some random stuff

i was really freaked out yesterday, as i flipped stations on the tele, to see a Barbie commercial (for a product line called Barbie Girl) with a little song that OBVIOUSLY contained an as-legally-close-as-possible riff imitating “Barbie Girl” by Aqua — or is Mattel licensing the song now? after all its lawsuitin’ and fuss-makin’?

i think i’m going to puke.

in other news, i finished crocheting a robot bib for a co-worker’s new baby. crappy cell phone pictures, but you get the idea.

i’ve got a bike, you can ride it if you like

you can’t, however, see it in this picture of bikeyfuntymes on Labor Day. from left, Pants, BoyKunk, and Kunk.

a lovely afternoon of biking trails from EFC metro to Shirlington and back, stopping for a mini-picnic on the way. hoorah!

chapter infinity: talented and broke

in which i lament my (seemingly) permanent situation.

ok, that’s not really true. i actually make good money (finally! thanks, robots!). i spend even greater money, so being broke is my own dang fault.

but i have a lot of hobbies, and none of them actually make money. which is why they’re hobbies, i suppose, and not vocations. my crafty-artsy hobbies cost a lot of money, and no one’s buying. i’m not selling that much but the point is the things i have up ain’t going nowhere. my musical hobbies cost money, as well, even beyond the initial layout for instruments, etc. there’s practice space, and business cards, and stickers, and other random expenses that come up. i’m lucky to break even between cover bands (that get paid a little) and original bands (that end up costing the dallahs). but shouldn’t talent be rewarded?

i mean, i normally have a self-doubt/lack of confidence issue, but for the brief moments i can get past it, i say: i’m good enough, i’m hot enough, and goddammit i spend most of my non-full-time-job hours at this, so why don’t people like me ... enough to give me money?

it brings me to sadness and despair; a kind of free-time existential crisis. sure, i’ve done pretty well at my actual career, but all the really artistic stuff... well, that’s just limbo. i don’t get paid, it takes up my time, and other than the fact that it makes my co-workers think i’m cool i don’t get much of a payout from it. what’s the point?

this is the paragraph where i’m supposed to have an answer. by typing out the whole situation, i should’ve come to clarity and had my solution at this point. but i don’t. because every couple months, i wonder why i do what i do, and every couple months, i just kind of push the doubt aside and keep doing it. but why? habit? real desire? hope? faith in pipe dreams? i’m 31 now; when do i get to the point where i say and honestly believe “i’m getting too old for this?” when do i lay down the accordion and sell off the yarn stash to accomplish those ‘real-life’ things that nag me (like home renovations and car tune-ups)? am i just too practical to be a successful artist?

thirteen years on and i still have no answers.

och, my eyes!

they recently have been working on some ”innovations” at my office building. i’ll spare you my rant about using a sign that says ”Pardon Our Innovation” and just share the glorious new design they’ve installed.


the elevator entry on my floor. you can see the offending sign in the corner.



the main entryway in the lobby; you can see elevators to the right and the directory to the left.


the best part is that they messed up the alternating pattern at the far end. or maybe i just don’t get the artistic vision.



the bathrooms are also being done to match. fantastic.


a close up of the surface. i hear it’s recycled glass. suddenly i feel very against recycling.

BONUS PICTURES!

yes, i took my camera in the bathroom stall, as well, to snap this fuzzy shot of the disposal picture. why did i do such a thing? i was bemused by the fact that if this were to scale, that tampon would be about the size of a Red Bull can. eeps!



my new inbox setup at work. the bottom sign says actual work and points down… to the bin.

it’s stuff like this…

saw something this morning that really made me angry and sad. standing in line at Best Buns (which, by the way, sells some fantastic baked goods), i saw a well-dressed white man with a bag in his hand walk behind the counter and ask a worker for napkins. the worker was back staff, if you will — the busboy type of work where you don’t interact with the customers, you just put stuff away and clean up the messes. so the worker was doing his job when this fellow walked around and asked for napkins. i couldn’t hear or see the worker, really, but the man had to repeat himself… the worker must’ve said something like “i don’t know” because the man walked away, and said aloud, exasperated “of course not.”

then he stood near the milk/sugar station to pick up some napkins. right there. in the open.

my first assumption had been that there were no napkins at the station (they were really busy this morning) and that’s why he was asking. but no. he needed special napkins(?).

now, there’s some interpretation on my part here, but i got the impression (even without seeing the worker) that the man was upset because that damn immigrant piss-ant didn’t know anything. now he was going to have to wait and take those regular napkins that were out for all the people to use.

shortly after the worker came out with a giant bag of napkins and handed some to the man, which the man took without a thank you.

vacation, all i ever wanted...

i am going on vacation.

to some, this seems rather innocuous and routine. people go on vacation all the time! some people go on a ‘big’ trip every year, with their two weeks of benefit PTO (that’s Paid Time Off for those of you who have not yet embraced GovSpeak/CorpSpeak). i, however, have not been on a vacation longer than a weekend since… well, probably since i went to Paris in February 1999.

since then, because i have a tendency to be a penny-pincher and job-hopper, i have not taken time off and gone anywhere. i’ve driven up to NJ after work, or to Rehobeth for a night, but mostly my trips are day trips. i’m excluding some days off that i’ve taken around the holidays to visit family – while i love my NY fam, it still doesn’t quite count as vacation. i’m also excluding the time i took off when i got married, cos that didn’t quite count either (and there was no honeymoon, just the wedding).

but between not having accrued vacation time and not having money to spend, my weekends on the cheap have been it. and the last weekend holiday i can recall was spent in Ocean Grove, NJ, something like two years ago.

so it’s time.

Pants was in charge of making the plans, but we clearly had different ideas about vacations, so i got involved. after some time spent hunting around the interwebs, and some storming out of the room by yours truly, a package was finally booked for the sunny beaches of Clearwater, FL.

a whole week on the beach. i bet i’ll be bored in two days.

i can’t take too much, as we’re flying (the first flight i’ve been on in ages; i am almost positive i have not flown post-9/11). so it’ll be minimal clothes (there’s a washer/dryer at the hotel), a book or two, and the necessary electronics (iPod!). i’d love to take a little knitting but i’m afraid my needles won’t make it through security. hopefully my mom has a crochet hook lying about.

now i just have to lose 10 lbs. in three weeks. i had a cookie cake yesterday so i’m off to a good start :P

why reinvent the rollying?

i had thought that folks in my profession were like the down-to-earth advertising people. i mean, the stereotype of ad people (in my head, anyway) is that they’re always just making stuff up and holding focus groups and talking corporate speak. and designers are like, sure, but how can we actually MAKE THAT EXIST? (the answer: Photoshop.)

but i realized this week that designers are in on the corp-speak nonsense, too. the moment of revelation came when i was reading a document and it called part of the design process “concepting.” i was pretty sure that wasn’t a word, so i read the description of what the “concepting” portion of the process was about... and it’s about coming up with a concept, or theme, or, more basically, an idea for the work.

see, the problem is, concept isn’t a verb.

and you may say, but cate! google isn’t a verb either, yet you embrace googling! and i say to that, yes. because google is a) made up and b) the verb form refers specifically to using google for your interwebs searching pleasure.

the problem with “concepting” as a verb is that there are ALREADY WORDS THAT MEAN THAT. you don’t just get to make up words willy-nilly, as you please, because you don’t know the english language. if you’re not a fan of using the phrase “come up with a concept,” you can also “conceive” and “conceptualize.” those are both perfectly good verbs, with the same meaning as what you’re trying to say.

and as a jargon word that only people “in the biz” know, “concepting” also sucks. it’s too long and doesn’t roll off the tongue... conCEPTing? CONcepting? how do you say that?

i’d go on about more trauma to english that i’ve witnessed lately, but i have to go back to layouting a brochure.