Entitlement

Perhaps it's a good thing...
That I haven't felt the need to use this forum to vent about my life in the past (OMG) 3 years.

How is it that we come to feel entitled to THINGS?
It's one thing to earn something.  Compensation is a just and right thing.  You are entitled to be paid for your work.
     Wife just had a birthday.  My mother and she have not been close.  Ever.  Wife has never felt accepted by her.  Several months ago, mom found out that Wife is no longer Christian, and was emotionally hurt by it.  Likewise, Wife was hurt at the insinuation.  But now...
     Wife just had a birthday and got a check from Mom.  My dad died last Nov, and now Wife is convinced that it was he that gave her a goodly sized check for her birthday, because this year, the check was less than it's been in the past.  However, Wife doesn't see that it's still a 3 digit check, just that it's smaller, and she sees it as a slight.  She's overlooking the fact that it's money that we didn't have a week ago, that it's money that we were NOT counting on (at least I wasn't, but evidently she WAS).  Now Wife is more bitter than ever at mom, and isn't going to send any thank you card or call.  To top it off, she chewed ME out for thanking her in my weekly phone call to mom.
     How is it that a person comes to believe that they are entitled to something?  Is it a history and repetition that breeds it?  Is it just my detachment that sees this as a problem? I'm ready to pare down my life, get rid of Things. Maybe it's watching all the students come and go for the summer; some are selling apartment furniture, some are bemoaning 4 years of accumulated shoes.  All are faced with having to constrain their lives and possessions to a single car-load.
Priorities.  Which memories to keep, which to let go.
Which THINGS are important?

People watching

Laundry night.

Alone for a change. A recent craving for my well-thumbed Bradburys spurred my choice of nightly companion. Funny how some books just scream to be read at certain times. Bradbury is all about summer. Summers glorious laziness, ebbing into chilly autumnal anxiety. Good reading for a winter night. Something Wicked This Way Comes. What wonderful language. What beautiful evokative prose.

But I keep getting distracted by the people in the Laundromat. Busy night tonight.

Mostly watching the girl in blue. Then, others too. So many stories. So many lives.

She's small, youngish looking, plain. But with a striking figure. I suppose all in all she's quite average, but the proportions are unusual in my world these days. Not especially busty, nor wide in the hips, but that wasp waist that accentuates both at once. The royal bright blue sweater, set against the jet black, hip-hugging, dress pants, make quite an impression. Especially when the two separate as she bends into a low dryer; creamy pinkness with a sliver of cleft beginning to peek out. She's very fastidious, using half a dozen washers for three hampers of clothes; and now, the same number of dryers (that only have three settings), not overloading any of them. Very fastidious, folding and primping each item as she pulls it out of the dryer, a few items at at time, giving each one special attention. I keep looking back at her plain oval face. Delicate features surrounded by a very full mane of chestnut hair, clipped neatly at her shoulders, parted sharply at one side. Now back to her long, fastidious, think, very pink, fingers. Such attention to each fold of her items, looking for imperfections. For a man of my size, with a similarly sized wife, I'm always struck by how tiny most women's clothing appears. She hold up a pair of small sweatpants, and I wonder, "children?", but then, holding them to her waist, I see that they're the perfect size. Very nice shoes for laundry night. Perhaps coming from work. Nice sensible, dressy, shiny shoes, not too much, or maybe not any heel. Black, or maybe navy; it's hard to tell because of the bell bottom flare of her dress pants, gently sweep the floor, obscuring their true height. Done with the many t-shirts, each folded and stacked by color. Now the unmentionables. Boxer briefs for him, full black nylon for her. Now socks, lots of socks, mostly white sport socks, a few fluffy pink ones. Some delicate colored stripes, or flowery pink ones.Some argyle; I didn't know anybody wore argyle socks anymore.

The place is busy tonight. But blissfully without the rampaging spawn that usually run unchecked by parental control. The few children here tonight are all held loosely on one hip by gossiping hispanic mothers, in a loose circle over by the vending machines. The woman closing the place has her husband with her, hovering around, small round hispanic features with a shaggy haircut that seems to burst out at the edges. Another man, native looking, with LONG black hair, first loose, then bound under a small watch cap. It takes a third glance to notice the missing hand guiding his cart along to the dryers. That hair reminds me of the natives in the old westerns.

Ah well. My times up. Time for me to spend the rest of the evening folding, letting others watch me and wonder about the fat man with all the shirts.

Drinking alone

Ok so it's been most of a long time since I've even been here. It seems that facebook has taken most of my attention recently.
But I'm sitting here at work, drinking from my favorite sippy cup of Captain Morgan, eating peanut butter crackers, and feeling the need to come here again.
Usually this process takes so long and requires privacy that I no longer have much of. It's either Wife, or students or some other thing butting into my private time, that I never seem to be here for me anymore.
I may change that soon, 'cause I'm getting more and more frustrated with my situation.

Ok, maybe the typing thing isn't such a good idea. The Captain is starting to take control of my fingers.

It's like drunk dialing. On speed dial. Dangerous. Damn my fingers won't work..................

End of Semester musings

Well, it's, what, two months since my last soapbox rant here? I've done better. I've done worse. Oh well.
We just finished our lab time for the semester. No more lazy, self-centered, know-it-all students who are required to be there. Well, none that aren't being paid a pittance for being there. This semester's crop of students were particularly average at best. Second semester always seems to be lazier or less motivated, less caring, than first. Maybe it's spring fever. Sure, we had some standouts, but for the most part, it was a very mediocre crop. I've also gotten closer to some of my assistants. I've gone out for beers with a couple, and was told about a pool on whether or not I'd be sleeping with the one senior this semester. Hmm. Interesting concept. Not sure I'd be unamenable to the concept, though I'm fully aware of how wrong it would be on so many levels. She's very average looking, better than average smart, less than average people management skills, and better than average design ability. We've gotten close. Well, close enough to start the speculation mill, I guess. Now, I'm not sure if I want to tell her how close I've talked myself into actually letting it happen. The hitch is that she has one more semester left. December graduate. If it's difficult trying to get her to do simple, more menial, jobs that are part of lighting now, I figure it'll be almost impossible to get her to do them if we're sleeping together. She's more the type to assume entitlement, rather than curry favor. And the potential loss of respect of the other assistants to consider. Hmm hadn't considered that part before. (see?? this writing about it has it's advantages) We'll see what develops. Still, I guess it's a stroke to my ego that they'd even consider it an option. I'm long since past seeing myself as somebody to sleep with to get ahead. Of course, I've never been in a position to BE the person to sleep with to get ahead.
I've always wondered how I'd handle if a student approached me with a blatant proposal. I figure that I'd find a way out of it. There are no secrets in Theatre, after all. It came close this semester. One of the cute actresses needed one more hour to get her mid-term bonus (If they do half their hours by mid-term, they get a 10 point, 5 hour equivalent, bonus on their time; needing 45 instead of 50). She came in asking if there were any way to get the hour in that day. It so happened that I had some work in the other building, that wouldn't take long, so I told her that, and asked if she could stay late. For a low budget porn flick plotline, it was perfect. Her offer wouldn't have been serious, and my finding work for us alone in another building, after hours, too convenient. But in reality, we worked for about 40 minutes, and she got her bonus (and not the way I'd been running it in my head; yes, my brain runs a continuous low budget porn flick plotline.). She was a one of the good ones, one of the more serious students, and got her hours in early on. She even made a point of coming in and thanking me for a fun semester when her hours were done (she'd finished on the weekend I was away). It's always special when I get a personal thank-you from a student. Each year, I've gotten one thank you card from some student. It's a reminder of what I'm really doing for these kids, how much an impact I'm having. Now, if only I could work sex in, and keep the respectability thing going...

Billy Graham on 'Cults.'

Billy Graham has a column in the KC Star newspaper. He answers write-in questions. One person asked about a cult that their sister just joined. Here are excerpts of his answer (this post title is a link to the full article):

One characteristic of cults is that they strongly believe they alone are right in their beliefs and everyone else is wrong.

But only God can satisfy our longing, and he has made this possible through Jesus Christ.

God sent his Son into the world to take away our sins, and he did this because he loves us.

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

[end quote]

I don't think my brain can handle this much hypocrisy.

Reality Check

I guess that's what mothers are for, but I got a bit of a reality check this week. Or rather a dose of reality to my delusions of ignorance. Tuesday was my brothers birthday. I knew it would be a rough day for my parents, so I did the obligatory phone call. Yes, Mom had to remind me that her "babies" turn 48 and 45 this year. I make a point of not counting, and here she throws it in my face. I feel old enough around all these children anyway. A while back, I came out with with a Laurel and Hardy quote in a fair impersonation of Stan Laurel, and the only person to get it was the older Ballet Lighting Design prof. At least somebody got the reference.

It seems that I'm not coming here as much anymore. Not for lack of trying. Usually whenever I think of something to blog about, I'm not in a position to post. And I'm also spending more time on CrackBook. I'll post the link over at the side if you're bored. There will also always be the odd thing that I'll come here for, too many people visit there.

Oh yeah, and I still don't know if I'm going to USITT in Cinci this year. Nobody's talked to me about going, and I can't afford to go on my own, without Univ. sponsorship, so who knows. I've heard various things about the trip, one that driving was out of the question, another was that a group was going in a van. As I said, who knows? Much as I'd dearly love to see distant friends, I also was wiped out afterwards last year, and had to go right back to work. A break would be nice. Whichever the University decides, I'll be OK with it. So will Wife, I think. I'll keep y'all posted.

Back again

Well, the semester has started back up again. New semester, new batch of eager young minds. New batch of hot young things, young enough to be my daughter if I'd let that happen. Today was the first day meet and greet. Fill out forms, meet the prof and me, get the rules. And a couple of them actually stood out. One by the way she was dressed (cut off jean shorts (and I do mean SHORTs) and what I'm sure were black leotards; they were stretched so thin that they looked grey. It didn't help the way she was sitting. Lets just say it wasn't very ladylike.), and two by the fact that they started their lab hours TODAY! And one was in both categories. Some days, I love my job.
Most days I love my job.
Most days I feel very old.

I also get to TEACH some of the classes this semester. Boss is going out of town for a NBA gig at the begining of Feb. 4 classes, and 2 more in April. I'm sure if it goes OK he'll push a bit harder to give me the gig as an Adjunct Professor, so far he's only mentioned it to the Director.

My UGA (undergrad assistants) are changing again. Back are the two on probation, and gone are two who are changing majors, one to Business, and one to something he's good at (or at least has an interest in). But overall we're down from where we'd like it, only seven where we prefer closer to 10.

Theater installation is progressing. Kind of. Mostly just waiting for the University contractors to do stuff. Like bring in cable to hook up the main dimmers. They (or I) need to hook up the units before they can be tied into the main electrical panel. Our first show starts in the begining of Feb. And the floor still needs to be tiled, risers carpeted, and houselights dimmed (the houselights are dimmable fluorescent, but they don't have the proper dimmer, so they don't dim. And there's only one switch, in the booth.) Patience, Grasshopper.

Weather about 70 tomorrow. Screwy state.