Homelessness is no joke. Fortunately for you, I'm funny.

Well, the lease is up on the fabulous downtown apartment. Oh for the day that I can actually afford a downtown Toronto condo. Although when that day comes, it will be in a building that has windows that open and possibly even balconies.

The housing situation was stressful and dicey for a while, but now it is more or less resolved, at least for the short term. It is very very very close to work, which I think is in the end the most serious consideration at least at this time.

And what is work, you may ask? Well, it's Zoo! Unfortunately, it does not look like I'll be getting keys to all the animal enclosures, but I do get to go there for several weeks! Yay! No real idea yet as to what the work might be, but I have a little desk, and a kind of lame nametag, and things so far are good. Except my feet. I really need new walking shoes, and six hours hiking in the ones I wore today is leading to some blistering. Boo.

Interesting facts about my desk: it is full of apparently meaningless files, as my supervisor just pushed them aside and removed stuff at random to make a place for my purse. It also has an open bag of elbow macaroni in the top drawer. Said supervisor also suggested I could make myself at home there and that I was "...free to bring your own macaroni if you want to..." I think that may be an exact quote, and the intent is certainly the same. What, may I ask, would I be needing macaroni for? I'm pretty sure they're having me work on training manuals.

Finally, I got a souvenir today! Bird droppings on my head! And I don't even mind! Because animal stuff doesn't freak me out, except naked mole rats (ugly, ugly, ugly, even if they do have names, like 'Kevin'), and imagining the giant cockroaches anywhere else but in their case. I also don't particularly want to be there when the big cats are given their weekly whole or half beef heads as nourishing toys. It's kind of like giving a Kong toy to a domestic pet, I guess, but it's the head of a cow. Ewww. Better find out when those feedings are just in case I happen to be in the Nutrition Centre that day for some reason.

So, this post ended up not being about housing, really, but that should be okay. Tune in for more stories.

Phase II

The archives job is over. Sad violins play softly in the background. It has been really cool, and I think that the 1500 scans are an impressive feat. It's also been really nice to have a routine. I know that I always say that my ideal career has me not doing the same thing every day, and that's still true, but there is something to be said for keeping regular hours.

I should have drawn a picture, or something, to commemorate the achievement, but I have recently been introduced to the work of Demetri Martin, and I now know that I'm just sort of funny. That guy is hilarious. Situational humour, observational even, which is the kind of funny that I like to think that I am, but way, way more. So probably no more drawings from me unless I come up with something really good.

Some of you, who are familiar with the pseudo-asthma that inspired the title of this blog, will be happy to know that I had another dramatic moment on Saturday. Luckily, with a little coaching, I was able to calm down and not suffocate. So, in the future, if it happens again, it can be cured by forcing me to breathe more slowly - in on count 1, out on count 2. Helpful trick!

I wonder if Thursday can come to my next apartment (the cat). There is one here, but she lacks personality and looks, and is currently out in the common room making the most odd and pathetic noises. She has resisted most attempts at friendliness and now it is over. But a furry friend would be nice. If you have a dog you're not using, let me know.

More blogging when the occasion warrants, I promise!

Sticky Back Velcro*

*Or, "Things that sound like a good idea but actually aren't"

So, as may be apparent, the focus of this post will be my recent experiences with stick-on Velcro circles, squares, tabs, tape or whatever. It does have some uses, and this is in no way an indictment of the people that make the stuff (3M maybe?), but of its misguided application. It is EXTREMELY hard to remove. Each tiny tab must be sawed off the back of the photo with the letter opener, and then the adhesive residue removed with a combination of fingernails and white vinyl eraser. (The "white vinyl" qualifier is for the MMCs. Because you care.) This makes my fingers sore. I have done five and a half of the nine prints in the set and it's getting pretty grim. Don't put sticky Velcro on a photo. Unless you're going to want to throw that one out.

Fine then. Change the subject, why don't you? Something happy, like baseball on the radio. I love baseball on the radio. It's nostalgic, even if it's nostalgia for another time. It also reminds me of my dad, who is pretty great, and also likes baseball on the radio. I love the obscurity of the stats, the voices of the announcers, and the really retro advertisers that can afford to sponsor baseball on AM radio, like local hardware stores. Makes me feel like I live in the 1940s.

I'm going to go home and put on a dress, and a snazzy hat, some pearls, gloves, and spectator pumps. Never mind that I don't have most of that stuff, it's the thought that counts!

Milestones

Sooo. Halfway through Week 7 at the Archives (imagine that to the tune of "Midnight at the Oasis". You're doing it now, aren't you.) I can't believe how the time has flown. I wish I could stay longer! But the Zoo will also be majorly cool. So there is that.

Today, I made my supervisor a little drawing to commemorate a special milestone that has been reached. Although it is now clear that I will not complete the photo collection, because no one could, it is equally clear that I will be able to exceed the expected number of entries by about 25%. Excellent. Here's the drawing:

Besides the awesome drawing skills, make sure you take note of the superior scanning techniques: nice, even colouration, straight edges, yeah, I do this for a living.

Don't worry. My 4x6 colour prints are better. Much, much, better. And described with an equal amount of panache.

So, celebrate! I will be getting some extra sleep in order to mark the occasion.

I like to be a leader.

Well, mostly I just like people to follow me. In my head, I prefer to maintain that I popularized a certain late-90s hairstyle at my high school. I know it's not really true, but I do happen to know that it really suited me, and no one else wore it quite so often. Although they did wear it, after I did.

That's something I really miss. Leadership. Being a joiner, I have had lots of training, and now it seems increasingly irrelevant. This is probably a sign that some sort of organization should be joined, in order that I can eventually rule it. The current workplace is pretty cooperative, and I think I'll be at the bottom of the heap at the next one, so work is likely out. That is one thing about small town vs. big city. It's easier to find groups you'd like to be in, or groups that you may as well be in, in the small town, where you already know what's going on. Hmmmm.

I guess I did spearhead a small project yesterday. I mean minuscule, but every little thing counts. I read that in this institution we have what is called a Labyrinth. Now, before you get excited, David Bowie and creepy children are not involved. Instead, the Labyrinth is a clever maze made out of carpeting, upon which you are supposed to walk. After traversing the entire path and arriving at the centre, you will have had time to meditate, concentrate, leave all your problems behind, and heal yourself. So I decided we should go see it. In the tradition of last week's field trip to see the Queen at the Legislature building. It was not as big as I was hoping it would be, and it was possibly even colder in the room than it is in our office (20.4 degrees on a good day), but it was a pleasing purple colour.

Remind me to head back up there if I get a cold. Or something worse. I believe that faith healing works if the one that needs the healing believes, but that's as far as I'm willing to go.

And that will do for now. Follow me!

Blogging and the use of the word "I"

Looking back over previous posts, because yes, you should read your own blog (especially if you instruct other people to do so), it is impossible not to notice how often the first-person singular pronoun comes up. (Grammar check? Right term? Think so.) It should also be apparent how difficult it is to avoid, even just from the first few sentences in this post. Eeeek.


Will persevere. Was reading a "professional" blog Sunday. Apparently, the author has been able to commercialize her thoughts enough, and link to enough products and ads that her blog now supports her, her husband AND their assistant, who just does all the little things she's too impossibly busy to do for herself. The California life must be so hard. Will never read that blog again in order to passive-aggressively protest the commercialization of the forum. Will also not buy Suave hair products (biggest ad, probably). Would not have done that anyway.


Whew. Nothing like talking around the point. But it keeps going! Love a challenge. Kind of like teaching myself to speak Welsh. Only know a few words and phrases, but it's like nothing else on earth. It will be very handy on my retirement trip to Wales. In 40 years. Extra eeeek.


Does it count when other first person singular pronouns are used? Like "me" and "my"? Doesn't look quite as bad as all the one-word ones littering previous posts, but it is probaby cheating. And dropping pronouns does give sentences a sort of immediate, modern, text-message-like feel. If that's what we're going for these days.


Hmmm. The computer does not seem to care for the spelling of "eeeek" with more than two "e"s. Not willing to let it have that one. Will continue to use at least four. Should not spellcheck blog anyways. Any spelling errors would just be personal expressions, but there weren't any at any rate, so self-confidence also needs work.

Enough for now!

You should read this blog.

Because why wouldn't you? Especially since in this post, I will attempt to share something of meaning, along with the random musings. Soooo. What did I learn today? Not a whole lot in terms of concrete facts, I'm afraid. I did scan and enter over sixty photographs into the database, so there is at least a concrete number. Wheeee!

I also made a really great list of things to take for the upcoming weekend, which is Norah's birthday in Niagara-on-the-Lake. From the looks of it, I'll be taking a U-Haul. Must streamline. Comments would be welcome on how best to do this. And no, just not taking any clothes will not work for me, or any of my nine fellow guests.

This would probably be the time to comment on the G20 and its aftermath. I was away from my apartment for most of the time, and I understand that all the setting alight of police cars and so on happened some blocks from here, but it was pretty wild when we were more or less evacuated yesterday from work because of a planned protest at a city agency on the same street. (Trying to be cryptic here. I have no idea if my workplace Googles itself, but if it did, it would probably hit on its name here. And then Emily would have to do a media clipping just like she does for legitimate news. And then I would scan it, and we would database it, and that would be just crazy.)

I am really looking forward to meeting someone from a protest group, so I can get perspective on the issues from different standpoints. Then I will add that to my novel, along with context and statistical analysis.

Okay. Enough thoughts. Fact time. I was very excited to learn that a conservator that I respect is starting to recommend a broader range of acceptable rH levels for collections storage and management. If this means nothing to you, think of it in terms of the environment. If we can have as much as 5-10% higher humidity, that means wayyy less air conditioning, and then everybody wins!