I need to do...

...blogroll maintenance as well as a re-design, methinks.

Stay tuned in the New Year.

Christmas 2005. Day Five.

Christmas wasn't too bad at all. I spent it with my father's family which meant that I actually enjoyed it, even if it was a bit whirlwind. Nothing overly exciting in the gift department--not that I was really expecting anything big and/or exciting. I did get a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble and am trying to decide between the Christoper Guest Collection on DVD or A New England? Peace and War, 1886-1918. I'm leaning towards the book right now....

Things at work are going well. It's looking like we're going to go with the one manager, two stores thing though I'll be getting a raise to go along with my upped responsibilities once things have been nailed down. I'm okay with that. I've also been invited to come up with a better job title for myself, if I so choose. 'Shift Lead' is boring and corporate. I'm thinking maybe something along the lines of 'baristissima' (the highest or best barista) or 'gentiluomo barista' (gentleman barista). Or something more creative than that.

Things with the boy are going well too. I never really thought about how much work Christmas is for people who work in churches. Speaking of churches, I actually went to Christmas Eve Mass....and it reminded me of all the things I hate about the Catholic Church. I was with my best friend from high school and her family and so it was a laugh a minute and I had way more fun that I think is allowed in a Catholic Church. And we managed to refrain from stealing the baby Jesus from the Nativity.

The boy is having a New Year's party on Saturday. So I'll meet most of his friends all at once. No pressure. I don't know that I'm nervous exactly though it will be somewhat daunting being the new guy and knowing that they're all going to be judging me to see if I'm worthy of him. At least, I assume that's what they'll be doing since that's what I would expect my friends to do in the same situation.

More importantly though is the fact that I'll have someone to kiss at midnight on New Year's for the first time in...well, ever. For some reason, having someone to kiss at midnight seems more important to me than having someone to spend Valentine's Day with. Even when I've been in a relationship with someone, I've never been with them on New Year's, and thus have never had someone to kiss at midnight. I'm not sure what the deal with that is--why it seems like such a big deal to me--but I intend to make it a damn good kiss to make up for lost time.

My one resolution so far is the same one that I make every year: floss more regularly. Beyond that, I think I need to really get myself on a better daily schedule given that I'm going to five closings a week next month, which means that I really need to get good at getting things done during the morning and not putzing around and doing nothing all morning until just before I have to go to work. This includes reading the paper on the day that it's published as well as making myself a lunch for while I'm at work. And spending less time in the house--although that's a tough one with winter and all. I also really want to set up a sort of reading schedule for myself given how little of my list of 'summer' reading I got done. I really need to get cracking on this pre-grad school reading if I'm going to be in a position to think about reapplying this coming fall.

Study shows correlation...

...between a drop in hospital visits by children and the release of Harry Potter books.

Go figure.

Hectic week

To answer the burning question on everyone's mind: I am not manager as yet and it doesn't look like I will be any time soon. Which is fine. As things have unfolded, I've begun to realise how much I never was taught or told about my responsibilities in my position now, never mind the added responsibilities of a manager. The manager of our other store is going to run both stores for a while to get us back up to speed--and things may end up staying like that, though that's not definite yet.

It's been a rather crazy week--busy with holiday shoppers--plus schedule changes due to the need to cover the former manager's shifts. I ended up opening two mornings this week (meaning I had to be to work at 6 am!), which was not fun but it needed to get done. After having opened yesterday, I ended up having to go back to help close last night because of another scheduling mishap. I was not thrilled, especially because it meant having an intermission to my dinner with the boy, but the person whose fault it was is buying me a bottle of Glenlivet to make up for it.

One more day at work tomorrow and then it's off to Massachusetts for the holiday. Still not talking to my mother which means only dealing with my father's family, which means that I'll actually enjoy the holiday. Next week should be better work-wise. It's when the other manager is going to start coming in and essentially re-educating us. Although that might sound a bit scary, I'm actually looking forward to it. As I said, I've realised how much I'm supposed to know about my job that I don't and that rather bothers me.

Probably I won't post until after Christmas. It's nice to be going into Christmas without being stressed out for a change. Hopefully it won't be stressful. I mean, it's only my dad's family. Which means that there isn't really much to be stressed about.

Lame-ass

So my boss quit yesterday. Via text message. I didn't think he could get any more lame. Ah the wonders of modern technology.

Yesterday at work, needless to say, was somewhat hectic--my manager was supposed to open and texted his resignation shortly before he was supposed to open. I'm not sure how any one else is feeling just yet, but I'm feeling rather relieved needless to say. I had only been there a month when the last manager left (because she was going back to school) and there was a lot of concern about being directly managed by one of the co-owners. Now, though, I'd rather welcome that. For a bit anyway to get us back on track.

Eventually, though, we'll need our own manager of course....

Don't think I haven't thought about it. And I'm not the only one. Back in September when the recently-quit manager had just started as manager, I had a couple of regular customers think that I actually was the new manager. Yesterday, I was talking to someone else who works for the company who seemed to think that if I wanted the position that it could be mine.

I don't not want the position. But, I would certainly approach it very humbly. I've never managed before and my time as a shift lead I don't think has prepared me as well as it might have to become a manager. I would want to be sure that I was going to get the kind of support and helping hands that I would both need and want at first to make at least a somewhat smooth transition before I was ready to do it without the training wheels, so to speak. I'm sure that it's something that I could do--and I could likely do it rather well, I'd like to think--but I'm not so smug as to assume that I'd be able to do it well straight away.

It's going to be an interesting week, methinks. By the end of yesterday, it seemed that we actually had most of the former manager's shifts covered. That's just one part of it, though. For one thing, he was doing all the ordering on his own--a responsibility that he was supposed to share with the shift leads--and so neither of the two shift leads have any real experience doing that. Still, I have to say that I'm generally quite impressed with the quality of people who work for this company as well as the willingness of the co-owners to step up to the plate--or to step down into the trenches as it were--when they're needed. They've been open 11 years now but have no problem jumping on the line or pulling espresso shots if they need to.

Updates as events warrant....

Academic muddle

Not that I've been giving much thought to this since I graduate in June, but my mind just happened to fall on the topic now.

Do I really want to study Victorian/Edwardian masculinities or do I want to study knowledge/science in the early English Atlantic?

I can't do both. The later would let me look at issues of gender and sexuality to some degree. The former would probably let me look at issues of knowledge and science to some degree too but without a trans-Atlantic framework.

Just food for thought.

Update

The work holiday party wasn't actually too bad and I'm happy I went in the end. Much (too much?) karaoke was sung. Much (never too much) wine was consumed. Wine makes everything better.

Work continues to be stupid due for the most part now to the manager. He's not really new any more given that he's been managing the store since September. September was a messed up month and his first month so no one really thought much about it. It hasn't really gotten any better though. If anything, it's gotten mildly worse. In a lot of ways, I feel like it's almost degenerated into this boys' club v. girls' club atmosphere, with the boys being stupid and adolescent and the girls attempting to maintain some professional level despite the boys' fart jokes. I'm exaggerating to get the point across but there should be no surprise that I'm the only boy on the girls' side. I still wonder about what, if anything, I should do. I'm not exactly sure what I would say to my manager that wouldn't seem like I was too directly criticising his management style and skills. And I still feel like I would be too much of a snitch if I just directly went to his boss and said something. Still, given that there have been complaints about his espresso drinks being undrinkable and that when one of my co-workers mentioned this to him, he just laughed it off, I'm not sure that confronting him directly is going to help anything. In fact, yesterday one of our regular customers who always gets a double espresso decided to get just drip coffee when my manager saw him walk in and went directly to start pulling his shots for him. There was this really awkward moment when the customer looked at me--I was closer to the cash than to the espresso machine--and then looked at my manager and then back at me and said that he'd just have regular coffee.

None of this is rocket science. Sure, there are certain skills involved in using an espresso machine but one would assume that if you've been doing this for any length of time--long enough to have managed a few shops along the way--that you'd have picked up those necessary skills at some point. But, maybe not.

In other news, things with the boy continue to go quite well. It's been a month as of today since our first date. Despite a discussion we had a couple of weeks ago about how we should take it slow as both of us have a bad tendency to rush into things at first, we've spent almost every night together since that conversation. At least we tried. It's the thought that counts.

Speaking of thought, I can't believe that Christmas is in a week. Ugh. Stupid holidays. I've really been trying to enjoy the season for what it's worth this year, but I just haven't even been thinking about it. I've been rather focused on work and on the boy. I haven't given any thought to gifts yet although I honestly don't think that I can really afford to buy much of anything for anyone this year. So I probably won't. My family will understand. I just graduated from university, of course I don't have any money. Conversely, I don't really expect much of anything from them either. I don't really NEED anything that I can think of. There are things I'd LIKE but nothing that I really NEED.

Except maybe a pair of boots and a new winter hat.

Holiday Humbug

The work holiday party is tonight. I'm SO not in the holiday mood.

I realised yesterday that the last time I actually enjoyed the holidays was quite a while ago, probably just before Christmas lost any kind of spiritual significance to me.

Discuss.

'A New Find Sheds Some Light On the Titanic's Final Moments'

Robert Ballard, an explorer, found the bulk of the wreck in 1985. He was not impressed with the recent discovery, saying: 'They found a fragment, big deal. Am I surprised? No. When you go down there, there's stuff all over the place. It hit and iceberg and it sank. Get over it.'

From yesterday's NY Times.

Update

I tried to play it cool. I tried to be smooth. I tried to be collected and logical.

It worked for 19 days.

As of yesterday morning, though, I'm totally, utterly and officially smitten.

I woke up at his place yesterday morning and there was something about the mundane process of me getting ready to go to work and him seeing me to the door that did it for me. My mind never really left his bed yesterday. I kept dropping things at work. Luckily they tended to be empty paper cups and lids--I didn't break anything.

As far as I can tell, he seems to be equally smitten. Which is probably a good thing. He also shows no signs of flaking out like the last boy. Or the first boy I dated after I moved here. Or like so many other boys I've dated. Like so many boys we've all dated.

From the 'Metropolitan Diary'

The New York Times runs a column in its New York Report called 'Metropolitan Diary' where readers can write in to share their experiences with modern urban life.

From yesterday's column:

This actually happened in the McBurney Y.M.C.A. women's locker room.

Attendant yells warning, 'Man coming through!'

Elderly woman yells, 'Send him over here!'

Attendant's retort, 'Violet, behave yourself.'

I figured it was worth sharing.

Stupid customer story

Woman walks in yesterday and asks if we're brewing anything certified organic. At the time, we weren't. She seemed really put off by this but studied the 'Here's what's brewing' board for a bit. And decided on Frosty's Favorite. For someone so concerned about having an organic coffee, you would think that the flavouring chemicals that go into making our humble Colombian Supremo into a winter wonderland of hazelnut, graham cracker, vanilla and cinnamon would have given her pause.

Apparently not.

Also, I continue to be frustrated with my manager. Napoleon Dynamite was finally fired. And we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. However what was very uncool about it is that he only found out that he had been fired by showing up on Tuesday to check the new schedule and finding himself not on it. As much as I wanted to see him go, that's just so not cool.

In other news, things with the minister continue to go quite well. He was, of course, the cause of the warm fuzzy feeling a few posts ago when I mentioned that I had a date later that night. I'm still trying to be cool and collected about it and that's working so far. Part of me is still trying to get over the idea that I'm even dating him--and that he's a minister. But that will sink in eventually, I'm sure. We watched 'Love Actually' last night, cuddling on my couch after I got out of work. It was very much an 'Awwwwwww' evening.

I (heart) the Catholic Church

But the short document did not define terms like 'tendencies,' 'deep-seated,' or 'overcome,' though on Tuesday, Cardinal Grocholewski gave several specific instances of homosexuality that could be considered 'transitory' and therefore possibly acceptable

'For example, some curiosity during adolescence, or accidental circumstances in a state of drunkenness, or particular circumstances like someone who was in prison for many years,' he said in the Vatican Radio interview.

Wednesday's New York Times

So, you can't be gay and be a priest anymore. But if you're only gay when drunk, that's okay. And if you've been in prison and you had to decide who got the top bunk and who got the bottom bunk somehow, well, that's okay too. As long as you're still not gay, that's okay to be a priest. Especially no worries about your having been in prison for a long time.

I would kill...

...for a nanaimo bar right now.

And it's snowing.

And I have a date tonight.

*warm fuzzy feeling*

Doing my duty...

...as a god-fearing American homosexual. Listening to Madonna's new album. Only one track in--and I'd heard that one already--so nothing to say as of yet.

Pat Morita, AKA Mr Miyagi, 1932-2005

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

I realise that this isn't a revelation, but Peppermint Patty is such a dyke.

Yanksgiving Eve

(Warning: another novella-length post.)

When you go home, do you look around and wonder, 'Who are these people? Where did I even come from?' I mean, you look at them all, sitting there, and, they look familiar, but who the hell are they?

Holly Hunter in 'Home for the Holidays'

For the record, I will not be dealing with my family tomorrow. Except for phoning them. My dad's family, anyway. I haven't spoken to my mother since the beginning of the month when my roommate and I went to get our free living room set from her. When I phoned her at 7.50am to find out if she was still drinking decaf coffee so I could bring her some from work, she was drunk. She's been an alcoholic for as long as I've known her. We don't talk about it, of course. That would be too adult-like. She's been better recently--though I also no longer live at home so the improvement may very well be all in my head. Indeed, I found out that day that my step-father doesn't allow alcohol in the house anymore. So much for doing better. It could have been a lot worse than it ended up being but it was, needless to say, not great. I have enough issues with my mother, never mind her day drinking on the day that I'm coming to visit and haven't been home in almost 8 months.

She phoned me a week later to ask me about iPods, since my little brother wants one for Christmas. No hint of apology or even reference to the previous weekend. Just the iPods. She phoned me again a few days after that to ask me again about iPods and to make sure that I was okay since I hadn't returned her first call. (Just to make this even more insulting, I've asked for an iPod for Christmas every year since they've come out--never really expecting one since I realise it's a big ticket item, but still always being honest about wanting an iPod when I was asked what I really wanted for Christmas.) She phoned again the next day, finally clueing in to the fact that I wasn't returning her calls. She finally sort of not really apologised in that call. She said she was apologising, but did so in a bitchy 'I've not done anything wrong' tone and blamed 'whatever it was' that she had done on menopause. Mon oeil, as they would say in French. My ass, as we would say in English.

She left me the option of not phoning her back. And so I haven't. That was a week ago. I thought I would phone her back on Saturday but I didn't feel up to it. I thought I would phone her back yesterday but again didn't feel up to it. Now I'm thinking that I'll phone her tomorrow. Dramatic, yes. Probably it will get the point across, though. Problem is, I don't really know what to say. Probably I should just go with what I want to say. Tell her that I think she's really something else for phoning me about iPods twice before phoning to apologise and even then clearly not really meaning it. That instead of buying iPods, she should be apologising to my little brothers for putting them through the same crap that I had to grow up with. That she really ought to admit fully to herself and to the rest of us that she has a problem, that she is an alcoholic, and to do what she has to do to deal with that. I suspect that this will lead towards lots of yelling and probably her hanging up on me--I never hang up on her because she usually beats me to it.

So, I guess I will speak to both sides of my family tomorrow. I'll phone my father first so that I'm not over-emotional already. Other than that, it should be a fairly relaxing day. I'm going into work for a few hours to get up the Christmas decorations which should be fun. And much easier to do without having to worry about moving around customers and dealing with placing a milk order. I TRIED to do this on Monday, you see.... Then, I'm getting together with some friends to watch movies and order Indian take-out. Yum. Oh, and be thankful that we're not with our families of course.

In other news, I've gone from feeling somewhat ambiguous about the minister as of about a week ago to can't-stop-thinking-about-him. I'm really trying to calm my addled little brain down. The hairdresser has recessed further into the back of my mind. The minister is away this week which is probably a very good thing since it's giving me a chance to gain some distance from the heady events of the weekend.

I had a date last night that was pre-arranged before this weekend with a fellow that I met a couple of weekends ago. I had been perfectly happy for it to have been a one-night only thing but then he got his friend, an acquaintance of mine, to get my number. He was certainly a nice enough guy and easy on the eyes so I didn't really think it a bad thing to see him again, although I really didn't expect anything to come of it. More so now, given the events of the past weekend. So we just met up for a drink. Literally a drink. The conversation was painfully stilted. He made the mistake of asking why I was interested in the history of masculinity and gender more generally and so I blabbered on for probably close to ten minutes. Drawing connections to today, talking about class issues, linking the growth of the history of masculinity as a field to the firm establishment of women's history, etc, etc, etc. I basically got a blank stare back. My blabbering filled the silence at least.

Especially given last night, I think I'm well on my way to accepting the reality of the minister being interested in me. It still certainly has a too-good-to-be-true sheen to it. And I'm really trying to refrain from getting too excited about it. After seeing the hairdresser for the second time, I said that I had a really good feeling about him. And then he broke things off. It's a different situation, obviously, with the minister, though. I'm going to see him almost every day just like I have for the past almost four months. He's a smart boy. He acknowledged the dangerous ground he was stepping on to when he worried about the potential post-breakup awkwardness when he gets his coffee. He doesn't strike me as one to jump lightly into something that might endanger his caffeine supply. Still, I know I need just to pull back and to take the situation as is and to let it develop as it will.

Just don't mind me if I'm a little starry-eyed for a while.

This always boggles my mind...

...I always forget and then something comes up to remind me that the vast majority of police in Britain do not carry guns. And the Home Office has just rejected a suggestion to arm more police in the wake of the death of a constable who was shot by an armed robber. Three years ago, 80% of police said that they did not want to carry guns.

Thursday - Saturday

As I expected, Thursday was a very long but very fun day. I did a bunch of random stuff throughout the day to help with set-up for the event and then from about 3.30-6.30, I basically played personal assistant for my roommate--running errands for her, reminding her that we had to go home to change, and making sure that she was still breathing.

The event went off without a hitch. They didn't raise as much money as they had hoped (100k) but they did do quite well (75k).

And the minister did come to be my date for the evening. And that went quite well. The conversation was a little awkward I thought but I was also really quite tired and somewhat zombie-like after a long day. But, we had a really good time and hung out until almost midnight when the DJ finally stopped playing music. We stood outside in the cold talking--which was silly since it wasn't as if they had kicked us out of the space, just that the DJ had stopped playing. The conversation kept having more and longer awkward pauses until he finally said to me, 'I have a dilemma.' 'Oh?' I said. He said, 'If I kiss you, and it all ends horribly...' I finished his sentence, 'Then you'll have to go somewhere else to get your coffee...' I suggested that there was the theory that we're both adults and could manage to be civil to one another if that happened. There was a bit more witty repartee and then he finally kissed me. Sweetly. In the freezing cold. We talked and kissed a bit more and I finally suggested that we either go back inside or he walk me home since I was cold. So he drove me home (not very far, which was why I had suggested walking) and we were up until about 3 talking (for about 95% of that time--honest!).

Yesterday I worked and actually managed to get out at a reasonable time and then met up with the boy for a late dinner with entertainment provided by my drunken roommate and friends who popped in to say hello. After leaving the bar, we went back to his place and talked again until after 3.

I admitted to him on Thursday that he somewhat intimidates me due to his combination of brains and beauty and the interest of those brains and beauty in me. He countered by asking if I only managed to date ugly, stupid people usually. I said no but although I wouldn't say that any of my serious ex's were stupid, I could not have discussed Israeli politics and the location of the right to privacy in the US Constitution in the same night with them. Even one of those topics probably would have been pushing it. He suggested that there's really no reason for me to be intimidated since it's clear that I can hold my own with him intellectually and that, according to him, I'm just as beautiful.

I've definitely enjoyed spending time with him over the past couple of days. Still, the hairdresser is at the back of my mind. They're two rather different people needless to say. I think that one of the things that I find really attractive about the hairdresser is that he's not at all afraid of his existence as a sexual being. The time that I spent with him was very sexually charged in a very good way. At the same time, we had a lot to talk about even if it wasn't Israeli politics. The minister on the other hand, is attractive for reasons at the opposite end of the spectrum. His intelligence is really hot. Which isn't to say that he isn't physically hot--because he is--but his physical presence isn't as raw as the hairdresser's is, if that makes sense.

All the same, I'm not stupid enough to sit this out due to the fact that I'm still interested in the hairdresser although he's not ready for something. We only saw each other twice. And now he's called things off with no real indication that he's going to change his mind any time soon. Both present really interesting possibilities and it only makes sense to go with what there is to go with. Which sort of makes it sound as if I'm settling for the minister as a sort of consolation prize, which isn't at all the way I'm looking at it.

In any event, as a result of my lack of sleep over the past couple of nights, I'm a complete zombie right now. Almost too tired to sleep. I had the chance to fill in for the dishwasher at my usual restaurant tonight on short notice. It would have been some easy extra cash. But it's only 7.30--only half way through service--and I'm sure that I would have fallen asleep slumped against the Hobart (the dishwashing machine). I'll get a good night's sleep tonight and hopefully be ready to go tomorrow which theoretically is my Monday. Although my weekend was only one day this week. Alas. It could be worse. It could have been zero days if I had washed dishes tonight.

On an entirely random note, I think I might try to read Moby-Dick again. This would be my third attempt. Maybe I'll get through it this time. Maybe.

Wide awake.

It's 6.30 and I've been wide awake for about 45 minutes now. Just because. Ugh.

It's going to be a long day but probably a very fun one. I'm volunteering to help with a gala fundraiser for the local youth outdoor non-profit that my roommate works for. I'm guessing that I'll be helping with set-up for most of the day and then I'll be doing registration at the event tonight. It should be a lot of fun tonight. Plus, I get to dress up and we all know how much I enjoy dressing up! :-)

I had initially really hoped to bring the hairdresser as my date but that obviously isn't going to happen now. Besides which he had to work and wouldn't have been able to make it anyway. However, I was talking to this other guy, whom I've mentioned in passing before, and although he didn't absolutely commit to coming tonight, he very probably will come. I had come to the conclusion that he probably was interested in more than just a friendship although I still wasn't absolutely sure until last night when his decision to come to the event was less based on whether or not he could get away with wearing his tux than whether or not I'd be tied up with volunteer stuff all night or if we could actually hang out together.

We'll see how this goes. I've realised that thing about this fellow (he needs a moniker, doesn't he? Shall we stick with the occupational names, I guess? ...he's a minister. But for one of those good, liberal churches so it's okay--I think Congregationalist) ... Anyway, the thing about the minister I've come to realise--aside from the awkwardness of the fact that he's a regular customer--is that he's gorgeous AND horrendously intelligent and intellectual. To the point that he intimidates me. I've never really dated someone as intellectual as me and, as I suggested in the post that I linked to above, I don't know if I could. I don't think that it's so much a matter of needing to feel intellectual superior to whomever I'm dating so much as maybe a worry that I'd have to be intellectually on all the time. At the same time, I've become frustrated in the past when I'm spending lots of time with a guy and I feel as if I can't talk to him on the same level as I do with my other friends. I guess it's all a matter of balance.

I'm still pining for the hairdresser, though. We spoke a bit more on Tuesday night although nothing was resolved. He says he has major trust issues. That he never sees guys more than once. I pointed out that he saw me twice--the second time was entirely his idea (not that he had to twist my arm about it--and that he was still talking to me. I suggested that that must count for something. I told him that I'd like to think that I could earn his trust. He seems to have a lot of thinking to do. In the end, I sent him a link for the lyrics to the Joe Jackson song 'You can't get what you want (until you know what you want)' because it happened to come on my iTunes. And, as I said to him, it seemed appropriate and, god knows, it's been an appropriate song for me at oh so many points in my life. It seemed a good fit especially given the lines 'Sometimes you can't see that all you need is one thing. / If it's right, you could sleep at night, /But it can take some time, /But at least I'm here in line.'

Ack. It's almost seven now. No real point in going back to sleep. My roommate is due to be up any minute along with our house guest who is back in town visiting and also helping out with the event. I may as well go put the coffee on WITH MY COOL NEW COFFEE MAKER!

I (heart) Canada redux

André Boisclair, the newly elected leader of the Parti Québécois (he of the cocaine use that I mentioned below), is also openly gay.

Gah.

Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them.

It's looking like the hairdresser whom I'm oh so interested in is running away because he's afraid to be in something that might become serious. Oh, plus, I'm leaving town at some point in the future.

WTF? Didn't I just do this a few months ago?

More needs to be discussed between the two of us before any definite decisions are taken. Granted, we've seen each other twice. But I'm very happy with what I saw. And I very much still want to see him. He's going to be a stupid boy about things it seems, though.

Remembrance Day / Veterans Day

I realise I'm a day late.

Last year about this time, I had a discussion with a friend of mine about why I wasn't wearing a poppy on my lapel for Remembrance Day. Those of you in the States might have no idea what I'm talking about. In Canada and England (and, I would assume, other places, though I can't assume for sure) it's quite common for people to buy little fabric poppies to wear on their lapels in honour of Remembrance Day (what we call Veterans Day here in the States). The basis of my argument for why I wasn't wearing one was that, in a way, I felt I was supporting war itself. I realise now, reflecting back on it, that this was a pretty lame argument and that veterans really ought to be honoured and their sacrifices remembered, even if I generally have a difficult time supporting war myself.

Growing up outside of Boston, Veterans Day never meant anything to me. I think we had a day off from school. And there were always sales, of course. Any excuse for a sale. But it was just a blip on the radar screen. We always had some kind of vaguely patriotic ceremony / assembly at school for Memorial Day, but even that didn't have any kind of connection to anything for me. Having gotten used to seeing poppies sprouting on lapels at this time of it seems really strange to see none.

I just asked my roommate if Veterans Day meant anything to her and she said that she always thought of her dad, who is a Vietnam Vet. Other than that, though, she said that she feels no real connection and doesn't know why it is when it is.

Like so many things, it strikes me as one more of those things that the collective American memory has just let go into the ashes of of the past. Sure, there are speeches and celebrations to mark the day. But that doesn't resonate with the average person. My roommate was complaining yesterday about not getting mail. That's what Veterans Day is for the average person: one of those days that we don't get mail delivered. Oh, and government offices are closed. The public library was also closed yesterday. And, like I said, I seem to remember getting the day off from school when I was growing up.

But sacrifice? Courage? Valour? Honour? What are those?

Oh, and those jack-asses in Congress are working on cutting the Veterans Administration budget as well as not allowing veterans groups to address the joint House-Senate Veterans Affairs committee to voice their opinions on the budget this coming spring.



In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Bad, bad blogger

I know, I know. I've still not gotten back up to speed with this whole blogging thing. My life has been...I dunno. No more crazy than usual. But I've been going through a bit of a, What am I doing here? thing. Mostly along the lines of, Do I really want to go to grad school? I'm missing the structure of academic life, though. I miss having deadlines for things and the flexibility that a schedule of classes gave--even if I often felt that I didn't have nearly enough time to get everything done the way that I wanted to.

I think part of it is just the change of seasons.

In other news, I had two girls come into work last night and order cappuccinos. When I asked them how many shots of espresso they wanted, they told me that they didn't want any espresso. They clearly knew not what they were ordering. I had to stand there for five minutes to explain the concept of a cappuccino to them, eventually just saying, Do you want caffeine in it or not? When they said yes, I told them that they had to have the espresso then.

I'm getting a cold. Blech.

Oh, and there's a new boy (when is there not a new one?). Only seen him a couple of times, but things seem to be going well. I'm trying not to be too excited about it. This is the hair dresser I mentioned a couple of posts ago, for those of you keeping score at home.

I promise I really will try to be better about posting!

Yet another reason I (heart) Canada

The frontrunner for the Parti Québécois leadership has admitted to using--although never buying--cocaine in his past, as recently as during his tenure as a PQ cabinet minister.

The news did not put a dent in his popularity, and he is still the frontrunner in the leadership race for the PQ.

We all make mistakes. We learn from them. We move on.

I can't even imagine a US politician admitting that he had done cocaine in the past, even when holding a position in the government, and then being able to move on with his career.

This country needs to grow up a bit.

When I grow up...

...I think I want to be a Senator. I'm only half-joking.

The more I think about it, the more I think I should go into politics.

A question and a thought

Hypothetical situation. They always are. You have a friend who is going through a divorce--essentially. She's still living at home but has moved into the second bedroom. Her (ex-) wife has correctly deduced that there must be someone else to have acted as the catalyst to the breakup, although it had been coming for a while. However, she doesn't know for sure. You all have mutual friends in town who want to get together a big ol' dinner party with lots of good food and wine. How do you politely tell your friend that you're just not comfortable yet with cooking dinner with the new girl? You have nothing against the new girl, mind you, you've just not reached the comfort level of spending an evening in the company of friends with her (never mind the requisite pre-meal menu planning and shopping if you two are to cook together) while the (ex-) wife is clueless as to the situation.

As for my thought, it's a relatively new one that is still in its formative stages in my mind. But I wanted to throw it out there all the same even in its half-formed version.

It is this: I don't think I could date someone as intellectual as I am. He needs to be intelligent for sure. If he's as intelligent as me, I think that's best (that sounds somewhat conceited, I realise, but I don't like to feel that I'm talking to a rock). But, at the same time, I don't think I could date another historian, the more I think about it. Or another academic. I was discussing this with my roommate last night and she asked if maybe it was because I feel the need always to have the upper hand and always to have the right answer. I don't really think that's it. I think it's more that I need someone to balance me out, to keep me from getting to absorbed by my books.

This is probably why I found the hair dresser that I had a date with on Friday oh-so-interesting. He was clearly my intelligence equal, but knows nothing about British history. We had great and stimulating conversation (yes, stimulating conversation. You're all sick and always have your minds in the gutter! But, for the record, he's stimulating in other ways too. ;-) ).

At the same time, there's this other fellow whom I've been talking to a lot recently. I'm still trying to figure out if this is just a developing friendship...or something more. He's incredibly brilliant and very intellectual. We've talked about things from politics to queer theory to post-colonialism. All great conversation. Yet the more I get to know him, it seems, the less attractive he becomes. He's still very attractive, to be sure, and if he were to ask me out on a date, I don't know that I would necessarily turn him down. But...I dunno.

Happy All Saints' Day, if you're into that sort of thing. And Happy post-Hallowe'en. I hope no one is in a sugar coma.

It's November. Where the hell did the year go?!

No day but today

I've become slightly obsessed with watching the Rent trailer. I've watched it five or six times now and I still get goosebumps every time. Less than a month! I can't wait!

Is this all that surprising?

Which Famous Homosexual Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Notoriously, you're Cary Grant!

You churned out a bunch of high quality movies from an uncredited role in Singapore Sue (1931) to Walk Don't Run (1966), working with everyone from Alec Guinness to Alfred Hitchcock, through Katherine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. Your birth name was Archibald Leach - but that didn't stop you from being a mega-successful, international movie star.

You were also as gay as a Cornwall beach house; a long-running fling with fellow article Randolph Scott, who you lived with for many years, was followed by five unhappy marriages. You always denied your homosexuality, but being gay wasn't acceptable to a mainstream audience back then - and let's face it, you're pretty much a repressed stereotype.

Oh, right, I live in the United States

51% of my fellow Americans believe that 'God created human beings in their present form.'

Argh, part two

So I went into work today and all that the manager said to me was, So (the guy you closed with--whose name I won't bother using and who had never closed before) isn't the best closer. My response was, Actually, I think he was great all things considered. The manager complained to me that he had to scrub honey or possibly hardened sugar water off the condiment station this morning before opening. I should have thrown in his face the fact that he had told me not to worry about too much about closing last night since he knew it wasn't going to be perfect. I didn't, though. I just said, As you can imagine, the condiment station was a disaster for most of the day yesterday.

Given the frustration that it's clear that this is causing--I'm still as frustrated about it now as I was last night--I'm trying to figure out what I need to do about it. In a conversation with one of our regular customers (someone who comes in three or four times a day!) I said that, basically, my bottom line is that I want to do a really great job and that I don't feel that I'm getting the support that I need to do that. This isn't a career choice for me, but it's what I want to be doing with my life right now. I'm not going to quit, but I can't do the job to the standard that I'd like to do it without some help from others.

My roommate, whose ear I bent for the better portion of an hour and a half about the situation, thinks that I should just go to the owner. It's a very flat management structure and it's certainly not out of the question for me to do that. At the same time, I feel like I owe it to my manager to give him the opportunity to respond to whatever I might have to say before taking it up the chain of command.

Which isn't to say that I know exactly what I would say. I guess I would just lay out on the table the various issues that I've realised I have with the management of the store since the new manager came on and since I got my promotion.

Bah. I just know that this is going to be another bad night's sleep.

Argh!

So, work was basically a free-fall to disaster from 2.30 onwards. I started at two. Generally, there are three people between 8 and 4. We open at 6.30 and close at 8 (Fridays and Saturdays we close at 9 and Sundays we open at 7, so those are slight exceptions, but the basic principle of having a mid-shift 8-4 person stays the same). I was closing today, so I started at 2. At 2.30, the other closer turned to me and said that he wasn't feeling very well--which, when I looked at him, was very evident. He was pale as a ghost and clearly needed just to go home. I phoned the store manager, who was off today, and then phoned my first choice for a person to come in to replace the second closer.

I got the manager's voice mail and my first choice couldn't come in because he was working at his other job. I went through the phone list of potential people who hadn't already worked today to come in for five hours between 5 and 9 (it takes about an hour to get out usually after we close) but no one could do it on such short notice. Not surprisingly.

The store manager phoned back 15 minutes later and asked to talk to the sick guy. After he got off the phone, the sick guy told me that the manager had said that he'd be in in about an hour but that he should still try to find someone to come in to cover us until the manager came in. That seemed silly to me, considering that I'd already exhausted the immediate possibilities. It seemed silly to start phoning the staff from the other store to come in to work for 45 minutes. So I sent the other closer home knowing that the mid-shift and I could deal for an hour, even if it wasn't ideal.

The manager phoned back about 20 minutes after this and asked to talk to the other closer. He was not happy when I told him that I'd sent him home, since apparently there had been a mis-communication. He had told the other closer to try to stick it out and that if he wasn't able to stay after 3.30, to phone him back and that he would figure something out. I was frustrated, because the store manager made it clear that he basically didn't trust my decision that the other guy needed to go home. I told him that I would never have phoned him to begin with unless I truly thought that this guy needed to go home.

The really simple solution would have been for the manager to come in for five hours to help me close. He never directly said that he couldn't come in. I know that he's been really stressed out and has been jealous of his days off--especially considering that he didn't get any days off in September for various reasons (mostly because one of my co-worker's wife had their baby a month early) but at the same time, my manager has been doing this kind of thing for quite a while (i.e., working in and managing coffee shops). One would assume that he would have known better before accepting the position as manager. All the same, what ended up happening, after he suggested that one of the openers might come back to close was that he sent this opener on a 20 minute (without traffic) drive out of the city, during rush hour, to pick up a high school kid who could have worked, but who would have preferred not to and who, as it turned out, didn't have access to a car to get himself to work, and drive him into town to work. The mid-shift girl had to stay an extra hour and was, understandably, pissed about this.

I was really pissed about all this too. What ought to have happened was for the manager to say, Oh well, I'll have to come in for five hours to close with you. Such is the life of the manager. Instead, he sends one of his openers (the other shift lead who was on today) to pick up the high school kid and bring him to work. Without a ride home. He did get one of his friends to come pick him up and give him a ride home. But that's obviously beside the point. The manager could easily have made it in by 4, when the mid-shifter was due to leave thus alleviating all the issues that have led to this long and probably convoluted post.

Now I'm super-stressed out and don't know what to do when I go into work tomorrow.

I left the deposit in shambles because I had stressed myself out so much that I didn't have the energy or the time or the desire to figure out what went wrong. I basically left the manager a note for when he opens tomorrow saying, 'Sorry, the deposit is all fucked up. There is approximately what there ought to be in the drawer, but things aren't adding up with the deposit. I can't deal with this right now because the high schooler has to get home and so do I.'

I want to say to the manager, You were a real fucking ass yesterday as far as I'm concerned. But of course I can't really say that, can I?

I don't get paid nearly enough to worry about these things.

Cue the heavenly chorus...

LOOK WHAT I FOUND AT THE GROCERY STORE!



I haven't tried it yet, but it's imported from Lebanon so it can't be that bad! Guess what's for dinner tonight!

Hmm...

I have THREE drawers of sweaters. Do I ever wear even a quarter of them? No. They're all good sweaters, too!

I need to break out of this weird fashion funk I seem to be in and start wearing more of the ridiculous amount of clothing that I own rather than feeling like I need to go out and buy more....

Damn consumer society trying to convince me to buy more and consume more! (Still, I can't wait to get my new bag! In my mind, that's a functional and necessary purchase though.)

New Man Purse

This soon will be mine:


I was a bad, bad bear and used my Canadian Visa card, which I'm only supposed to be paying off, to buy it. But the bag I bought at H&M last summer finally gave out (the one with the palm trees on it, for those of you who had seen it) and I'm going a little nuts not having a bag. I figured I might as well get something nice that I know will last forever and ever rather than just another cheap-o one. Plus, I wanted something that I could carry my laptop in that isn't a knapsack because my knapsack is huge. It's great for trips to the library and such when writing papers. But I'm not doing that anymore and so just to carry a laptop in, it's too big.

In any event, I will have my new man purse in 3-5 business days.

Just thought I'd share.

Blech

I'm getting the cold that everyone else has gotten. Blech. Serves me right for two nights in a row of drinking a wee bit too much.

I learned last night that Portland has a really good 80s night at a bar with a light-up disco floor! Of course, it's a sleazy straight bar with all the frat boys and ho girls you could ever want, and the dance floor got more sticky as the night went on. Still, it was a lot of fun--much better than the lame 80s night at Jupiter Room.

I was going to bitch about work...

...and then I read this blog entry and it made me realise how petty my bitching about work might be. Now, I could bitch about the gay community. But I won't. I'll just say that I've been reading Larry Kramer's Faggots on and off for a few months now--I really ought to have finished it months ago as it is not a difficult read--and it's very bothersome to realise just how little has changed.

It was written pre-Aids. We're almost 30 years into this epidemic and things have changed so very little. Oh so very little.

Work sucks right now because half my staff are new and are no good and are showing no sign of improvement. One of them reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite. Can you imagine working with Napoleon Dynamite in a café? Sometimes I think about slitting my wrists with the non-sharp end of a butter knife. Especially when he asks me for the third time in two hours if chai lattes have espresso in them.

Tomorrow will be better, though, because I get to clean the basement and dishroom at work. I know this makes me a freak, but I'm actually looking forward to doing it because it will mean that it will all be organised and make sense and look pretty. I can only hope that it will stay that way.

Laundry!

This is definitely the most exciting part of the new apartment! This is right outside my front door in the entryway. Oh, yes, I have free laundry.

Eventually, we'll get the apartment set up and my roommate will buy a USB cable for her digital camera and I can put up a more proper tour of the new place with better pictures. Until then, just imagine it's fabulous (which, of course, it is).

Introducing Mary Jane

This is my roommate's cat, Mary Jane. She's being cute in these pictures which is really rare. Usually she's psychotic. But she does have her moments. Awww. She's snuggled in the folds of my duvet on my unmade bed. (Ooh! And check out my nifty fish sheets!)

Woo!

Internet at home! Thanks boys upstairs!

Still no internet at home.

Things are coming along and internet will be had soon.

I broke up with the boy yesterday because I came to the realisation that we just can't work as a couple. Basically, we socialise in very different ways--he one-on-one, exclusively; me generally in groups. I can't date someone who isn't going to be a part of my life. We never see each other except one-on-one and he doesn't like group settings unless he's super comfortable with the people. He has declined all of my offers to meet my friends that I hang out with on a regular basis. It finally came to the breaking point on Saturday when he said that he'd stop at the resto on his way home for a drink but instead walked by without stopping in because he didn't feel like coming in and then waited half an hour after he got home before phoning me to tell me that he wasn't coming.

I'm simplifying things for the sake of space, but I'm not leaving anything out about Saturday except for conversation details.

The weather is matching my mood right now: foggy. A fog bank rolled in from Casco Bay around four this afternoon, just as I was getting out of work. I walked into it on my way home.

How's that for symbolism?

Moving

It went well. Finished right before the monsoon rains. I can't believe we fit all this stuff into two rooms! Hopefully there will be pictures soon once we're all set up!

Something to tide you all over until I get back here regularly...

http://www.whoomp.com/articles/163/1/He-Man-does-4-non-blondes

Everyone say, 'Thank you, Jeremy.'

Pictures from yesterday

All taken with my phone, hence the not-so-great quality.

Short update

Things are well. I'm still alive. I'm moving in six days to an apartment where I'm guaranteed to be able to get on the internet, as our upstairs neighbours have wireless. And we knows them. So they won't mind us borrowing some bandwidth.

Still seeing the new boy, who I guess doesn't necessarily qualify as new anymore.

Still enjoying work.

Am getting a cold, but hoping to lay low today and tomorrow and try to fight it off.

We'll see how that goes.

Hope everyone out there is well!

A week of mixed signals and a new boy

Despite the fact that the paramedic broke things off a week ago, you'd be hard-pressed to find any difference in his actions towards me aside from the fact that we kiss on the cheek now when we see each other. He's phoned me every day just to see how I'm doing and to see what I'm up to. The few times this week that I've seen him, there have been definite strong suggestions of continued feelings. In fact, even when he broke things off, he told me that the other guy, who it makes more sense for him to see, wasn't me, even though he wished he were. After a mere handful of days of mixed signals, I called him on the mixed signals on Tuesday. He apologised but defended himself by saying that they were the product of mixed feelings on his part about having broken things off with me. Not exactly helpful.

I saw him last night when I went to the neighbourhood resto to meet some friends for a drink. He had been out to dinner elsewhere with some friends and then they stopped in for a few drinks. They were already fairly drunk. I was pleasantly buzzed myself but certainly well in control. He wasn't bad, but his mixed feelings certainly manifested themselves more clearly through the haze of cocktails. The bartender, who knows him fairly well, asked me if I'd noticed his rather different behaviour over the past week or so. I barely know him, but I said I had. We both decided that it must be the beginnings of a mid-life crisis which will probably just deepen as the weeks go on unless he snaps out of it. It could get rather dramatic rather quickly from the look of things. Wee!

As for me, I still have feelings for him, despite his recent stupidity but the more I've thought about it, the more I do feel that it's the best thing in the long-run. I also had a good conversation with a friend of his on Thursday. She suggested that at the base of his cutting things off was that he wanted to do what is best for me. That basically he realises that we're at two different places in our lives right now and that even if we could have a great relationship, it wouldn't be the right thing for me to do. I suspect she's probably fairly close to the mark. Although I think that it has as much to do with his coming Age 40 freak out as it does with concern for me.

Now for the other part of the post subject.

I went into work on Wednesday and one of my co-workers asked me if I were going to go to another co-worker's party on Thursday. I hadn't noticed the sign up in the dish room and said that I likely wouldn't since I had to open on Friday (i.e., I had to get up at 5, be to work at 6). All the same, he told me that he had been told to tell me that I had to go. That I didn't have a choice. Since there was a boy that was going to be there that wanted to meet me. Given that I figured I could use something to take my mind off the paramedic (and when have I ever been one to say no to meeting a new boy?), I went. As it turns out, this boy works at one of the places I had dropped off a resumé back in June and he had kept seeing me around town since. Finally, he noticed that I was working where I'm at now and, conveniently, one of his friends also works there. So, she was told that she had to ensure that we would meet at some point, preferably soon.

We met at the party and talked rather a lot. He's very shy, which means that he's also very sweet. He's also from Massachusetts, although nowhere near where I grew up. We've spent a fair bit of time together the past couple of days and things are going fairly well so far. In direct opposition to the way that things progressed with the paramedic, it has been a lot of one-on-one time as a opposed to a lot of social out-and-about time.

As always, I'm making no assumptions about things because that always leads to let downs. Needless to say, though, I will keep things updated here.

In other news, I'm getting a promotion at work! I forget if I'd mentioned the possibility here before or not, but it's pretty official now, as the new manager asked me today what I thought about starting to train for shift leader this coming week. More responsibility, a dollar more an hour, and keys to the store--in case I NEED a cappuccino at four in the morning. It's nice to know that I didn't go to university for nothing and that a history degree can be useful for something other than teaching history. ;-) (This of course has nothing to do with the fact that I have a degree and that it's in history, but I just thought I'd throw that in there anyway.)

That's all for now. I'll update again next time I get down here to use their wireless. Hope things are well with everyone else.

Update @ 21.20: So the paramedic decided to drop by the bookstore where I was checking my email and such just to say hi, since I'd mentioned that I was going to be there. He later invited me out for drinks with him and a few of his friends. I politiely declined. Instead, I'm waiting for the new boy to come over to hang out and watch a movie. I got a text message from a friend suggesting that maybe it's just best to avoid the paramedic. I texted back, 'Ya think? said sarcastically.'

Affairs of the heart should never be mixed with mature, adult conversation

So the paramedic and I had a discussion today about how we don't make sense long-term.

I never thought we did. I wasn't too worried about it. Apparently, though, he is. When I first met him and he was still seeing the other guy, I told him that I really wasn't sure what I was looking for--if anything--and that I didn't quite feel settled enough in Portland myself to get involved in any kind of serious relationship at that point. I'm now feeling settled enough that I wouldn't mind being in a serious relationship, particularly with him. The world, as usual, has other plans, though.

We had dinner with some friends of his on Thursday night and when he dropped me off we were sitting in his car talking and he said something sort of out of nowhere about how I'll be gone in two years. It really didn't fit and it threw me off. I said that I had no idea where I'd been in two years--maybe still here and not going back to school (even though right now I do still see myself headed back to school). The conversation kept going and I wanted to call him on it but didn't. Still, I had a long think yesterday at work while I was washing the dishes after the morning rush and figured that maybe he was worried about where this might be going. So, when he brought it up today after we had lunch together I wasn't entirely surprised, though still caught a bit off guard since, of course, I didn't want to think about the possibility that he might bring it up.

Firstly, he called me on my previous declaration that I didn't want anything serious given that it's been pretty clear from my behaviour and my statements recently that I wouldn't mind something serious with him--and the same thing from his end, too. Although it's clear that there is strong interest on both sides on possibly pursing something serious, he basically pointed out, as I said at the beginning of the post, that we don't make sense long-term. Something with which I fully agree.

He talked about it referring more to my situation than to his--the fact that he didn't want me to be in a situation where I wouldn't want to go back to school in order to maintain a relationship since it seems pretty clear that going back to school is really what I ought to do after a few years off. I pointed out to him again that even if that is my plan right now, it's not a rock-solid plan and one that I am fully open to the possibility of changing. One never knows what life will bring one.

Yet, given that he just turned 40--one of those big, important, time-to-take-stock-of-oneself birthdays--I think his own situation had much more to do with him wanting not to get involved in something serious and potentially long-term which obviously doesn't make sense. We're both at very different places in life right now. He can retire in ten years. It would be stupid for him to leave Portland before then--and were we ever to get involved with each other I would never expect him to leave to move with me to school. He'll likely stay in Portland after he retires, but he doesn't know for sure. As for me, I'll be wherever I go to grad school for seven or eight years. Then, it'll depend on where I can find a job after getting my PhD. I'll be lucky--very, very lucky--to snag something really great as a freshly minted PhD. This is all super-long term thinking, obviously and, as I said, I never was thinking long term with him since it obviously doesn't make a lot of sense.

He also was very up front about the fact that part of what triggered him thinking about all this was that an old flame had recently resurfaced in his life. Someone closer to his age, someone who lives in Augusta, the state capital about an hour and a half from here, but who may be soon moving to Portland, someone with whom he makes a lot more long-term sense. It was only a few days ago that they talked about the possibility of giving things another go and I guess they decided to see how it goes this time, see if they can work past the issues that they had before. I didn't ask for a lot of details because I already had enough to process so I don't even know how long ago it was that they had dated before. But that's not really important right now.

Needless to say, this all sucks a lot. I was very much smitten with him. I very much enjoy spending time with him. Which isn't to say that we won't still spend time together. We've only known each other for six weeks or so and really only dated for a couple of weeks during that time. There's definitely a lot of good potential for a really good friendship. I do think that there's a lot of good potential for a really good relationship, too, but the circumstances would have to be rather different for a serious relationship to make sense.

He's a really good guy and I fully respect his feelings on the situation as much as I may not like it necessarily. It always sucks when one has to make mature decisions about situations in which one's heart is involved. Yet things always work out for the best in the end more so when everyone's feelings are taken into account in addition to the reality of the situation.

No matter how smitten I am with him, no matter how much he adores me (his word), we don't make sense long-term and he feels that he needs to take into account long-term possibilities right now over short-term fun. I'll be in a funk for a few days now but I know it'll be better in the long run.

Short update

I'm alive and well but still no internet at home. I think I'm going to be taking a bit of a blogging break until that gets worked out as I have access so infrequently. I'll try to keep on top of things via audio posts. I'll be moving to a new apartment in October and with any luck there'll be wireless access there. If not, I'll probably finally get round to getting my own access. You should all email me more anyway. Writing letters is a lost art. Let's keep it alive!

The Weekend

It was good. It was long. Very long. I opened on Friday and never got round to napping, so it was a twenty hour day. As was Saturday because I didn't sleep well on the ancient pull-out couch at my grandparents' so I woke up again at five.

The wedding was lovely. The suit looked great. It was also a thousand degrees and humid. It was in one of my new step-mom's friend's backyards (it's kind of weird--I have step-mom now. After all these years of having a step-dad. Not a bad thing, though.) I stayed in the suit for about half an hour after the ceremony, which was very nice and very simple, and then changed into a pair of linen shorts and a linen shirt. Much more comfortable. The suit, incidentally, was wool.

I was a bit disappointed that there was no dancing--they only had a two piece band. Sax and keyboard. They weren't bad, though. Sort of jazzy. The food was pretty good. Simple. Perfect for the weather. Salad, BBQ'ed chicken, beef, swordfish and tuna kebabs with BBQ'ed summer squash, zucchini and eggplant. I made my toast after arguing with my uncle who wanted to have his after dinner cigarette first. It was also my grandfather's birthday and my uncle, as the oldest, had been elected to bring the birthday cake to my grandfather. Ugh. Because he's the oldest, he always likes to be in control of everything. And he can be such a bitch about it sometimes.

The toast went well, considering that I had only written it out and looked at it once the day before. Short, sweet, to the point. Light and a bit of humour thrown in.

I met a fellow McGiller, although she graduated a large handful of years before me, I assume. She now has a house in the Eastern Townships and said that anytime I wanted to visit that I could. Yes, please! And one of my dad's long-time co-workers came up to me at one point and introduced himself and told me about how my dad is obviously very proud of me because he's always talking about me and about what I was doing at school, etc.

It was kind of weird, actually, because my dad is generally so non-emotional. I know he approves of what I've done and what I'm doing but he never says anything directly. So it was a bit weird to hear from this third-party about how much he talks about me. Plus, he started to tear up during the ceremony. I don't think I've ever seen my dad cry. It was really really sweet. And made me realise just how much he loves his new wife. Which, needless to say, is really nice.

After the wedding, my roommate and I headed into Northampton, which was just one town away, to spend the rest of the day. Lesbian capital of Western Massachusetts, for those of you unaware, and a generally cool place to spend time. We hit some used bookshops and some used records stores. I picked up a couple of cd's and couple of books. One book (What Jane Austin Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, which is a book about the facts of daily life in 19th century England, is one that I've been wanting to pick up for a while). We had a beer at a micro-brewery which was fairly good and then had fairly crappy Tibetan for dinner.

Sunday, we stayed at my grandparents' for lunch, hit the winery in their town on our way out of town and picked up some more wine to add to our collection. My dad had bought me two bottles of the kind I like (Yankee Boy White) for grad and had forgotten to bring them up in June. We picked up two more (Yankee Girl Blush and Quabbin Native) in addition to the gallon-sized bottle of Merlot that was one of the few left over from the wedding.

It started raining before we got on the Mass Pike and once we were on the Pike, the skies opened up and we drove between 10 and 35 mph for about two hours as it poured and poured and poured and lightning and thundered like crazy. It was pretty intense. But a lot of fun at the same time. We had some good conversations despite my being over-tired my this point because I still hadn't slept well.

We got home, after stopping at my roommate's parents', around 8.30 and I crashed for the night. Although, being over-tired, I couldn't get to sleep for a few hours and ended up watching Mrs Doubtfire. Always fun.

Today will be the first day back at work after three days off, which have been nice, needless to say. And I don't have a day off again until next Saturday. Woo-hoo.

Oh, and since I haven't posted anything for a week, I should give a short update on the man situation.

The EMT (paramedic, actually, which is a step above EMT as I have been corrected by him) came back to town last Wednesday and we met up for a drink on Thursday before I left for the weekend. He and the other guy have decided that they probably work better just being friends. So now there's no other guy in the picture....

We had lunch and ice cream and coffee together yesterday afternoon....

Suited!

Buying a suit last night with my roommate was perhaps far more fun than should be allowed. It involved a Lebanese woman who swore I looked exactly like her best friend from Lebanon, a cute salesman that my roommate and I were vying for the attentions of, and two families shopping with their little kids that my roommate and I played with while we were waiting to be helped.

The suit itself is dark brown with gold and light blue pinstripes. I got an off-white/ecru shirt and a tie with little black and silver checks as a background with brown, tan and cream diagonal stripes. It looks SO good. And I already have the perfect striped socks to go with the colours. I went about $75 over the budget that I had planned on and am now pretty well broke. But I'm going to look FABULOUS!

Pictures, of course, will follow.

*whew*

That is a sigh of relief that my mother has decided not to come up and visit me this week. She realised how stupid it would be to come up for two days with my little brothers since I'm working the whole time anyway.

I really do love my new job. I love it so much that I worked a ten hour day yesterday during which I sat down for about ten minutes. It was great. Stupidly busy because of the stupid festival about which more people complained yesterday. My manager was trying to get me today off with no luck. I have someone who can potentially take my shift tomorrow although I think I'd rather have this coming Friday off. Still, I could use a day off at this point when I didn't have to worry about going to work or maybe going to work. Plus, tomorrow I was already filling in for someone closing and then I'm supposed to open the next morning. That's not so bad--closing means that I'd get out of there by 9 and opening is 6. Not great but doable. And, hell, at this point, if I work until Friday without a day off, I'll have worked fifteen days in a row! Wee! So, I guess I'll take advantage of getting tomorrow off. Then I'll work Wed-Fri and have three days off for my dad's wedding this weekend.

I had no luck finding a suit in any of the vintage shops in town unfortunately which means that tonight after work I'll be heading out to the Men's Warehouse. Blech. Maybe I'll find something perfect though. One never does know.

Oh, and as it turns out, my roommate's work thing got cancelled so she can come to the wedding with me! Yay! This means we actually get to spend more than a few hours together! We live together, but our schedules have been so opposite that we hardly ever see each other! I think we'll probably spend the day in Northampton on Sunday, which will be a lot of fun. Of course, it's like a four hour drive back here, I'm guessing, which means that we probably won't stay too too late. She's driving, though, so it'll be up to her. Her car is a standard and I don't drive standard very well. Sucks to be her, all that driving with which I'd gladly help out. Ah well.

I've been coming down to Casco Bay Books every few days to check my email using their wireless connection. None of the cute boys are working this morning right now. Alas. Life goes on.

The script

Here's the text of what didn't get posted in my audio post from Saturday night:

Incidentally, she knows the EMT rather well and she asked if I'd spoken to him today. I haven't. He's up north visiting his parents this weekend and into next week. He had dinner with his parents and the guy he's dating at the resto on Thursday. I almost went in for a drink that night but then I spoke to him and found out that he was going to be there with them so I didn't. He was actually away the beginning of the week too, so I haven't seen him or spoken to him much since last weekend.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact that he had dinner with his parents and the guy he's dating. To me that implies that he's still taking this other relationship fairly seriously despite the fact that he has quite directly told me of his preference for me over the other guy. Still, as I've said all along, I have to respect the fact that he's already in a relationship--nevermind how new it might be or how many apparent troubles there might be. He's seeing someone else and shortly before he and I met, they had decided to try to go for something serious.

I really am quite smitten with him, but there's someone else. I don't want to be in the position of the other man and he really doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would create that kind of situation. He's said at least a couple of times himself that he needs to figure things out with the other guy before anything might happen with us--IF anything might or could happen with us.

He'll be back in town Wednesday or Thursday, I think. I'd like to see him before heading back to Massachusetts for my dad's wedding though things might get complicated if my mother does come up for a few days next week. I can see it now. Dinner at the resto (I told the bartender tonight that I might bring my mother in next week). My mother and I at one end of the bar. Everyone else I know, including the EMT at the other end of the bar. It'll be great.

Or something.

In any event, I should probably head to bed as I have to work tomorrow morning at 8. Much more manageable than 6 but still early enough.

Spam - Not just for sex anymore

I just got a spam message for the BBQ Sauce of the Month.

Afternoon update

Because my roommate cannot go with me to the wedding because of a stupid work thing that she can't get out of, I've had to seek alternate transportation. Initially, I figured I'd just take the train down to Massachusetts and have my aunt and uncle pick me up and then go out to the wedding with them. Somehow my mother got involved. She's been wanting to come visit me since I got here but is studying for her board exams for nursing and told me that she wanted to get those out of the way first. Fine. You all know how rosy my relationship is with my mother anyway. Now, however, she wants to come up for a few days next week and then drive me down to my aunt and uncle's place. No firm details yet, but she wants to come up maybe Wednesday with my little brothers and then leave mid-afternoon on Friday after I finish work. They won't stay with me of course, and I'm working every day next week anyway, but they create stress wherever they go. Kill me now.

As for the suit. Thanks for all the suggestions. For the record, it's going to be a fairly informal wedding. Garden setting. Late morning into the afternoon. I've been told to wear whatever I want to wear. There are no bridesmaids nor are there any groomsmen. My father is wearing a charcoal grey suit with a lavender (!) shirt and a Jerry Garcia tie. I assume the bride is wearing white, although I don't actually know for sure. I did talk to her and she's the one who told me specifically to wear whatever I wanted to wear. I'm going to hit a few of the vintage stores in town today to see what I can find. I'm thinking a sort of chocolate or espresso brown--not too dark, not too light. We'll see what I come up with.

Also, it's looking like I'll end up getting called into work this afternoon at some point as there are two blocks blocked off to traffic downtown for the festival, one of which is the block that the café is on. Ah well. As long as I can get some shopping in before I get called, I'll be happy.

Thoughts while watching the Today show

During the news update at the beginning of the hour on the Today Show just now, the piece on flip-flops being unsafe for driving was longer than any of the other news stories. Granted, they did then do a longer piece on the Russian submarine, interviewing a woman who had written a book about US submarine espionage. There was no content to the interview, though. She basically talked about how the sailors must be scared and the fact that they are rapidly running out of oxygen. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Entirely unrelated, I meant to complain about this last time I posted: it was so much easier in Montréal to meet people again or to say goodbye. None of this awkward, 'Do I shake his/her hand? Do I hug him/her? Do I just wave?' This of course doesn't apply to straight men, because that's easy. You just shake his hand. Everyone else, though, it's this awkward uncertain dance-around. Like when I went to say goodbye to a friend of a friend who I'd seen for the second or third time over the weekend. My instinct is still to lean in for a hug and a kiss-kiss. Of course, it usually only ends up as one kiss or I just confuse people when I go back in for the other cheek. Except that his head kept going and I end up sort of kissing his ear since he was just going in for a full hug.

This is, of course, just one of those stupid little things that I like to complain about.

Work at the café has been pretty good so far. Yesterday was okay until about 11 when I just wanted to be back in bed. The half-hour of prep flew by and then I blinked and it was almost 9. The morning rush was really not that bad. A friend of mine came in at one point to get coffee and we quickly chatted as I rang her in and got her coffee but when I talked to her later in the day, I confessed that I had no sense of when she'd come in. Now I just have to get her to stop drinking Flogers at home.

On the whole, I think that once I get used to being up and working earlier in the day again, it'll be a lot better. Right now, though, my body is used to getting to work at 4.30 in the afternoon and working until 11 or 12. It was in shock as much as I was getting up and getting to work so early yesterday.

Today, I have to do laundry and then head out to get some free wireless to post this. After that, I'm going suit shopping! I found out that there are actually some decent vintage shops in town, so I'm hoping to snag something stylish and not too expensive. I'm also on call for work. There's some big cultural festival in town this weekend and they don't know how busy it's going to get, so in case it does get really busy--which it probably will--I'll have to go in for a bit. I'll get to leave as soon as it quiets down, which will be good. But if I do work today, I'll have ended up working 15 days in a row by the next time I get a day off, which is a week from today, for my dad's wedding. Then, in fact, I have three days off before I work 10 days in a row. Wee!

Needless to say, I need the money anyway. And this whole getting tips thing is great. They divide up the tips evenly at the end of the day based on how many hours you worked so that everyone gets the same tips per hour. Thursday, I made an extra $3.40 an hour. I can deal with that.

What does one wear to a summer garden-party wedding when one has been asked to be best man?

I love my dad. Really I do. And I love his fiancée--to become his wife (third, for those of you keeping score at home. In this case, I think the third time is the charm) just under two weeks from now.

However, I don't love the fact that when I spoke to him on Sunday he said to me, 'Oh, by the way, make sure you bring a suit because you're going to be the best men/ring bearer.'

'Oh, I said. Thanks for giving me the heads-up.'

I own exactly one suit and it's black. Good general colour to have. It has served me well. But it's not exactly the right colour for a wedding--never mind a summer garden-party wedding. So I have less than two weeks to buy a new suit appropriate for a summer garden-party wedding and approximately $150 with which to buy it--MAYBE another hundred depending on how large my first paycheque is from the café (I'll get that tomorrow). Still, even $250 is not all that much. Actually, if I can pull together $250 I'll feel pretty okay. It's not going to be designer, that's for sure--I'll likely have to take a trip out to the Men's Warehouse or whatever that place is by the mall. Point being that I obviously want to have something nice to wear, something distinctive, something stylish.

Problem is, I don't know what. I don't really want to go with a grey suit. I don't really want to go with a khaki-coloured suit, either. I've really been wanting to buy a pin-strip suit, but that would imply blue and that doesn't really seem like the right colour to go with. There are some really nice shirt and tie combos in one of the stores downtown--striped shirts and matching ties--I really like the lime green one, though it probably wouldn't look so great with my dark features.

Oh, woe is me. Ideas are of course welcome.

I haven't posted much recently because the last person that I was stealing wireless internet from has moved out! This is the real tragedy! I'll probably do more audio posts, I guess, until that gets all figured out but I like being able to write out my thoughts much better since I always ramble on and on when I make audio posts. If the lack of home internet persists, maybe I'll just type out posts and then read them rather than just phoning up AudioBlogger and having a go at it.

In other news, tonight is my last night washing dishes! Yay! And tomorrow is my first day of being full-time at the café! Yay! I'm basically going to be working all the time now. Good for my bills and my debt, bad for the rest of my life--although given the weekend I've just had that's actually probably not really a bad thing....

The mantra of this past weekend was 'Boys are nothing but trouble. I should not let the cute boys continue to buy me drinks or ply me with Canadian beer (although yum Alexander Keith's--the first beer I ever got drunk on) or pour me more wine. If they continue to do this, I should throw rocks at them to make them go away.'

I of course did not throw rocks but allowed drinks to be bought for me and allowed myself to be plied with beer and wine and cocktails. It was a messy weekend. Friends of friends were in town from NYC (one of them Canadian and recently having returned from visiting fam in NB, hence the Keith's). Much being hung-over as a result of much too much to drink. I have sworn off alcohol for....well, at least a week. I think I've drank more here in the past two months than I did in five years of university. Not sure how that works, but, GOD do people drink like fishes here. Maybe it's the whole being next to the ocean thing.

In any event, stupid, late, drunken nights aside, I am fairly smitten with the EMT previously mentioned. For the record he's a bit younger than I thought (39 as opposed to his mid 40s). Still older than I usually go for, but age is just a number, after all. Part of me feels very unsure about starting something right now while another part of me thinks that a relationship would probably be a good thing right now. Never mind the fact that he's still technically seeing someone else. We'll ignore that little bit of potential drama for the moment because it's just easier to do so. It's not really my drama to deal with, it's his, but I, of course, am implicated in it by virtue of being in the position of 'the other man'.

Ah, drama. It never fails to find me.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I've finally finished it. And cried like a baby for the last fifty pages.

Bill Frist supports stem cell research

Not about politics, he says? Potential presidential candidate, eh? Realisation that the majority of the country supports stem cell research?

Yeah, it's all about principle, not about politics.

iTunes top 25

My musical world is so strange...

1. Lady Killer - Lush
2. Still Fighting It - Ben Folds
3. Ma vie à l'heure (La toune de l'Ouest) - Les Respectables
4. Désenchentées (Remix) - Mylène Farmer
5. Disco 2000 - Pulp
6. Like A Friend - Pulp
7. Common People - Pulp
8. Love You Madly - Cake
9. Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners
10. Judy Is A Punk - The Ramones
11. I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
12. Zak and Sara - Ben Folds
13. The Boys of Summer - DJ Sammy
14. Last Day of the Miners' Strike - Pulp
15. I Will Survive - Cake
16. Hollywood Nights - Bob Seger
17. The Distance - Cake
18. Cocaine Socialism - Pulp
19. An Old Fashioned Wedding - Annie Get Your Gun
20. Solsbury Hill - Peter Gabriel
21. Mrs Robinson - Simon and Garfunkel
22. Against the Wind - Bob Seger
23. Is She Really Going Out With Him? - Sugar Ray
24. American Pie - Don McLean
25. What A Wonderful World - Joey Ramone

Updates.

Haven't blogged in a few days...not since Harry Potter arrived, anyway. Plus I've been busy with work plus training for the new job.

Briefly:

200 pages left in HP.

Had my date with the EMT. Very nice guy. Probably a better friend than a boyfriend. Plus I think I'm pretty happy being single right now. Plus he's technically seeing someone else right now--although not super-seriously and it seems to be going south.... I'll definitely see him again, but I think I'll be sticking to just friendship.

Um...I have two more training shifts this week at the café--tomorrow and Saturday. Then Sunday-Wednesday are my last days at the resto. Next Thursday is my first full shift at the café. Friday I have my first opening shift. Ugh. This is not going to be fun. I'm going to be opening on Wednesdays and Fridays. 6am. This is going to hurt but I do get as much coffee as I want while I'm at work so that will hopefully soften the blow. The resto offered me what I'd be making at the café on Monday to stay but I told them that I thought I'd just be a lot happier at the café.

Tonight, I think I'm going to finish my current chapter in HP, go meet some friends for a drink and probably end up going out for some karaoke later if I feel up for it.

One espresso martini to get me going, please!

One has to wonder...

...who okays these ad campaigns. There was just a back-to-school ad on TV for Target using the music from 'Baby Got Back' but with different lyrics to sell backpacks. With little kids. Somehow that's just not right.

Still dreaming about social legislation

I'm watching the CBS Early Show right now which is doing a story on a small but growing number of companies who are allowing parents to bring their babies to work. One company that they are profiling allows parents to bring babies to work during their first six months and notes that it makes 'business sense' and that it has increased productivity.

Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than many other industrial nations. The favourite comparison is to look at the French, who work notably fewer hours and take many more vacations. Yet the level of productivity for the two nations is comparable. (If I were feeling ambitious, I'd find the numbers since I recently read an article about this--but I'm not feeling that ambitious so just trust me on this or google it for yourself.)

It seems so typically American to approach the problem by finding a way to allow people to continue to work full-time rather than allowing them more flexible schedules or giving them time off to spend with their new babies.

One of the women that they interviewed noted that it was so wonderful because it allowed her to keep doing her job while bonding with her new daughter at the same time. I should point out that this particular woman was the CEO of a multi-million dollar real estate development company. She could have easily taken six months off, I'm sure, or worked some kind of flex-time. But she chose not to. She chose to build a nursery next to her office and continue to work the long hours that she was used to working.

She says that knowing that her daughter is in a crib just in the next room makes her not feel guilty about maintaining long hours.

Work-a-holic nation.

Hard work is great and enjoying your job is even better but when will we realise that work is simply a means to an end, not the end itself? We all have to work in order to live but we really ought not to live to work.

I was here yesterday and this morning...

...it didn't suck, as you might imagine.





This Maine thing isn't so bad.

A few minor blog changes and some ramblings

Added Preshrunk to the Daily Reads. It's a blog about cool t-shirt designs.
Added Salty Sea Stories to Connecting the Blogosphere. It's something that doesn't look like it's going to get updated very often but based on the first post, probably a lot of fun to read.

I'm reading 'The Sun Also Rises' to tide me over until I get HP6.

And, for what it's worth, I've been listening to the Clash a lot recently.

Also, I have a tentative date with the EMT on Thursday. Um...I don't think I'd mentioned that here, actually, did I? Last Saturday, my roommate phoned me up to come meet her and another friend for a drink at the resto down the street where we know the bartender quite well (we had dinner there last night, incidentally, and were in for a drink on Thursday. Yeah, we're regulars.) In any event, I'd been pretty lazy all day and was wearing some crappy jeans and a crappy t-shirt pockmarked with cat claw holes. It's not totally gross, but not really something I'd wear unless I was going out just to meet some friends for a drink or something unimportant like that.

So I get there and first I was totally thrown off because we were apparently sitting at the opposite end of the bar from where we usually sit. That totally threw me off to begin with. And then our friend nods to a group of guys at the other end of the bar, where we normally sit, and singles one out and says that he wants to meet me. And I'm like, 'What?! I'm not dressed to meet anyone! Why didn't you tell me!?' Ugh. Girls. This would explain why my roommate had been so insistent that I had to come for a drink.

So, we did meet and we talked and an enjoyable conversation it was. He's sort of seeing someone right now and I think I made it clear that I'm not really looking for anything romantic right now anyway although he kept saying that he wished he'd met me two weeks earlier, before he started seeing this other guy. My response to that is that life always has its reasons.

We exchanged numbers but I decided that the ball was entirely in his court, even if this does just remain on the level of friendship, which would be fine by me. He phoned me on Tuesday, just as I was getting to work but I told him that I'd get back to him later in the week once my work week finished (I'm working at the resto Sun-Wed). I phoned him yesterday to see what his weekend plans were and he was fairly well booked though he said he might maybe be free this afternoon but, if not, the next good day for him was going to be Thursday.

So we have a tentative date for Thursday. An early dinner around 5. I'm not sure why so early, but as I have that day off anyway as of right now, It'll give my day some kind of structure. I find that I'm really not working enough right now to give my days a lot of structure or to even really give me a good sense of a week and weekend. I know I shouldn't complain about this but it does get a bit frustrating. That should be solved, soon, though, as I have orientation for the café job on Monday and a short training shift on Tuesday. I'll be working a few training shifts this coming week before I start full-time the first week of August.

In any event, I'm not sure what to think about the situation yet. I suppose that's fine given I've only just met him. He's rather older than I am and although I tend to go for older guys, it's usually only by a few years, not a few decades. If anything, that would be the major obstacle in my head to a romantic relationship with this guy. But, like I said, I'm certainly open to friendship. If anything, he seems to be a genuinely friendly guy, which, needless to say, are few and far between. Oh, and he's an EMT. I asked the bartender about him and she had nothing but praise for him and very strongly suggested that I just wait and see where things go.

I know I always think too hard about these things at the beginning so consider this post my thinking too hard about it and getting it out of the way and trying not to worry about it anymore.

*whine*

My copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince only shipped yesterday from the bookstore that I used to work at in Montreal. Which means I won't get it until next week very likely. Waaahhh.

I was in a bookstore yesterday and was SO tempted to open it up and start reading but I managed not to give into the temptation.

(For the record, all of my other HP books are the Canadian edition, so I want to keep the consistency as the American covers are different and they change the vocabulary for the dumb American kids who can't deal with British slang apparently. As if Canadian kids walk around saying 'Wotcher' and talk about 'taking the mickey'. Please.)

Settling in...?

I finally got rid of the two sticky notes on my desktop related to my move. One, my to-do list that I had started pre-move. I've added to it since although I still had a few things leftover. Two, the one with my new address and phone number.

Just thought I'd share.

Entirely unrelated: I watched Napoleon Dynamite today and fail to see what all the fuss is about.