sybil? is that you?

2001-06-18

Aren't these nice colors?! That catie; she's a wonderful person. She redid my diary again out of the goodness of her heart, and I would like to give her a Faberge egg. Alas, she will have to settle for Cadbury.

I spent 10 minutes laying on the floor of my office this morning, because I had no energy to do anything else. Then I figured out that my job is sucking not only my will to live but also all my spare energy, so I spent an hour+ looking at job listings on a few different websites. I didn't find anything worthwhile, and basically the problem, aside from most of the posted jobs not paying enough to live on, is that the area in which I live is a big medical research/computer technology employer. There isn't much for a liberal arts major such as myself. So the bitching goes on....

I had a pretty good weekend, I must say. I watched 3 Iron Chefs (black pig battle, unisex salmon battle, and carp battle) and you Know I enjoyed that. On Saturday morning I declared a War On Filth and I cleaned for a long time, culminating in the much-needed mopping of the kitchen floor. It looks exactly the same, since it is an ugly brown flooring, but it's clean. I still have some things to do but the really disgusting stuff is done.

Sunday the Boy made a card for Francisco, and I made breakfast for Francisco (Father's Day you know) after he returned from his "long run"--he's actively training for his November marathon in Richmond. The breakfast consisted of breakfast burritos (with the eggs over easy instead of scrambled) and fruit. Later we went out and did errands and then had sushi. We ate well this weekend, and I am only compelled to talk about it now because I am hungry. I've been doing my new diet, hence the ravenousness. The pms isn't helping either.

This weekend I read an article in Smithsonian Magazine (not the current issue--I have a bunch of back issues my coworker was getting rid of) that talked about advertising. The author is a college professor and he was struck one day at how none of his students could answer some question they ought to know, but they could recite all the ingredients in a Big Mac. He went on to do some research and investigation into advertising and the psychology behind it and he has written a couple books. The article made me think about advertising and I swear I am a changed woman. Almost everyone is trying to sell something, and it bothers me. Movies are trying to sell us attitudes and lifestyles and possessions as well as admission tickets, and television...well, that's pretty obvious, I don't need to talk about television. I was thinking about books and I don't know that books try to sell things to people (other than the books themselves). With books you have to go out of your way to absorb the contents, whereas with tv and movies, you just have to stare at a screen and the contents are absorbed automatically. (And magazines are evil with advertisements, but I will not be cancelling my Metropolitan Home subscription anytime soon because I love it too much.) I feel so resentful at being manipulated by advertisers and Hollywood executives that being a hermit sounds like a wise lifestyle choice. I truly believe that we would all be much happier if television and the movies had never been invented. We would Want less; we would be more content with what we have. We would be more content with ourselves because we would not have multitudes of "perfect" people with which to compare ourselves. I don't know if any of this makes sense, but it does to me and I think the way I see the world has been changed forever. Nothing like a little drama for a Monday afternoon, eh?

Oh get off my back. No one made you come here. No one held a gun to your head as you searched for "animal butts" or "my thick glasses" (two recent Google searches that led here--dontcha love them?). I know I'm a little cranky today but if you had this job you'd be cranky too. I am up to my armpits in things that need to be done NOW, and to top it off the boss called from Boston this afternoon and wants me to put together some info and fax it to him. He said it airily, as though it would take a snap of my fingers and it would be done. 3 hours and much research later I have very nearly bubkus (that's "nothing" for you non-Yiddish speakers. I say that as though Yiddish is my first language--couldn't you just punch me?). The problem is that what he wants barely exists, so I'll send him everything I've got, which isn't much, and deal with his overt disappointment in my "failure" later. Is there anyone in the Raleigh/Durham area who would like to hire a motivated, professional liberal arts major with good customer service and communications skills? Namely me? It can't hurt to ask.

I love you all and I must go. Tomorrow things might be better and I'll be able write a more upbeat entry. If not, I will, at the least, post a list of the helping verbs.

Love,

E |

cats-kittens

come over some time & see me - 2011-02-25
let's not say goodbye - 2011-02-23
the Rachel Zoe collection - 2011-02-10
I feel happy today - 2011-02-04
the tiny snow stalker - 2011-01-25

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