yes yes yes yes YES!

to send things off with appropriate cheer, i received a $115 parking ticket within the last twenty-four hours of my last trip to new york, in january. it would be needlessly difficult to explain completely, but suffice it to say i made an honest mistake, and while not exactly a "legal" one, a mistake that the city of new york practically encourages hundreds of drivers to make every day. i knew i could contest the ticket--all i had to do was make a trip down to the friendly new york department of finance, and my hefty fine would almost certainly have been reduced, if not thrown out completely. but as this monster of a ticket was awarded mere hours before i headed back to michigan, i didn't have time for that. i thought about writing a letter: didn't do it. i thought about writing an e-mail: didn't do it. today, my last day before incurring a late fee, i decided just to write it off as a tribute to the gods of the city and pay the whole gruesome $115 online. i found my ticket on the department of finance website. yes, $115. yes, almost overdue. but what was this? gray saturn station wagon, four-door sedan, my exact plate number, state of MINNESOTA??? v. fowler, traffic cop; my nemesis, my savior: was it a willful error? an innocent mistake? all i know is i'm off the hook.

the i am JANET! site is up, running, and fabulous! check it out!

in other exciting news, with help from kayrock screenprinting i just finished a batch of IAJ! t-shirts, available in four colors. pictures and purchase info to come soon.

i fold my hands and they don't feel like my own. my fingers feel thick, awkward. i make fists and my skin feels tight, my joints stiff, but i also notice a strength i didn't expect, surprising because it's my own body.

i spent the day moving as little as possible, and it was glorious. sweet, soft breezes came through my kitchen window as i savored every last section of the newspaper. i blinked slowly, breathed slowly, felt my heart slowly circulate blissful calm. i thought about going to the gym but sitting, still, seemed like a much better idea. i spent about an hour eating a plate of completely ungarnished celery and lettuce and i thoroughly enjoyed every bite. (raw vegetables, slowly chewed, how i have neglected thee!) later i cooked a hamburger of biodynamic local beef, medium rare, and ate it with onion, ketchup and mustard on sliced brioche i brought home from work. it was so wonderful that i made another, more rare than medium, and reeled in pleasure and amazement at how truly delicious quasi-raw beef could be. oh, self of two years ago, living on soymilk, dumpster bagels, and earth balance buttery spread, if only you could see me now!

it wasn't hard at all for me to relax today, though it might have been. my body shifted effortlessly from a seven-day, eight-shift stretch of physically demanding work to a steady, unwavering internal calm. did the release from work make it possible? or, maybe, was i actually calm all along? or did i yearn so strongly for the calm that i was powerless to its embrace when it finally arrived? like faraway lovers, sun and air and black skies filled with stars wait for me on distant shores, and i wait, unwavering in my loyalty even as i choke on smog under anemic grey-blue night skies, working working working, until the day we meet again.

savior of all womankind

so, big surprise, i've been working a lot.
a few weeks ago i started picking up the occasional night shift along with my usual day shifts, which significantly upped my workaholic factor. i took it up a few notches more last week when i worked a shaping shift (12-7) followed by night organics (7:30-3), and after a brief pause for not enough sleep, a return to work for a shaping shift the following day (12-7). twenty-two hours of work in a thiry-one hour period. some people do this all the time, i remind myself. (and those people are crazy!) during the last leg of this labor marathon, feeling ghostly and overcaffeinated, i was seriously questioning my judgement. until my supervisor made the comment of the month.

upon realizing that i was working my third shift in less than a day and a half, my shift supervisor turned to the production manager and spoke as if continuing a long-running conversation:
"and that's why women deserve the same rights as a man, because they work like a man."
in the space of a sentence, i went from overworked pushover to savior of all womankind. yes, my ghostly, overcaffeinated visage glowed with pride. i also found it humorously telling that women's rights had definitely been up for debate UNTIL i worked 3 shifts in 31 hours. so, in classic fashion, i calmly accepted the noon-to-three-a.m. double i worked yesterday without comment. like the overworked pushover i really am.


as for agreeing to work on my day off tomorrow, i had less noble motivations: a trade for leaving work early on sunday to see LADY SOVEREIGN AND JEAN GRAE IN CENTRAL PARK FOR FREE! yes.

i came home last night triumphant: i had managed to arrive safely, drunk but not wasted, high thanks to the generosity of strangers, deliciously exhausted, and best of all, alone. the evening had commenced with a perfectly executed social dinner with erin's parents, visiting from phoenix. ethan, erin, and i were charming, funny, and clever, ducking out at just the right time to have some of our own fun at the metropolitan. the bar was predictably full of pitfalls and opportunities: exes, hotties, old friends, awkward acquaintances, lurking drama. the evening progressed. i soon found myself friendless at a williamsburg bar thanks to a classic one-two bootycall punch, and having spurned my own such opportunity, i struck up conversation with strangers. soon i was in the passenger seat of a car headed down the BQE, a girl i didn't know behind the wheel, a guy i didn't know rolling a fat j in the back seat. graciously dropped off outside my door, i dodged the last obstacle of the evening, my new gentleman acquaintance's expert attempt to get in my pants. i confidently rejected him. i felt all the more accomplished because he was very attractive and i was tempted. unlocking the door of my apartment, i felt as though i had beaten the high score on some sort of urban nightlife videogame. one might typically imgaine that the goal of such a game would be to score the hookup, not reject it (twice in one night, even!), but that was precisely my triumph. nothing could have capped my night better than to fall asleep looking forward to a day without work, an opportunity to sleep in, hours and hours without obligations, and not even an overnight guest to distract me.

warning: explicit descriptions of heat and sweat

some of you, i know, may have been experiencing a bit of unpleasantly humid weather lately. i offer to you one consolation: you can be thankful that you don't have my job.

imagine a large room, lacking windows and having only one outside door. imagine that in this room are three--yes, three--huge ovens, each large enough to pass for a new york apartment bedroom (or a walk-in closet, at the very least). imagine that each of these ovens is heated to a steady 475-degree burn, shooting jets of steam every few minutes. actually, do your best just to imagine what 475 would feel like. now imagine that your job is to fill the ovens with soft, sticky dough, as quickly as possible, for hours on end. when the dough becomes bread, you empty the oven, and when the oven is empty, you reach your arms deep inside the belly of the beast to sweep its scalding ceramic floor with a long, unwieldy metal-handled broom, filling the impossibly humid, 475-degree air with clouds of black soot. and imagine that, while you're doing all of this, as quickly as possible, you're wearing (along with the usual shoes, socks, underwear, t-shirt, apron, hat, etc.) long pants made of roughly the same material that a flame-retardant acrylic tarp might be. what you're imagining is my life.

it's always hot in the bakery, and it's been really hot for a few months, but today's heat was an unparalleled endurance challenge. perpsiration welled from every surface of my body. while i was loading bread, i had to angle my head so that sweat didn't drip from my face onto the dough. every article of clothing i wore, including my apron, was completely, totally, thoroughly sweatsoaked. except for my pants, of course, which were mostly just sweat-coated. my eyes burned as they filled with warm salty liquid: nope, not tears! best of all, though, was the phenomenon visible on my arms. flying clouds of soot, ambient flour, and prodigious perspiration had joined forces to form a quarter-inch thick layer of the dough from hell from wrist to elbow. i also came home with several burns, as a half-second's contact was all the oven door needed to scar my warm, moist skin. my lungs also hurt. i tried not to breathe the air, i tried to wear a surgical mask, but my efforts were thwarted within minutes: ever tried breathing through hot, wet fabric strapped to your face with elastic? don't get me wrong, though: i love my job.

don't marry a douchebag

next week i'm going to a family reunion (of sorts) in indiana, which got me thinking about the people my cousins are dating, and inspired me to make up a half-song. it's in a country style, and called "don't marry a douchebag". it goes a little something like this:

if you're going to get married
as some people tend to do
do us all a favor
and start dating someone new
sure, he was the cutest
on your high school's wrestling team
but all your family hates him
'cause he's boring and he's mean.

don't marry a douchebag
don't marry a douchebag
don't marry a douchebag

we know your girlfriend's pretty
and she prob'ly gives good head
but don't buy that girl a diamond
just because her hair is red
yeah, you're from a small town
don't have many redheads there
but wed that lying cheating shrew
and you won't have a prayer.

don't marry a douchebag
don't marry a douchebag
don't marry a douchebag


please note that while this song was inspired by reality, no people or situations mentioned therein are intended to remsemble any real person, living or dead. it's just a country song.

however, if any of my cousins are by some miracle of the internet reading this post, consider that it might still be a good idead to think twice before you tie the knot. really. please.