It's the end of the year, so here's some bullet-pointed crap for you.
Things Which I Continue to Like * Baked Goods * Serial Dramas * Words That Begin With Capital Letters * A Healthy Obsession With People Who Are Unhealthily Obsessed With Pop Culture * Giant Snowstorms * Unwatchably Bad Movies * Cats, Goddamn It. Motherfucking Cats. I Like Them. * Olde Englishe Christmase Carolese * Curling, But Only As An Ironic Counterculture Appreciation Of A Past-time That Is Widely Mocked In My Country * Top Chef * Creative Profanity In The Form Of Ridiculous Compound Swear Words That Don't Really Make Sense When At Face Value * Sectaurs
Things About Which I Remain Curiously Ambivelant * Gillette * That Whole "Don't End A Clause With A Preposition" Thing * Corporaterias * The Term "Lady Garden" * The Music Of Elton John * Fire * The Fact That, Having Finished My Tasks For This Week, I Have Essentially Finished All Of My Tasks For This Job, Ever. * Actual Cankles * Spore * Liposuction * Trapezoids
If being my friend were a retail job, then Brittany would be Employee of the Month. Just as Leila took it upon herself to find me an apartment a few years ago, Brittany has taken my whining to heart, and is finding me a job. My mailbox sees two or three job forwards from her a week, and this is simply awesome.
I put this up on 2dm a few days ago as a joke, but.. there's something about this cartoon that really draws me. Part of it is the absurdity of the concept, of course, because.. Rummy? Saluted by democrats? A grateful nation? It's a total farce, but it's not sarcastic. It is aware that there are people who buy into the idea of Rumsfeld as hero, or at least there are people who endorse that as a narrative.. which is completely naive. Rumsfeld was secretary of defense during a time of war; ergo, he is a hero, non-partisan and adored. No sensible person with access to a newspaper would think that, so the real appeal of the cartoon is that it's pretending to be hopelessly naive. "This is what I would think if I didn't know better. You may be an ass for knowing better."
It's satirical, but not sarcastic. It's dumb, but it's dumb on a great many levels. It might be my favorite editorial cartoon ever printed, which is a superlative I never wanted to have.
The first ones are the best - I like just about anything that directly challenges the "with us or against America" frame, and the notion that dissent is patriotic is very dear to my heart.
So, I've been working here for a little over a month - five weeks, today. And while it's wonderful to have a salary, and enough "live-in-the-now" money, it's the future that I find brightest. I now have forty-five dollars in my 401k, which means that if I retire right now, I get forty-five dollars. That's pretty hefty.
I could retire now and have enough "pension" to treat three other people to dinner at The Olive Garden. And it would taste even better than normal, because it would be flavoured with success.
As I've commented a few times, I'm kinda slow. All of my major life accomplishments - college, real job, etc, I've gotten done about three years later than everyone else does. I'm slowly catching up, but there is one area in which I've completely failed:
I'm not divorced yet.
A good half of my peers have already been married and divorced. I can't lose out on this! I should've married unwisely YEARS ago, so that it would have time to fall apart gracelessly, and ended when I was twenty-six or so. The obvious first choice would have been to marry Lauren, because come on. It's Lauren. No way would that not have ended badly. But, now that I'm thinking about it, Leila would have been a much better divorce. I totally would have believed in that. Hell, you've all read the many unnecessary posts from back then.. I would not have seen it coming when our marriage fell apart!
Yep. I can see it now. I shoulda divorced Leila. Instead, when I'm out in the big out-of-my-league-for-the-most-part dating pool of Boston, I'll be totally behind. I'll be shooting for a starter marriage when most people are starting number two. What secrets will they know that I don't?
OK, I think I can make a really kickass craigslist post out of this.
Back when Steves Carrell and Colbert were still on the show, The Daily Show used to run a hilarious segment called "Even Stevphen," where the two of them would ridiculously argue the news of the day. Many of these segments can be found on YouTube, but for the longest time I've been wanting to watch one that they don't have. It's about four years old, and they're debating what should be done with little Elian Gonzolas. I remember it as one of the funniest segments I'd ever seen, and while I'm sure it's not as good as I remember - I tend to conflate things sometimes - I'd still really like to see it again.
So, um, if you happen to find it somewhere, let me know. Because it rocked. Probably.
Lately, after TFC rehearsals, I've been walking to the T stop at Prudential instead of the closer Symphony stop. This is partly because I need to unwind (I was not a Stravinsky fan prior to rehearsing Oedipus Rex, and now I am further convinced that I'm in the right), but mostly because of the big, wide reflecting pool in the Christian Science Building Complex Thingy. I can't speak much for their dogma, but those Christian Scientists know how to make a reflecting pool! It's a very cool five-minute walk.
Across from the entrance to the Prudential Center is The Colonnade. While I know that it's pronounced "Cahhlonahhhde," I have to suppress a giggle every time I see it, because it always makes me think it's an advertisement for the most awful beverage ever conceived.
Yeah, and I've got two words for you: Rafael Frübeck. ( Concerts )
So now I want to become a Frübeck groupie, sort of like those people who spent their lives following the Grateful Dead on tour. I'll just get a copy of his next year's itinerary, and beg my way into every chorus that he directs. There are worse ways to spend one's life than by being a Frübecker!
( Exercise ) And singing a Requiem is really satisfying after a four-mile walk.
After the concert, a few of us went out for desserts, and while I feel guilty about breaking the diet, I totally earned it.. and if you're ever on Mass Ave, and want a good plum cheesecake, you can do a lot worse than Betty's Crockpot Noodles, or wherever it is that we went. It's a faux-chinese place with sort of a 50's theme, minus the kitsch; hard to describe but a good place. Next time Beck visits we'll have to go there; I think she'd get a kick out of it. Anyway, it was nice to go out with other TFC folks; apart from talking with a small group of fellow Green Line passengers, I never see any of them outside of rehearsal. Myfanwy (whose name is further proof that the Welsh language was totally made up by bored Tolkien fans) has said she wants to make a regular thing of post-concert outings, which I totally approve of. There's not a lot I miss about the UNH music groups, but Wednesday nights at Libby's were a blast.
As per Les' instructions, please tell me a memory, of something involving you and me, that didn't actually happen. It can be an altered actual event, or something totally made up, but it has to be a memory. Don't worry if you think you're not very creative, or even if we never talk any more. Just do it. Seriously. All of you.
In other news, my email server has been down all day, and today in particular is a very bad day for that, seeing as I had several apartment-checking appointments that I cannot make tonight for unrelated reasons. So the one bad thing about having a kickass email address provided by your friends is that it isn't always on.
But don't comment about the email. Comment about the other thing. You know, that one that happened. Now I'm going to go to bed, so I can get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning and get to my rehearsal on time.
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ounceofreason's journal
pensive
Grateful, yet still ill.
Matrimaniacal
Life gave me colons...