I’m not here to make friends.
Don’t get me wrong, i like friends! I have lots of friends, and a very small list of people i’m neutral towards, and a tiny tiny handful of people i have feelings of hostility for. I had lots of friends in Admissions, and over a year after i started working there (and over a month since i stopped) i still do. This job is a bit different, though. I can’t really describe it … i suppose it’s the sense that processes are still being formulated. Even though there are upwards of thirty thousand records in this building, there are some things that are still getting nailed down … what to do with double-entries on the database, what the most efficient method of shelving is, and so on and so forth. Being at that particular place in an organization makes a huge difference in the role you take in it … i had a very active role in Admissions, but i didn’t really change anything — other than the order that the fact sheets are stacked in the closet.
The point, since i haven’t done anything to make it obvious thus far, is that it’s sometimes hard to be friendly when you’re trying to make sure the most efficient process is being put into place so that everyone doesn’t wind up putting in hours of extra work in the long run. Some things that seem smart to me – like using a normal library alphabetization scheme for the records on the shelves – winds up being a massive waste of time because it causes confusion and questions. I had to get up the nerve to ask why we weren’t putting the records in the “correct” order before finding this out, though, and suggesting to someone that they can’t alphabetize isn’t really a very friendly thing to do.
I don’t know if i had a point, really. Just that it’s a wholly different balance than Admissions was, and, despite early estimations, i’m definitely learning something from it.
work
I’m starting to feel sorry for the records. Not all of them, but boxes upon boxes.
Even though my taste in music runs pretty slim these days, i’m not ignorant; i know my Evelyn Champagne King, my DJ Shadow, my No Limits crew, and my Jets singles with blue rainbowed MCA labels on them. Still, i find myself going through boxes of LPs and singles, primarily Hip Hop, and not recognizing a single name. At first i was prone to write this off to ignorance, but after a week i’m sure that isn’t the case. The records i’m pawing through aren’t all big name acts … instead, they are debut singles, self-owned labels, and one hit wonders looking for a rebound. I don’t know them because they aren’t known.
The thing that gets me about these records, though, is the effort they took. It takes a couple of hours for me to get ready for a Trio, not counting the time i spent writing, arranging, and practicing. It took me an on&off month in the studio to record my demo cd, which is nearly all solo. How long do you think it takes to record a solid hip hop track? Brainstorming and refining the rhymes, finding a hook or a sample to build on, getting into the studio to lay it down, adding other instruments, remixing and editing …it’s a long labor. And, a labor of love. Singer-songwriter snob that i am, i tend to marginalize a lot of urban artists because they don’t write their own music and play their own instruments. But, they’re not Celine Dion, that’s for sure. They own the words, they built the beat, and they might have produced on it as well. Forgetting for a moment about their ridik-u-lezlee mizspellled namz and overblown posturing, they took the time to create something, and they were hoping to get noticed because of it
And they’re in my $6 bargain bin.
I often forget he exists in the same relative universe to mine, but occasionally i am reminded. We haven’t talked for a few months now, since work and Eagles playoff games got in the way of us seeing Lord of the Rings. Eventually he gave up on calling and i gave up on waiting. Nothing new to us, really.
On a quick break from audio samples going live i stole over to the phone to confirm the reservations for dinner tonight, and when i gave my name the voice on the other line exclaimed “The Pete [redacted]” to which i kindly replied that, no, i was the Peter [redacted] and that Pete happened to be my father. The voice gave a good natured chuckle and confirmed my reservations, asking afterwards if i’d be coming with The Pete.
“No, just the one of me.”
He assured me they’d be on high alert nonetheless.
I am reminded of my father in the strangest ways.
Spring brings a certain weariness with it these days. There is a pressure, a pressure behind my eyelids, that is trying to masquerade as tears. I know that it’s really just the rain, and the trees, and nature interfering with the artificial things i am expecting from my body. Nevertheless, i have almost been convinced to break down and weep, and within that inclination there is the tired forward motion of time.
The office is quiet; it feels like a Monday should feel. I don’t think anyone will notice me sniffling and wiping my cheek on my sleeve if i just do it here where i’m sitting. I’m going to miss this office… against my better judgment i’m trying to stay on here even though i’m moving on to my new job. It’s just something about these people, and how they read my face, and how they know exactly what my smiles mean. There’s something about them caring that i really don’t want to leave behind.
It’s funny how spring doesn’t always manage to play the part, even after i get so exciting about its approach. It’s a good thing that i feel like spring, anyhow…
I have been shocked as of late when it comes to the quality of relatively new blogs that have been linking me; case and point: the brand new and witty Still Life With Woodpecker and the DIY retro-spacecrafty Secret Rocket 13. A coincidence that both blogs linked to Rabi and various members of the GangBang family, plus the as-of-late awe-inspiring BlueLikeThat? Sure… and maybe it’s a coincidence that one of them links to my girlfriend too :p
Meanwhile, a cruise through GangBang reveals discussion of respected blogger Heather losing her job (via an always-crushed-on Shaun). Shaun speculates that that Heather’s kvetching about in-house incompetence in this post is involved in her termination, which her above post seems to corroborate.
The crossover from blog to real life has been brought into sharp focus lately through a boggling round of events that do not begin or end with my girlfriend-related link, or even the fact that my girlfriend has her own blog (which, if you were wondering, makes her exponentially sexier than your average girl, as she also plays a bit of guitar). It’s more that both her roommate and her boyfriend also have blogs (which i’ve recently linked), and that one of the boyfriend’s hallmates figured out that he was the boy behind the blog after he found the link on my page, of which he’s apparently a semi-regular reader. It’s about how the shower-guy messaged me to ask if he was the shower-guy who i was talking about. It’s about my page being on the history of half a dozen computers in the Admissions Office. It’s about Sara, Laurel, Lauren, Elise, and god knows who else spending couples of hours each catching up on my archives. This has become the virtual 500-pound-gorilla of my hobbies and interests, and try as i might i can’t seem to keep it separated from my real life at this point for longer than a month or two after i meet someone new. And, honestly, i’ve always wanted it to be exactly that … something you have to take notice of … but, i suppose i never really thought it through until now.
The GangBang post combined with these recent events hits especially close to home today, as earlier i interviewed for a very tech-savvy co-op internship with a Fortune500 company based out of Philadelphia and was quizzed at length about my level of internet know-how. While my interviewer whole-heartedly agreed that my personal site talking about brushing my teeth and other such navel-gazing nonsense wasn’t something he wanted to use for or against his decision to hire me, he did perk up at my descriptions of Blogger and Little Yellow Different and furiously wrote both addresses down on his legal pad (presumably to surf to later). While i’m not exactly the featured link on either the big B or LYD, i do figure rather heavily into PuppetMaster and SurvivorBlog2 on the latter … blathering endlessly about purity points and my opinion on drugs on one & being a whore and hitting on Ashley and James on the other (not to mention that i’m relatively easy to find via Google, which he was definitely familiar with). I could tell that i definitely garnered points with him by talking about learning HTML on my own and coding the basics of my site in PHP, but i’ve definitely got to stop mentioning Ernie at job interviews.
Quite a conundrum to find myself talking about the page with Lauren in Admissions today and be told that all of my recent philosophical wanderings on the subjects of Cold and Real-Audio pale in comparison to the expression of emotion. A bloody heart is the reddest kind after all… i’m just afraid that at this rate that even my oft-spied-on neighbor might wind up reading about what i think of him.