a beginning!!!!
Jul. 3rd, 2001 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7I'm blatantly copying my buddy Max here... I always wanted to have a journal like he does, because his is so cool, so here's mine.
Not that anyone will read this one either. But. Maybe I'll update this one sometimes, since it won't involve ftp'ing, which has never been my strong point. Sorry about never updating my page, but my computer was shot in the head or something and has been slowly recovering. Guess how much everything sucks at 640 x 480 and in 16 colors? A LOT. So here's a big boo to the housemate of mine who cheerfully "fixed my computer for me" and somehow made it so Windows will NOT recognize my display card drivers, no matter where I reinstall them. I'm going to have to reinstall Windows AGAIN. Dammit, never ever let an idiot "fix" your computer. (Just for the record, I had reformatted all by myself, and had reinstalled my windows etc., but couldn't get the settings right to get online. Being an idiot, I asked the housemate who'd set up the house network what the settings were supposed to be. ... In the end, I had a different version of Windows on my computer, and got online, but fucked my monitor settings so I can't even open photoshop. That SUCKS. I do lots of photomanipulation etc., and have been working on a major hypertext novel for some time now (check out what I already "published" at http://www.cif.rochester.edu/~dragon7/blue.htm, badly mangled in shockwave; it's entitled "blue" and won the Meredith Goodman Bernstein Prize for short fiction at the University of Rochester this spring, as well as placing third in the Dean's Prize for Creative Writing. People like me!!) and can't do a damn thing until I somehow un-fuck my computer. Which is not proving easy, since I've just begun work at a new job.
Yes, the job.
Kwikfill. A gas station. I make $6.05 an hour before taxes, because I have previous experience as a convenience store cashier. Oh yes. The pay is awesome. I work either the opening shift or the closing shift, and bounce back and forth between them almost daily. So I'm at the store at 5 am one day, and closing it at 11:15 the next. Which means that all, ALL, of my free time is spent asleep. I get plenty of sleep, I'm just so fucked up I have no idea when I should be sleeping, and so I'm useless for anything, so I just sleep. My entire life is the gas station or fencing practice. My days off are spent asleep. My back is in constant pain and my feet, ankles, knees, calves, thighs, shoulders, and neck are all either stiff, swollen, strained, or just pissed off at me. And it's a stressful job to boot. I don't mind it; it's challenging, actually, and requires a presence of mind I'm not used to mustering. But the customers. Oh dear. Don't get me wrong, there are some real sweethearts, and some really amazing moments. We're across the street from the local mental hospital, so on top of the usual we have an even more... mentally diverse... demographic. An old woman today told me I was beautiful. I made the entire day of a very happy middle-aged man when I sold him a coca-cola. I probably put a severe damper on the day of the woman I accidentally overcharged by ten bucks, who had to come back and get the proper change (I hit the wrong price code. A cup of coffee costs a different amount than a pack of cigarettes. I know this. I was very sorry. I didn't notice the error and neither did she until a bit later. But I was very sorry. And still am. She was a nice lady. And everything was OK in the end).
But there are a lot of people who think that the kid behind the register in the gas station is as much a convenience as the store, and as much a machine as the register. Several people a day come in with the express purpose of seeing how much they can scam me for. People drive off without paying, because they can get away with it, some with their little kids in the front seat, teaching them the proper values. (Just in case you were wondering, drive-offs go on the clerk's shift sheet, and he or she gets written up. Too many drive-offs and the company will fire you. It is not a victimless crime, and it is very easy for a convenience store clerk to be fired. We are the company's LAST priority.) People insult you. People are stupid. People are mean. People assume you are the scum of the earth and therefore it is their right to walk on you. Welfare cheats will insult you because they think they're better than you.
It's NOT like in the movie Clerks. Or any movie. A convenience store cashier has to keep strict track of everything that comes through the register or even through the door. Nobody trusts us, not the company, not our co-workers, not our managers, not our customers. Not officially. My manager, I have to say, is a great guy; his name is Mark and he does stand-up at the Comix Cafe. The assistant manager, Christine, is an intelligent woman who never really had much of a chance; her daughter was born before she finished high school, thirteen years ago, and she just got her GRE this May, so congratulations to her. Even the other clerks are nice. I trust them all. But our official policies are not to trust each other, and everything has to be counted between shifts, and we don't touch each other's cash register drawer, etc. We have to balance all accounts before we leave the store. I spent about two hours of every shift just doing math. This is hell for me. But it's a job, and anything is better than the constant crushing self-doubting nihilism of unemployment.
This all sounds very negative. It's not. It's just that my life is fairly numbing at this point. I am having fun; the manager has been a real sweetie and given me three whole nights a week off so I can continue fencing at the U of R's triweekly practices (five to seven in the MAC in Bob (the robert. e. yadda yadda athletic center on UR's campus), Monday, Wednesday, Friday, every week). I'm doing very well; I'm finally feeling like I might actually be fencing instead of standing around with a weapon pretending to be cool. I've been doing mostly foil; I had been doing epee, but the epeeists all left or became uncool, and I began learning sabre from Sharon before she left, and Willy when he was here (he'll be back in fall), and I qualified for the Empire State Games in sabre, so I'm trying to learn that. But nobody will practice sabre with me. So foil, because that translates better into anything else. I'm still getting my ass kicked by everyone, but my footwork is identifiably footwork of some sort, and I'm learning things like, um, parries. (basic stuff I thought I learned months ago and didn't.) Sherry and Dave Lyons have been very helpful in particular...
My social life has consisted for the last month and a half of me and Dave and DW hanging out for extended periods of surreal time. Dave currently lives in my house with me (i live off-campus with a bunch of boys. EH (the computer "fix-it" guy) and DR are both leaving in August. Don't get me started on either of them, I just don't feel up to a good rant. Not entirely negative, but they'd each need a rant, and I can't do that just now. In August, DW is moving in. And in September, a new guy named Dale is moving in. I hardly know him but DW does, and he seems cool. Better than swallowing an additional quarter of the rent, I say!!!). I love Dave; I've known him since freshman year, and while he may be possibly the worst-equipped person to deal with reality that I know, he is also one of the most well-grounded and consistently neutral people I know. He is a very important balancing force in my life.
DW is a separate issue. A recent graduate from RIT, he is now a network faith healer and systems masseur for Corporate Communications Inc. or something like that. He makes a real salary doing a real job, in short. Lucky sod. He is charming and charismatic and athletic and coordinated, smug and toothy and good at everything, with good luck to boot, and fast-talking where he doesn't have the luck. Basically one who gets his way in life. Which is a lot of fun but infuriating. And he's very hard to keep as balanced as Dave. So living with him will be a challenge, but a fun one. I sort of have him figured out, and sort of know I've barely scratched the surface. He plays a mean guitar, and has promised to teach me bass. Among all four (eventually) members of the house this fall we have enough (theoretically) to create an entire band, so perhaps this will happen; look out for Purloined Meats!
So he and Dave and I hang out and talk mostly. I pet DW's hair-- he's dubiously ethnic (whoo... chinese? arapaho? white? stuff? and has the thick/coarse/ahhh, soft kind of sort of Asian hair (not asian but not not asian) ... nice to pet.... but not a kitty. Oh cat withdrawal thou art a cruel mistress.
well, who to my wondering eyes should appear but DW himself!!! So we're off to Tahou's. I shall write another one later. Hurrah for my initial posting, and for a social life of sorts!!
;]
Not that anyone will read this one either. But. Maybe I'll update this one sometimes, since it won't involve ftp'ing, which has never been my strong point. Sorry about never updating my page, but my computer was shot in the head or something and has been slowly recovering. Guess how much everything sucks at 640 x 480 and in 16 colors? A LOT. So here's a big boo to the housemate of mine who cheerfully "fixed my computer for me" and somehow made it so Windows will NOT recognize my display card drivers, no matter where I reinstall them. I'm going to have to reinstall Windows AGAIN. Dammit, never ever let an idiot "fix" your computer. (Just for the record, I had reformatted all by myself, and had reinstalled my windows etc., but couldn't get the settings right to get online. Being an idiot, I asked the housemate who'd set up the house network what the settings were supposed to be. ... In the end, I had a different version of Windows on my computer, and got online, but fucked my monitor settings so I can't even open photoshop. That SUCKS. I do lots of photomanipulation etc., and have been working on a major hypertext novel for some time now (check out what I already "published" at http://www.cif.rochester.edu/~dragon7/blue.htm, badly mangled in shockwave; it's entitled "blue" and won the Meredith Goodman Bernstein Prize for short fiction at the University of Rochester this spring, as well as placing third in the Dean's Prize for Creative Writing. People like me!!) and can't do a damn thing until I somehow un-fuck my computer. Which is not proving easy, since I've just begun work at a new job.
Yes, the job.
Kwikfill. A gas station. I make $6.05 an hour before taxes, because I have previous experience as a convenience store cashier. Oh yes. The pay is awesome. I work either the opening shift or the closing shift, and bounce back and forth between them almost daily. So I'm at the store at 5 am one day, and closing it at 11:15 the next. Which means that all, ALL, of my free time is spent asleep. I get plenty of sleep, I'm just so fucked up I have no idea when I should be sleeping, and so I'm useless for anything, so I just sleep. My entire life is the gas station or fencing practice. My days off are spent asleep. My back is in constant pain and my feet, ankles, knees, calves, thighs, shoulders, and neck are all either stiff, swollen, strained, or just pissed off at me. And it's a stressful job to boot. I don't mind it; it's challenging, actually, and requires a presence of mind I'm not used to mustering. But the customers. Oh dear. Don't get me wrong, there are some real sweethearts, and some really amazing moments. We're across the street from the local mental hospital, so on top of the usual we have an even more... mentally diverse... demographic. An old woman today told me I was beautiful. I made the entire day of a very happy middle-aged man when I sold him a coca-cola. I probably put a severe damper on the day of the woman I accidentally overcharged by ten bucks, who had to come back and get the proper change (I hit the wrong price code. A cup of coffee costs a different amount than a pack of cigarettes. I know this. I was very sorry. I didn't notice the error and neither did she until a bit later. But I was very sorry. And still am. She was a nice lady. And everything was OK in the end).
But there are a lot of people who think that the kid behind the register in the gas station is as much a convenience as the store, and as much a machine as the register. Several people a day come in with the express purpose of seeing how much they can scam me for. People drive off without paying, because they can get away with it, some with their little kids in the front seat, teaching them the proper values. (Just in case you were wondering, drive-offs go on the clerk's shift sheet, and he or she gets written up. Too many drive-offs and the company will fire you. It is not a victimless crime, and it is very easy for a convenience store clerk to be fired. We are the company's LAST priority.) People insult you. People are stupid. People are mean. People assume you are the scum of the earth and therefore it is their right to walk on you. Welfare cheats will insult you because they think they're better than you.
It's NOT like in the movie Clerks. Or any movie. A convenience store cashier has to keep strict track of everything that comes through the register or even through the door. Nobody trusts us, not the company, not our co-workers, not our managers, not our customers. Not officially. My manager, I have to say, is a great guy; his name is Mark and he does stand-up at the Comix Cafe. The assistant manager, Christine, is an intelligent woman who never really had much of a chance; her daughter was born before she finished high school, thirteen years ago, and she just got her GRE this May, so congratulations to her. Even the other clerks are nice. I trust them all. But our official policies are not to trust each other, and everything has to be counted between shifts, and we don't touch each other's cash register drawer, etc. We have to balance all accounts before we leave the store. I spent about two hours of every shift just doing math. This is hell for me. But it's a job, and anything is better than the constant crushing self-doubting nihilism of unemployment.
This all sounds very negative. It's not. It's just that my life is fairly numbing at this point. I am having fun; the manager has been a real sweetie and given me three whole nights a week off so I can continue fencing at the U of R's triweekly practices (five to seven in the MAC in Bob (the robert. e. yadda yadda athletic center on UR's campus), Monday, Wednesday, Friday, every week). I'm doing very well; I'm finally feeling like I might actually be fencing instead of standing around with a weapon pretending to be cool. I've been doing mostly foil; I had been doing epee, but the epeeists all left or became uncool, and I began learning sabre from Sharon before she left, and Willy when he was here (he'll be back in fall), and I qualified for the Empire State Games in sabre, so I'm trying to learn that. But nobody will practice sabre with me. So foil, because that translates better into anything else. I'm still getting my ass kicked by everyone, but my footwork is identifiably footwork of some sort, and I'm learning things like, um, parries. (basic stuff I thought I learned months ago and didn't.) Sherry and Dave Lyons have been very helpful in particular...
My social life has consisted for the last month and a half of me and Dave and DW hanging out for extended periods of surreal time. Dave currently lives in my house with me (i live off-campus with a bunch of boys. EH (the computer "fix-it" guy) and DR are both leaving in August. Don't get me started on either of them, I just don't feel up to a good rant. Not entirely negative, but they'd each need a rant, and I can't do that just now. In August, DW is moving in. And in September, a new guy named Dale is moving in. I hardly know him but DW does, and he seems cool. Better than swallowing an additional quarter of the rent, I say!!!). I love Dave; I've known him since freshman year, and while he may be possibly the worst-equipped person to deal with reality that I know, he is also one of the most well-grounded and consistently neutral people I know. He is a very important balancing force in my life.
DW is a separate issue. A recent graduate from RIT, he is now a network faith healer and systems masseur for Corporate Communications Inc. or something like that. He makes a real salary doing a real job, in short. Lucky sod. He is charming and charismatic and athletic and coordinated, smug and toothy and good at everything, with good luck to boot, and fast-talking where he doesn't have the luck. Basically one who gets his way in life. Which is a lot of fun but infuriating. And he's very hard to keep as balanced as Dave. So living with him will be a challenge, but a fun one. I sort of have him figured out, and sort of know I've barely scratched the surface. He plays a mean guitar, and has promised to teach me bass. Among all four (eventually) members of the house this fall we have enough (theoretically) to create an entire band, so perhaps this will happen; look out for Purloined Meats!
So he and Dave and I hang out and talk mostly. I pet DW's hair-- he's dubiously ethnic (whoo... chinese? arapaho? white? stuff? and has the thick/coarse/ahhh, soft kind of sort of Asian hair (not asian but not not asian) ... nice to pet.... but not a kitty. Oh cat withdrawal thou art a cruel mistress.
well, who to my wondering eyes should appear but DW himself!!! So we're off to Tahou's. I shall write another one later. Hurrah for my initial posting, and for a social life of sorts!!
;]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
this is from Kathleen but it's making me pick "anonymous"
I can never seem to ge ahold of you (I've tried for a whole three days, whoopee) and now I know why. I'm back from the trail! I stopped enjoying hiking after six weeks of it. So we decided we needed a break.
Anyhoo, this is my latest attempt to stay in touch. Enjoy.
Kat
Re: this is from Kathleen but it's making me pick
oh. the email address wasn't. but i do think you knew the address...
so what's your email right now??? I don't know if it's the juno one or not. You really haven't said...
i'll email you there once i know it's your current address.
Re: this is from Kathleen but it's making me pick
love,
kathleen
PS-- Mine's moorekd@hotmail.com. Yes, I am aware of how boring this is and it has been sold to every porn and make-your-penis-bigger site in the world, but I wanted a professional-sounding address for resumes. As soon as I have a job, I'll be changing it. That'll be in awhile.
Re: plotting?
I liked your manual, self-invented version of all this, but this is more central and easier... it's certainly possible for me, while doing this manually is not, given my computer melodramas... Sort of cute and cheesy, but possible. So good.
Well. 4:38 a.m., off to work!! I thought I was supposed to be the evenings person, but they keep putting me on early mornings... that sucks... but oh well. I'll sleep when I'm dead!!!
;p
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 02:42 pm (UTC)And now I'm back to comment on it again :)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 03:35 pm (UTC)to Kat: You're such a dork.
:)
no subject
Date: 2018-12-12 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-12 08:05 pm (UTC)In my defense I do not believe LJ had rolled out the "cut" function yet-- "readmores" as a concept date to the mid-00s, I think. I'm not sure; I also may just not have seen very much LJ.
I briefly had a blog before this that involved hand-coding HTML documents and uploading them via FTP to a static self-hosted website I had on one of my university's servers, and my HTML skills didn't extend to anything like a readmore. It just wasn't a thing yet.
It's hard to look back at, LOL. I'm trying not to judge myself, you know?
no subject
Date: 2018-12-12 08:35 pm (UTC)