2-0, Twenty, Viginti anni, Ich bin zwanzig Jahre alt.

I've been kind of incapacitated the past couple of days. Last week I noticed that I was scheduled for 13 hours this week, so I acts for some more and someone penned me into for three 3 AM shifts this week. SOooo, I worked Saturday night, 8-4.30 on Sunday, and 3 AM - 11 today, and will do 3-11 again tomorrow... in 2.5 hours...from now.

Oh yeah, shoot, I was supposed to start in on that FSView article today.

So the 3 AM shift today wasn't that bad at all. I went in with 4 women and changed locations of makeup in cosmetics. Insomnia and working isn't so bad as long as you eat a lot of food and kept well-hydrated. I'm pretty sure I downed a gallon of apple juice the other day. Man, apple juice is so good.

Now, I'm no woman, but as I was "flexing" some make-up today, I realized that no one was going to buy what I was putting up. I figured out what "flexing" meant today. The other day I was looking at the garbage cans on an end-cap, and I checked them, and none of them belonged there. So, I went to Vincent, who was in that dept. and asked "So, what's with these garbage cans" and he said "You know, just flex them out". And then I said, "What about those on the shelf?" ... "You know, just flex them out". Okay. So, from what I gather, "flex" means push that crap into whatever space it fits regardless of location, label, or price.

As I was flexing these different hues of make-up (because we didn't have time to organize them and Steve didn't want empty shelves), I realized that no one was going to buy them and my job was basically useless. Then I stopped caring. Well, I had stopped caring before, but then was when I realized that I really stopped caring. Women aren't going to look through thirty different hanging creams and foundations to find their specific hue if they're not organized and in order, right? Right?

Nevertheless, I still just do what people tell me to, and lately they've been saying "You're doing a really good job!" Really? Cause I don't really care.

And then Mike picked out a skateboard for me and it's pretty sweet. Good bearings and... trucks and all that. It's pretty loose too, and I'm learning to control it pretty well. Just can't do an ollie. Yet. And I haven't falled down. Yet.

I've written two new songs. I compiled a list of all the completed songs I've ever had; I was slightly irked because both my memory and my notes cannot tell me in what order I wrote them, because I wanted to list them chronologically. Now, I'm up to 31. Sweeet.

Stream of Consciousness Post

We watched Closer today. When I got home from zoning at Target tonight, I popped in Franz Ferdinand and then it cycled to The Streets. I feel like immersing myself in UK media and culture. Listen to The Clash and Bloc Party, watch Trainspotting, read... Dickens?

Everything's scattered about in most aspects of my life. I just gutted one of the closets in one of these bedrooms and found a lot of stuff: old t-shirts of junior beta clubs, marching bands, old jobs, latin club, and that one denison marrs shirt that was always a size too small. I found my old essays from high school and beamed for a while, making sure to read over that one essay (which I realized was really awful) that earned me a 10 out of 9 grade. Now most of the contents of the closet are strewn about the room in very unorganized piles.
Music is scattered a bit. I have that programming/loop program that I wanted to work on for phat beatz, I sit down and play piano scales every so often, and I'm trying to hone my guitar/lyrical writing skills to surpass the same standard chords and tired outlooks.
Work at Target is scattered. I only have 11 hours this week, and they didn't even really train me. I'm just in there figuring it all out myself. Which is, okay, I guess.
My memory's getting a bit scattered. When I read through Sedaris's latest book, I went back and flipped through Me talk pretty one day, read through one of the essays, and didn't recall a single thing about the whole book. Like I hadn't even read it before. And I'd read it within the past two years. Sheesh.

Man, this big 2-0 coming up has gotten me thinking about a lot of things that have happened in 20 years. I think back and think many things I've done have been silly and/or a waste of time. But what is a waste of time, really? I'm still living, aren't I? Makes me think of all those old ladies that have worked for Walmart for longer than I've lived. Or all those people in bands (the latest one I can think of is Agnostic Front) who've been playing music together for longer than I've lived. That's a really weird feeling. For all the time I've existed, those guys have been making songs together.

Then, I still have that big chunk of material coming up in life that just has those "???"s labeled on it. I'm taking to this philosophy of just keep doing what I'm doing and letting things fall into place, but I'm afraid I might have to put a limit on the time I spend doing that, and, say, if things haven't fallen into place in 10 years, I should get down to business and make up my mind of what's going on.

Meanwhile, I've really been enjoying Joseph Heller's writing lately. I started in on Closing Time and really like the way he makes characters. Just so amazing. Thinking back to Catch-22, it's stupefying how someone could compose such a work. It's like on the level of a Mozart opera or something. Just sitting there saying "How on Earth?" over and over again. But, for Closing Time Heller traded in all the crazy adventures and quick pace for extended periods of reflections and deep moments, and wonderful characters... just highlighting some of the great things he did with Catch-22 and focusing on different things. So wonderful.

Anywho, that's quite enough personal internet spillage for one night. *Tips hat*

SWE3RotS

I was all ready to give Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith my official B+ rating until the part where (not a big spoiler) Darth Vader steps off his platform, and in a poorly-executed appeal to Frankstein, puts his arms out and "Arrghhhh"s. Now it's just a "B".

Which means it was better than the Exorcist, which I saw coupla nights ago (B-).

I appreciated Cannibal the Musical a lot more after watching the opening sequence of the Oklahoma! movie today. Yeah, that's good stuff.

***

Target is a quality discount retailer with hundreds of stores from coast-to-coast. We offer fashion-forward, trend-right merchandise to our guests at great prices. But what makes Target different from all other retailers is our Fast, Fun & Friendly attitude. No other company is Fast, Fun & Friendly. It's a part of who we are. And it's a part of you, too.

Amazing how they manage to get those always-perky, upbeat slightly-older-than-middle-age women as HR exec.s at retail companies.