Quodlibets

I am a bad, bad girl

Dammit.  I hate working.  I hate working mostly because I'm dying to blog about work and I don't think it's a good idea.  Some of the people here are practically begging for a blog write-up.  My fingers are itching to write about it.

I'm dying, here.  My brain is spitting out pithy sentences by the pageful and I have nowhere to put them!  This is torture, people.  Torture.

Must.....Not.....Blog......Work.....

Real Life Observation

Commuting by car is soulless.

That is all.

Blogging and Advertising

I'm going to come out here and say that I'm against blogs having ads.  In general, it makes me uncomfortable and a little nervous.  I think part of the reason is that my blog is personal, and I can't imagine forcing my family and friends to look at ads every time they want a little update on my life.  I wouldn't send them an advertising circular with a letter, and I'm pissed any time I get an email with ads, so it just extends out to blogs.  I didn't really start blogging hoping to get 50 hits a day.  I wanted people that I knew to be able to read my writing. 

I hate when blogs include ads.  I really do.  I've only ever deleted one blog from my reader for ads, though, because I felt it made me uncomfortable given the nature of the blog.  Because I also understand that there are a lot of people out there who can barely afford to feed themselves and keep their bodies clothed, and who love blogging a whole lot.  I get that.  I also tend to be a little more lenient if the blog is getting hundreds and hundreds of hits a day.  In some ways, some blogs are becoming magazine-like mediums, and I can understand how ads might have a place on those blogs.

In my perfect world, though, it makes more sense to me for people to have tip jars instead of ads, because ads are, ultimately, no matter how careful you are, a product of a corporate culture that makes me uncomfortable.  And you can disassociate yourself from whatever the ads are advertising, but in some ways, it is an implicit endorsement of whatever the product is.  And that too makes me very uncomfortable.  I'm sorry if that offends some people, but I'd rather pay the person directly for their wonderful writing than funnel my money through some corporation, who then pays the blogger.  I've never "tipped" anyone before, but I didn't have a job before, either, and have been thinking about doing it for a few of my favorite bloggers.

Also, and I said this before, I don't like to think that my family would have to deal with those ads just to read about my new job.  Doesn't make any sense to me.  And, if I did suddenly need the income, who am I kidding thinking that my 30-40-50 hits a day will make any money?  The unpleasantness isn't worth the profit.  If you want to look at it coldly.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that I find ads unpleasant, I will never click through them because I would rather donate to tip jars, and I find them completely out of place on small, personal blogs.  (This post has been marinating for ages, ever since I started reading the thoughtful posts on Utopian Hell about the subject.  I just feel sort of weird saying this, because I'm coming at it from a place where I don't have to worry about my typepad billing, or the cost of the computer.  So I'm trying to say that I understand ads, but that I still hate them.  Anyway, I'm stopping now before I dig the hole any deeper.)

Yin and Yang

I don't know if you've noticed this, but my sister and I seem to have switched places.  After I read her *second* post of the day, I realized how incredibly strange it is that one year ago today, we were in completely opposite positions in the world; I was doing the school thing, and she was working full-time.  I don't think I realized how much work is affecting my blogging until tonight, really.  It's not a life or death situation, but it's symptomatic of how things have changed since I've started full-time work.  (Yes, in just a week.)

I'm just beat when I get home.  I'm not sure why, since my job isn't grueling, and it isn't even really mentally taxing (I don't think I'm going to get in trouble if I say here that the biggest challenge I'm going to have at my job is to keep from being bored.  I still haven't figured out in my head how much I want to talk about work on the blog, so until I do, I may preface everything I say with some sort of disclaimer.  No one wants to be dooced, and I really don't want to be dooced one week into a job.).  I think it's just the effort involved.  Anyway, the point is, I'm not quite mentally on top of things the way I was before.  I'm sort of living day to day, making sure the right things get done (laundry, cleaning, food shopping) and pulling myself out of bed in the morning.  I don't anticipate this sort of fatigue to last long (god, I hope not, anyway), because there are things I'd like to do at night.  Besides sit on my ass.  I really do want to resume some sort of work-out, but right now, I'm not sure I have the energy to change my clothes twice more before bed.

And yes, the blog will probably suffer, at least until I determine if I want to blog at work.  (There is certainly time for it, but is it appropriate?)  It's less thinky, and will be less thinky until I can start thinking about things other than work.  (The amount of time I've spent reviewing various work things in my head in the past week is crazy.  When I'm not reading or staring blankly into space, I'm trying to remember what goes where and how I do that--and what about that?  It's just a lot to learn in four days--which is all the time I had with my predecessor--and then fly without any sort of safety net.  Really.  My department is just me.  The person before me basically built the entire department from the ground up, and she was the only one who really knew it in detail.  And now that person is me.  Four days later, me.  It's daunting.)  Anyway, if I seem to blog less, well, that's why. 

And if I seem less intelligent, it's only because I'm turning my intelligence towards library things.

Dinner Experiment #2

Recipe:  Mexican Lasagna
On Deck: Pizza Casserole

Tonight, I decided to make a home-cooked, longer than a half-hour preparation meal.  I found a recipe for the aforementioned Mexican Lasagna (from Cooking Light magazine) and decided to chance it.  There were no vegetables in the recipe, save for onions and chiles (which I omitted, with some moderations to the recipe), so I thought it was a sure bet.  And guess what?  It was.  S liked it.

I think that the next time I make it, I'll go for easier, because it was a pain in the ass.  It'd be really easy to make this recipe easier, by buying one of those pre-roasted chickens and just shredding that meat and using in the sauce mixture (a combination of cheese, low-fat cream cheese, skim evaporated milk, enchilada sauce and some low-fat, low-sodium chicken broth).  Like I said, S did like it, but he thinks that it might be worth it to try the sauce with a combination of enchilada and taco sauces.  I guess he's not a huge fan of enchilada sauce.  It really was yummy.  In fact, S had two helpings, which means he actually liked it, instead of the fake liking it that he normally does with my food. 

This makes two meals I've made that S really enjoys; my sloppy joe recipe is a solid hit.  (When S requests something, you know he likes it.  And with this meal, tonight, he actually agreed that this would make a good leftover meal.  Success, people, success.)  I think I'm going to solidly commit to trying one new recipe a week.  So far, it's been fairly easy to stick to that, and if I just do it every Sunday, it'll be easy.  So I think this might become a regular feature.  As you can guess from the beginning of this entry, the next meal is going to be another casserole recipe that I found online.  We're going to modify it (like we always do) and halve it (like we always do), but hopefully it will still taste good.

I'm a pretty good intuitive cook.  I can usually figure out which flavors will be a success and which ones to cut.  And I can usually work around vegetables, even sometimes including those flavors in the meal without the actual vegetable.  I'm getting resourceful, and it's good.

So, this is the first of what will hopefully be 45-50 entries by next December.  I know there will be weeks where I don't manage it, but I'm going to try really hard.  Usually, we eat at home at least once a week, so if I can make that my experiment dinner...we'll see.

A Troublesome Development

It's a little troublesome that President Bush has decided that he can do whatever he wants -- re: torture and domestic "eavesdropping" -- and suffer no consequences.  See, no.  He's a citizen of this country like everyone else, and when you think you're above the law, you're entering Saddam territory.  Part of the strength of this country is that our leaders are accountable, because they don't have absolute power.  Like a dictator or a monarch would.  Of course, if I was a betting person, which I'm not, I'd bet the whole kit and caboodle that Bush will never be held accountable for any of this, because he's such a wily bastard.

I'm beginning to think that he might be the stupidest, most headstrong President we've ever had.  Stupid because he's behaving, constantly, like a petulant child, and wait, headstrong for the same reason.  I mean, thumbing your nose at John McCain and saying "Nah nah nah boo boo, I'm torturing who I want to" seems like a baaaaad idea.  I feel like McCain has been gritting his teeth for five years and toeing the Bush party line, but that he's not long for that game, with the giant "Fuck You" Bush has handed him.

I only sort of respect McCain, because I mostly hate the way he went to bat for the Bush administration in the months following the beginning of the war.  I also hate that he was so hawkish, though I find that easier to forgive than being a toady for the Bush administration (also one of my problems with Colin Powell).  But I think he's mostly honest in an INCREDIBLY corrupt political world, and I think he's a uniter as opposed to divider.  I can say that if presented with a terrible Democratic candidate, I would at least consider voting for John McCain.  Consider, okay. 

So anyway, I don't understand why Bush would fuck over McCain, because it's sending a pretty sad message to the people of America, which is:  "I will fuck over every single person that I have to to continue my reign of absolute, unaccountable power."  Then again, I don't know why I'm surprised; Bush fucked over McCain to win primaries in 2000. 

I'd like to hear the voices in Bush's head that are telling him that these are the right things to be doing, and I'd like to hear what his father has to say about the utter illegality of the things he's been doing.  I'm telling you, Bush is galloping ahead in the race to have the most corrupt presidency ever, and it's fucking over the country.  As it has been for the last five years, and it will for the next three.  I tremble to think of how this country will look in three years, when Bush finally leaves office.

But I'm no political scientist.  So what do I know?

All things know, all things know

I know that Tim has already blogged about the song "Chicago", off of Sufjan Stevens album "Illinoise", and he is better at writing about music than I am, but I have to write about the song too.

I've had the album for a long while now, but never listened to it as intensely as I have in the past few days.  It's spectacular, and I've known it was spectacular since the beginning, but it's something even more now.  I know that's vague, but I can't describe how ridiculously good it feels to let this music wash over you.  I've been pondering the question of if the subject of the album makes me love it more, being a native Illinoisian and even a native Chicagoan (sort of; I'm from the suburbs, but consider Chicago my "downtown".), but can't come up with an answer.

I only know that when I listen to "Chicago", there is a depth of meaning that I'm not sure how to express.  It hits me hard.  Part of it is definitely the choral feel of some of the song--it doesn't sound super-polished and perfect.  It sounds like a group of normal people singing the song, and it makes me feel comfortable.  I feel like I can (and I do, of course) sing along perfectly.  I don't even want to sing along with Sufjan's parts, because I like feeling like I'm "in the band".  If that makes sense.

I'm not sure I can quantify my love for the CD any more than that.  I can't pick out individual elements that I like because I like it all so much.  And it will now always be tied to this week, this month, this period where I'm starting a new job that I'm liking very much.  I can't say that's a bad thing, either.

Work is kicking my ass around Illinois

Hoooo, boy.  Not working for over a year and a half has a serious impact on you when you do decide to go back to work.  I get home at night and want to literally curl up on the couch and moan and whine about how tired I am.  Though, I am, happily, less tired tonight than last night, when I cried twice and refused to eat (or decide what to eat) like a brat.  I hope S knows how much I appreciate his patience.  I hate this 9 to 5 shit (and I'm only stuck on it for the rest of this week, because the person I'm replacing hates coming in early) because my commute home is a living hell that needn't be a living hell.  Tonight a twenty minute drive took 50 minutes, which is horrifyingly grim.

And then I got home and cooked a nutritious, balanced dinner, with the help of my rice cooker and S, who took a little sick break from work today.  Chicken and rice, with a side of green beans.  It ain't exciting, but it's a seriously better dinner than the fast food I ate last night.  In a minute, I'm going to tear myself off the couch and begin doing things such as chores and errands, but now, I'm savoring the joy that is a soft couch beneath my ass.  If I'm cranky for the next few weeks, please don't hate me.  I'm readjusting my body and mind to work, and it's hard. 

At least I like the job.  Unlike the last one, which made me cry when I thought about going back.  (Oh yeah, maybe I should just state that the crying last night wasn't job related, but food and S related.  Poor S.)  I'm pretty anxious, because I'm very worried, at this point, that I can't fill 37.5 hours a week with this stuff.  Somehow I'll make it work.  Because I like this job, and this job definitely likes me.  If my blogging is light, work is why.  I'll eventually get into a rhythm, but unti then....

Manana

Wish me well.....I'm starting the new job tomorrow.  I'm nervous, of course, because I'm a nervous norvis, but also a little comforted by the fact that I know everyone already.  And like them.  That's already a victory.

Of course, things will change for me, a little bit, when I'm not the intern but an employee.  I think I'll get a big ol' earful of library politics this time (oh, who am I kidding?  I did last time too.), but I'll be more involved this time.  And, I'll earn money for the work I do.  Which, well, let's face it, I may not be a workhorse at home, but at work, I pull my weight.  So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

You know, except for the actually having to do work part. 

26 in 2006

1. Apply to a graduate program in library science.  At least one.
2. Watch the whole Monty Python series.  (I actually will attempt it this year.)
3. Find a new apartment for S and I to move into (in the city?).
4. Floss every night.
5. Go to a museum every once in a while.
6. Listen to audiobooks again.
7. Stop feeling like such a failure, and concentrate more on my successes.
8. Cook dinner at least two nights a week.  And by cook, I mean, start with RAW ingredients and, voila! meal.
9. Try to loosen up and go with the flow more often.
10. At the grocery store, make fewer impulse buys that won't get eaten.
11. Donate something every month to some charity, be it clothes, food, or money.
12. Make an exciting new mix for my iPod based on Q101's "13 Years in 13 Days" thingy.
13. Try to see a few comedy shows this next year.
14. Exercise at least three times a week.  I've never been able to maintain that while working full-time, and this year, I'm gonna try.
15. Be a little more patient about certain elements of my life that come with what I've chosen.  If that's cryptic, it's because I'm trying to be tactful.  But don't worry, it probably doesn't have anything to do with you.
16. Get a kitty.  If I can convince S that I simply must have one and he should work with me on the issue.
17. Vote, and convince others to do the same.
18. Try to cultivate some sort of relationship with my brother, if he'll let me.
19. I am not going to smoke.  NO cigarettes at all.  It's not like I'm a regular smoker now, so this just means that I'll have to cut out those every once in a while social cigs.  Boy, do I like those, but boy, I should stop smoking.
20. Clean out the fridge once a month.  Our fridge is always in a state of disgustingness--though mostly without mold.
21. Try to organize the books in the apartment.  Even though that might mean boxing books up and storing them somewhere else. 
22. Try to institute some sort of special date night for S and I.  I'm not talking about garden-variety, dinner and a movie dates, but special things.  Different places, things we haven't done, expensive/delicious/once-in-a-while restaurants.  Even if it's only once a month.
23. Get a new cell phone.  Mine is ancient and barely works.
24. Lose more weight/stick to WW for another six months starting on Tuesday.  I did that last year, and it really worked.  I'd like to do the same thing as last year.
25. S really wants to make ice cream again.  I solemnly swear I will happily watch him do it.
26. Have a better year than last.