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2005-07-19 - 9:45 a.m. Saying Goodbye to a Crappy Job There is a good way to do this, and shades of not-so-good ways. Monday morning might count as a not-so-good way. I woke up in the morning, rolled over, stared at my alarm clock giggling, and went back to sleep. Woke up about a half hour later, still could have made it to work. Grabbed the piece of jet that sits beside my bed, held it to my heart chakra, and went back to sleep. Pet the cats when they came in to say hello, moved the jet from my heart chakra to my throat chakra and back a few times over the next couple hours, had a few orgasms, had some very productive and powerful dreams. It certainly wasn't a pro and con list, and I'm still not entirely sure whether, on the Shades of Gray spectrum, it was a dusty white or an almost-pitch kinda bad-kharma way to choose, but it made me feel a lot more centered than pretty much anything else did all weekend. And damnit, it was nice to sleep in for once. Now I have all these afternoons free and open to do homework, go to yoga, chill out... sure, I'll be about $100 poorer than I'd hoped, but that's almost negligible in light of the couple grand I've still got coming to me by summer's end. And going to hang out with the retards sounds even less like "work", now I've got all this extra energy that isn't being invested into restaurant customers. Let's face it -- there's something REALLY appealing about a job where you can tell the person for whom you're working when they're being rude and innappropriate (Ha! like when Mr. Simpson* tried to take over my phone call on the way home from the zoo on Sunday!) and that sure as fuck doesn't happen in a restaurant. Except in my dreams. (Imagine! "I'm sorry, sir, but I really can't help if your pasta takes 10 minutes to cook ... and also please stop looking at my breasts." Joy.) *(obviously) not the client's real name, but he's kind of got a pill-shaped head like Homer, so there you have it.
**Trying, as always, to balance the stream-of-consciousness impulse with the Making Sense to My Readers necessity of this medium. Did the segueway work for you? It worked for me. Cool. Most of the Calgary kids have heard me pontificate on this point, so all y'all might just want to skip ahead. Although it will, like everything else on this blog, be interestingly and brilliantly written and possibly worth a gander just to hear the poetic brilliance that are my words. I'm finding it just ridiculously amusing that I, of all people, am being paid $--.-- an hour to teach socially-appropriate behaviour to my clients (on top of hanging out with them and generally improving their quality of life as best I can). Integration into and support from the community is obviously the mandate that this non-profit goes by, and so naturally we try to direct clients to behave in ways that will make this easier... But really. I wash my hair, like, twice a week. I try to question gender and age norms in everything I do. I wake up at weird hours, don't shower until I go out some mornings, and act in ways that will make people question their own assumptions about normalcy (like busking or wearing a clown nose or fairy wings to fairly conservative events, like the Stampede***). And here I am, going through morning routines that ask me to check off that the clients have shaved (please note my scruffy-looking friends), washed their hair (see above), etc., and then to ask them to "Be a gentleman, you're the man of the house" or "Act like a lady" as my verbal prompts when they act out (by, say, punching themselves in the face or mumbling obscenities or not eating their vegetables, or anything else in the spectrum**** of behaviours deemed "non-good".) And it just strikes me as odd, cuz I like to fall asleep curled up in the living room with the cats, and I like to eat poorly once in a while, and I like all sorts of things that we as staff are deciding are not appropriate behaviours for these clients. I totally and fully understand the desire to integrate and thus the necessity to make the clients' lives as "normal" as possible. I still have trouble with the rigidity of the rules, although I do understand that the consistency makes things easier for them. And I really, really hate when people call them handicapped, cuz I truly believe that their lack of access to a normal life is a fairly socially-constructed bit of bullshit and that, if our society could be more accepting of developmentally-disabled people, they would be so much less handicapped in their daily functioning. ***Yeah. Fairy wings, my clowning outfit minus the nose, and friends in loud and obnoxious outfits. As in, Captain Q was dressed like a beautiful pirate, Tarzie and JayCloud had two foot tall Mad Hatter's hats on. It rocked, and people kept asking if we were tourists from out of town. Lots of puke rides (Mandolin Boy and I found one that we could get on over and over again for free by jumping the gate, which we took FULL advantage of until his stomach wussed out and we decided to call it a night), cotton candy for the first time in over a decade, a couple beers, and an amazing heart2heart on the c-train home. All around, a beautiful evening to mark my first attendance at the Stampede.***** ****It's all about spectrums today. *****Really, that should have been its own paragraph and not-so-much a footnote. Whatever. Belly Dancing Class The four week class that the ladies and I took has now come to a close, and we've got a 3 minute routine under our jingle belts with tons of practice time between now and our little performance at Centre Camp this year. I'm so fucking excited. I can't wait to take another class. I don't fancy myself very good at it, but at least I've got enough moves to justify buying a coin belt. And really, that's where it's at. Cuz me in a coin belt, little nipple tassles, dust-storm goggles and little else, dancing around on the playa in the noonday sun... yeah, regardless of whether I'm any good yet, that's gonna be fucking hawt. On the downside, this does bring the post-belly-dancing-class beer and nachos and great conversation tradition to an end, at least with these particular ladies. I'm sure it'll continue for all of us seperately, though, if for no other reason than we're all mild alcoholics. List of Cool Shit I'm Working On If for no other reason than simply that, if I list it all here, there's a better chance I'll feel obliged to get it all done. -chapbooks to give away at the Burn and maybe to sell on my drive down I also need to get my cute little ass down to the US Embassy (consulate, whatever) to arrange my student visa. Like, this week for sure. I keep forgetting about it. Thank goodness I have all these afternoons free to do so! And something for everyone to do Seriously, kids, we need to get more of our photography out there to the mainstream! --mopheaded was the one who remembered your birthday
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