Category Archives: Personal

Pro Patria Pro Deo Pro Coffee

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As I’ve written before, I discovered coffee at university and my tastes evolved from gussied up dessert/coffee combinations to pretty much main-lining espresso doppios. I am quite willing to admit I’m an addict, don’t understand why you are not, and that I’m a bad person before I’ve had coffee (and only slightly better after). I’m also quite willing to admit that although I’m a reasonably patient person, the exceptions to that involve family, people who walk and smoke, a handful of Canadians, morons on bicycles and people who mess with coffee.

I bring this up because one of the cliches about Japan is that it’s a smoker’s heaven and a coffee drinker’s hell. At one point a cigarette company had a great commercial about smokers from the USA arriving on Japanese shores via makeshift boats and being welcomed by the locals with a pack of smokes. One town used to have a “tobacco tax” goal meter to encourage people to light up.

When I first arrived in Japan, though, there were only a few coffee shops around and I was shocked that, although the cake part of the Coffee and Cake Set was delicious, the coffee was a tiny little half cup that wasn’t even an espresso and that cost seven dollars.

Now, a few wishy-washy artistic types have argued that the half cup is special and that some Japanese have raised coffee making to the level of a martial art. They have carefully selected and hand-roasted the beans and carefully ground them in a burr grinder. Some of the beans have been carefully “processed” by civets (i.e. eaten and crapped out by civets). They boil carefully filtered water and pour it over the perfectly measured grounds which sit in a special canvas filter hand made from organic hemp by a 120 year old zen master in a secret location in the Japanese Alps. The coffee masters pour slowly until it seems as if the water is about to flow over the brim of the filter. Then they tap it and the water and coffee flow into the pot below.

At this point some people give polite little golf claps and say “That’s amazing. He’s a true artist. The coffee is beautiful.” while I’m in the back shouting “just pour the damned coffee!”

When the coffee is finally served it is typically half a glass. I’ve asked if it was just a sample and been told that, no that was my four dollar cup of cat poop coffee. (For the record, civet coffee is actually a hundred dollars a cup so I’ve never actually tried it, also, it’s cat poop.) I’ve also made them bring the pot out and add more coffee to the cup.

I did this in front of She Who Must Be Obeyed once and she was pretty close to walking out of the coffee shop. I told her I loved her and would do anything for her and that I’d catch up to her once I got my cup of coffee filled properly.

Mercifully, since those days, the Japanese have discovered coffee. This is important because, as shown in the book The Devil’s Cup, the strongest empires are those which hold coffee in high esteem. Once they switch to tea, they are doomed. (r.e. Turkish Empire, British Empire).  This also means that there are now many chains to choose from, including Starbucks which I never patronize outside of Japan, unless it’s in an airport. There are also some Japanese chains serving decent and cheap coffee now.

If there’s ever a ban on coffee, I will start my own mafia and smuggle it in. Well, at least as far as my house which, I admit, will make it hard for me to keep my goons well paid and well fed, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I need a cup of coffee first.

Neither Fit Nor Fashion Because This Head Wears No Hats

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It’s a basic fact of life that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who look good in hats and those who should never, ever wear hats.

I am in that latter category.

Now, it’s partly not my fault. For reasons I still don’t understand, I have a malformed head (I mean physically malformed, so shut up). My hat size is around 7 7/8 but my head is longer and narrower than it should be and has an odd bump at the back. In fact, it’s fair to say my head resembles that of the alien in Alien more than that of a normal human being. (This may explain why my mother is short and I am tall; she’s not my real mother. I killed my real mother when I burst out of her chest. Something like that.) This makes it extremely difficult for me to buy hats (and, after that last aside about my mother, extremely difficult for me to visit the USA again). Any hat that’s large enough to fit me is either too wide for my head, or gets stretched and deformed to fit the length. I look a lot like those in-bedded reporters who donned K-Pots or Crye Precision Airframe  helmets to look like Special Operations Operators: i.e. an out of place poser in ill-fitting gear.

This has never stopped me from attempting to wear hats. When I was in high school I used to wear a bucket hat everywhere because I was a teenager and such things make sense when you’re a teenager. (Well, actually, such things don’t make sense, but you’re a teenager so such things are expected.) I also had an Indie Jones hat that, now that I think about it, was a bad idea in many ways. I used to have a Colorado Rockies baseball cap that fit but gave it away to a local baseball fan when I moved from Niigata. (I really wish I hadn’t done that.)

Oddly, the only hats I’ve ever looked reasonably good in, other than baseball caps, were cowboy hats and there aren’t many people who can say that.

Several hundred years ago, at the beginning of one of his mid-life crises, my father started a small photography business in Hayden, Colorado called Dwight’s Photography. He shot a few weddings and a some portraits and, on occasion, I would “help” out, although my assistance skills were questionable and ran the gamut from “pretty much useless” to “blatant saboteur.”

One year, though, he was hired to shoot the rodeo in Hayden during the Routt County Fair. I was brought along to carry stuff, but the rules required that everyone in and around the ring wear appropriate Western attire. This meant I needed cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. Unfortunately, this meant every person on the planet (Hayden being pretty much my world at the time) got to see me in the hat. Oddly, although there were comments, no abuse followed. (I did discover, however, that I was allergic to pretty much everything at the rodeo. Another post, that, involving swollen eyeballs.)

Now, the only hat I can find that fits is a woodland camo boonie cap that I wear during summer outings to nearby parks and Tokyo Disney Land (a whole series of posts resides there, too). It keeps the sun off my face and neck, but I’m embarrassed by the Mall Ninja “Hey, guys, check it out I’m totally an Operator” look to it, and it looks goofy with the brim down and floppy.

It looks better, though, when I fold up the sides like a cowboy hat. Not good, just better.

You Are All About to Die and Welcome to Bunkerland

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Over 20 years ago, in a fit of pique, and with a vague sense of needing to do service and nothing resembling a plan, I decided to join the US Peace Corps. This involves a surprisingly lengthy selection process including interviews, health checks, background checks and lots of shots. Somewhere in this process you get to list your preferences. I picked Europe, Asia, Africa and Central/South America in that order.

Once you’re accepted, the Peace Corps gives you some control over where you’re sent. They tell that a position in XYZianastan (not a real country) is available and you leave in two months. If you’re not interested in that, you go on hold until another position is available. That could be one month, it could be six.

In my case, I was offered a chance to teach English in Albania as part of the first Peace Corps group. I checked the map and Albania appeared to be attached to Europe. I didn’t notice, though, that the cheapest ways out ran through the war zone in Bosnia and Serbia which meant Albania wasn’t actually attached to Europe. Armed with this ignorance, I said yes.

A few months later, I was in an airport in Rome choosing which of my two large pieces of luggage I loved best and which I wanted to leave behind on a Roman holiday. I was like, the bags can go on ahead, I’ll stay here but the Peace Corps was like, um, no.

We than boarded the Alitalia crop duster that would take us across the Adriatic Sea to Albania. I was teased for a brief second when the luggage handler picked up my second bag and started to carry it toward the plane. I celebrated too early, though, as he took two steps, looked at the bag, initiated scientific weight measurement by raising and lowering it twice, and then chucked it back on the cart.

I slept through take off, but I do remember the sound of panic when one of the propellers either stopped or appeared to stop during a throttle down. I also remember the look of operatic, yet surprisingly attractive horror on the face of our Italian flight attendant when we hit a nasty batch of turbulence. We all turned around expecting to see a hole where the tail had been and prepared to pray for our eternal souls. Instead she was worried about her loose drink cart. Even through it was harmless, the look of horror woke me up.

The real shocks hit when we landed on the cobblestone runway at Rrinas International Airport. It was a series of hexagons designed to be replaced quickly during an attempted bombing by US forces. We also noticed the dozens of pill-shaped concrete bunkers surrounding the airport designed to keep invading US forces off the cobblestones. When we finally finished the welcome ceremonies and met our language trainers and got on a bus, we noticed dozens and dozens more bunkers built at random locations as we drove to Tirana.

As we passed a vineyard, we noticed that every vine was attached to a concrete pylon that was topped with a nasty looking spike. We were told the spikes were intended to, how shall we say, become intimate with the buttocks regions of US paratroopers dropping in the vineyard during an air invasion.

Needless to say, with all the stuff designed to keep us out, it was sometimes hard to feel welcome–we’d later learn, as mentioned before, that our hosts thought we were being punished by being sent to Albania. Finally, we arrived at the Hotel Arberia–which would eventually become my home away from home–and discovered we’d missed the time of day when running water was available. If we wanted a shower, we’d have to wait until two, or maybe three a.m.

Culture shock hit at about that moment, became worse when we met our host families the next day, and, in my case, lasted the remaining two years.

Booze Boxes and Backing Up Badly

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I got my first summer job thanks to the 80’s hair band Ratt. This is amazing because I was not a fan of Ratt and not a fan of summer work. My musical tastes are absurdly eclectic (translation: moody) but I never got around to enjoying “Round and Round”. As for work, I was too much of a fan of loafing, in the Larry Darrell sense, to seek out summer work.

Instead, for reasons I don’t remember, I volunteered to help out my mother’s sorority who, I think as part of a fundraiser, were managing a concession stand at the Bicentennial Center during the concert. I apparently managed to impress one of the men working there because I was offered a job at a local liquor wholesaler.

Although delivering booze to liquor stores seemed, at least at the time, a noble cause, and did earn me some initial brownie points in my fraternity, there were a couple issues.

1) I would be driving.
2) I would be driving a van.
3) Driving a van would often involve backing into small spaces.

I am, at best, on a good day, an average driver. I never took to cars the way many of my friends did. Cars were merely transportation from point A to point B and a way to spend money on something other than myself. Driving in reverse in what, at the time, seemed like a giant vehicle was intimidating.

Once I got past that, I had a good time in the job. I became a slightly better driver and learned how to pack 150 boxes into a van with enough space to hold 120. I also got to know the locations of all the liquor stores in Salina, a couple in Abilene and one in Concordia. I learned which store owners deserved business; which were assholes who didn’t deserve business; and which needed business enough to sell to someone underage. (For the record, when I started working at the wholesaler, I was old enough to drink watered down beer. By the end of the summer, thanks to Kansas’ goofy drinking laws, I was no longer old enough to drink. Legally, that is.)

I didn’t go back to that job, not that they would have had me–hey, I only tried to knock out a roof support once whilst backing up the van–and eventually ended up working for a Peace Corps-esque project that sent young K-Staters to small towns to do development work and, for a while, a place where I built and smoked toxic disposable buildings.

I also ended up making pizza and tacos. That’s another post though. Time to loaf.

 

 

Night Flight on Friday Nights

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Throughout my life, I’ve been plagued by persistent memories of surreal snippets of film and TV–a door breathing at the top of a flight of stairs; a bouncing red ball George C. Scott can’t get rid of; a man with a glass hand who discovers he must spend over a thousand years alone. They are sort of the visual equivalent of an earworm. For some of the snippets I could remember the source; for others I couldn’t.

All of them can most likely be attributed to my habit of staying up too late.

I’ve heard that it’s normal for teenagers to suffer from “Lost Boys” syndrome: up all night, sleep all day, and it’s true my oldest has begun to develop that quirk, but I’ve retained that well into my late 40’s. During long vacations, I slowly invert my sense of time and find myself staying up later and later.

When I did that as a teenager, not long after we got cable, I discovered a USA Network program called Night Flight that came on long after my mother had gone to bed. Night Flight specialized in showing odd things that no other program would show. Being a good Christian lad and member of the First Baptist Church in Hayden, Colorado, I wasn’t supposed to watch MTV–because it showed such degenerate, racy fare as The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Bow Wow Wow’s version of “I Want Candy” and Tony Basil’s “Mickey.” Night Flight, though, was running the uncensored version of Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” and running special features on videos too racy for MTV.

(Note: NO, I wasn’t, technically, supposed to watch Night Flight either, and NO, I didn’t have any discipline when no one of authority was around.)

(Note to Young People Under a Certain Age: MTV used to actually play music.)

I remember Peter Ivers spouting crap at the beginning of “New Wave Theater” and interviews with punk bands and young comedians. It also showed cartoons, Japanese action shows, short films and cult movies. For many years I remembered snippets of a cartoon where giants kept small humans as pets. Thanks to the internet, a couple years ago I searched around and figured out I must have seen Fantastic Planet one night. I also remember seeing Kentucky Fried Movie there and something that I think was The Clash’s Rude Boy.

Night Flight wasn’t watched, so much as experienced. Add in a half-asleep teenager with a brain of questionable status, and you get something epic.

Oddly, I didn’t watch it much after we left Colorado. I don’t know if that was for the best or not.

The Only Thing Constant is Changing Tastes

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I just finished two fingers of the first bourbon I ever drank: Jim Beam. I remember drinking it for the first time when I was 10 or so. I didn’t drink very much and I didn’t drink it on purpose. I grabbed the wrong glass and thought it was iced tea. Luckily, there wasn’t much left in the glass which meant my entire head didn’t burst into flames, only my throat.

I also remember my parents giving us very watered down white wine for Christmas or Thanksgiving. The amount was barely enough to make the bottom of the glass wet.

All this has me thinking about one of the quirks of life that amazes me to this day: the way our tastes change over time.

As I became a teenager, I would try an alcoholic beverage that was called “beer”, more specifically Coors Light, and that pretty much meant that I wouldn’t be a huge fan of beer until a trip to England when I was at university. Mind you, I would drink beer, but it was mostly an alcohol delivery system, not something to be savored.

Dark beer eventually gave way to screwdrivers (orange juice and vodka) which gave way to Bloody Mary’s which, for reasons I still don’t understand, gave way to straight vodka, scotch and bourbon. (I’m guessing lack of money was involved and remembering that Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar liked straight vodka because it didn’t taste like anything which probably got me to try it.) I’m still not a fan of mixed drinks, especially sweet ones. I’ve slowly developed a taste for wine, despite unfortunate adventures with kosher wine and things called Mad Dog and Night Train.

Now, here in Japan, I’ve rediscovered beer and become an amateur sake snob.

I had a similar journey with tea. When I was a kid I remember putting enough sugar in a glass of iced tea to have a centimeter of undissolved sugar at the bottom of the glass. I remember gagging the few times I drank unsugared tea (that’s “unsweet tea” to those of you from the U.S. South). Now, though, and I don’t know why, tea is the only thing I can’t drink sweet. When I was in Albania I used to horrify the Albanians, for many reasons actually, but especially for drinking hot tea without sugar.

Finally, there’s coffee–blood of life. The first coffee I ever tasted was a gruesome concoction of non-dairy creamer and artificial sugar. When I started drinking it at university, I ordered elaborate coffee drinks such as the double espresso, double double chocolate, double mint-mocha at the Espresso Royale which were basically desserts served with the coffee inside to save on cup cleaning costs. A lack of money got me back into tea and got me to try something they called “Americano” which the coffee shop claimed was a regular cup of Joe. Then I saw them make it and realized it was just a shot of espresso diluted with hot water. After that I put aside that “Tea, Earl Gray, Hot” bullshit and all that water ruined nonsense and started drinking “pure” coffee.

As for Jim Beam, it’s smoother and sweeter than I remember. Of course, I haven’t had any since I was 10.

Every Now and Then Something Sinks In

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Despite my best efforts, every now and then something my teachers taught actually sank in. Not always for the better, mind you, but a few things sank in.

I remember one teacher claiming the moon landing was faked, although with that particular teacher it was hard to know how serious to take such proclamations. I also remember the same teacher saying that the Fellowship of Christian Athletes should sit for pictures and the “nobodies” should get to the other side. (I was Christian but not an athlete and not particularly keen on fellowship so I guess I counted as a nothing.)

Another teacher declared a girl in my class as “Most Likely to Become a Battered Wife” and would occasionally bring it up over the course of the year. I remember him talking about how females had a higher body fat levels than men and he said that he hoped the girl had the extra fat in her head because she’d need it to absorb the blows.

I also remember a teacher dealing with my hyperness and incessant yet random foot tapping by saying that if I didn’t stop it, she’d kiss me on the cheek in front of the class to embarrass me. It worked, although I was pretty good at embarrassing myself on my own. (Now days, of course, I’d be forced on to drugs if I tapped my feet too much.)

There were a lot of good things that stuck with me, too. I’ve already mentioned my issues with “wh-” words and how even Japan can’t break that. The teacher who threatened kiss me (Mrs. Gray?) was also a great English teacher. I also remember Mrs. Rickman, who invented the Vulcan death grip, and gave a great lesson on how a sheet of paper could go quietly into a trash bin without first being noisily crushed between teenaged hands. She’s also the first teacher I’ve ever seen attempt to bribe a student into not saying “ain’t” by putting 10 dimes in an envelope and taking one out every time he said “ain’t.” Any money left at the end of the week he got to keep.

I remember Mr. Fowler using a game to demonstrate how easy lending led to a farm collapse and depression in the late 1800’s. I still remember how silent those who’d been the richest got when they saw the year’s farm reports and realized they were busted flat.

The one that’s probably influenced me most as a teacher though, was Mr. Wagner’s “Who are you? and Why are you here?” introduction to American Literature when I was a junior. He basically told us that if we didn’t want to be in the class we were free to leave. In fact, we could drop out of school completely if we wanted. Our parents might go mental but they couldn’t stop us. The lesson was that if we were in class we were there because we chose to be there and, by choosing to be in class, we also chose to follow certain rules. I think I only saw him lose control of the class twice and there was the one time that everyone in my class cheated off one student when we were assigned to write about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance“. This was also his chance to give a concrete example of irony.

(For the record, I did not cheat. Rather, I failed to do the assignment at all.)

I use a variation of this talk here in Japan, especially when teaching high school first graders (10th grade). Many students who came through the system at the the school where I work got used to being able to get away with not studying and being difficult in class. The Japanese system requires that they attend and that the school take them. At age 15, after completing 9th grade, they can drop out. The bad habits they developed in junior high can persist, though, and even today a few of them were starting to revert to their old ways.

I wrote on the board:
You don’t have to be here.
If you don’t want to be here, you may leave.
If you choose to be in this class, you must work.

I said if they needed to sleep, they were welcome to go somewhere and sleep. If they wanted to talk to their friend, they and there friend were welcome to go some place and talk. I also reminded them that I could send them out if I needed to.

A few of them quieted down, at least for now. I have a former to teacher to thank for that.

Fear, Less Fear, Success, Running, Decent and A No Show

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It’s karate day, and that means it’s time for a sports story.

Every odd numbered year my karate style hosts an international tournament of most of the dojos in the style, including one from Israel.

As part of the tournament, without any input from me, I am always scheduled for the kumite or fighting competition. This is something that not every dojo does. My dojo in Niigata was interested in breaking boards/hands but not in the sparring, whereas my current sensei regularly places in the annual 8th dan competition, and was champion once.

My first fight, when I was a second dan, was laughably bad as I was plagued with a lack inexperience and a deep sense of being scared shitless, this despite the heavy, kendo style helmets, body armor and gloves we wore. Each bout is two minutes long and is full contact above the belt. The first competitor to score two points using proper karate techniques wins–simply boxing won’t get you points, although knocking your opponent out will get you the victory. You can also use throws that while they don’t score make you look awesome which helps you win in the event of a draw.

I fought in the heavyweight division which meant most of my opponents were as tall as I. I also discovered my first opponent was a specialist who did nothing else in the tournament except fight. I got a couple kicks in and a punch but didn’t score. He eventually landed a couple punches and that was the end of the bout.

Two years later the best I can say is I wasn’t as laughable and I went the distance. I lost 1-0.

In my third tournament, I got a bye for the first round and then went up against an older man with a powerful punch that made little stars appear in my eyes the first few times he hit me but didn’t score. I eventually managed to score on a side step punch to his head and a back hand move that’s half block, half punch and looks a lot like swinging a sword over your head. In the next round I faced an opponent who liked to box but was too good to be defeated. He won with a perfect punch to my lower face mask that scrambled the world a bit, split my chin open and made me take a knee.

Important safety tip, kids: the gloves and helmets only inspire people to hit harder and a well-placed object in motion will set things in your head in motion, for a while at least. Don’t let yourself get hit.

Luckily, that was his second point and the match was over saving me the humiliation of not being able to go on. I ended up getting the third place trophy in that tournament which is, I think only the first or second trophy I’d ever actually earned in sports.

For the fourth tournament I came up against a guy who thought he was a combination of Bruce Lee and long-distance runner. He danced and ran around, trying to get in quick kicks but wouldn’t let me get near him. I suspect if I’d gone the distance in a scoreless match, I would have won simply for my attempt to do karate. Instead, he landed a couple roundhouse kicks to my hip that scored for reasons I still don’t understand. In the past, kicks below the belt didn’t score and using the same technique twice didn’t score the second time. In fact, stepping into the kick and letting it hit low was one of my standard defenses as it let me inside to deliver a punch.

For the fifth tournament, I met the eventual champion in the first round and he basically just kicked my ass. I held my own for a while and hit him and kicked him a few times but didn’t score. He hit me and scored and then read one of my techniques perfectly and put a front kick straight in my sternum.

Second safety tip, kids: don’t telegraph.

Last year I had to withdraw for medical reasons and was surprised how much I missed being in the fights as I watched them. It’s one of those things I always dread doing, but am always glad I’ve done, even when the world is a bit wobbly after I finish.

The Growing Battle for Scarce Resources

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Over the past couple years, I’ve managed to lose almost three notches on my belt or just over two inches on my waist. (For the metrically minded, I’ve lost around 6 cm). I don’t weigh myself, so I don’t know how much actual weight has been lost.

This has been accomplished with very little conscious effort on my part. I’ve reduced my bread and pasta intake, increased the push-ups and squat kicks in the morning, and decreased snacking except for nuts and some beef jerky and the occasional Reese’s Peanut Butter cup binge right before Valentine’s Day when they are available in Japan. (I can quit any time I want; I just like having them in the country.)

The main source of my weight loss, though, has been a simple formula: Regular Meal Size + Growing Eight Year Old + Growing Teenager = Reduced Portions for Daddy (and fewer leftovers).

In the past, because we have a small kitchen and, by US standards a small refrigerator, and therefore don’t have much room to store leftovers and because Japan has no mechanical version of them, I was the house garbage disposal. Imagine the snaggle-toothed pig under the sink in the Flintsones’ house and that’s pretty much what I was.

Now, however, that is what our daughters are for. The youngest likes to eat and the oldest, especially if she likes the food, can put away shocking amounts. They’ve also got long arms, allowing them to reach food without third-party intervention, even when the plates are closer to my end of the table. Just like THAT, the last piece of chicken is gone. I look away for a second because they say Jennifer Lawrence is standing behind me and the last shuumai disappears mysteriously (as does Jennifer Lawrence as she can apparently only be seen by females, or something like that, or I’m just slow).

We try to keep a mix of both healthy and tasty snacks, and Japanese sweets are less, well, sweet than those from the USA. Cinnabon cinnamon rolls were too big and sweet for Japanese taste and now there’s only one store left in all of Japan. Krispy Kreme has done well–the original store had two-hour waits–but most Japanese only get one at a time along with a cup of coffee. Bags of potato chips are not much larger than most free samples handed out in grocery stores. (Oh, and I’m now competing for the chips, too. Remind me again, why was it necessary for our girls to eat solid food?)

It’s also been fun to see which snacks each girl likes. The youngest loves red licorice; the oldest can’t stand it. The oldest likes Reese’s Peanut Butter cups; the youngest doesn’t (although they seem to be growing on her). Unfortunately, that means I have to fight for all those, too.

Luckily, there are still places I can reach that they can’t. That will change soon though; the oldest is almost as tall as her mother.

Time to invest in a safe.

 

 

 

 

Huffing Asbestos and Smoking Toxic Disposable Buildings

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Part of the destruction of the old school building where I work involves putting up sheets of plastic and carefully removing the asbestos ceilings before finally chewing it up with various impressive machines, including the Jaws of Destruction (probably not its real name).

Demolition of Rikkyo Niiza

The old building gets chewed up by the Jaws of Destruction.

This reminds me of the summers I worked for Manpower and was assigned to do various jobs, that in retrospect, seem kind of dangerous (as if sitting under a 53 year old asbestos ceiling for 14 years wasn’t dangerous…)

First, I remember being assigned to clean up a school building in Salina, Kansas after the asbestos removal teams had done their job. Our job was to tear down the plastic sheeting and then climb up on ladders and scaffolding and remove the glue that had held the plastic to the walls. Keep in mind it was Kansas in the summer, which meant it was about a 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) and we were in small, badly ventilated rooms using a fairly potent solvent to remove the glue. This, I think, counts as the first and only time I was involved with huffing chemicals. We, the clean up crew, quickly learned to take frequent breaks, which involved flying out of the room and talking with a blue bird named Patty, or was it Sandy?, whilst we took in a spot of fresh air and stared at the sun because shiny.

I’m sure I lost at least several months of life because of that (along with several of the thin cords linking me to reality).

The other job I had with Manpower was building air supported dome structures (I don’t remember the name of the company). This involved cutting and laying large pieces of plastic and then melting them together with a rolling heater that looked a lot like an old style Hoover vacuum cleaner. The process gave off a lot of smoke inside the factory (which was also an air supported dome) but we all kept working at our various projects. One day I was chatting with the foreman and he mentioned how annoying the smoke was and I, being me, suggested it was also probably toxic, as inhaling burning plastic was not known for its health benefits. He said he’d asked the boss about it and the boss had assured him there was nothing to worry about.

This means, of course, I’m probably doomed. And it didn’t even give me the ability to fly.

I also moved furniture into a university building and several other short term jobs. In many ways, it was one of the best summer jobs I ever had. I was way out of place with blue collar workers, but they were much more accepting of a university type than most university types would be of blue collar workers. (Shakespeare? F@#k that shit. John Grisham and Tom Clancy, dude.) The pay was decent and it was better than working fast food because there were no uniforms, no customers to deal with and a lot less petty bullshit to deal with than I deal with now.

I also found a lifelong friend in Patty, or was it Sandy?