Note To Self:

...for heaven's sake BE STRONG

…for heaven’s sake BE STRONG

or…if I may borrow a quote from a picture taped to a friend’s wall…HARDEN THE FUCK UP.

Sincerely,

Me.

In other news, first day of training for the new job. First day of a 5-week training, which is a damn good way to ease myself back into work. The last two months passed like nothing, as I thought they would, but I have gained a TON of perspective. I had some great rest; managed to completely redecorate my room (though I’m still slowly putting everything back in order & not COMPLETELY done with the painting (need to prime + paint doors and window frames and trim. Srsly considering priming door and closet doors and finding friends to paint murals on them. *bats eyes at artist friends please oh please oh pretty pretty please?* Maybe stenciling around the window frames, too. But, anyway;) spent a lot of time visiting with friends; met some new friends; put a good deal of work into getting over that damn man who broke my damn heart (&, to be honest, I’m still fighting bouts of misery over that one;) wrote a lot; made a lot of art; dreamed and schemed and gleamed a lot. Oh, and I ended my funemployment with a 10-hour marathon zine alphabetizing session (well, broken up over a couple of days & with small breaks here & there):

Librarian For the Revolution

Librarian For the Revolution

Speaking of zines – you see that big stack in the middle column of the middle shelf? Those are all Maximum Rock & Roll. There are even some in the column directly to the left of that stack. And 3/4 of the stack on the far right of the shelf right above are all Flipsides, including the issue that led me to befriend a couple of my favorite people on this eart &, really, who am I kidding, probably saved me from a life of drudgery and capitulation.  Though who really knows? Maybe I was destined to be a bit of a freak, with or without the saving grace of punk rock fanzines. I mean, I had to have already been somewhat of a freak to find punk rock fanzines in the first place, right? At any rate, it was delightful to touch each and every lovingly-created, copied, and stapled sheaf once more, regardless of the  fair amount of physical discomfort I’m suffering after sitting and sifting and sorting for hours on end and days in a row.

The stupid popcorn shit someone thought was a really good idea as a decorative or somehow functional-in-a-way-that-no-one-has-ever-been-able-to-explain-to-me feature is still up there on my ceiling. I scraped bits that were actively peeling, and now my ceiling has little islands of bareness amidst the popcorn. I actually don’t mind it all that much. I’m excited about getting the posters up on my bed so I can string colored lights all over. I realize I sound like a stereotypical hippie, but the idea of writing in my journal in my bed with the curtains drawn around it and colored lights all about makes me feel all warm and squishy. I bought myself a plant today. We’ll see how that goes. Somehow I’m certain this new journey I’m on will transform me into a green thumb, and I’ll GROW plants, rather than slowly kill them to death.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah…the new job. Not much to say there. I’m not going to be talking about work on this blog, other than how it affects my life. I’m steadfastly refusing to allow my job to define me. However, speaking as  a critic, the trainer in me commends those who facilitated today’s training, and whoever is in charge of devising the training schedule. I’m pretty picky about that shit, and remarkably I wasn’t annoyed at all today. And you really can’t beat wearing slippers and pajamas to work. 🙂
My Uniform

My Uniformd

You know you are officially a blogger again when you have a running list of topics that you want to blog about, but you end up just blogging about random shit, instead, because that other stuff requires actual thought and research & it’s so much easier to just, well, talk about your damn self. At least in my experience.
I’ve had some interesting conversations with random people about race/class privilege and assumption. I’ve been thinking a lot about the definition of “work” and who defines what “hard work” is. During Sunday’s Immigration Reform march, there was a couple standing at the side of the road, giving the march the “thumbs down” and shouting out “LEARN THE LANGUAGE,” among other intended aspersions that I didn’t feel were appropriate to shout at a group that included many young children. So, my aim was to distract him when I walked over. To provide him the audience he seemed to desperately crave.  He was all “I have a right to express my opinion!” and I was all “That’s great. Well, I’m here. Here’s my camera. My name is Lainie Duro, would you mind giving your name before expressing your opinion?” You can probably guess what his response to that was. Hahaha. But he expressed his opinion, regardless, only on a much smaller scale. And not only did it stop him from yelling at the march, it actually provided me with a great deal of insight into what some people actually (quite wrongly) feel about immigration, and to respond to those things. Not sure if/highly doubt that I got through to this guy at all, but it was vaguely satisfying to have interrupted him, at the very least.

& you know what? Sometimes choosing a simple subgoal of the larger grand scheme is the best course of action. We all have things to work on.
❤