I am out of the blogosphere until Monday, June 26, 2006 next week. If you have urgent matters that must be tended to, please email somebody and hopefully they will give a crap enough to email you back. Nobody will be blogging in my absence.
Thanks! Have a great weekend!
Some random facts about my blog:
1. All stories here are true (so far)
2. Some of the names have been changed and for various reasons, usually to cover my own ass or prevent someone from possibly getting into some sort of trouble
3. When I do use real names, I usually ask first
4. Sometimes when I blog about people (and even when I change their names), they inadvertently find my blog and leave a most surprising comment (like here)
5. I try to stay anonymous and don't post bonafide pictures of myself mostly for future employment reasons
6. This started as a school assignment (see this post)
7. All opinions are mine and are subject to change
8. I try to avoid saying anything I might later regret
9. I am not Japanese, despite my URL...it's actually an homage to two of my longtime favorite folks, Hello Kitty and David Bowie (not in that order) (as HK is a cat from Japan and DB sings about a cat from Japan in Ziggy Stardust, hence the plural); for the record, my predominant family heritage is Scottish and Native American - a very funky combo
It was my first term of graduate school and I’m working on a research paper and want to do it up right. I learn that my program requires the use of the APA (American Psychological Association) Style Manual, rather than the MLA (Modern Language Association) Style Manual, which is what I used as an undergrad and in my previous grad program.
While I try to wrestle with my confusion as to why the librarians would use the APA over the MLA, I make peace with the fact that it doesn’t make sense to me and that the bottom line is that I need to get myself a new style manual. Stat!
As it turns out, J owns a copy of the APA Style Manual, but it’s an older edition and does not address how to cite web articles in my bibliography, so I decide to purchase a new style manual altogether. I recall that I have a gift certificate for Borders, so I head there instead of my usual stomping grounds, Powell’s Books. And, besides, I’ve always had some respect for the Borders.
Allow me to digress…
At the onset of my final year as an undergraduate, a new Borders store was about to open in Portland and my friend, David, and I decided that it was time to ditch restaurant work altogether and use our noodles helping people decide what to read! We were literary! We were smart! Together, we chose to attend the Borders Job (un)Fair.
After receiving a stamp of approval from our first round of interviews, both David and I were corralled into an area where we were administered a super fun test (which I understand Borders no longer uses in hiring). We had to tackle several literature-related questions (“Who wrote 1984?” “Name a novel written by Virginia Woolf,” etc.) as well as several questions about where to locate certain types of things in the bookstore (such as Feng Shui and I.M. Pei). For a geek like me, this was CANDY!!
During my second round of interviews, I was told by Shane, who was going to be the Café Manager, that I obtained a perfect score on the test (Yay! I’m gonna work in a bookstore! I’m gonna work in a bookstore!). After our first two interviews and testing, both David and I were advanced to meet with the General Manager of the store-to-be and were interviewed briefly by her. We both left the job fair with the impression that we’d be hearing from Borders soon. We were going to work in a bookstore together and, because we were also roommates, we’d carpool to our bookstore jobs!
We were going to fight illiteracy and save the environment! Together!
But then David was offered a job and all I got was a form letter, but it wasn’t even a letter – it was a post card, so a form post card telling me that there were many fine applicants and it was so hard to decide and blahblahblah I wasn’t one of ‘em. I was crushed. Absolutely crushed. Since I’d done so well on the test they’d administered at the job fair, I could only conclude that something had gone very very wrong. That something was very wrong with me.
Some time after this horrible blow to my ego, I learned through my spy, David, as well as through another friend I later realized knew the GM of that store, that this particular Borders was only looking to hire full-time employees – no part-timers allowed here. Although there was some relief in learning this, I still found it enormously ironic that what prevented me from getting a job at the bookstore was my status as a full-time student – majoring in English – at the local university. I then somehow arrived at the conclusion that if I couldn’t get a job at the Borders and I clearly knew a lot about books, then the folks who did get the jobs must be even smarter and more knowledgeable about books than I.
So, about that style manual.
Not wanting to be distracted by things I didn’t know I wanted, I head straight to the information desk of the Borders store, gift certificate in hand. This is not my typical modus operandi, as I am typically rather reluctant to request help finding something until I have exhausted my own possibilities within the search. I enjoy the search and appreciate serendipitously stumbling upon things I didn’t even know existed and wouldn’t have learned about if I always let other people find stuff for me. A young, intelligent-looking fellow seemed eager to assist me.
“I need to find the most recent printing of the APA Style Manual, please,” I tell the clerk. I know it’s likely somewhere in the reference section, but if I go at it myself, I’ll go home with an armload of dictionaries and books about writing that I have no time to devour.
“Hmmmmm,” the clerk looks super-perplexed and I do my best to be patient with him as he taps away on his computer. Since the APA manual is so commonly used and this particular Borders is within walking distance of a university, I’m surprised they don’t have a surplus stack under the counter, that these things aren’t flying out the door. I can’t figure out what is taking a seemingly inordinate amount of time to locate the APA Style Manual and, after a few minutes and resisting the urge to tap on the counter with my fingers, I jump to (what seems to me) the only logical conclusion for his apparent confusion.
“Are you out of stock?”
“Well, no,” he responds, looking more bewildered than ever, “We have an APA Style Manual, but I’m afraid it has nothing to do with fashion.”
“Well I should hope not!!!” I can barely contain my laughter at this point. Particularly considering what I was wearing (cargo shorts and a tank top, with old Jack Purcell’s)! Poor guy thought I wanted the most recent update of that kind of style manual!
I think that our new neighbors (who just purchased the similar-to-ours townhouse next door for about 40K more than we paid in the fall - yippee!!!) may be in the Witness Protection Program. Since I work in the evenings, I'm home a lot during the day and, due to our many windows, I see a lot of the goings-on in my neighborhood. It's amazing how much you can find out about folks without even trying!
But the jury's still out on these new folks next door. I first noticed them while they were interacting with their home inspector one morning while I was making my coffee. They appeared to be amiable and attentive and I found myself hoping that they would follow through with the sale, as they seemed like they'd make okay neighbors.
Well, they've since moved in and, quite curiously, I have yet to see a U-Haul, or any such moving vehicle, filled with various and sundry belongings. I have noticed, however, five six separate large trucks delivering different pieces of furniture. They seem to have purchased a lot of new stuff, as if they are starting fresh, new. This wouldn't seem so odd to me if they also seemed to have boxes of belongings that most folks have when they move...you know: books, linens, dishes, music, clothing, that sort of thing. And I suppose they could have snuck this stuff into the house at night, while I'm at work, but you'd think I'd catch a little residual of the movings of belongings. But no. I've seen them pull up in their practically brand-new Lexus and have nothing to unload - no boxes, no clothing on hangers, no groceries, nada.
And a brand-new Lexus in this neighborhood??? That's odd.
Furthermore, J was noticing -with amusement- last night that the female counterpart of the new neighbors was having an enormously difficult time parallel parking her car, despite at least 10-15 feet of additional space beyond the length of her car between the two already-parked cars. Perhaps she's not a city gal. Or perhaps she's not accustomed to driving herself around.
And then there's the insipid black sedan that cruises slowly down our street every now and then. I never noticed it before and, now, I've seen it several times. It never stops, either...just slowly drives by.
So, let's recap:
All evidence points to the Witness Protection Program, as far as I can see.
Unless, maybe they are aliens!
My supah-cool friend and schoolmate, Heather (not to be confused with my sister, Heather), turned me on to the website/blog 5ives and I'm having much fun devouring the archives, starting at the very beginning, of course! So far, this is my favorite list of 5ives. You know it's good when you LOL for reals.
Thus, in the spirit of listmaking and as an homage to 5ives, I present for you...Five Lists of Five Things:
Five Creepy People I Have Known
Five Films I Loved as a Teen
Five Stupid Things That Annoy Me More Than They Should
Five Delicious Snacks
Five Charming People I've Met
I remember when I was living in LA, in the Silverlake area, and the phone number I was assigned had a 666 prefix. I found this amusing and took no issue with it whatsoever.
Other folks varied in their reactions. Some would laugh, some would say "seriously?" and some got a little bent out of shape over it.
One woman, in particular, got a lot bent out of shape. She asked for my phone number and in LA you have to give the area code first because there are several of them down there (it's like that here in Portland now, but I don't know about the rest of the states - are there still states in the U.S. in which you give out your number without the area code first or is that a thing of the past altogether?). So I give her my area code, which was 213, and she writes that down.
I then continue, "666" and she just stands there, but says or does nothing. So I repeat myself.
"666..."
She looks up at me and asks if that is really my phone number. Yep, I tell her, and wait for her to write down.
"That's horrible," she says, "why didn't you request a different number?"
"It doesn't bother me," I tell her, "it's just a number."
She then looks at me as if I were Adolf Hitler himself and had just said that human skin lampshades make the best lampshades EVAH. I look back at her and shrug, just wanting to move things along.
"I can't write that," she tells me.
Okaaaaaay, I don't know if she was super religious or super superstitious or a debilitating combination of both. Now what?
"Do you want me to write it for you?" I offer.
She considers this and says that she doesn't want to look at it. She tells me she'll be right back and I'm left standing there. A different woman returns to continue filling out my form.
