remembering to breathe

Today was one of those days where you find yourself in the government classroom. It's got the beige painted walls, and surely they're lead based paint. For some reason, the heat is on about 90˚ and there's that sort of grade-school scent of piss on the radiators which is only made slightly more nauseating by the constant green flicker of the failing low-end fluorescents over head. There's a projector off to the side of the classroom, and you're sitting in an old highschool chair, the kind that has the desk attached, and you're waiting for "the slide-show" to begin, which is really nothing more than a powerpoint slide show where the images are all text on a blank field, and the text is being read aloud only about 10 beats slower than you might read it yourself. Unemployment | retraining class. It's one of those things you have to do if you want to keep getting your checks. In my case the class was about 3 hours today, because people kept complaining about the heat, or that they had someplace else they had to be.

It's days like this that I find myself the most irritated about The System. It just feels so clunky and big and useless. When I was finished "getting oriented with unemployment" I had to wait until my name was called to go over my qualifications. Unfortunately, the guy who called me really wasn't in the mood to talk with people who could clearly be out getting a job for themselves, and I happen to be one of those guys. He looked at my resume, looked at me, and said, "yea. There's not much I'm going to be able to do for you. I mean, we never have jobs like this here." to which I replied, "yea. I know what you mean. I was thinking the same thing when I got the notice from the department of labor saying that if I didn't show up, my benefits would be suspended. It is frustrating isn't it?"

And a few key strokes later, he found a photography place that was looking for someone to come in and work for 12 bucks an hour. No experience necessary, however they did require a Master of Fine Arts degree. That was reassuring.

I asked about what were the hot jobs on deck this week at the NY deparment of labor, and he said there's been a lot of opportunity with Fresh Direct, (that's like the east coast version of HomeGrocer.com) and he asked if I thought I might be interested in working over there?

I told him I'd love to, but the thing is, I've been trying to get Fresh Direct to deliver to RedHook for a few years now, and as it turns out, they only deliver to about 10 blocks from here. They just put the posters on all the bus stops to drive a fella crazy. (see, in redhook, as far as groceries go, there's nothing. I mean, if you don't mind some swiss cheese that hangs out by the cat food, I mean, the cat food on the floor in a crappy little paper bowl for the mangey old cat that's creeping all over the place, or a selection of dressings and sauces that never get out of the WIC category...) So I said, Since they won't deliver to me, I have to boycott that offer. Just on principle. It's not about ME. It's about ma'peeps.

I'm not sure if he got it.

After some small talk with the guy in the resource room (a bank of 20 Dell Computers) about 911, the president's involvement, and various other "conspiracy theories" I was feeling pretty hungry. Had myself a Reuben and a Salad with this new drink called Snow. I didn't care for it very much, but I liked the concept. I could go for a sparkling mint beverage sometimes. I just don't think they got the recipe right.

And then I walked back to the house, and there you have it. I spent the rest of the day getting today's update online there, and probably tomorrow I'll begin work on that archive thing I was talking about. I might start making some new buttons for the japanside tonight, but probably I'll eat some dinner and see if I can get in on some reality tv. You know, sort of take it easy.

As you'll see, it was a rocking weekend, and I do have to catch up on my beauty sleep.

One of my favorite parts about the weekend, aside from ass and trash and booze all over the place, was that my friend, Miss Kosteski was up from Virginia. Really good times. Look around, you'll see her in there from time to time. Nice thing about photos is it keeps the memories fresh in your mind.

already it is gray now, and rainy. That's what makes all those blue sky pictures so nice to fall back on. Days like this one.

welp. I gots to eat.

for thanksgiving this week I'm having one of them Turduckens. That's when they take a turkey, and shove a duck up its ass. And then they take a chicken, and shove it up the duck's ass. And in this case, after they do that, they take a bunch of shredded pig meat and mix it with some rice, and shove that all up the chicken's ass.

I tell you what. There's nothing like sitting at the top of the food chain.

kisses,

dTown 49˚ rainy, listening to Mike Doughty. (busting up a starbucks)