the Diva Platform

A lot of times, I miss out on opportunities because I forget about them until it’s too late or can’t get something on time (and let’s face it, FedEx can’t always solve everything). Last week I remembered I’d be home on Election Day, and hey! Maybe I could be an Election Judge! It’s something, along with jury duty, that I’ve been wanting to do, but I’ve never been able to swing it. Now I have time aplenty, just waiting for me to do some civic duties. But now that I was ready to be a judge, how did I go about doing it?

Around this time of year, I usually get an e-mail from a local political organization I’m involved with, asking for people to be judges on Election Day. It always seems they have trouble finding enough people, so the week before we get an e-mail looking for volunteers (actually, I believe the position pays a little bit, but it’s one really long day, since you have to be there before the polls open and stay to close them down). Yesterday I got the e-mail, and I immediately responded that I’d love to be an Election Judge, what did I have to do?

It didn’t take long to get a reply. Oh, it’s actually too late to be a judge, the person wrote. How about handing out some literature or manning a phone bank?

Um, if it’s too late to be a judge, then why did you ask for them? Was it just a ploy to find out who’s all interested in volunteering and then rope them into doing different tasks? Because it’s cold outside–through Tuesday it’ll be cold.  Like we-hope-it-will-get-up-to-freezing cold. I’m not handing out literature between now and then. I’m also not manning a phone bank for someone I don’t know so that I too can call people with a monotone voice, reading a script and trying to get a yes, I’ll vote for you off of it (which to me is a little like someone converting to Christianity simply because they read a “You’re going to Hell!” tract).

Actually, you don’t want me manning your phone bank because I’m bound to get fed up with the script and say things like, “Oh, I don’t really know much about this candidate. I only signed up to volunteer so I can get in good with the Alderman,” or, “Yeah, if you don’t vote for this guy for judge, we’ll be checking to see if you owe any money to the city,” or even, “Hell, I don’t know what the Water Reclamation Board does either, but this guy sure wants to be on it. He must want to be allowed to ride out to those filtration plants in Lake Michigan.”

Needless to say, I declined those “opportunities.” I’m now all about making sure the activities I do are ones I want to do, not because someone else wants me to do them. Still though, I’ve got to figure out this whole Election Judge thing because that would be awesome.

The Doctor, her friend, and I have season tickets to Broadway in Chicago, and our season started off last night with My Fair Lady. It’s one of those classics I hadn’t seen, and even better, our friend Piano Man is the Associate Music Director and plays keyboards in the pit.

The show is pretty interesting. This production is great–good talent (including the woman who did Audrey Hepburn’s vocals in the movie verson playing Mrs. Higgins), great sets, beautiful costumes–but the show itself got me thinking a lot.

First off, I didn’t like–especially near the end–the main theme that a man tried to mold a woman into who he wanted her to be. Of course, this doesn’t work, but that’s revealed right at the end and didn’t make quite the impact on me (moreso was the relief that it didn’t end romantically).

For most of the first act, though, I thought about how important education is. Eliza eked out a living by selling flowers on the street. Once she got some education, she could really do something with her life. That’s true today too, and it’s weird to me that we don’t put our money where our mouth is when it comes to a lot of public school systems. Shouldn’t we want to fund those more than anything? Or are people only concerned about getting that “My kid is on the honor roll at….” bumper sticker (do they even give those out anymore)? Time and effort, that’s what we need to bring our educational system up a notch.

During the show, I also thought about that old question of, “If you could live in any time period, which one would you live in?” Oh, it sounds so romantic to say Middle Ages or Turn-of-the-Century London, but when I think about me living in those eras, I think of me being the lady of the manor or the duchess, or something like that. The reality probably would be serf or street urchin. Not so romantic. I’ll take my life here, thank you very much.

Still though, this show kind of makes me want to strive to be a better person–better educated, at least. Have to keep the brain sharp. That concept has become really important to me lately, and as I’ll lose some of the intellectual stimulation from my job, I’ll definitely have to work hard to keep it up on my own.

If you stay in a job long enough, you pick up habits that make you more “efficient” in your day-to-day work life. And if you stay too long in a job, those habits may spill over into your private life, where they may become a little more invasive. For example:

• My first job was at McDonald’s, and my subconscious still remembers ways to make change for a dollar.
• My first job out of college was at a library filing service, and I can still flip through a phone book with a pencil pretty fast.

On the flip side, I worked for a couple of professors for a year in college. I don’t remember much of anything about that job, except that one prof made me look up a lot of stuff on Ralph Nader.
So what weird habits have I picked up as a researcher that I really hope fade away? Let’s take a look:

• I write my grocery lists in terms of stock tickers (K Corn Flakes, KFT Mac & Cheese, diet KO, etc).
• Every time I’m in a public restroom, I look to see who stocks the toilet paper. I get bonus points when I remember SCA is Swedish.
• I hate private companies simply because they’re private, and I can’t find any information on them. This means you, Mars (though I love M&Ms) and you too, Jeld-Wen windows. I’ve also hated whole industries for similar reasons–sometimes there’s just not that much information out there, and it’s difficult to have to tell someone, “Look, there’s nothing else out there on automotive glass. Nobody really cares about it!”
• I use a little too much industry lingo. This habit led to an argument in the grocery store when I took the Boy that we needed something from the “shelf-stable juice aisle.” He immediately responded in exasperation, “No one talks like that!”
• I get a little too excited about articles when they’re by reporters whose work I’ve become familiar with. Some of my favorites are Harry Weber and Dave Carpenter from the Associated Press and Christina Cheddar-Berk and Julie Jargon from the Wall St. Journal/Dow Jones. I see their stuff often enough that I silently refer to them as “my buddies.” Sadly, this problem may be genetic because one of my father’s best “friends” is CNBC’s Jim Cramer.

Actually, another side effect of my job is that I can’t remember much of what I did the day before, not to mention the weeks and months before. Perhaps that will help me get rid of all these habits.  That would be pretty sweet.

Could it be that I’ll look forward to Mondays after this week?  Today is my last Monday at the job-I’m-good-at-but-have-no-passion-for, and I’m still in a bit of disbelief about it.  I’m packing up my work desk and trying not to take much home.  I had a penchant for cubicle gag-type stuff–a spray can of Spice Girls perfume, a Scott Hamilton jar of Smuckers (with the jelly still in it, disgustingly enough), a couple of librarian action figures, etc.–and I’m giving most of it away (I’m still undecided about the “collector’s item” jelly that I could quite possibly make money from on eBay, though if the Boy heard me say that, he’d probably drop the jar on the kitchen floor.  He’s not a big fan of “collector’s items.”  Maybe I’ll just put it up on Craigslist and see what happens).

Why would I give away these choice items, many of which were great gifts?  Well, I kind of want this phase of my life to be over.  Librarianship was a field I shouldn’t have gone into in the first place, since I mainly saw it as a job I could do until the writing could take over.  And even though I learned a ton from this work and have had great experiences doing it, it was a mistake for me to try to make a career of something that wasn’t really me.  Therefore, I don’t really want too many physical memories of that job lying around, reminding me of how miserable life was when I wasn’t doing what I’m supposed to do with myself.

I’m interested in seeing what life will be like when I am writing full-time.  Will I look forward to going to work?  Will I be more driven?  Will it be the fix in my life that I hope it will be?  And I hope the answers to these questions are yes–because I can’t imagine the possibilities otherwise.

Does anyone know where I can get a poster of Crush?  The Boy wants to hang it in his locker.

He thinks I should get one of Phil Keoghan for my locker, but I prefer to keep my crush on the inside.

Yesterday evening I was telling the Boy about my latest Scrabulous games on Facebook, and he said that he just didn’t understand “FriendSpace.”  I had to explain that it was “Facebook” and “MySpace” and “Friendster,” (which devolved into a slight musing on if anyone still uses Friendster.  Anyone?) and that even though I was on Facebook, there was a lot of things I didn’t get either.  I’m on there for networking a little bit, and I like some of the map applications.  And you can kind of get to know your friends a little bit better with quizzes and whatnot, which is actually quite useful as an adult, since you don’t see them every day in class.
There are parts of Facebook I just don’t understand, and I chalk it up to a bit of, “I guess that’s what the kids are doing these days,” thinking.  I don’t get the “poke” feature, not to mention the “super poke” feature, though I poke and am poked regularly.  I keep thinking there’s more to it.  I also don’t understand the virtual gifts you can give, which sparked this reply from the Boy:  “Wait, you can buy a virtual gift with real money?!  Why would you do that?”  He had a puzzled look on his face while he contemplated the concept a bit.

By then it was time for me to check in on my games, so he sat down with me to see what moves I was making.  Then it was time to figure out who else was on Facebook.  “Look up ______!”  he cried.

“I want to see ______’s profile!”

“Who’s _______ and how do you know him?”

“Boy, that _______.  He’s sure got a lot of friends.”

Then he said, “Look up ‘Baby Jesus.’  I wonder if he’s on Facebook.”

Sure enough, “Baby Jesus” is.  And he went to UVA for college.  He’s not to be confused with “Big Baby Jesus,” of whom there are two on Facebook.

Now I’ve just got to think about whether or not we should be friends.

When we were in Tokyo, we spent a few hours in a store called Kiddyland.  This place is full of cute stuff (and A4 folders) geared toward kids, but there were a lot of single adults buying things there as well.

Needless to say, because I love the Japanese cute (they call it kawaii), I went crazy in the place.  Along with several other cute cute things, we now own cute little Kapibarasan juice glasses, a frog spatula, a crocodile food scraper, and the aforementioned stack of A4 folders.

One other thing I bought was a glittery Lilo & Stitch day planner.  I thought it would be fun to have a planner from another country, and in Japan, it’d be totally normal for a 30-something female to have this cute little scheduler.  However, when I started using it here in the States, I felt slightly different.  When I’m coordinating calendars with people, and they all pull out their sensible, career-oriented black/leather cover/impressive datebooks, and I’ve got my colorful, funky, kid-oriented one, I don’t feel so sharp.  On the other hand, I do dig the colors, and I like having something that makes me smile when I use it.

The other thing I didn’t consider when I decided to buy this is that holidays are different in Japan.  I’ve had to pencil in when Presidents’ Day and Labor Day are, but I’m all ready to celebrate White Day (March 14), Greenery Day (May 4), Star Festival (July 7) Respect-for-the-Aged Day (Sept. 15), and Sports Day (October 13), among others.  I think it’s so interesting to learn about all the different holidays around the world and just how different we all are.  I may have to learn what happens on these Japanese holidays and perhaps celebrate accordingly!

Every year, I look forward to Martin Luther King Day weekend because it’s when I get together with my college roommate and another good friend from the dorms.  We don’t do anything fancy–mostly hang out in our pajamas and then go eat a good steak dinner.  It’s just totally relaxing.

This year I Megabussed it down to Indy early on Saturday morning for the festivities.  The night before was another night of drinking in my farewell to the job “tour” I’ve put together (I’ve been at the company 11 years, we’re hitting 11 bars over the course of my final weeks there), and I meant to make it an early night.  I suppose it was early, considering we tend to go to bed around midnight every day, but it was rough getting up regardless.

I’d planned to sleep the entire way down.  I was exhausted, a bit hung over, had a bad cough.  I needed to sleep.  The weird thing was that before the bus left Union Station, I had a little bit of a breakfast bar, then I tried to sleep.  Once we were on our way, I opened my eyes around 35th Street and was totally awake and alert and feeling much better.

I won’t give all the credit to the breakfast bar, though I’m sure it helped.  No, what I think I was happy about was escaping the city for a couple of days.  Yep, I’m feeling a little hemmed in by all the big buildings and the hustle and bustle of Chicago, and I’m starting to think again about maybe moving somewhere else.  The Boy and I talk about this a fair amount, but we just don’t know where to go and when to think about going (unfortunately, at the moment my writing is pretty much tied to Chicago-centric publications, so until I can branch out more, I’ve got to stay here).

All I know is that being in a less dense city was infinitely more exciting than all the activities Chicago has to offer.

Don’t you wish that the CTA Doomsday actually happened?  Maybe just for one or two days, but actually happened just so the state government would see how much of a catastrophe it would’ve been?

Don’t get me wrong—I would’ve totally been affected by the Doomsday plans.  My bus?  Gone.  All the buses around my area?  Pretty much gone.  I would’ve had to trek to the El (and I would’ve loved to see the mobs of people trying to get on the trains) or pray that the one bus left in my neighborhood would never have been full.  I honestly figured I’d have to walk or ride my bike (and riding would’ve only been possible if I had a shower on the other end, and let’s face it, I’m not joining a downtown gym for the two weeks I still have to get to the Loop every day).

I understand that Downstaters need money for roads too and they feel Chicago pulls all the money from them.  Well, aren’t we bringing in more money?  If you didn’t have the Chicagoland area, what would the state’s coffers look like (and don’t tell me, Well we wouldn’t have to pay for stupid mass transit)?

I also realize the CTA probably isn’t using its money wisely (maybe because of patronage, perhaps?), but let’s face it, if it didn’t exist, there would be massive problems in moving people around the city.  The roads couldn’t handle that many cars, and the pollution would be awful.  Mass transit is a great solution.  Why we don’t want to invest in it more is beyond me.

Two weeks from today I’ll be gainfully unemployed.  Boy, am I looking forward to it!

Mostly, I just want the feeling of being totally overwhelmed to go away.  I think it has something to do with the fact that my desk at work is messy and my desk at home is even worse, and I just can’t take all the requests coming in from all directions on all topics anymore.  I mean, my brain is so fried that I couldn’t remember Che Guevara’s name yesterday morning (I can’t even remember why it was important to remember his name).

Hopefully the two weeks will be quiet for me.  If it’s not, I’ll just have to make it so.