Ticking Parcels - or whatever I end up calling it - is this year's experiment in journal-keeping. I've tried anonymous journalism (not good) and direct day-to-day journals. I kept my sort-of-daily journal for three years, and you can still read the archive, if you're of a mind to. But after I discovered LiveJournal, the Ramblings languished. The ease of LiveJournal's interface and the community-centric construction of the thing made me far more inclined to post there, then on my website. So I did some thinking, and this is the result of it.

I've always tinkered with the idea of a time-delayed journal, because it grants a bit more freedom than an immediate venue would. Like most journal-keepers, I've had to deal with the fallout of getting very angry at a situation - or a somebody - and ranting about it on my journal. Oddly enough, not everyone agrees with me, 100% of the time and - more often than not - the object of my ire is still chafing as it is when they read my own thoughts on the subject. What an aggravation.

So why put it online at all? Because journals should be honest, and cover the whole range of my feelings and opinions, not just the upbeat or socially acceptable ones. I tried keeping an 'anonymous' journal for a few months, but that wasn't satisfying. I'm an egomaniacal black duck, and I want my words attributed to me. It also struck me as strangely dishonest to be dividing my thoughts like that. But I digress.

The general withering of the Ramblings has encouraged me to go ahead with this project. I'm going to try it for three months, and see how it works out. Now, I must give the obligatory warning:

Johanna is going to be honest in this forum. This means that she is going to wallow - just a bit - in the pigheaded, self-centered and stubborn aspects of her personality. You might not enjoy this side of her personality. It's certainly not the side I'm proudest of, but it's a part of me, and I'm tired of stifling. 

Most of you know me well enough to understand that there are times when I get flamingly pissed at people, but I usually skirt around it in my journals. Not this one. More often than not, I'm pissed off at people, rather than events or objects. It's quite likely that I might rant about you, one of these days. But by the time you read this - a month after it has been written - I am most likely over the incident and hopefully you will be too. But if you have the slightest doubt, you might want to stick to reading my LiveJournal.

That said, time for me to get to some content. I can twitter on about design issues and such in another place.

***

Springtime's renewal has hit my circle of friends - some later in the season than others - and, as usual, left me wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life. My okay-ish job at WTM (great job, but not enough hours) is, as I say, okay, but I'm looking for something full-time. I really don't want to leave this position unless it's for another media-production place. I'm not going back to pushing papers for a company that produces a product I don't understand or don't care about, dammit.

I just feel like I'm flailing, and have been since I finished college. It's one of my most common laments, I know, but it's true. If I could afford it, I would go back to school for a year, cram down some tech-writing classes and try to start on that career path. But there's no way that can be managed unless Alex and I sold everything we owned, gave away the pets and moved in with one of our parents. Honestly, I'm already considering bringing that up to Alex, anyways. Well, not the 'giving away the pets' part, but talking to him about maybe moving in with his Dad at the beginning of the year for a few months. We could afford to pay him not-so-token rent (say, $800/month) and be able to save the rest towards getting out of the Bay Area. Maybe even moving to Europe - although I doubt that's going to happen until the "Pet Passport" program launches in the U.S. 

Sometimes I really resent the animals for holding us back. I understand how Alex feels about them - I hate the idea of giving away my not-so-little foundling, Max - but it's a bit rankling to discover that career and future are apparently less important than two cats and a dog. I'm sure it hurt my parents to find new homes for their cats when they left the UK, but they did it. Then again, I've a rumbling lifelong suspicion that my parents are far stronger than I am.

Then again, there is no assurance that Alex and I would find England - or Canada, or New Zealand - suitable for us. It's just an overblown form of running away from problems. If I had some viable skills - something more in demand than an ability to use a computer - then emigration might be more realistic. My father was a DBA with ten years' experience when he was recruited for a job in the States, in 1984. At that time, that was a hard-to-find skillset, worth bringing a guy 6,000 miles for. I don't have skills that are worth the moving costs for 60 miles, let alone 6,000. Assistant anythings are a dime a dozen. To make a go of the UK, Alex and I would have to save up a shitload of money, move over their cold, and pray we could find a job before going bankrupt. That's a little closer to the knife's edge than I want to be. 

And I'm back to thinking if I could just attend school for a couple of semesters, I could pick up some skills that would be more bankable. Tech-writing, advanced web-site building, broadcast production. I've always said that if I could do university all over again, I would major in broadcast and communications, rather than film. Film left me with almost nothing but the ability to appreciate movies and know what I'm twittering about when I go on photo-safaris.

I just don't see any way out of the current situation. Living expenses take up almost all of our money. Alex and I can't put anything into savings, and that bothers me. Hell, we can't even afford health insurance right now, and that really bothers me. Come 2003 - when we've hit 3 years in our current house and are thus no longer liable for the state of the carpets - I believe that Alex and I should move to a cheaper place, Antioch, probably. But that means we'll have to find the scratch to buy a 'new' car, as our current one wouldn't be able to deal with the run to BART/work every day. And, of course, we don't have the money for that. Sigh. Not having credit can be an awful bitch at times... Still, at least I'm not saddled with debt, either.

Right, enough bitching. I told myself that this journal was not going to be one long complaint. I might bitch a bit more, later, but for now... something more upbeat.

***

I've lost twenty pounds since the beginning of the year. I'm quite happy about that, although I still think my clothes should be looser than they are. And for some reason, I'm still staggering around with a DD cup chest... What happened to that being the first place weight came off from? I really would like to shave off another 5 - 10lbs, but that would require me to get back into an exercise routine, and I come home just too tired and cranky from work for that. I believe that, sooner or later, I'll get disgusted enough to pick up the weights. 

I've told myself that if I do lose another ten pounds - and it has to be ten, not five - by the end of the year, I'm going to look into acting classes and getting some headshots done. Yeah, crazy dreamer, I know. I enjoyed acting in college, and my beloved teacher kept nagging at me to keep up with it, but I was firmly determined to be behind the camera/stage. Now I'm starting to wonder otherwise. If nothing else, it'll make for an interesting conversational topic and help me stretch my brain a bit. 

But, having gone through approximately 800 old headshots at the casting agency next door to my office (my boss inherited some old filing cabinets from next door, guess who had to clean them out?) I realize that I have to weigh 115 or even less to get anywhere. Poor bloody actors - I always have a bit of sympathy for those whose bodies are so important to their career. As far as my milieu is concerned, I'm in  pretty good shape. A bit pneumatic, yes, but stacked where it matters. But actors and models have to be so thin, all the time, and if they're not, oh, the howls of derision that will be aired... Gods, how awful. 

(Granted, I would have to plunk down $2K to fix my nose and a few hundred bucks for contacts, too, but I'll burn that bridge if I ever get to it. C'mon, I'm dreaming, here)

***

I'm getting a little tired of tearing friends down. But it's so much fun, sometimes, in a vicious way. Particularly if I'm cheesed off with whoever I'm gossiping about. On the one hand, one should feel at least a little ashamed of gossiping and rubbishing. On the other hand, when did I get volunteered to be the token Nice Person? It's a constant bloody balancing act, isn't it? Between the urge for smug self-satisfaction and not so smug humility.

By the way, smug humility is the pits, and best avoided.

***

Travelogue moment
     There are times when I can't stand San Francisco, usually when I'm riding the 45 bus to the train station every afternoon. I'm tired of being elbowed in the head by senior citizens, all clutching half-a-dozen overstuffed plastic bags from Chinatown grocers. And it's slightly humiliating to be shoved aside by those same seniors as everyone scrambles for the exit at the Powell BART station. But one can't shove them back. It would be frowned upon.

But there are moments when the city can be enjoyable, or made enjoyable. Tourist season is in full swing, a fact that was evident as I squeaked down Market Street last weekend. I say squeaked because I happened to be wearing a pair of shiny black PVC pants as part of my going-to-concert duds. But more of that in a moment.
     The sun was shining and the city, for a change, was quite warm. Backpacking students and camera-toting adults were thick on the ground, although I only stopped twice to give people directions. I hate being lost, myself, so I'm always happy to help a stranger in a similar state. Being tourists, they no doubt thought my shiny attire was the norm and, in some neighborhoods, they would have been right.
     Going on, I squeaked down Market Street, pausing at Starbucks to collect a sizable latte and a fabulously dirty look from some woman who probably had no idea I would kill to be as thin as she. South of Powell Street, the sidewalk chess boards did brisk business, with a vast array of (mostly) men hunched over the folding tables and staring intently at their boards. I don't know if the tables are rented, or what, but they've been a landmark there for years.
     A jewelry seller charmed me with his gasp of "Lord, but you're a pretty girl" as I went by. I had been having a crummy week, and that cheered me up no end. Admittedly, I believe that trolling for reactions was the not-so-subconscious reason behind my attire, but it's a harmless urge, surely?
     The neighborhood outside the Warfield Theater, although it is only three blocks from Tourist Central, is quite different. The Warfield is crammed in between two strip joints - with another only a block away - a check cashing place and various liquor stores and cigarette outlets. The trashcans are picked over for recyclables every few minutes by some poor sod with a shopping cart and not much else. On concert nights, half a dozen drug dealers and many more ticket scalpers prowl up and down the sidewalk, muttering offers to those waiting to get in to the theater I wondered how many of them were narcs, but there's no way that a suburban mouse such as myself could tell the difference.
     I was glad to know that when I left the theater, I would have the protective coloration of several hundred other concert-goers to cover me, as I squeaked back to the BART. It's one thing to be a saucy lass at six in the evening in a marginal section of town. It's another thing entirely at midnight.

But anyways, hypocrisy. It's not even that what's getting me down right now, it's inconsistency. Sure, sure, that's only human nature, but there are days when human nature aggravates me more than others.

• People who insist that they are always honest and ethical, but then gossip madly behind their friends' backs. Oh, that's lovely. Makes me wonder what you're saying about me after I leave the room.
• Gamers who tell me "I don't want to know out-of-character information" but then corner me for 45 minutes, nattering on about their character's secret plans. Maybe I didn't want to know that information either? But that's a fight I've given up, as it seems no-one is listening to me. I just listen, smile, and do my best to forget I ever heard anything sensitive.
• People who pledge support to an effort - be it anything from doing a chore, to joining the gym - and then mysteriously vanish without notice when it's time to make good.
• Folks who say that they are 'nice people' but then are shockingly rude to the waiter/mailman/clerk at the DMV. As Dave Barry once said, a person who is nice to you, but not the waiter, is not a nice person.

She said something like I want to go down where the river's wild He said take me then I want do drown deep in your violent eyes feel the water rise again, call the river by your name I want to float in through your door Hand it on the wall, hang it all But I wanna be sure of one thing That I'm getting into something peaceful I want to fly in on your wing Way way up here I don't care for anything It's all in, and I'm not afraid I don't fear Falling She said listen I've been telling you I'm into something cruel He said give me what got into you I don't care what you do if there's a full moon in Taiwan I want half of what you're on I want to open up your mind Leave it all behind you and me we're one of a kind we may find that we're getting high on something peaceful We're gonna take it for a ride Goin' nowhere fast but we got nothin' to tie ourselves on And I'm not afraid to go down Falling She said something like I'm tired of me You've got to paint my face He said fold up like a paper boat, set sail for me again I wanna fly in on your wing Way way up here I don't care for anything, it's all in And I'm not afraid I don't fear Falling

Although maybe you have to listen to it to understand why I like it.

***

Travelogue Moment

A middle-aged man walking down Polk Street, cradling a zonked-out chocolate lab puppy in his arms. The puppy was all fur and slowly blinking brown eyes - adorable - and his owner's expression matched mine whenever I'm holding Max. Go on, just try to get in between us...

I need a better job, too, but that's another issue entirely. One thing at a time, my girl.

Call it insipid if you like. We each have our own dreams. Mine have grown distressingly normal, as time continues to pass.

Didn't I read somewhere that Samuel Pepys was a pedophile?

On to July 2002