1. You ask them if they know where something is and they say "yes," without a trace of irony. 2. You do the old "can I" as opposed to "may I" and they seriously evaluate your physical and/or mental capacities.
More QA geek stuff: this review of The Bug: A Postmodern Prometheus (Frankenstein in Silicon Valley), in the New York Times Review of Books (click THAT link for the first chapter). They say about it: "The soundtrack is Van Halen, Siouxsie and the Banshees and, for those systems administrators who come out only after dark, the German industrial band Einsturzende Neubauten. " Wow! I didn't know I should have started in the industry back then - I was too busy SEEING those bands to actually hold down a solid job.
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I just read the article in the Seattle Times about your stand on Sound Transit, and I want to tell you that I am 100% behind your views. This is strange because I am a dyed in the wool liberal (beyond a "D" Democrat) and I'm a big supporter of public transportation.
However, over the years I've turned against Sound Transit's light rail program simply because it WILL not do the job of relieving congestion. Since it doesn't travel faster than the speed of regular traffic, it's not going to encourage more people to take public transportation, so it won't decrease congestion. (I actually think that it will make things subtlely worse by being at grade and getting in the way of regular car traffic.) And if that's the case, then there is no point in building the darn thing because it's just going to do EXACTLY the same as the bus system we currently have in place, only it's going to cost a lot more. So why spend a lot of money to duplicate the service we currently have?
I was involved in station area planning for Capitol Hill (Seattle) and I also served on the Capitol Hill Community Council transportation subcommittee for about a year, and I believe my views are well-founded and not just knee-jerk reactions. If you would like the views of someone I consider a real community leader, I recommend you contact Ann Donovan, ann@(email address removed).com, who was the president of that same community council and whose views have also turned against Sound Transit for the same reasons.
Please do your best to put the brakes on this big waste of money. I want to see improved public transportation in the Puget Sound region, but light rail is not going to provide it. I know you're not my representative, but you represent my state and I don't think Jim is listening to opinions like mine on this issue.
Went to Pride today for the first time in years to distribute copies of Tablet. I didn't want to go because I was too tired, but when I got there it was just Carrie and Sara because all of the other people had bagged. Then I was glad I'd showed up to help. It wasn't really hard work, but I could have used a good bag to carry papers in, and I don't know what I was thinking when I put on a white shirt because it's filthy now.
This year's parade was fairly dull and disorganized as usual. The swag was minimal (even though I came home covered in necklaces), and I don't know why they can't get halfway decent floats. Maybe more samba schools would do the trick. I'm thinking next year I want to get a Xanadu roller-skating team, led by a mirror-clad darling carrying a boom box, followed by the nine muses and then the solid Gold muse. I think people would love it! Who doesn't love Xanadu?
I had a big fight with Worthy Opponent's dad on my birthday. The crime was coming into town from Phoenix on my birthday and not bothering to stop in to say hello. He did call on his way driving through town (he had flown in) on his way to Vancouver, though, and later he told Worthy Opponent that he was sorry he had got me so upset ... although not apparently sorry that he did what he did, only that I had discovered his perfidy. I thought it would be good to write down the details of what I said to him here, as it may come to haunt me later. I'll keep this entry at the top of the blog for a while and add to it as I have time. Actually, I should be going to bed now since I have to work tomorrow.
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As expected, I will be starting at Q***. Tomorrow will be my first day. It's going to slow down on my finishing the new Harry Potter book, but what else was I supposed to do now that Celine's working and Maya is going on vacation? Quitters!
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Had an interview at Q*** today. They seem really desperate to get some people on site ASAP, and even though they are offering less that what I want to make I think I can raise them a few florints. We'll see what happens. I expect they will be calling this afternoon, as soon as they figure out whether the project they talked to me about will be starting Monday or Tuesday. It was kind of creepy that everyone who interviewed me had bags under their eyes.
I'm looking forward to my birthday party tomorrow. Irene and Maya, Chris and Maurie, Rachel (and maybe Troy), Matt and Cathy of Mahjong fame, and Nick and Janna will be there. And of course let's not forget the guest of honor: my cake from Evangeline's. Yum! What's really amazing though is how very many scheduling conflicts I am having with my birthday, what with the Columbia City Garden Tour, the Squire Park "Clean Up Seattle" event, the Solstice Parade, Cesaria Evoria, Ants Invasion (at the Showbox), etc. etc. - there is just no way to do all of the stuff that is happening tomorrow. I'll stick to what I can handle ... eating birthday cake and sleeping in. Woo hoo!
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Even though it was super nice outside, I felt motivation to do pretty much nothing today. I'm feeling isolated, even though I don't want really to be back at work yet. Late last night I read an article on being unemployed and gardening; I won't say that it was inspirational but it was rather congruent with my activities this afternoon, and the two and a half hours I spent in the yard cutting and digging and planting went pretty fast. Now I've got cascades of laurel clippings everywhere and the start of a new bed on the east side of the back yard with six or so dahlias in it. They are probably too close together, but I'll see how they look later in the summer. I also got in the last glads from Old House Gardens, and I'm hoping it will naturalize happily between the tiger lilies and come back every year.
I should be excited and out riding my bike. Why do I feel so listless?
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I had a long discussion with my brother today about our screwed up families. In fact, the place where our families intersect - our father - is about the best part of my family, but that's not saying much since my father and I have been estranged for a year and a half now. The highlights were what I call the "Ring Cycle" last summer (the last time I really talked to him ... well, he did call Thanksgiving day but I mostly just hustled him off of the phone since I was getting food on the table), when he told me that he didn't really see me as as much family as my brother. Before that was the blowout at the dinner after my grandmother's funeral, when he was an asshole to me in front of the entire family (but oddly the details of that are beginning to fade, despite the fact that it probably resulted in my great aunt and I never speaking again). And six months before that was the disastrous Papa Comes to Seattle, with the Favoring of the Son over the Daughter dinner and the Public Humiliation of Filial Child at Safeco Field. My problems with him go much further back, though. (See Link/More for more.)
I have got so much writing to do I don't know how I'm going to get caught up. Really, I need to set a daily schedule for myself, something like this: up at 9, two hours of some boring project (like reorganizing the shelves in the kitchen or cleaning the basement), lunch and/or pilates, then two hours of writing. I need to schedule three exercise activities per week, and I need to get caught up on the writing list: the trip to New Mexico, the new Sou'wester web site, the story on blogging. So what DO I have scheduled for this week? Three movies, or two movies and maybe two puppet shows.
I have decided I want to make a list of all of my games, too, so I'm going to start on it now (see "link"/"more"). It will be a good way to make headway on cleaning out the car as well as cleaning up the basement.
Although I'm not going to write about my trip now, I do want to say that the De Anza motor lodge is a complete pit, and I don't advise you stay there unless you have a strong hunger to discover the meaning of a no-star hotel.
June's First Thursday, while not providing a lot of impetus for going to galleries, did make a grand showing for the vibrancy of Seattle's art scene. Gary Curtis' cast glass sculptures of children (at the Davidson Galleries, 313 Occidental Ave S) seemed almost like preserved fetuses, with their smooth, full, lips and lifeless eyes, but the inclusion of metal spikes sticking out of their heads somehow made them all seem a little too easy, as if he had just poured glass into a mold and not taken care of the details. A few doors down at Grover/Thurston Gallery (309 Occidental Ave S), Judy Hill's sculptures, in subject and materials (glass and raku) almost identical, seemed more expansive and archetypal. Her women seemed forlorn, even resigned, and the translucency of the glass and crackled texture of the clay added to the illusion that they stood somehow out of time.
A few blocks away at "321," an artists' studio on 3rd and Jackson, a thought provoking (and funny) exhibit entitled "Outlaw" was taking place. Described as "art and entertainment for those bereft of law," the works on display ranged from photographs of people urinating in public to a zine (titled "Crime Spree") describing a month's worth of skipping out on restaurant bills. The exhibits, while technically sparse, created an atmosphere of succulent danger. Behold, the tools of the evil graffiti artist! Lo, documentation of the wicked cross-gendered toliet user! I dropped an IOU in the tip jar next to the copies of Crime Spree and took it home in order to appreciate the devious deeds described therein at leisure, rather than reading the large-format versions mounted on the walls.
The real action was of course happening on Occidental Plaza, where what seemed like a hundred artists had spread blankets and set up tables to display their works. The entire block was packed with people checking out the wide variety of works on display. Paintings, sculpture, fabrick and wood art, photographs ... the variety was incredible, and almost all of the artist were right there to answer your questions (and make you feel good about the pittance they were charging for their work). It was amazing to see just how many artists are working in the Seattle area. It outshone the Fremont Sunday market, any of the local "art" fairs ... even our own beloved Tablet Rummage Sale (although I did see some of the Rummage artists and their wares). The whole thing seemed to have reached a kind of critical mass where people would come to First Thursdays just to see this ... the blooming of an arts culture.
Alas, it seems that the flower is to be cut in its prime. While talking with Juli Adams, an artist whose work I had admired at the Erotic Art show in January, I found out that the artists had received notice (in form of a flyer from the Pioneer Square Community Association) that the city of Seattle "has received numerous complaints" about the open air art market and would "being enforcement of municipal codes governing vending in public spaces at the First Thursday Gallery Walk on July 3, 2003." Adams was of the opinion that this would involve an expensive permit, which she had no intention of purchasing.
As I walked around and talked to other artists, I discovered that many of them thought this would be the last First Thursday they participated in. Most couldn't afford to cut into their paltry income. Others didn't even know about the new regulations or the impending move of the open-air market. Looking at the many empty storefronts on Occidental Plaza, I couldn't help but wonder if the gallery owners thought that getting rid of the swarms of people was a good idea. For me, the thought of seeing some truly fresh art (under oh-so-sunny skies) was the only reason I even WENT to Pioneer Square that night. The city is making a huge mistake by attempting to limit this incredible event. I hope they see the benefits this is bringing to all of Seattle before the boot heels of petty bureaucrats crush it out forever.
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The weather is perfect and I'm enjoying being distracted. It's almost unfortunate to have the computer up and running again. All I need is to have that unemployment money start showing up. It's taking its stinking time, I tell you. They keep asking me about my teaching status (Acadio somehow flagging me as a teacher) and about my voluntary quit (to go from contracting to V***). All I want them to do is to give me a freaking check! The latest is that I DO qualify for having my old claim reopened (after being told Monday I qualified for a NEW claim, which would pay $200 less a week in benefits) and I should get a check on Monday. Please, make it so.
We're off to Long Beach and the SouWester tomorrow. I'm not really looking forward to getting out of town since it's so damn perfect here right now, but it will be fun to hang out with my brother and Rachel (and both of those folks' significant others). And I do have a writing assignment for Tablet: 300 words on something cool from the Art Walk. It will be fun fitting that in with Sorry Charlies tonight and the tile guy and lunch with Joy tomorrow before we leave at three, but I guess that will just make it more challenging!
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Hmm, new issue of Tablet coming up, but I won't have anything in it, since someone is already writing the Ondine review. I could do one myself, but I doubt I will now. I need to get to work on writing up the Sou'wester web site.
A long-standing suspicion of mine was confirmed by today's Seattle Times. Lo:
"May may have fooled you. The sometimes-deceptive month featured what one meteorologist called a "teaser week" - a warm, sunny string of late-May days that seemed to promise summer is coming. But "we won't really snap into summer until July," said Kirsten Willman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "
There you go: summer in Seattle REALLY doesn't start until around July 4th. And I thought I was just being funny when I said that!
I am still trying to get by without DSL. The weather is sunny, I have no cares, and all I want is to have a decent fucking internet connection. Why is this bothering me so much? I really feel disconnected without being able to ping my friends journals and see what they've been up to. I am getting more phone calls at home now, and that's good.
For now, I've got the (ick) dialup working, which means I can check my email (and blog) but I can't really do much else. I did find out that Salam Pax is real, though, and that was exciting. His blog always seemed real ... too much attention to detail to be made up. I should be able to get all of my writing done and posted now, though. Funny how it's got to be online to really be worth writing. I still have my Blogging article to write, which I could have started with paper and pencil but did not. Hopefully I can get it cranked out without too much research still being necessary, or I can get the DSL to work. I hate thinking I'm missing calls by being online. I get so few of them!
I'm going to go offline and write a review of Ondine and tack it up here for the world to see. In short, I liked it and consider it worth a trip to Open Circle.