I'm leaving you

Not really, but I am going to Japan for awhile. I'll attempt to give you updates while I'm there, but can make no guarantees about internet connectivity, inspiration, time, inclination, etc. Here are some answers to a few of the questions I've been asked about the trip:

1. Pleasure.
2. No.
3. Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto.
4. I took a class, but really don't know much more than yes, no, I don't understand, and excuse me.
5. Jesse and Luke.
6. I'm mostly packed.
7. Grocery stores. I love foreign grocery stores.

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Working for a living

My sister sent me a little "4 things" email where you list four places you've been, four places you'd like to be, etc. What got me thinking, though, was the one where you're supposed to list four jobs you've had. Everybody always has good "what I used to do to make money" stories. Isn't it amazing how many crappy jobs there are in the world? By the way, if you're in one, you should leave it immediately.

One job my sister didn't include in her email was when she worked at the meat counter when she was in high school. What was funny about it was that she was a vegetarian at the time. During that summer, she met a boy she liked but he lived out of town. She wasn't sure if she wanted to go with him or not and confessed to me that she thought it was ill-fated. "Every time I think about him, someone orders head cheese," she told me. There's nothing like teenage drama combined with disgusting meats to send a little sister into fits of giggles.

My most colorful job was working in the classified department of a weekly newspaper. I first got the job when I was in high school, right after I lost my job as an ear piercing specialist at Afterthoughts in the mall. At that point, I wanted to be a journalist or perhaps a magazine editor, so it seemed like a great idea to work for a newspaper. Being in the sales department of a weekly newspaper left much to be desired, but sometimes the graphic designers or the actual writers would come through and I thought that was pretty cool.

The primary purpose of my job was to call people who had placed used car ads in the daily newspaper and ask if they wanted to run them in the newspaper I worked for. Here's a sample of how that went:

Little boy: Hello?

Me: Hi, is your mom or dad home?

Little boy: Dad! There's a little girl on the phone for you!

Or, another time:

Man: Hello?

Me: Hi, this is Rebecca calling from the News & Review classifieds--

Man (angry now): That pinko, commie rag? The crap you print in that goddamn--

Me: Oh, you've heard of us?

A secondary part of the job -- which was much more fun -- was to answer the phones when people called in to place personal ads. I did have a few icky conversations that went like this:

Man: So, what do you think of my ad?

Me: It sounds just fine. Now, your confirmation code is 12345 and you can call 555-555-5555 to record your outgoing message.

Man: Would you respond to my ad?

Me: Sir, I'm not 18 yet.

Man: ...

Man: When will you be 18?

I gradually changed my reply to these types of queries. When I told one fellow that I had a boyfriend, he suggested, "You can have two," so I switched to "I'm going home to my husband and children." Mom, Dad, you were wrong. Sometimes it's OK to lie.

For the most part, though, the people placing ads were really nice. Some of them were clearly very socially awkward and I'm happy for them that the internet exists now. Some of them were obviously playing jokes on friends or called after a few beers, which was probably better than calling their ex-girlfriends anyhow. One of the more interesting things was how people who worked in the department were almost protective of the personal ad people. They were the underdogs, but they weren't without merit, and most of them didn't deserve any ridicule at all. (Though some of them certainly did!)

OK, this is getting to be a longer entry than I anticipated. Perhaps I'll regale you with more stories later.

What was your most colorful job?

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Rice queen

In my house, I've typically been the one to make the rice. This is because there is an impression that I am better at making rice than others. So that others may benefit from my vast knowledge in the field of rice makery, I thought I'd share with you a new recipe I tried out last night.

Rice of the damned
Ingredients:
1 cup rice
2 cups water
some salt
some olive oil

Directions:
Put water and salt in pot. Bring to boil. Add rice and a little bit of olive oil to keep it from boiling over. Cover. Read a book for approximately eight minutes. Return to kitchen to find massive amounts of smoke floating in air. Check under burner, in oven, all around to find out what caught fire because it certainly couldn't be the rice. Lift lid on rice and notice billowing of smoke emanating from rice pot. Determine that it actually is the rice. Freak out, grab kitchen towel to use as a pot holder, and run outside with hot, smoking pot of doomed rice. Attempt to take metal lid off with bare hand. Swear and shake hand. Use trailing end of kitchen towel to take lid off. Run over to hose and spray cold water on the smoking mess. Close eyes and turn face away as smoke billowing quadruples due to application of cold water. Continue spraying until panic subsides. Soak rice and charred bits for approximately two hours before dumping the whole mess in the garbage can. Buy housemate a new pot.

Needless to say, I will be resigning my position as Supreme Maker of Rice and return to my usual role as Most Honored and Venerable Prep Cook.

Just for fun, shall we play "who can spot the mistakes?" I know of two.

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Broken

From The Morning News:
"Martin Klimas destroys a lot of clay to make his art. Combining the silence of Eadweard Muybridge’s horse pictures with the association-rich composition of a still life, Klimas breaks recognizable objects so they become something else, and stops us just at the moment of transformation."

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I hate Ikea

There. I've said it. I do. I really do hate Ikea. I know it's supposed to be this huge, wonderful land of affordable furniture, gadgets, and even textiles. There are some very neat things there. But overall, my distaste for shopping combined with the pure, unadulterated consumerism of Ikea leaves me feeling groggy and weird and vaguely empty.

This of course comes on the heels of a marathon 3 hour trip to Ikea with five of my closest friends. We went through the Whole Thing. For those of you that haven't been to an Ikea, this means that we wandered through room after room after room that was decorated with Ikea furniture, gadgetry, and storage solutions that you can't pick up to purchase -- that comes later. There were even a few fully-furnished tiny apartments along the way. Bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, closets... It's like an interior design theme park. The theme, of course, being cheap Scandinavian housewares and furniture and people who are either slightly dazed or bordering on frantic.

I'm told that if you skip the Whole Thing and merely go for what you want, it's better. But you still wind up in the gigantic warehouse portion of the store where the tables and chairs and lamps and dressers and every other thing looms over you on tall, tall shelves in a cartoonish parody sort of way. Only it's neither a cartoon nor a parody. There are rows of them, neatly ordered, all ready to be traded for your dollars.

It's possible that I was just grouchy because I hit my shopping wall at 2 hours, or because I made the mistake of ordering salmon at the Ikea cafeteria, or the air conditioning, which always makes me feel off. Maybe it's because I didn't find exactly what I was looking for. Whatever the reason (most likely the hating shopping thing), I can honestly say that I don't want to go back. Ever. I may very well go back at some point, after the memory has faded and the lure of cd racks or really cool kitchen sinks or awesome cheese graters becomes too strong to resist. But I'm pretty sure it will be awhile.

Besides, clumsy girl has already offered to pick up anything I need. You know what they say: one girl's kryptonite is someone else's crack cocaine.

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