Not that she reads my blog, she's too cool for that.
But she is one of my best friends in the world (despite that she IS The Coolest Person In The World) and I can't let the day go by without wishing her a happy birthday.
Of course, if she is actually turning 50 this year, and I can't remember if she is or if it's next year, and she's having a party without me, I'll just have to slit my wrists.
Why is she The Coolest Person In The World?
One night, many many many years ago, she came over to my apartment in a rare snit. Her friend Woody was in town, and wanted to take her to dinner, but not out, just over to his friend's apartment. But his friend's wife was on a health food kick at the time, so all that she could expect for dinner would be brown rice, bean sprouts and a bottle of water. This was totally unacceptable, so she told Woody if he couldn't cough up for a steak and a bottle of wine somewhere, she wasn't going out with him.
Except.
Woody was Ron Wood, the friend was Mick Jagger, and the health-conscious wife was Bianca Jagger.
I told her I L-U-V ed brown rice, water and bean sprouts and that I'd be happy to go in her place.
I recieved a look of scorn for being so easy.
Happy Birthday, Girlfriend.
Today's sociology lesson came from some random asshat on the train. I should know better than to change my routine, because it never works out very well.
Instead of getting off the train at Brickell and taking the shuttle to Bayfront, I got off at Government Center. Once downstairs and on the shuttle, there was a ten minute delay. But, luckily for all those on board, we had a vocal lunatic on hand to give us a running commentary on the state of America with side notes about American history, the curse of poverty and the origins of certain ethnic slurs.
Unluckily for those of us on board, the guy was a raving idiot, and possibly a Tourrette's sufferer too, because he Never Shut Up. He had a sidekick, to whom he addressed his lecture.
Allow me to paint you a picture, if you will.
The doors are open, and a young male who appears to be Anglo (fair, light eyes, tall) comes in and holds the door for his friend, a not-so-young black male in a wheelchair. The guy in the wheelchair has some sort of twisty-writhing thing going on, so that every time I glance over at him, he's in a different position, including, at one point, (I kid you not) upside down, with his head on the foot rest, facing in.
None of these contortions phase his buddy in the least, if, in fact, he is even aware that his friend is wiggling around. The fair-haired boy is wearing a pair of baggy (of course) denim shorts complete with large logo on one leg, and a styled denim jacket in a very now acid wash, fully buttoned to the throat, where he has tied on a grey bandana, old west style, like a bandit about to pull it up over his face just before the bank robbery. Clean sneakers, no baseball cap. And then he opens up his pie-hole and does not stop. He talks like a seriously "gangsta" inner-city thug. Reminds me of Jamie Kennedy in Malibu's Most Wanted. A lot.
It is a rant about how all these people are going to work in offices where they are going to talk on their cell phones and sit on their asses and make piles of money whereas he is a poor working guy who does construction and gets laughed at by the stiffs in their Chryslers. America is doomed to crash. America deserves to crash. But he and his friend will be OK, because they are the poor and the downtrodden and they have better survival skills.
When the power goes out, and OH IT WILL, all of us will be down, and he will be on top and he'll know what to do then, oh, YES HE WILL and we will all be working with our hands and suffering because the (and I quote) SPICS and the NIGGAS will be on top. The working peeps who know what it's like to blahblahblahblah. Then there was a slight digression as he explained where the term spic came from... except I don't think the last letter began with a C...or a K. Anyway.
But America is going to CRASH and it'll be worse than the Great Depression in his granddaddy's day. (HUH? This asshat knows about the Great Depression? I'll be damned.) OH YES IT WILL. And he's got the popcorn ready.
OK. You get the gist. Repeat with variations ad nauseum for the ten minutes we are stuck at the station (although while he was on the people in the towers with their cell phones portion, there was a general fleeing of the ship by the rats in question), followed by more variations on a theme for another ten to fifteen minutes while we creep along the el to my stop. He was still going on when I left.
But, and here's the thing, for all his anti-Capitalist Pig, anarchy in UK posturing, the kid is wearing new clothes, in new styles with highly visible branding. And while I have no way of knowing his level of education, he at least was awake long enough to learn about the Great Depression and even able to place it in the correct time frame... which is more than I can say for a lot of high school graduates.
He is bragging that he's got his popcorn ready when America falls (never mind that Gill Scott Heron said that the revolution will not be televised), which would indicate that he has a home, and the money to pay the electric bills and fork over the buck fifty for a bag of Jiffy Pop. He talked about his job, working hard with his hands. So, anarchy boy? Aren't you just more of the same as me? Job. Rent. Food. Clothes. Mass Transit. TV. Electric bills.
Sucks being the man, don't it?
Bow before my most excellent code warrior skills, mere readers.
I have fixed the errant code. I have reclaimed my blog.
I have added another Pandemonium podcast.
But now? I have to empty the dishwasher, feed the dogs, take a shower and get my ass to the office.
For some reason, oh, just a wild-ass guess here, but possibly because I updated a page or two in GoLive, this site has reset itself to March and it won't let go.
I've rebuilt. I've researched the code. I've rebuilt. I've rewritten the code. I've rebuilt.
And still? I get a default back to March.
It's late. I have a headache from trying to figure this out. I quit until tomorrow.
This is pretty much for RJ and any other sister who felt offended by my entry yesterday.
When I said that I spent the first thirty of my working years as a "real" professional, versus my current status as an executive assistant, I did not mean to demean the status of secretaries. RJ, in her comment, pointed out that she's been making a living at this since she graduated college.
In my book, that does indeed make her a professional. I, on the other hand, fell into this job by the grace of the man I work for. I can type and file, and answer phones. I can make copies and meetings, and if I had to, flight reservations. But it isn't what I ever planned to do. I never searched the want ads, looking for this gig.
I was an art director. I was a web master. I was a corporate artist/hack. Those jobs entailed skills and the training I received during my four years of art school. I have a degree in graphic design. I spent years going to seminars, taking classes, keeping current on trends in color, design and printing techniques. I did for a living what I studied in college.
I never had to support myself by selling shoes in the mall, or, excuse me, using my ability to type.
I thought I made clear that I respect the women and men in secretarial positions. I know who holds the power in the corporate world. And if, like RJ, this is your chosen field, then you are working in your chosen profession.
I am not. I am working for a living, because after I was down-sized, I couldn't find a job as a designer. I hadn't done print in six years, and people didn't want to hire me for print because the industry had changed so much since the last time I sent a job to press. Everything is direct to press these days, no boards, no paste-ups, no type setting by (other) professionals.
I couldn't get a job as a web master, because 1) I earned too much money and nobody believed that I'd take a cut in pay that steep to continue working 2) I only had two web sites in my portfolio and even though one of them was over a thousand pages, and I'd built it entirely by myself, web designers half my age (and salary demands) have portfolios with dozens of sites and 3) I'm 50 years old, and that's getting pretty long in the tooth for this field.
In short: too old, too well paid, too long in the corporate world to be allowed in to the agency world.
Am I bitter? Not too much, not any more.
I work for a wonderful company and I have a wonderful boss. I have no responsibilities that I carry home to worry about. I have more creative energy for my own work than I have had in years.
But on the other hand, I get no respect. I am treated by one of the directors I work for like the lowest field hand on the plantation. If the stupid bitch chews me one more new asshole, I'll look like a fucking sieve. And not because I've done anything wrong, or failed to meet a deadline, or do anything she's asked me to do. She does it because she can. Because she's a director and I'm an executive assistant. She's reamed me out for following her orders and the person she insulted through me got offended. Now it's my fault he's pissed. She's reamed me out for not following up on things she's ordered others to do. She's made me spend hours and hours ordering paper clips for her. The first box she sent back because they were plastic coated. The second box she sent back because they were too big. The third box never arrived at her off-site office (she says). The fourth box was just right. And then she had me order a box of the bigger size that she'd already sent back before.
In the time it took me to do all that, and the money the company spent paying me to do it, she could have gotten in her car, driven to the nearest Staples, bought a box of paper clips, filed the paper work to be reimbursed the mileage and petty cash and been done with it.
But where would the power play be in that?
