You’ve got…PEE-MAIL. Just in time for winter….

Mr. Husband is wrapping up week two of his New Job, the one his grandmother refers to as a “real job,” since everyone knows that taxi driving is for “alcoholics and drifters.”

After two years as a cabbie, I’m surprised that Seth didn’t become one or both of those things.

Two years of driving around whores, old lady rummies, and people to a “pick up” at a meth house three blocks away from our house.

Two years of people shitting their pants, leaving drugs behind, and being driven to the Shoreline casinos when they open at ten o’clock in the morning.

Two years of driving junkies to the methadone clinic on the state’s dime, sometimes from two hours away, and usually daily, as well as driving around giant boxes of blood and tissue samples to the labs to make some extra dough.

Driving crazy people with alien implants to the hospital where they take crazy people.

If that’s not a REAL job, then fuck, what is?

So now he sits at a desk, at his “real job,” and orders sheet music for a local instrument and sheet music chain.

“Is it better?” I say.

“I guess, but you know I run into the same kinds of people in the warehouse as when I was driving. They swear like pirates.”

This is funny, because he makes it sound like he went to college with a bunch of pirates or something, and knows.

“Well, what do you mean?” I say. He knows I am not flinchy.

“This UPS driver comes in all the time to drop packages off, and he walks up to the head guy in the warehouse, and he says, ‘What’s up, cum-drippins?”

“WHAT? That’s a very weird insult.”

“Yeah, they’re weird all the time. The UPS driver is black, and the manager said something about him being colored. And the driver called him a koala bear cracker.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, the manager’s from Australia, I guess it was a reference to that.”

“Oh.”

A “real” job. I guess that entails working in a place with a non-stop barrage of bizarre, made-up insults. I am keeping a list.

Cum-drippins, penis flakes, fucking fuck-donkey, jizz hound, Aussie ass-muncher (from the UPS guy, again), sideways fuckbag. I swear I am not making this up.

In Other News

Sometimes it’s fun to run over to the Goog and enter a common mispelling of a word to see what pops up. So the question of the day is, where is Austrailia? Apparently it offers “fun times, scenic views and friendly people.” I want to go there. Do you think it’s cheaper to fly to than Australia?

Speaking of geography, I think surveys like this are super stupid and pointless. Okay, so young Americans can’t find Iraq. Can most older people who aren’t from that region? Really, if you take the names off of any map, don’t country shapes just look like a bunch of arbitrary blooges?

I would also argue that the reason people flunk these little mini-quizzes is because they DON’T GIVE A SHIT. I mean, in a capitalist society like this one, there has to be some kind of REWARD for a correct answer. Something to generate effort. There has to be a carrot at the end of the stick. I answer survey questions falsely when I get snookered and find out someone is just mining my brain for information, and there’s no payoff at the end.

I imagine a bunch of eager-beaver scientists, standing around at a typical college campus. “Hey, kid, got ten minutes?” I can see the look on the student’s face as they’re rushing to class, or to their drug connection, or home to sleep.

“What, no prize? Not even a a candy bar?” The student thinks for a moment. “Where’s Iraq?” DOINK. The finger lands somewhere in the vicinity of the Indian Ocean. “Somewhere over there, who the fuck cares?”

Also, for a generation of people (myself included) who have been raised with the unconscious message that WE (the U.S.) are the center of the universe, why would a person be motivated to look outside our borders? Some would call it nationalism, but I say it extends beyond that. Other people from other places may look to us as the enemy, or a place of opportunity, but we don’t even need to leave unless we want to scope out how quaint some other country is, or grab some delicious food or art. For WE are the CENTER.

I see survey results like this and it makes me want to spit, because the subtext is that our people don’t NEED to know anything, because we are so rich and taken care of, and our society is *whispers* a little caddywampus but, hey, there’s nothing BETTER out there than what we have.

Of course those Swedish kids knew where we are, we’re the U-S-FUCKING-A!

My sister totally cracks my shit up. She has this live journal thing going on, and I love it when she goes on a tear. If you check it out, she’s Modesto720, the person who was ripping the random chatter a new one.

I am really aware of a generation gap between us when I read entries like this– the fact that she was IM-ing while she was writing a paper. I am incapable of multi-tasking like that. That’s the whole Gen-Y thing, right? Doing school work, eatin a burrito, reading a comic book, and watching MTV2 all at the same time? Or maybe it just turned out to be a mediocre paper…

I still give people dirty looks for whispering in the Quiet Reading Room. I just can’t concentrate when YOU are LOUDLY WHISPERING about your YEAST INFECTION! That’ll teach me to try to study at school.

Ahh, school. Me and school don’t get along no more. Maybe this is symptomatic of grad school? Perhaps there has been so much school I am merely bitter and my heart has been replaced with pooey kitty litter?

So my Jive Ass Pr’fessor (NOT to be confused with Pr’fessor Hottie) was hoobley-hobbling on and on about how the customer service model should be applied to library service.

He spent a few minutes soliciting suggestions about how we can expand the reference interview if the question is as simple as, “What’s the postal code for Alaska?” in order to find out more information about the true nature of the user’s need.

Someone raised the point that you could offer some information about yourself, such as, “Oh, I have a brother who lives in Alaska.” According to the library laws (I guess) this may prompt the user to reply, “I’m sending a package there, (or) I’m finding out to settle a bet, etc, etc.” So you can help them the best way.

This prompted me to write the girl sitting next to me a note:

The SJ Alexander Model of Offering Information To The Questioner, In Order To Ascertain The True Nature of Their Need

Questioner: “Can you help me find some books on metacognition?”

Me: “Sometimes I lay on my kitchen floor and cry.”

Questioner: *runs*

Me: “Heh heh.”

In Other News

Does anyone else think that the new insipid, condescending J-Lo song should really be rewritten to be “I’m Just Jenny Smoking Cocks?” Cause I do. Obviously. And I can’t get that version out of my head.

Did you know that if she marries Ben Whofleck she will become “J-Aff?” Not so cool now, eh, J-AFF????

Ooh ooh ooh, so much to do. How will I find time to fuck off? I will just have to start getting up earlier, I guess. We at the offices of I, Asshole present to you: “Much Ado About What To Do: One Woman’s Guide To Purposefully Accomplishing Nothing, and Then Complaining About It Later.”

Should: Clean house. Scrub sink, especially scrub sink. Should have been cleaning, but read Fast Food Nation instead. Is that stuff churning around in the sink an evolved version of E. coli that needs to be Comet-ed back whence it came?

Will: Stand in the bathroom for forty-five minutes, plucking eyebrows into perfect twin arches of evil. Will then leave bathroom and exclaim loudly to no one in particular, “Whatta dump!”

Should: Start paper that is due Thursday. Must go to uni library and photocopy relevant articles. Must convince Mr. Husband to stay home with Frannie while I get on the bus, go down and come back.

Will: Realize that total bus ride/waiting time will take longer than actual article-fetching time. Will become frustrated, then apathetic, then sleepy, then hungry. Will then forget about paper until Wednesday.

Should: Take a shower; shave damn legs. Attempt to fulfill marital duties with Mr. Husband.

Will: Fall asleep reading The Yellow Fever Plague in Philidelphia, 1793. Mr. Husband will fall asleep immediately after becoming horizontal. What is it about years of marriage that turns sex into a concept, instead of a priority? And what does it say when both people are so tired/content they don’t even miss it?

Am I starting to sound like Phyllis Diller?

Should: Make dinner. “That’s some nice lamb I bought today, and it’s been so long since I made that Indian dish or…cooked at all.”

Will: Wait until my blood sugar gets so low I start swinging at people. “Who wants teriyaki and beer? Quit looking at me like that.”

Should: Make kitty food.

Will: Write in blog.

In Other News

Did you know that both Wil Wheaton and Shannen Doherty did voices in The Secret of NIMH? They sound like little pipsqueaks, because they both were.

Good stuff: Fametracker.com. Now 100% Wil Wheaton free.

Well. Just had my third paper assigned in two weeks, plus I’ve got a presentation to slap together to boot.

Looks like Trent McHugh’s murder is going to to have to go unsolved. Pity, I was so enjoying myself.

Part of me wants to say fuck it, libraries don’t want to look at your transcripts anyhow. I could just glide though getting Cs and write for fun in every spare moment.

Alas, I am anal retentive.

In more cheerful news, Mr. Husband got a new job. After two years of driving jerkasses around in his taxi, he is going to work behind a desk for eight hours a day. Salaried work is a great improvement over driving for twelve hours a day, sometimes making less than minimum wage. No more day-to-day stress. How much did you bring home today? Only eighty? Only forty? We’re out of diapers again? Fuck.

Now, like ordinary people, we will have the stress of living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Yakov Smirnoff: What a country!

In his honor, I’m going to start dragging over NorthEnd Taxi stuff from my old archiving spot.

In Other News

I met the Japanese translator that my presentation group is using for interviews. He is so adorable; if I could, I’d but him in my pocket.

I think he is nineteen or so. His name is Kentaro and he has only been here for a year, but he was immersed right into dorm life with a bunch of white kids, so he is really fluent.

When we were emailing back and forth I told him I couldn’t pay him, but I could write him a letter of recommendation and that our group would take him out to lunch. When I met him in person, he said, “Really? Lunch?” He was very excited.

I thought that maybe a person with such a valuable skill would be a little cutthroat about it. But he was just like, “YAY! Food!” He has a lot to learn. I refuse to take advantage of him though, even though I had to resist asking him to recite some of the French he’s been taking with EVERY BONE IN MY BODY. How cute is that? French with a Japanese accent. Oh I shouldn’t even be let out of the house.

OOH LA LA, was it a day.

Conclusion: my wallet was indeed stolen. Someone wiggled into my sunroof and fished around until they found it, as I was at least intelligent enough to put it out of sight. But then Mr. Husband left the sunroof open, and that did me in. I know, I know, DON’T leave your wallet in the car. But I did, for I am a jackass, and now I pay (but not with my debit card, because I cancelled it right away).

Also today, the one reading out of six that I choose not to do over the weekend is the one that my professor assigns for small group discussion.

Small Group Discussion: noun. 1. A gathering in which a small group of people (usu. 3-5) meet to discuss a particular matter, often in an academic setting. 2. Three viscious sharks that merely LOOK like future librarians surround SJ and repeatedly ask for her opinion on said reading, which causes her to reply, “I agree with you completely. Um-hmm. Yep.” Rather than being drawn towards blood, these Sharkbrarians are drawn by the cold sweat of inadaquacy.

(See definition #2)

In fact, I couldn’t really think at all today, so even if I had done the key reading I’d be in bad shape. Damn you PMS! Why must I turn into the wild, three-eyed FUCKMONSTER once a month?

Other conclusion: Academia: 1; SJ: 0.

In Other News

Librarian Zen Koan of the Day: “If a patron has a need for source that doesn’t exist, IS IT STILL A NEED?”

Ooh, that one’s going to keep me up tonight.

So…took the little Girlie to the library today, mostly because I was IN ARREARS with them. Arrears. God, I love that word.

Anyway, bad arrearage. More library fines than I’ve ever had: $20 (don’t ask). By the time I got there they had tacked on another four dollars, just for fun, I guess. I took the stuff back along time ago, I think in July. You’d think they’d be happy I am so supportive of the public library system. Now that I am a library student, the ALA should completely waive my membership dues, since I have been so arrearful to the library in the past.

I wanted to check more books out but I can’t find my wallet…I am having one of those days where everything’s a little unravelled.

Walletless, and out twenty-four and change, I decided to stick around and read some books to Girlie, instead of doing naptime reading at home. Frannie eventually decided to read on her own, and flipped through an extra-large picture book.

R-R-R-RIP. Shit. It’s okay, honey, I know it was an accident.

If I was alone, I could have just shoved the book down my pants and run out the door or flushed it down the toilet, of gutted the tatty stuffed lion (that I don’t want to touch but Girlie can’t get enough of) and made like the book was Luke Skywalker. But I couldn’t do any of that, for I must Set An Example.

“Umm, excuse me, my daughter ripped this book, and I know you have that special tape back here, and I’m really sorry.”

“Hmmph.” Glasses on a chain, the real deal.

“Do you want me to take this book to the front desk?”

“No no no, give it to me, alright.” Dismissed.

The whole library hates me. The ref librarian hates me because I let Girlie rip a book (I only looked away for a minute!), the Russian-speaking librarian hates me because I don’t speak Russian (the only time he smiles is when he checks out a Russian-speaking patron, seriously), and the young librarian hates me because she knows I am an arreariffic deadbeat patron.

How ironic that I will be joining their ranks in two short years. I’ll be fucking damned if I’m going to go the public route, though, and spend eight hours a day with that sourpuss look on my face like they do…bad for the complexion.

It is ten o’clock

my printer pukes out many pages

I will never read.

You want art? Sorry, he don’t live here.

Addendum, 10:10

Who can deny me

the sublime pleasures found in

slapping pink bottoms?

Headlines tomorrow: Area Woman, Found Chained To Printer; Apparently Starved To Death Waiting For Print Job To Finish

Oh so I take the bus to school now. Frannie is old enough now, and our schedules are more flexible, so I don’t have to drive and rush back home after.

Most of the time I like the bus, except when it’s too crowded, or the bus driver’s all shouty, or when some BI-ATCH has too much Ho Juice slathered on. Or when something happens like today.

I hopped on the bus and found a seat. Soon after, this guy gets on and tells the driver, did she know that one of the tires was completely shredded? The driver opened the front and back doors of the bus and just sat there. She didn’t make an announcement (“get off the bus, for this one goeth no further”), she didn’t respond to questions. Just sat there.

We all got off, slowly and with everyone all blinky and confused and tired. Yo ho, there was another 48 behind ours. I noted the shredded state of the tire on the old bus and moved on.

The new bus was full of the people who were already on, people who had accumulated at the bus stop since our broken-down bus had closed its doors, and now we were piling on, the disgorged contents of the broken bus.

We roll on, past the broken bus and broken driver. About five minutes in, “POOM!” the bus shakes and I have that feeling that comes from seeing sixty million movies where the wing rips off the airplane, and all the people and their stuff gets sucked out.

But no, it turns out that the insano driver had merely crashed into someone’s open car door. Again, no explanation, and this time he wouldn’t even open the back door to let us all out (again). I went to the Texaco and called Mr. Husband.

“Please! It’s a sign! I don’t want to get on another bus today!”

“Okay, hold tight, I’ll be there as soon as Girlie finishes her milk.”

I think bus drivers are secret Zen-masters-in-training. Once you get to the point where there is no flap that will unhinge you, you are immediately transformed into a Bodhisattva or one of those cute winged lions, ascending, leaving the bus to ghostride off the Aurora Bridge and burst into flames on the cement below.

In Other News

What the fuck is that jivey-ass Old Country Buffet commercial shit? It is getting Octobery, therefore my three months of righteous television disavowal have gone out the damn fenetre.

SO tonight I see this commercial for Ye Old Country Buffet, talking about waiters like they’re the fucking Anti-Christ. “Who wants a waiter?” I think it says. Fucking me, that’s who. I love waiters. Assuming you are patronizing the proper establishments, who else will feed you and act like they’re your best friend for forty-five minutes to an hour? I will take that over a fuzzy-lipped lad whose only job is to shave meat off of a giant wad of something unrecognizable until you tell them to stop.