It matters? Does it, bollocks!

Close to finishing this fucking employee self-evaluation, so that I can schedule a meeting with my supervisor and he can tell me he doesn't think I'm doing a good job, even though...he really doesn't know what I do anyway. I only hear from him when he's pissed off about something, it seems. No...not looking forward to this process at all.

Bitter? Shit, no. Just a little bemused. Some squirrely little shitbag a few years ago told HR that they wanted a more 'comprehensive' evaluation tool. So instead of just writing a paragraph or two about the job, any successes, failures, challenges and outlook for the coming year, we have a TEN PAGE 'evaluation tool' to fill out, which only starts a long, miserable process of meetings and revisions and reporting back. I'd like to know who it was who asked for this. In fact, I would venture to guess that 90% of the people here would like to storm his office with pitchforks and torches.

The whole thing is so pointless. I won't get a raise based on this evaluation. I'll get the normal cost of living raise, a standard percentage of my salary - which won't be enough so that I can stop doing my freelance work and actually spend my lunchbreaks eating lunch or my evenings and weekends enjoying myself instead of working.

I'm here because I like the job itself, and the people I work with. I like the students, and enjoy feeling as though I'm helping them move on in their process and get them out into the world to do some good. I like the academic calendar and the health insurance. I like that there's no dress code, which is good because I don't make enough to spend money on business attire. Sure, I could make more elsewhere...but the trade off would be working with corporate bastards, in a soulless office cubicle, wearing uncomfortable clothes, or God help me...having to ...gag...travel. The very idea makes me ill.

Anyway, folks, I've got this thing practically done. Looks good, except I am stuck at the 'goals for the coming year' section. They want me to list FOUR goals. FOUR.

...I got nothing. See the previous post for my goals for the coming year. I wasn't kidding. All I want to do is DO MY FUCKING JOB. Is that so WRONG?

But anyway, it's Friday. I am giving serious thought to what type of alcohol I shall be transferring from the outside of my body to the inside, and the venue for such transfer. Evaluate THAT, motherfuckers.

And when you get a second, have a CHAWMING weekend.

Employee Self-Evaluation can fuck right off.

Name three goals from last year's evaluation that you've achieved over the last year.

1. Showed up.

2. Did the work.

3. Did not kill anyone.

Name three challenges you've encountered and how you've overcome them.

1. My office is freezing. Wore a lot of sweaters. Did my job.

2. Had frequent hangovers. Drank lots of water. Did my job.

3. Don't make enough money. Took on freelance work. Did it on my lunch breaks, evenings and weekends. Also, did my job.

Name three goals for the coming year.

1. Finish this evaluation without killing myself.

2. Continue to do my job.

3. Don't know. Get paid.

Hockey fight!

I know I shouldn't find this funny.

But I do.

Oh HELLLLLL no.

Just went over to the Cuttery in Harvard Square, formerly Great Cuts or Super Cuts or CheapAss cuts, whatever you want to call them. You see, it's a beautiful, warm, sunny, early-spring day here in Cambridge, and I thought I'd go over on my lunch break and get a couple of inches of dry, winter-blow-dry damage cut off. My yearly haircut, don't you know.

I can go to cheap ass places, because my hair is long and straight and all I ever do is have someone chop an inch off at the ends. A chimp with half a year of beauty school can do that, right?
Wellllll....FELLAS! Things are not going so great at the old cheapass hair cuttery in Harvard Square today, let me tell you. Perhaps they need to hire some chimps, because these chicks ain't cutting it. (Sorry, had to.)

First, there's no one in the place but the girl at the front desk taking names, and two forlorn looking Asian guys in the waiting area, waiting for their names to be called.
I think - "Donner, party of two? Oh well, okay, someone's bound to come back from break soon and attend to these guys, won't be long, they won't want anything complicated, just their monthly trim, and I'll be in and out of here in no time."

So I sit. All is quiet. I flip through a magazine for a few minutes before turning to the two other waiting customers and say "yeah...not liking the work ethic so far, huh? ha ha ha"

First guy: "I've been here 20 minutes."

Second guy: "I've been here 10."

Hmmmmm....things are not looking good for me and my split ends...

I wait a few more minutes. The front desk girl goes in the back and I think "okay, she's going to get someone to come out here and do some work, this'll be good."

....But she comes out a minute later. Alone. Door to the back closes again.

Customers keep waiting. I'm thinking - "Right, patience is waning, but I need this haircut and won't get another chance for a while - might as well stick it out."

Then...out they come. How do I put this nicely? I know, lie. They were two lovely, young, professional hair-cutting ladies. That'll work.

I will call them "Shaniqua" and "Shanaynay," and they are clearly having some type of row. No idea what it's about, but they made no attempts to hide it, and I bet they'll duke it out after work. They were all, "Stop gettin' all up in my face," and "Wha'Evva, Wha'Evva," and "oh no, you DI'int."

Ummmm...no.

Just fucking No. I just walked out, came back here to type this.

I'm all for letting a chimp with half a year's beauty school training cut my hair, if it's cheap enough and he gets the job done. But I am NOT letting one of these angry wee gutter snipes anywhere near me with scissors. I'm tight with my cash, but I'm no dope. I wanted someone to cut my hair, not cut me. (Again, sorry.)
Fucking hell.

I am 41. Fucking hell.

What a year. I won't bore you with any deep reflections on the year that's been.

I've gained some things, lost some things. The things I've gained I've worked for, and the things I've lost...didn't need 'em anyway and maybe I'm better off without. Howzzat for deep reflection? Eh, fuck it. Navel gazing. Who needs it?

Onward to 42!!!!!

Separated at birth

These thoughts come to me out of the blue, unbidden, unwanted...and they don't go away until I tell someone. So, with apologies to the subjects herein:

......................................Shane MacGowan

......................................K.D. Lang

Yep, I'm going straight to hell.

Spring!

So, in honor of the first day of spring, here's Boticelli's "Primavera."

I don't really have much to say about this particular piece. I think it speaks for itself. But I do like the blue, wintry guy on the right there, trying to keep his icicle grip on the lovely spring nymph.

"Sod off," says she. For she has had enough of winter's biting winds and driving snows, and wishes to romp and play in the woods with her hippie pals, and that lovely young man on the left (though his choice in footwear is questionable, at best.)

As winters go, this one was fairly mild - and I wouldn't complain anyway. And we could still get a blizzard sometime between now and mid-April or so, so we're not out of the woods. But still, I'm glad spring is here. Been dreaming lately about gardening, because I'm consumed with planning my wee kitchen garden and covering up our nasty chainlink fence with morning glories...and spouse is pricing out gas grills at Home Depot.

Yes, spring is here.

This calls for a drink!*

* So does everything.

Last blast

.................Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

I'm about as Irish as tourtiere. In fact, spouse is more Irish than I am, and he's Italian. And though I won't be out in any pubs this weekend (unless I go out for dinner tonight, which is a good possibility, as I have about as much desire to cook as I do of getting kitted up in a meat suit and shouting "the Dixie Chicks are RIGHT" at a Texan Barbecue) I shall be raising one or two dozen pints of the black stuff.

But after this weekend things must change. I shall pick a day and do a good, healthy, body- and mind-cleansing fast, followed by a renewed dedication to a healthier diet and more exercise. I've decided that my recent 'malaise' has had to do with some slacking off in the healthy living department, and this is not to be continued. And because I can say without an ounce of irony or smugness that I am one of the most self-disciplined people I know, I'm gonna be looking fucking FIERCE by May.

So, this weekend, being my last winter blast of this hedonistic, lazy, junk-food-eating, beer-swilling, zit-factory, cellulite cultivating lifestyle pattern, shall reach previously unplumbed depths of devilment and debauchery. (I tried really hard not to do that awful consonance thing right there, but there was no other way to put it.)

If I don't post again for a few days, I'm probably in a booze coma.

Cheers, all! Raise one for my doomed liver, won't you?

Not sure where I'm floating, but it ain't here.

I just realized that for the last few weeks, I'm operating on a totally different level mentally, going through the motions of my day-to-day life, working, going home, socializing a bit, the usual...but my brain is someplace else entirely.

Here's an example: I was home sick on Monday, puttering around the house, doing a bit of cleaning and laundry, checking my work e-mail for emergencies and those easy questions I can answer without access to the database, that kind of thing. (God forbid I should take a sick day and actually just lie around, being sick - got to be useful, even with a fever and nausea. Must be a Canuck thing.)

Anyway, spouse comes home from work in the evening and says, "Hey, I notice they tore that house down, the one you can see through the kitchen window."

My reaction: "uhhhh...Whaaatnow?"

A house around the corner from ours, of which we had a clear view through the kitchen window - which was open all day, and through which I had looked at least 8 or 9 times over the course of that day - had been demolished - TORN DOWN TO THE GROUND, IS NOW A PILE OF RUBBLE IN A VERY LARGE PIT - and I DID NOT NOTICE.

How does one miss something like that unless their brain is floating around, completely independent of the sensory organs that are supposed to be sending it information?

Now...it'd be GREAT if I could figure out where exactly my consciousness has been, and if it were actually using this little break time to cure cancer or write the Great American Novel or something. But it's not...it's just frigging AWOL. Nowhere to be found. When it's found, it will not have anything to show for itself. The fucker will then have some s'plaining to do.

Traffic rant

Was EVERYONE in the WORLD in Watertown Square this morning?

Here's a hint: No, not EVERYONE, but every selfish bastard driver in the Boston area was, evidently.

Listen, if there's no way to get OUT of an intersection, and the light is about to turn...DO NOT ENTER THE INTERSECTION, thereby BLOCKING people going in the other direction from entering it when their light is green. Is that so fucking hard?

Sat at that light coming out of Pleasant Street for FIVE cycles of lights, because of you selfish fucks coming down Main Street, and then again, stuck at the left turn lane for a full cycle, because of you selfish bastards coming towards Galen from Mt. Auburn.

The entire clusterfuck could have cleared itself out in two light cycles, had people just displayed an eentsy bit of patience and NOT ENTERED A BLOCKED INTERSECTION AT THE YELLOW LIGHT, IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE, thereby giving cross traffic a chance to get in and out, and most importantly, OUT OF YOUR WAY.

Assholes.

Mischievous ghost

Today I find myself thinking about how I'd like to spend the afterlife. I think that if ghosts do exist, I should like to be one.

I could pick some nice old house to haunt, hovering in the corner by the bookcase, quietly reading or watching whatever is on the TV. If the people I'm haunting are nice, I can do them little favors; help them find their car keys, scare off potential burglars, keep a protective eye on the pets, write winning lottery numbers in the dust on the TV set. If I'm haunting someone who isn't nice and I think they need to be fucked with, I can marshall my ghostly energies and bollix up their shit. Slither out of their computer in an ectoplasmic mess when they try to download kiddy porn, drop the car keys in the toilet, generally slam shit around and make life miserable...

Yeah, that'd be a pretty cool way to spend eternity.

EDIT: It must be one of those days...I keep thinking up clever and dastardly things to do as a ghost, to really fuck with anyone who's a dick. Here's a partial list:

Manifest as a cold spot just over the toilet whenever they sit down to crap.

Switch the labels on the toothpaste and hemorrhoid cream.

Wail at midnight, every night, to the tune of "Feelings."

Just as they're about to go to sleep, get right up to their ear and buzz like a mosquito - every night, even in winter.

I guess that's all I have right now. You know, aside from that evil "Feelings" thing, this list isn't really that dastardly. I shall have to work on this, if I'm going to be worth my salt as a vengeful spirit.

Dammit!

Been staring at this empty blogger window for days, with absolutely NOTHING to say. Nothing to bitch about, no ironies to note, no celebrities to tear apart. Nothing. (Well, let's face it, all the celebrities that make the news on a daily basis should be torn apart and eaten by rats. But that doesn't leave much to say about specific ones, right? So what's the point?)

When the thing that I'm most pissed off about in my life is the fact that for the second year in a row, I have a mammogram scheduled for the day after the Pogues show at the Orpheum...I really have no business bitching about anything at all.

In the middle of a Tempest.

Back later.

Here's summat pretty to look at while you wait.

Remember those posters in the 70's, with the wee kitty cat, hanging from a tree branch that said, "Hang in there, Baby. Friday's Coming"? Horrible, I know.

Had easy duplication of art prints been available at the time, the mid-1800's, when the Preraphaelite brotherhood was going strong, posters like those featuring our Miranda here would have carried the same message. Imagine the wee 'uns coming home from a hard day at the boot-blacking factory, or textile mill, taking hope that the end was, indeed, near. Because an early death of consumption might very well make that true.

Hang in there, Baby.