the old-school guestbook archives
my amazon wish list... my favorite astrologer... my favorite artist... yerba mate revolution! erowid: a travel guide for interior journeys... no more war: MoveOn.org United for Peace and Justice True Majority seek the truth: Common Dreams Unamerican Activities The Nation people I adore, diaries I read: rev.raikes ariana cubiclegirl epiphany glitter333 laurakay wammo the music: the asylum street spankers backyard tire fire blue highway bill camplin wendy colonna freedom tribe joules graves guy forsyth band hamsa lila hanuman libby kirkpatrick leftover salmon pamela means medeski martin & wood the motet the nice outfit nickel creek open road rose polenzani railroad earth south austin jug band string cheese incident taarka tha musemeant the devil makes three tim o'brien band trolley wild sage keller williams yonder mountain string band |
a long day filled with things... ~ November 16, 2006 - 8:49 p.m. just so very tired. it's been a long day filled with many things. funny how days get like that. I spent the early half of the day on the streets (literally) of san francisco, handing out matchboxes and miniature pumpkins to people coming up out of the bart station. a lot of my work life looks similar to this right now. I've discovered the world of "promotions", which pays better than most things I've done and gets picked up by the gig. promotions is allowing me to continue the happy freedom and flexibility of my music-festival-working summertime. "promotions" basically means street-level marketing, where you hand someone something to promote a brand. sometimes you're trying to sell things, and sometimes you're just giving things away. like matchboxes and mini pumpkins. which we were giving out to promote a "new social networking site for creative professionals"-- and I'm not going to tell you which one, 'cause sorry kids-- I'm not on the clock. this promotion's not bad, although occasionally it can be a pain in the ass. they all can be. and this one is complicated by the fact that I need to find parking in downtown san francisco, and the company's not paying for it. I basically solved the issue by finding a $7-flat-rate garage around the corner from the hotel that we're using as the base of operations. the folks in charge are up from LA for the launch party, and that's where they're staying. they're young and hip and trendy-- and so are we, theoretically. that's kind of the point. but today as I was getting into the city, I got a voicemail from the boss saying that we were meeting downtown, and not at the hotel, and it threw me into this whole parking-frenzy-freakout because you can't park around market for less than $15, and I had $7 to my name. because it's true, self-employment tends to be a kind of feast-or-famine proposition for me, and this is one of the lean times. so I'm freaking out, and I'm late, and I'm leaving voicemail for the team leader and a woman standing on the corner screams at me "shut off your cellphone and drive, bitch!", and suddenly I'M screaming I am driving, bitch! seriously. and I really deeply like to think I'm not a person who loses her shit and screams appalling things at strangers. it was just that kind of morning. and so finally I just parked back at the hotel and walked downtown, which only took me fifteen minutes, as opposed to the hour I spent driving around looking for parking. it was drizzly and rainy and grey, and there was loud construction across the street, and folks mostly didn't want to hear about the website anyway. I just handed matchboxes to whoever would take them and chanted the tagline like a mantra. I was tired and cranky and my hair hadn't been washed for days-- but that look must work for me, because I kept getting hit on all day long. yeah, no shit. as in the NASA. I volunteered to be in a research study they're doing about team work and people's responses in team problem-solving situations. today was my pre-selection interview-- I'll know next week if I got in for certain, but it sounds like they're going to take me. they gave me a whole battery of tests about response times and pattern recognition, mathematical processing, and things like that. it gives me a baseline performance level, so each day of the study they're going to give me the tests again, so they know where I'm at. what the study actually is, is a multi-player moon mission simulation. how cool is that??? I'll be on a five-person crew for several days, and we'll each be in a separate little cubicle room with a computer. we'll be playing a multiplayer moon simulator together, communicating using headsets and e-mail, while we work together to accomplish tasks. we're going to be on camera for some of it, and wearing these specialty shirts the astronauts wear, that have integrated electrodes and things to measure our muscle reactions, heart rates, breathing & etc. I'm just so excited. it just seems like it's going to be such a cool experience. I have to admit, I was totally starry-eyed, driving into the NASA facility with a security badge clipped to me. there's all these crazy-shaped hangar type things. what do they do in there? the building I'll be in is pretty nondescript, the lab all kinds of rundown-- but still, it's NASA. pretty damn cool. it was also preview night for my opera-singing housemate's latest, the barber of seville, and I had a comp, but there was just no energy left after the streets of san francisco and NASA and all. my life. it's just funny, you know? I love it, I do. it just keeps being such an adventure. it makes me laugh out loud.
(((rings))) |