Mail to G-RockYou know what's nice? Not having to wear pants. I sure do enjoy coming home from work and taking my pants off. Not that I don't enjoy pants. I dare say I even look pretty darn good in some pairs of pants. But you get so much more freedom of movement without pants. Today on the subway, my pants were doing me a particular disservice. But the nice thing about New York is you can do all sorts of weird things and no one will think twice about it. Anyway, I'm wearing pants right now, but I'm seriously considering taking them off. I think I'll wait a bit.
So work has been the busiest for me that it's ever been. I've got a lot of writing and research to do, and I'm still being handed the same shit jobs I've been doing for the past four months. So it's pretty hard to prioritize things and get everything done. I spent the entire day working on one article, and I barely finished. By the time I left, there were only three other people in the office. But I really don't mind. I enjoy the work, and one of the editors told me I should have at least three pages in the next magazine. I haven't finished any of them though, so that of course needs to be taken care of. I have to write an article about what's happening in Japan, what's up with the French, and all sorts of music stuff. Interesting stuff though. Just a pain in the ass to research. And I have to come up with ideas for the May issue. So if anyone has any ideas.
All the work i'm doing is a little overwhelming, but thinking about it now, it's exactly what I've always wanted. Except the getting paid part. But i get to write, and write about a large variety of different subjects that, for the most part, I find pretty interesting. Every application I wrote for the grad schools I applied to highlighted that desire. I've never been able to settle on one subject and make it my thing. Maybe it's my short attention span. But that's why I considered history grad school at first, just so I could learn about a lot of different things. And why I ended up in journalism school. Just to be a better writer, so I could write about all these things that I want to write about. And the editorial staff seems fairly open-minded about the kinds of stories they'll use. And it's nice to be given more responsibility. Sort of, um, grown up I guess. I think I may finally be getting my chance.
A little voice is saying "Now don't blow it!"I'm pretty much settling into a little groove, life-wise. Work seems to be ok. I'm finding a lot of enjoyment in reading. And I like sitting here listening to music and writing. I'm using the speaker for my computer that my brother Garrick got me for Christmas. It's nice having the sound right in front of you for a change. I really like the 8th song on Modest Mouse's The Lonesome Crowded West.
Tomorrow, the 24th, is Chinese New Year. The Year of the Snake. My pappy's year. 1941. It's supposed to be a good year for those of us born in the year of the Dragon, which just ended. I just saw that Google put up a little Chinese New Year design on their page. Nice touch. Even the little sign is upside down, as it should be. I was just thinking, isn't it weird how some cultures decided to measure time by the moon while others figured out a way to measure time by the placement of the sun? If you ask me, the solar method is more impressive. It seems more fitting. Why should we measure our year by some chunk of rock that's subordinate to us? I think it makes more sense to measure how long it takes to get around the sun, since when you get right down to it, that's all the earth is basically doing. If we had no moon, sure, there'd be some environmental catastrophes at first, but eventually everything would settle down. If there were no sun, we'd all be dead in a matter of months. So worship the sun! We need to do all we can to make sure its precious light and heat never escape our atmosphere. I'm currently developing a plan where, by releasing certain compounds into the earth's atmosphere, we can effectively trap in the sun's heat, raising our planet's temperature and storing the precious, precious heat, just in case our life-giving deity Solaris should ever abandon us. I call it "The Really Hot Earth" effect. Catchy, huh?
However, my Chinese-- and, to a lesser extent, Buddhist-- heritage compels me to fully acknowledge the Chinese New Year. And I have been trying to be a little more interested in heritage and religion and chinese language more lately. The crappy thing about trying to keep up with the lunar calendar in a Gregorian calendar world is, I never know when my parent's birthdays are. Until a few months ago, my dad didn't even know what his Western calendar birthday was. It wasn't until he found a webpage that could run the dates back to 1941 that he figured it out. I don't remember what it was. The flipside, of course, is that if I miss one say, the lunar calendar birthday, I can always catch the western one, since I don't think they're ever the same day. I think my mom's birthday is february 13th. I have no idea what her lunar calendar birthday will be. Oh, how I long for a world where there's one calendar, where everyone uses the English measuring system, and where everyone speaks Esperanto. You know, when the Romans and the Chinese conquered their respective corners of the world, one of the great side effects was the standardization of all manner of things. But know, we have to have all sorts of countries, where its Year Two-Thousand-and-One, Anno Domini in the west, year 11 of the Heisei, and like year 52 in China. Or something like that.
Anyway, the crappy thing was I never got out of school or work because it was New Year. All Judeo-Christian holidays are causes for work stoppage. But no, I gotta go to work or school or be left behind. Christ. Still, it's the only new year celebration I know of that's celebrated by giving and receiving red envelopes full of cash. Hi-ya!
DA&R
home
Past
Aggravations and Regrets
previous
| next
South
Pole Home
©2001 Three Match Breeze