Maybe W&H needs editors...
Mar. 15th, 2004 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynToday I had to attend an unemployment "module" -- I love these terms, the way we get closer every day to Orwell's Newspeak all the time -- which is basically a seminar on how to be a better unemployed person and how to fill out your forms correctly. The tricky thing is that one form requires you to fill in three legitimate job contacts a week to prove you're searching, and they may audit you for compliance. Freelance is not permitted as a legit job search. Out of all the things they talked about, this was the most important to me, because I wanted to know how much my half-assed, lackluster search would be held against me should I get audited. The thing is, while there were some nice people there, there were also a lot of folks who were... well, you can see why they're chronically unemployable. And I got to sit next to the chatty person, of course, who also had a coughing problem and his coughs registered on the decibel scale somewhere in the same range as cannon-firing, I think, so I'm now deaf in my left ear.
He was a nice guy, but he had no idea when to stop talking, and he also didn't seem to understand that when you're talking to strangers, you might want to tone down the "motherfuckers" and references to balls and whatnot. I don't go around with a sign on my head saying "I write pseudo-porn, so feel free to swear!" or anything, but clearly he felt he had a kindred spirit he could get graphic with. Though, one wonders how much common sense he has -- he had no idea whether I might be some religious nutball, or a spy sent by the company he's suing to get dirt on him (the sex issues inherent in that swearing!), or what have you. His interviewing skills, I hope, will be better.
Of course not only did I not learn anything of value, I was also frustrated because I couldn't understand a word the guy who ran our module was saying. Not because of his deep south accent, no, but because he said nothing that made any sense. I strained to place some kind of foundation under his bizarre comments from another world, only to find myself blinking in bewilderment and watching my little house of UI cards collapse under the weight of the strain to find sense. Apparently it helped if you were stupid -- the really moronic folks, the ones who couldn't even understand "save your questions till the end" actually seemed to not only understand what he was saying, they gave him high marks on the eval form. I recognize that social services often really doesn't get to choose from the cream of the crop in terms of employees, because the wages and conditions are so poor that it's hard to get good people, but this took it to another deeper level. So now I feel even more intimidated and afraid of these search logs, because there really was no useful info at this mandatory seminar, and apparently though I am intellectually challenged and not normally the brightest bulb in the box, I am an intellectual giant compared to even the folks who work at the unemployment place in South Seattle.
Fortunately I brought my notebook and worked on the next chapter of Measure of a Man, but I find it hard to concentrate on it. For a while I've had the germ of a story idea in my head for Dana and Spike, and last night I discovered that there were others out there interested in the poor slayer from Damage, so it's taken seed a bit more in my mind, though I still am having some trouble with plausibility issues. Even though it's not sexual per se, I still feel like I'm doing a bad deed in my Spuffy heart. I wish I knew how to be like those folks who sit down and churn out fic in a day or less, but I seem to take forever to even squeeze out the basic story, let alone the whole tube of goo for editing and revising and all. It probably doesn't help to have two stories and a vid going, either, soon two vids, and a bad desk setup that makes me not want to sit and write. I also find it hard to vid for Firefly, because all I want to do is look at the clips I'm trying to capture, and go "shiny!" I'm frequently mesmerized by the beauty of the show and that makes it hard to grab the clips I want. (Maybe that's good, though, since I over-capture terribly.)
Yesterday I went with a friend to North Bend, the town where they filmed Twin Peaks. It made me sad the last time I went there, because then I also went with a TP fan, as with this time, and the Mar T cafe, home of the damn fine cup of coffee and the cherry pie, changed hands a few years ago and the new cafe, called Twede's, is not very good. They have the same basic decor, but it's now adorned with Tweetie Bird dolls and such, and the pie is generic. Though I was not a fan of the show, I felt so disappointed for my friends, because I know what it's like to have this image of a place in your head from a show, and it's rare that we have an easily identifiable place from fandoms that we can get to. I want to eat at the diner from Due South in Victoria's Secret and LFN in the ep No One Lives Forever, but I would wager it won't be half as cool as I think it is. The old Mar T still has some of the identifying characteristics, butnow has "The Twin Peaks cafe" plastered all over it. If my car had been in better shape, I'd have taken my friend farther east, to the Easton area over the pass, because that's where most of Northern Exposure was filmed. Maggie's airstrip was the sort of lower back 40 of a friend of mine's, so at least that probably hasn't changed hands. Too bad about the cherry pie, though.
North Bend's changed so much and yet not much at all. Since I grew up in camping family from hell, the route back from eastern Washington almost always took us through Snoqualmie Pass, so it was always North Bend we stopped in for food. The Mar T and the Dairy Freeze were popular places for my family, and the changes in the town now remind me of how old I've got. Somehow you expect places like the Mar T to stay the way they always were, but of course, they can't.
He was a nice guy, but he had no idea when to stop talking, and he also didn't seem to understand that when you're talking to strangers, you might want to tone down the "motherfuckers" and references to balls and whatnot. I don't go around with a sign on my head saying "I write pseudo-porn, so feel free to swear!" or anything, but clearly he felt he had a kindred spirit he could get graphic with. Though, one wonders how much common sense he has -- he had no idea whether I might be some religious nutball, or a spy sent by the company he's suing to get dirt on him (the sex issues inherent in that swearing!), or what have you. His interviewing skills, I hope, will be better.
Of course not only did I not learn anything of value, I was also frustrated because I couldn't understand a word the guy who ran our module was saying. Not because of his deep south accent, no, but because he said nothing that made any sense. I strained to place some kind of foundation under his bizarre comments from another world, only to find myself blinking in bewilderment and watching my little house of UI cards collapse under the weight of the strain to find sense. Apparently it helped if you were stupid -- the really moronic folks, the ones who couldn't even understand "save your questions till the end" actually seemed to not only understand what he was saying, they gave him high marks on the eval form. I recognize that social services often really doesn't get to choose from the cream of the crop in terms of employees, because the wages and conditions are so poor that it's hard to get good people, but this took it to another deeper level. So now I feel even more intimidated and afraid of these search logs, because there really was no useful info at this mandatory seminar, and apparently though I am intellectually challenged and not normally the brightest bulb in the box, I am an intellectual giant compared to even the folks who work at the unemployment place in South Seattle.
Fortunately I brought my notebook and worked on the next chapter of Measure of a Man, but I find it hard to concentrate on it. For a while I've had the germ of a story idea in my head for Dana and Spike, and last night I discovered that there were others out there interested in the poor slayer from Damage, so it's taken seed a bit more in my mind, though I still am having some trouble with plausibility issues. Even though it's not sexual per se, I still feel like I'm doing a bad deed in my Spuffy heart. I wish I knew how to be like those folks who sit down and churn out fic in a day or less, but I seem to take forever to even squeeze out the basic story, let alone the whole tube of goo for editing and revising and all. It probably doesn't help to have two stories and a vid going, either, soon two vids, and a bad desk setup that makes me not want to sit and write. I also find it hard to vid for Firefly, because all I want to do is look at the clips I'm trying to capture, and go "shiny!" I'm frequently mesmerized by the beauty of the show and that makes it hard to grab the clips I want. (Maybe that's good, though, since I over-capture terribly.)
Yesterday I went with a friend to North Bend, the town where they filmed Twin Peaks. It made me sad the last time I went there, because then I also went with a TP fan, as with this time, and the Mar T cafe, home of the damn fine cup of coffee and the cherry pie, changed hands a few years ago and the new cafe, called Twede's, is not very good. They have the same basic decor, but it's now adorned with Tweetie Bird dolls and such, and the pie is generic. Though I was not a fan of the show, I felt so disappointed for my friends, because I know what it's like to have this image of a place in your head from a show, and it's rare that we have an easily identifiable place from fandoms that we can get to. I want to eat at the diner from Due South in Victoria's Secret and LFN in the ep No One Lives Forever, but I would wager it won't be half as cool as I think it is. The old Mar T still has some of the identifying characteristics, butnow has "The Twin Peaks cafe" plastered all over it. If my car had been in better shape, I'd have taken my friend farther east, to the Easton area over the pass, because that's where most of Northern Exposure was filmed. Maggie's airstrip was the sort of lower back 40 of a friend of mine's, so at least that probably hasn't changed hands. Too bad about the cherry pie, though.
North Bend's changed so much and yet not much at all. Since I grew up in camping family from hell, the route back from eastern Washington almost always took us through Snoqualmie Pass, so it was always North Bend we stopped in for food. The Mar T and the Dairy Freeze were popular places for my family, and the changes in the town now remind me of how old I've got. Somehow you expect places like the Mar T to stay the way they always were, but of course, they can't.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 05:06 pm (UTC)"I write pseudo-porn, so feel free to swear!"
LOL! pseudo-porn's a wonderful phrase to describe fanfic. I feel the need to make an icon with the phrase "Proud fan of pseudo-porn!"
no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 01:53 pm (UTC)Fortunately, that's my only module, unless they call me in for an audit, in which case I guess it'll be more like an interrogation. Whee.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 06:19 pm (UTC)(Have a page thing for you soon--been slammed as a result of my manager's health crisis short-staffing. Managers, when we need them, are simply not allowed to have heart attacks.)
My job hunt staples were Washington Mutual and whichever agency had contracts listed that week. In general, I only had to find one thing to apply for that wasn't listed at either place per week.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 01:57 pm (UTC)I can't believe your manager had a heart attack! How awful! No wonder you're so crazed. I'm working on a couple story things, so it's not a big hurry in that I won't have anything new to post at the site for a while, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 06:23 pm (UTC)I wish I knew how to be like those folks who sit down and churn out fic in a day or less, but I seem to take forever to even squeeze out the basic story, let alone the whole tube of goo for editing and revising and all.
Thank God there's someone else who feels this way. I've always wondered how people can produce a complete piece of work in one sitting, because it takes me a month to edit one paragraph!
no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 01:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 08:18 am (UTC)You want to stay in the Seattle area, right? Let me know if you'd consider moving let me know. I'm meeting with a client of mine in NYC who hinted wanting a full time editor, but I doubt the position can be long distance telecommute. It's possible, though, since the company is a small startup.
In any case, let me know if you might be interested in such a thing. I'll put the two of you in touch after I get more info from him tomorrow. (This counts as a contact, right?)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 02:02 pm (UTC)I've been meaning to contact you, actually, and ask if you had time for a coffee one of these days. I would love to hear how you got into the work you're doing, and all of that stuff.
contact update, for the record
Date: 2004-03-20 10:30 am (UTC)My meeting went pretty well. Doesn't look like there is a perm position yet. We talked about a different sort of arrangement, intriguing, but definitely part-time and something I'm happy to tackle if we can work out the details. If the company he's working with is successful in the next year, there may yet be something more permanent that materializes.