Dreampepper

The first interview went extraordinarily well. We talked in the owner's office for over an hour, chatting about theater, arts culture, the people we have in common, and my job history. The second interview, a more serious thing with the office administrator, went fairly well. It was less casual, more the regular check list of the sort of formalized corporate queries I always find awkward, like "what is your five year plan?", to which I gave near desperate answers like "to work steadily at something I like until I win the lottery and can move somewhere warm enough to open a sloth preservation foundation." Despite this, they called the next morning and offered me the job. (While someone else at the office was apparently still on the phone with one of my references.)

So now I have a real job.

*ahem*

NOW I HAVE A REAL JOB.

Just in case you didn't get that.

As of first thing tomorrow morning, I will be the new office administrator/receptionist-in-training at Stage One Accounting, a firm specializing in entertainment industry clients, which no, is not a euphemism. I am thrilled, intimidated, and incredibly relieved. On one hand, accountants, my justifiable fear of math, working on Saturdays, and joining a tax office in January. On the other, everyone I've met there so far has been smart, funny, interesting, and competent, the sort of person I always feel lucky to make friends with, and reliable, solid pay-cheques from a company not running on crazy. Heaven!

Of course, because the universe is a quirky place, to add an extra dash of ridiculous to the whole situation, I have turned down three very promising job interviews since accepting the job just yesterday. Three! THREE! That's as many as I usually have in a MONTH. I have saved their numbers, though, just in case, as I cannot get over the foolish notion that I will sleep in and blow the whole thing, just out of some sort of residual existential despair left over from two years of unreliable contract work. David has offered to make certain that I'm awake tomorrow at seven, but even so, I am sure that when I go to bed tonight, it will be in dread.

Oh! And I totally got to chat with William Gibson tonight! And though I was initially terrified of speaking, it turns out we like each other! He thinks I'm "funny and smart"! Hooray! Exclamation mark! Annnnd! AND! I fit into my kilt again, just in time for Robbie Burns! EEEEEEEEE! PERSONAL VICTORY DAY! HAVE AT THEE!

Spending this weekend in Seattle to attend the Ainsley baby shower and take some pictures of Rebecca's baby bump. It's going to be a great trip. Not only am I staying with some of my favourite people on the planet, there's plans in the works for an obscenely epic Friday. If you're in town, you should come! The rest of you, start your jealousy engines revving. I'm starting with an early dinner in Belltown, the better to attend the opening of a Kris Kuksi show at La Roc La Rue, (also featuring monochrome pop-alt darling Travis Louie), then dropping South to see the Scala Choir hit the stage at the Showbox. Oh yes. YES. Favourite tumbled upon favourite upon favourite. I'm drooooooling. Drooling like a happy kitty. Meaow purr durr.

Also, reading that over, I am considering that my considerable lack of sleep lately has left me with temporary brain damage.

FLUXBLOG 2010 SURVEY MIX:

This eight-disc, 157 song mix is a survey of some of the best and most notable music from 2010. It’s fairly comprehensive, covering indie, pop, rock, punk, folk, rap, R&B, soul, dance, country, modern classical, ambient and electronic music, and in many cases, hard-to-classify genre hybrids. I inevitably had to leave out some things, but I think you’ll find that this serves as both a helpful guide to some of the year’s most exciting music and a surprisingly listenable series of mixes. Discover new stuff! Rediscover familiar artists in a new context! Jam out to ten and a half hours of world-class tunes! If you enjoy this, please do pass it on.

What a roller-coaster! I started my week long 9 am - 4 pm employment program on Monday, luckily landing in with a bunch of unusually clever folks, only to fall deathly ill late Tuesday afternoon, (so feverish I deliriously went into convulsions and my mother stayed the night taking care of me), right after booking a wedding shoot for Saturday. All of Wednesday was lost to recovery, and today the fact that I only fell down once while walking around my apartment has been an incredible victory. Tomorrow I'm going back to my program anyway, then calling the groom, who I have never met and do not know, to finalize details, before meeting Tony's bus from Seattle, and racing as fast as possible on a broken foot over to the Folk Fest to catch Shane on the main stage. On Saturday morning, after what will feel like not half enough sleep, I will finally meet the bride and groom as they pick me up on their way to pick up a sailboat, which we will then sail over to the wedding, where I'm going to do my damnedest to not fall off a dock while trying to stay out of everyone's line of sight while still getting good pictures, while Tony likely sets off for the Folk Fest market, carrying my extra gear. If all goes well, we'll meet later at Granville Island for more pictures, the reception, and more pictures, where, who knows, maybe I'll even sit down. Will I be okay being so busy after being so sick and running around on broken bones? I don't know, but I can tell you this - I certainly don't have any plans yet for Sunday. Except to go to an evening movie and, oh yeah, Folk Fest until I drop. Hah!

I was reading when when the tiny, bright bird flew in through the window and attempted, I suppose, to drink from the bright colours of my hair. To my credit, though it nearly surprised me out of my skin, I did not give in to my initial impulse to swat whatever was thrashing, panicked, a few inches away from my head. Instead I froze. I froze, and very gently began to turn, hoping sincerely that it was not a mouse, while putting my hand up, the better to support the creature as it was lifted from the cushion, held only by the tangled net of my hair. Imagine my surprise as I gathered the mystery in the palm of my hand, still swaddled in threads of hair, only to discover a hummingbird!

It was a beautiful thing, vibrant, green and red and amazing. I was astonished. Not only by the random luck of it, but the pure shock of discovering hummingbirds can be so far north. To my mind, they are practically tropical, another reason to love California. To discover one here in Seattle, a block away from the I5, against the backdrop of a gray, middling day, was shocking. It looked like a creature escaped from a fairy story, too much like a living jewel for rain or brick buildings, yet there is was, bound in my hair, beak like a black pin, feathers gleaming, chest thrumming, a lucid dream in the palm of my hand.

It was our six month anniversary this past weekend, so we went to Teatro ZinZanni, the dinner theater circus we went to on our very first date, as part of our glorious Halloween. Teatro ZinZanni celebrated with us, in turn, by signing us up for their costume contest, where we won third place! I'd never been in a costume contest before, so I was nervous, but it was ridiculously fun, and we won silly Teatro ZinZombie t-shirts. Plus, as a bonus, we were informed after that we were the number one staff pick! We're still thrilled. What better way to start an evening?

-::-

What was your costume(s)? Post pictures!

thru-you.com, by Kutiman

Music + (Video/Sample) x Mash-up = Sexy

"What you are about to see is a mix of unrelated YouTube videos/clips
edited together to make ThruYou. In other words, what you see is what you hear.
Check out the credits for each video - you might find yourself..."

Unbelievable. Kutiman's ambitious project, to create an astonishing album of meta-song videos slash home-sampled music made up of a ridiculously complicated collection of cleverly layered YouTube videos, is entirely successful. It sounds half-baked, especially given every song is a different genre, like the sort of thing an undergrad would try to throw together for a media studies class because it sounded relevant on paper and they could use words like "synergy" and "interscape" in the artist statement. Instead? It's amazing and I'm thrilled. The videos are bloody brilliant, super impressive, as unexpected as they are incredible and compelling. As someone on StumbleUpon said, "I can't favorite this hard enough."

I've actually been trying to post this for days, but the site's been down. Hit by too many people, Kutiman's bandwidth went bork. Now that it's back, set aside twenty minutes, turn up your volume, turn off your power saving screen settings, and expect to have your socks knocked off.