Four Things Meme, Part 1
Margalit has tagged me with the four things meme. I already had this part of it written up for my “oh no, I might be gone two weeks!” emergency plan, but I may as well post it now since I’ve been tagged.
Before I get into it, though, I want to show you how mundane my menu list really is. Many of you asked to see it, so I’ve uploaded it HERE. It is a word document and will require you to download it. I promise there are no viruses. I wouldn’t know how to put in a virus if I tried. I still can’t figure out how to roll up my archives list. It would help if I knew what that little function was called. I was going to post my menu thingee too, but I couldn’t get it to work. It is not fancy. Basically, Mike was tired of me making out a chart with a ruler and the back of a piece of scratch paper. I am really glad I inspired so many of you. My system comes from two things–my hatred of the grocery store and my attempt at a healthier lifestyle. I never thought I’d say this, but I am very concerned with all the chemicals that are going into our bodies these days. Maybe that’s what I’ll write my next Mosaic Minds article about. The theme is Never Say Never which should be a lot of fun.
Do you really think I can do a meme of lists? Of course not. I must explain my answers. I must ramble. I must make sure you understand exactly why I do the crazy things I do. Would you expect anything less?
Four Jobs You’ve Had
- Worst Job Ever: Manning the tech support line for a company that contracted with Apple. I may be a fat, lazy ass but I can NOT sit still. Sitting still for 10 hours a day while asking Sir, do you have the power cord plugged into the wall outlet? and hearing Power plug? You mean that thing that goes into the wall? That’s not just for looks? is enough to drive me over the edge of sanity. I’m a perfectionist and really wanted to help people, but we were not encouraged to help people. We were encouraged to tell people to do things we knew probably wouldn’t work and tell them to call back later if they still had problems. I was reprimanded more than once for refusing to do so.
- Best Job Ever: Men’s Fragrance Girl at a nice department store. Sure, the black smock was ugly and by the end of the first week my car, my home, and all my clothes smelled like I’d been rolling around in the back of a night club with every guy who happened my way, but the job itself was totally low key. I wouldn’t want to do it for a living, but I knew I was only in it for three months and that took a lot of sting out of the insane competition for sales. We had to meet a certain dollar figure for sales-per-hour which meant I HAD to get out of my shell and sell sell sell if I wanted to avoid reprimands. I always want to avoid reprimands. The lady at the Lancôme counter would doll me up while we waited for customers, then I’d pretend I was someone else and flirt shamelessly with the male customers. I sold a lot of cologne.
- Best and Worst Job Ever: Summer Drop-In Center Coordinator. I loved loved loved playing with kids all day long. We did art projects. We baked cookies every day. We went on scavenger hunts. We had guest speakers show us how to do things. We put on puppet shows. No outcomes to worry about. No tests to prepare for. No objectives, no expectations, no parents, no administrators. I loved loved loved it. I had two lazy, good-for-nothing employees under me who hated the job and didn’t want to be bothered by the children. I had to reprimand them, motivated them, and evaluate them. Hated hated hated hated hated it. I am not cut out to be a manager.
- Dream Job: Writing, editing, cutting, pasting, designing and getting PAID for it. I was the editor of my college yearbook for three years and I actually got paid for it for two of the years. I put in way more hours than I was paid for, but I loved (almost) every minute of it. Just don’t ask to see the yearbooks now. They are an embarrassment. Of course, everything I write or design eventually becomes an embarrassment.
Four Places I’ve Lived
- Oregon: I grew up in Klamath Falls, the pimple on the ass of the world then lived in Astoria for three years. Astoria is the most beautiful spot on the face of the earth. . . on the five days a year that it’s not raining.
- Oklahoma: I went to college in Bartlesville, a small town on the edge of the Ozarks. It’s actually got a lot of greenery around, which pleased me immensely. Most of Oklahoma is pretty brown and dirty and gross, but B’ville is a decent place to live. And very rich. All that oil money, you know.
- Kiruna, Sweden: Why, oh why, do I always end up at the ends of the earth? Kiruna was a very neat place in a storybook sense: North of the Artic Circle, Northern Lights, sled dogs, home of Santa Claus and the Midnight Sun. In a practical sense it was easily the worst place I’ve ever lived. The weather was terrible, it was either too dark or too light, the people were extremely unfriendly, there were very few opportunities for socializing. I hated it and am glad we were able to move away.
- The DC Metro Area. We started out in the ghetto area of Alexandria, VA and hated it. It was gross. And ghetto-y. And did I mention crowded and nasty and ghetto-like? We recently moved to Germantown, MD and LOVE it out here. We still want to move to the west coast at some point, but for now we are very content in our nice little suburban cookie-cutter neighborhood.