January 24–29, 2002 — Another day back

I was talking to my mom on the phone a few days ago, and I asked if she could try to find a Margaret Atwood quote for me, one that she had read to me when she first found out about my journal. She found it for me; she also found this one, and I typed it out as she read it to me over the phone: “Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we’re still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants.”

The quote that I had asked about, one about the difficulties of writing the truth if you know that someone, even yourself, is going to be reading it later, was for an article that I was trying to write for a zine on zines; I kind of wonder if the quote above might have been a bit more apt.

Anyway, now that I’ve put my web site in its place by comparing it to a urine-soaked fire hydrant, we can get on with things.

When I started this entry, I was surprised to find that I had five days to write about. It feels like it should be three at that most. Maybe that’s part of being employed, I wonder?

Regardless, I forget all of Thursday. I know that I didn’t work on Thursday, so I was probably supposed to do something constructive. But I probably didn’t, and, if I did, I can’t remember what it was. So that’s one less day to write about.

Which brings us to Friday.

I booked Friday off from work to see Cuff The Duke play at the Cameron House. The afternoon went fairly quickly, and I left for Jeff and Amy’s house to kill time before the show without getting anything done at home.

The venue was quite small, which made for a nice, intimate show. Cuff The Duke brought along trail mix to throw into the crowd when they finished their set; some of the more ungrateful members of the crowd were throwing it back, but I ate four little packages of it before I left instead of buying food on the way home.

As I was leaving, Jeff said that there was probably a seat for me to go to the show in Hamilton the next night, but duty (and, to a lesser extent, smoothies) called.

Saturday was my first shift at the smoothie bar. I was scheduled to work from 5:30 pm to 10:00 pm, so I spent the afternoon wandering downtown with Jeff before making my way to work. I timed my arrival at the store poorly and was around two minutes late. (Which is especially bad given that we’re always supposed to be five minutes early.) Luckily, my boss wasn’t there and the slip-up went unnoticed.

I arrived at work plenty early for my next two shifts, which were on Sunday and Monday, respectively. And since not much else happened on Sunday and Monday, I’m going to dedicate a few paragraphs to a quick rundown of my experiences thus far at my first real job outside an office.

Surprisingly, I haven’t caused too many disasters just yet. I put one smoothie onto the blender without putting a lid on the blender jar, but it made far less of a mess than I expected, and no one noticed except for me and one customer. (And the one customer kept it to herself.) There have also been a couple of incidents that involved me forgetting to give a customer change or forgetting to charge a customer altogether, but both were made right before the customer in question left, so it worked out in the end.

It will never cease to amaze me how much of an idiot I am when it comes to a lot of common sense things, though. I get odd looks from my boss when I ask questions like, “How does one go about dicing peppers?” and, “What does parsley look like?” but I’m convinced that one of these days I’ll have things figured out.

My other ongoing embarrassment is my inability to scoop some flavours of sorbet without having my arms shake out of weakness and disuse. I have to use both hands, and it’s still not easy. I’m surprised no customers have outright laughed at me yet. My boss saw me struggling with the frozen yogurt and teased me, saying that it was the softest one. I need to exercise more, I think.

But, all things considered, my new job isn’t so bad. Jeff and Amy visited once, saying that I reminded them of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, and I must admit that it’s nice to finally have a job with so little responsibility involved. When I worked in front of a desk, I always ended up thinking about work far too much after I had left, and I had a very hard time doing anything creative when even my dreams would end up crowded with thoughts of computer programming and office politics. Meanwhile, stress at my current job is limited to waiting out the repairs to the air conditioner that will allow for the store to be cooled to somewhere below 32–degrees Celsius (which is uncomfortably warm and then some, in case anyone still resisting the metric system is reading along), and thoughts of smoothies don’t really distract me after I leave.

Which pretty much sums up work so far.

Today felt like the start of my weekend, so I made the most of it by going numb for most of the day. I went to the grocery store, but I forgot half of what I was there to buy. And I didn’t succeed in my attempts to do laundry.

While I was playing video games with the lights off in Johnston’s room during the afternoon, our landlord came upstairs. She looked around, even going so far as to look into Johnston’s room, but she didn’t notice me sitting in the dark. Then, thinking no one was home, she went into the kitchen and started going through cupboards and drawers. Then she left with what sounded like several metal objects in a plastic bag.

I’m sure there’s some sort of explanation for this, but, until I hear it, I’m going to assume that she’s stealing our utensils. And if there’s ever been a reason to be intentionally late with rent, I think I’ve finally found it...

There was another Cuff The Duke show tonight, this time at Lee’s Palace.

I walked to the show, and it turned out to be a much shorter walk than I’d expected it to be. The streets are mostly downhill from St. Clair Avenue to Bloor Street, so the trip goes fairly quickly.

(Walking alone at night down poorly lit streets and seeing that no one is around always makes me notice how much my wallet bulges out of my front pocket. I made it another night without being mugged, though, which is a success in itself. Although I don’t look forward to the day when my luck runs out.)

The show was fun. The sound wasn’t as good as it had been at the Cameron House, but we were able to stand up, and there was a lot of clapping along. And I felt a little bit less claustrophobic inside the larger venue, too.

Before Cuff The Duke went on, I nervously tore apart a flyer that I had found on our table when we arrived. Then, when the first band went on, Johnston, Sarah, and I tried to piece it back together. This was a lot more fun than it sounds in retrospect.

After the show, I asked Jeff if I could borrow his old bass so that I could learn lots of Joy Division bass lines. He said yes. Things are looking up.

And now I’m home.

I’m feeling a lot better in general. It’s easier to write, and I’ve more ideas than I’ve had in a long time. Once the the first issue of the antigreg print edition is finished (I’m aiming to have copies made by February 28 so that I can call it the February issue without lying), I’ve a couple of other print things that I’d like to do. I’ve less time now that I’m employed, but I’m getting more done than I have lately, which can’t not be good.

So. Tomorrow, then. I’ve buttons to make, message boards to setup, and stories to finish. And maybe even a journal to write; I’ve no smoothies to make until Friday, after all, so I’ll have no excuse beyond laziness. Not that that isn’t an excellent excuse...