I wasted about $20 worth of gas and about 4 hours of my time this morning. Neither of those can ever really be replaced. I spent about 3 of my precious hours driving and with nothing else to occupy my mind, I allowed it to do the most dangerous and subversive of all possible activities: I allowed my mind to have any thoughts it wanted to have.
That’s dangerous and subversive because if I let it, my brain will come up with thoughts that the people in charge of our world–the ones with all the money–don’t want me to have. If they want to keep me from thinking too much, they’ll move the features of my world closer together so it doesn’t take so long to get from place to place. That, or they’ll clean up their act so I at least don’t see all the disgusting things they try to sell me.
This morning I used up a chunk of my time without producing the money I set out to produce, but I produced a string of disturbing thoughts that I will try to share with you in this note. If disturbing thoughts disturb you, turn back now. It’s only right to mention that–while I intend to be bluntly honest here and even though it was an unproductive morning–I see my process of writing as something that helps keep me from holding onto the spiritual garbage I take in. Me likey lolz. Me still pwn da lolz.
Some of the ridiculosity of it all would go cystic on me if I didn’t write it out.
Writing keeps me healthy and lol-ing.
I played a show with the band last night. I had to leave right after the show was over because I knew I had to get up early today to drive an hour away from home to interview with a company that was offering me a position as a plumber. I want to work as a plumber. That’s my trade. Modern plumbing is making a good effort to be more environmentally-friendly, but remains the biggest waster of fresh water in the world. But plumbing isn’t going away any time soon. Bears poop in the woods, but humans don’t want to squat in the company of bears. We love our clean running water. Someone like me NEEDS to be in the plumbing industry. It’s my trade and I’ll do all I can to make it better.
At that thought, I realized that it was time to take a break from note-writing and go out to mow the back yard. Nelly, our next door neighbor, just happened to be doing the same, sort of. As I was getting the push-mower out of the garage, I heard Nelly starting her power-mower. I didn’t go out there to mow just because my neighbor was mowing; I’ve never been one for keeping up with the Garcias.
Nelly’s Mexican and about ten years older than I am. I know she works hard on her lawn and takes pride in how good it looks. I guess I assume that a nice power-mowed lawn might have been a luxury she wouldn’t have had in her old country, but I have no way of being sure about that. She’s told me that she’s been in Chicago for at least thirty years, so she’s 10 years more Chicagoan than I am. I’d like to say that I got my mowing done by hand quicker than Nelly did by gas power, but I didn’t. Even though she stopped to re-fuel, she finished before I did. But I enjoy doing my yard work, so I don’t feel like any of my time was wasted there.
Not so for the trip I made earlier today. That DID make me feel like I had wasted my time. And that’s not how I want job hunting to make me feel. Even if I go for an interview and don’t get the job, I want to feel like I’ve gotten a step closer to some profitable employment. In that respect, today was a good use of time. I learned not to try to go to work for the company I interviewed with today.
It was a drain service outfit that I was employed with before–about 13 years ago. Today, I wanted to find out if anything about working for that company had changed while I was away. Things have not changed. The service techs still work on a commission-only basis–no hourly pay. And…
It came down to my answering “no” to an important question the interviewer asked: “Do you have a late-model 3/4-ton work van, or can you get one?”
I knew that this question also included these un-stated clauses:
“You’ll put a bunch of big decals of the company name and logo all over the exterior of the van.”
“You’ll make the back of the van into a secured cargo hold that you won’t be able to use for any non-company purpose.”
“You’ll fill the back of the van with company equipment and you’ll purchase extra auto insurance to cover loss or damage of that equipment.”
“You’ll routinely douse that equipment in sewer juice until the van reeks of sewer 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
Still, I would have been prepared to take the job. But I can’t buy a van right now. I’ve been out of work too long.
On the way to the interview, I was doing my best to stay positive about it; holding back some of the thoughts that wanted to pop into my head. I got to an area near the office with time to spare, but neither my Google driving directions nor my map book was of any help in showing me exactly where the office was. Google was having me turn on a street that wasn’t where it should have been; my map book didn’t list the street name at all in the town I had been told the office was in. A closer check of the map book (after I was already late for my appointment, but more about that later…) listed the street in the next town over.
Here, a satellite view of the town will explain it better (right click the link and open it in a new tab so you can toggle back to me). http://maps.google.com/maps?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=41.56809,-87.6081&spn=0.045914,0.077162&t=h&z=14
The big grayish place near the middle of the map is the biggest limestone quarry in the world. Most of the town of Thornton, Illinois is to the east of the quarry. There are two roads that cross the quarry: Interstate 294 and the too-femininely misnomered Margaret Street. 294 is a limited-access toll road and Margaret Street runs a couple of miles without any possibility of turning in any direction. The office I was looking for had an address that indicated that it was between 171st and 172nd Streets. I drove around and around the big hole in the ground looking for vestiges of 171st and 172nd, often having to turn around and go back when streets dead-ended at 294.
As it turns out, the big hole is in the middle of Thornton, not along one side as it appeared to be on my map. Thornton Illinois is half big-hole-in-the-ground. Half of the other half of Thornton is rural residential and the remaining 1/4 is two industrial “parks” Hoo-wee, them industral folks don’t know what a park is a-tall. The street I was looking for was to the westof the big hole, in an area my map calls either East Hazel Crest or South Holland. The office had a spectacular view of both the interstate AND the big hole, situated–as it is–right on the edges of both.
Now, even though you might think Thornton has used all its space–what, with a huge hole, lots of industrial park and a few stucco houses–the town planners still managed to include not one, not two, but THREE “gentlemen’s clubs”.
Along with “park”, my definition of the word “gentleman” also seems somewhat to differ from the definitions used by others.
There were quite a few large billboards along the highways surrounding Thornton to direct “gentlemen’s” attention to those resorts. These billboards all featured photographs of what appeared to be women with so much makeup on their faces that I couldn’t actually spot the human being behind the painted mask. I suppose somewhere along the way, someone told someone that this kind of face paint was the way for a woman to appear attractive and desirable. Doesn’t really work for me…but suddenly, I became able to understand Viagra. The chemicals used in the marketing of the “sexy girl” image require a counter-chemical offset on the part of the “appreciative guy” image. It takes Viagra to get past the makeup and still “feel attracted”.
I never quite understood that before, so I’m grateful to have figured something out.
BTW, many of the chemicals mentioned in this note–including the gasoline, the billboard paint, the makeup and the pharmaceuticals– are derived from petroleum; a million-year-old organic, black, gooey substance.
Very much like sewer sludge, only older and harder to replace once it’s gone.
My push mower runs on rice and corn.
I’m moving on to the better part of my Earth Day.
I hope you’ll spend yours attending to and being conscious of what you value about your world.
