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Stuck In The Past For A While
Feb. 18th, 2006 07:01 pmLast Wednesday, I went for an early morning interview at another temp agency downtown. I really liked them, and I learned a few things about what my chances of finding a real job are (not so good) and what kind of salary I can realistically ask for (more than I expected, should I ever find an actual job to interview for). On their typing test, I got a whopping 32 words a minute, as opposed to the 28 words I got on the test I took at the other temp service. (Call me slow, but accurate..)
If I want to work, I need to sign up with every temp agency in town and call each one of them every single day until they are sick to death of hearing my voice and send me out on a job, any job. When you then prove you are a good worker, they send you on better and better jobs till you finally land a permanent one. That's how being a temp often works. I've only signed up for two agencies so far, however, and I haven't been calling. There has been too much else to do around here.
I returned from my downtown excursion Wednesday before Luke had even gotten out of bed! He got up shortly thereafter, and we set to work. He'd been wanting to sort through the bathroom closet for months, and Wednesday was the day we ended up doing it. It's sort of an unfinished attic space, full of sawdust, cobwebs, and boxes of Luke's random stuff, mostly untouched since he moved into this house in 2003. We took out boxes, opened them up, and decided what to keep and what to toss, paring things down dramatically.
I am a declutterer by nature, I *love* the feeling of putting things in order, and deciding what to do with something. Having lived in small spaces my whole life, and moving frequently, I am fundamentally opposed to, and have little tolerance for clutter. I am not Martha Stewart and never will be, but being in control of the organization and cleanliness of the places I live feels very good to me.
I am not out to control every aspect of Luke's life. But for us to live comfortably together in this house, or someplace else, we need to maximize usable space, and store things in a logical way. Luke does not have a problem with this. He is not a hoarder or hoplessly cluttered by any means, but there was much to sort, reorganize, and toss, and I always forget how hard it can be for people- who aren't me- to do! I was really proud of the work he did that day, and the amount of space we emptied out was gratifying.
While decluttering, we found some of Luke's old apazines. Copies of Men's APA from 1993, and Fellas from 1997. Since then, I've done little else but read them, completely riveted by Luke's past. He wrote some pretty amazing stuff about his life with Jane at that time. I've learned a lot about what he went through, and I feel I know him better. Many men I know are in these pages as well, and here I am, looking in on their lives of nine and thirteen years ago. They're talking about life, sex, relationships, family, fandom and everything else under the sun.
I got out of apa-hacking in 1993, and only returned briefly in 2001-2002. It's the past for me. Once I got into LJ, I knew I'd never go back to that kind of writing and fandom. I wasn't any good at it (not that I'm any good at this either, it's just different somehow..) If I could, with only a few exceptions, I'd destroy every copy of everything I wrote for TurboAPA. I'm embarrassed by a lot of the things I said and did during that part of my life.
If I want to work, I need to sign up with every temp agency in town and call each one of them every single day until they are sick to death of hearing my voice and send me out on a job, any job. When you then prove you are a good worker, they send you on better and better jobs till you finally land a permanent one. That's how being a temp often works. I've only signed up for two agencies so far, however, and I haven't been calling. There has been too much else to do around here.
I returned from my downtown excursion Wednesday before Luke had even gotten out of bed! He got up shortly thereafter, and we set to work. He'd been wanting to sort through the bathroom closet for months, and Wednesday was the day we ended up doing it. It's sort of an unfinished attic space, full of sawdust, cobwebs, and boxes of Luke's random stuff, mostly untouched since he moved into this house in 2003. We took out boxes, opened them up, and decided what to keep and what to toss, paring things down dramatically.
I am a declutterer by nature, I *love* the feeling of putting things in order, and deciding what to do with something. Having lived in small spaces my whole life, and moving frequently, I am fundamentally opposed to, and have little tolerance for clutter. I am not Martha Stewart and never will be, but being in control of the organization and cleanliness of the places I live feels very good to me.
I am not out to control every aspect of Luke's life. But for us to live comfortably together in this house, or someplace else, we need to maximize usable space, and store things in a logical way. Luke does not have a problem with this. He is not a hoarder or hoplessly cluttered by any means, but there was much to sort, reorganize, and toss, and I always forget how hard it can be for people- who aren't me- to do! I was really proud of the work he did that day, and the amount of space we emptied out was gratifying.
While decluttering, we found some of Luke's old apazines. Copies of Men's APA from 1993, and Fellas from 1997. Since then, I've done little else but read them, completely riveted by Luke's past. He wrote some pretty amazing stuff about his life with Jane at that time. I've learned a lot about what he went through, and I feel I know him better. Many men I know are in these pages as well, and here I am, looking in on their lives of nine and thirteen years ago. They're talking about life, sex, relationships, family, fandom and everything else under the sun.
I got out of apa-hacking in 1993, and only returned briefly in 2001-2002. It's the past for me. Once I got into LJ, I knew I'd never go back to that kind of writing and fandom. I wasn't any good at it (not that I'm any good at this either, it's just different somehow..) If I could, with only a few exceptions, I'd destroy every copy of everything I wrote for TurboAPA. I'm embarrassed by a lot of the things I said and did during that part of my life.
