt to instill 'utility' in a piece of 'literature' or 'art' is to 'misuse' it. 'Utility' here is opposed to the 'function' Smith describes later, such as serving mankind etc., I mean rather by 'utility' a more pragmatic usage which is considered outside of the object's original function. This made me think, since I'm a fan of design blogs which feature a lot of DIY, about all the uses I've seen over the years for old books which aren't going to be read. Strap them together and make a table, they say. Fold the pages back in sections and make a nice little stand for a pot plant. Rip all the pages out and use them to decoupage something. And without fail, on every single one of those project posts, there will be a bunch of hysterical, 'You can't do that to BOOKS! THAT'S BLASPHEMY!' comments. I know this is a very literal interpretation of the idea of a functional misuse of an object which is supposed to have unquestionable intrinsic value, but I thought it was an interesting point considering that the overarching topic seems to be the danger of assuming value and 'mystifying' canonical works. Those commenters are 'the reading public', and they obviously have a pretty strong idea of the value inherent in a published work, regardless of which particular work it is (I made a pot stand out of Anna Karenina. I apologise for nothing). An idea, I suppose Smith would suggest, that has been instilled in them by the elevation of the book as an item of intrinsic value by the professional reading class.
I found Smith's arguments regarding the ways value is ascribed to be fairly convincing, but I would be interested to read much more about the ways she would collect and document all the contingencies she lists on which axiological judgement is based, for individuals and the academy. I could certainly see from an anecdotal perspective how those contingencies would naturally affect any reading, even a later reading of the same text, because I know I do that myself all the time. But I really fail to see how they could possibly be collated in any useful or empirical way.
So, I learnt (or re-learnt) a lot of very nice words from this reading, including 'axiological', 'hermeneutic' and 'hypostasization', and for that I thank Smith. But I was, like I'm sure many were, a wee bit skeptical about the proposed 'project' of devising 'descriptions and accounts of all the other phenomena and activities involved in literary and aesthetic evaluation in relation to our more general understanding... of human culture and behavior.' What a grand idea! I thought perhaps it might work as an approach to the evaluation of a text, perhaps as an alternative branch of theoretical investigation, but as a project? The mind, it boggles. So really, although I sympathised to a certain extent with her criticism of the rather teleological way the canon is built and defended ('We've always called this a classic, and thus it's a classic') I couldn't help but see all that came after in the light of this monstrous task I knew she was proposing.
One part I found interesting in a lot of ways was the idea, which I've recognised in many forms before, that any attempt to instill 'utility' in a piece of 'literature' or 'art' is to 'misuse' it. 'Utility' here is opposed to the 'function' Smith describes later, such as serving mankind etc., I mean rather by 'utility' a more pragmatic usage which is considered outside of the object's original function. This made me think, since I'm a fan of design blogs which feature a lot of DIY, about all the uses I've seen over the years for old books which aren't going to be read. Strap them together and make a table, they say. Fold the pages back in sections and make a nice little stand for a pot plant. Rip all the pages out and use them to decoupage something. And without fail, on every single one of those project posts, there will be a bunch of hysterical, 'You can't do that to BOOKS! THAT'S BLASPHEMY!' comments. I know this is a very literal interpretation of the idea of a functional misuse of an object which is supposed to have unquestionable intrinsic value, but I thought it was an interesting point considering that the overarching topic seems to be the danger of assuming value and 'mystifying' canonical works. Those commenters are 'the reading public', and they obviously have a pretty strong idea of the value inherent in a published work, regardless of which particular work it is (I made a pot stand out of Anna Karenina. I apologise for nothing). An idea, I suppose Smith would suggest, that has been instilled in them by the elevation of the book as an item of intrinsic value by the professional reading class.
I found Smith's arguments regarding the ways value is ascribed to be fairly convincing, but I would be interested to read much more about the ways she would collect and document all the contingencies she lists on which axiological judgement is based, for individuals and the academy. I could certainly see from an anecdotal perspective how those contingencies would naturally affect any reading, even a later reading of the same text, because I know I do that myself all the time. But I really fail to see how they could possibly be collated in any useful or empirical way.
8.10.10
Bunnehz
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| My one and only - via Today + Tomorrow |
This is what it's like inside my head right now. The end of semester really brings out the corgi video Googling, Armstrong + Miller watching (those three are ALL awesome and so is this one, but it's NSFW/ NSF-aged parents/ small children on account of there's loads of swears) generally procrastinating slackabout in me. Oh and here's an article ABOUT procrastination from the New Yorker if you want to feel intelligent while wasting time. You're welcome. The conclusion: meh. Everybody does it. No biggie.
So, am I gonna do any study now?
Jon Hamm says no. Jon Hamm is always right.
Onward with the links then! What else do I have... oh, today I saw this video, which I know I'm a little behind the times with since the artist's site says it was exhibited earlier this year, but I just LOVE TiltShift, because I'm a hipster like that, and I think this is so adorable. I don't know if that's how artists envisage their work being described, but there you are. I think it's adorable. TiltShift is a technique which removes the effect of atmosphere from an image and blurs the edges so there's a clear focus on a small area, which makes a picture of normal sized stuff look miniature (and adorable!). And what do you know, there's an app for that!
And finally, youse guys, if you haven't checked out Allie Brosh's blog you are missing an EXCELLENT procrastination tool. She's a treasure. Almost as treasured as Jon Hamm.
12.9.10
Lit theory links
I just found this link to a... fable? Tale? Short story? (I'm not sure yet) By 'the Master', Henry James, called The Private Life. It would seem his underlying interest in this piece is the link, or rather the lack of a link, between the creator and the work created. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I thought it was rather apt, all things considered.
I also just read this article about the Chatterley trial and the way it forced authors to staunchly defend a text they actually found rather tedious, which totally vindicated my hatred of D.H Lawrence and inability to read Lady Chatterley. Victory to me!
Apparently we modern student slackabouts are too lazy and stupid to read an entire book, and in the future university literature courses will only feature 'the best bits' of books. Sounds OK to me if the set text was by D.H Lawrence. In which case the 'best of' selection would be about 300 words.
In less serious book related trivia, these posters, with scenes from famous books created out of the text, are SO. AWESOME. I want the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea one.
Even less seriously, this is the funniest video I've seen in a LONG time (and although it features minor nudity it's really not at all NSFW, unless your boss hates hillbillies. AND FUN).
I also just read this article about the Chatterley trial and the way it forced authors to staunchly defend a text they actually found rather tedious, which totally vindicated my hatred of D.H Lawrence and inability to read Lady Chatterley. Victory to me!
Apparently we modern student slackabouts are too lazy and stupid to read an entire book, and in the future university literature courses will only feature 'the best bits' of books. Sounds OK to me if the set text was by D.H Lawrence. In which case the 'best of' selection would be about 300 words.
In less serious book related trivia, these posters, with scenes from famous books created out of the text, are SO. AWESOME. I want the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea one.
Even less seriously, this is the funniest video I've seen in a LONG time (and although it features minor nudity it's really not at all NSFW, unless your boss hates hillbillies. AND FUN).
17.8.10
What Maisie Knew
Henry James won't leave me alone this semester. One of my students is reading The Portrait of a Lady, What Maisie Knew is set for one subject, and one of the novels for another English subject is The Line of Beauty, which is heavy on the Jamesian influence. As stalker authors go James ain't so bad, it would really suck, for example, to be stalked by D.H Lawrence, whose books I would like to fling out the window of a swiftly moving train, and who I'm sure is super creepy in person.
There are aspects of James' writing style which I thoroughly detested in reading Portrait, not least the characterisation of Isabel Archer, who I found insufferable (mostly, anyway). But another thing is his endless explication of stuff you would prefer to be shown through action, dialogue, connotation, etc. I find it disconcerting to be continually told, for example, that Gilbert Osmond's mind is like a shadowy room from which she cannot escape, and on the other hand to not have any idea what's just happened in their conversations, which often result in one party being grossly offended by some imputation when it seemed to you like they were talking about somebody else's hairstyle.
In Maisie, I found this style less visible, and more natural. Since we're taking our perspective from the point of view of a child it seems reasonable to be confused by the adult conversations, and the descriptive passages have a uniform aesthetic reference which I thought balanced the novel nicely. Before I found James’ constant comparisons of people and states to furniture, houses and rooms frustrating and repetitive, like in Portrait, but in Maisie they worked. Maisie’s mind in the opening chapter is “a collection of images and echoes to which meanings were attachable... the dim closet, the high drawers, like games she wasn’t yet big enough to play”, in chapter two she is “the little feathered shuttlecock”, and the messages she carries drop “into her memory with the dry rattle of a letter falling into a pillar-box.” They all reminded me of the ways my childhood memories seem to me now, and how they're always revealing new things you didn't realise you knew.
There are exterior aspects too, like the "white and gold salon" in France, which is all hope and clean brightness, everything they want to gain by running away from their problems, although it doesn't have the same positive effect on them that the Countess' drawing room has on Beale. It is “the drawing room of a lady... whose things were as much prettier than mama’s as it had always had to be confessed that mamma’s were prettier than Mrs. Beale’s.” The room is like a flattering mirror for Maisie’s father, who is “presented to her as quite advantageously and even grandly at home... and himself by so much the more separated from scenes inferior to it”.
I like things with a focus on surroundings, I think, because it helps me sink into a book in that way you do. You know that way. You only notice it afterwards, when you come out of all the golden sunlight and autumn breezes and twisty mind holes and it's like waking up all over again. I can't say I ever expected to feel that way about Henry James. There's that old creative writing advice, 'show don't tell', which I always thought James shamelessly ignored, but after reading Maisie I can see that really he does it so well you don't even notice.
5.8.10
Candice Bushnell books have crabs
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| Click through for a larger image and to judge my taste in books |
In this picture we can see:
My book collection, obvs.
Four elephants.
Three giraffes.
Two Eleventh Doctors.
One Ood.
One Captain Jack Sparrow.
One crazy cat lady.
One painting, a housewarming present from my aunt.
Hours of time wasted maintaining the chromatic arrangement of my books, at least half of which were spent trying to figure out where silver fits in the colour spectrum.
And KARL, Sofa of Legend.
One of the teachers for this course mentioned 'books as furnishings' last week, and I had a bit of a guilty vision of this bookcase, which is probably (next to KARL) the focal point of our flat. I don't think there's anything WRONG with that, but the presence of the Books sometimes does make me nervous that I'm not living up to their high standards. I've heard the Wiley Style Manual muttering about my cavalier attitude towards the distinctions between 'that' and 'which', and I know for a fact that Annie Proulx and Philip Roth have been complaining about how much time I spend slumped on the sofa not doing anything of any use to anybody with an interest in the nuances of The Human Experience.
This is probably why I'm so keen on ebooks now. Files can't judge you for listening to Blink 182 even though it's 2010. (I HATE YOU ALL, YOUR MOM'S A WHORE - how can you NOT want to listen to that?) There are a couple of branches to the 'ebooks are sucky IRL books FTW' argument, all of which annoy me.
1) Books smell good.
Yes, they do. If I rub my face in Roland Barthes he does indeed have a faintly musty smell. That's awesome. But I don't read books by pressing them against my nose. And I suffer from quite severe allergies.
Tangent: when I worked at the second hand bookstore a customer once asked me in a secretive murmur, what kind of parasites lived in the books?
Err, silverfish? But they're not really a parasite, as such...
No no, not silverfish, something small and itchy.
Uhh... where did you come into contact with this... creature?
At Berkelouw's.
Right. Did you sit on the sofas?
Oh, yes, but it was the books...
Pretty sure books don't harbour crabs, lady. Candice Bushnell's might.
But I was handling all those old books and...
Sofa. Fleas. You have fleas, from the sofa. Books don't have fleas. BTW, don't touch me.
But you know what? Files don't have silverfish OR crabs. And spiders can't hide behind them.
2) 'I don't fancy curling up in bed with an iPad.'
My hands aren't small, right, they're normal adult sized hands. But in the same way that I have trouble reaching all the notes required for a dramatic chord in Beethoven, I sometimes find books a bit weighty. The week after I read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell I couldn't get the lid off anything. Ebook readers are designed so you forget you're reading an ebook. I was reading a book on my iPhone this morning and at one point I flopped it over to have a look at the blurb. If you can't forget the medium you're reading in, you're doing it wrong.
PLUS I know that one day I'll be able to open a French book in an ebook reader and when I come upon a word or phrase I don't know I'll be able to highlight it and search for it instantly, and that the application will save the definition for me so the next time I see it it'll know what it means. This is what I call 'convenient' and what other people have called 'an eternal state of distraction which prevents meaningful involvement with the text'. My film lecturers are all 'Don't watch the films on your computer because you'll just be answering your email and checking your bookfaces every five seconds and you won't be able to EXPERIENCE the EXPERIENCE so instead stay behind on Monday night until 7.30pm watching them in this cold musty room, k?' and I'd be interested to know if English lecturers have a similar problem with ebooks.
Link to an excellent and amusing grammar lesson I have unsuccessfully tried to teach to my students. Also this blog entry is not actually intended to be part of my assessment submission.
31.7.10
*facedesk*
There's some kind of problem going on with my face, I've noticed. It's growing slowly more independent, attempting to make its own way in the world, heedless of the warnings of my brain.
Scenario: mid-lesson with student.
Face: Right, well, you work on that for a minute, and I'll just run to the bathroom, because...
Brain: BECAUSE? Why on EARTH would you say 'because'? BECAUSE WHAT? Walk away. Just walk out of the room. NOW.
Face: Because...
Brain: YOU DID NOT just do that. Walk. Away. You've already done irreparable damage to your credibility.
Face: Just because, okay?
Brain: Nice save, asshole.
Scenario: mid-lesson with student.
Face: Right, well, you work on that for a minute, and I'll just run to the bathroom, because...
Brain: BECAUSE? Why on EARTH would you say 'because'? BECAUSE WHAT? Walk away. Just walk out of the room. NOW.
Face: Because...
Brain: YOU DID NOT just do that. Walk. Away. You've already done irreparable damage to your credibility.
Face: Just because, okay?
Brain: Nice save, asshole.
4.3.10
Wondering...
...if the infinite technological reproduction of the penis in the utilitarian plastic form of straws jeopardizes the aura and authority of the original object? Whether this reproduction does not, in fact, liquidate the value of the cultural heritage of the phallus?
Your hen's night paraphernalia doesn't seem so innocent now, DOES IT? How does it feel, eh, knowing you're contributing, via the endless copying of the original object, to its inevitable devaluation as a unique artifact? Did you notice this ENTIRE post is composed of rhetorical questions? Except that one, which wasn't really rhetorical, because you may or may not have noticed, and I'm genuinely interested?
Your hen's night paraphernalia doesn't seem so innocent now, DOES IT? How does it feel, eh, knowing you're contributing, via the endless copying of the original object, to its inevitable devaluation as a unique artifact? Did you notice this ENTIRE post is composed of rhetorical questions? Except that one, which wasn't really rhetorical, because you may or may not have noticed, and I'm genuinely interested?
2.3.10
How To Get Your Novel Scoffed At
Friday was my last day of work at the publishing company where I answered phones for the last two years. I did an extremely good job of pretending I really didn't like it. In reality, I LIVED for the crazy wannabes who ring up and pitch their retarded ideas for books. A large percentage of them were old men from 'God's country' (north Queensland, FYI) or teacher librarians. My dad's a teacher librarian, and he's not an aspiring children's author (THAT I KNOW OF), but he is the exception which proves that the rule is, while not infallible, definitely justified. The catchcry among those in children's publishing is, essentially, 'FUCKING teacher librarian authors! Why don't they just ACCEPT that their book is a FLOP and GET OVER IT AND STOP CALLING ME?' The general consensus is that the whole process of publishing would be much smoother without the hassle of involving authors, who really only make trouble.
There was one author who would ring with great regularity, although I know for a fact her last and only book was published five years ago and there is no likelihood of her ever publishing another, and as soon as I picked up the phone she would just... sigh. It would go thus: me: 'Publisher Australia, this is Jennifer.' Author: 'UUUUUURRRGHHHH.... heh-lloooohhh Je-heh-nifer.' Me: 'Oh hello I'll put you through.' *gets off the phone as quickly as possible* If the person she was looking for wasn't there (like, maybe they were having a wee, or eating a sandwich, or away from their desk for three and a half seconds) she would call back and sigh, 'Uuuuughh, is the-hehh-re EVE-heh-n any POINT?' to which I would WANT to respond, 'No, no there's not, you're a big fat failure and nobody wants to talk to you. You may as well go DIE.' Instead I would say, 'I'll send her an email and make sure she knows you called', because, in spite of all appearances and protestations, I was actually quite good at my job. Then I would send this email: 'That author rang. I told her I 'd tell you she called so you could call her so she could SIGH at you.'
I had one call from a guy who introduced himself, then paused, and when I said, 'Yes?' he cried, 'You mean you HAVEN'T HEARD OF blah blah blah something about the self made millionaires from Queensland who were brought down by the big corporations or some such Aussie battler style nonsense?' I was Googling him AS he spoke, and he wasn't anywhere on the internet, so I could honestly say, 'No.' And thus his book pitch was a failure, on account of him claiming to be famous when he wasn't even on Google.
Many was the time I offered to Google something for a caller, and they totally failed to catch the intense sarcasm in my tone as I sneered, 'Just let me GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU, HMMM?' I think many callers thought I had a special publishers' Google with which I could access sites hidden from their civilian browsers.
I had old men pitching books about their lives which were essentially books about them spending their entire life trying to write the book of their life, on account of they couldn't read or write.
I had a man from a record company call and ask if we would publish a book with a CD attached. No, I said, we only look at submissions which come through literary agents, CDs or lack thereof notwithstanding. 'Oh,' he says, 'I'm calling from a record company.'
'That's nice. You want to publish a novel?'
'Yes, that's right. With a CD.'
'You'll need a literary agent.'
'But we're a record company, so wouldn't we, technically, BE a literary agent?'
'No. Agent. Literary. As in, actually has to do with actual books.'
And then, of course, there were the letters, which were unspeakable. UNSPEAKABLY AWESOME, THAT IS.
I think I'm going to miss my job. Oh, also there were people who were quite nice, and fairly cool, and also extremely daggy, and always very chatty. And when you're used to having three dozen conversations before 11am it's a bit weird to suddenly be talking to no one at all for most of the day.
There was one author who would ring with great regularity, although I know for a fact her last and only book was published five years ago and there is no likelihood of her ever publishing another, and as soon as I picked up the phone she would just... sigh. It would go thus: me: 'Publisher Australia, this is Jennifer.' Author: 'UUUUUURRRGHHHH.... heh-lloooohhh Je-heh-nifer.' Me: 'Oh hello I'll put you through.' *gets off the phone as quickly as possible* If the person she was looking for wasn't there (like, maybe they were having a wee, or eating a sandwich, or away from their desk for three and a half seconds) she would call back and sigh, 'Uuuuughh, is the-hehh-re EVE-heh-n any POINT?' to which I would WANT to respond, 'No, no there's not, you're a big fat failure and nobody wants to talk to you. You may as well go DIE.' Instead I would say, 'I'll send her an email and make sure she knows you called', because, in spite of all appearances and protestations, I was actually quite good at my job. Then I would send this email: 'That author rang. I told her I 'd tell you she called so you could call her so she could SIGH at you.'
I had one call from a guy who introduced himself, then paused, and when I said, 'Yes?' he cried, 'You mean you HAVEN'T HEARD OF blah blah blah something about the self made millionaires from Queensland who were brought down by the big corporations or some such Aussie battler style nonsense?' I was Googling him AS he spoke, and he wasn't anywhere on the internet, so I could honestly say, 'No.' And thus his book pitch was a failure, on account of him claiming to be famous when he wasn't even on Google.
Many was the time I offered to Google something for a caller, and they totally failed to catch the intense sarcasm in my tone as I sneered, 'Just let me GOOGLE THAT FOR YOU, HMMM?' I think many callers thought I had a special publishers' Google with which I could access sites hidden from their civilian browsers.
I had old men pitching books about their lives which were essentially books about them spending their entire life trying to write the book of their life, on account of they couldn't read or write.
I had a man from a record company call and ask if we would publish a book with a CD attached. No, I said, we only look at submissions which come through literary agents, CDs or lack thereof notwithstanding. 'Oh,' he says, 'I'm calling from a record company.'
'That's nice. You want to publish a novel?'
'Yes, that's right. With a CD.'
'You'll need a literary agent.'
'But we're a record company, so wouldn't we, technically, BE a literary agent?'
'No. Agent. Literary. As in, actually has to do with actual books.'
And then, of course, there were the letters, which were unspeakable. UNSPEAKABLY AWESOME, THAT IS.
I think I'm going to miss my job. Oh, also there were people who were quite nice, and fairly cool, and also extremely daggy, and always very chatty. And when you're used to having three dozen conversations before 11am it's a bit weird to suddenly be talking to no one at all for most of the day.
23.2.10
HUMBUG
This quote pretty much sums up my feelings about hen's nights, weddings, 21st birthdays, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and church:
"The most absurd customs and the most ridiculous ceremonies are everywhere excused by an appeal to the phrase, but that's the tradition. This is exactly what the Hottentots say when Europeans ask them why they eat grasshoppers and devour their body lice. That's the tradition, they explain." - Nicolas Chamfort, 1741 - 1794.
And this is how I feel about the opinions of people I might offend by being against said absurd customs:
"Other people's heads are too wretched a place for happiness to have its seat." - Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788 - 1860
Yes, I'm reading Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton, and I'm enjoying the 'Intelligent Misanthropy' section VERY MUCH INDEED.
"The most absurd customs and the most ridiculous ceremonies are everywhere excused by an appeal to the phrase, but that's the tradition. This is exactly what the Hottentots say when Europeans ask them why they eat grasshoppers and devour their body lice. That's the tradition, they explain." - Nicolas Chamfort, 1741 - 1794.
And this is how I feel about the opinions of people I might offend by being against said absurd customs:
"Other people's heads are too wretched a place for happiness to have its seat." - Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788 - 1860
Yes, I'm reading Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton, and I'm enjoying the 'Intelligent Misanthropy' section VERY MUCH INDEED.
21.2.10
The Outdoorsman
I posted this blog a few months ago on my Wordpress which... yeah I forgot I had it. Since then there have been developments which I will maybe elaborate on later.
Since we bought our apartment, The Library, only a couple of months ago we haven’t been to a strata meeting yet or any of those other fun events where home owners get to celebrate with their fellow flat moguls. I imagine a strata meeting is just a bunch of landlords swimming in the sinking fund, which is a hole in the ground full of money. I have a sound knowledge of the ways of the asset-rich.
So the only neighbour whose name I know is The Outdoorsman. The Outdoorsman is obviously a clever pseudonym for the guy who lives downstairs from us, an aging rockabilly with nipple length dyed black hair who spends all his time, the time he isn’t playing Hendrix-ian guitar solos, that is, standing in his doorway having loud conversations with other members of his band, or young acolytes. Quote: “Hey man, you can do whatever you want with your life, you know? I mean, look at me, I’m forty and I’m… ” *trails off since he can’t say “and I’m doing great” because he’s clearly living alone in an apartment with as many square metres as he has years, playing 70’s style guitar and drinking. Alone*
The Outdoorsman rushes upstairs whenever I hammer something (which is surprisingly often) and shouts at me, “ARE YOU BANGIN COZ YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THE MUSIC? COZ YOU CAN COME DOWN AND SAY SOMETHIN, YOU KNOW?”
Uh, yeah, I know, I was hammering something…
“YEAH COZ YOU KNOW IF THE MUSIC EVER MAKES IT SO YOU CAN’T RELAX, YOU KNOW, OR YOUR DUDE, IF YOUR DUDE HAS A PROBLEM, YOU KNOW, YOU CAN JUST COME AND SAY SOMETHING, THAT’S TOTALLY FINE.”
Yep, umm, ok, I’ll let my… uhh… dude know, thanks, I’m going back to my hammering now…
He continued to assure me, aggressively assure me, that any time I or my dude wanted to relax, we could just knock on his doorframe, and tell him so. Yeah, yeah sure, I’ll totally do that, next time I want to be pushed off a third floor balcony by a small statured rockabilly vampire.
Since we bought our apartment, The Library, only a couple of months ago we haven’t been to a strata meeting yet or any of those other fun events where home owners get to celebrate with their fellow flat moguls. I imagine a strata meeting is just a bunch of landlords swimming in the sinking fund, which is a hole in the ground full of money. I have a sound knowledge of the ways of the asset-rich.
So the only neighbour whose name I know is The Outdoorsman. The Outdoorsman is obviously a clever pseudonym for the guy who lives downstairs from us, an aging rockabilly with nipple length dyed black hair who spends all his time, the time he isn’t playing Hendrix-ian guitar solos, that is, standing in his doorway having loud conversations with other members of his band, or young acolytes. Quote: “Hey man, you can do whatever you want with your life, you know? I mean, look at me, I’m forty and I’m… ” *trails off since he can’t say “and I’m doing great” because he’s clearly living alone in an apartment with as many square metres as he has years, playing 70’s style guitar and drinking. Alone*
The Outdoorsman rushes upstairs whenever I hammer something (which is surprisingly often) and shouts at me, “ARE YOU BANGIN COZ YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THE MUSIC? COZ YOU CAN COME DOWN AND SAY SOMETHIN, YOU KNOW?”
Uh, yeah, I know, I was hammering something…
“YEAH COZ YOU KNOW IF THE MUSIC EVER MAKES IT SO YOU CAN’T RELAX, YOU KNOW, OR YOUR DUDE, IF YOUR DUDE HAS A PROBLEM, YOU KNOW, YOU CAN JUST COME AND SAY SOMETHING, THAT’S TOTALLY FINE.”
Yep, umm, ok, I’ll let my… uhh… dude know, thanks, I’m going back to my hammering now…
He continued to assure me, aggressively assure me, that any time I or my dude wanted to relax, we could just knock on his doorframe, and tell him so. Yeah, yeah sure, I’ll totally do that, next time I want to be pushed off a third floor balcony by a small statured rockabilly vampire.
17.2.10
...and then you die.
'Why don't you wash behind your ears?'
'When you wash there, you just encourage things to live there. They go, "Oh, we'll move in here, it's nice and clean back here. Then let's kill him."'
'When you wash there, you just encourage things to live there. They go, "Oh, we'll move in here, it's nice and clean back here. Then let's kill him."'
16.2.10
Here comes the battery hen...
Narrow and I have to go to a buck's and a hen's night, respectively. We are TERRIFIED.
I don't understand the purpose of buck's and hen's nights. The etymology even offends me. The connotation being that while the man is a free roaming wild creature, virile, powerful and independent, the woman is a clucking, broody, fat little thing stupidly running around in circles, scratching in the dirt and building up her nest to lay her many eggs.
A hen's night is a celebration of the things a hen represents: fertility, dependence, the catching of a man with your tiny malicious talons. A stag night is the mourning of the loss of all the things a man is supposed to want: wildness, freedom, ceaseless rutting of any and all things with tails.
Aside from the names, then there's the actual activities these nights entail. The female party celebrates the impending marriage with rituals of sympathetic magic: the construction of wedding dresses from toilet paper by the bridesmaids (to bring about weddings for the unmarried girls), the sculpting of plastic phalluses (beseeching the gods to endow the groom with rigidity and largesse), and the pinning while blindfolded of the penis onto the poster of the naked man, a ritual to bless the bride with seductive arts in the bedroom. And all the while, huge quantities of strawberry daquiri must be imbibed, to sustain the illusion that what they're doing is sexy and fearless, rather than sad and unimaginative.
In the meantime, the groom's friends must try their utmost to steer him from the path of self destruction he has taken. The method is quite simple - parade in front of him the many wonders he will no longer know once he is married: never-ending geysers of beer and Jagermeister, bars full of roaring drunk men, and of course a naked woman.
Under no circumstances should the two groups meet, regardless of the many other nights which they may have enjoyed as a co-ed group. If they did, the mutual disgust each group would feel for the behaviour of the other would result in an instant break of the union, and those of any other couples therein, a kink in the space-time continuum which would change the pattern of history.
That the happy couple must be divided in order to enjoy the evening, and that there is an air of mourning around the male celebration, and one of self-conscious raunch around the female one, is really just sad. To me, the upshot of feminism should have been that men and women would view each other not as adversaries but as friends, as essentially the same and equal. Instead, after nominal equality was gained, it all went right back to where it started.
Only now, instead of being fetishised by men, we fetishise ourselves. By participating in these outmoded rituals we only entrench the idea that women are worthless if they aren't sexy, and that men are deeply different and apart (although not necessarily superior). Why the hell would you want a stripper at your buck's night? You are going to be LIVING with a woman, who will be naked at least twice a day, for the rest of your life! It's particularly pointless these days, where most likely you've already been living with that woman for years.
The same goes for the hens - dicking around with plastic penises as if you've never seen one in your LIFE and it's so HILARIOUS because it's so NAUGHTY to play with genitalia! Go find me a pack of pink straws shaped like vaginas and I'll tell you that we're on an equal footing. Although I'll grant you they're less conveniently designed for ease of drinking.
Not to mention that if you're a couple with an engaged pair as friends, you BOTH have to go to these nights, or even whole weekends, and it costs a FORTUNE. We're going to end up in the poorhouse, and we're not even going to enjoy ourselves on the way.
I don't understand the purpose of buck's and hen's nights. The etymology even offends me. The connotation being that while the man is a free roaming wild creature, virile, powerful and independent, the woman is a clucking, broody, fat little thing stupidly running around in circles, scratching in the dirt and building up her nest to lay her many eggs.
A hen's night is a celebration of the things a hen represents: fertility, dependence, the catching of a man with your tiny malicious talons. A stag night is the mourning of the loss of all the things a man is supposed to want: wildness, freedom, ceaseless rutting of any and all things with tails.
Aside from the names, then there's the actual activities these nights entail. The female party celebrates the impending marriage with rituals of sympathetic magic: the construction of wedding dresses from toilet paper by the bridesmaids (to bring about weddings for the unmarried girls), the sculpting of plastic phalluses (beseeching the gods to endow the groom with rigidity and largesse), and the pinning while blindfolded of the penis onto the poster of the naked man, a ritual to bless the bride with seductive arts in the bedroom. And all the while, huge quantities of strawberry daquiri must be imbibed, to sustain the illusion that what they're doing is sexy and fearless, rather than sad and unimaginative.
In the meantime, the groom's friends must try their utmost to steer him from the path of self destruction he has taken. The method is quite simple - parade in front of him the many wonders he will no longer know once he is married: never-ending geysers of beer and Jagermeister, bars full of roaring drunk men, and of course a naked woman.
Under no circumstances should the two groups meet, regardless of the many other nights which they may have enjoyed as a co-ed group. If they did, the mutual disgust each group would feel for the behaviour of the other would result in an instant break of the union, and those of any other couples therein, a kink in the space-time continuum which would change the pattern of history.
That the happy couple must be divided in order to enjoy the evening, and that there is an air of mourning around the male celebration, and one of self-conscious raunch around the female one, is really just sad. To me, the upshot of feminism should have been that men and women would view each other not as adversaries but as friends, as essentially the same and equal. Instead, after nominal equality was gained, it all went right back to where it started.
Only now, instead of being fetishised by men, we fetishise ourselves. By participating in these outmoded rituals we only entrench the idea that women are worthless if they aren't sexy, and that men are deeply different and apart (although not necessarily superior). Why the hell would you want a stripper at your buck's night? You are going to be LIVING with a woman, who will be naked at least twice a day, for the rest of your life! It's particularly pointless these days, where most likely you've already been living with that woman for years.
The same goes for the hens - dicking around with plastic penises as if you've never seen one in your LIFE and it's so HILARIOUS because it's so NAUGHTY to play with genitalia! Go find me a pack of pink straws shaped like vaginas and I'll tell you that we're on an equal footing. Although I'll grant you they're less conveniently designed for ease of drinking.
Not to mention that if you're a couple with an engaged pair as friends, you BOTH have to go to these nights, or even whole weekends, and it costs a FORTUNE. We're going to end up in the poorhouse, and we're not even going to enjoy ourselves on the way.
7.2.10
Speed kills
Narrow's been working way out in the middle of nowhere this weekend, like, north of Hornsby, which I'm pretty sure is the arctic circle, or at least the equator. He rang me yesterday to ask if there were any speed cameras between Hornsby and Greenland because he'd probably been going over the freeway speed limit, but it WAS RAINING SO HARD HE WOULDN'T HAVE SEEN THE 'HERE COMES A SPEED CAMERA' SIGNS. Again: he was going faster than one hundred and ten kilometres an hour, in rain so pelting he couldn't see off the side of the road. And when I say, 'You'll have an accident', his response is, 'No I won't, I don't feel like I'm out of control.'
Because every person who's ever had a high speed accident in the rain on the freeway knew that they were not in control of the vehicle well before they lost it completely and rolled towards their fiery doom. The only reason people have accidents is they suffer a crisis of confidence.
Because every person who's ever had a high speed accident in the rain on the freeway knew that they were not in control of the vehicle well before they lost it completely and rolled towards their fiery doom. The only reason people have accidents is they suffer a crisis of confidence.
Hot air
Okay, I know my apartment is really small (so small that every time we walk past the window of the empty apartment downstairs, which is identical to ours, we gawk in and say 'NO WAY is ours that small! No way.'), but still, it speaks to the excessive nature of my hair that whenever I blow dry it the whole flat fills up with steam. We have to stumble around breathing in the hot soupy air for about forty-five minutes before it clears enough that we can see the windows again to open them.
I tutor English in the evenings, and I have a student doing Henry IV this week. Read it, or just google that shit? HA like that's even a legitimate question. 'Read' it, when there are important blogs I could be reading instead, and important nails I could be painting. Although it's kind of undermining my professionalism that every time I sit down with a new student I have to say, 'Now, I've never read this, BUT it seems to me that...', or if I'm feeling crafty, 'Tell me what you feel this text is about.' Then I just have a quick flick through of it while they're writing something down, pick out any old example, and imbue it with significance. Seriously, the more you study high school English, the more full of shit and open to abuse you come to realise it is. I've had to commit the ultimate hypocrisy, 'I know you COULD just make up the quotes, and I know I didn't even notice until you told me, but I would never... err... yeah, just don't, ok?' The higher the level of English they're taking, the sooner you run across this problem. The point where they realise there is not a teacher (and thus, exam marker) in the world who knows all the texts that well, and therefore they can just make up any old shit and bung it in there and nobody will notice.
Not that I think you should do that.
I tutor English in the evenings, and I have a student doing Henry IV this week. Read it, or just google that shit? HA like that's even a legitimate question. 'Read' it, when there are important blogs I could be reading instead, and important nails I could be painting. Although it's kind of undermining my professionalism that every time I sit down with a new student I have to say, 'Now, I've never read this, BUT it seems to me that...', or if I'm feeling crafty, 'Tell me what you feel this text is about.' Then I just have a quick flick through of it while they're writing something down, pick out any old example, and imbue it with significance. Seriously, the more you study high school English, the more full of shit and open to abuse you come to realise it is. I've had to commit the ultimate hypocrisy, 'I know you COULD just make up the quotes, and I know I didn't even notice until you told me, but I would never... err... yeah, just don't, ok?' The higher the level of English they're taking, the sooner you run across this problem. The point where they realise there is not a teacher (and thus, exam marker) in the world who knows all the texts that well, and therefore they can just make up any old shit and bung it in there and nobody will notice.
Not that I think you should do that.
6.2.10
Narrow
I live with the narrowest man alive and for the purposes of the internets I call him Narrow. I have done since I met him, when I ran into work the next day and squealed to my colleague The Large-Living Texan Goth (not a very concise nickname, I know, but she's not a very concise person), 'OH MY GOD I MET THE NARROWEST MAN ALIVE YESTERDAY!' And that was BEFORE I tried to sleep with my arm slung across his torso, after which experiment I barely kept the use of my hand, the bones in his ribcage having cut off all circulation to my arm in the night.
I'm not sure if he likes the moniker, especially since it spread off the internet and into the real life salutations of my Twitter friends, but until he raises a serious objection (or starts eating lots more pies and butter) I'm going to keep using it because it is both apt and pithy. To me, anyway.
Narrow works for them thar railways, and this means when he comes home his knees are always filthy. Also, he's most adept at installing ceiling fans, and jiggering around with the internet so it is better on his computer and inaccessible on mine.
We also have a large burgundy Chesterfield sofa called Karl. I wanted to call it Horace, but apparently that was too remeniscent of corpulent old aristocrats, to which I respond, yeah duh, that's the point. The sofa is only a two seater because that's all we could get through the door of the apartment, but it is still the biggest thing you've ever seen. He appears deeper than he is wide, an incredible feat of sofa physics. I should become a vegan right now, because for the rest of my life I'll be atoning for the thousands of cows which went into making my sofa.
I'm not sure if he likes the moniker, especially since it spread off the internet and into the real life salutations of my Twitter friends, but until he raises a serious objection (or starts eating lots more pies and butter) I'm going to keep using it because it is both apt and pithy. To me, anyway.
Narrow works for them thar railways, and this means when he comes home his knees are always filthy. Also, he's most adept at installing ceiling fans, and jiggering around with the internet so it is better on his computer and inaccessible on mine.
We also have a large burgundy Chesterfield sofa called Karl. I wanted to call it Horace, but apparently that was too remeniscent of corpulent old aristocrats, to which I respond, yeah duh, that's the point. The sofa is only a two seater because that's all we could get through the door of the apartment, but it is still the biggest thing you've ever seen. He appears deeper than he is wide, an incredible feat of sofa physics. I should become a vegan right now, because for the rest of my life I'll be atoning for the thousands of cows which went into making my sofa.
5.2.10
Countdown...
There are managers synchronising their watches in the lobby. 'We'll recce in the boardroom at eleven hundred and fifteen... you have precisely TWELVE MINUTES and THIRTY EIGHT seconds to gather staff and supplies of caffeine - GO'
I have seventy-six hours and forty-eight minutes left of sitting behind this desk, sending my eyes further and further out of focus with every passing second. Fifteen more days to stockpile enough stationery supplies to get me through twelve university subjects, because I haven't bought pens for two years and by God I don't intend to start now. It's really very hard, when faced with six pages of assorted Post-it possibilities, to narrow it down to just the ones you could fit in your drawers. 'I'll get a tower of the recycled 76x76, but do I want them in Original Canary or Pastel?'
I have seventy-six hours and forty-eight minutes left of sitting behind this desk, sending my eyes further and further out of focus with every passing second. Fifteen more days to stockpile enough stationery supplies to get me through twelve university subjects, because I haven't bought pens for two years and by God I don't intend to start now. It's really very hard, when faced with six pages of assorted Post-it possibilities, to narrow it down to just the ones you could fit in your drawers. 'I'll get a tower of the recycled 76x76, but do I want them in Original Canary or Pastel?'
22.1.10
There's some shit I can no longer say on any of my other social media sites. Like, since people from work started adding me on Facebook, I can no longer bitch about work on Facebook. That was all fine, because I had Twitter and literally not one other person in the office had it, because despite the fact that they're all publicists and marketers, they are still old and past it.
Now, they're all on Twitter as well (kinda my fault because I kept talking it up), and now I can't moan about work ANYWHERE. I can't moan about the fact that I didn't get the job I applied for, because I don't want everyone to know I went for that job which that CHILD got instead. Or that I'm sick to the teeth of having to put people's filthy dishes in the dishwasher because I'm a receptionist and apparently 'ad hoc cleaning duties' really were part of my contract.
So that is why I'm here, Blogspot. To bitch. And to express the odd deep inner yearning which I'm ashamed to voice anywhere else. So, welcome to bits of my brain.
Now, they're all on Twitter as well (kinda my fault because I kept talking it up), and now I can't moan about work ANYWHERE. I can't moan about the fact that I didn't get the job I applied for, because I don't want everyone to know I went for that job which that CHILD got instead. Or that I'm sick to the teeth of having to put people's filthy dishes in the dishwasher because I'm a receptionist and apparently 'ad hoc cleaning duties' really were part of my contract.
So that is why I'm here, Blogspot. To bitch. And to express the odd deep inner yearning which I'm ashamed to voice anywhere else. So, welcome to bits of my brain.
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