Tuesday, October 26, 2004

vote

listening to: the cool breeze outside
Whiskey is: smelling the aloe vera

Got the mail today and in it was a flyer from the anti-choice, anit-gay, anti-sex eductation, anti-porn, anti-nonChristian religions shoot anyone who's different pinched face needs to be fucked up the ass rePUBlican. I called the number on the flyer and very politely said I didn't want to receive any more of his propoganda and please remove me from your mailing list. The cow(his wife) who answered the phone hung up on me. Can you believe that shit?

Kevin was telling me that he gets all sorts of weird phone calls from supporters and militant conservatives alike and he listens to all of them. Or at least the ones that keep their language clean. I was very polite but did she ask me to repeat my address? no. Or how to spell my name? no. Or that I wouldn't be receiving anymore trees who died in vein in my mail box? no.

In the flyer was a picture of his wholesome family of a daughter and son (who's body language suggested he wanted to be standing as far from his dad as possible) along with a cat that looked damn unhappy to be there.

Came home for dinner and to let the dog out. Heading back to work for another few hours so I can get enough done so I don't have to work this weekend.



Sunday, October 24, 2004

smeared

Kevin is running for office. He ran about 10 yrs ago but didn't make it for whatever reason. When we were dating I asked him if he'd ever run again and he said he probably wouldn't because he thought the other side might take his divorce and use it against him.

Three years later I round the corner and see a campaign sign with a familiar name on it. A quick instant message confirmed that it was him. A few weeks later his campaign manager comes over with a stack of returned postcards and access to a statewide database of voters. I go through the postcards and mark the names as bad addresses. Scott is none too happy about this.

earlier this month I get an email from Scott while I'm at work and he says he returned home from the parts store and saw a sign in the yard from 'my boyfriend' that went immediately into the trash. I call Kevin. He said his volunteer team must have done that. Since those signs are $5 each to produce he asked if I could salvage it. It wasn't damaged and I put it in my trunk. The next day Scott asked why it wasn't in the trash where he put it.

Yesterday as I was coming home from the dogpark with Whiskey I call Kevin and ask if I could drop it off. We stand in the driveway and chat for a few minutes. He told me that his opponent is doing a literature drop of Kevin's divorce and is slanting it in a horrible way. The divorce wasn't bitter, they grew apart. He's still friend with his ex who lives in the same neighborhood and endorses his run for office.

The opponent went on a 5 week vacation after the runoffs. When he came back all his signs were gone. He blamed Kevin, but the city took them down because they were in the right-of-way and they couldn't get a hold of him to move them. Kevin went out and took pictures of them in a dumpster that the city uses when they pick up trash like that.

The opponent has since put up homemade signs that say 'integrity matters'.



listening to: the dishwasher
reading: Count of Monte Cristo
Whiskey is: chewing on his canvas man

Saturday, October 23, 2004

debating

Don't know if I should do the nanowrimo thing this year. I tried it 2 years ago. Don't remember what I wrote, but I think my word count was around 500. Kinda pitiful, but it was all I could manage considering I was working on catalog at the time.

Working on catalog now. It's due at the publishers 10 Nov, but I only have 32 pages to do, 10 of those are table of contents. There is another 100-150 pages of indexing to do, but I'll get help on that so it shouldn't be a problem.

Mom called today and I told her about the weasle getting fired. She was kinda upset that they didn't offer me the promotion considering I'll be there 5 years next month. Uh, no. My first supervisor was fired because he did his job which made some people have to do their job and they didn't like that. The weasle got fired because he did a half-ass job, when he actually did anything. No. Thank. You.

Once catalog is done, the new supervisor is settled in and things return to what can be called normal, I'm going to see if I can't move over to design development or software and get out of graphics. I don't do anything creative in there. Probably won't get a raise.

Am thinking about submitting artwork for next season's licensed collections. Of course if I'm still working here I'll submit under a psydonymn. If they knew right off that it was mine, they would not pay me as much for it or say, 'since you work here, just let us use it for free'. bullshit.

One of our artists created some designs that are now being endorsed by a famous entertainer. I was handed a thick folder of stuff as I was doing some of the packaging. In it was her contract. We're paying her $100,000 to put her name and face on this product. $20,000 of it was in advance. Our artist probably gets $12 an hour and worked over two months on that project. But we could either sell it for $45 or slap a famous face and name on it and sell it for $69. All hail the almighty dollar.

And the way the packaging reads, it sounds like she designed and created these herself. She didn't. We sent a bunch to her, she approved the ones she liked, was photographed with them and had us touch up an ad because she (or her handlers) thought it made her butt look big.


Friday, October 22, 2004

checking in

My weasely boss finally got fired yesterday. Was it his fuck-ups? no. Did they get tired of his endless and totally transparent brown-nosing? no. Did they ask him to pee in a cup? yes. Three days later he was gone. It's common knowledge that him and one of the guys in the art dept smoke their lunch. When they were called in together for a 'random' drug test the artist looked scared. Someone overheard both of them in the hall saying they didn't have to go. The artist eventually went then later was seen going into his supervisor's office shutting the door and they were in there whispering for quite awhile. (The walls for most of the offices don't go all the way to the ceiling so nothing is private really). The weasle however was tracked down no less than 4 times asking if he had to go. Finally he was told, go or else.

The artist is still employed, the weasel isn't. I do feel bad for his wife and 3 kids though. They've been looking at houses the last few weeks.

Whiskey graduated puppy class. He's around 55 lbs now and is 8 1/2 months old.

Still living with Scott.

Have managed to save a few thousand dollars since moving in with him. Although if you walked in here you'd never know I did live here. Last month I asked him if I could have a shelf of his built in bookcase to put my books, figurines on. The first thing he said was, 'Where am I going to put my stuff that's there now?'

'if you don't want me to have it, just say so'

'what are you going to put on there?'

' I don't know. books, maybe a cow or two. if you find some papers put them there and I'll sort through them'

'I don't want you to clutter it up with junk'

'I'm not planning on it, I just want somewhere to put my books and magazines to get them off the coffee table'

'are you going to put books or junk on there?'

This went back and forth until I told him I wanted to put clutter there so I could end the conversation.

About three quarters of my stuff is still in boxes in the spare room. The rest is in storage. As I have time I've been going through the boxes and throwing out stuff and repacking and labeling the boxes. He wants me to stay for quite awhile, but I feel very temporary here.