Heirarchy (not Maslow's)
**If you're Hamish's Mother, don't read any further**
There's a subtle heirarchy (ok, not subtle, I just never noticed before) in tricking. It's interesting how this thing has grown up, organicially, nobody has discussed it or planned it, there's no manual, or agreement. It just happened. I call it:
BH-YP-MC-MB-OVN
Which stands for "Bath House - Your Place - My Couch - My Bed - Over Night". Maybe I'm making up the meaning here - gawd-knows I'm not above doing that - but I honestly think that this hierarchy of where you shag someone says a lot about how they view the encounter.
Bath House: This one is tricky. It could be that they live with their parents, or with their husband or (and I've seen it happen) wife. But that actually proves my point. When someone says let's meet at a bath-house, it means that they won't or can't bring you home. You rank low. as in "not even worth changing the sheets for" But apart from the obvious laundry implications, there's the emotional/psychological ones. this trick is not to be invited into my personal space.
Your place: Increased level of intimacy. could just be a nosy fag, wants to compare furniture. but willing to come over. suggests he's not afraid of being seen. Likely will rever back to bath-house if you suggest the boyfriend could come home early.
My Couch: Mostly means, "ok, you can come in to my personal space, but you're not getting into my bed. (cf, laundry above)" Also likely means they're too lazy to go downtown, or too cheap to pay for a room.
My Bed: ooooo, now you're getting close. This guy invites you into his bed. This is someone either clearly committed to his sluttiness, really wanting to annoy his boyfriend, or maybe hoping you stay. Or in the case of my friend S.H. (you know who you are), so pleased with his fabulous new sheet set, he just HAS to show someone.
OVN: eeeeek. Boyfriend hunter here. Which is fine if you are too. Or he lives in mississauga, and realises that your trip out there was enough of a comittment that you deserve a rest before heading home.
Is this real!!!???? has anyone else noticed?
I'm actually kinda sad that I have. Because now I know this I can't help thinking about it when I trick. I mean it's pretty disconcerting to be engaing in foreplay while thinking "Oh! I'm a couch!? I thought I was a bed, i mean I know i'm not an overnighter, but I thought we'd connected enough to at least be a bed. shit."
Auto Show
I'm working the Auto Show for a couple of days. And no i'm not wearing a push up bra and leaning sexily over cars. Nor am I cleaning them. In fact i'm working here as media. Which is nice the place is not busy and we get to check out the cars up close without all those nasty 'public' getting in the way. I'll post up some nice pics tomorrow or the next day of the fancy cars. But in the meantime, our media room is right along a hallway with some classic cars, beautiful old things, including a room full of Rolls Royces at the end of the hall.
There's an endless loop playing on some audio thing nearby, after 9 hours I've nearly got it memorized. But one line that I do like is that back in the 30s through the 60s their approach to aerodynamics was "if it looks fast, it is fast". Here's a couple of pics of a 1937 Aerodynamic concept car. I think it's lovely. Weird but lovely.
I hate my brain
So I'm utterly, completely, totally, seriously, depressingly convinced I didn't get the job. No word, not a boo since a voicemail on Friday. She's checked 5 of my references now so I don't know what the lack of communication is about. FUCK. Remind me never, ever EVER to want anything again. Because this feeling sucks ass.
562
That's how many times I've checked my email today waiting for news. I realised it was becoming obsessive when my email program actually displayed the message: "Fuck off, she'll call you when she wants to talk to you."
G'ar
The waiting is killing me. The job thing... she's checking references and stuff.. but still it's taking two days. This is one of th reasons I hate job hunting. Here I am not even doing it, not actively looking or anything, and I'm fucked up. This is even though I practically already have the job. Imagine what a mess I'd be if I WAS looking for a job!
Yeesh.
Life is what happens when you're busy making plans
It's Friday, I'm at work (BigCo.) and I�m just killing time until we go for dinner with Tammy and Drew. Tammy's an SELP leader (among other things) with Landmark Education. Landmark is a self-improvement, manage your shit, kinda course I did some years back. I was introduced to it by my buddy Hamish. Actually if I remember correctly he talked about it but never actually invited me to any of their events or whatnot. It was Robert who talked me into going.
I hated it mostly. But after doing the courses (I've done three of the dozen or so they offer), I managed to get a lot of stuff out of them. They're basically a set of tools or systems for navigating your life. One of the most infuriating things about them is that they really got under my skin about what I believe and how I believe it, and how I act on those beliefs. But they're not about beliefs. They say that if you are a Christian, you'll leave the course more so, and if you're an atheist you'll leave more *that* too. It�s hard to get your head around and it' fundamentally annoying. But all that aside, it's also the most useful course or thinking I've done around this topic in my whole life. Eric and I credit the tools with how long our relationship has lasted. It's hard to explain why. But like anything, if it's a framework for you to do stuff and get stuff and it gives you something to work with then it's all good.
I believe in metaphor and story. I'm a writer after all. Story and metaphor are the vehicles by which meaning is transmitted. Plot is the structure to hang it all on. For me life is like that. I like to look at my life as a novel. So understanding where I am and what it means, and where I�m going, it's easy to look at it like a novel... what's the plot? Well that's what happens. What's the story? Ah well that's whatever I make it mean. Does the hero win or lose? Well THAT is where the real fun is. Because that's the part where I am the author in my own tale.
I guess what Landmark helped me do was figure that stuff out. Figure out that a person can be an author. Most of us are stuck believing that life is what's happening to them. I guess I think that life's what I�m doing.
Heads & Tails (or Food as Metaphor)
I love Chinese New Year. We always go to a lovely party at Jim & Jerome's. Jerome usually spends the entire week at home cooking for it, so it's fun and tasty, a veritable dumpling wonderland. And of course the joint is just rotten with snacky asian boys.
However. We also go out with Eric's Moms et al. and end up at these quite traditional banquets. Which we did last night. The problem with this is that there's some thing in the chinese culture that all the food has to have it's head and tail still on. (Something about beginning of the year/end of the year metaphor). And quite frankly there are few things that revlot me more than seeing my food still looking like what it was in real life.
I know I'm a hypocrite and a pussy. I know there are vegetarians who would laugh at my squeamishness and say that it's proof i should be a vegetarian (I was for 2 years). And to them I say "yup, you're right!" Absolutely there is no good reason for humans to eat meat (or fish, or fowl). Absolutely none. We're not built to do it, and we've so poisoned our ecosystem that BSE is not just a cruel joke, but a nice bit of irony to boot. But that being said, it's too damned hard to be one so i'm not. The thing is, i don't want heads on my food for the exact same reason I don't go camping. And that reason is this:
My ancestors stopped sleeping on the ground and killing and eating their own food at some point in the hopefully distant past. So why would I want to un-civilize myself to be like they were? Fuck that. I want my beef to look like beef, not cow; I want my salmon to come in a puff pastry, with no bones, and a nice horseradish cream sauce, not with the fucking eyes lookin' at me.
Last night's meal (at a Korean Sushi place - don't ask) was way better than a couple of years ago, where every-single-fucking-thing we ate (or they ate and I ignored in favor of rice) had the head on and the bones in. That night we stopped at McDonald's on the way home where I had a very un-chicken like McChicken sandwich.
They like me, they really really like me.
Er, the interview/lunch thing went well. The sushi was lovely. The conversation, even better. They want a writer/editor for their marketing department. All writing all the time, and a pretty good salary and great benefits package to go along with it. An interview with HR should do it. She basically said (in a roundabout way) that it's mine, as I basically said (in a roundabout way) that I would take it. So. There. Wow. Have I made a decision? Not sure yet. More on this later I suspect.
New Directions
The title of this blog entry (blentry?) sounds like some sort of bland Liberal Party policy document. So in honour of that theme I won't offend anyone. No rants about clients or American politics this time.
Instead I want to talk about my future. What's been on my mind lately as I work here in the Belly of the Beast(tm) is what's next. There's nothing like a dose of financial stability to give one a wee breather to consider what's next. While doing the 9-5 thing and dealing too with my own biz on the side, I've reconsidered my reluctance to accept corporate jobs in the past (I'm using 'corporate' job here to signify working for someone else, as either 'real job' or 'full time job' suggest that my own business was neither and that bugs me). I've forgotten that along with all the corporate political bullshit that goes on in these places, there is also something interesting. Someone puts money in your account regularly, usually every two weeks. It's really a neat concept. And one I haven't had any experience in for the last nearly 4 years. And beleive me it's nothing to be sneezed at.
So I've been reconsidering things a bit. Then on Saturday a woman who used to be a client when I was working at the ad agency years ago, called me at home out of the blue. Seems she wants to try to recruit me. She has tried unsuccessfully twice before. Once I didn't do it because my biz was new and I hadn't given it a good kick. The second time because the job was not enticing (it was way too much design and not enough writing). So the first thing she asked when we'd dispensed with the pleasantries was "you still not wanting to go working someplace fulltime?" to which, for the first time in 4 years I truthfully replied "well, you know I've actually been thinking about it..."
We're having lunch Tuesday to discuss it. A free sushi lunch and getting caught up with someone I like a lot and respect will be fun. And frankly getting offered a job without trying is a nice feeling, i'm planning to enjoy. I've been doing some thinking in the meantime. I said to Eric I would hope for a big fat greasy bag of lucre for this gig. He had the idea that I should consider three things.
1. how much money of course,
2. what the job would BE, how close it would be to the kind of things I want to spend my day doing, and
3. whether i want a 'corporate' job again.
It's interesting because I never said I wanted to be self-employed. I only said i wanted to be a writer. As Hamish reminds me constantly.... I AM a writer now. The sad part is that in doing my own biz, i have been doing a lot less actual writing. SO getting offered a corporate job where someone fills my inbox with writing to do regularly, could be nice.
It should also be noted that in the last 2 years that I have been concentrating on my own biz, I have written not one word of my own stuff (short stories etc.) So THAT needs remedying. And maybe having a nice safe tenure would be a good way to relax and actually get some spare time to write my own stuff again.
Not to mention that living in the world of vacations and credit ratings would be nice.....
If ever you were tempted to comment on a blog, this would be your time. I'd love to hear what you have to say.
