Between that and various recent LJ posts from friends, I have come to a less fun conclusion than those that we came to on power ballads: everyone seems to either be unemployed, underemployed, or if they are employed, they hate and/or are extremely stressed out by their job. Notably, you can love a job and be extremely stressed out by it (the jobs at the newspaper were like that; it's a great job, just everyone else doesn't know how to do theirs and you end up screwed over because of that..."This job would be great if it weren't for the fucking customers."), and you can hate a job and not be stressed out by it because you've reached a point where hating it is more amusing than caring (though this is far rarer than hating and being stressed out).
But so many of us are in this situation. The stress levels are high for everyone -- those of us who need jobs and those who already have jobs. Those who have jobs are doing the work of the people who need jobs, and they're stressed the fuck out over it because no person should have to do the work of six different people, and/or their coworkers are doing the work of six different people and any help they need/want cannot be provided in a quick manner because three people are doing the work of twenty and there's no time to spare at all.
There's a solution to this, which is of course hiring folks who need jobs to do some of the work of the current incredibly stressed and annoyed employees, but companies won't do it...because they'll lose valuable profits, which are worth far more than content employees apparently.
This is where I point out that the points of Ayn Randian Super Capitalism don't work in human society, not unlike how communism doesn't work too well with us either (though it does work wonderfully for bees and ants). Yes, it is great to have money to spend on whatever you want, but if you have that money it means someone else doesn't. Which seems sort of ridiculous, when you think about it, but it's at least somewhat true, especially when it comes to a single business...and single businesses add up (along with other things), and we end up with the top 5% making 90% of the money. Or something similar.
I could also state easily the old adage of absolute power corrupting absolutely.
Anyway, I had a point when I started this but it has wandered off to chase dragonflies. I guess this is a sort of Thinking-Out-Loud reassurance that yes, everyone's life sucks, even those who do have jobs...and those who have jobs' lives suck because I (and people like me) don't have a job. I'll get whatever morsel of self-esteem I can get these days.
Unfortunately we're all stuck, and it's up to the economy to pick up and businesses to stop being greedy slave-driving assholes for any of us to get anywhere.
And sometimes, it just really sucks that you have to rely on other people who don't seem to realize the impact their decisions have on your life. You wonder how they got to where they are without realizing it...and then you realize, they probably got there because they don't realize it.
I don't want to live the rest of my life under the rule of people who have no idea how their tiniest decisions will effect others. But some days, it seems like we have no choice.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
thoughtful
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
sleepy
So much for my attempt at a Bachelor's at the start of next year.
I also got my re-enrollment papers for my health insurance, which warns in big bold letters: There will be an increase in your COBRA premiums on 01/01/2010.
I'm already struggling just paying the $162 a month, I have no idea how I'm going to pull off $465 a month, which is what it will increase to.
This is awesome. I already can barely afford the money to get my insulin and other diabetic supplies, now I won't be able to afford insulin OR food, or I'll just be living in my car. And I most definitely can't afford school.
This...is great. Just fucking great. I might as well just let the world take me, because obviously I'm doing something fucking wrong.
So many of my stories don't get anywhere outside of my own brain. In some cases, considering the inane shit that goes on in there, this is a good thing. In other cases, it leaves characters hanging around and looking like they serve no purpose.
Tricia, my striped hyena girl from NYSOM. And yes, her pregnancy is completely canon -- it's actually been in the plans for quite some time.
Trish is the oldest of the main NYSOM crew, in her early to mid-thirties (everyone else is in their twenties; Thursday is the youngest). She's the only one of the five girls who is in all technicality single, she's the most educated (been to law school), and of the main crew (not counting side characters, of which there are way too many) she's the only native New Yorker, having grown up in Brooklyn. She's a tough broad, when you get right down to it.
Then Michael Morrison joins the law firm she works for and her life is thrown for a bit of a loop. He's fresh out of law school, and though he's working for a major law firm he's also still very...young. His idea of a fun night is pizza and video games. Trish is charmed, and Michael is amazed when he realizes that she's as interested in him as he is in her.
Their relationship is more "friends with benefits" than relationship, with terms agreed to early on between them, the first of which being that no one at work must know. Trish had been with the firm for years and with Michael just starting out, it would not look good. But hey, foolin' around, that's fine -- if either finds someone they'd rather be with, they can end it, easy as pie.
And then Trish gets a rather serious ear infection, isn't warned that the antibiotics she's taking null the effects of The Pill (yes, this is actually a warning on many antibiotics), one thing leads to another leads to another leads to...well. A sort of re-evaluation of the places both Tricia and Michael are at in life.
None of this dialogue is final, of course...I'm just roughing out ideas for how to present it. How do you bring up the idea of a character getting an abortion (which is talked about) without starting a flamewar? How do you bring up the idea of starting a family with a guy you were having what qualified as a silly little fling with (though he seems rather okay with the idea of maintaining the relationship, doesn't he), or being a single mother?
Obviously she does go through with the pregnancy. Actually, she'll end up going into labor at Adeline's wedding reception (oh yeah, the cliches are so totally worth it), eventually giving birth to twin boys.
But I'll get to that when I get to it.
( And some random female nudity; anteater & armadillo. )
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
nervous
- The Last DJ:REM - "Supernatural Superserious"
If you're unaware, my car has an array of very liberal bumper stickers on it. Now, it's just the bumper -- I haven't put them on the actual car yet (though I have a collection that I could start doing that with) -- so there's five stickers, all supporting the end of the war, presidential campaigns, et cetera. I do, in fact, have a bumper sticker on my car that just says "Liberal."
The fellow today commented that he was amazed and pleased to see that I was a Kucinich fan (Kucinich's presidential campaign sticker does not have a year on it, so it's going to stay on my car probably forever). This brought up the issue of single payer health care, and how Kucinich voted against the health care bill because it wasn't a single payer plan. We both agreed that we wanted single payer health care, and that Kucinich standing by his beliefs was great, but I commented that "Basically, it's taken us this long to get this far...I'll take anything at this point, and part of me is hurt that he didn't vote for it," Then we got into the discussion about he was diabetic and had lived without insurance before, and then how I was diabetic and had done so too, and it was a real close-to-home issue.
He said he was from California and liberals seemed hard to come by out here, and I said something along the lines of "I think the other side is just...louder..." which is what I believe.
And it got me thinking about several things. One, the weird coincidence of another person complimenting me for being a liberal -- in the same parking lot it had happened before, not all that much after the first time (yesterday someone pulled up beside me at a light and asked me where the library was; I have no idea if it had anything to do with my bumper stickers or my car, but I found it amusing that I would get asked that question...because obviously I know very well where it is). Two, how both people who have commented on it have been old enough to be my parents, or even grandparent. Three, the health care plan and how though it seems like we're accepting mediocrity by not choosing single payer, we're actually just working around the system that we're so used to; we're not accepting mediocrity, we're accepting (and working with) capitalism and American "standards," which isn't quite the same...we have to accept what we're doing now to get to the point where we can accept something like single payer, which kind of sucks but we'll get there one day.
Four, maybe I should rethink my plan to major in psychology and major in political science instead. Because apparently there's people out there who feel like they're not being represented, and that should be changed because they're willing to speak up to the young liberal in the grocery store parking lot.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
Life is full of uncertainties.
Right now, my life is a jumble of them.
I got a call on Friday afternoon concerning a job. This is, count 'em, the THIRD call I've had concerning a job since January...despite hundreds of my resumes floating out there. So of course, I called back and left a message that hopefully didn't sound too pleading.
Of course, they called on Friday afternoon at 4:30 -- the end of the work day and the end of the work week. Most likely I will not hear back until Monday morning (and of course, I'll be calling back Monday morning because it's been a long ten months and the idea of actually hearing back from anyone is sort of beyond my hopes at this point). I consider this cruel and unusual. It's a whole weekend of more than likely soon-to-be-crushed possibilities and hopes.
The job, and the interview -- if I get one -- is in Ohio.
So. Yeah. Lots of things to ponder over, stress out over, and wonder about. There are lots of possible changes. And, there's a strong possibility all this worrying will be for naught and I'll call on Monday and "Oh, you have to MOVE? Well, geez, why should we even think about interviewing you, let alone hiring you?"
Like I said. Cruel and unusual.
Sigh.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
"MO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-OM! SHE'S TOUCHING MY SIDE AGAIN!"
(If you didn't know, they're trying to get the Health Care Bill through the House today. If delayed, it might take until Tuesday, and it'll be thanks to shit like this.)
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
amused
I honestly have no idea where this came from.
Miles the seagull and Penny the otter. Side characters to the "New York State of Mind" storyline. Popped kind of out of nowhere, obviously wanted to be drawn tonight.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
Playing with styles.
Also playing with the idea of an autobiographical comic.
No idea if this will go anywhere, though I have scripted out quite a bit of it...because it's autobiography and remembering ten months ago isn't too hard.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
- The Last DJ:Josh Joplin Group - "Trailways"
So I went up to the school today to do some hunting around, to find out what I can do. Technically, if I'd just taken the 3-credit computer course, I'd be able to transfer 2 more courses to the school (as compared to the 1.66 that I can transfer now, since they won't take more than 70 credits and I have 65).
I was told that basically, I'd have to take the other computer course for it to transfer as anything but a non-elective. Likewise, the community college does not qualify your credits if you take both courses because they're so similar, so basically I will have 4 credits kind of floating there and doing nobody any good...though in all technicality, they did help me get my AA degree, so I can't bash the credits too much.
I've set up an appointment with the college's representative for next week to figure out the specifics of everything. I also learned today that the 3 courses I can take to transfer -- the computer course, a communications course, and a statistics course (ouch, math) -- are ALL available as 2-week classes in the beginning of January. Basically, I'd be in school for 12 hours a day for 2 weeks, but I'd have an even 70 credits to transfer before the Spring semester started, and all 3 classes would qualify as necessary classes, not just random electives.
(Plus, if I nulled out the 4-credit computer course, that's 4 more credits I could take as electives. Have I mentioned I love elective classes? It's basically why I go to school...I want to learn EVERYTHING.)
Looking at the college's Spring schedule, they have a LOT of accelerated courses, and the majority of their courses are available online. Which is quite possibly the best thing ever, and a lot of the reason I've chosen to go to this school...no matter where I end up in the country, and even if I do get a job, I'll still be able to be in school. Thank you, internet!
(One day, I keep swearing, I will go to a college where you have to actually sit through classes and BE there. Of course, at this point, that'll be for my Master's or Doctorate, and I've gotta get through this thing first.)
So, it looks like it will be a busy winter. I ponder how Spring will be -- stuff will change if I get a job, but right now, it looks like mainly my life will be focusing on getting edumacated and acquiring that oh-so-magical Bachelor's degree.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
hopeful
Thanks to my being underemployed, and thanks to the cost of COBRA's health insurance coverage (which I need or I will die), I do not have any extra spending money. Basically, for the first time in my life, I haven't been able to pay off my credit card on a monthly basis -- I'm still paying the bill, of course, but not the whole of what's owed every month like I used to.
This annoys me in a way that I cannot express satisfactorily. I do not like being in debt, even if it's just a few hundred bucks.
The cost of gas is rising again, the cost of food remains higher than it was even just a couple years ago, and the cost of electricity around here is fuckin' ridiculous if I do say so myself. Even with
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
spay_away paying half the rent/electricity/water/cable bill and for some groceries, we are still just scraping by. I had to dig into my savings account the other week to pay a hospital bill. This did not make me happy.So this is more or less my way of saying: if you want to hang out, I'm sorry. I can't afford it. I would absolutely love to hang out for a day, see a movie, grab lunch out, poke around and generally enjoy what life has to offer.
But I can't.
I have to save my gas for going to work or going up to the college to meet with folks who are helping me get somewhere to get my Bachelor's degree. I have to save my money to buy bread and insulin (which, if you're curious, is what the debt on my credit card is made of...very little of that is money that shouldn't have been or didn't need to be spent).
Heck, even my commission money -- which used to be my fun money -- has been going to paying bills and my credit card.
So I apologize in advance for being unavailable for awesome things. I'm continuing my job hunt, and its depressing as all get out, and I've mostly been amusing myself at home with drawing comics and reading library books.
I know they say you can't buy love or happiness, but being able to pay the bills and buy groceries without worrying would be a real load off a lot of people's backs.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
irritated
I think I'm just proving that I can interchange these guys between their furry selves and their human selves and there is very little difference outside of character design =p
(I actually am extremely fond of Johanna's human design, but I'm not sure if that's because I like her as a character/she's basically a fictionalized version of me. It's almost narcissism, except it's not.)
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
- The Last DJ:Eddie Izzard - "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite [Beatles cover]"
I make no promises on if I will ever start it (though all the characters have their own little storylines, I just haven't written them down -- I'm doing that now, though)...but I am curious:
Poll #1479368 Fuzziness
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 28
If I ever draw the comic "New York State of Mind," which should the characters be?
25 (89.3%)As humans, the comic would be more marketable...but let's face it, these guys are a lot more fun to draw as people with animal heads/tails. I'm pretty sure I know what the majority will say here, but it's worth putting up a poll just to confirm it =)
About the only thing that would change, character-wise, is that since Adeline would be a human female instead of a hermaphroditic snail, I'd lose a lot of "changing gender" jokes. Otherwise, everything would be pretty much exactly the same.
I need to get back to the City. Man. I'm craving a cup of hot chocolate tea from The Chocolate Bar.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
creative
Tonight, for my work, I taught a bread baking class at Whole Foods. I've been gathering recipes and working on stuff for it since Monday, which isn't a lot of time in advance, but that's how I work best. I made little booklets with the recipes and tips on yeast, baking powder, and baking soda, and we made 5 (count 'em: FIVE. The class was originally set for 4 but I crammed another one in there 'cause I'm awesome) types of bread: focaccia, calzones (we used premade dough for this, but I explained about the slow rise time & development of flavors...and I demo'd the long kneading process as well -- 20 minutes on a Kitchenaid is gonna be an hour by hand), pumpkin bread, cornbread, and quick cinnamon "rolls" (they were really biscuits; no yeast!).
I got to the store at 4:30, after gathering things together at my work, and got to work. By the time the class started (7), I had all the ingredients measured and laid out, a sample batch of focaccia ready, and everything ready and rarin' to go.
The woman at Whole Foods, B, was amazed at how utterly organized I was. She also agreed that the lack of wooden spoons and spatulas (which apparently get stolen!) sucked. Fortunately, I had brought spatulas from home. Also, I brought my baking stone, which is still there because it had to cool down...I'll pick that up tomorrow.
(The ovens there are awesome enough that you really don't need a baking stone, probably...wonderful heat distribution.)
All the recipes were big enough that they could be split between the 4 students, which was great -- everyone got to take a bit of everything home. The last thing out of the oven was the cornbread (I wanted to do it earlier, but we ended up working 2 batches of focaccia for everyone [that was great; there's nothing quite like start-to-finish bread], and the pumpkin bread takes an hour, so I had to wait for the oven -- still, pretty amazing the amount of stuff we did in 2 hours with 2 ovens).
After everything was done and the cornbread was in the oven, with the pumpkin bread finishing up, B set up a table and chairs and plates and everything, and everyone sat and ate the food they'd made...not to mention that they had sangria in the fridge, which was a lovely addition! I pulled the pumpkin bread out just as everyone was finishing, and the recipe made 5 small loaves...so everyone got their own, and one got sliced up and eaten as dessert.
It was...pretty awesome, actually. Pretty darn awesome. B was pleased at my professionalism and organization, the ladies in the class seemed pleased at both the recipes and my knowledge of all things baking (I made recommendations of Alton Brown and Harold McGee when it comes to science in the kitchen). Not one question was left unanswered, and hopefully everyone left full and happy.
So. Yeah. I guess this counts as my first night as a professional baker? And teaching it, no less. B said she definitely wants me to come back and is putting a good word in with her boss about it.
That's pretty cool.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
good
This will be the last page I post here for a while because the current plan is to get a whole issue done and either start posting it online or publishing it, or possibly both. I guess the question is more, Would anyone actually buy it? Since it's black-and-white, shouldn't be too expensive to produce or purchase...
Either way. I'm trying to keep up with drawing 3 pages a week, so we'll see how that goes.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
If I keep up a pace like this, these things might be worthy of their own website.
Sooner or later.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
The drawings aren't perfect. They're wobbly, and I'm sure it will come to bother me as I progress through this.
Right now, though, I don't care. I'm actually getting something done. That doesn't happen too often.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
calm
As a rule, I have no idea what I'm doing.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
Not a final logo.
But getting somewhere.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
The thing that bugged me about what he said (and I swear I was not trying to change minds or start an argument, though I did apparently, which always happens what the hell) was on the topic of the wages in China versus the wages here. He brought up factories at the turn of the last century; Henry Ford's famous $5-a-day revolution (he seemed surprised that I knew about this; if you don't know, Henry Ford felt that his employees should be able to buy the product they made. Wouldn't it be nice if people still thought that way?). Apparently, this is what China has going on right now.
Interestingly enough, I am relatively sure that Henry Ford's workers were not supported by people from other countries. Relatively sure that a good deal of that money -- if not all of it -- was American. Which sort of defeats the guy's point entirely.
I didn't bring this up, of course, I let the guy go on on his own 'cause he's a salesperson and a salesperson tells you what you want to hear to get you to buy their product. What chafed me was when he commented, "I was an Economics major, I know this stuff."
...no, you don't.
Now, keep in mind: I am not an economics major. I'm not a huge fan of numbers. But I do know that we are at a point in our history in many ways, including economically, that we have never been before. Saying you majored in economics -- especially when it was ten or twenty years ago -- is not unlike saying you were an economics major in 1920 and it's 1931. Things change. No matter how much you've studied concerning the subject, things change when it's discovered that Earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around.
We have never been at a point in modern American history before the past ten or twenty years where the majority of our product is imports. For most of American history, product was made in this country. Then folks realized that it was cheaper to make things in other countries, thanks to various laws (or lack thereof) and monetary exchange. The countries that we support doing this realize that, and buy our debt to keep the cost of the dollar at a point where their costs still benefit us (the universal "us," referring mostly to businesses, not us personally as people) and we continue to use their factories and product. It would be a mutually beneficial relationship if it didn't effect our own product output, but it does, thus it effects our job and product market by diminishing both.
But again, I'm not an economics major: this is just what I understand by watching it from the wayside and picking up bits and pieces in news reports. If you know why our economy is fucked right now and it's not anything near what I said (note: I know there are other factors such as loans and credit and such [I read Paul Krugman], I just consider this a contributor), PLEASE tell me. I want to know!
I just think that standing by "I'm an economics major!" or ANY major in almost ANY situation is the most moronic fallback ever unless you're being satirical or using it sarcastically. In all technicality, I'm a psychology major: I could deconstruct this guy backwards just by spending three hours listening to him talk about product -- I know it's not him, but it certainly is the person he presents himself as. It doesn't mean I'm right, though, which is my point. Everything changes, time is entropy, time is chaos: the only definites are what's already happened (maybe I should major in history?), and no matter how much you've studied, if something changes in a way that's never happened before, it's gonna fuck stuff up. The economy right now is an example of that (hell, the government right now is an example of that; it's trying to change and people aren't letting it because they don't like new things and I'm terrified we're going to go back to 1994 all over again), and it bugs me that people aren't realizing it.
Anyway. I didn't say anything, I let him carry on, and I'm sure he convinced everyone there that life was better in China thanks to us and we're supporting their economy and everyone has to start somewhere and look what we're doing to contribute to the world and I bet he votes Republican.
But it still pissed me off.
Note: As usual, this is a random ranble (a ramble and a rant COMBINED), and nothing has been researched or studied and there's a lot more opinion than fact. This is an LJ, not a fact blog. I always welcome critiques, questions, and corrections, but yelling at me because I said something wrong and then not providing the facts and feelings behind it will get us nowhere. I welcome information and research on the subjects I talk about, especially if I am completely off-base and wrong (and I am wrong sometimes), and I welcome conversation that centers around what I talk about, but PLEASE, try to keep it civil and informative. Thank you.
- You Don't Know How It Feels:
annoyed
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