It seems like my life is never completely settled. Which is actually a good thing, I guess.
So, we had a flood in our city, my sister lost her home and has been living with my parents. She got a new home. Next door to mine. I have three good girl friends in town. One by one, they are all moving away. One's already gone; made out for the city and probably won't be back in quite a while, except for the occasional visit. The other one is moving to Australia. (Curse you, Aussies for offering interesting work-programs for us Canadians. Luring us in by your beautiful travel brochures and sparkling repuation!) Neither of us know when she'll be back, but the countdown has started; she leaves in September. My other girl friend left yesterday, for Northern Quebec. 27 hour drive away, that I doubt I'll be making the drive up to visit her while she's there.
It's funny how my life just seems to start settling down, everyone else's is gearing up.
But, there's my job that's still there, which is going well. Actually, I feel quite settled there now... everything is less intimidating, and what seemed to be difficult obstacles to overcome are now managable actions. The pace is generally pretty quick, but I've learned a lot about downtime. Sometimes, even the quickest computer systems have their slow periods. I've taken to buying magazines because I hate crossword puzzles and really can't focus too much time on reading a book. I'm getting to know my co-workers more, and am having a pretty good time. I can't stand this guy at work, but only because he's the one who calls me if I'm too slow to complete a task. He does it to everyone, so I'm not alone in cursing his name everytime the phone rings.
No joy yet.
My love life is sucky as always, but there are the odd flirtations, which I really should stress as being odd. There's nothing really to explain here, just sharing an experience that I'm sure many have gone through; a nice boozy evening spent with a crowd of friends, an other friend walking one home, and a declaration of affection felt a long time ago, suddenly expressed before a cab arrives. Sweet, for the moment. The enevitable casual discussion of it the next day, ending with It's great to be good friends for so long. We can say anything to each other and not take anything too seriously. Ha. No harm taken, but admittedly, it makes me wonder what the real deal is? Always a buddy never a.... nah forget it. Let's not even go there.
Video killed the radio star.
And Ted's Video is killing me. I owe them a shitload of money. Which is fine. I'll be the first to admit that I cannot be trusted to bring a movie back by the proper due date. In the era of extended DVDs, it really is impossible to watch a movie in one shot for one evening only. I usually end up returning the damned movie a couple of days late, which just adds on to the 195.00 late fee total that I have going. And no, I did not add on a couple of decimal points. The plain truth of the matter is this: one of the employees never charges me late fees. He laughs about it, lets me rent more, and I go my happy way. Which is superb of him. And why not? He doesn't care. It's not his movie store. But it is someone else's. And I worry that my favorite employee is going to one day up and quit his job, and then where will I be? Please don't go.
All that hard work down the drain.
Okay, not really, but it feels this way as I continue my latest activity: cleaning out my desks of papers, complete and incomplete. I am a pack rat, and I love to save paper. Scraps of paper, stapled-together-bits-of-paper, even bloody stick-it-notes. So I'm taking the advice of my sister and am starting to be ruthless. Bag upon bag of papers are leaving me, and it makes me wonder what my local recycler will think when he comes by my house on Friday. Because all my term papers from both college and university are going in. Soon to become someone else's scrap paper. And it makes me think of the all-nighter's I pulled to get that last paragraph just right, and all the fucking appendixes and bibliographies I attached to them, and saved quotes from authors long forgotten. I invested a lot of time in reading, and learning, and it was both pleasure and pain. I did graduate, but for what? My job is light-years away from what I thought I'd end up doing. I like it, and I do believe my education had a part in my hiring, but what about thoughts of Kant, Focault, and Deleuze? Where is Lacan when I am doing my nightly forms and tallies? How did I get so far from theory to hitting letters on a keyboard for someone else's purpose?
Dirty Deeds.
There is nothing worse than watching someone else's name get dragged in the mud. Unless it's your own, I guess. And there's nothing better than driving on a hot summer day with AC/DC pumping out on the stereo. I could launch into a whole bitchfest about what bothers me right now, but I think I'd prefer just shutting it down, and going out to the parking lot. Cranking the volume and listening to some tunes. You can't bring me down, by bringing down my friends or by trying to bring down each other.
Peace all.