April 2008

I can not believe it is Sunday night already. The weekend flew by at a remarkable speed and now I’m wrapping up my studies in preparation for the big Calculus test tomorrow. My goal is to at least pass the thing. I might just do that.

My head aches from memorising formulas and my ass aches from sitting in a chair too long. Weekends were made for bike riding, exploration and relaxation, not derivatives, limits and functions.

On the bright side, we did squeeze in a shopping excursion in which I bought seven pairs of jeans and a shirt for $80. Let’s hear it for Steve & Barry’s! And the clothes remained intact when I washed them. To make the day even brighter, I bought smaller clothes that fit quite well. I guess I’m not as big as I thought I was. At least not in the clothing department.

I had two nights of successful gigs and received several compliments on the music, though few danced. I guess people don’t like to dance when it’s raining. Maybe the crowd was odd. They liked the music though.

Now I’m going to curl up with my computer, pop in an Isis DVD and wait for Earl’s return from poker. Hopefully he’ll bring home some loot.

Today there was a mini-revolt in my Calculus class. Professor Frightful handed out a take-home quiz on Tuesday that is due tomorrow. There were several classmates missing from the class on Tuesday and subsequently they didn’t get the handout. When they asked for the handout today (we don’t have class on Wednesday), he informed these guys that he didn’t bring any copies of the quiz with him but they were more than welcome to pick them up from the folder outside of his office door, where they have been stored since class ended on Tuesday. The couple of guys that needed the quiz threw a bit of a hissy fit and told him that he should have brought them to the class.

I’ll openly admit that I don’t care the teaching style of this professor, but for the first time in two semesters I have to say that I agree with the professor. It’s not his job to babysit his students and make sure that they get their assignments if they miss class. The quiz has been made readily available. The professor’s end of the bargain has been fulfilled. I fear this scene is indicative of a problem we may see in the up and coming generation. I can’t imagine missing a class (going to Ireland last semester about killed me as far as my work ethic goes, but it was worth it) and several students in the class miss multiple classes a week. I can’t figure out the logic behind that.

I’m starting to feel rather obsolete in my classes these days. During Surveying today one of my classmates remarked on how quickly I can run a calculator. When he asked why I was so proficient, I simply replied “The savings are amazing at Ames”, meaning that I was an Ames (and Hills) cashier at one time and in order to do my job I had to be able to be quick on the cash register. My explanation fell on blank faces as these kids had never known a retail establishment to be without scanning. Back in my day (God that makes me sound old), we had to punch in the eight digit item number (at least at Ames) AND the price of the item on every single item that went through the checkouts. Store employees received incentives to be really quick and accurate with their fingers. I was one of the fastest cashiers in the Jamestown, N.Y./Erie, Pa. district. The skill lingers with me today. Nevertheless, I felt really old when I realised that these guys had never seen a cash register without scanning. Imagine their disbelief if they saw the older mechanical cash registers where you had to compute your own change!

I wish calculus was as easy to comprehend as item prices and making change. I’ve been working on the aforementioned assignment (20 questions) for three and a half hours and I still have six questions to go. I’m flinging around variables and derivatives and prime variables like it’s nobody’s business and I haven’t a clue as to what to do with them when they land. Even the square roots look cranky.

Back in 1999 Earl and I were only three years into our relationship. I was becoming rapidly disenchanted with the radio business and as luck would have it the city announced a new mini-mall opening in an old building that had once housed one of the original Woolworth’s. Those interested in opening a retail establishment in this mini-mall (which was owned by the city) would get a year’s free rent. Earl and I grabbed the opportunity to open “The City Pound”, a hot-dog based fast food restaurant that was basically an A & W without the brand name.

Owning a business with your partner of three years is sort of a make or break deal. There was a lot of hard work, some tears, a lot of screaming, a considerable amount of butting heads, different points of view and like-minded business savvy rolled up into this experience. The business cruised along for a year or so and on April Fool’s Day 2000 (after broken promises from the city and rapidly dwindling interest from the public in this retail venture) we closed up shop and chalked it up to a learning experience. (We had to tell our employees they were done AND convince them it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke at the same time). I went back into radio for a while and Earl continued doing what he’s doing today as he was wise enough to never have left his position.

It was then that we decided that our relationship could survive anything if we could survive that together. We agreed that we have different ways of approaching the same problem and while we both would get satisfactory results, we took different paths of getting there and since only one of us could be right, it was probably best that we don’t work together.

We broke that promise today.

Today I started a temp job at Earl’s office. They are behind on paperwork sorting and data entry and since I’m one of the fastest data entry clerks you’ll ever meet, and since I have Wednesdays off from school (they’ve been reserved for homework and studying for the most part), Earl thought it would be good for the family budget if I were to lend a hand in his office through the temp agency. Last week I took my drug test (I passed) and did the appropriate paperwork; this morning I reported for my 8 a.m. gig at 7:50 a.m.

Earl was proud of my promptness.

One of the rules of my working at Earl’s office is that I don’t report to him. This is a good thing. I don’t believe in mixing business with pleasure unless you can do it in an office with the blinds drawn, so I’m reporting to one of his managers instead. He doesn’t have blinds on his window.

Earl talks about work all the time. I know the ins and outs of his business like it’s nobody’s business. I’ve gone with him on countless occasions to find out why the burglar alarm is going off in the middle of the night. I’ve burned the weekend oil with him doing data entry (for free) when the inventory was behind. I know how his business works and I know his style.

Today I was able to see him in action, first hand for the first time. I can only say this about the experience: My lover is an amazing man. He cares about his employees (they even have a 9:30 a.m. stretching exercise for all office personnel), safety in the entire workplace (office and factory) is paramount and I can’t help but burst with pride to know that my husbear is doing such a bang up job. He’s a hard worker and he has one of the most profitable (and successful) plants in the entire company.

I am proud of him.

I don’t say that a lot. The phrase “I’m proud of you” is very important to me. I just don’t throw it out there for the sake of making a person feel better because to me that would be hypocritical. I’ll tell a person that they’ve done a good job when they’ve done a good job. I’ll tell a person that they’ve done a great job when they’ve done a great job. But to tell a person that I’m proud of them, well, that’s one of the highest compliments I can give and it’s reserved for a select few in the proper situations.

I think we’ll make it through this work experience together. Yesterday I quipped that maybe I should do some grunt work this summer to get buff. Maybe I’ll work out on the factory floor during summer break.

After a busy weekend in Connecticut, I am back and home and settling in with the books for the evening. I have two major exams tomorrow and a total of four major exams this week. Apparently a memo or something went out to all the professors at school that read, “synchronize your exams to apply maximum stress.” I’m counting the weeks left in this semester. At least the counting is math that I can handle.

The Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus gig on Saturday night in Norwalk went well but not as stellar as I would have preferred. The guys did a fantastic job (as always) of performing but there were a couple of sound issues including wireless body mics that weren’t turned on and a sound board that was a little cranky. I ended up doing some rewiring during the intermission. The audience was entertained but I was stressing through the performance. About 30 seconds into the performance a man came down to the sound board and waved a note in my face that said, “Can not hear vocals”. That’s always a cheery way to start the show. Apparently some people thought the lighting was too bright and they complained about that as well. Sigh. We do what we can do. It’s always a balancing act: if I turn the instrumentals down too far then the performers can’t hear the music and start singing softer. If I turn the instrumentals too high, then the guys start having a hard time singing over the tracks and the audience can’t hear what’s going on. During the pre-game the sound system sounded incredible, so I don’t know what changed. I blame gremlins. The final show is in New Haven at the Shubert Theatre on the 19th of April. The current plan is to have both Earl and I in Connecticut that weekend.

Earl and I took a walk along the canal in the spring sunshine this afternoon and talked about a bunch of stuff that partners talk about. It was a good way to relax and it was good exercise as well.