Pavlovian politeness, new toys, & hey – you just can’t fix stupid

July 29th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', girl valet, money, nerdery, rowing, screw you cosmic muffin, work

You know what, you’re right, this is totally my bad – I forgot to factor in that you’re an asshole.

Chat with Sylvie, part deux.
So in the other part of the conversation that I had with Sylvie, I was reminded that no matter how smart you are, or how much you’ve experienced, sometimes you really just need another person to tell you what you already know before you’re ready to accept it as fact and move on. One of the most notable incidences of that in my life was when my b-i-l looked at me & said, “That’s because your mom is a drunk, honey.” We all knew it, we’d all grown up with it, but that was the first time anyone I knew had had the chutzpah to actually say it out loud. And once it was said, & it was out there, I suddenly had the ability to accept it, factor that in as a reality, & move on with my life.

Same thing happened when talking to Sylvie last week. I was scheduled for an appointment on that Friday morning for something & I was seeking her advice on how to approach it. Her response?

“You need to stop worrying about these people – they don’t give a shit about you. If they did, none of this would have happened in the first place. Don’t worry about being nice, don’t consider them in your plans. They don’t give a shit about you, and they never will because they’re children. Be like a man with the town whore – use them for what they’re good for, then leave.”
I know, right? I laughed at that one too, prudish American that I am.

And intellectually, I already knew everything that she was saying – I’d been saying it to myself for a long time now. But hearing someone else confirm what I thought was just me being a b*tch in the comfort of my own head… there was something about hearing it from an outside party that allowed me to emotionally accept it, if that makes sense. And now, I’ve found that I can look at people & think, “You don’t actually give a damn about me. No matter what you say, or how you act, or how hurt you pretend to be by all this, the truth of the matter is that if you cared, none of this would have happened.”

It’s kind of odd, really – after months of being tossed around like buoy in a storm, I walked in & there was just… nothing. I just classified them in the same cubby as my parents, & it made things way better – you’re here, I have to deal with you, but at any second if given half a chance & left the slightest bit unsupervised, you’ll f*ck me over in a heartbeat & act like it’s my fault.

I just need to remember what I was told by the lawyer I met with that Friday morning: “Before we discuss anything, I need to just say – I can do alot, but I can’t fix stupid.”

Can’t Fix Stupid. Check. Lesson learned, let’s move on.

Gaiam.com, Inc

Congratuations! You’re in charge!
On Saturday, I worked a Doll gig by Griffith Park. Saturday shifts are hard, because I get out of SpiffV!Hotel at 2am, then I crash in the boathouse parking lot until 7am, row, and then have a couple hours until I have a day shift, after which I go back to SpiffV!Hotel in Santa Monica for my Sat night shift of 7/8 – 2am, after which I usually head down to the boathouse at Long Beach so that I can do a coached practice, get there about 3 am (4 if I went home to get Zoey) & crash in my car in that parking lot until about 6:15am.

So working during the on Saturday? kind of a stretch.

Anyway, so I show up at this gig – I’m already 15 min late because of traffic, and LB says to me, “Oh, great, you’re here – what do you want to do?”

Being the Foursquare Mayor of States the Obviousville, I replied, “I thought I’d be parking cars. why?”

“Well, G called & said we’re training you to supervise today, so until SD gets here, you’re in charge.”

ooooooooooooookay. Me in charge.

This should be good.

Now, it’s not like I can’t Team Captain [TC] – I’ve been working on & off as a Doll for six years, I’ve stepped in when needed, I’ve been a trainer, and in a pinch I’ve TC-ed a couple small parties before. It just takes a certain amount of energy to do so that I hadn’t been prepared to expend that day, so when I found that out, I was like, “effin’ ay – really? I don’t wanna!” But, ya know, G & I had talked a bit back about me becoming a TC, so it’s not like this was happening against my will, just not on my expected timeframe.

So there I am, writing tickets, doing my thing, and SD stops me & goes, “You need to stop saying that.”

“Saying what?”

“Have a great time.”

Now, let me pause to explain a reality here – half the time, when I give some situationally-prompted pleasantry reply, I don’t even know I’ve said it. I’ve been working in customer service for different stretches since the day I turned 16, so for me the sheer habit of smiling and being cheerful to people is so ingrained that I can’t help it. I once had a friend point out to me that when I walk up to a cashier, I’m the first one to initiate the question, “Hi, how are you today?” (Which in my world, comes out as “Hey, how ya doin’?”) I could be in the worst mood ever, and I will smile and be pleasant to strangers because that’s the way I’ve been trained – Pavlovian Politeness, we’ve taken to calling it. The point being that I hadn’t even realized I was saying that. However, it did leave a question, which led me to ask…

“why wouldn’t I tell them to have a good time?”

“They’re here for a wake*.”

:pause for moment: “Oh… right. Okay. Well who know, right? it could be an Irish wake.”

*In hospitality, or maybe it’s just a California thing, they don’t call such events a wake. They refer to them as a “celebration of life”. Yah. True story. While I think that’s actually a better way to approach it, this has cause confusion on the part of a couple of girls who thought “celebration”=”actual party”.

But yah – upshot is that it looks like I’ll be doing more gigs for the Dolls where I’m actually in charge of sh*t, which also means I’ve finally got to get around to cleaning out my car so I can fit the sign in the back. :sigh: Mo’ money, mo problems – so friggin’ true. ;)

——————–

 

I am both a PC & a Mac!
One of the items on The List is for me to acquire an iPhone for myself. This is less because I want an iPhone, & more because of work. To get work for Prem!Co, they send out a pdf of the upcoming week’s schedule, and then you email which shifts you want. Shifts are filled on a first come, first serve basis, so the quicker you respond, the better your chances.

Two weeks ago, I was working SpffV!Hotel on a Friday night when I saw the email for the schedule for Prem!Co come across my phone. Well, I can’t see the pdf on my present phone which I really only got because I fell in the damn marina last March – I got out of the marina, my phone… still down there. (sorry phone!)

Anyway, the schedule came out at 6:30, so I stopped at a 24 hour Kinko’s on my way out of work at 1:30am & filed my shift requests… and they were already filled up. Ugh. Thus, I need to get an iPhone so I can see anything on the internet in order to be able to get work. I’m finally caving.
However, since my contract with AT&T doesn’t re-up until January, I decided to investigate alternate means. I got an offer from my neighbor for his unlocked 1G, which was tempting, but for only $40 more, I was able to win the bid on eBay for a 6-mo old 8GB 3G whose owner has already upgraded to a 4th Gen.

:fist of triumph!:

On the one hand my fear in this situation is that I shall never actually get off the internet. On the other hand, in 3-5 days of shipping time, I’ll totally be able to download the free app that lets you play your iPod like a flute!

 Watching: Invictus Invictus

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G’bye, Not!GradSchool… hullo Europe!

July 27th, 2010, posted in Painting, school, travel, work

The plan, she is a-changin’.
Disclaimer: No, actually I have not read Eat, Pray, Love. No, you’re not the first to ask that question, thanks.

I had a long chat with Sylvie last week, & amongst other things, I talked to her about Not!Grad School. Based on my conversations & the feedback I’ve gotten from them, I’m pretty sure that sometime around August 1st, I’ll get notification that I can start on October 9th with this year’s class.

The question then being – do I really want to?

Here’s the thing – it’s all day, from 9am – 4pm (3:30 if I make arrangements with the professors to make up the studio time so I can get to the boathouse if I end up coaching juniors this fall) Now, being able to sit & spend three years doing the course of art that I wanted to do sounds dandy, but I have some very harsh realities to deal with:

  1. I have to pay the tuition myself because the school isn’t accredited yet, so there’s no federal funding
  2. I have to fund the rest of my life at the same time that I’m in school for the same amount of time as a full time job.
  3. Eventually, I really do need to get SOME sleep. (No, I actually do mean that)

I was explaining this to Sylvie, and she suddenly stopped said, “God, why are you Americans are so dumb?!”
(Note: Sylvie is French. Occasionally, she’s not just French, she’s very French.)

To which I ventured, “um…I don’t know?”

We then proceeded to have a conversation where she explained to my horribly pedestrian Yankee way of thinking that not everything is in the United States, and perhaps instead of spending three years running myself into the ground for a degree from a school no one’s ever heard of where I won’t enjoy a bit of of because I’ll always be chasing to fill the economic hole of my tuition & life, perhaps it might be better to look at a more concentrated program in Europe for next summer so that I can actually, you know – pay attention to what I’m doing while learning, as well as actually get some time away from my life for a while – kind of a reset button.

:insert heavens opening & beam of light shining down as chorus of angels hit perfect note:

The funny thing about this is that just the week before, my sister & I had been having a conversation about the fact that, other than her honeymoon, we pretty much have never been on vacation. We just didn’t do it as kids – other than family committments, or parent-mandated “educational trips” when we were kids (which were all within driving distance & ruled more by my mother’s neurosis than anything else, so yeah, those were wicked fun) — we just… didn’t. When we were kids, we couldn’t afford it, & when we were old enough, we were sent off to get jobs, after which we all had to pay for our own school, and I guess since we never were in the habit of doing it from when we were kids, neither of us have ever incorporated it into our lives as adults.

So the idea of taking the next year and setting things up so that I can save up, put my affairs in order, and head off for a month or three to kind of explore the world & do something just for me & for the sake of having the experience of it instead of just continuing to try to pay the rent – I can’t tell you how lovely that is to me. It’s going to mean a LOT of prep, and a real push on my part to work & get things in order financially – thankfully, my car will be paid off in June of ’11 (if I can’t manage to get ahead & take care of it a little before) so my expenses will actually go down right before I leave. Since this is LA, there’s almost always someone looking for a short-term sublets and due to the fact that I presently have the best neighbors ever, I know I’ll have people to look in on the place & make sure that nothing gets blown up. (Yay 1049 Improv Troupe!)

In the meantime, I’ll wait to see whether or not I get into Not!Grad School, & then work with them to take at least two classes over the course of the year – probably basic anatomy & also Quick post studios since those would be the basis of any figure drawing study that I would take. I’d also have to finally get my arse in gear & start going to Dr. Sketchy’s when my work schedule allows for it so that I can get lots of practice for pretty cheap.

In order to actually make the cash to be able to do all this, I’m going to have to suck it up & put at least one day aside just for tutorials to bring myself up to date on more backend programming and SEO. More & more clients seem to be asking for things that involve Drupal development, WordPress dev, & SEO work, so it’s time that I hammered down on the things that will actually bring in cash, most likely with a side of HTML5, CSS3, & javascript refresher course. Lynda.com, we’ll be spending a lot of time together.

Wego Pte Ltd

Of course, I can’t do this alone, so there’s only one thing to do:

Gathering the troops to invade Europe – it’s what Americans do!
Art aside, there’s another awesome aspect to going to Italy or France for the summer – the rowing.

That in mind, I sent Kate a text that just said, “Wanna row in Europe next summer?”

Yeah.. she’s pretty much down. So once we get things in line & I know where I’m going, we’ll take a look at where there is to row around there and have at it, baby — the Euros have way more options than we do in SoCal, and even if I’m just in Europe on a schedule where I can GO to Henley… well honey, it’s Henley the year before the Olympics are in London. That situation’s going to be awesome. Plus since I know a Bronzer or two in merry ol’ Land o’ Eng, we may be able to swing free accomodations for that portion of the adventure, which would be right up there like the guys say during soccer games on Univision – Scoooooooore!

I’ve also tapped Sachiel & Closet B to see if they want to come play, even if only for a week or two – after all, if you’re going to have to get a place to crash for two people in Italy or France, you might as well use it as a halfway house for all your friends, right? Right. Totally.

In the meantime, the upshot of this is that my sorry arse needs to make with the hustle. As Sachiel pointed out to me, “Billable hours equals Europe!”

Music: Dawn – Pride & Prejudice Dawn

Mighty Leaf Tea - Best Tea Ever

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Googlevyl, free music, & land wars in Asia

July 26th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', girl valet, money, semantics, work

Note: due to the spastic nature of my life as of late, this one was written over the course of a week & a half

Oh Google – I don’t care if you really are an evyl empire, you’re an evyl empire with Segways & I less-than-three you all the same.
Seriously, I don’t know how I’d get along without Google calendar. The searchability just makes things so much freakin’ easier that it’s ridiculous. For instance, I was off to see Der Familie Schneider for the first time since… December (??) and I realized I’d totally forgotten their address. Thankfully, google was there in the clinch, since my inability to remember…anything has gotten me into the habit of logging as much as I can in my calendar, so the address was available for searching. yay Google!

Wavee US, LLC

It’s not every girl who gets her own land war in Asia
I spent the other day turning out three different landing page drafts for one client, thus getting me up to date — with that one client. Sadly, I counted, & there are six seven more after that, three of which are looking to get deliverables from me during the day on Friday. Since I’m writing this while shuttling at a Doll party and we found out that we’re not getting out at midnight as planned, but instead sometime around 2am, I can pretty much guarantee that at least one client will not receive their product during the day Friday. I’m on a traffic direction gig in Malibu on Saturday, hopefully it’s quiet enough that I’ll be able to get something done.

I was talking to a fellow Doll LB about it the other night – it’s this odd little war in my world.

On one side of the table, you have the hourly work of valeting which allows me to have at least a partial paycheck that’s regular, but since it’s shift work & sometimes it’s a heavy on-call schedule, it’s hard to have a regular routine.

On the other side of the table, there’s the freelance work which on the whole is more lucrative and pays a greater amount, but isn’t steady or have any guarantee that the clients will pay on time. So I end up doing the meetings & such to get that work during the days, & then when other freelancers would be working to actually do the work that they have, I’m instead running around working as a valet, which means that I then have to find the time to squinch in the actual production time of doing the work that I’ve done the meetings to acquire.

On the third side of the table is my accursed need for sleep, which for the last few weekends has been achieved by turning the care of Zoey over to my next-door neighbor Mia from Friday night until sometime during the day Sunday (or depending on how late I get out of my Sunday shift, Monday morning). This way, with Zoey taken care of, I can just leave work at the end of my shift, drive to whichever of my two boathouses that I’m rowing at in the morning and sleep in my car in the parking lot, thus saving me the gas of going back & forth to West Hollywood & gaining me at least an hour of sleep since I’ve cut out travel time.

…which leaves me facing off in a three sided war against two different jobs & my own body’s desire for rest. Since I’m student of history and 99% of my family is German/Austrian/Hungarian all the way down both lines, I’m painfully aware that much like arguing with a Sicilian when death is on the line, fighting a three-sided war most likely will not end for me in any way that can be defined as “well”. :shakey fist at universe:

End result being that I end up feeling a lot like this guy:

Free Music Alert!
I lurvers me the free music, and this round comes from Sarah McLachlan, the awesome Lilith Fair goddess. Have at it, kids:
http://lilithfair.com/itunes/usa

Meanwhile, if you want to pick up the newest version of Lilith Fair’s CD, give this link a whirl: Lilith 2010 Lilith

Music: Adele – Live from Soho iTunes

iPods and Accessories at Goodwill Too

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Goal for Thursday: don’t freak out

July 8th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', completely random, girl valet, money, rowing, semantics, work

Things that need to be done:

  • row entire workout without ribs hurting from having been hit by motorcycle last Wednesday – it’s been a week, it’s high time this sore ribs sh*t was over.
  • meet with Catering!Client at 11am
  • prep & send contract for Radio!Co
  • prep & send contract for PR!Co
  • finish landing page draft for Super!Tooth
  • finish laundry
  • look for doggie bathing place for Zoey torture, or just toss her in the tub
  • work shift for Prem!Co from 6 – 11:30pm
  • sleep a little*

Other possible activities:

  • worry
  • despair
  • freak out
  • consider giving up on freelance & getting full time job
  • convince myself to get my ass in gear
  • remind myself that no, I don’t need to buy anything at Starbucks’ because I have food & tea at home already & it’s a waste of money.
  • continually remind myself I just need to get the work done.
  • try to work on being okay about the fact that I have to do it myself because I’m alone.
  • lather, rinse, repeat.

*This post is actually progress for me, as it lists sleep in the “Need” category, rather than the optional activities.

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Not enough time, ATMs that judge, & zombie preparation.

July 7th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', girl valet, money, work

Oy with the vey – Okay, let’s get (a little) caught up.

Who do I work for now?
Three valet companies:
1. Dolls – first love, blue collar sorority, originator of more fun than I’ve ever had on any payroll ever. (and I’ve been on a lot of different payrolls!)

2. Prem!Co – another private event valet co which I was ref’d over to by a fellow Doll because I needed to pick up more hours. Not nearly as fun, and mostly guys, but still – pay the bills.

3. SpiffV!Hotel – high end hotel on the beach in Santa Monica who originally were interested in me as a doorperson full time, but right now I’m just working a fixed Fri & Sat night shift, 8pm – 2am. Named on a variation of the last fixed locale I worked at in Westwood which I called Spiffy!Hotel.

Oh, an in between all this? Still taking clients, trying to maintain the work, and attempting to figure out how the hell I’m going to a) afford & b) fit in Not!Grad School in the fall.

Happy 4th of July! :falls over:
So from Friday to Monday of 4th of July weekend, my life went like this:
Valet – SpiffV!Hotel
Sleep in parking lot at LB boathouse
Row
Lunch w/ Jess
Sleep for an hour
Valet – SpiffV!Hotel
Sleep in parking lot near LA boathouse until Panda Face got off the highway & called to wake me up.
Row
Go home, assure Zoey her mommy was still alive
Drive to Malibu
Work for Dolls for about 8 hours
Sleep for about 3 horus in my bed for the first time in a few days
Row w/ the juniors
Valet – Prem!Co
Get fed awesome food because there’s few things better than a Jewish family having an engagement party/housewarming for their new mansion. (Smoked lox with dill wrapped around cream cheese… oh so good :insert Homer Simpson donut noise here:)
Go home
Sleep from 4:30pm – 7am
Tuesday
Wake up & realize that I had a crapload of stuff to do to get caught up.
Despair.
Do a load of laundry.
Despair more.
Drop off the rest of my portfolio for Not!Grad School review.
Attempt get caught up.
Fail miserably.
Sleep.

…and that pretty much brings us current. Go Team me!

Wavee US, LLC

1 ticket down, two to go!
I have this little…problem. It’s called Street Parking. Because as any city dweller knows, when you have street parking, you’re vulerable – your poor car is subject to the leanings of any drunk passerby, as well as the travesty of parking police driven to leave unsightly & economically damaging tickets on otherwise nifty windshields as part of their attempt to do their part to plug the state’s deficit so they don’t have to go on furlough.

Combine that with my unsighly state of unemployment for the last year or so, and hey – those tickets can add up. I dunno that I’ve ever admitted this publicly, but a strong motivator in getting my sorry arse to the boathouse on Monday & Tuesday mornings has been to remove my car from the possibility of a street cleaning ticket lest I discover that I’d messed up & parked on the wrong side of the street, which has a minimum penalty of $55. (Yes, you read that right – fifty-five dollars.)

So as part of my whole “Trying to get my life in order” (which I’m sure I’ll write out & explain later when I have time, but yes, let’s just roll with the concept that I’m trying to get my life in order) I’ve been on a campaign to get rid of these monkeys on my vehicular back, and thus have slowly siphoned a fraction of my cash tips from any job I can spare it off into a clutch purse which sat innocuously amongst the tomes* on my bookcase, sides slowly bulging out with one dollar bills.
*tomes = programming books that I still haven’t had time to do the exercises in yet. :sigh:

Thankfully, the breakneck pace of 4th of July weekend meant that I had finally hit the $154 total needed to pay off the first ticket. (oh yes. you totally read that right. One hundred and fifty-four dollars. For realsies.)

In attempting to recover from the “despair” portion of yesterday, I gathered my pluck and moseyed to the ATM to deposit said cash so that I could pay it off today once the deposit had cleared. After all, Bank of America has the nifty new cash deposit thing, it should be easy peasy, right?

Let’s not play – just the fact that I asked that question should tell you the answer.

The next time I have to do this, someone please remind me to go change the ones to larger bills, m’kay? Because having the ATM process over $100 in one dollar bills was a less than idea experience – wrinkled & folded bills got kicked back out & had to be re-entered, and after the third time of trying to deal with the fact that it only lets you deposit 40 bills at a time, I swear to gods that ATM was making aspersions on my profession based on me being a female in Los Angeles depositing a large volume of $1 bills. Shut it, Bank of America – I’m a valet, ‘mkay? No, that’s not a euphamism – I seriously AM a valet. If I were a stripper, I should hope the hell I’d be depositing way more than $154 after a weekend’s work, or I’d be a really bad stripper.

The upshot being that the money is in the bank, and once I get home tonight to a place where I can print the receipt, I’ll have paid off the biggest ticket, & then there’s just the $122 & the $97 ones to go before I am footloose & DMV free, thank the gods.

——————–
What made me smile today:

Finally – a class that would actually get Sachiel to the gym!
ZombieFit classes. How to prepare for the inevitable apocalypse. yes, you TOTALLY read that right.

What made me laugh out loud today:

I’m not a Twi-tard, but I do less-than-three me The Fug Girls. As someone who often sees the celeb crowd (and the aspiring celeb crowd) in their comings, goings, & rates them based on whether they can spare the valet a $5 when we all know what they made for their last movie, I find the Fug Girls’ sometimes scathing evaluations to be oddly in line with my own inner monologue, and I won’t lie – sometimes when in doubt about what to wear, I have been known to think, “What would the Fug girls say?” (Incidentally, their “No to leggings” is a movement I can get behind)

So it was with that in mind that I read their eval of Kristen Stewart’s newest attempt at a press junket, because yes, I totally think that girl really needs to learn to wash her hair a bit more, and considering my complete lack of patience for anything beyond shampoo & conditioner, that’s what we could call “an indicator”. And while I’m not really a Robert Pattinson fan (he glitters, people. How the fuck can I take a vampire seriously when he glitters? ) I did love thier parting shot:

But now the twosome has gone public, finally, and the stress of hiding — and coming up with new coy denials and vague non-answers — has lifted. The question is answered, and we think it’s a big part of why Kristen can relax and try to enjoy herself instead of waiting for a bullet to dodge. Also: What’s up with the denials in the first place? He’s Cedric Diggory, child. BRAG.

Music: Jakob Dylan – Nothing But the Whole Wide World Nothing But the Whole Wide World

Adagio Teas - Free Shipping & Wrapping

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Dings, gay parties & the constant struggle against lazy-arse

June 25th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', girl valet, work

what’s the only thing better than filling out a resume on an HR website that only sorta works to apply for a coaching gig in San Diego two days before the closing date listed on the online ad?

Not being able to find the listing on the school’s site when finished, calling their HR dept, and discovering that hey – they listed it wrong on the outside website – instead of being two days from now, the deadline was two days ago.

:insert Flailing Hands of Panic here!:

Luckily, the woman in HR was very nice, and when I sent her the link to the job listing, she was all right with submitting my application for the job, so yeah. We’ll see. :shrug:

In the meantime, there’s a gig as an assist with the juniors’ team I used to volunteer for – I find it ironic that I’m applying for a job that I used to have, but whatever. I think the best part was when I was warned last week that people who rowed in college would automatically be more qualified than I am. On the one hand, I realize that on paper that’s true, but anyone who’s been a coach can tell you that athletic time in office does not necessarily a good coach make… plus there’s the fact that I already did the job well for an entire season. But ya know, it’s fine. It’ll all shake out in the end. I just need to remember to engage my zen breathing and use my words. Good words, that is. Must make sure to use good words.
I’m not gonna lie – hit me in the right moment, and you’ll discover I also have a great talent for bad words. No, really… me! True story!

Chocolate Gifts from Chocolate.com.

Dear gay men – thank you for the motivation.
I did two parties on Saturday. The first was for Prem!ValetCo, and it was the party from hell. Run up a straight hill because there was no shuttle, people who got there before we did that parked illegally & made the road a one-way passing, just… ugh. So bad that for the first time in my six years as a valet, I cracked my perfect record and actually dinged someone’s car.

Mortified. that’s what I was. Can’t even begin to describe.

Now, yes, I intellectually know this is not the end of the world – these things happen in our business, and there is a policy, rah rah rah, it was minor so it’s not like I’ll get canned or anything. But still. It’s the principle of the thing.

Of course, right after that it’s a day where I have a second party to go to – this time for the Dolls. I went into that with no small amount of dread.

What I didn’t know was that it was a female valet’s favorite setup – a gay man’s party.

No, I’m really not kidding about that. I love working parties of gay men. And I’m not alone in this. For the most part, the cars are clean and well kept, the clients have manners, we never have to worry about getting hit on, and usually they feed us. Plus, they tip so well. It’s awesome. This was a no-tip party, and guests insisted on tipping us. Not like, ones, but fives! More than one at a time. My favorite exchange went like this:
Disclaimer: This gentleman was actually straight, but it’s just the best one of the lot

Guest: …and this is for you.
Claris: Thank you sir, but we’re not accepting tips tonight – the host has taken care of it.
Guest: Well that’s not right, this is a huge hill. Can’t you just take it if I like… throw it out the window as I pull away? Then it’s just money you found on the street.
Claris: Well, I guess so. We could try – I’ve never had a money bath before.

:Claris turns to co-worker V, thinking it was over. Truck pulls away, and two fives come flying out the drivers’ side window and bounce off my shoulder:

Co-worker V:… did they just throw money at us?
Claris: You know, I think they did. I like this party!

——————–

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch…
Later on that night I was standing there, waiting for the bathroom, and I look around at this beautiful home, where things are neat and clean and smells like flowers, and I had one glaring thought:

God, my apartment is such a dump right now.

Okay, so granted, it’s easier to have a shiny pretty home with an open Japanese zen pool & attached Jacuzzi when you make a certain amount and probably have a maid of indeterminate immigration status to keep things moving along, but still – my apartment could at least be clean.

It was with this in mind that I used my Sunday off to remove the drek from my household. My whole apt. is hardwood floors – I didn’t even bother sweeping, I just borrowed Neighbor!Beth’s vaccuum – it’s the bagless kind — you know, where you just empty the container instead?

I emptied the container three times.

:hangs head in shame:

I think it’s literally been about two months since I truly cleaned my apartment. I moved out multiple trash bags of paper towels that were full of glass cleaner, bleach cleaner, & swiffer pads. (after I vaccuumed, then I polished.)

I tossed my couch covers in the tub with oxyclean, detergeant & really hot water – and had to drain the tub three times before the water didn’t come up black. Oh, I shudder at the dirt & sweat Zoey & I contributed to those poor things.

:sigh: It’s all clean now. Except the dog. I didn’t get a chance to wash her. But I think that might be a Doggie Wash project to be executed at an offsite facility. Good times, man. good times.

So my apartment is once again clean. Incidentally, it turns out that when I actually pick stuff up, my apartment is huge!. I know that shouldn’t surprise me after eight years, but yeah – I often forget this.

——————–

What made me laugh out loud today:

…because it’s so totally descriptive of my constant struggle between good & lazy-ass:

Why I’ll Never Be An Adult
via @janeisjane

Music: En Concert: Bonus Track Version – Jack Johnson En

Gaiam.com, Inc

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Snoop brought calm to my world. No, not like that.

June 18th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', girl valet, money, nerdery, pop culture junkie, work

Wow, that’s kinda… meta
So E3 Expo is in town this week, which means LA is even more chock a block full of geeks than usual. Possibly bursting at the seams, even. For valets, the amount of private parties & events has everyone hopping to fill shifts.

I signed up for two nights in a row at one event site, and while the organizers thought there would be 150 cars, they were mostly taxis & hired cars, so they were right about the estimate, just not about how many valets would be needed to handle it, which makes for a group of people in black & white standing by the side of a building in downtown LA all staring at their phones.

:pause for PSA:
Dear Internet – how did I ever pass the time as a valet without you? :hugs!:

So there I am, scrolling my Livejournal flist, and I see an article on the Microsoft Kinect and all the fuss around it, rah rah rah. Now, we don’t get told what the event is before we show up for Other!ValetCo. So I’m reading this article on my phone, looking at the people coming in, looking at the article, noticing they’ve all got Microsoft stuff… hey! I’m at the cool afterparty that people are talking about. Go me! Granted, I’m a valet, so the only reason I can get past the security on the 11th floor is because they assume I’m headed to the bathroom, but as I jokingly said to someone, “Right now, every video game geek in town wants to be me!”

Incidentally, after two nights of that was last night at a property which was simply described as “One of Snoop Dog’s places.” While I didn’t see anything, and I personally have spent my entire life footloose & drug free, I’m pretty sure that simply setting foot on the premises automatically invalidated my ability to pass a pre-employment drug screening for 30 days.

It also brought about this comment from me on Facebook:
is it a bad sign when you can say, “working Snoop Dog’s party last night was the calmest 4 hours I’ve had in the last two days”? I think it might be what I’d call “an indicator”…

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Running, retail & why spellcheck is your friend.

June 15th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', money, semantics, work

you said that love was gone, And that I had to leave… what goes up, must come down….

I love when I get directions like this:
Change colors of page/borders – darker/flashier
Instead of blues/reds – Client wants bolder/more exciting/flashier (“think of dreamworkers, sony websites etc.) Client says that we need to consider that people from movie studios and other related persons will visit his site.
Recommends golds, yellows, dark reds, burgundy

Now, a cursory view of those two studios would tells me two things:
1. the client hasn’t actually looked at those sites before giving that critique.
2. the client doesn’t know their colors for proper descriptives.

sigh

——————–

Running, running, running…
oy with the running! much as I love my Dolldom, the work’s been petering off as of late, so I took another Doll’s invite to hook up with a second valet co that she also works for. Got the gig no problemo, and boy howdy do they have work. I’ve worked more in the last two weeks than I did in a month with the Dolls, and I literally had to pick days to take off so I could do design work. It’s not going to be anything I can live on any time soon, but the hours are a comfort, and give me at least SOMETHING that I can depend on getting on a regular basis – problem with design work is that while it pays more than valeting, you have no REAL guarantee of when the clients will pay, so between this & the web/retail gig at Women!Co, I should (theoretically) have the money to be fully off EDD soon. Not going to be rolling in it, but yah – at least enough to have a base to bounce project work off of.

Which reminds me – I need to make a page for The Great Master List – aka, everything that I need to accomplish, pay for, get caught up on, & get fixed. I fear this list may never actually be completed & instead will become an running commentary o’ challenges, but hey – what’s life without tribulations, hrm?

So I guess that “fix my site & occasionally man the front” translates into “You’ll be running the place”?
Retail gig, right? Right. Totally. The theory is that I’m going to work on her site… except that I opened the store & she never came in today. I mean, at this point I’m waiting for her domain co to switch the nameservers before I can really do anything, but we went from “I’ll be in soon” (9:30) to “I’m still at home, but on my way” (12:15) to … now, when it’s 2:30 & there’s no sign of her. I assume at this point that I’m also going to be closing when I leave at 5:30. :shrug: I mean, I don’t care – I’m pretty much completely unsupervised, and I’m not against that. Just observing the whatever of it. She has a girl that works Sundays for her from 11-4 that she says has been flaky since the girl’s getting married, so I told her that if she can give me two days’ notice to rearrange my valet shifts I’d cover those days when the girl can’t be there. I figure five hours a week getting paid almost double the hourly that I’d be making as a valet & doing it as a w-9? Psh. ohkay sure.

Is it wrong that I’ve gone from being the person that’s the hardest working person anyone knows to the one who, after the last year & a half of working & dealing with my boathouse is now just like, “Sure. Whatthef*ckever, as long as I can cash a check.”

When they stand up and talk to the parents at the beginning of each year for the Juniors, they talk about how rowing will increase work ethic, and build character, make them into better people, etc. I have to say I find it amusing that my experience has taught me to be way more hands off, and distance myself from how much I care about what happens to others… and my level of giving a damn is definitely diminished, that’s for sure. (of course, I won’t be putting that on any applications any time soon)

——————–

In other news, when making an ad reviewing a book, one should also review their spelling, lest their words robbed of being… “complelling”:

oopsie…

——————–

What made me smile today:

What made me laugh out loud today:

——————–

Why my friends are awesome:
katiegeeks sometimes a fan club membership and some persistence is worth it. SIXTH ROW SEATS FOR GREEN DAY!!!!!!!!!!!
Claris: @katiegeeks: I’m straight, & your Green Day triumph is making me think you so damn hot right now. just so you know. ;)
katiegeeks: @heroineaddct sexual orientation is irrelevant in the face of ticketmaster triumph. :D

Music: Karma – Alicia Keys
Alicia Keys - The Diary of Alicia Keys - Karma

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so long & thanks for all the fish.

June 11th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', Uncategorized, rowing, screw you cosmic muffin, work

Note to self: next lifetime, be less clever
I’m having one of those days where I spent a lot of time trying to prove to myself that something wouldn’t work, and I shouldn’t even think about doing it, because it will in no way look better & thus by proving it won’t work, I’ll save myself hours of work having to apply my brilliant idea to the other four pages of massive text-heavy content.

Sadly, I was unsuccessful, because it looks way better in the more labor-intensive way. :sigh:

On a bright note, this client pays by the hour.

——————–

Somebody grab the blue facepaint, I feel the need to yell “Freedom!”
Scored a part-time retail gig on Friday – little boutique shop in Brentwood that caters to products created by women & donates a portion of the profits to womens’ charities. And because it’s Brentwood, the hourly wage is priced to match. (Transl. for non-Californians: more than most pay) I’ve got two days a week there, and since her site is a big hot mess (the owner called me back because she liked the idea of one-stop shopping for a clerk and a designer) I’ll get an ecommerce site credit off it.

The result?

If this works, then in a bit I’ll be able to kiss the State of CA’s unemployment goodbye, which would be just… lovely. Plus, if I don’t have to keep track of things to make sure that I continue my claim, I can simply work like a little b*tch as much as I want wherever I want and work on paying off everything and banking the rest.

of course, it turns out I may need that cash to put down a first and last…

——————–

So. San Diego. That might work.
I’ve hit a point lately where I’m just… tired of Los Angeles. I feel like all that ever happens here is people fighting with one another, and I’m exhausted from it. I mentioned this to Shook the other day, asking if she knew of any assist coaching jobs down by her, and she replied, “Sure. You want mine?”

Seems she’s doing a lateral move at her Rowing!College! and the job’s open for applications. Since everyone who’s left the LA rowing circle for San Diego seems to be a hell of a lot happier than those of us still up in Hell-lay, I figure it can’t hurt to look around.

——————–

Especially since now it looks like I’ll have plenty of time to survey the area…
Since I wrote that passage above two days ago, they have since shut down the rowing team that I used to run. I can’t say as I’m surprised – we were working under the radar, & the guy in charge decided he didn’t like something someone said & narc-ed us out to his superiors, so ta-da, we’re kaput.

On the one hand, there’s the part of me that’s pissed – two years of work on my part are gone, just :snap!: like that. I feel sad for the rowers who are now homeless and the people who had wanted to join up & now have nowhere to go. It was a good thing, my team – we weren’t particularly flashy or fast, but we were there, and there were people who wanted us to continue.

On the other hand, on a purely selfish level… my life just got way the hell simpler. No more organizing things, no more having to jump hoops to keep people happy… no more decisions to make other than the ones that will effect me.

I am, at this moment, oddly… free.

Well, free, and chock-a-block full of rowing domain names that I won’t need anymore & am thinking of putting up for sale. Think UCLA will want to buy uclarowing.com now that I don’t need it for anything? Or USC want USCrowing.com? Oh, LMU, do you want LMUrowing.com & lionsrowingclub.com?

So yes… free, but let’s be honest – still totally me. ;)

Oh, Los Angeles, don’t worry – I’m taking the hint that you don’t like me right now.
This morning, Zoey & I were running along the path from the boathouse that runs down to Dockweiler, and out of nowhere, this boxer-type dog (sorry Closet, this was no CoCo!) came running up from behind us and bodychecks my dog!

I was like, “What the f*ck!” and the owner is about 500m away, going, “Honey, come back…”

Meanwhile the other dog who’d hit Zoey is standing there, looking at us, like I’m gonna be all, “sure, stay & play!” I looked at that little f*cker, pointed towards its owner & sternly ordered, “go home!” and it ran away.

So then I have my dog, who really won’t hurt a flea unless you utterly push her buttons, is looking at me like, “Mommy, wha’ ha’pen’d?”
(Much like her mother, Zoey will bounce around and be full of energy & noise a-plenty, there’s nothing malicious about her.  She doesn’t lose her sh*t often so when she does, it’s spectacularly effective)
I got her back to the boathouse, & we later found that the other dog had managed to slice open the fold of her ear riiiiight on the edge of it – basically, a place where there was no way to put a bandage on it, we just had to keep putting cold paper towels on it until it stopped bleeding. Poor Zoey dog.

I pointed out to Lesley later that it was kind of a metaphor for my life – there we were, running along, perfectly happy entertaining ourselves, and some @sshole decides that since they’re bored or angry or just feel like it, they’re gonna come start sh*t, so I get blindsided from behind & am still lookin’ around going, “Huh?” and wondering why my ear is bleeding ’cause the coward’s already run back to the hole they came from.

Seriously, Universe? you had to hurt the dog to teach me that? So mean, man. So mean.

Zoey had a hard day

Zoey had a hard day

——————–

Result of all this = cross between an elephant & a rhino.
Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing.

In anticipation of saving money to either
a) move
b) go to Not!Grad!School, or
c) just save money

I’m also looking at moving out of my apt & moving in with a roommate. This is a particularly interesting proposition since I have a dog & we have lived alone for almost 9 years now.

I’m hesitant because I don’t know where I’m going to be by Sept, but on the other hand, there’s this part of me that just wants to … ditch stuff. Clean out my life, get rid of everything I don’t really need.

I remember back in the day when DarkLady was moving from LA to OH, she’d just left her apt., sold her car, & had two days left at Polgara’s apt. before she got on a plane. She posted in her LJ something about how she could take the suitcase she had and just… leave. And no one would ever know where she’d gone.

I’m not quite there yet, but I will admit to feeling oddly unencumbered.

——————–

Of course, the reality is that I have what could kindly be referred to as a sh*t-ton of little piddly jobs to do, a couple of invoices to collect on, and a client whose website is about to get yanked for non-payment, so I sadly do not get to just chuck it all & move on.

…but I am thinking about selling my couches. You can’t avoid work by spending time on something that’s not there, right? Totally.

Music: Throw It All Away -Brandi Carlile Brandi Carlile - Brandi Carlile - Throw It All Away

Guthy Renker Corporation

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Just like freakin’ Ghandi.

May 27th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', money, work

packing, moving… all while not moving an inch…
I’ve spent a good portion of my afternoon just… waiting.

Waiting for what? Files, thank you very much. I got the notifications today for InstigatorInk.com, one of two domains which I bought back in the day over on Doteasy, and I decided that rather than paying another $25/yr for each of them again, I’d just move all the files & domains over to my GoDaddy account & renew now before the .com & .net prices go up.

Oh, and for those of you that remember ye old NoDignity.com, it’s still there, I still own it, and once things are moved to their new home, the readily available content means our old archives may get a facelift this summer as I use it for my Drupal experiments. Keep you updated as we go.

Yes, I do own the url NoDignity.com. No you can’t have it. ;)

Tomay-to, Tomah-to…
True: Federal law prohibits us from using illegal activities as business expenses, and thus even if I blog about them, I cannot write traffic tickets off on my taxes.
(this fact was verified by my accountant last fall. I was kind of sad about it.)

Also true: If I pay with them using the right card, I can get airline miles from them. I’m just sayin’.


Lemme ‘splain. No there is too much. Lemme sum up.
There’s been a lot since I last updated, and honestly, I just don’t feel like rehashing it all. However, I will say that while I am still sans “proper” employment, I’ve at least been interviewing a ton, which is more than I had before, so the next step is to get hired. Should be good times. In the meanwhile, I had a little piece of awesome that wasn’t, and you’ll probably see the format of the blog changing as I start to use it as my conscience while working in a couple other projects which I’ve decided to move forward.

I have a joke that I made once when talking about being nice to someone, & it stuck. I remarked, “Dude, I’m nicer than I used to be, but I’m not fuckin’ Ghandi.”

Someone once said to me, “Ghandi was the most selfish person ever. All he thought about the way he wanted things to be and he wouldn’t listen to anyone else, and eventually, he won.” And really, that is so totally true. So I figure that for the next three months or so, I’m going to spend the summer taking care of me. Just me, the dog, my life… and mother fuckin’ Ghandi.

Like I was sayin’ – good times.

Music: Hello, Goodbye (Glee Cast Version)Glee Cast - Glee: The Music, Vol. 3 - Showstoppers (Deluxe Edition) - Hello, Goodbye (Glee Cast Version)

Gaiam.com, Inc

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