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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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It's a blocked call and I should know better but I answer it.
There's been a few the past few days and I've not been around to answer them, out getting groceries or hitting the thrift shops looking for treasures. But I get this one, I'm curious, if it's sales I can end it quickly enough.
It's the restaurant where I used to work. They do the blocked call thing because no one who's ever worked there, works there still, ever answers the phone when they ring. They know better. It's G and he chats for a minute - then asks if I'm interested in going back to work.
Now the fact is I've been working on my resume, polishing it, code scraps and portfolio, grueling cover letters, grueling only because to write a good cover letter might take an hour or two, writing an excellent one takes substantially longer. And so it's been open now on the computer for some 24 hours waiting for me to plug in the exact right phrase, the precise inflection - intonation - that will make it PERFECT.
It's that way with everything. TO make something good takes only 50% of the time, to make it perfect takes the other 50%. To make something lousy takes 75% of your time but it will sell really quick when you get it to Ikea. There's a bigger market for crap than there is for quality, regardless of the price.
Now I'm not keen, not keen at all to go back to the restaurant and I tell him, but I'm putting out resumes and I'm not sure of my prospects in the world of IT. So I'm stuck and he's asking the hard questions - "Can I.... come back to work...just theoretically....." and I have to answer yes. It's time. But hopefully not on the soul destroying schedule I had before, something a little more - well, varied, something that allows for a life outside the restaurant.
That's all he wanted to know. We'll talk next time I come in for coffee. And the circus resumes....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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It's only taken me about 5 months, but I've finally started unpacking the office.
There's a reason it's taken me so long, 4 moves in the past 3 years, I'm loathe to ornament any of my surroundings with the slightest permanence.
But it has to be done, there are projects that will require me be somewhat organized, have a desk, a place to work, and so I begin.
The Office, without a doubt, is the coolest room in my house.
First there are the boxes of books. Now there is no way I'll be able to unpack even the smallest portion of the books I'll need, so I go through a few of the opened boxes and pick out a few I think I might need. Unread books command their own shelf. Later, when I renovate I'll fill the closet with shelves and unpack more of them.
There's the printing boxes to be hung and filled with curios, this takes a number of efforts, like me they seem to resist any attempts at permanent installation, after a few false starts they're hung and filled with precariously balanced curios and knick-knacks. There are paintings hung all over the wall, more paintings, pictures, more curios to be dusted and displayed, antlers, clocks, microscopes, rosaries, voodoo and ju-ju dolls, artifacts, fossils, the list is endless. It's like Christmas, unpacking these countless things I'd forgotten I even have.
Eventually it begins to come together. There's about a half dozen boxes filled with papers and notebooks - scraps of ideas, poems, drawings for when I learn to draw (better!), art ideas, treatments for plays and movies. These will be sorted through - one at a time, reduced, notes without illustrations will be ripped from their binding and transcribed - in an equally loose and disorganized fashion, onto the computer. It's psychic baggage, almost 25 years of not-writing to be organized and not-typed onto the computer; it's grueling, this, like moving: To move someone else's belongings requires but trivial time and strength; to move ones own stuff demands Herculean effort.
But there's a vague resolve to get this dealt with this year. This will be the year. Meanwhile I go downstairs, loot amongst the many boxes for the possessions I believe I've mislaid, help to find them and help them to find their place in the office.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Now there's 10 minutes worth of vacuuming to be done and I'm on a bit of a roll, I think I might manage to get to it today. I've already:
- Made the Bed
- Washed the Dishes
- Started the laundry
- Scooped the kitty litter
And so the vacuuming, it should get done. I've agonized over it for several weeks, the carpet getting worse and worse in the meantime, going from a cream color to the putrid orange of a certain cat, I've watched it, restless, from the sofa thinking to myself that if only I could just vacuum I would be able to move on to unpacking the office, cleaning the kitchen, sweeping the entry way...
If only.
I've wondered what's so tough about this, that I need spend countless hours avoiding something that would take me all of 10 minutes to do, avoiding something that would allow me to breathe easier, move forward with my new clean life in the New Year, I've analyzed myself and thought that it must be a mental illness, something rare and undiagnosed and probably incurable, I've shaded my eyes as I walk up the stairs so I wouldn't see the wool-nuts and lint caught in the carpet, wondered at the issues that would allow me to live with, live in, however uncomfortably, such a mess, I've thought back to my childhood and tried to identify the underlying issues that must have led to this, the hopelessly dirty carpet.
And I think that maybe I'm over intellectualizing things and maybe I should just vacuum.
And finally I did. It took ten minutes. Now I have to unpack the office.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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I've never in my life gotten an oil change, but it's not my car and so it will be done. One is better to other people's possessions than one is to one's own.
It's an 8:00 AM appointment at the VW dealership, 8:00 AM because I was taken off guard and couldn't be bothered to argue. 8:00 AM.
I should get up at 8:00 AM more often, think of all the things I could get done!
So at 8:00 AM, or shortly thereafter I check the car into the shop. It's an oil change, but it's a regular - every 10,000 KM servicing as well, and as he's telling me what needs doing I'm noticing the shop hours posted - $150.00, $175.00, One Million Dollars an hour, + depending on the make of your car. And he's checking the service record, telling me they'll need to purge the fuel injectors and this and that and I'm getting a bit dizzy, I wave my hand..."Just how much will it be, all told?".
"Around $500.00"
"Is there anything wrong with it?" I ask.
"No, no, well, we hope not. This is just regular maintenance".
Now me, I always thought people bought new cars so they wouldn't be confronted with bills like this, not have them scheduled in as a "matter of fact", but then, what do I know. It'll take them a couple of hours, I wander over to the mall, not open except for the Tim Hortons, pick up a coffee and sit down to wait. I'll need to get a job. Soon. Fortunately, wandering around the mall I can see lots of the shops are hiring. There's no end to opportunity here.
Eventually it's after 10:00 and I return to pick up the car. Everything is fine, $508.00 later, and they've booked me in in another 6 months. He tells me they've added some fuel additive to the gas, I should fill the car to get my "Maximum Value" out of it, and I'm thinking that they've changed the oil, dumped some fuel additive into the gas tank and just billed me over $500.00. I'd want to see me soon as well. Who in life chooses to become a doctor? Why would you when you could become a Volkswagen Mechanic and earn probably double, on better hours and with far, far less work?
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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The New Year, and the standard heap of resolutions. How to set yourself up for failure.
Now I have the same yellowed piece of paper that I've had the past 20 odd years, filled with the things that need changing. I'll post it above the desk for a few weeks before taking it down and carefully laying aside so I can check my progress next year. Generally I find I can just reuse the old list.
This year there are a few additions - Unpack & cleaning being high amongst them. And so I've begun to clear a path through the office - there's no way I'll get EVERYTHING I have into that rather tiny space, and so there will have to be a selection process, then a pile of boxes will be filed downstairs. When the office is done then there's the living room, not so tough but again overdue, there's no living done there, rather it's more the private quarters of a particular cat. There are the renovations (the unpacking was to follow the renovations, but in the absence of any immediate progress I'll unpack. That's a sure charm certain to guarantee me all the luck I'll need finding my materials...).
So far the New Year is looking rather like the old year.