The Remains of a Poet

So I have this job doing insurance billing.  I’ve had it for about a year now, though I’m getting laid off next month.  A computer is replacing me.  This is fine, because while it’s an okay job, it’s not the greatest.  I mean, it’s kind of tedious.  Anyway, recently I’ve also taken to babysitting every Wednesday morning.

This is a really fantastic job.  It’s for this guy, Mark, who watches his niece’s 18-month-old son, Braydon, while she’s at work (his wife works too; Mark’s like a stay-at-home dad).  Anyway, Mark has a 7-year-old son, Scott, and on Wednesday mornings he likes to volunteer in Scott’s classroom, but he can’t do that and watch Braydon.  That's where I come in.  On Wednesday’s I watch Braydon from 9:00-noon.  It's really wonderful!  Braydon and I watch Dora the Explorer, then Go Diego, Go! (this and Dora are the most hideous shows ever!  I am so annoyed watching them), then Blue’s Clues (can I just say that no amount of money could induce me to be Joe), then The Backyardigans (which is fully the best show on Nick Jr!  Why wasn’t it on when I was a kid?).... Anyway, usually in the middle of The Backyardigans Braydon falls asleep.  Then I do Sudoku for an hour or so, and then Mark comes back and I go home.  The best part of this job, however, is the fact that Mark pays me $20 an hour (here in Irvine the going rate is $10)!  Not only that, he pays me in cash!  So every Wednesday, at around 12:15, we pull up in front of my house, and he reaches inside his wallet and pulls out three $20 bills, and hands them to me, and we say goodbye until the next week.  Well, last week he came back at 12, as usual, and Braydon was asleep, as usual, and Mark turns to me and goes, “Do you like filing?”  And I was like, “Um, it’s okay.”  The truth is, I hate filing, but I can endure a lot (not being on Blue’s Clues, but still, a lot) for $20 an hour.  So then he explained to me about how he bought these big notebook things that hold DVDs, and how much room they save, rather than leaving the DVDs in their cases, but that the problem was that now he and Scott could never find the DVD they were looking for.  So, if I could come over and alphabetize the DVDs sometime, that would be great.  I was like, “Oh, well Monday works for me.”  So we arranged for Monday at 9:00.

So today I went over there.  Now here’s what I’m thinking.  “Oh, alphabetize DVDs.  That’ll take one hour, two at most.”  This is because I am thinking in terms of my DVDs (actually, I could probably alphabetize my DVDs in half-an-hour, but whatever).  Now, I know there are a lot of DVDs in the world.  I know this, because I go to Blockbuster, and I’ve seen them.  What didn’t occur to me when I agreed to alphabetize Mark’s DVDs is that he could open and run his own, very successful Blockbuster right in his home.  So I’m sitting there, alphabetizing these DVDs, and any moment I’m expecting someone to walk in and ask me if I can please direct them to the Comedy section, or tell them how to obtain a membership card.  Picture, if you will, 21 inches, over a foot and a half of discs in a stack.  That’s how many DVDs there were.  I mean, there were DVDs I didn’t even know existed!  And random DVDs, DVDs you wouldn’t expect a family with only a son to have.  DVDs like Princess Diaries 2 and Freaky Friday.  And after I alphabetize them, and put them in seven of these gigando notebooks, with dividers between letters, and write down every DVD in every notebook, in order, on a piece of paper and put it in the front of each notebook (and you do realize that the moment they buy a new DVD this entire system will be ruined), I come to find out that these are just Scott’s DVDs!  A seven-year-old has over a foot and a half of DVDs!  What is up with that?  And next week I get to alphabetize Mark and Gail’s DVDs.  What I want to know is, who has $120 to give to some 16-year-old to organize their DVDs while they play video games with their son?  Seriously, that’s what they were doing while I was alphabetizing: playing video games!  Who has that kind of money?  Who???  Not that I’m complaining.  I mean, I got 60 bucks today.

Oh wait, that’s fake money though, isn’t it?....

As it turns out, knowing the meaning of life doesn’t actually make you happier.  In fact, I’d say the opposite is true.  I think I’ll just forget it.

Because I can get $60-worth of stuff now.

Ha!  Take that, Econ!

I'm taking fencing in November, now that I have more time since I only have one job!

Yay!

Deep Thought of the Day: If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes Mr. Brave Man, I guess I am a coward. ~ Jack Handy

I wasn't going to write this here.  I really wasn't.  But after today... well, let's just say I've gotta get these off my chest.

Trinity and the No Good, Dirty Rotten, Horrible, Very Bad Saturday: I work every Saturday morning from 8-2.  It's at my second job, which I hate.  I keep trying to talk my mom into letting me quit, but she says not until I find a different second job.  Um, hello, I already have another job!  That's why this is my second job!  But getting back to my horrible day.  So on Friday my mom tells me that she's not going to take me to work tomorrow.
"It's only two miles away," she tells me. "You can ride your bike."
"But Mom," I say, in a very reasoning tone of voice, "I can practice my driving.  Besides, I don't want to ride my bike!"
"But think of the money we'll save on gas," she says brightly.
"I'll give you three bucks," I say desperately.
"Nope," my mom shakes her head. "You're riding your bike."
"But I'm on my feet all day at work, and I'll be tired," I try.
"Tell you what," my mom says. "If it's a truly horrible experience, I won't make you do it ever again."
Which is, of course, a crappy promise, because she and I both know it won't be horrible.  So the next morning I rise half-an-hour earlier than normal to allow plenty of time to do all my stuff.  At about 7:35 I go out to my backyard, where the bikes are kept, to make a horrible discovery.  I have no locks.  We have two bike locks in my family, one with a key, one with a combo.  The key belongs to Camryn, the combo to Hannah.  I, however, don't know the combo, and have no idea what Camryn did with the key before she went to Poland.  So basically, I'm screwed.  Finally I'm like, "Forget it!" and take the key lock (because it's open), and decide I'll just fake lock the bike when I get there (I wouldn't be so paranoid, but Hannah's bike just got stolen a few months ago).  So I take my bike out of my backyard and down to the sidewalk where I make another discovery: the seat is too high.  At this point I'm like, "Screw it, I have to go or I'm gonna be late for work!  I'll just deal!"  So I start to ride down my street and turn onto my greenbelt.  It is on the greenbelt that I make the most important discovery of all - a discover one would prefer to make before one was well on one's way: my bike has no brakes.  This, of course, would not be such a problem, because one would assume one could stop by dragging one's feet along the ground except, oh yes!, ha ha, I can't because the seat is too high.  As I'm realizing all this I can see the street coming closer and closer, and I can't slow down, and I end up going flying off the curb and getting thrown forward and backward on the bike.  With a big bruise on my butt, and certain that I've damaged some of my reproductive organs, I continue on, because I really have no choice, I have to get to work.  I finally make it out of my track and into the next neighborhood over, which is just a straight shot, and then the center where I work.  The problem is there are about a million stop signs in it.  Stop signs I obviously can't stop at.  So I'm going through the neighborhood in terror that a policman is lurking in one of the sidestreets waiting to ticket anyone who doesn't stop at the stop signs (as the policemen in Irvine are wont to do, since Irvine is the safest city in California and there is literally nothing else for them to do).  Fortunately there was nothing of the kind, and I made it to the center without further incident.  However, at the center, as I was fake locking my bike, I realized something was missing.  What was it? I asked myself.  Oh yes!  I don't have a helmet!  Which is, of course, illegal, as I am not yet eighteen.  Yes, I think it is a very good thing I wasn't spotted by any policemen.  Then my boss was ten minutes late, which made me really mad, because I had risked physical and financial harm to get there on time.  I wasn't able to call my mom to tell her what had happened until 1:30, but she wasn't there, so I had to leave a message.  When I got off half-an-hour later I had to walk the bike home (because I didn't have a helmet, but even if I'd had one I wouldn't have ridden the bike, because it had no brakes).  The only good thing about the whole thing was that my mom said I never have to do it again, since it was such a horrible experience.  Yay!

Trinity and the No Good, Dirty Rotten, Horrible, Very Bad Tuesday: Picture day at school today.  I had to - no wait!  First let me tell you the classic line from government today (I apologize in advance for being such an academic snob):
Mrs Mullen (reading from The Declaration of Independence): "'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'  Weston, what do you think that means, 'certain unalienable Rights... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'?"
Weston: What does 'unalienable' mean?"
Um... excuse me?  Call me a snob, but how can you be seventeen years old and not know what 'unalienable' means?  And even if, by some strange chance, you don't, can't you get it from the context???  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal... endowed... with certain unalienable Rights... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  I mean, doesn't that give you even some small clue as to the meaning of the word?  A few weeks ago one Camryn's friends figured out I was a year ahead in school and observed, "She must be really smart."  "No," Camryn corrected, "it's just that everyone at her school is really dumb."  Um, yeah, that sounds about right.
But getting back to picture day.... I had to sit, with the rest of my class, in the sanctuary the entire lunch hour while a bajillion people got their pictures taken.  I ended up being late to Brit Lit!  And the guy taking the picture was a total jerk!  He was just... I can't even describe it, it was horrible!  Then I went to Brit Lit (late) hungry and mad, and we had a quiz.  I couldn't even think.  My teacher, Miss Behne, was totally nice about it too, and was like, "You can go buy something at the snack bar and come back and eat it here," but I didn't have any money.  Then my mom was late picking me up.  She pulled up and started to get out so I could drive.
"I don't want to drive!" I snarled.
"Okay," she said, for once not pushing it.  But, after I got home, and had some food and a good cry, and then went to the bank and got some money, my day improved considerably.  And after I went to choir and sang "Widmung" and then went to Henry's and got a sandwich and some muffins, things looked really bright.  So I suppose it wasn't such a horrible day after all....

Deep Thought of the Day: I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate.  And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it. ~ Jack Handy

Went to work today.  Learned how to do register.  Much more exciting than organizing notebooks, but mostly because I kept doing things wrong.

Deep Thought of the Day: I wish I would have a real tragic love affair and get so bummed out that I’d just quit my job and become a bum for a few years, because I was thinking about doing that anyway. ~ Jack Handy