all up in my business
Random stuff from the last couple of weeks...
I'm getting worried about my job again. My boss is on my case almost constantly. Seems like it, anyway. This coming Sunday and Monday, the entire staff get reviews by either her or the assistant manager. Of course, mine is with her. I was given those two days off, which means that on one of my days "off", I'm going to have to go in to work for my review anyway. It was originally scheduled at 3 PM on Sunday, which really would've sucked, because then I wouldn't have been able to go spend my day off out doing something I wanted to do. So I asked my boss if it would be possible to do it earlier in the day, and she gave me this look like I'd just asked her to kill her own children. It's like, Jesus, I'm only asking a question, if it's not cool, then tell me. But instead she made me feel like somehow, I'm going to regret even asking for the favor. That's great management technique, right there. So now I'm really paranoid about how my review is going to go. I'm sick of people telling me that I have to stick up for myself, and then penalizing me when I do. And people wonder why I have such low self-esteem.
Last Sunday, I went up to the Gloucester/Rockport area with my brother and his girlfriend. Whenever I'm in Rockport, there's this farm that I like to go by. It's in back of this school, on the other side of the playing field and track, and if you go up to the fence at the edge of the farm, there's usually a horse or two that you can pet and feed some grass. So we were there doing that, and Bill and Meredith found another fenced-off area where there were some llamas (or maybe alpacas, I'm not sure which). So we went over to see the llamas/alpacas/whatever, and of course, I had to try to pet them lol. They were sniffing my hand, but they would kind of shy away whenever I tried to pet them. Bill was standing back away from the fence; I think he was afraid that they were going to spit at us lol... but I felt pretty confident that they wouldn't. So I'm continuing to try to gain their trust, and this one alpaca comes and sticks its head over the fence and gets like, right in my face lol. I had my head to the side, and the alpaca's face is literally an inch away from my head, and he's just breathing, sniffing, checking me out. And I'm trying not to laugh, because I don't want to freak him out, but he's just staying there way longer than I expected. I thought he was only going to do this for a few seconds, and he must have been there for about a full minute. It was so cute and so funny. I didn't feel the least bit scared or threatened. To me it was a privilege. The only thing that bummed me out is that my brother and I both forgot our cameras. It was a Kodak moment, to be sure.
I missed a bit of a significant anniversary on Thursday. 17 years ago, on April 21, 1988, I wrote and recorded my first song, with the help of a couple of friends who I've more or less lost contact with over the years. Their names were Jesse and Luke, and they were brothers from Vermont whose grandparents lived down the street from me for several years. A couple of times a year, they would come down to stay with their grandparents for a week or so, and when they weren't spending time with them, we would hang out. We all became interested in writing and recording music around the same time, and our first collaborative effort was a song called "Radio Temptation", which purported to be a cynical statement on consumerism, but was really more of an excuse to use a bunch of samples from actual radio commercials in a song lol. Jesse and I wrote the lyrics, Luke sang them, Jesse played keyboards, and I was on the drums. We decided to call ourselves the Businessmen, and we had absolutely no idea what we were doing... but for three teenaged kids who didn't know what they were doing, it kinda sounds OK lol. Two days later we recorded a second song, an instrumental called "Ursa Major", which was recorded at the last minute before Jesse and Luke had to go back home to Vermont. I mean, literally-- their ride was outside waiting for them as we recorded it. Instant 'B-side'. I put the two songs on a tape, recording over a cassette single-- I think it was Janet Jackson's "The Pleasure Principle" lol-- and I had my very first self-recorded cassette single, which is sitting in front of me now as I write this. I suppose that since "Ursa Major" was recorded on the 23rd, that makes today the official anniversary of the single. Since then, I've recorded many songs that are better, but "Radio Temptation" will always hold a special place in my heart, because it was the very first. And listening to it always makes me think of Jesse and Luke, who I miss very much.
Speaking of nostalgia, I recently joined a Yahoo! group, the purpose of which is to reunite people who used to chat in an 'X-Files'-themed room on the long-defunct TalkCity. In this chat room I made some of my first online friends, a couple of whom I am still very close to today. So far, I haven't had the chance to talk to much of anybody from 'the old days', but there are a couple of familiar names there, and I'm looking forward to catching up with them.
And the other thing I have to mention is that my friend Beth did something really cool for me out of the blue recently. She's a great furry artist, and she sent me a picture that she made just for me! This is a really big deal to me, because: a) I know she must have put a lot of work into it, and it shows. b) I do not have the kind of standing within the furry community where I'm going to get artwork done especially for me very often. c) It's of my very favorite character, who does not get drawn very often. d) It's seks-eh! lol *^_^* Anyway, thanks Beth, you rock hard! And if anyone wants to go check out her mad skillz, she has a page at VCL... ---> http://us-p.vclart.net/vcl/Artists/Honeytail
That's it for now. Seacrest out.
I'm getting worried about my job again. My boss is on my case almost constantly. Seems like it, anyway. This coming Sunday and Monday, the entire staff get reviews by either her or the assistant manager. Of course, mine is with her. I was given those two days off, which means that on one of my days "off", I'm going to have to go in to work for my review anyway. It was originally scheduled at 3 PM on Sunday, which really would've sucked, because then I wouldn't have been able to go spend my day off out doing something I wanted to do. So I asked my boss if it would be possible to do it earlier in the day, and she gave me this look like I'd just asked her to kill her own children. It's like, Jesus, I'm only asking a question, if it's not cool, then tell me. But instead she made me feel like somehow, I'm going to regret even asking for the favor. That's great management technique, right there. So now I'm really paranoid about how my review is going to go. I'm sick of people telling me that I have to stick up for myself, and then penalizing me when I do. And people wonder why I have such low self-esteem.
Last Sunday, I went up to the Gloucester/Rockport area with my brother and his girlfriend. Whenever I'm in Rockport, there's this farm that I like to go by. It's in back of this school, on the other side of the playing field and track, and if you go up to the fence at the edge of the farm, there's usually a horse or two that you can pet and feed some grass. So we were there doing that, and Bill and Meredith found another fenced-off area where there were some llamas (or maybe alpacas, I'm not sure which). So we went over to see the llamas/alpacas/whatever, and of course, I had to try to pet them lol. They were sniffing my hand, but they would kind of shy away whenever I tried to pet them. Bill was standing back away from the fence; I think he was afraid that they were going to spit at us lol... but I felt pretty confident that they wouldn't. So I'm continuing to try to gain their trust, and this one alpaca comes and sticks its head over the fence and gets like, right in my face lol. I had my head to the side, and the alpaca's face is literally an inch away from my head, and he's just breathing, sniffing, checking me out. And I'm trying not to laugh, because I don't want to freak him out, but he's just staying there way longer than I expected. I thought he was only going to do this for a few seconds, and he must have been there for about a full minute. It was so cute and so funny. I didn't feel the least bit scared or threatened. To me it was a privilege. The only thing that bummed me out is that my brother and I both forgot our cameras. It was a Kodak moment, to be sure.
I missed a bit of a significant anniversary on Thursday. 17 years ago, on April 21, 1988, I wrote and recorded my first song, with the help of a couple of friends who I've more or less lost contact with over the years. Their names were Jesse and Luke, and they were brothers from Vermont whose grandparents lived down the street from me for several years. A couple of times a year, they would come down to stay with their grandparents for a week or so, and when they weren't spending time with them, we would hang out. We all became interested in writing and recording music around the same time, and our first collaborative effort was a song called "Radio Temptation", which purported to be a cynical statement on consumerism, but was really more of an excuse to use a bunch of samples from actual radio commercials in a song lol. Jesse and I wrote the lyrics, Luke sang them, Jesse played keyboards, and I was on the drums. We decided to call ourselves the Businessmen, and we had absolutely no idea what we were doing... but for three teenaged kids who didn't know what they were doing, it kinda sounds OK lol. Two days later we recorded a second song, an instrumental called "Ursa Major", which was recorded at the last minute before Jesse and Luke had to go back home to Vermont. I mean, literally-- their ride was outside waiting for them as we recorded it. Instant 'B-side'. I put the two songs on a tape, recording over a cassette single-- I think it was Janet Jackson's "The Pleasure Principle" lol-- and I had my very first self-recorded cassette single, which is sitting in front of me now as I write this. I suppose that since "Ursa Major" was recorded on the 23rd, that makes today the official anniversary of the single. Since then, I've recorded many songs that are better, but "Radio Temptation" will always hold a special place in my heart, because it was the very first. And listening to it always makes me think of Jesse and Luke, who I miss very much.
Speaking of nostalgia, I recently joined a Yahoo! group, the purpose of which is to reunite people who used to chat in an 'X-Files'-themed room on the long-defunct TalkCity. In this chat room I made some of my first online friends, a couple of whom I am still very close to today. So far, I haven't had the chance to talk to much of anybody from 'the old days', but there are a couple of familiar names there, and I'm looking forward to catching up with them.
And the other thing I have to mention is that my friend Beth did something really cool for me out of the blue recently. She's a great furry artist, and she sent me a picture that she made just for me! This is a really big deal to me, because: a) I know she must have put a lot of work into it, and it shows. b) I do not have the kind of standing within the furry community where I'm going to get artwork done especially for me very often. c) It's of my very favorite character, who does not get drawn very often. d) It's seks-eh! lol *^_^* Anyway, thanks Beth, you rock hard! And if anyone wants to go check out her mad skillz, she has a page at VCL... ---> http://us-p.vclart.net/vcl/Artists/Honeytail
That's it for now. Seacrest out.