Two quotes...

...are better than one! And I'm feeling quote-a-ble-y today.

"America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still."

and

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

Both by e.e. cummings, the poet. I love him!

And I'm totally ganking this quote from our adventerous evening of game this past weekend-- "At first I thought it was a question about sports, but then I realized it was a question about BROADWAY!!!" (you have to sing "BROADWAY" for the full effect)--Matt

OK, that's three actually. Oh welz.

a-MAH-zing theatre (I so stole that...)

Well, I spent part of the morning reading Brazen Careerist posts, and I still don't like Penelope Trunk. She bugs me, and what bugs me more is that she is a "voice of my generation" or something. Not MY voice, I can tell you that much. It worries me, though. She often strikes me as whiny, assuming, over-generalistic, and immature; then I worry that I sound like that, too. So, I will write something happy today!

OK, so theatre/theater (I've heard theatRE is snobby spelling, but whatev, man) people are generally thought to be a different breed, plus it's pretty assumed that once a theatre person, always a theatre person. Not to go along with stereotypes, but I've found these thoughts to be pretty accurate. I go through slight theatre-hiatuses every now and again, but I always find may way back. St. Louis is actually a booming small-theatre town. I can't speak to the quality of all of these companies (though I know many of them are great), but just having so many around is wonderful and provides lots of opportunity for adult-y theatre people. Anywho, I'm back in. I'll be helping costume the Theatre Guild of Webster Groves' next production, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, which opens in March. There will probably be some other spring stuff. Then, I'll be costuming The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Clayton Community Theatre, which is both thrilling and terrifying. I haven't done a show this big since working at Stages. (Romeo and Juliet was probably the biggest since then.) I'm totally excited, because I love the story and fantasy costumes are awesome, but I can't think about it too much. It's scary to think about too much. That's a lot of costumes to make/find on a small budget, and I still have a real job, too. Fun, though. It opens in the first part of June, so plan on going. Unless I warn you not to.

Theatre is a difficult thing to make a living at, so I'm glad I live in a city where there is plenty of "after hours" theatrical opportunity. Though they are turning part of currently ghettofied Crestwood Plaza into an arts community-type place, and I'm still trying to figure out what I could open there. The rent for places is somewhere between $50-100. There must be something I could do. Hmmmm....

*cough*cough*

Courtesy of boredom and McSweeney's:

Reasons
You Might Die
of Consumption
in a 19th-Century
Novel, in Order From
Least Likely to
Most Likely.
BY ARIELLE ZIBRAK

- - - -

You fell in love with someone who is richer than you are.

You got lost in the moors in the rain.

You work in a mill.

You are a prostitute.

You are an orphan.

Your sister works in a mill.

Your sister is a prostitute.

Your sister is a more orphany orphan than you are.

You took in an orphan who is also a prostitute.

Your sister took in an orphan who is also a prostitute and made her work in a mill instead.

You are a woman who fell in love with a man who is poorer than you are and you may or may not have slept with him, but then you had to become a prostitute to support yourself because he already died of consumption from working in a mill.

You are the previously unmentioned very wealthy older relative of an orphan who is in love with someone much richer than he or she is.

*I didn't come up with this, it's from the McSweeney's website. But on a personal note, I've always thought that in the end, it will be the consumption that gets me. I'm just a romantic like that, I guess.

I've Got a Golden Ticket (Monday Morning Rant)

Let's see how fiery I can be on a Monday morning. You know, not every state is as generous with their traffic ticket policy as is Missouri. This comes as a surprise to many people. Missouri allows tickets to be "fixed", i.e. an attorney enters an appearance and asks for a "recommendation", you pay a fine amount and don't get points on your license. In other states, when you get a ticket, you have to suck it up and deal with the points. Now, I have gotten a speeding ticket in my life that I had fixed, and I recognize that this is a source of revenue for Missouri cities. However, the policy does annoy me a bit. A) I pretty much handle the recommendation-getting process in my firm, and it's annoying. B) People seem to think this non-point getting-ness is an entitlement and get really annoyed if they get tickets in other states that can't be fixed. Illinois doesn't fix tickets, people. At least not as easily as Missouri. You can't get ten tickets in a month in Illinois and not get any points on your license. C) This policy may be part of the reason people in Missouri Drive. So. Badly. And we do. But when you know the consequences may be "only" a $200 fine, and not having your license taken away, it tends to make people a little more...daring (stupid). And D) (which is my biggest issue I think) OK, yes, pretty much everyone I know speeds ALL the time. Among other things. But here's what--we know we are speeding, and we are aware that we are breaking the law. If you have a driver's license, you are (in theory) agreeing to obey traffic laws. If you break them in a non-emergency situation or something, part of me (a large part) thinks you should be a grown-up and deal with the ramifications. This may mean getting points on your license. If this causes you to have to slow down and obey the law in order to keep your license, too bad. It aggrivates me to NO END how people use the recommendation policy in this state, because as I said I handle the tickets at my firm, and believe you me, I see the same names coming across my desk getting tickets all the time. ALL THE TIME. I really want to tell these people, you know what, you are an adult. Suck it up, get the points, and slow the hell down. If I kept doing something wrong, repeatadly, when I was a kid, I couldn't get a "recommendation" from my parents--I got punished, and I learned to stop doing it, or I'd get punished again.
* I recognize that there are other issues---bad cops, traffic "flow", having your plates stolen and so not having them on your car but still needing to drive to work (that was me for a while) etc., but hey, this is a Monday morning rant. Don't bitch to me if you get a ticket because you were doing 90 in a 55. For the third time in two months.

Why Blog? Why?

OK, so in all reality, I don't think my life is interesting enough to warrant a blog. But I keep reading that I am supposed to have a blog in order to further my career. Or something. Sure, man, if you say so.

Anyhoo, here is a good life-affirming article for my fellow twenty-somethings. Rock.

I've also decided "office assistant" is another term for "babysitter of grown people" and "please, give me all the work that is too boring or menial for you to want to do, because I really, really want to do it." I was never much of a babysitter, even in prime pre-age 16 babysitting years. I don't have enough patience. Plus, I really, really don't want to do the menial, boring work that you also don't want to do. We must then come to the conclusion that I should move away from office assistant work. I'm working on it. If you figure out how I can make a living in some sort of theatre job that won't require me to move every six months, let me know.

In other news, check out the Cake Wrecks blog 'cause it's hilarious.

le fin.

There's a whole world outside your office

k, I changed my mind and don't feel like writing about all the things I should be getting for free right now.

It occurred to me during some recent pondering that we speak in our society about how older generations often work to try and create a better world for younger generations. Parents especially are usually viewed as working hard so that their kids can have better lives, have more than their parents had, etc. So why bitch at younger generations then for wanting more than their predecessors? Is it OK for older people to want things to be better for the young, but not OK for the young to want it for themselves? That's silly.

Apparently, generation Y is quite demanding in the workplace about being able to have flexible schedules, being able to have activities in their lives other than work, all that jazz. And I seem to hear/read a lot that this is impertinent and snotty to the older workforce. Whatev, man. I understand that there has to be limits to flexibility--rolling into work at noon every day in a business that operates on a normal 8-5 schedule really does not help the overall workplace. However, I see no reason why it's impertinent to want time to take classes, go to the gym, etc., especially if you are willing to accept the fact that you won't get overtime pay if you leave on time most days. Really, of course, it all boils down to money and money being more important than anything in the whole wide world. Which it isn't. I want my company to be productive and successful, but I can accomplish that without killing myself. And yes, maybe having reasonable work hours means you will never have the richest, most powerful corporation in the world. But honestly, I'm OK with that. I think riches and power are overrated. I'm not naive--I know money is important, and when you REALLY do not have any, it becomes pretty much the only thing that matters. I fully appreciate being able to eat and pay for heat, and yes, that takes money. But money isn't everything. It really isn't. Besides, if you can learn to utilize your people and resources in a truly efficient, well-thought-out way, you might not need people to work 80-hour weeks.

Tru' dat, DOUBLE TRUE!

Ah, yes, another article about GenY in the workplace. Lovely.

I do not like broad generalizations or "hasty generalizations" as you may call them if you took logic with me. They happen all the time, but that doesn't make them good arguments. This article is actually complimentary to GenY'ers, so I'm more addressing some of the comments left under it. (For the record, I do not know one person who would ever dream of bringing his/her mother to a job interview. (emphasis added) This doesn't mean it does not happen--but please do not make some overreaching judgment that all 20somethings are incapable of making their own decisions because some fool couldn't handle an interview without his/her mum. Puh-lease.)

Grazing the internets, these seem to be the main points regarding the perception of GenY in the workplace:
Yay!: team-oriented, champions of diversity, tech-savvy, enthusiastic, and hard-working (when they want to be), can have fun at work
Boo!: lazy, demanding, feel entitled to things they don't deserve, need their moms too much, too casual, need too much praise and encouragement, have too much fun at work (I'd bet having piercings and spiky hair rank up there, too, in many people's opinions. The shame.)

I want to address my feelings on some of those (the boo's! especially) in-depth. My own best F*$9U&ing News Team exclusive report, if you will (is that phrase copyrighted Comedy Central?). I am said best F*$9U&ing News Team.

So tomorrow, we'll examine the entitlement thing. That drives me up the wall and off a cliff. Actually, the fact that some people seem to regard it as a childish sin to want to balance work and life or to have a world outside of the workplace makes me crazier. SORRY. Yes, giving myself an ulcer working 80 hours a week to make enough money to pay for some silly, overpriced SUV I don't need makes much more sense.

Lighten up.