Quiet Times

So, one post on top of another, but that prior one was an old… sorta left there one…

Bungle just left for work.  It’s a job he hates, but it’s something while he keeps looking.  Retail – heh, heh – I hate to grin at him and say, “Ohhh, you’re gonna hate it a lot more when your 90 days are done!”

Retail blows.  I’m so glad to have gotten out of there.  Had to do what I had to do, but gee-whiz.  The public can be the biggest, dumbest, pain in the ass.  And you gotta be nice to them them while they’re doing it; pretend it’s not so!

At any rate, it’s quiet here.  Haven’t been in a house/apt without anyone else since… Oh, way back in NC.

…Kiiiinda creepy.

But quiet times are nice too.  Wash some dishes (or rather throw them in the washer that has me spoiled now), maybe check out some sappy erra tv-dramasodes I love to find on Netflix, or get back to those things squirreled on the mac. 

Quiet is always great for that, ya know.

Unless I get totally unfocused, fall asleep, and waste the day!

Karma and bad seafood

Never say, “I haven’t missed a day yet!” and then eat take out consisting of shrimp!

Ack!

We’re juggling one car here, so Bungle takes (truthfully his) car when he’s in the throws of job hunting.  Monday he did just that, and I was wandering at the shop during lunch hour, staring at our common rain, knowing to walk the little bit to our shop’s “favourite fast-food haunt” would only drench me.  Not that I wanted fast food, but there wasn’t any other option.  Hmm…

“Bungle Baby!  You gonna be out of that interview before 1?  Can you bring me some lunch?  It ‘s pouring here, so I can’t walk!”

“I’m on my way!” I perked right up to see the returned message.

Bless his heart, he brought me a burrito others were envious of – until about an hour later when I was all but doubled over and had to turn down one of those rare tickets (as it’s a little slow now, getting a ticket is like getting the Gold one), “I can’t make it, Dispatch!  Unless vomit in a luxury car is covered by my contract, I have to get outta here!”

*sigh*

So after a nice streak of being the only one consistently present for that amount of time, I missed time.  Aiee!  Normal now!

Oh well.  Had to happen eventually.  Just like scraping the pole with a shiny car on day 5 had to happen eventually.

Work is slow and quiet, pretty much.  But that just gives everyone time to bullshit and shit-talk, which everyone does.  Especially when it rains, and it’s 100% humidity at 8 am in the morning, with nothing to do:  lot of shit talking going down.  More so if the sun comes out and bakes steam out of the lots and into interiors.

The resident Picked-On is leaving next Friday.  Which means I’m “new kid on the block” which means it ‘s now me that’s going to get the heat.

I dunno, I’ve been there.  (And how, if they only knew.)

…I also don’t think I’ve shown teeth so much.  Yet.  Only once, when someone parked a car behind mine and said they’d be done in a promised 5 mins did I get snarly and react.  They got in my way, and I had promised a time, I was being tested against a clock.  Don’t get between me and a clock!

And no one understood my words over my tone:  “Whatever the hell she said (ref my accent), she’s pissed off!” they laughed to each other barely in my hearing.

Bungle smiles and says there is always the romance period at any job, which is true.  90 days.  90 days and you see the real things.  90 days, and people that were sticky sweet to me, and so put me on edge, really showed me why I was put on edge by them.  Sticky-sweet, though, always makes me bristle up and squint:  “You’re fronting something, I know it.”

“Sunshine” – yeah, well, you ain’t seen my bitch side yet, pal.

The “Picked-On” didn’t really… Hmm… How to say it, fight back.  Even with a smirk, which is required, I think.

…

On that generally distracted note:

Bungle is watching “Into the Abyss” in the background.  Not the movie about the sea and the chasms of the depths-but the maniacal and misdirected focus of a director renowned for abusing his own cast.  Listening to the psychos and psychotic rationalization of these… People… Sympathizing and excusing violent murders and defending suddenly refocused violent criminals.  Sure, you’re looking at the birds a bit differently; and sure you’re thinking about your kin.  Sure.  But the best conversation or point to come out of it:  “How to live your dash” ~  The dash on a tombstone – between life and death.  That’s all that matters.

Wow.  Eerily good point.

I hope I don’t wind up in the mountains on the side of a lake rambling into a little book about frogs and crickets.  Because I don’t want to be that person.  Heh.

Also…

I’m darn dying to get my PC back.

Going through the Mac, I’m realizing how much I split between the two, and when one gets on a roll, and ready to tear into something, it’s not fun to realize, “@$#!!!  It’s on the other computer!  I want to add, start new, work on something half done – I want to redo covers, and I want to update, and I want-darnit!”

But it is kind of nice to have that all normalized again.  40 hours, cooking dinner, tooling around with ideas-ya know!  Normal stuff!

Yay!

School is done!

…

Well, for now.

Kathunk, Kathunk

So it’s been a while, I know.  Could have something to do with the fact that when I get home from work, I just flop onto the “couch” and go “ahhhhhhhhhhhh” just for having my boots off.

And half the time I don’t want to take a shower I need, because coming in stinking of all sorts of oil byproducts is-well… Little stinky.

My boots have been banned from the apt, but I tend to wear them home at lunch because, “Darnit, I forgot to take them off!  I just want some food!”

So we got an apt, as implied.  We also got a crazy neighbor upstairs.  And I mean bat-shit style crazy.  This girl doesn’t sleep.  She vacuums, she stalks one end to the other, and walks heavy-heeled on a treadmill several times a day.

And talks-to who, we don’t know!

Matter of fact, right now she’s stomping her way into my not-friend-circle.

“Damnit, learn to walk!  Learn to walk!” I want to beat on the ceiling with a broom handle just to equalize the balance of sound.  “Stop working out all the time, you maniac!  I’ve seen you, you’re rail thin, sickly, rather scary, and omg, it’s not making neighbors!”

We’re down to a nickname and trying to figure her out.  Makes it interesting, given we came from a ghetto in Phoenix to this… Bottles being thrown against doors and windows, crack heads in alleys, guns being drawn on neighbors – we could sleep through that no problem, not even hear it half the time!  But this?!

It’s so damn quiet here, it’s all there is to focus on, really.

Doesn’t help Bungle for being cooped up in here 24/7, and me for getting bored at slow spells at work and coming home wound up with nothing to do again.

“Kathunk, kathunk,” we speculate she has a cat up there.  Cuz she talks pretty damn loud to some…Thing.  Saw litter going out the one day she ventured out, which we can tell because it gets quiet.

No kidding, it’s non-freaking-stop.  I wake up for shower and work, some coffee as I read  the horribly skewed news, and she’s already starting.  All day it goes on, when I get home, it’s still going.  At night?  Still more.  I go to sleep to the sound of that treadmill.  I wake up to migrate off the tv-zombie-zone to the bed, and it’s still going.

I’m dead darn curious, to be quite honest!  One can’t help but to be!

As for work… Well, there have been large and small discussions about women’s rights, and equal pay for equal work, and things like.

There are also nicknames and fabricated reputations, and all kinds of odd little things to discover while it’s slow… I got a Drama Shop, that much is sure.  Reading the “updates” from fellow graduates, boy did I!  All I can say, though, is despite it being an old shop, a slower shop, a freaking cold shop, everyone I work with is pretty darn cool.  And I’d much rather work with people I like than be in a clean zone and hating the person next to me.  Or all around me.

But it is slow right now, due to the season, I’m told.

I think mostly I come home rather overwhelmed/underwhelmed and so don’t know what else to do but rest my arches and take an hour to veg on netflix, and then set to supper.

Hmm.

And there is always a lots that a brain can wander to.  Not that mine does.  When I’m to that point, I zone out.  I like blank space.  I like an Empty that I can put something else in, that redirects and entertains and amuses.

Though once it’s over, I squirrel back to my Mac Sanctuary and do what I do.  Clicky-Clak.  Kathunk, kathunk.

I’d even learned enough patience to piece together broken data taken from the old powerbook, and believe me!  For about a year (well since Bungle got me the new book) those files were irritating above daunting.  Pieced together two now… Oh, what is next?

I have several meandering bits of narrative on floppys - yeeeeees, floppy discs, remember those? – that I don’t have access to yet.  But I will get them - oh, yes, I will.

It’s a weird sorta mix for me.

Wake up before the alarm and review the day before, while likewise mapping out my next attack.  Hmm… This is what to do next, this is what to plan, this is…

Just so long as I remember to take the damn dirty boots off, I think I’ll manage a little longer.

Meanwhile, back on the East Coast…

So after that hellacious bit of driving, I think Bungle and I are at least on one side of the country for a while.  Still got more driving to do (picking up boxes we can cram into this little apartment) and getting my pc and – baddum- ”fluffy-butt”:  Mako the cat.

Yay!

Only thing we’re really having to adjust back to is humidity, which isn’t so bad, I don’t think.  And the cold – which I hate!  And the quiet.  After what we had gotten so used to, this place is eerily quiet.

Didn’t get really any rain in the last months, but this last week was covered with it.  Buuuut, since I like rain, I was all kinds of tickled about it; Bungle started getting cabin fever.  Endless rain did not help his stress, though, or additions to it.  Same negative stuff being sent his way.  Again.  *Sigh*.

Not a whole lot else to really get into at the moment.  I’m trying to be kind of quiet on the keyboard, considering he’s still asleep and I’m trying to kill time before Day 1 (or something like it) at the new job.

Nothing worse than getting up too early, then sitting or pacing with nothing to do but worry and stress, right?  Wonder, “should I go ahead and bring the coffee I always drink in the morning, but where would I put it, and is that too casual too soon?  Where is the toilet in this place, and will it be clean?   Is that being too squeamish?  What the devil happens at lunch-and would it be weird to leave and be antisocial (cuz I’m broke) or does everyone hang out and shoot the shit?  What if – aiee! – I do something wrong right outta the gate?”  And so on.  The big one is always, “Who’s gonna give me the most shit starting out.”  Because their always is one.  Whatever their issues, there’s always one person that will already have their back bristled up, no matter who walks into a job, and that’s universal.  Trick then is talking them down.  But that takes time, and honestly, I don’t often have the patience for people like that… That sort of drama never ends.

I hate the first few weeks of any new job/school/neighborhood, or anything like.  Takes time to get a feel for people and places, and with work, expectations and limitations.  Because there always are some things going to limit what can be done.  Things you were used to somewhere else, or tools that make things simpler that aren’t available.  I use the word “tools” generally, because every occupation has gobs of them.  Chunks of metal or pieces of software.  Even just the tiniest thing can make hours of difference.  Generally, I’m the kind that finds the means to get that tool, even if just for myself.

Annnd then it gets borrowed a lot, or either grows legs and…

Not sure today what to expect, so it’s a day to get nosey and look around.  Mostly it’s people I watch.  They say a lot about a business and it’s management, as well as their job and customers.  A whole lot.  A little bit of study is best for knowing personalities and how to approach or interact with them.  Got a feeling today is going to be the start of feeling them out.  And vice-versa, I suppose!

It’s smarter to let it go

I watched an old TV show episode w/ Bungle a-well, several-months ago.  Wonder Years, and the father having to let go of his old car.

And while watching it, I was nodding my head and making those small little agreeing sounds, and Bungle said, “You get this, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

Which now is a hard reality.  My little green Bomba is on it’s last legs.  Literally.  The engine is fine!  …well, Fairly Fine.  It’s darn good for 280K, but it has issues.  And the issues with it are ones that can be fixed:  at a cost.

If it were just that, okay.  But it’s not just that.  Even while we were putting it on the useless dolly that we towed it out on, I pulled my hand out after attaching a chain and said, “@$#$!  The CV is bad on this side!”

It eats up tires like crazy on the front end due to an alignment problem – simple, right?  Wrong.  That is a big money maker.  Mainly because it’s not something you can effectively do in a driveway.  You can get old-school, and eyeball, it, but at the point I’m at?  Not going to help me.  It already needs new tires on the front end, the alignment job, new CV, new left control arm, all gaskets, seals, and exhaust.

The exhaust is the b* one to live with right now.  It pours fumes into the cabin and destroys fuel economy.  I get to school a little loopy, and it isn’t the nice Jamaican bean coffee that I so adore doing it to me.

Interior and body were shot when I got it, but hey!  That’s cosmetic, and I don’t care about that!

I didn’t until the radio started shorting out (bad installation prior to my getting it), headlights are acting up and the display is weird (read back to bad installation of radio) and the clutch is now to the point if you don’t work quick and pump it, you have to shut the car off to switch gears.  Simple enough fix, as that’s just a leaking cylinder.  But that cylinder also costs.  Mainly because:  you do one?  You better do them both.  Shocks are so drained you float, which is dangerous and flighty above 40 mph.  The rear end struts are toast, so the car squats the minute gas is put into the tank.  The fuel pump/assembly is weak, and unable to keep up with demand.  There are two leaking fuel injectors (which all of them are bad) and run over 100 a pop to replace a piece.  All those nice expensive motor mounts are drained of fluid and are now allowing hard engine vibration to be felt all over.  That skew put the transmission in danger, and now it’s seeping oil.  The Rack-n-Pinion drops all of it’s fluid at a regular basis.  Not to mention the air circulation is now stuck, so the HVAC has to be pulled out and repaired (back to bad radio installation).  Mainly, anything in the console is an electrical nightmare.  One of those situations where you hit one button and things sorta work, but if you hit another, many more die… There is a ground strap hanging off of the frame in the rear

*sigh*

I like my car!  Correction, I love my car!  It’s one of those cases where if it was someone else’s car, and they were telling me all of these things, and I looked at it, got into it, drove it, I’d say, “You dumb @#$# what are you doing holding onto this thing for?  Okay the engine is a fighter, but at this point you have to rebuild the car around it!”

Nostalgia, mostly.  This car got me through the last two years of some really hard, long driving.  There were the things that had to be fixed to keep it so, but the thing just kept running!

As I said, the engine is a darn trooper-I’d buy another of these cars again.  Maybe one not nearing it’s “vintage” point of life, and one not so badly beat up in the body, but the engine?  Pah!  Bring it on!

There’s just something about a car you’ve bled over, cursed and prayed over, and driven miles and miles, especially during significant events, that makes it really hard to let go.  One remembers all the good things, and the associations with that car, and it almost feels like betrayal to pasture the old horse.

That’s kind of where I am right now.  I know it’s not smart to keep it.  It was smart to bring it out here, and wring the last little bit of life out, but as that engine is still going?  It’s so darn hard to turn my back.  “I could easily get another 100K out of it!” I am sure of it.  “I know it!  But… All that other stuff…”

:/

I’m so torn.

So torn.

Eh…?

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.

              -  Leo Rosten

Uhm… I think I saw the word “professional” in there, and believe me… “Not being able to help it” is what makes you a writer, sure-but never spots you as “professional”.

Money does that!