Then it hit me…

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I was reminded of this poster tonight when I ran across an interview with its creator (Update: the original link seems to have died, here’s the Internet Archive’s cached version).

Then it hit me..., Seattle, WA

When did “it” (the concept for the poster) hit you?

Marilyn: I can remember exactly when “it” hit me. It was late one night after serving tables all afternoon and evening. I got home and I just laid down on the floor. I was exhausted and staring at the ceiling of my room thinking “what the fuck?” knowing that I would have to be back at the restaurant the next day and the day after and the day after…it just starts wearing you out, especially when you’re not interested in the work. […] With a 9-5 your time is completely strangled and sucked up.

[…] You go from pre-school to elementary school to middle school to high school and then off to college. Everyone is telling you how great you are going to be along the way like “Keep up the good work!”

Suddenly college is over and you’re pushed out into the meat-grinder (workforce) with no work experience and often times you just get ground up by employers who aren’t interested in you as a human being. All they care about is that you wear your name tag, smile, and work for next to nothing. It’s tricky.

I go through times like this every so often — generally, right around my birthday, when I roll another year forward without feeling like I’ve actually progressed anywhere of note. It hasn’t been hitting me as strongly this year as it has in the past (something I’m incredibly grateful for), but — without getting into much detail at all — recent frustrations at work (nothing in particular, just the usual day-to-day frustrations that come with any job) have stirred it up a touch.

Knowing myself and the way I work, chances are that it’ll fade away again before too terribly long (not entirely coincidentally, probably about the time things settle down on the work front again). Still…better to recognize that it’s there and work my way through it than just try to shove it onto my mental back burner where it can sit and simmer unattended until it boils over.

Current plans have Prairie and I moving in together in a few months, and as soon as possible afterwards, I’ll be taking a break from the 40-hour, 9-5 work week and putting my skinny butt back in school. Right now, I’m really looking forward to being able to do that, and start finding a way to give my brain something more challenging than glorified trained monkey work.

It won’t happen overnight, of course…but it’s long past time that I finally started down on that path. It’ll be nice when it happens, and it’s getting closer every day….

iTunes “Overture (from West Side Story)” by Green, Johnny/Orchestra from the album Movie Music: The Definitive Performances (1961, 4:40).

Camp Tomato!

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So yesterday was Jason Webley‘s Camp Tomato. Prairie and I weren’t entirely sure just what the day would have in store, but we figured it would be fun, so after waking her up from a nap — she, unfortunately, has been battling off the last stages of the same nasty bug I was fighting last week — we hopped in the car and headed over to Woodland Park.

(This one’s long, folks — around 3200 words, 17 images, and one video — the rest is after the cut….)

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Weekend Plans

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  • Friday: Dinner (Chicken curry, yum!) and probably some birthday cake (homemade carrot cake, also yum!) with Prairie, then the 10pm showing of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at the Cinerama (I so love going to geek-centric movies on opening night).

  • Saturday: Camp Tomato, followed by Jason Webley‘s spring concert at the Paradox.

  • Sunday: More birthday stuff at home (presents yay!), and probably watching Finding Neverland before Prairie has to head home in the afternoon. Right now, my evening is probably going to be seeing if I can sort/delete/backup enough stuff on my ‘puter to let me do a complete clean install (aka Nuke and Pave) when Tiger arrives.

Not a bad little lineup for the weekend, I’d say.

Random bits

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Just some of the stuff that’s been catching my eye lately as I try desperately to get caught up in my reading before the weekend hits.

One step forward…

Connecticut on Wednesday became the second state to offer civil unions to gay couples — and the first to do so without being forced by the courts.

About an hour after the state Senate sent her the legislation, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed into law a bill that will afford same-sex couples in Connecticut many of the rights and privileges of married couples.

“The vote we cast today will reverberate around the country and it will send a wave of hope to many people, to thousands of people across the country,” said Sen. Andrew McDonald, who is gay.

…two steps back.

Step one:

Texas could become the only state to bar gays from becoming foster parents under legislation passed Wednesday by the House.

“It is our responsibility to make sure that we protect our most vulnerable children, and I don’t think we are doing that if we allow a foster parent that is homosexual or bisexual,” said Republican Rep. Robert Talton, who introduced the amendment.

Under the Texas bill, anyone who applies to be a foster parent or a foster parent whose performance is being evaluated must say whether he or she is homosexual or bisexual. Anyone who answers yes would be barred from serving as a foster parent. If the person is already a foster parent, the child would be removed from the home.

Step two:

Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.

“I don’t look at it as censorship,” says State Representative Gerald Allen. “I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children.”

Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” has lesbian characters.

Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare. After criticism, he narrowed his bill to exempt the classics, although he still can’t define what a classic is.

“

Gilbert and Sullivan review Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)

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The Safari browser now subscribes to R.S.S. news feeds,
And its “private browsing” mode conceals the tracks of online deeds.
There are archives now, and log files, when you send or get a fax;
You can make the pointer bigger on those Jumbotron-screened Macs.
You can start a full-screen slide show from some photos on demand;
And the voice that reads the screen aloud can lend the blind a hand.
There’s a password-phrase suggestor meant to make yours more secure,
And the Grapher module draws equations simple and obscure.
Then the Automator program is a geeky software clerk –
You just choose the steps you want performed, and it does all the work.
There’s a lot of miscellany, lots of spit-and-polish stuff,
But it works and doesn’t slow you down – and these days, that’s enough.

— David Pogue, in the New York Times

(via adavies42, on /. — I originally didn’t notice the poem in the NYT article thanks to their horrid online formatting)

Serenity

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Okay, okay, okay already. When no less than four people on my reading list mention the trailer for Serenity — the upcoming movie from Joss Whedon‘s Firefly show — and I’ve barely started going through my feeds for the day, I figure I should probably check it out.

Dori:

You’ve heard us rave about Firefly and how much we’re looking forward to Serenity, but now, you can go see why for youself: the first trailer was just released. Oh. My.

Shelley:

Thanks to you all I have become addicted to this show and have now watched the entire series three times in a very short period of time. Wonderful show, and the movie looks to be as good.

Tvindy:

Today they released the trailer for Joss Whedon’s new Firefly movie. It looks pretty good. Who knows? Maybe they’ll even base a series on it.

Jacqueline:

Scot got it right when he called it “distilled awesome”.

Admittedly, I’m intrigued. I can’t quite match the level of excitement that other people are, though that may be because I’ve yet to watch Firefly (I just finished Buffy a few months ago, and finally wrapped up Angel last week), so I think I need to pop that onto the top of my Netflix queue. But I know that I generally like Joss Whedon’s work, I’ve heard nothing but good things about Firefly so far, the effects look nice, and there’s some fun dialogue in the trailer.

We’ll see how amped up I get after I know a little more about this thing…

This could get pretty interesting.

Define ‘interesting’.

…’Oh God, oh God, we’re all gonna die?’

iTunes “It Can’t Rain All the Time” by Siberry, Jane from the album Crow, The (1994, 5:35).

There is hope…

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I refused to read any further than the first two sentences, but towards the end of his latest post, Kevin Smith has this to say about Revenge of the Sith:

“Revenge of the Sith” is, quite simply, fucking awesome. This is the “Star Wars” prequel the haters have been bitching for since “Menace” came out, and if they don’t cop to that when they finally see it, they’re lying.

Rethinking

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In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

— Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address

(via Atomic Playboy)

Lost broach

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Tree broach, Seattle, WA

Walking up Pike St. towards Piecora’s this evening, the glint of the setting sun off of the stones in this broach caught my eye. It was wedged into a knothole in a tree by the side of the street, about a foot above eye level. Missing stones let the gold tones of the metal shine, surrounded by the purples and blues of the remaining gems.

It looked like a child’s plaything, toy jewelry once prized as it adorned the dress of a young girl. Eventually lost as she walked down the street hand-in-hand with her mother, slipping away and bouncing into the gutter, small stones scattering across the sidewalk. Found by some random passerby when the glint of something shiny caught their eye. They picked it up and examined it, decided that it was worthless — an evaluation the little girl would be sure to argue — and, as they continued on their way through Seattle, they reached up and placed it into a convenient resting place on a tree.

There it sits, casting its small colored beams at people as they pass. Some glance up and wonder how it got there, most just walk by, not paying any attention at all.

And one young girl, slightly saddened by the loss of her pretty jewelry, asks her mom as she is tucked in at night if they can go back to the dollar store — where even a child’s allowance can uncover treasures beyond imagining — and find another sparkly for her outfit.

Smiling, her mother assures her that they will. One kiss on the forehead, and the young girl drifts off to sleep, to dance in the golds, blues, and purples of a child’s dreams.

iTunes “Back in My Life” by Alice DeeJay from the album Who Needs Guitars Anyway? (1999, 3:29).