Typecast: se puede

Typecast: on sampling

Typecast: aging

Typecast: small and simple things

Typecast: games

Summer's half done

I only have 20-something working days left this summer until I can get back to my real job. Back to life as I knew it. This whole summer has seemed like a sort of limbo, a different life, a life in exile.

I have written things in my notebook that I thought might make good blog posts until I kept writing. I have not used my typewriters as much as I have wanted. Other typecasters have attested to the addictiveness of typewriters. It amazes me that after almost 9 years of fairly regular (sometimes) journal-keeping and freewriting I still have to work to allow myself to take the risks of actually getting things onto paper whether I have thought them through or not. While I'm at work, unable to write anything down, my head swarms with ideas. Sometimes I'll jot something down in order to try to remind myself to write about it later. Later meaning not only when I'm not at work but when I'll be able to express whatever idea it is brilliantly and effortlessly.

I still have to remind myself of the work and discipline that go into writing.

I expect and hope that when this summer exile is over that I'll be so starved for my usual work that I'll be amazingly productive. But I'll have to make sure to allow myself time to write too, and I hope that the hunger for that will also drive me to that fearless risk-taking and demanding discipline.

Temping, continued

I'm writing this post from a public computer - I don't know when I'll be able to do another typecast.

I got a different temp assignment. This one has me working from Tuesday thru Saturday and thinking fondly of stocking shelves. Yes, that's right. The reason I am thinking fondly of my previous assignment is that this one involves cleaning out dog cages which contain sometimes staggering amounts of feces. Dogsh*t (I'm compromising - trying to keep the blog G-rated, but I can think of no better word for the stuff I encounter daily in those cages) is one of the most noxious substances on the planet: wickedly stinky and often amazingly sticky as well, needing vigorous scrubbing to undo the chemical bonds it forms with the floor.

I've stuck with this job because it's steady work through the summer, and sometimes I get to clean rabbit and cat cages, and I actually have fun with that. I enjoy the dogs sometimes, when I don't have to deal with their by-products.

I still feel that satisfaction of seeing a good cleaning job that I've done. And I get to listen to my walkman. I also think of my wife and soon-to-be-born daughter while I'm working there, and all that helps greatly. If not for these things I wouldn't have lasted two days there.