Friday, January 24, 2014

7 Quick Takes Vol. 28

See Conversion Diary for more.

1.       Well, it’s beginning; I’m starting to look about me for a new job. My lease is up in July, and I don’t plan to renew it. As a matter of fact, I’m strongly determined to quit and move out whether I find another job or not. It’s not that my current job is really hard or unpleasant; it’s just a very bad fit for me. To quote from a great work of literature: “It’s not that I’m lazy; it’s that I don’t care.” And really; I’m twenty-five years old, single, with no debt and a decent bank account: now is not the time for sticking with jobs I don’t care about for the sake of financial security. 

2.       As for what kind of job I’m looking for, that I don’t really know; maybe I’ll start up that rattlesnake-sanctuary I’ve been dreaming about. Or I might just end in retail. The world is my oyster!

3.       I have this odd habit where I’ll conceive of a job – usually an eccentric one, like “street-performing ventriloquist” – and get all excited about it for a week or so, do a lot of research, maybe even start some experimental forays into it…then settle down and realize it’s probably not going to work out. My current ones include “wild animal removal in Texas” (I can see myself wrestling snakes and ‘gators for a living, though I’m not crazy about the ‘killer bees’ aspect) and “lounge musician” (because my mind works that way: “You know, I think I’ll invest in a keyboard so I can learn piano” = “Sing us a song, you’re the piano man!”)

4.        Incidentally, the street ventriloquist thing is not made up: I actually started planning for it at one point before I remembered that I hate cities and have trouble going two sentences in a row without cringing at the incoherent mess that I just said.

5.       I have a new ally in my quest to conquer the world: the almighty Egg-Timer! (I got the idea from my brother, who casually alluded to his employment of the device). With the aid of Egg-Timer, I will no longer wonder “have I been working at this long enough yet?” or “how much longer would be reasonable?” Egg-Timer will tell me; Egg-Timer will dictate when I can or must stop. It’s Egg-Timer and me against the world!

6.       I finally finished Brideshead Revisited, and my conclusions are 1). I enjoyed it a good dead, for the most part 2). I really can’t picture how it could be adapted for the screen at all, and 3). I’ve read that the 2008 film version omits or subverts the Catholic elements. I haven’t seen it, but I really have to wonder how the heck they would manage that, and if so, what was the bloody point of adapting the thing was in the first place? As far as I can tell, the story is pretty much nothing but Catholicism. I mean, that’d be like making a chaste and sexually restrained version of Stranger in a Strange Land: it isn’t just that it’s contrary to the book, it’s that you really can’t see what the story is about with that element removed.

7.       It’s Polar Vortex 2: Electric Boogaloo! ‘Boogaloo’ here meaning “I seriously don’t want to think about what my heating bill is going to look like this month.” And, at work, I still don’t bother putting on my jacket to get the mail at the end of the driveway! I’m hardcore like that.

Vivat Christus Rex!

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