There are things I'd prefer to do in life, and sometimes living isn't one of them. It's a pain in the....
For example: I picked one of the worst banks to have an account in: Washington Mutual. What kind of bank tells you you can’t have access to your money for an entire month? WAMU makes money off the penalty fee if you withdraw money earlier than that. Which I’ve done bc one needs money. What am I supposed to eat? There’s not a lot of grass in my neighborhood. But if I knew how to convert salt water to fresh water I’d be a multi-millionaire.
I miss my bank in Cambridge MA in fact. They supported non-profits, were co-sponsors for Gay Pride tho yes, I did also question why banks and beer companies were sponsoring Pride weekend at all. This Pride Weekend Was Brought To You By Piss Beer, Corrupt Office Hardware and Telecommunications Companies That Spy On Their Customers – (Bud Light, Hewlett Packard, and Verizon).
While I’m at it - living that is, I might as well use cash to buy everything. Then the bank and the govt won’t know what I buy. Tho that isn’t anything unusual: food, books, subway pass, etc. I’m still glad some transactions are on a cash basis….
Second example: I have a knack of picking (or accepting to work) in some of the strangest, weirdest and craziest places. Where I am working now, the bosses are more dysfunctional than I am, which is saying a lot. And I can’t say it is a job that I can leave and forget about bc I am on the computer constantly at work (graphics) and then I come home and get on the computer and do more work. As a hobby of sorts I’ve been making jewelry, but I realized that on some projects, it requires close up and minute details and after staring at a screen all day I am not keen on having my eyes affixed on beads and needles and wire.
My mother, in her spare time, is a rug hooker. She’s had shows in VT and CT exhibiting her work and she sits in front of a computer all day at the library for work and then goes home and hooks. But she does not have to deal with font issues and resizing photos and formatting html and creating web banners. Instead she asks me how to do those things. When I visit her, it’s like working. I have to solve her computer questions most of the time.
The worst is that I actually want to learn PHP and MySQL. Maybe I am a little more crazy than I thought. Or I should just get an account at another bank and just strictly freelance. Which I should bc I have two jobs backed up as it is.
I have turned my attention to a folder on my hard drive full of poems that is probably three books worth of poems. I have not shared too much of my interactions with poets, or on poetry readings, or their book parties, or their books. And not bc I don’t want to, but bc I am looking for some tact and diplomacy and I am not finding it so I am keeping my mouth shut at the moment. Not bc I dislike everyone and their books either. But again, the tact thing. I have no problem complaining about banks and jobs. It’s the slightly more intimate contact bt people, poets, their text, social interactions, etc. that sends me not searching for words, but instead, hailing a cab.
or under employed. I now have a job starting Tuesday.
So now I can work on other things, like poems!
Or complain about other things, like life.
My next three paychecks are already spent,
probably under the guise of buying you dinner.
I am quite pleased, in fact elated, bc living in NY is no fun with no $.
I might as well live in a yurt in the woods.
Which I have done.
Which is no fun, especially for someone like me
who likes electricity and running water
and heads for the coffee grinder first thing
in the morning.
I lasted 4 days in a yurt.
Which may have been 4 days too long
but there was a hot tub involved
and I knew I could bail on the whole
expedition with one phone call.
On a rotary phone, but still, a phone that worked.
On other matters, I spent a little bit of time
trying to figure out what the unemployment rate
translated to in numbers, as in, how many people
are unemployed. We are told that 43,000,000
people are uninsured. I read in the news that Ford
wants to give the golden handshake to 75,000 employees
but I guess an unemployment number
would be hard to tally.
Still, it would be nice to have a number and not a percentage.
And why should I care about all this?
Well, I don't have to flip back between media bistro
and monster.com and craigslist and whomever anymore
while at the same time listening to democracy.org
and reading lefty blogs and then getting depressed
and then going to youtube for the dailyshow just for cheap comic relief.
I'll have a monthly MTA pass, and I can find my cheap entertainment on the F train.
On the way to the interview today the bus broke down,
a few minutes later someone asked me if I was interested
in hearing about jesus, and I saw a not very happy woman
drinking a tall boy on the train.
I don't think any of those incidents are connected and
if you think so, connect the dots.
I on the other hand, am or will be celebrating.
Sep 4, 2006 12:47 pm US/Pacific
State Supreme Court To Hear Internet Libel Case
(BCN) SAN FRANCISCO The California Supreme Court
is set to hear arguments in San Francisco Tuesday
on whether someone who posts a defamatory
comment by another person on the Internet can be sued for libel.
Two civil liberties groups say the court’s eventual ruling,
due in three months, could have far-reaching implications
for free speech on the Internet.
While the case before the court concerns individuals—
a Canadian doctor seeking to sue a women’s health activist
for posting a third person’s comment about him—
the court’s ruling could also determine whether Internet service
providers can be held liable when they knowingly allow
defamatory remarks to be posted.
Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation
in San Francisco, said last week “it would be a disaster”
if the state high court allows such lawsuits.