Fuck work.

Found out today that I'm going to be working another solid week. Every day they can squeeze out of me between now and my flight date is being squoze.

I'm going to be looking even harder for a better job come the New Year. This bites. I'm working seven days on, two days off and I can't stand it. I want a nice job in a nice shop. There's a shop down the road that sells swords. Really big swords. I want to go and work for the sword-selling shop.

Wahhh.

Ouch.

So much for shopping. Today I was surfing the crimson wave, singing the Ketchup Song, entertaining Aunt Flo, whatever your fave euphemism happens to be, which sort of put me out of action. The week-long overture to the main theme isn't so bad: wanting to kill things most of the time has a certain rough charm once you get used to it. But the cramps? Neh. You can keep the cramps.

You've heard of Realdoll. But haven't you always yearned for a REALHAMSTER?

No? Really? Uhh... I mean, me neither.

Day off.

Or to be precise, two-- tomoz and Thursday. Oh joy unconfined. Me and last week's wages have a date with the Goth shops-- I've worked bastard hard and the Universe owes me a hoody top with an amusing evil-related slogan.

Plus, I'm gonna stock up on spell ingredients. I have most of the bits I need for my Job spell but my glamour is getting a bit threadbare. I want a big chunk of rose quartz to use as the focus for a new one. It's not the most original choice, I know, but I just love rose quartz.

And I must re-shave my head. I let it grow back for a few weeks because it was cold and raining and there were floods and I wanted a job. Now I have all this brown fuzz sticking up from my head at random angles: I have the Bad Hair of Winter Job-Hunting and I don't look like me.

I reckon if I wear a scarf to work, I won't get the sack. If I do then... well, pfft, frankly. With and option on thssszzsszzzppp.

Blood.

The most exciting thing that happened to me today was the moment I sliced open my little finger with a breadknife while cutting a baguette at the deli counter.

Experienced, in no particular order: The moment of disbelief. The cutting sensation an instant before the pain kicked in. The pain itself. My own gasp of shock. The blood welling between my own skin and the polythene glove.

I couldn't see at first how bad it was. I went up to the washroom, tugging off the gloves as I went. I stuck my cut hand under the cold tap, flexing it gingerly to see how bad the damage was. The cut was small but deep, just under the joint. It lipped open as I moved the digit, bleeding freely. I watched it, a narrow little mouth, speaking to me of some essential part of myself that I had somehow mislaid, a shock of the real in the bright desert of a weary ten-hour shift.

Red swirls shaded to pink against the porcelain, faded, were gone. I pressed the cut closed and went kitchenette where the first-aid box was kept, the pain still a low thrum, pulsing. Sliced, I was alive again.

And I got to wear one of those special blue plasters, too. Kewl.

My brain is turning into potato salad...

...and my next day off isn't until Wednesday. I'm down for the eight till one shift at the Local Shop tomorrow morning, which is a bit of a bugger coz I'm going out tonight. I've got to take it, though. My place likes to have a week's notice if you're not going to be available and there's no chance of pulling a sickie. Neeeever mind. I got that thing in UpsideClone, so I spent today feeling like a writahh, dahhlings, instead of a till-jockey. Hope it's quieter than today. Today was pure murder: every single person in the county was out Christmas shopping and they all converged on the Local Shop for ciggies and parking permits. And Vodaphone top-ups. And my till broke. And they shouted at the Chinese girl I work with and that pissed me off because she's really nice and she tries so hard and everyone's so bloody horrible to her. And rghghghghh.

I figure it's like this: I can either let this job and its attendant cruddyness grind and crumple me until I'm concertina-ed into a little cuboid of skinless misery, or I can focus on the small pleasures and treat it as a learning experience, all grist to the writaahh'hs mill, dahhlings, and so on and so forth.

Anyhow, in a couple of weeks I'll be winging my way back to the Smoke for Chrimbo, followed by New Year at my folks'. Jet-setter, me. Yerrr.

upsideclone [The Face of The Future]

By moi, again.

My turn.

Now it is my B-day. Rah. I'm 29, if anyone's counting.

I got my first pay-packet for my new job today. Came home from work to a home-cooked meal and discovered that L.A. had got Morrowind for us to play together. So, yay. I'm not going to go out tonight-- we did a whole pub-and-posh-restauraunt-and-pub-again thing last night and two of my mates are chucking an engagement party tomorrow. I need to recharge my batteries a bit.

Still haven't sorted out my TEFL course for next year. I really need to get that fixed up, or I shan't have a place. There's also the whole Reiki thing: I've decided to go for it, probably in the new year. I've sort of accepted that I'll never work as an engineer now. After years of being turned down for jobs because I was too young or too female or because dumbshit personnel officers think epilepsy stops you using a frigging VDU, it's now too late for me to aquire the relevant experience (plus the whole fucking industry seems to be going down the tubes. %I can't think why%). Instead, I'm going to concentrate more on the artistic applications of my electronic knowledge.

My primary ambition remains to make my living as a writer. However, that's hardly going to happen overnight so lining up a productive and ethical sideline/day-job is a priority. The teaching english thang looks good but to work at a recognized school you need a degree, which in my case I have not got. Working as a healer, on the other hand, doesn't seem to require much in the way of formal academic quals and would be ethically groovy. I'll look into it.

Happy Birthday, Lurid Archive!

Yes, it's my fella's B-day. No, I'm not telling you how old he is. (I doubt he's very sensitive about his age but I'll leave it up to him to break the news.) No, he doesn't know I'm doing this and yes, he'll probably be royally embarrassed when he finds out. Bwhahahaha.

(Mine's tomorrow, BTW. I'll be sure and rant about it.)

No-Close Blues

Finally got my act together and shelled out the dough to rid my personal message-board of pop-ups and sundry annoyances. Should take effect in a few days time.

To be honest, I've been pretty close to giving Thee Big Acidic Mudshow a decent burial several times now. There are plentee of decent places to hang out on the net and I wasn't sure that I had anything fresh to contribute. However, there's been just enough interest for me to keep the thing open, and I'm starting to think that maybe something good could come out of it. 'Course, now I've gone and spent money on the sucker I'm going to have to start posting there myself.

P.S.:

You read the blog. You know the rules. The next time-- the very next time-- you use the phrase "D'you want fries with that?" or any other crap-job-related cliche to humiliate someone in my presence, you're getting hexed. Flipping burgers will look like a weekend in the Bahamas. I mean it.

Rite On.

I like the LBPR, but I can't get on with it these days. It's a bit too monotheistic for me. Not that monotheism is a bad thing or anything, I just find it a wee bit uncomfortable. And I can't find anything else that's as simple, clean, useful and newbie-friendly. I often use the Vortex Rite, but that's very chaos-specific. So I've decided to write a more general version, something that retains the integrity of the original rite but does not demand a monotheistic approach.

This may take some time.

However. I am a writer. Even if I'm stuck behind a counter eight hours out of every 24, I remain a writer. Writing isn't just about making stuff up, selling pretty lies to publishers, making a fast buck. Writing is creation. If I write a story, it'll get get read and people will like it. If I write a ritual, it might live for decades.

Where credit is due...

Looks like I might be getting a reward for busting this guy who tried to buy 100 Euros worth of Vodaphone time with a nicked credit card. I'm gonna have to go halfsies with another lass who was on tills with me at the time because she phoned the bank while I stalled the guy, but it's still about thirty euros (twenty quid-ish). He was a complete wanker about it, by the way, shoving people out of the queue, implying that I'd tampered with the card and generally being a pillock. He even reached over the till and tried to snatch the card back, with me squealing "No!" and slapping his hand away. I mean, why? He can't use the damn card again anyway! It's been cancelled! You're busted, dude-- now shut up and be busted quietly! Come back when you've nicked a new card so's I can get another reward off the bank.

Pillock.


"Neither am I."

I've finally started to make some headway with one of my putative novels. I've been working on it pretty hard, and I've now got a serious chunk of the sucker under my belt. I had the idea for it months back and I'd started it about a dozen times but it just never gelled. Then last week I started writing some random dialogue, and the whole thing just fell into place. If I can keep the pace up, I should have a first draft by the time I get to Barca. Which would be a Good Thing.

Also, I'm planning a big working soon to get a better job. I've outlined the basic ritual and I'll be getting the stuff together sometime in the next week or so. I'll keep you posted, my minions.

Small Pleasures

Popping the thick plastic wrapping that holds the cans of soup when they're delivered. It's strangely satisfying, like trushing through a big pile of leaves.

Watching a customer knock over the Tic-Tac display. This was cool, because there were about fifty boxes of Tic-Tacs and they made this brilliant noise, and the customer went a lovely shade of pink. And I was able to make light of the situation so the poor bloke didn't feel too foolish, which in turn made me feel good.

Chopping big juicy red tomatoes for the deli counter, on a clean white chopping board.

Helping little kids work out how many fifteen-cent jellies they can buy with their change.

(However, if I have to listen the the fucking bloody Smurfs singing "Smurfing in a Winter Wonderland" one more sodding time, I won't be responsible for my actions.)

Eight hours of cornershoppyness (with added Christmas music!) later...

Brains... must... eat... braiiins

(Inducted into the world of the living dead by Barbelith and luminocity.)

If my employment situation does not improve, I'm going to hurt someone.

Okay. I've reached the point where, if I don't get out of doing cruddy minimum-wage jobs in the next two months, I swear I will commit some form of physical assault. Yes folks, it has finally happened: the unending hopless drudgery, the lousy pay, the condescision, the titters, the fact that people who know damn well the kind of work I am forced to do for a fucking living and who profess to be my friends will still use the concept of "works for minimum wage" as an indication of someone's stupidity in front of me and yes I did get all those little sidelong glances my quondam buddy oh yes I did, have finally got the better of me.

I know I won't have to do this job forever. In fact, I'd probably only have to do this job for another four months, because I'm leaving town. That's not the point. The point is that the crunch has come, the camel's back is broken, the end of the tether has been reached. It's over. Either I get a better job, or someone gets hurt.

Pain is an ugly thing. I'd like to avert this if I could, but it's just the way things have to be. We'd all like to belive that this person deserved what's coming to them. We'd like to imagine that the person who will find themselves on the business end of the monkey-wrench is and abusive parent, or that the individual who cops a facefull of oven cleaner works in advertising. But life's just not that simple. Bad things happen to good people every day and in two month's time, if I don't find some non-insane making form of employment, it might be a completely blameless soul that ends up in a crumpled bleeding heap, dragging in gurgling lungfulls of cold night air as the sirens wail. You don't know. You just don't know.

Controlled explosion.

Ever feel like you've lost yourself? There's all these the layers of performance, the filters that you put between yourself and the world to stop yourself from getting arrested, sectioned, or glassed in the face, or just to protect other people from the corrosive absurdity sloshing around inside your cranium because you know without even having to ask that they really don't need it. First you have to learn to put them in place, but after a while it becomes second nature. Then you see some of the toxic crud that other people are spewing out in all directions, and you see them lauded for it. You realise that hey, some of the stuff you're filtering out is actually not that terrible (provided you express it very carefully). In fact, in a certain light and a certain angle, it could be mistaken for art or enlightenment or revelation. All you have to do is get yourself into a secure area where you won't disturb the locals, and

Drop.

The.

Shutters.

One by one. Carefully. In case you leak out too fast and become a lake of molten goo, poisonous magma that could spill over and engulf a city.

And what happens? Nothing. Nothing happens at all. No matter how hard you try to strip away those layers, that Russian doll container you've voluntarily bolted yourself into, you can't. You tear off one, and there's another underneath. Why? Because as fast as you whip off the filters with one hand, you're replacing them with the other.

You can't say this. You can't do that. Do something more like you saw that other guy do. Just put a bit of gloss on it so it looks new. You turn round, catch yourself doing it, swear you're going to stop doing that right NOW! and never do it again, but then you turn round again and oh, look, what a lovely painting of some elves and a rainbow and a birdie.

I'm in here somewhere. I know I saw me recently.

Errr. Yuck.

(From B3TA.)

Shirt.

Started my new job Saturday morning, as planned. Well, I didn't really start start: there was just a couple of hours of induction-type stuff. But it was boring and uncomfortable and I'm going to get paid for it, so you might as well call it work.

One of the two hours was taken up by sitting in a freezing cold room and watching a training video. I kid you not. An hour-long training video, for a job in a cornershop. It had all sorts of helpful advice and useful tips, like "Don't put the six kilo bag of spuds in on top of the eggs", "Don't sell absinthe, cigars and lighter-fluid to twelve-year-olds", and "Don't piss on your hands before handling the raw meat".

So anyway, there's a uniform. Which is okay, because you don't want to get urine and steak juice on your own clothes. The uniform is a top with the chain's logo on it, worn over a white shirt and black trews. Now, whilst I do in fact possess black trousers, the buckles and other bits and bobs on them might not go down to well. Which meant that I had to go out this afternoon and aquire some.

"You shop like a man," my boyfreind told me later. Cheapo department store, work clothes, for the buying of! Quick march! White shirts, two, pair of horrible cheap black trousers, one! Cash register! By the right, quick march! Hup, two three four! Hup, two three four! Well, buying work clothes isn't fun and you know exactly what you have to get. Why drag it out, right?

Okay. You're ahead of me here, I can tell.

Thing is, a few days previous, there was a jeans incident. I really needed a new pair of narrow-fit black jeans, found some going cheap, bought the next size up from my usual size because, y'know, moving, busy, junk food. Damn things always shrink in the wash anyway.

A couple of days later I tried them on. They did actually do up, eventually. What you do is, you lie flat on your back on the bed, wriggle like a landed fish and swear a lot. They were a bit on the tight side but after a while I broke them in. There was a bit more room once my kidneys popped out of my ears.

Therefore it seemed prudent to buy trousers two sizes up from my usual size. Can always take them in once the old tummy goes back down, right?

So I get this kit home and try it on. The shirts are my usual size and they fit okay, although they have three-quarter length sleeves, something I didn't notice when I bought them. Then I put on the trousers.

They're a tad on the generous side.

Not only can I pull the waistband about four inches out from my waist, but the damn things flop around my feet as though I'm wearing a skirt round each knee. I waddle awkwardly into the bedroom and check out the effect in the full-length mirror. My sleeves stop just below my elbows. My trousers billow out arount me like something in full sail.

Behold. Bozo the Clerk. Look on my works, ye mighty, and use the fitting rooms.

Plan B

The electronics firm hasn't called. Which means that tomorrow I shall be starting work in the cornershop, as planned.

Yes, tomorrow morning I will commence a nice, safe, steady job, in a building well-frequented by the public. Maybe my life is finally becoming a little more normal. Nice, normal job in nice normal shop for nice normal Carnival aaand I'm fooling nobody but myself here. There will be suckitude and annoyance and weirdness.

There will be, on past experience, at least two of the following:

Byzantine workplace feuds which, whilst having absolutely nothing to do with me, will somehow make everything take six times as long as it needs to and will generally fuck up my working day.

The I Pay Your Wages You Know type of customer who expects to get a pound's change out of fifty bloody pence and holds up the queue so that all the other customers get fed up and stroppy.

Pissed guys who smell and bring their freinds. Who are invisible.

Male co-workers who move me out of the way by my hips instead of saying "'Scuse me".

Poltergeist activity.

And there's also food-handling so I'm supposed to take out my nose-ring, which at the time of writing has failed to budge. I'm going to be up till 3am with a pair of pliers and a can of WD40 at this rate.