Proud to be a Grump

A few years ago I had a sergeant that dubbed me and my squadmate the Cantankerous Duo. I was pretty proud of this designation, as was my buddy. The sergeant who gave us the title didn’t dislike us, and wasn’t angry about it; he usually greeted us with a chuckle, “Well well, look who it is. What’s the matter? You look like you woke up in Afghanistan or something.” There was a recognition that while we didn’t always enjoy it, we did our jobs and we did them well. There was never any sense that Specialist Noaccuser and her bearish teammate were anything less than capable of completing and even supervising the task at hand. NCOs regularly came to us for difficult assignments or babysitting-the-new kids-and-troublemakers duty, because they knew we’d respond, “Wow, Sarr’nt, that sounds positively horrible. ...Yeah, I’ll do it. Whatever.” While the term “highly motivated” existed in Army-speak since long before I joined, it used to be an action-based descriptor. You were highly motivated if you volunteered to jump out of airplanes or go out on patrol in the worst part of the deployment zone. Acknowledging that such an assignment was dangerous and unpleasant was ok and didn’t make you any less “highly motivated.”

After that sergeant left the unit, though, a new breed of NCO came in. These people had the idea that just doing your job wasn’t good enough; you had to like it. Otherwise, to make mention of any hardship or less than ideal condition, even in a joking manner, was a sign of a Negative Attitude. Negative Attitudes acquired one Negative Counselings, which were monthly performance appraisals that involved wordy accounts of ones shortcomings, peppered with commentary that indicated a deep “disappointment” from the bosses. They may as well have just put my name on the top and stamped a big frowny face in the middle.

Admittedly, my grumbling nature had taken on a deeper level of bitchiness. There was very little joy to be had in facing a year-long deployment to Iraq beyond the end of my contract (because there weren't enough people in the army), while unable to be promoted (because, even though there weren't enough people in the army, there were too many in my job specialty), and yet placed as a squad leader without the increase in pay and rank commiserate with the extra responsibilities of the position. I mean, really, was I supposed to be happy about that?

Since I’ve started looking at the civilian job listings recently, I'm beginning to see where they’d picked up on this. Every damn job requires its employees to be “Highly motivated! Positive and excited to be part of the company!” Now tell me, what the fuck is there to get excited about in a minimum wage job with no benefits and no hope of advancement? “YIPPEE!! I HAVE NO HEALTH INSURANCE AND WILL FOREVER LIVE IN SHITTY STUDIO APARTMENTS OR CRAMMED INTO A HOUSESHARE WITH SEVEN OTHER PEOPLE AND NO HEAT!!!! I LOVE THIS JOB!” Does the coffee taste any better when poured into a cup by someone who is smiling? Is the floor shinier when mopped by someone who is whistling while she works? Seriously?

Some might argue, “But no one wants to work with some negative ninny, always moping about.” No, no one wants to work in a shit job. *Some* people don’t want to be reminded of this reality. Some other people, say, the people who run the business, just might benefit from keeping their workers employed on less than stellar wages. If the employees don’t complain about it, then they have no reason to raise those wages.

Now I’m starting to sound like a communist, but you get my point. Work by its very nature isn’t a pleasurable experience. There’s no need to make it worse by requiring people to act like they’re enjoying it.

You're a Pain in the Ass.

Yes, YOU.

Timber Jim, Superstar

How many logs have you sawed so far?

Timber Jim, back in the '70s NASL days of American soccer - when the U.S. was home to the likes of Georgie Best and Pele - smuggled into the stadium a chainsaw, and stood behind the opposing goalkeeper, revving it. Eventually he was cleared to do this officially and became the mascot of the Portland Timbers FC. At the start of every match he wheels out a huge log, and with every goal scored he saws off a slice. At the end of the game the goal-scorers come over to the North End, where the supporters stand, and hoist their log slabs overhead while we sing songs for them. In a country where people are coddled to the point that safety measures have made drinking coffee a "dangerous" affair, watching TJ run around with an honest-to-god chainsaw behind the goal and on top of the dugouts, rappel from the rafters and hang upside down above the crowd, and climb on top of a 110 ft wooden pole with his chainsaw is refreshing to say the least.

Now that the legend has announced his retirement, we may never see anything like it again. Sure the Timbers front office would like to continue the tradition of sawing log slices for goals - and I think that could become a sort of city-oriented affair, with the mayor and police chief and those sort of people taking part - but the fact of the matter is that this sort of spontaneous daredevilry isn't going to happen anymore. I realize the world changes and that's just the way it goes, but I can still feel sad for the loss, can't I?

A lot of football supporters around the world sing "You are my Sunshine" for their club or players and Portland is one of them. A few years ago TJ's daughter was killed in a car accident. I've heard a number of reasons why the song is sung in tribute to her, and the Oregonian (who wrote a front page article on it!) today says it's because Timber Jim himself started singing it at the next game, but no matter the origins, the North End/Timbers Army sings the tune at around the 85th minute of every home match in remembrance.

Let's hope his last game, the opening day of the season, April 17th, has the most packed crowd and loudest rendition of the song the city has ever seen or heard. We'll miss ya, Timber Jim.

image taken from Soccer City, USA message board

I worry sometimes

Actually, I worry a lot, but that's just my nature and I no longer worry about the fact that I worry all the time. This particular worry is something I only worry about sometimes and consider it worthy of further worry... I worry that I'm getting dumber.

When I was in Korean class long, long ago, I noticed that I would have trouble thinking of simple words in English. This wasn't too surprising considering the level of intensity in the Korean program; if I was dreaming in Korean, surely it'd seeped into my brain enough to affect some pretty basic parts of my thought process. But then it started to spread into my writing. Suddenly, I'd be unsure of how to spell things - words I hadn't had a problem with before - and my grammar was even worse. I had to seriously think about where to put commas and quotation marks. I'd never in my life had to think about a comma!

Wednesday I was reading in a textbook about some important thinker. I'd had a class in the anthropology department that covered similar topics so I was rather surprised that I couldn't seem to recall a single bit of information about him or what he did. The name sounded familiar enough though that I went through my computer files and found a five page essay I had written on the dude! Now, not remembering the paper in and of itself isn't too big of a deal. I recall writing every paper in that class in the middle of the night before it was due, finishing barely in time to print it out and pull on a pair of pants before catching the bus. What concerned me is that not only did I not remember any of the content, but I had trouble understanding it. Look, I've never been a genius, so it's not like it was a really high level, mind blowing critique. My past self shouldn't be able to write above the reading comprehension level of my supposedly more-educated present self, right?

And so, I worry.

Time to get Excited, Plot Days off from School

Looks like it'd be a good idea to avoid Thursday evening classes, as well as ones on Friday mornings. My birthday falls smack between a home game and an away match at Seattle, which since Seattle will have an MLS team next year, may be the last Timbers v Flounders match EVER. Although, we can always look forward to Open Cup matches in the future.

Now we just have to hear about the friendlies! Let's hope for an early one to get our Timbers fixes AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!


Thursday April 17 Puerto Rico Islanders @ Portland Timbers 7:00 p.m.
Thursday April 24 Minnesota Thunder @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Saturday April 26 Seattle Sounders @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Thursday May 8 Rochester Raging Rhinos @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Friday May 9 Sara has a birthday
Saturday May 10 Portland Timbers @ Seattle Sounders 7:00 PM Road trip!
Friday May 16 Portland Timbers @ Puerto Rico Islanders 5:00 PM
Sunday May 18 Portland Timbers @ Miami FC Blues 3:00 PM
Saturday May 24 Vancouver Whitecaps @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Monday May 26 Miami FC Blues @ Portland Timbers 2:00 PM
Friday May 30 Portland Timbers @ Montreal Impact 5:00 PM
Sunday June 1 Portland Timbers @ Rochester Raging Rhinos 3:00 PM
Thursday June 5 Minnesota Thunder @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Saturday June 7 Portland Timbers @ Vancouver Whitecaps 7:00 PM
Thursday June 12 Atlanta Silverbacks @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Friday June 27 Portland Timbers @ Carolina RailHawks 5:00 PM
Saturday June 28 Portland Timbers @ Atlanta Silverbacks 4:55 PM
Thursday July 10 Puerto Rico Islanders @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Friday July 18 Portland Timbers @ Atlanta Silverbacks 4:55 PM
Saturday July 19 Portland Timbers @ Charleston Battery 4:30 PM
Thursday July 24 Carolina RailHawks @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Saturday August 2 Portland Timbers @ Minnesota Thunder 5:05 PM
Thursday August 7 Seattle Sounders @ Portland Timbers 8:00 PM
Saturday August 9 Charleston Battery @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Saturday August 16 Montreal Impact @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Friday August 22 Portland Timbers @ Vancouver Whitecaps 8:00 PM Road trip?
Wednesday August 27 Portland Timbers @ Montreal Impact 4:30 PM
Thursday September 4 Miami FC Blues @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Saturday September 6 Portland Timbers @ Rochester Raging Rhinos 4:35 PM
Thursday September 11 Charleston Battery @ Portland Timbers 7:00 PM
Saturday September 20 Portland Timbers @ Carolina RailHawks 4:30 PM

Headphones

...were invented for blocking out park preachers.

[On a related note, Bad Religion: I love you. You make sense in times of elections and war. "See, it's only entertainment."]

I sat next to an Mmm-er in my sociology class today. Every now and then when the instructor would say something significant he would "Mmm". It wasn't an agreement or a disagreement, I don't think, more like a verbal highlight. I really hate it when I order a cheapo used textbook only to find all the text underlined or colored in yellow and pink with someone else's idea of what was important. Turns out I don't like it out loud either.

Other than that, my classes are alright this term. Lots of reading, no classes on Tues/Thurs, giving me time (theoretically) to study, find a new place to live, and to move my stuff. I've got a couple places in mind, both of which are near my friends' house and right next to the park where we used to play soccer on the weekends, before we all became inexplicably lazy and quit showing up. Oh, and there's a great cafe/coffeeshop nearby; breakfast in walking distance is essential.

My housemate isn't talking to me for some reason (maybe she read my blog?). Girls in middle school used the Silent Treatment to various ends, but as I've never been very good at being a girl I didn't understand what those ends were. My housemate, however, IS good at those sort of things, so I suspect she means something by it, but again, I don't know what. I am, though, enjoying the ability to sneak off to the bathroom without having to be engaged in conversation for once.

New Stuff

I finally added some links. It's not the full set I used to have, but the new template restrictions require you to add links one at a time, not just cut and paste in a list. Anyway, please let me know if there's something else I should have over there.

School starts tomorrow. I guess I'm looking forward to it. I did pretty shitty last term, and I'm disappointed in myself. It's hard to get motivated when there's no need for me to be there. I'm just killing time until the GI Bill runs out and my last required class is offered. This term I signed up for a ton of credits, giving me the flexibility to drop a couple of classes if they start to piss me off. I made the mistake last term of registering for the minimum and it came back to bite me in the end.

2007 was pretty meh. Not bad, not great... moving on! The new year is sort of an arbitrary division, I've always thought. It's right in the middle of the school year, the fiscal year, and although close, it's not even at the solstice. It's near the beginning of winter, but here in Oregon, it's the same damn shit from November (at the latest) to March (at the earliest). Just have to remember to write the date differently on my checks.

I used to do an annual list of Thanks Yous and Fuck Yous, but now that I don't have First Sergeants and Colonels ruining my life, things aren't exciting enough to warrant such a thing. In fact, things aren't very exciting at all right now. Meh.

Christmas, Pirates, the Like

Going home was nice, as usual. The Older Younger Sister (TOYS?) was home and since last Christmas I've seen her once, briefly, when she and her boyfriend came down for the Timbers game that served as my birthday party in May. She brought her boyfriend along again, thankfully. TOYS is a great person – funny, insightful, stubborn – but she's temperamental and TALKS FAR TOO LOUDLY NO MATTER THE SITUATION. She puts out an aura of stress that increases the blood pressure of anyone in the vicinity, and it's usually just a matter of time before she's butted heads with someone in the house. TOYS's BF (is there a decent acronym for that?) is the only human I've met that has a calming influence on her; he simply absorbs the stress she exudes, thereby making everyone happier and relaxed. (Ironically, *he's* the redhead.) TOYS also brought her BF's Christmas present – a new kitty. Dad was initially furious, but the little guy was such a little bundle of of energy and trouble that no one could help liking him (well, except the other cats. They objected, often and loudly). Harper, the dog, was also a quick convert, and tolerated all sorts of abuse with a zen-like calmness. The only complaint I had about the cat, other than that he triggered my allergies, was that he liked to nibble on my poor plant that I brought home to rehabilitate after I nearly killed it over Thanksgiving weekend. I can't have pets in my current living situation, so I have a plant, and now the damn thing looks like I've been abusing it.

After Christmas, the Youngest Sis (YS – the teenager) and I drove into Corvallis to use our gift certificates and prepaid debit cards. YS has become something of a hippy recently. She's really into Bob Marley and the stuff they sell at the New Age-y store downtown. Mom bought her a tapestry for her room from this store, and it turned out to be this giant tie-dyed image of Shiva. Mom was a little embarrassed, but YS loved it, and we did a little construction on her room, relocating wall shelves in order to make space for the thing. Combined with the lava lamp and blacklight, it looks like a bong room. Anyway, I rather like the New Age-y store myself, so we spent a long time in there. While looking at all the neat things I could buy and imagining how I would use them, I realized that I absolutely need to move out of the place I live now. I've never really felt like I lived here, anyway, just like I was staying with my aunt for a while (a really, really long while). I want to put things on my walls, build some shelves, and get an actual couch or chair to sit on (embarrassingly, I'm currently sitting on a fold-up camping chair you see people using at parades and things. In fact, watching a parade two years ago was my reason for buying the $7 contraptions.), none of which I can do while trapped in the room I rent. So, in the end I didn't buy anything there, although YS got another possible wall hanging, that's she's now using as a bedspread.

After the Northern Star adventure we went half a block up the street (downtown Corvallis isn't exactly gigantic. YS complained when I parked in the grocery store parking lot at the edge of downtown and insisted we walk the entire three blocks to the other edge of downtown) to my old favorite record store, Happy Trails. It's since moved from its old location, the one of which I have fond and vivid memories of sorting through the used CD sleeves for Bad Religion and the Clash albums, but it's the same concept. It'd been pretty picked over from the Christmas shoppers, and none of the punk stuff I was looking for was in stock (in case you're wondering, Stiff Little Fingers, Mutiny, Filthy Thieving Bastards), but I still managed to find some interesting other things. The guy at the counter first noted my credit card – a military bank – and informed me he "once worked for Uncle Sam," himself. Then, after seeing my selections, suggested a huge compilation of pirate songs done by people like Nick Cave. Hell yeah! That album, by the way, is perfect to fall asleep to, if you're into crazy, almost-but-not-quite-nightmare dreams.

[As a side note, while I'm giving advice, if you're looking for a huge rush of adrenaline and excitement of the fear variety, get in a car with a 17-year-old behind the wheel. If you survive the ordeal, your heart will be pumping like you just finished a series of sprints between pushup competitions. I needed nearly the whole container of chapstick to fill in the holes I'd bitten in my lip.]

The good points in summary:

- The dog was in pretty good shape by the time I left, as we took him on a walk nearly everyday, rain or shine (and it being December in Oregon, it was mostly rain), something he doesn't get regularly when everyone's involved with work and school.

- I turned YS on to Tom Waits, Mazzy Star, and the Specials. She didn't quite bite for the Subhumans, but not everyone can get fired up over screaming about the evil government, and the stuff she did go for is a pretty decent selection itself.

- Dad got a fancy bottle of Scotch from his friend, and I brought home a fancy bottle Blackbush. Ostensibly, these were for everyone, but Dad and I are the only ones who drink whiskey. We both took obligatory tastes from the other's bottle, grimaced, and said, "hmm, I think I prefer mine." Then we pretended to be slightly miffed by the other's lack of taste, but were secretly pleased that we had our selected booze to ourselves. I had the added benefit of acting like it was a gift to the family!

- Holy crap is there a lot of soccer during the holidays! Thankfully, they're all on in the morning, due to the time difference, and they were generally over before the college football bowl games started up, when Mom would take over the television. A lot of players on my fantasy team scored goals, and a lot of players on others' teams got injured/suspended, so I've moved up about 10 places in the Timbers Army league.

- It snowed on Christmas! That never happens in the valley!

I'm back, oh sweet internet

"What? It's not like you were using it, you insomniac!" Harper, unimpressed with my late hours.