I hate Smoke Free Bay

You know what sucks about non-smoking bars?

I'll tell you.

You see a girl who so matches your personal definition of perfect that you can't help but try to chat her up.

So you go with the tried and true standard and buy her a drink.

Which, my being Sam and all didn't work.

But it got her to notice me.

Out on the dance floor our eyes met, she smiled, and started drifting towards me (along with the mandatory plain-Jane friend chaperon).

That is until some one let off a beer-fart.

Honestly, for once it wasn't me.

But boogying to salsa only goes so far when the girl of your naughty dreams thinks nerve gas comes out of your bottom.

If they'd only let people smoke I might have been having rather lovely sex right now rather than drunkenly scribbling out this stupid blog entry....

stupid health Nazis!

The Autumn of My Introspection.

I always get introspective in the fall. There's just something about the change in seasons, the way the world seems to slow down. The tang in the air as the leaves turn and the ground gets wetter and colder acts like some sort of sedative on little old me. I find myself skipping trips to the pool or the gym, taking the stupid bus instead of walking, laying about on sofas with my nose buried in a book or zoned out on a video, so far away from productive that standing up to try to glimpse it over the horizon seems like way too much work.

This year my usual fall down-time is proving particularly difficult. For starters, my new job while demanding, leaves me with alot more free time than I'm used to. With an appartment to refurbish and a ton of projects I've wanted to take care of, I should have no prob filling up the free time.

But I'm not.

Faced with removing walls and laying flooring and painting and installing and rewiring a kitchen, I just kinda putter out. I want my own place, but goddamn that's more work than I thought at first. Or maybe my autumn induced ennui just opened the proverbial can of whup-ass on my manic summer optimism.

House sitting for Embles & Co. raises its own issues. For starters, giving a confirmed TV junky like me access to so many channels (including three Discovery variants, National Geographic, The History Channel, and BBC Food) means that I fight a constant battle between getting anything done and "just checking to see what's on". Throw in internet at Embles and at home and, well, nothing happens. A whole lot of lazy ass nothing.

Then there's applying for Icelandic citizenship. For the longest time this was one of my most sought after goals, allowing me to live and work in more places with fewer restrictions than my Imperial Passport.

Problem is, the closer I get to Icelandicness, the less I want to be here. I want to take off, and a big part of me doesn't want to take off to a new place, but back to the green and misty mountains and the gooey duck (I prefer the funky old spelling) infested shores of my native Washington. Its just that despite the fact that I hate the current situation there, I can see hope not just for change, but change in the direction I've been thinking about, writing about, and dreaming about for years.

Meanwhile Iceland just bugs the hell out of me. The stupid socio/political crap that seems to never change and that few, if any will ever do anything about. Trust me when I say I've got a load of rant built up about that. But its also the weather (heavy rains just ain't the same without a canopy of evergreens) the lack of well, Washington-ness. I miss fall leaves that don't get blown straight off the trees. I miss pumpkins and making cider, drying apples, starting up the wood stove for the first time, hell I even miss splitting the wood! I miss clam chowder and clams steamed in beer. I miss peroskies and lattes at the Pike Place. I miss Mac&Jacks. I miss Rail Road Books, Peirce County Libraries on rainy days, the Puyallup Farmer's Market and the Fair. I miss driving into Tacoma for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I miss going out the coast in winter to watch the waves crash and the sand blow about and the trees bend half-sideways in the rain. I miss eating local. I miss Dad's garden. I mean, an episode of "No Reservations" when he visited Seattle recently left me in tears.

See what I mean.

Fall has me falling flat.

I have to go take care of the kiddies at recess, more later...

I just reached a new low...

So you know how you used to skip classes every now and again back in school?

I mean, I did, alot, but then again I was in a study program that made it hellaciously easy. So skippin' school has never been anything I cared about. I tend to believe that if I kid doesn't want to be there in the first place, they'll be less likely to learn and more prone to fuck shit up for the teacher, so just let'em skip.

Of course, it doesn't work out so well when the teacher (c'est moi) forgets his schedule and full misses and entire class.

When I realized and came running into the room, they were all quietly doing their homework.

Sneaky bastards must have posted a look out...

Talkin' 'bout a revolution...

This is so gonna get me hashed on the comments...

So as I'm walking through the bright Fall sun this morning, tramping my way to work through an increasingly traffic-jammed Rvk, I was pondering some of the political/social questions that always plague the Icelandic life of Sma.

I managed to puzzle out just what it is that makes Icelanders as a nation such an apathetic people in the poli-social arena.

Its really very simple. Maybe too simple.

But my theory is that its all due to the fact that they've never had a revolution here. Ever. At least not one they started.

Some English sailor tried to take over the country during Iceland's time as a Danish colony, but the Danes, or the Icelanders granted power by the Danes put him down.

The Icelanders didn't gain their independence with a long and costly struggle against the Danes, rather they had it rather unexpectedly handed to them courtesy of both the Axis (who invaded Denmark) and Allied (who invaded Iceland) powers during WWII.

The economic revolution that transformed Iceland after WWII had a great deal more to do with copying other nations and massive influxes of cash thanks to the Marshal Plan than with anything the Icelanders did themselves. (Sorry, but its true)

About the closest thing they've had to a real revolution here was the women's rights movement, which led to at least official equality of the sexes here on the lava lump. But even that movement, after the heady days of the general strike, slowly withered away into an establishment, which then withered away into a bureaucracy.

The thing about revolutions is that even when they fail, they instill a bit of that rebellious spirit, that urge and drive to rise up and change things.

But there's no history of that here. Which is one of the central reasons why protest isn't so much looked down on but rather not understood.

"Why are these people shouting and yelling for change?" the average Icelander asks themselves, "They ought to just write a letter to Möggan and get back to work".

Why am I applying for citizenship again?

Wanderlust

I've been dreaming of far-flunbg places lately, especially India.

I just finished watching one of those Michael Palin travel shows, which made me want to go walkabout even more.

I'm just terrified of the the Bombay trots and such. As any regular reader of this rant well knows I have the immune system of a irradiated baby seal with a lymphatic disorder.

But scary as it is for me, I really want to just pull up stakes and go. I think it's the combo of having had my life turned around combined with my usual autumn-induced bout of introspection. I want to run off to India, or bugger off to France, take off to Latvia where my friends are starting a restaurant or go bike across the US. Anything but stay here and teach bored teenagers to sit still and obey orders while pretending that English is the real lesson.
Funny how quickly what you want becomes what you want to escape, eh?

The Teaching Life...

I just finished my first three classes.

It went OK.

Despite the random class cancellations.

Despite the dust and paint fumes.

Despite the masonry drills and general banging.

So now I'm surfing the net for slightly more up-to-date ESL lessons, listening to Ryan Harvey, and trying to look like I know just what the hell I'm doing.

But I don't.

Seriously, not a god damn clue.

I mean, the teaching is a breeze. I'm good at that. Its the rest of it, the attendance and writing down every little thing, the seemingly meaningless coffee-klatching that seems to the only way things get organized, and the constant photocopying-binding-folding-stabling-ad-infifuckingnitum.

I mean, I don't know about the rest of them, but this English teacher has got himself a text book to teach from and a collection of class readings (My own, I'm not making them read that tired ass out dated Oxford Reader crap, no sir) and hence feels no need to make up complicated spiral-bound assignments on a weekly basis.

Which makes me look lazy.

But honesty is my strongest defence.

When the principal asked me what sort of work I wanted I replied "As little as I can manage".

Not that I think it will stay like this. Oh, no. It'll get crazy soon enough. With the testing and stress and "discipline" and crap like that. But for now, its shockingly, surprisingly easy.

Gonna go watch something on You Tube now...then sneak off for a chat with my friend Nic and some lunch.

They don't pay me enough for anything else.

I'm back...kinda...

Just a brief note to let people know that soon (ish) I'll be up and blogging again.

I think.

Thing is that after being netless for the better part of a month, I no longer feel the need to log in every chance I get. Combine that with the fact that my relatively easy new job (Assistant Gym Teacher! How funny is that!?) suddenly metamorphosed into a full-time English gig teaching 8-10th graders with no warning whatsoever and you get a Sma who is very the busy and insanely the freaked.

Been watching to much Buffy I guess.

But, yeah, major wiggins with an extra helping of wig.

Meanwhile my new place has yet to see anything in the way of remodeling done, my ten-day vacation to the glorious north plus the standard first week of work flu have seen to that. So I'm still kitchen-and-showerless.

Hopefully I'll be getting the particulars figured out soon and then go all Bob Buildery on the place while house-sitting (i.e. mooching interweb and cable) for Embla and Klaus while they're off gallivanting around Thailand.

Other than that, not much is up aside from my impending 31rst birthday. I'm really not sure what I want to do for it. Usually I throw a massive do, but this year I might settle for a nice dinner with friends and a couple a beers.

Which makes me afraid I'm going all mature and shit.

So to combat it, I'm going to finish this random ramble with a b-day wish list of doom.

I wanna...

Kitchen!

Parquet!

Furniture!

Internet Connection!

Seasons 2-??? of Stargate SG1

Buffy Buffy Buffy!!!

The Iron Council, Perdido Street Station, and The Scar by China Mielville!!!

Angel season 1-???!

Both Hjálmar albums!!!

Jeff Who!!!

Black leather jewelry (studded or un)!!!

Whiskey!!!

A naughty weekend with either Salma or Alyson "Willow-was-the-cutest-lesbian-ever" Hannigan!!!

Or just a good day with good friends.

I'm not that picky really...