Civilian

The TatVeg does not apologize for his prolonged absence.  He has been out of town and busy having his spirit crushed by work.  Despite having only a few weeks more to go until the end of this god-forsaken project and with the future looking semi-bright, he still finds it difficult to drag himself out of bed in the morning to face another day of interacting with people who refer to him with niceties such as, "pathetic" or "space cadet" or "screw up" or "failure."  After two years of hearing it almost daily, it's difficult to not let a little of it sink in.

Plus one of the tenants of this blog is that I only write in it as a passive aggressive way to stick it to the man when I should be working.  I haven't had a lot of opportunities to do the appropriate sticking because I've been so busy being condescended to and belittled to find the time.  It ain't easy being a tattooed vegetarian in the white collar world.

What?  You thought I was just a vegetarian with tattoos?  That it was just a catchy name?  I live that shit.   Am I the only one that thinks that garlic clove kinda looks like balls?  I'm probably going to regret pointing that out publicly...

Consequently I've had to find other means to express my dissidence.  I've stopped clocking in and out of the office.  Have grown a beard -and told the world I won't shave until the project is finished.  Am sitting at my desk in a t-shirt and what I lovingly refer to as my "weekend pants." And plan to leave the office today four hours early.

According to my friend James, this look makes me appear more approachable. 

I do still look for the little things though

If you can decipher the meaning of this shirt, please let me know.

Or the big things:

The view from my beer on Thursday evening

Despite the fact that it's been a somewhat dark holiday season,

 at least the world didn't end on the 21st and I still have bicycles to ride, despite not having time to, you know ride them (yet).  I encourage you to find a comfy spot in your life-sized foil-barn-manger scene complete with plastic savior (chained down, of course, for the sake of security).

Crack open a cool can of Bird's Nest and think about all the good things you do have.

Made from real bird's nests!  Good for health

Like live chickens in a wicker bag.

I'm sure it's cozy in there.  Chickens love boats , but you already knew that

Perhaps you could call your friends over for lunch and a relaxing "friend nap."  They'll love it!

You'll be thrilled you kept that refrigerator box handy

Or maybe you could invite them over to try out that new chair you got for Christmas

No, seriously.  This is what the elephant wanted.

There's really no reason to be alone on the holidays

And try not to think about the failures of this year

But focus on the things that make us smile

Leave the bad times in the past

Learn from your mistakes and focus on doing better next time

And above all:

I only wanted the "stay alive no matter what occurs!" part of this clip.  It's way too long.  But it does remind me of a story.

I saw this movie (Last of the Mohicans -or LotM if you're a hipster) at the Classic Triple movie theater for 99 cents in 1992.  I went with a guy friend named Chris, who drove us in his 26-foot long Buick and a certain girl who will remain nameless.  The girl and eye held sweaty hands all the way through the 2+ hour epic,  and then made out in the back seat of Chris's Buick all the way home.  This is notable because I managed to regain full movement of my hand, which was locked in a half-fist from the hand-holding marathon and touched a real-live boob for the first time.  Ah, the memories....  Thank you Daniel Day-Lewis.

From that experience I learned this made prime make-out music.  It was good from about 1993 until about 1998.  Now the ladies just laugh if you put it on and try to set a mood.  Does that make me old?

Twenty years has gone by fast....  Listening to that now it's a wonder any girl ever talked to me, let alone allowed me to touch her boob.

Interestingly enough, I had a major falling out with that girl about six months later when I learned she had also enjoyed some time in the backseat of Chris's car with Chris himself.  This was done while I was grounded for staying out past curfew so I could make out with her in the back seat of my car.  We didn't speak for more than ten years, and I quietly despised her from afar.  Then I ran into her and her new husband at our ten year high school reunion.  I took a lot of pleasure saying "no" when they propositioned me and tried to get my date and I to come back to their house for some "group activities."  Revenge is sweet.  And if you're shocked by that, what kind of behavior do you expect from a girl whose parents were both psychologists?

Whistle

Last Saturday I sat at home and wrote a lousy blog post where I spent nearly an hour thinking up, and then alphabetizing the names of strippers*.  As I engaged in that activity, I was listening to what I like to call "shit pop."  Katy Perry, Flo Rida and other pop songs that have little to no redeeming value**.  They exist only to get stuck in your head so you can have the same hook loop in your mind for a 90km bike ride.  Anyway, I was listening to the song "Whistle" by Flo Rida while our maid, Ms. T, hovered around the room cleaning the floor**.

*How could I have possibly forgotten the other Eastern European standby stripper name, Natasha?  I'm slipping in my old age...
*I realize that this music is something of a weakness for me.  I know I should hate it, but, just like my new Hello Kitty iPhone cover, I love it because I shouldn't.
**Maybe the most yuppie sentence I've ever written here.  The fact that we have a maid is somewhat embarrassing simply because we would never even consider this sort of thing in America.  If you can't keep your own house clean, get a smaller house.  I get it.  The problem is that in order to live in the neighborhood we wanted to live in, we either had to have a too large house, or live in a closet.  We went for the slightly too large house and hired someone to help us keep it clean.

Here is the song in question:

I think it's safe to say that Ms. T has saved our sanity and our relationship.  For the first six months or so in our slightly too large house, Reyna and I would spend 2/3 of our Saturdays cleaning and doing laundry.  It sucked.  Now we have time to do other things, like write lame blog posts on the weekends.  Although it is a little embarrassing to have a mid 50s woman doing household chores while we sit on the couch and watch television, Ms. T doesn't seem to care.  I'm pretty sure she loves working for us simply because we are American and she loves all things American.  It might also be because we pay her more than we probably should, but I'll chalk that up to our "western guilt."  But I digress.

As the song (this was a post about a song, remember?) faded out, Ms. T stopped cleaning, turned to me and we had the following exchange:

MT: I like that song.  It's my favorite song.  Next week can I bring a USB* and get the song from you?
Me: Sure.  Do you have an email address? I can just email it to you if you want.
MT: No.  No email.
Me:  Do you have a computer?
MT: No

*She couldn't remember the word for USB, but I figured it out from her charades.  Her English is not great, but it's a hell of a lot better than our Vietnamese.  Also, what I wrote aren't her exact words.  I am simply quoting the intent, because to write it like she speaks would make her appear stupid or slow, which she absolutely is not.

The questions came in waves that went something like this.  I asked none of them, but have been plagued by them since our exchange.

1. How does one listen to a song saved onto a jump drive without a computer? I can just picture little 54-year-old Ms. T sitting in an internet cafe rocking out to Flo Rida while all the gamers stop their first-person shooters to stare at her.
2. Does Ms. T have a full understanding of what the song is actually about? 
3. Is Flo Rida capable of writing an international hit song that isn't about getting blown?  

I guess the answer to that last question is yes..... sort of.