I'm trying to take a hot shower and I swear...

...the upstairs neighbors must spend their entire day taking hot showers, washing dishes, doing laundry, and flushing their toilets simultaneously. Bah.

Panta-loony

There was a time in my youth when I was mostly likely to wear a hole in the knees of my pants. Now, I'm most likely to wear a hole in the seat. Somehow, this doesn't strike me as a positive development.

The holes always start near the wallet. This strikes me as odd, because it's not like my wallet is getting any fatter these days.

Net Working

The biggest difference, for me, between my graduate and undergraduate experiences has been networking. As an undergraduate, I abhorred networking. I couldn't stand it. Why would I talk to people for the sole purpose of using them later on for work purposes? Especially as a writer. I was a budding poet. My blinding talent would force people to come to me. Now I know better.

I suppose I had it beaten out of me. Years of food service. Special education, kids on probation, office work, temp work. Each job I found myself doing what others couldn't bring themselves to do. Cook their food. Deal with brats. Filing. Copies. Bills. But even then, with each stop, I unconsciously navigated my way through by networking.

In food service, I worked my way up from grunt to supervisor. I worked lunches with the day managers and nights with the night manager. Slowly, they gave me more non-food tasks. Processing invoices. Inventory. Storeroom orders. And each task gave me more freedom to do what I wanted, and work the hours I wanted. I didn't seek them out. I just talked about the Packers and politics and how any problem with a beer tap is caused by either temperature or pressure.

As a substitute teacher, a co-worker from the restaurant hooked me up with a long-term assignment as a special ed. assistant. Then he invited me to help him coach girls' softball.

When I was in San Diego, I searched in vain for substitute teaching jobs. I looked for office work. Finally, I filled out a temp form for San Diego State. The director of an outreach program there saw that I had worked as a special ed. assistant. She hired me as an office assistant. Not great work, but I did it anyway. The program worked with "at-risk youth" (kids on probation and social service cases). The program also gave Americorps credit to those who mentored the kids. I used my office position to land a mentoring position. I didn't go out of my way to get the job. I just sort of worked there and knew the place and since I was already there, well...

And so on.

Coming into grad school, I knew I'd have to bite the bullet and—oh, you know—talk to other people. Which is really all "networking" is. I feel like someone forgot to tell me that along the way. All you have to do is converse and make nice with people and, if you're an intelligent person and a hard worker, chances are you'll wind up "networking" along the way.

Man At Work

While there are certain drawbacks to doing temp work, as I am while I await the start of fall classes, there's a certain pleasure in doing a truly half-assed job at something with no discernable consequences. Today I'm sitting at NESN, answering phones, mostly guessing who people are trying to reach, and certainly not "screening" calls as I should.

Simply put, screening means you find out who's calling, and alert the receiving party, who then decided whether they'd like to take the call. I'm supposed to do this with a number of highlighted names on my phone list, but I'm trying to avoid it. It's not my job to be someone else's buffer for reality. It's not my job to be a human version of caller ID.

If you want to shirk your duties, fine. If you're in a meeting, fine. If you're away from your desk, fine. Just don't answer your phone. Let it go through to voice mail, then check the message. If someone doesn't leave a message, it wasn't important.

Besides, this is NESN. If you work in television, you should be a people person. If you're an ad exec, if you're in marketing, if you're a producer, you should be an extrovert. If you're not, join me in print journalism, or the vast world of blogging, and be done with it.

Sadly, there is an occasional window...

...a glimpse of what a true nerd I am. Yesterday evening I'm sitting at a free Mike Doughty concert at Copley Square. The announcer introduces Mike Doughty, mentions his new album, Haughty Melodic, and how that's an anagram of Mike Doughty's name.

My reaction: turn immediately with look of shock and awe to friend Mike (who, I might add, had the same expression as me) and exclaim, "Nice!"

Barney, Scruff, and Christy

I seem to be stuck on this idea of finding random literature in emails. I was going to post the "Barney" story as it's own entry, but somehow, the random lead-in seems to add something to it.

---Montegirlss@aol.com:
> Hey Craig, I just wanted to apologize for being the
> worse partner ever last week. If you're willing to
> give it another shot, I'll be much better this
> week...I promise! Also, thanks for asking how scruff
> is, he's feeling better, but is surprisingly still
> vicious. See you tomorrow, Christy.
>

For some reason, you're message makes it sound like we slept together.

As for the Scruff situation, my parents' dog was attacked while I was taking it for a walk this spring.

It's a yellow lab, and fairly social, so I didn't really think much of it when two dogs—about the same size as "Barney"—bolted out of a yard gate and ran towards us. Turns out they were crackheads and tried to go apeshit on Barney, who—truth be told—isn't much of a fighter.

So here I am, trying to slap away two strange dogs, without injuring them, and without letting my dog run away. Finally, the owners ran out of their yard and helped pull the other dogs off.

Honestly, I was surprised by two things: First, that I had no idea what to do when I saw the dogs bolting for us: Do you run away? Try to look menacing? Say "NO! BAD DOG!" Second, I'm surprised at how the other dogs didn't touch me, even though I was yelling and slapping at them.

It's hard to figure out exactly how to get someone else's dogs to listen. What do you say? How much force do you use? I don't want to injure someone else's dog if I can help it. But these dogs were absolute crackheads (a fact later confirmed by my parents).

I think my direct reaction was to say, "Hey. No. HEY! NO! HEY!! NOOOO!!!!" while slapping the dogs with one hand while I held Barney's leash with the other. Not the most menacing thing in the world.

Well, that's my dog attack story. What's yours?

No Outlet

I ran errands for about 9 hours today...including a trip out to Wrentham (outlet mall) to buy some sandals. I'm a terrible person when I'm shopping. Shopping plays to all my insecurities. If you were to ask me who I am at any given point, I'd probably have an answer. You put me in an outlet mall, and I have no idea. Do I go sporty, earthy, punky, preppy? Do I go cheap? Thrift store cheap or Target cheap? Do I pony up for quality and risk that what I buy may fall out of fashion in nine months? Do I go for value and risk buying crap?

I also bought shorts from Target, which I may return. Which is embarrassing, since I bought them off a return. Yes, I have no sense of self. Which is why I'm a good journalist. I'm a shape-shifter. I blend. I disappear. I'm a ghost.

Belly Up

Friend Lark says she's getting a beer belly. Since she only comes up to my waist, I find it hard to notice. However, I can sympathize, since I am also developing a beer belly. And—I'm going to go out on a limb here—I'm going to blame it on the beer.

I work out. I run. I lift weights. Occasionally hop on my bike. I eat my veggies. But I find myself incapable of defeating my (ever so slight) beer belly. Again, I blame the beer. The beer is the thing here.

I could have ripped abs, but at what cost? I suppose I could spend two hours a day at the gym. I could watch what I eat. I could quit going out after my class ends at 10 p.m. but where does that leave me?

I like to run. I like to work out. I enjoy eating healthy foods. They all make me feel better. But that two hours a day at the gym would be two hours I'm not collecting scraps of pop culture garbage. The brats I eat (yes, I love my German sausage) are part of who I am. Holding court at The Tam is what I do (one to two nights per week, max...really, I'm a healthy person). The gut? It sits in front of me. I feel it jiggle when I run. I feel it fold when I sit forward. I can't outrun it, and so I carry it with me.