Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Sometimes retro theme songs really hit the spot
Now is one of those times.
I've also found Laverne and Shirley to be uplifting.
When you wake up and you're living on a couch instead of with your boyfriend of 2.5 years, it's good to remember that you're gonna make it after all, doin' it your way.
I've also found Laverne and Shirley to be uplifting.
When you wake up and you're living on a couch instead of with your boyfriend of 2.5 years, it's good to remember that you're gonna make it after all, doin' it your way.
Monday, February 21, 2011
I heart Scotland
I meant to post this months ago, but I'm doing it now.
Irn Bru is a Scottish fizzy drink that tastes like bubble-gum cotton candy, but looks deceptively like an orange soda. It is widely heralded as a hang-over cure, and loved by Glaswegians. I kind of love this commercial.
Irn Bru is a Scottish fizzy drink that tastes like bubble-gum cotton candy, but looks deceptively like an orange soda. It is widely heralded as a hang-over cure, and loved by Glaswegians. I kind of love this commercial.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Snowy Armageddon hits Scotland!
And I thought the PNW was unprepared for inclement weather.
It has been snowing for a good week and a half now -- a lovely Saturday morning surprise turned epic icy failure to grit roads and sidewalks. The snow stopped, partially thawed, refroze, and recommenced, so now we have that lovely packed, slick, no-possible-traction kind of surface that cars and pedestrians both love, and what is the Scottish government doing about it? Nothing, apparently.
Now, I know it's hard when you're not ready for it. I grew up in Vancouver, Washington. I know what happens to a rainy, temperate climate when the temperature dips below freezing. But this is normal weather here. It's early, yes, but normal. Pull yourself together, United Kingdom!
I was the only one who showed up to work in my department today. I walk and take the underground (which has been jam-packed, due to it being the only reliable source of transportation), so I don't have a problem. We closed early yesterday and it took one lady nine hours to get home. Two of those hours were spent crossing a bridge. Buses have been canceled for days. People have been stuck in traffic for over 24 hours. To save gas and stay warm, people are piling into each other's cars and running the heaters. Cars have been abandoned on the motorways. Does this not all sound a little bit absurd? A bit Day After Tomorrow-ish?
Minnesota can do it. Norway can do it. Most of Canada does it every year. Deal. With. The. Snow.
It has been snowing for a good week and a half now -- a lovely Saturday morning surprise turned epic icy failure to grit roads and sidewalks. The snow stopped, partially thawed, refroze, and recommenced, so now we have that lovely packed, slick, no-possible-traction kind of surface that cars and pedestrians both love, and what is the Scottish government doing about it? Nothing, apparently.
Now, I know it's hard when you're not ready for it. I grew up in Vancouver, Washington. I know what happens to a rainy, temperate climate when the temperature dips below freezing. But this is normal weather here. It's early, yes, but normal. Pull yourself together, United Kingdom!
I was the only one who showed up to work in my department today. I walk and take the underground (which has been jam-packed, due to it being the only reliable source of transportation), so I don't have a problem. We closed early yesterday and it took one lady nine hours to get home. Two of those hours were spent crossing a bridge. Buses have been canceled for days. People have been stuck in traffic for over 24 hours. To save gas and stay warm, people are piling into each other's cars and running the heaters. Cars have been abandoned on the motorways. Does this not all sound a little bit absurd? A bit Day After Tomorrow-ish?
Minnesota can do it. Norway can do it. Most of Canada does it every year. Deal. With. The. Snow.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
When the plumber don't come, sh!t gets Elizabethan
It all began two weeks ago, when I joined the bf in our new flat in Glasgow. I suppose it began before my arrival, but I was blissfully unaware of the trouble that lay ahead. An old Scottish house turned into apartments, you say? Servants' quarters becoming living quarters, a great room now comprising a studio. Delightful, I say, Positively charming! And it is, our apartment, with its vaulted ceiling and myriad retro and antique lamps, collected by the landlady. With an old house, however, comes an old infrastructure, and sneaky little problems, easily overlooked by an enthusiastic couple, looking for a cheap place to stay.
Who would have thought to check the water pressure in the shower, for instance? Or the spare bedroom for draughty windows? Not us! We'll take it!
And so here we are, a month into the lease, without a functioning shower. What began as a simple request to replace the shower head has turned into a saga of disconnected pipes, an absentee landlady, and the futility of baths.
Prior to my arrival, an electrician came to replace the shower head. That's funny, you may be thinking, wouldn't a plumber be the more logical hire for this job? I might have thought the same, but this new shower head would be more efficient! would heat water only as it was needed! would require an electrician for installation! would prove to be the beginning of the end of bathing as we knew it!
The combination water-heater/shower head was installed, but the electrician soon discovered not one, but two problems: the water pressure was still disastrously low, and the heating function was not working at all. Yes, our temperamental, sometimes scalding, sometimes freezing, unenthusiastic stream of a shower had become a cold trickle. The landlady was contacted (pre-absentia), and her suggestion given: to take the new unit off until she could buy a new one to replace it. This would have meant cutting off the entire water supply to the apartment, and luckily the bf foresaw a near future of bedpans and latrines quickly enough to forbid such an action. Thus, we were not made toiletless, but our shower remained unusable.
The story to present is a sad one, and probably too whiny and redundant to relate in its entirety. I will be brief. The landlady disappeared on two weeks of holiday; a plumber was promised and never showed (did I mention the electrician -- in his initial cutting off of water supply -- disconnected our washing machine and then forgot to reconnect it before leaving?); the shower head company was contacted by the bf when promises of such contact by the electrician never came to fruition; the problem was diagnosed as most certainly a plumbing issue, and the landlady sent a second electrician to install a new shower head, (without explanation or contact with us) who confirmed that this was, indeed, a plumbing issue; the landlady returned from holiday and left (again without explanation) a third new shower unit outside our door. When the bf finally got her on the phone after leaving numerous voicemails and texts explaining the situation, she claimed this was the first she had heard of the plumbing issue! And so here we are. Whining complete.
The situation has, if nothing else, elicited a certain amount of creativity around the issue of hygiene in our apartment. Baths were the first logical endeavor. We cannot shower, but we can bathe (thanks to the separate nature of the bath faucets from the shower source)! The (obvious) problem with baths -- other than the extreme waste of water -- is that they are time-consuming and not particularly effective. Showering is usually a five- to ten-minute task for me, an easy fit into a somewhat rushed morning. A bath I have to plan, to set aside time for. After the tub is filled and my necessary cleaning attended to, I am left in a pool of soap and shampoo and the things that I presumably washed off of myself and, on shaving days, little floating bits of stubble. I don't feel clean, and so I try to hold my head or shoulders or knees or toes under the running tap, but the cold and hot water run out of separate faucets, and I am alternatively burning and freezing myself in the effort, sometimes cupping a mixture of the two temperatures in my hands and throwing the contents over my shoulder and onto my back. I feel like an ape, a desperate, soap-scummy ape, and then I think Eureka! A bucket!
The bucket is a useful addition to the bath, allowing for more thorough rinsing as well as fresh-water wasting, but more and more I've turned away from bathing altogether. On days that I go to the gym, I can use the showers there. I have never been so excited to stand under 30 continuous seconds of running water, nor so unbothered by the notion of having to push a little button again so I can enjoy another 30 seconds of beautiful, high-pressure, hot, streaming water. I can have as many 30 seconds of water as I want! And I don't even want that many!
On days that I don't work out, I've taken to the Elizabethan trend of creating elaborate hairdos and applying additional makeup and perfumes to mask the fact that I have not bathed. I find this kind of trickery a little too exciting. What color eyeshadow shall I wear today to distract from my oily complexion? If I slick my greasy locks into an elaborate updo, will no one notice my smell?
So far, I've met with no discernible room clearings, no audible gasps of horror, no out-and-out retching at the scent of me. Perhaps this is a good thing. Perhaps I have been liberated from the tedious routine of hygiene, cleaning myself each day only to find myself dirty again the next. Maybe the Elizabethans had it right!
Or maybe I just need a shower.
Who would have thought to check the water pressure in the shower, for instance? Or the spare bedroom for draughty windows? Not us! We'll take it!
And so here we are, a month into the lease, without a functioning shower. What began as a simple request to replace the shower head has turned into a saga of disconnected pipes, an absentee landlady, and the futility of baths.
Prior to my arrival, an electrician came to replace the shower head. That's funny, you may be thinking, wouldn't a plumber be the more logical hire for this job? I might have thought the same, but this new shower head would be more efficient! would heat water only as it was needed! would require an electrician for installation! would prove to be the beginning of the end of bathing as we knew it!
The combination water-heater/shower head was installed, but the electrician soon discovered not one, but two problems: the water pressure was still disastrously low, and the heating function was not working at all. Yes, our temperamental, sometimes scalding, sometimes freezing, unenthusiastic stream of a shower had become a cold trickle. The landlady was contacted (pre-absentia), and her suggestion given: to take the new unit off until she could buy a new one to replace it. This would have meant cutting off the entire water supply to the apartment, and luckily the bf foresaw a near future of bedpans and latrines quickly enough to forbid such an action. Thus, we were not made toiletless, but our shower remained unusable.
The story to present is a sad one, and probably too whiny and redundant to relate in its entirety. I will be brief. The landlady disappeared on two weeks of holiday; a plumber was promised and never showed (did I mention the electrician -- in his initial cutting off of water supply -- disconnected our washing machine and then forgot to reconnect it before leaving?); the shower head company was contacted by the bf when promises of such contact by the electrician never came to fruition; the problem was diagnosed as most certainly a plumbing issue, and the landlady sent a second electrician to install a new shower head, (without explanation or contact with us) who confirmed that this was, indeed, a plumbing issue; the landlady returned from holiday and left (again without explanation) a third new shower unit outside our door. When the bf finally got her on the phone after leaving numerous voicemails and texts explaining the situation, she claimed this was the first she had heard of the plumbing issue! And so here we are. Whining complete.
The situation has, if nothing else, elicited a certain amount of creativity around the issue of hygiene in our apartment. Baths were the first logical endeavor. We cannot shower, but we can bathe (thanks to the separate nature of the bath faucets from the shower source)! The (obvious) problem with baths -- other than the extreme waste of water -- is that they are time-consuming and not particularly effective. Showering is usually a five- to ten-minute task for me, an easy fit into a somewhat rushed morning. A bath I have to plan, to set aside time for. After the tub is filled and my necessary cleaning attended to, I am left in a pool of soap and shampoo and the things that I presumably washed off of myself and, on shaving days, little floating bits of stubble. I don't feel clean, and so I try to hold my head or shoulders or knees or toes under the running tap, but the cold and hot water run out of separate faucets, and I am alternatively burning and freezing myself in the effort, sometimes cupping a mixture of the two temperatures in my hands and throwing the contents over my shoulder and onto my back. I feel like an ape, a desperate, soap-scummy ape, and then I think Eureka! A bucket!
The bucket is a useful addition to the bath, allowing for more thorough rinsing as well as fresh-water wasting, but more and more I've turned away from bathing altogether. On days that I go to the gym, I can use the showers there. I have never been so excited to stand under 30 continuous seconds of running water, nor so unbothered by the notion of having to push a little button again so I can enjoy another 30 seconds of beautiful, high-pressure, hot, streaming water. I can have as many 30 seconds of water as I want! And I don't even want that many!
On days that I don't work out, I've taken to the Elizabethan trend of creating elaborate hairdos and applying additional makeup and perfumes to mask the fact that I have not bathed. I find this kind of trickery a little too exciting. What color eyeshadow shall I wear today to distract from my oily complexion? If I slick my greasy locks into an elaborate updo, will no one notice my smell?
So far, I've met with no discernible room clearings, no audible gasps of horror, no out-and-out retching at the scent of me. Perhaps this is a good thing. Perhaps I have been liberated from the tedious routine of hygiene, cleaning myself each day only to find myself dirty again the next. Maybe the Elizabethans had it right!
Or maybe I just need a shower.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Employment and a dearth of creativity
That's right, I said dearth. I may be gainfully employed and neglectful of my blog, my I remember one or two words from the SATs.
My SAT scores came up again recently. Now that I've settled into New York life -- that's right, she's the mistress that skillfully seduced me away from you, my reader(s) -- I'm going to uproot myself once again and head down what will *hopefully* be a path to a career, a steady income, and stability. In the U.K.
Why couldn't I just stay here in New York, you might ask, keep the rather fun job I already have, and actually wake from my creativity coma? It's New York. I could be out at open mics, writing for blogs, and generally promoting myself at least as much as I do Broadway Shows for a living. I could stop making excuses about this being a temporary situation -- which it is.
And that's where the SAT scores come in. I submitted them -- along with three generations of birth certificates, three months of bank statements, my resume, repeated pleas for mercy and assurances of my employability -- to the British Consulate General of New York. The SAT scores were a bit over the top, but they did ask for "Evidence of any English language ability or qualifications," and although I taught English is France for a year, I never had to take the TOEFL exam, so my Verbal scores in the 91st percentile from 8 years ago will just have to do.
The only thing to do now is wait. It is excruciating. The direction of the next 2 to 5 five years of my life is in the hands of one person or several people, none of whom know anything about me, other than what I look like on paper. According to estimated processing times (5 to 10 business days), I should hear a decision about the visa by Thursday, and according to the plane ticket I have already purchased, I should be flying to London on Saturday. Cutting it a bit fine, am I?
In this last week of mild panic, as my work hours wind down to nothing and I am left with one final paycheck and as many superstitious rituals as I can possibly prescribe to, I turn to you, blog. I miss writing. I liked writing before I moved to New York (for the summer) and became obsessed with work and hours and saving enough to support my next move. This summer has been fun and fruitful. I did save enough to show those visa folks I'll be okay until I get a job, I have generous friends who have put me up at little to no cost, and most importantly, I've had the opportunity to spend time with good friends that I hadn't seen in years. In the chaos of it all, I allowed myself to stop writing, to stop auditioning, and to allow my creativity to be swallowed up in my job and my admiration for the accomplishments of others.
So: this post is an exercise and a challenge to myself. Get back on the horse. Blog when you have time, don't just watch T.V. (I knew there was a reason I hadn't had one of those things in years). Go to open mics. Get back onstage. Get an agent. Work hard. Have something to show for it. Don't spend every waking moment panicking over whether or not The Powers That Be will grant you a visa. Worrying will not affect the outcome. Write new mantras.
The longer I am away from my blog, the harder it is to return. Should I tell them about how I went to Melbourne for my boyfriend's brother's wedding and then to his home country of New Zealand and that his family is awesome and that I'm in love and even though we had to be apart for 7 weeks, together for 6, and then apart for 5 more I think it's all going to be okay? Or should I just start off here, forget what I neglected, and dive in?
Dive in.
My SAT scores came up again recently. Now that I've settled into New York life -- that's right, she's the mistress that skillfully seduced me away from you, my reader(s) -- I'm going to uproot myself once again and head down what will *hopefully* be a path to a career, a steady income, and stability. In the U.K.
Why couldn't I just stay here in New York, you might ask, keep the rather fun job I already have, and actually wake from my creativity coma? It's New York. I could be out at open mics, writing for blogs, and generally promoting myself at least as much as I do Broadway Shows for a living. I could stop making excuses about this being a temporary situation -- which it is.
And that's where the SAT scores come in. I submitted them -- along with three generations of birth certificates, three months of bank statements, my resume, repeated pleas for mercy and assurances of my employability -- to the British Consulate General of New York. The SAT scores were a bit over the top, but they did ask for "Evidence of any English language ability or qualifications," and although I taught English is France for a year, I never had to take the TOEFL exam, so my Verbal scores in the 91st percentile from 8 years ago will just have to do.
The only thing to do now is wait. It is excruciating. The direction of the next 2 to 5 five years of my life is in the hands of one person or several people, none of whom know anything about me, other than what I look like on paper. According to estimated processing times (5 to 10 business days), I should hear a decision about the visa by Thursday, and according to the plane ticket I have already purchased, I should be flying to London on Saturday. Cutting it a bit fine, am I?
In this last week of mild panic, as my work hours wind down to nothing and I am left with one final paycheck and as many superstitious rituals as I can possibly prescribe to, I turn to you, blog. I miss writing. I liked writing before I moved to New York (for the summer) and became obsessed with work and hours and saving enough to support my next move. This summer has been fun and fruitful. I did save enough to show those visa folks I'll be okay until I get a job, I have generous friends who have put me up at little to no cost, and most importantly, I've had the opportunity to spend time with good friends that I hadn't seen in years. In the chaos of it all, I allowed myself to stop writing, to stop auditioning, and to allow my creativity to be swallowed up in my job and my admiration for the accomplishments of others.
So: this post is an exercise and a challenge to myself. Get back on the horse. Blog when you have time, don't just watch T.V. (I knew there was a reason I hadn't had one of those things in years). Go to open mics. Get back onstage. Get an agent. Work hard. Have something to show for it. Don't spend every waking moment panicking over whether or not The Powers That Be will grant you a visa. Worrying will not affect the outcome. Write new mantras.
The longer I am away from my blog, the harder it is to return. Should I tell them about how I went to Melbourne for my boyfriend's brother's wedding and then to his home country of New Zealand and that his family is awesome and that I'm in love and even though we had to be apart for 7 weeks, together for 6, and then apart for 5 more I think it's all going to be okay? Or should I just start off here, forget what I neglected, and dive in?
Dive in.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Morning Blogging, Take One: I like to be in America
I am so unemployed. Like, it's not even funny. But unlike the dilemma of forced unemployment in Ireland (no work permit), my American unemployment can be solved. And I'm totally on it. In the meantime, I've managed to get down to my local HRA for the food stampies, and I've found myself with a lot of time to just hang out... an all too familiar feeling.
The grass is always greener, right? I mean, when I did have a full-time job (now a million years ago), all I wanted was a week or seven off. I was sure if I just had time I would accomplish so much! It turns out I don't do so well with the self-motivation thing when I don't have any obligations. But I'm trying to be better. Like in writing this post.
I did give myself a theme song, which is kind of like finding employment. Okay, so it's not at all, but I have a lot of time on my hands.
I was wandering through Manhattan, enjoying a lovely summer day and minding my business when suddenly the line, "I like the island Manhattan!" popped into my head. Before I knew it, America from West Side Story was playing on repeat in my head. And now I will do the same for you.
I love Rita Moreno. If anyone is going to sing my theme song, let it be her. Did you know she's an EGOT? I did not until I read it on her Wikipedia page. I am not surprised, though, as she is overall awesome, and especially so in sketches like this.
So, that's it! New inspiration! I'm not just going to find part-time work, I'm going to EGOT! And I'm racing Tracy Jordan to the punch. I have two months. Go!
The grass is always greener, right? I mean, when I did have a full-time job (now a million years ago), all I wanted was a week or seven off. I was sure if I just had time I would accomplish so much! It turns out I don't do so well with the self-motivation thing when I don't have any obligations. But I'm trying to be better. Like in writing this post.
I did give myself a theme song, which is kind of like finding employment. Okay, so it's not at all, but I have a lot of time on my hands.
I was wandering through Manhattan, enjoying a lovely summer day and minding my business when suddenly the line, "I like the island Manhattan!" popped into my head. Before I knew it, America from West Side Story was playing on repeat in my head. And now I will do the same for you.
I love Rita Moreno. If anyone is going to sing my theme song, let it be her. Did you know she's an EGOT? I did not until I read it on her Wikipedia page. I am not surprised, though, as she is overall awesome, and especially so in sketches like this.
So, that's it! New inspiration! I'm not just going to find part-time work, I'm going to EGOT! And I'm racing Tracy Jordan to the punch. I have two months. Go!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)