One Of Those Ecard Daze: Procrastinating

Could have sworn I'd goofed off more than that...well, now how am I going to waste my time? This work won't accrete around my desk in impossible densities by itself...OH WAIT. YES IT WILL.

Loop-Free Is The Way To Be

In my work for Big Oil, I bestride the technical-administrative line that delineates creatures like geologists and engineers from the army of receptionists, administrative assistants and so on. I'm like an office chimera of compositeness (not a word); not versed in the arcane secrets of the earth, but my position is classified as a technician...not considered part of the administrative staff, and yet that is exactly who I have to report to. I like to think of it as being equally wrong-footed in both sectors. I report to a small permed, tanned, bleached, highlighted AND lowlighted poodle-creature that barks ferociously and leaves me hovering on the brink of a full-on panic attack; I constantly worry that if I panic-faint I may crush her, and be jailed for manslaughter.

Fortunately, there is a small bevy of bosomy admin ladies who interact with her way more than I have to, and occasionally bring me news in my far library wing; tales of great cattiness and double-talk that I can only feebly grimace at. They think it's an awkward smile, as well they might; but it is even less than that, my friends, for in reality it is my helpless  fear-rictus. These are precisely the kind of girls that made grades 1-12 an endless waking nightmare for me, whose laughter is a scourge upon the soul and whose thresholds for interpersonal conflict seem unlimited.

What's great is I'm terrified and therefore somewhat (understandably) emotionally distant towards them, and that's turned me into some sort of benign confessor they all come to in order to secretly bitch about their so-called office friends: Mindy doesn't like Stacie because she's a total power-hungry bitch, and Jennifer is on Mindy's side but is closer in age to Stacie, so Mindy thinks Jennifer is probably talking behind her back to Stacie, even though she still totally hangs out with Jennifer like all the time to go on little unauthorized breaks to the Nordstrom's around the corner...etc, etc, etc. 

Now, at this point I'm totally stroking out on the inside from the sheer level of conflict-avoidance panic my brain is pumping through my body, but still I courageously manage some pathetic little "Well at least it's Hump Day*, ha ha ha" office nothingism. It checks them immediately, and the look of bizarre recognition crosses each of their wodgy little faces respectively as they recover from their gossip-gasm to recall that No, I'm not cool and bitchy, that I am in fact the weird girl that none of them has ever invited to lunch. And then they hustle straight outta my library and back into the fray.

I've never been good at that cool, flippant, callous sort of vindictiveness that seems to be so very part of female popularity. I'm definitely capable of isolated incidents of vindictiveness, you betcha; and I mean them, too, from the bottom of my temporarily belligerent heart. But that sustained cruelty for the sake of honing it to an even finer edge that popular girls seem to live for, I just don't have the heart for it. Even if I could dish it out, I certainly couldn't take it. This gave me a lonely and awkward adolescence, but now as an adult I wear it like a shield; I am awkward, you don't want to chat with me! Don't involve me in your shit! Hear me inaudibly roar!

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* HATE THIS PHRASE. So much.

One Of Those Ecard Daze: Smartphone God

It's been one of those days; one of those dazes. There's many ways to measure the success of your endless day before the keyboard, many of them with the dry wit of someecards.  Here's mine:

 

Hear ye, hear ye.

¡Dios Mío!: Kana's Money-Making Machine

As bloggers I'm sure y'all are familiar with that phenomenon in which a thought occurs to you, and then just keeps banging around in your brain with no particular plan or purpose, looking for something to connect to. Until someone springs up and cries out, "Oh, if only there was someone who could tell me a really good single-syllable synonym for immoral!" (louche), or "Is there anyone in the house who knows what that part of the brain is that's sort of seahorse-shaped?" (hippocampus) these thoughts just bounce gently from wall to wall in your brainpan, waiting to be applied.

---

I've had this sure-fire concept for a little open-air beach concession stand for about two years now; it's just bouncing around in here, waiting for the venture-capitalist of my dreams to come along and sweep me off my patent-pending. I'm going to write it down here, and see if that will help me get a little peace in my headspace. Picture this:

I wanna go back, to my little grass shack...

A little pentagonal open-air stand, counters surround; tall, hip-high stools on two sides. There's a central electrically-wired column inside to support a cold drinks case, a mini fridge, a shelf-display freezer, and a small TV. Oh, and to hold up the roof. Behind-the-counter space is one-man width, between column and counters. One of the counters is a flip-up, for the server to get into the stand; another has the register, another two are for customers. The fifth is a grill.

A picture's worth however many
words were just in that paragraph

It has a little whirring electric fan, a crackling FM radio, and dried palm fronds over the tin on the roof overhang. The freezer is stocked with chocolate-dipped bananas, popsicles, and ice-cream-on-a-stick products. The grill turns out kebabs, corndogs, and hotdog-on-a-stick. All the drinks come in the classic Coke bottle shape. You begin to see the overall, phallic theme to the wares of ¡Dios Mío!, sí?

Built right off the sidewalk at the beach, it's the weekend and after-school hotspot for the junior high/high school/community college beachgoing set. Everybody else gathers under the palm trees nearby, to watch the young and beautiful gobbling frozen bananas and hotdog-on-a-stick. It's called "¡Dios Mío!", and it'll be a huge hit. It's not just for pervy old men anymore, either; whether you're a cougar, an elderly swinger couple, or just a suspicious parent, there's room for everyone under the trees around ¡Dios Mío! We'll set up picnic tables over there, and a server will wander over every so often to see if you want to order anything...for anybody...*wink*

And the beautiful people come out to flirt with each other, be admired and occasionally get bought a soft drink.

We could have ads on the local radio stations, like:

Youth is no longer wasted on the young; come on down for a Coke float and to fan yourself and murmur, "¡Dios Mío!" Open 4 to 11 pm weeknights, 10am to midnight on weekends.

---

This is the kind of stuff that I while my winter months away coming up with...what do you think, guys? Would you patronize my concession stand? Would you tip? Or would you be down at the PTA, trying to get a petition signed to close me down for inciting lewd and licentious behavior? :P

Uh-Oh, Poetry: The Mill

Watch out, guys; sometimes there's poetry. There doesn't seem to be any way to stop it.

 

 

The Mill

 

The little seconds whir

The minutes tick, tick by

Then it strikes the hour

Once, twice, a dozen times

A dozen times again

With a heave, another day turns over

Whirring whispers tick, tick, tick

Strike, heave; sunrise once more

 

The little gears spin so the big wheels can turn

Heave, heave, days become a week

Rollercoaster creaking up to Wednesday’s apex

Coasting down to Friday’s big plunge

Living for the weekend

Creak, plunge; TGIF

Again and again and again

 

A month slots neatly into place

Beholden to the seasons

The very turning of the world

Their holidays strung like jewels along the line

All so very seasonal

The rituals walking you through your paces

Slot, slot, slot, turn; a season gone

Season’s greetings, everyone

 

A year thuds into line, and it’s an assembly line

It’s a mill, processing your life

The years come in ten-piece sets

Remember your early years fondly

For soon there will be more of them

Thud - once more, twice more, thrice more

Four more times, years stacked high and bundled

 

You grow older, and the early years include your thirties

Your forties, your fifties, any time when you didn’t ache

When you had your own joints

Your own teeth

Your world shrinks in size

The bed, the chair, the window

And in it there is only room for

Whirring seconds

Ticking minutes

And decades, the box sets of your life remembered

 

What was the grist, what was the chaff

Churned in that

whirring

ticking

striking

heaving

creaking

plunging

slotting

turning

thudding

mill?

Business Formal? Pssht. Business FESTIVE!

Okay, it's Opinion Time: Opaque tights negate short skirts, right? And schoolgirl skirts aren't inappropriate for an adult when she's full of CHILDLIKE HOLIDAY WONDER, right??

I say OMG, you say Christmas: OMG!

It's hard enough to express my wellspring of holiday cheer without my Christmas boxes, full of decorations, graphic tees, seasonal jewelry and other fripperies...I have to go with what red and green I've got! Mah mayunn said it's not work-appropriate. I say OMG CHRISTMAS. What do you say?

Incorporeal-Corporeal Incorporated

So I enjoy an extremely hypothetical theory that the whole form and function of what makes me me is run like an impersonal, high-level business; thousands of workers, hundreds of middle-managers, unknown zillions of support staff repairing copiers and refilling water coolers. Myriad branch offices, housed in towering office buildings of many different realms; Memory, Reasoning, Skills & Talents, etc. There are many departments and divisions within each, and they don't network with each other very well. They're all just trying to get through the day; hoping no one catches them looking at pictures of cats, or asks them why the copier still isn't working. They all got where they are today on the Peter Principle (no, okay, for realsies) and have no real idea what they're doing.

This fanciful theory has been evidenced to me countless times; in fact, "incidents" from my tiny legion of bumblers happen almost every day. The latest snafu has been at the Psychosomatics Office, a liaison between the Divisions of Physical- and Emotional-Distress; the Chief has been going through a rough patch with the wife, and somewhere between abusing his prescription muscle relaxers and the sleepless nights on the couch, his ability to make executive decisions became a curse instead of a blessing. Little experiential aides keep popping their heads 'round the door with unwanted minutiae, and in all his rage and the fatigue, there's only one call he feels ready to make:

Meanwhile...

I appreciate that you've got stuff going on, man. But, nausea for everything? Is that absolutely necessary? Get back to me.

Autumn In Alaska: Even Freddie Would Say That's Mercurial

"Fall is here and all I have to say is; fuck Fall. Fall? I hate the Fall. What bullshit. Oh, the leaves change color...they change color for two days; then a big wind comes and you got nothing but sticks for the rest of the year. You never have a proper fall coat, nothing you wear is right. You wake up it's sunny out, you put a coat on. You go out, you're sweating like a pig, you take it off then it's cold...it's bullshit." -- Lewis Black, The White Album

Achievement unlocked: Autumn

 Hooray Fall! I love love LOVE the Fall. We don't do that season in Hawaii; so, as far as I'm concerned, I bought the upgrade. Three seasons now, eh, what what? But the temperature is kind of...well, I guess "mercurial" is the only truly applicable word there. A little too on-the-nose for those who know what a thermometer is, but I'll just have to try to own it; hells, I'll make it the post title. No one backs Baby Kana into a corner!

Now, I totally got the whole layering memo -- but that's just inadequate to what Alaska is dishing out right now, and what my newly less-insulated body can take. To truly be dressed appropriately for this weather, I need to be allowed to work in just a bra, but also come equipped with a light tank top, with another light tee top over that, followed by a medium sweater or shrug, a light jacket and then a medium one -- because that's easy and convenient, right? The bra must be a padded pushup with the inserts taken out so that I can jam coldpacks or handwarmers in there as needed. This place is hard.

Am I going to die?



Yes. Yes I am.

A lot of it has to do with my office-aka-"library suite" which has a bank of almost-floor-to-ceiling windows that would be more appropriate to a bikini barista* (Google that. I'm not kidding, it's a real thing) which can generate an amazing greenhouse effect, coupled with the Stacks, the back room where all of the hardcopy is stored. And that room is horrifically cold. I don't mean reallyreallyreally cold, like a freezer; it's the literally the kind of cold from a horror flick, a subtle creeping clammy chill, usually associated less with fluorescent lights or rotating shelving and more with crypts and the presence of evil spirits. I frequently find myself going "OOH ooh ooh ooh, AHH ahh ahh ahh, CH ch ch ch ..."

Seriously. Who else gets a suspense soundtrack at work? OTHER THAN THE MURDERER RIGHT BEHIND ME.

 My desk is in the sweet spot right in front of the door to the Stacks, facing the bank of windows. A meteorologist could work full time reporting from underneath my chair on the cold and warm fronts occuring at my station, it's nutso.



I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, due to established

meteorological physics, I ended up sporting one of those

individualized Eeyore clouds right above my desk



And the world outside the windows doesn't help either...I dare you, find a way to dress office-formal in the 40-degree morning for the 80-degree afternoon that becomes 90-something in my office greenhouse. Yesterday I wore wool dress slacks. It was reasonable! I could barely see the lock that morning because of how thickly my breath clouded the air as I tried to open the car door. 

My office was in the mid-nineties by 3pm.

And because the temperature gauge is in my area, the rest of the building was being refrigerated by the central AC. So everyone who passed through my area was either bitching about how hot it was in here or how cold it was out there, all with a vaguely accusing tone. Meanwhile I'm trying not to move in any way, because once I start to sweat I'm awash, and was therefore trying to avoid that first drop from beading. I self-soothed with images of forcing them to trade pants with me. I'm in the top 5 for slimmest people in my building, so it was pretty cheering.

It would barely even fit their fat heads

This all just supports my major theory that Fall is not intended to be experienced from an office. To a Hawaii chick, it seems like it should be ruled a month-long holiday full of berry picking, long walks in the woods, baking, shuffling through leaves, etc. Like most of life, I think Fall is most optimally experienced under a quilt, by a window, with a drink, a book and a cat. Fall's drink is cider. We aren't cleared for full-on hot cocoa until mid-October, when the snow starts to stick. Because, you know, Halloween's a Winter holiday. T_T;

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* I guess I did ask to work in my bra.../regret/

What's A Year Between Friends?

So I definitely put off updating for long enough, my procrastination prerogative is fully satiated.

It's no good, you guys; I can't stop thinking of things I'd love to rant to you about. I have no time and hardly any audience, but the hell I say; damn the cheesemongers and bring on the posts!

Should've labeled it

"CERTAINLY NOT Doodles"

There's nothing like full-time 9 to 5 office work to stimulate an almost desperate level of creativity, as one's own imagination attempts to achieve escape velocity from grim reality. My guilty little stack of doodles, snatches of song lyrics and other bits of inner-head dandruff bear witness to this. Meanwhile the return-mailing project remains entirely unaddressed, because I have my priorities properly wiggly.

I have made huge strides in my job skills since last I posted, in that I can now sometimes talk to my boss without having a panic attack. Not much else has improved; I seem to be surprisingly conform-and-obey-resistant. It's not a mark of character, I assure you; I'm not fightin' the power, I just lack the aptitude. However, I can put on earrings and high heels like a champ, so they think I'm an adult. The fools.

Magical-girl transformation

sequence: ACTIVATE

I have definitely begun my magical-girl transformation into a grownup, though; I recently cleaned out my sock and underwear drawers, and Loved. It. It was like giving my whole psyche a scrub and brushup. I went through my wardrobe, cleared out all our bedroom shelving, and redid my office setup...I'm an organizing fool! Or, alternately, a total tool. When did I buy into this well-organized malarky? Couldn't tell you, for the brainwashing is now complete. I used to be a Hot Topic rebel, spike-collared and antagonistic to strangers at the mall; I knew the score, and was free from the lies of tidiness, timeliness, or any other -ness you'd care to name. What happened?

This is not rhetorical; I think I know, actually.

Kids find out somewhere between ages 3 and 13, based on the individual's level of observation or their parent's IQ, that adults are stupid and boring. They then commence to rail against these wastes of humanity that gave them the precious gift of life in ever-increasingly intelligent rants as they progress towards the second pivotal point, which can occur any time between 17 and 27, depending on apron-string strength, level of education or the advent of a family tragedy. This is the point at which all the adult-imposed structure and well-intentioned plans draws to their scheduled close and the young human, suddenly shorn of a sheltering scapegoat to be "held back" by, stands before the realities of life, survival, the need for food and rent money...and suddenly loses all aspirations to the soapbox or personal principle.

People are remarkably conservative and unimaginative when presented with a sudden dose of total personal responsibility.

You find the job, the apartment and the person to live in it with, and batten down the hatches against both reality and old dreams of grandeur. CSI reruns, takeout and saving up long enough to buy the new iThing shape your world, and by the time you resurface from this womblike regression from that shock enough to get a decent job, make some sound investments and gain the ability to vacation every other year, there's no hope left; you've bought in to everything your parents stood for, and you're shopping for durability, searching for stability and trying to watch your cholesterol. The world is hard, and whenever the moment is that the young person faces that fact, is the moment the transformation begins.

“Looks like he was a real go-getter, huh Pete”

“Sure does, Bob”

And yes, of course there's exceptions to this; sometimes people see opportunities and possibilities, not just obstacles. And I think most anyone on a good day can talk themselves into taking on at least one of their obstacles and making an opportunity for themselves, it's nowhere near impossible. But have you noticed how many of those opportunity-makers, movers and shakers, tend to be outlined in white on CSI? Hmm? HMM? Inactivity sees you through, says I; and have you seen my new iPod? It can hold 160 gigs! I can take alllll my music with me on our next vacation.

Hired...Dammit

Lies for the money...and it feels sooo bad

As I might have mentioned once...twice...maybe a dozen times, I've been applying for a new job of late. It's an awful, exhausting business, trying to fool strangers into believing that you're a whole and normal adult who's totally going to positively contribute to their business. Full of lies and smiles, I refrained from telling boss after prospective boss about all my failings.

The fact that I'm a real person is probably the biggest setback. I am odd, individualized, inconsistent in my day-to-day attitude, scatterbrained, and generally unfit to do anything more regulated than maybe - MAYBE - brush my teeth everyday. I mean, come on -- everyday? That's, like, so monotonous.

So, I got hired from one of the fatcat bosses I lied so boldly to. They think pretend Kana is just who they need. I'm terrified that real Kana is going to come as a bitter disappointment.

Not this kind of model
And yet, surprisingly
close to the mark in effect

This woman is terrifying to me. She's one of those expensively maintained models that runs on success and attention. (By "model" I mean to dehumanize her into a machine, not claim that she rocks the catwalk.) She's fifty, looks thirty, has a private plane she doesn't use, a lakeside cabin she has no time to visit, two grown daughters who live thousands of miles away, and a giant house up on Hillside (the good part of town). She also has a terrifying way of letting her smile sort of sour and fade while you think about your answer to her questions, threatening to take it away entirely if you don't give the "right" answer - read, "whatever she wants to hear." And it's not always clear what that is. AAAHHHHHHH!

I'm going to be working with a lot of these high-motivation career types - this is Oil & Gas, where the big money's made. So not just fatcats, but oily fatcats. I can't believe they wanted me. I can't believe I'm planning to work there. These are not my people. I am going to be forced to talk to these phoneys and submit myself to their judgement and their bullshit for hours everyday. I've been hired. Dammit.

Things! Things! I MUST HAVE THINGS!!!

I just want to state my agenda to the Universe (by means of this obscure blog) right now; I want enough money to be able to do things, not money in its own right. I am not a "career" person. I am a "job" person. I go, I earn the money, go home, and then my real life begins. I value happiness over things, and while some things make me happy, I'm not going to save up a cavern of gold like Scrooge McDuck just to be ready to purchase every good thing that comes along.

"...and please don't hurt me." Forgot that bit

And to this awful lady, who reminds me so much of my last boss at the Spa job: I do not admire you. I do not trust you. You are a phoney. Do not reward me with your expensive fake smile.Your empty nest and heavily be-ringed fingers do not appeal to me, nor your unused glamor-items standing in hangars or by lakesides unattended. You are not what I consider an example of success. Do not look down on me, and tell me how "on" I was today. I will serve the public trust, man my post in your records library so that public access and accountability may be maintained. I will not buy into your byzantine private-sector-meets-public-sector game of lies, profit and smarm. So there!

And if I can hold to this rant, keeping it in a small, locked-up portion of my brain that remains pure of the bullshit I'm about to undergo, maybe I'll make it through this new job.

"Really" From Hawaii

Surprise; you can be waaaaay white
AND live in a tropical paradise

So there have been some doubts voiced about the authenticity or my origins, and who can blame them? Red curly hair, pale skin and a love for jackets matching boots does not scream tropical to even the poorest geography student. I also speak (type?) like a haolie – a white person. 

Well, I can’t help it -- my mother was a well-educated woman from the Mainland, and she taught me how to speak. I have been known to erupt into Pidgin (the local Hawaiian dialect + slang) with no warning while calling to institutions back home – like the bank, or the accountant’s – because I get better service that way, because they can’t see me and think I'm a "real" kama'aina. As Mom planned, I have a Hawaiian name, even if it’s for the other gender. But it’s enough to get by.

However, my face is fooling NO ONE – I am pale, I am Nordic, I’m too much of an indoor cat to ever get a tan. Besides, that would clash with the hair.

So, living in paradise? Only about 

20% as awesome as you think it is

People up here in AK express their incredulity about my origins when they find out – “WHY are you HERE??” is the most common response – but that’s just straight-up envy. There’s a lot of Polynesians in Alaska, so Hawaii is coveted but viewed as a peer, the OTHER satellite state. In the continental US, people seem to express outright disbelief as to my origins, and I’m not actually clear if it’s my white-girl appearance or just the exoneration of the islands to some sort of mythical level.

I once got to visit a land-locked state by staying with my Auntie Judy, who lives in Michigan. We’d met her in one of her frequent forays to the islands, which she strives to do every year. She really loves the beach, and although it’s prohibitively expensive she tries really hard to go. I should have reflected on that fervor as we drove to her hometown. It was summer, and the time of their State Fair. I had a blast, as back home there can only be island-wide and not State-wide Fairs, and the Maui Fair is pretty tiny. I was particularly enjoying the livestock area, as Michigan’s 4H is equivalent to Chicago’s Mafia in both far-reaching power and number of members. I was petting a baby goat (!) when I saw two little boys on a fence nearby. I hadn’t talked to someone from that side of puberty since my mother and I had started traveling, so even though I was a little older than them I wandered up. I’m not sure how the subject even came up -- maybe something about how big I thought the fair was and how cool their sheep were or something -- but the conversation suddenly honed in on where I was from. I hadn’t traveled much since I was a baby, so I hadn’t yet had much experience with Hawaii-born bragging rights. So I shyly gave a shout-out for the Aloha State.

 

This was met with a stony silence and an intent scrutiny from both of the fencegoers, and also possibly their ram. That might just be the way rams look at everyone, though…with a sort of doubtful scorn.

However, it left me stranded high and dry on a sandbar of awkward silence. I stood there, suddenly acutely aware of several things; primarily, my extreme whiteness. Also the fact that these boys did not know the first thing about Hawaii, where there are people of many nationalities browning evenly under a ferocious tropical sun, as actual Hawaiians are a bit thin on the ground these days. And finally, that these boys have probably only even heard about Hawaii from the ever-glamorous television people, and adult Michiganites, who probably talk about it with a reverence that would made it sound like the place where good Michiganites go when they die. With this mythos in their minds, there was no way these kids were going to believe some lily-ass beanpole standing right in front of them, even if she was a few years older than them and therefore significantly higher on the Juvenile Hierarchy of Coolness*.

 

The towheaded one squinched up his eyes and issued an exploratory strike at my claim:

“No yer not.”

I assured him that I was. Another foray was made:

“Nuh-uh.”

Panicking at the threat of a seven-year-old’s nuh-uh/yuh-huh filibuster – a terrible, terrible threat, I assure you – I retreated to Cool Kid high ground. “Pssht, fine; whatever.”

This got them right where I wanted them; wide-eyed and admiring. Fools! They could not resist my disdain, which signified me to be not only a Big Kid, but also an emissary from the land of awesomeness. I gloated, I preened. I answered 7-year-old’s questions about Hawaii with greater or lesser accuracy. I even risked being condescending about their Great Lake which was both unfounded and falsified; I would not be visiting the Lake for another three days. I played it off. I soared on the wings of temporary superiority. I was from Hawaii; I was awesome.

It felt so good it almost didn’t feel like reality anymore; I might as well have been lying for all the posturing I was doing. As far as those two little boys were concerned, I was a god; either a champion liar or a foreigner, and either one is interesting enough if you’re sitting on a fence at the State Fair livestock pen. I still take it as a win.

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*The JHC dictates that the older you are, the cooler you are, as you become more worldly-wise and are given more privileges. The system breaks down at the mid-teens, where the kids look as big as the adults, become Babysitters or Strangers and are considered The Enemy.

Called Out On A Technicality

So I did finish the books...but now I also need to a find a new job, a new place to live, and replace a moonroof, because a great and powerful Alaska wind somehow trepanned our car through howling suction. I'm overwhelmed, kinda in denial, and busy, busy, busy...Update maybe tomorrow.

Just what I needed, c/o http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/business/

There's Gold In These-Here Hills

Gooooooolllllllld!
The prospector's cry was definitely heard in the frigid North at one time -- but now, the real money's in oil, and oil is in the money. In fact, the money comes from Big Oil.

The Permanent Fund Dividend, or PFD, is the dirty delicious payoff Alaskans receive to let Big Oil rape the ever-lovin' tar out of their state. (Was that a pun? Is it clever or obnoxious? WHO KNOWS) I view it as the ultimate level in my halting progress towards becoming an Alaskan, the Final Level. This year the payout is $1,300 buckeroos -- more than 3 week's worth of pay for everyone's favorite Kana.

Now, I have never received the PFD in all my (5+) years up here. Initially, it was because I had to prove I'd been here for more than two years, so the first two were moot. I'm fine with that; laughably, I was planning on leaving in that amount of time with a degree. Double ha.

Then, my mother refused to stop claiming me as a dependent in Hawaii -- even though she'd cut me off financially during the interim. "Details", right?

Out the door...

And after I went through the emotional battle the next year of refusing her my tax info so that I could claim myself as an independent, thus beginning a paper trail for myself in-state, I then realized...it would be two years after the last Hawaii tax return before I could be considered. So, years passed.

...And around the building

I work in a state building, and walk by the little lobby-PFD office everyday. It doesn't see much action for most of the year -- but right now, the prospecting pioneer spirit has brought hundreds out of the woodwork to stand in line and pan for riches at their four teller stations. I've seen it firsthand for two years now, my time with the state -- standing sheepishly outside and around the side of the building, no doubt aware that they look like a World War 2 breadline.

This picture was c/o of a blogger who is...aggressively
political. No citation for them!

I mostly ignore it, other than taking a fraction of a second to be grateful it's not me standing out there as I duck out of the cold into the warm and fragrant lobby. But this weekend Lovely and Pants decided it was high time I looked into applying for the PFD. And so, with their threats of many beatings blessing I looked into it...the prospects (Now it's a pun) still weren't good:

PROOF OF HAVING MOVED TO ALASKA. We moved all my belongings in me and my mother's carry-on and checked luggage, with no shipped belongings. I did not have my signature on any lease or rental agreement for four years after that, living in the dorms.

PROOF OF HAVING CONSISTENTLY LIVED IN ALASKA FOR 2+ YEARS. All my work had been done through UAA's Work-Study program, on-campus, while I lived in the dorms, and therefore I had not stepped off embassy soil while in this foreign state in any PFD-meaningful way. I had no non-university paper trail until the summer of the Spa, which was a local business not in association with University. In pretty much any way, including IQ, unfortunately. But I am in no place to judge; I hadn't kept track of my voting card from when I cast my ballot in the last presidential election, nor did I have an AK driver's license or State ID. I was nobody.

I'm totally from here!
c/o http://www.toplessrobot.com/martian.jpg

PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP IN THE USA. I had an expired passport somewhere, from when I was little and did things, but my birth certificate (no copies accepted) was several thousand miles away over land and sea, along with my social security card. My  driver's license has never existed, as I don't know how to drive (I know, I know) so I might as well be from Mars as anywhere else.

Fortunately, I was cowed with threats encouraged to find contingencies; I found my old expired passport (11 year-old Kana was blonde, and, according to my darling LoveBun, homely -- but at least she was going to England, Scotland and France) and got the date I voted from the Alaska Voters Registration. So much fun, BTdubs -- I highly recommend it as an extreme sport. Combined with my jealously guarded W2s, I was ready to deliver my bona fides -- all I had to do was join the Breadline of Eternity.

I took an hour "lunch" to stand in the line, and I managed to make it in time -- ish. But by the time I straggled back upstairs, mission accomplished (hopefully!) I was forever tainted, and not just with the reek of a thousand redneck cigarettes. Those news reporters that want to feel up America's pulse should stand in the PFD line -- these total strangers will talk about religion, politics, healthcare, anything incendiary. Like the cigarettes, I think that they think this will keep them warm.

Note: 'incendiary' is not warm, it is on fire.

I wanted to kill everything, but especially the two people behind me, by the time I inched my way towards the indoors part of the line. I was the last in the group of five let inside at a time, and I was so happy to leave their bitching behind -- they had totally united over misery and kvetchery for the past 45 minutes -- so imagine my surprise when this horrible woman's stroller-chair bumped into my Achilles' for the nth time.

She'd come in anyway.

The unaccustomed sense of (relative) quiet was due to the fact that she'd abandoned her new synchronized bitching partner outside to fend for himself, and had (I suppose) played on the security guard's sympathies to get in that much more quickly. She was definitely failing healthwise, this much was true, but I bet if that security guard had been able to see how many cancer sticks she'd sucked down in between anti-government mutterings outside, he would not have been quite as sympathetic.


She found a new kvetchee to talk to behind me, and so Redneck Conservative Talk Radio resumed. He seemed more than happy to engage her, but I'm pretty confident that that's because he'd cut the line -- just joined the end of the indoor line. It was really chaotic in there, so the only one who'd really notice is the person you're standing next to. So he encouraged her to air her views with a strong dose of smarm n' charm. I understand the tactic, and respect the cojones; but I still hold that it's poor taste to loudly argue for smaller government while in a State building standing in line for free State money. That's too much cojones, especially for an old lady.

Fortunately, I made it without exploding at all, and will soon find out whether or not I qualify to become a True Alaskan -- selling my new home out from under myself for an annual payoff, just like everybody else. Go team go!

Spring Update, OR: STOP IT ALASKA

Noooooooooooo

So I woke up to this today...effin' Alaska! STOP IT. The traffic was poops, the whole city was at a loss to change back to old driving habits. And now that I'm at work, it's still just PISSING down out there, each large wet fluffy flake giggling obscenely as it passes my floor's windows...at least in my mind.

Look at it, just giggling merrily away like
so many little vicious pixies - EFF YOU SNOW

I might have gone a little cuckoo at the sight; you see I bought a t-shirt last night. Madness, you say? It was heady optimism, I know, and I was carried away  by the siren song of Summer -- and now, here I am, all enshirtled, gazing bleakly at the giggling snow. KHAAAAAAAAAN!

All upon a bleak midwinter? TRY MARCH.

::Mid-day Update::
I have been informed by my coworkers that I'm insane for expecting anything OTHER than this when it's "only March." I didn't tell them about the giggling snowflakes.

Potty Mouth

If you are of a refined or delicate disposition, be warned - I really am going to talk about a toilet. And mystery mold.

One particular toilet, in fact; the non-handicapped stall in the Ladies' on my floor. It is my bathroom-away-from-home, because I think there's probably a circle of Hades set aside for able-bodied people who choose the handicapped stall over a normal stall*, or something. We certainly vie for the "normal" stall like we will otherwise be damned. Anywho.

I think it's happy-looking

 It is a good toilet, as such things go, clean and well-functioning. But it has a unique feature, a birthmark of sorts; in the corner of the ceiling where it meets the stall wall there is a custard-colored snowflake. It has not grown or changed in any way since I started here a year ago, but its cheerful butterscotch color cheers me every time. Gods only know what mystery mold makes that color, and what spores it might belch on a microscopic level, but Fie, I say; It is cute, and it makes me happy.

This could almost have been one of my "Simple Pleasures" entries, if only there wasn't such a gray cloud in my toilet's silver lining; the paper liners. People go both ways on them, needing them to feel safe or condemning a wasteful act that preys on our hypochondria and supplies only psychosomatic protection. I can live without 'em, but prefer to use them if they're there. But I've never. NEVER. EVER been good at them. It's been years, I really have no excuse. Those things split in my hands, turning into parade-confetti supplies before my puzzled eyes. No matter how gently, or casually, or slowly I try to tear the central part loose from the border, it just becomes the flapping ragged sail of a ghost ship. (And those are not even remotely toilet-seat-shaped. Famed for it.) And even once I have something that can at least be sat on, in the time between putting it there and being ready to make contact it has sunk to the abyssal depths of the bowl like the ghost ship it thinks it's a part of. Well, it does follow; the majority of it hangs into the bowl, and then gets wet. It's just following its own poorly-thought-out design. So I usually have to sacrifice one to sleep with the fishes, and put another on top that will be partially supported by its brother in the water. But unfortunately, yesterday saw this sad moment on the left; even the second one started giving up the ghost when I went to go stage the photo-op. Maybe it's camera-shy?

Por que, paper liners?

So I'm like the ultimate waster; not only do I use them, I tend to use two; and then I did it just to take a picture of it. There's probably a Circle for people like me too. What would be hilarious is if it's right next to the one for choosing to use the handicapped stall if you're not handicapped. It would be just like old times...or, in other words, now.
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* Having no other stall to turn to or needing room coz you're big, have a kid, or need to change totally absolves you. You just end up in Ambiguous Bathroom Choices Limbo. It's like that waiting room from Beetlejuice.

Look At My Purse, Godsdammit ::AND:: Endless Summer Pining (A Double Feature)

 Look @ My Purse, Dammit

I bought a Kangaroo pouch last Christmas, and if this tale wasn't already gripping enough, let me hasten to inform you that it comes with BOTH a big and little version in the box, and that I gave the big one as a gift that holiday, in which to keep the small one for myself. The plan was simple, yet ingenious; I could switch bags easily, it would always be in the same place in the bag, and if it was done with NASCAR-speed, Bunny would not have the opportunity to tell me what I was doing was stupid. I'd like to avoid criticism without having to change anyway.

A gripping read so far, I know. BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE.

Organizational!

Here's the hook: Although the Kangaroo pouch would do all I had hoped, I didn't OWN any small, empty-center bags. I specialize in  messenger bags with ten thousand pockets to fit my big awful Mac laptop. So. I'm designing and making some. 

This is my simplest design, so I started off with him...he* only took two evenings, it was great, but when I proudly strutted into work the next day, nothing. I carefully positioned it in a prominent place with a solid backdrop, in full view of the mouth of my cubicle. And my job is a tiny, tiny world of bored people, mostly over forty. EVERYONE SEES EVERYTHING. And then TALKS ABOUT IT FOREVARS. Not kidding -- I once switched from my black messenger bag to my brown one, and couldn't move for "Oh, new bag?" inanities from both men and women for days. So what the hell, people? Brand new bag, matching entire outfit -- let's hear some feedback!

Prominently and attractively (?)
displayed - and yet not a nibble

No bite.

Eventually I announced to CubeTown at large that if someone didn't say something about my new bag RIGHT NOW I would explode. I'm still getting shit about it. Be careful what you querulously demand...

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*There is no reason for the gendered usage except that there would have been an "it" on either side of the ellipses if I'd gone gender-neutral. And that sounds like the sound effect of a pensive squirrel: Squik it it it...it squik kuchoo...

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 Endless Summer Pining: Pt. 2 Of Crafty Double-Post

Some places can have these year-round. Oh Gawds.

I need sun. I need cold chicken and fruit from a little Igloo cooler half-full of melting ice keeping the sodas cold. I need sand, and sunburn, and green grass. And flowers. Goodlorda'mighty, flowers. In all the vivid garish colors that waver in the heat ripples.

I demand GRASS! GIMME!!

I might be ready for Summer. Just a little. Some hints:

I wear tropical colors and pretend my building
is a cruise ship, but its just not the same.

The outfits -- brightly-colored tanktop and dress shirt combos at work; at home flowered prints, shorts, skirts, and above all COLOR.

To clash/match any color scheme

I made flower barrettes -- no namby-pamby pastels!  I require the bright wildflower colors that make you feel that Summer sun on your skin. And in your SOUL. Or something.

 

 

The playlists -- I made two playlists for summer, one long and one short(er), and another for a tropical feel.  I play them all day at work, over and over. The short one is specifically for songs with 'summer' or 'sun' in the title/refrain, with a few exception like Heat Wave and What A Day For A Daydream, which are just necessary.

 

The "short" playlist...

...is only comparatively so