This Application Goes To Eleven

I recently had an experience where I applied for a job online that involved eleven different, independent steps to complete the application. This is after you had to create your initial profile with a bunch of the same information to begin with.

Seriously, dudes...

I fully understand and accept your need to know all of these things about me that are clearly stated on my resume separately from my resume despite the fact that I am also sending you my resume because...

Okay so I don't understand your need for this, exactly. But I do accept it and that is actually the important part I think. Seriously though I'm giving you all of this information no less that two times and you've still got eleven steps for me? Eleven? You really couldn't have combined any of these things together? Perhaps the personal information and the personal preferences could have been on the same page? I don't know... maybe the work history and the education history could have been combined? See how those things had similar words in their descriptions? Usually a good hint that they can be combined together.

I'm only making these suggestions as someone who's done this... a lot. And kind of has done this for a living... twice. It's cool though. There's really no reason to pay me any mind. Keep annoying the shit out of your applicants. It's actually a really solid way to weed out people who are only semi interested in working for you. Really only keeps people like me who seriously want a new job in mix. That's fair. Still, you're way annoying.

Le Sigh...

More old pictures. This time of a fancy fountain we saw on a trip looking for wedding venues (way back in the day now.) Water and light and movement and all that though. Waaaaaaay better than just repeating the same five pieces of information over and over and over again. Holy smokes.

ohhhh, light under the water 

And walls of water

And, uh... well, uh... inappropriate spurtings of curiously white-looking water

It looks like there's a secret world hidden back there - like Narnia, only damper

Hm, there's those spurts again... Rainbow Toe is right - I do have a guttermind.

On the other hand, if you're looking for a photo focusing on a few droplets of water - I'm your girl.

Abstraction - that's where I excel.  That and apparently photo captions.  It's a skill.

From Art to Zombie Ghosts - My Appreciation for the Little Things

A long time ago - back in the idyllic, golden days when I talked about art all day and drove my roommates insane with art fun facts and crazy color-coded post-its helping me study for exams (it made sense to me.)  In the before times when I didn’t really even know what an expense report was, let alone have the faintest notion of the (roughly, without a hint of hyperbole) six hundred and forth-three thousand different ways one can be done incorrectly  - I once had an argument with an entire art history classroom, including one Polish professor who I’m pretty sure was and is at least partially insane (in the best possible way, of course.)

The topic of discussion that day, and the subject matter upon which I apparently had a different opinion than that entire collection of mostly intelligent people, was Georgia O’Keefe.  It still sort of shocks me that I went to a women’s college where we were taught and asked to think critically (that’s not the shocking part, shut up) and that whole classroom was so completely convinced of the ready-made explanation of Georgia O’Keefe’s art.  

Alright, let's just get this out of the way right away. Yes, a fair number of O'Keefe's most recognizable work - particularly those depictions of flowers as if seen very close-up kind of look like vaginas. Because, well, when you think about it a lot of flowers kind of look like vaginas. Kind of where that whole "blossoming flower" analogy came from. It has become a widely accepted opinion that O'Keefe's intention was to create just that impression.

I'm not sure I agree with that conclusion. O'Keefe's husband and promoter, photographer Alfred Stieglitz frequently highlighted her work in his galleries that no doubt helped her reach the level of acclaim she did. However, O'Keefe was one of Stieglitz's favorite subjects for his own work and he, on occasion, hung O'Keefe's work amid his own, revealing depictions of her. Even in the 20's, sex sells. I mean, really? If you're looking at a photograph of a naked woman and then look at an extremely close-up view of a flower, is you mind really not going to go there? Of course your mind is going to go there.

I'm not saying that's wrong. And I'm not saying that the opinion that her work was a bold, if veiled, statement on female sexuality is wrong. I'm just saying, I choose to see her work in a different way. Based on her whole body of work I really just believe that Georgia O'Keefe was a woman who made a point to see and call out the every day beauty of the world around her. I've always thought that those gigantic pictures of a single flower? To me those are a way of taking something that is small, insignificant and frequently overlooked and making it huge and significant and very difficult to ignore.  It is literally saying "Hey! Look at how incredibly beautiful a single flower can be if you just take the time to look at it. Look at how cool a building can look at night if you just look up. How cool does this pile of rocks look?"

Maybe I just saw The Crow at too impressionable an age but I believe heavily in taking pleasure in the little things. And as such I just can't help but want to find the beauty in the little things, in the details that can easily get overlooked. In the words of Eric Draven, "believe me, nothing is trivial."

I don't know, maybe it's just that I like the idea of it. That it fits pretty well with my own personal view on life. Or maybe it's just that I have a hard time looking at her work and thinking "it looks like a giant vagina" without sounding like a grunting idiot in my own mind. But the way I see it, Georgia O'Keefe's work was and is a message to literally stop and smell the roses.

I know that got a little art history major-y there. I've just been musing on this for a while now. Got myself good and worked up.

The building where I work has some ice problems. By that I mean we manage to get a lot of ice buildup on the sidewalk where pretty much every one has to walk to get to their cars at night. They mark the really bad patches with those bright orange traffic cones. They don't actually help much, but they at least remind you that they tried to tell you there was ice there before you slip for the twentieth time. This is a photograph of a reflection of one of those cones, through this patch of ice that's melted off of the roof and refrozen on the branches of a little bush below. Just something that I've noticed a few times as I've walked past and thought "that's really cool." You know, the little things.

Eff You, Saturday Morning.

So last night I was thinking about what I wanted to do today.  What with the whole "job" thing getting in the way all over the place I suddenly put a huge amount of stock into my weekends.  This is usually bad because my body (the bastard) seems to think the weekend is the best time to get sick/have a major allergy episode/give me a migraine.  (Hey, Body!  I have sick days you know!  Not all five because I didn't start till February, but I still have some!)  So here's more of less what I was thinking (you'll notice this isn't terribly exciting and even includes some responsible actions.  Ridiculous, I know.)

Wake up Saturday morning, go grab some fancy coffee, take a book/computer out on the patio and read in the sunshine for awhile.  Watch some trashy TV.  Make some tasty food to take as lunches next week (because the Health Choice Mixer you had yesterday was disgusting.  Sorry, Healthy Choice.  A lot of your mixers are tasty, tasty lunches.  Just not the one I had yesterday.  That was more like punishment.)  Work on the baby blanket I'm knitting for some friends of ours (who are having a baby).  Do some laundry.  Make some dinner.  Maybe play some games or watch a movie with Steve.

See - the boy (i.e. Steve) has to work today (major booness) which means the apartment is all mine for a good portion of the day (major yeyness). Now I love Steve very much and he's wonderful and all.  But every so often I do love being able to watch America's Next Top Model without comment.  Generally speaking he doesn't care what I watch (especially if he's playing video games, which he always is) but there usually is some point where the dreaded "What are you watching?" is uttered.  (Terrible word, uttered.)  I think he usually asks me this because he's under the (woefully misguided) impression that I'm an intelligent, interesting person with good taste.  Seriously I don't know where he came up with this idea.  I've been vain, shallow, stubborn and bratty since the day we met.  He likes me anyway, God bless him.  So I think when things like ANTM are on he starts to wonder if maybe I just lost the remote.  Because I like shows like Rome and How I Met Your Mother and Dexter and Battlestar Galactica and, you know, stuff that's... good.  So I can't be serious with this Tyra Banks stuff right?

Well that's the catch.  I can't help it, I'm addicted to bad TV.  But it's like if I just watch some every now and then (like a half day marathon of something) it's like I get my fix and go back to being intelligent (and by that I mean fairly pretentious) for a few weeks.

But I'm not about to share that theory with him.

Of course he's one of my two readers (and that second one might have been a fluke, I don't know) so he'll probably figure it out pretty soon.  Damn.

Anyway getting back to the original point, here's how my morning actually went:
Woke up.  Was delighted to find that my body had actually allowed me to sleep in until 9.  This has not happened for several months.  Yey, body!  Check my email on my phone, see email from male friend with subject line "Soon To Be Father."  Have small heart attack.  Open email.  Father will not be him.  Am relieved.  Chastise male friend for scaring me first thing in the morning.  Get up and dressed and whatnot, about to leave to get fancy coffee when I check the weather.  It's raining.  No patio reading for me then.  Decide to get fancy coffee anyway, I will read inside when I get back.  Get back, fancy coffee in tow, and turn on TV.  Cable is out.  That's very weird.  Open laptop.  Internet is down.  Also weird.  Reset the modem.  That doesn't work.  Start to worry.  Go check TV and internet in bedroom because my laptop can be very persnickety (awesome word) about working sometimes and the living room TV... usually doesn't give us problems but you never know.  Cable and internet are not working in bedroom either.  Text boyfriend:
Me:  This is probably going to sound foolish but we did pay the comcast bill, right?
Steve: Pretty sure... can check the old joint account to see when the last payment was made.

(Think to myself - no I can't because old bank doesn't have app for phone and the internet is down.  Think to myself further: really do like new bank and especially that they have an app for my phone.)
Me: Well no I can't - the internet isn't working.

We discuss the situation some more.  He checks something on his phone (app I don't know about?) and says it shows that he did, in fact, make the payment.  Come to the conclusion that I should call Comcast.

So here I am.

Our apartment complex includes a "Library."  It's not a bad set up really.  Free books if you're interested in the variety here.  (Looking around three popped out at me, all biographies but not near one another at all: Nancy Reagan, Shirley Temple and Prince Charles.  Oh! Billy Graham too.  Suffice to say these are not books I'm interested in.  Now I do see that they have a copy of Kirby Puckett's I Love This Game, so the "library" is slightly redeemed.)  It smells kind of funny in here (not like mildew or normal smell of books, just a little funny.)  The fluorescent lights are pretty loud and I'm right next door to the office and apparently there are a lot of people calling them today.  But there's free wifi so I certainly can't complain too much.  I've been here for just under an hour; reading a bit and writing this post.

I'm attempting to get myself into a zen enough state that I feel I can deal with Comcast.  (I'm actually hoping I'll get back to my apartment and the problem will have fixed itself.)  I am notorious for HATING being on the phone and particularly being on the phone with random customer service lines.  They make me feel inadequate because the whole reason I need to call them is because I don't know what's going on.  Yet they still feel the need to talk to me like I'm a moron for not knowing how my cable actually works.  I know I plug it in and turn it on.  I'm not a cable guy(lady), I shouldn't need to know how my cable actually works.  (In fairness, the customer service people probably don't actually talk to me like a moron, I just feel like they do because I go into the situation feeling inadequate and therefore read too much into their tone.)

So yeah.... Dear Saturday Morning, you effing suck.  What the hell?  Let me tell you, you better improve your attitude by next week or we're going to have a serious problem.

UPDATE:  Holy shit!!!! The problem fixed itself!  I was just kidding, I didn't actually expect the situation to be any different when I got back!  Okay actually the situation wasn't any different when I got back - the modem was still doing the same thing.  I went to the bathroom and when I came back from that?  BAM!  Cable and Internet are back!  I think Saturday morning read my post and realized it was dropping the ball.  Woo!

The Problem with Roses

So this is entirely a personal opinion, but I'm not a big fan of red roses. Don't get me wrong, they're very pretty and I could certainly understand enjoying the tradition of them. But that's kind of where I don't like them, or more exactly, I don't like receiving them. Because they are the tradition I personally feel buying someone red roses requires exactly zero thought. (unless the person you're buying them for really likes them.)

I like roses though. You have to admit, they're very graceful flowers. Very pretty. I like this one in particular. The transition from pink to orange to yellow in the petals is really very pretty.