Tag Archives: Job

Champagne

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The first boy I ever dated was a mistake. We met in the summer of our sophomore year.  And it was not even at school.  It so happened that he and I were separately joining the Red Cross as Youth Volunteers.  Sometimes, I admit this with shame and reluctance, but I was planning on being a doctor, and therefore, I was planning, this particular summer, my Curriculum Vitae for the review of the Schools of Medicine, starting with a great start at the Red Cross.

So, as the last school term was ending in June, I saw on the bulletin boards, the opportunity to join a Youth Committee that would involve itself in the business of the Red Cross.  I already held a job at the Public Library, as a Page, but, this volunteer position would be the first job I held that would require my performance to guarantee my position on the Committee for the following year.  This was an impressive leap for me. Where, my talents were really not required in any other job, being a part of a group of people who had to define their jobs to have a job to do, was something I saw as rewarding talent.  I was sure that I could do this job.

Now, the issue of my first boyfriend.  He had the same reasons for joining as I did.  We were the youngest in the group of people who became the first Volunteer Youth  Committee Members.  The others were also a mix of men and women, who were, also, in school, but they were mostly studying sciences at university.

We met as an official Committee once a month on Sunday.  I had to get up early, to go to a closed and locked office, and sit for an hour-and-a-half listening and joining debates on our activity and the justification of this activity.  In the winter, which was only part of my tenure for one season, we tended to not do any fund-raising work, but we concentrated our work, but we concentrated our work with the other youth volunteers, who worked during the weekends at the malls, to register blood donors and usher these people through the experience.  This was as close to an official job that I could get.  So, for the first summer, during the meetings, and our planned fund-raisers, I was busy.

My boyfriend and I met at the second official meeting.  It was the second meeting for me, but it was the first time he showed up.  We both rode our bicycles into the tiny parking lot, and, since this was before people thought of cyclists, we both rode up to the steel stair railing where we both intended to lock our bikes.  As I did not even make notice of him, he casually asked, if he could lock his bike with mine, as he forgot his lock.  Of course, since this was before the time I suspected criminals to be young and devious, I whole-heartedly agreed.  And, so, we locked our bikes together and went into the meeting.

Now, this was not how we actually became involved with each other.  We went home our separate ways at the end of the meeting.  We were not savvy enough to talk each other into dating.  And this leads me to the mistake.  About one week later, after this initial introduction, a physical confirmation of age and sex, I received a phone call.  It was the boy with the bike, and he had asked to lock it with mine.  Could he ask me on a date?

I was pleasantly surprised, and, not exactly smart enough to know that there was something illegal happening.  At leasst, not until the next meeting.  It seems, this boy called me, and several other girls who were affiliated with the Red Cross, as Youth, in different capacities.  He was able to call, in the first place, because he was able to “scam” the Receptionist into giving him the list with phone numbers.  The other girls were savvy enough and complained to the management at the office, and got an immediate response, which included a reprimand, of my first boyfriend, who was a mistake.

It was also a lucky summer and year serving at the Red Cross, as this boyfriend and I ended up dating for two years, and he ended up taking me to Prom.  This is a happy story, and, even though I like to think of myself as someone who is savvy, I really was not that lucky in dating.  I have been on more dates than is “legal” or advisable.  Now, though, I carry this experience with  me.  I carry it, because it is light and I feel grateful for being able to be part of people’s lives.  I sometimes look at this particular situation as “the one” that started it all.  I do, in this way, cherish him more than I cherish the others, as they were time and experience, again, beyond knowing what to do.  So, even though he is “technically” a “mistake,” he was probably the most real of my boyfriends.

We have no more contact with each other, and I have no more contact with any of the ones I did date.  And, as experience is, these dates become examples of life happening.  The more time there is between me now and me at a very young age, keeps increasing, and also, as time keeps increasing, I mention and look to these experiences even less.  I have become less obsessed with having lived that life!

So, I toast my glass to that life and drink champagne to enjoy the life that I have.  Cheers!

Is the Beginning of the End Too Late?

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Is the beginning of the end too late?  I know I have already asked this question, at least once this year, but it is rearing its enormous head, yet again, begging my attention.  I feel that everything that is happening, with my job, with my family, and with my interests and pastimes, are all coming to some sort of end.  The thing?  Well, a simple, “What is going to happen next week?”

It is easy for me to be a coward, until, that is, I realize that if I choose to not do something, that I will literally end up with nothing.

The next step?  I need to be clear that I want my job, that I want to be with my family, and that I value my lesser talents in my hobbies.  Yes, an enormous and ugly head is rearing itself up, right now.

So, in this end, I ask, “Let’s do something!”

With some disposable money, a short trip outside of this one horse town is possible.  Then again, visiting friends or throwing a big party and inviting some out of town guests is always fun too… and probably something worthwhile if I can promise some fun and a magical tour of the city’s bars in the trendy and bar part of town.

About time….  My children are going to be hanging around the house for the whole summer!  Should I promise them another Camp  Summer?  Or, should I home school for two months and have themselves teach themselves a new skill?  And to practice on it?  I had perspicacious parents who did this to me every summer.  I would get home from summer school, which was filling half the day, and i would have to read books, practice piano, or do a chore like bake muffins or cookies.  Having responsibilities like these made me aware that I was more privileged than other children.  It made me aware that I had a lot more to do, than just come home and watch television.  I actually loved a lot of the things that happened to me in childhood, and I valued the things I could do, and having control over these talents, tasks, and knowing things when I heard other people talk, helped to keep me interested in school, life, and other people.  I accredit my parents for being the smart and cool parents for doing so.

So, this end that I see approaching, very quickly, is it for real?  Is it too early for everything to end?  or is it in fact too late?  Am I now too old to start a second career?  Am I too bored with my job to be able to do another similar job?  Do I have time to go back to school and find that magical, hoped for, favorite second job?  all these things are true, which makes me ask myself, “Am I filled with enough energy to handle two lives happening to just one person?”  Can I be a student and still be a parent to a family and a wife to a husband?  While I go to school, will I have time and money to cope with all of it?  I really cannot take out a second mortgage for myself, while I also envision taking out a mortgage for my children’s education.

With responsibilities pressuring me in a way that I could’ve never understood before, I feel as if I am giving up on myself in order that I am responsible for my children.  As well as for my husband.  Being a wife and mother changes priorities.  Men will always win, as men are.  And I am willing to put my education somewhere at the back, where perhaps, when all monetary responsibility for my children and also my physical responsibility for providing a home to them, is past.  It is not as if I have lost hope in myself.  It is at this fork in the road that I yet again, take the right hand fork.  I can’t see how far it leads, or, where it will begin again, but I am confident in being here.

If I can convince my children to fend for themselves a few days in the week, with promises to pay for visits to the theme park or the water park, and maybe a ten day trip family camping or going to rented cottage, this summer, I think I can still live with myself.  I will have the time to indulge, in secret, my interest in art.  As I fumble with the pencil in my hand, and play with the color of paint.  This looks as if it will become a satisfying two months, before the next time  I will have to yet, again, make the THE decision.  I will have to decide whether to be more of a mom, more of a wife, or more of me.  So, for now, it is done.

Startled By The Startling

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It has happened several times already, to me, and twice just in the beginning of this year till now.  When I ride the subway, I am enclosed in a tube that travels fast in a darkened tunnel.  The noise is a din, and sometimes, the subway car will shake and rattle….  And thankfully, it has not yet rolled.

During the ride, I will sometimes turn my head to look out the window.  And, on occasion, I have seen full-grown, rotund in girth, men….  Standing inside the tunnel, inches from being brushed hard and forcefully by the subway car.  They are often in helmets and reflective vests, as well as their construction pants.  It is a startle each and every single time.

I have been reflecting on this phenomenon, and it leads me to ponder the ideas that men have about “Design.”

There is a museum in Toronto, the Museum of Contemporary Design, called the Design Exchange, that I visited around the time I first happened to spot one of the many men of the TTC standing in the tunnels….  Almost  as if I was only going to get my questions about the oddity of men’s behavior answered.

Just thinking about fifty-year-old engineers gleefully measuring out the inches in a tunnel is a funny thought.  It makes me chuckle a little, but also, to turn my “fun hat” around and think more seriously about “design.”  Building buildings and tunnels and bridges takes a lot of money.  The type of money that governments of the world hold and spend.  So, would there actually be a fifty-year-old engineer, gleefully mapping out the construction of a subway and the tunnels, just thinking in passing, of creating enough space for utility and safety…  Or…., would this engineer be without care, spending enormous amounts of money just to have some fun?

So, being unable to justify spending millions on a few extra inches, I went to the only place that was open to the public that dealt with the study of design–The Design Exchange.

The day I decided to go to the museum, was a hot, sunny, August day.  I decided to wak there from the office I work in.  It was around time to leave the office and go home for dinner, and, surprisingly, since I did not do this very often, I noted that a lot of people choose to walk a few blocks rather than stand in the heat and eventually sweat in the sauna of a transit streetcar.  It took me twenty minutes to get there.  I got reprieve from the many tall office buildings.  It was almost as if tall and large buildings are built in the new world of summer heat just to be enough shade that interior city streets can be kept cool by the buildings’ enormous shadows.  The Design Exchange is just in the south end of the Business District, and is, itself, housed in a very tall building.  It is on Toronto’s Stock Exchange street, Bay Street, which is equivalent to New York’s Wall Street.

Inside the front lobby, which was spacious with a two storey ceiling, the materials for a display on printmaking, bookbinding, and eReaders was placed near the entranceway.  It felt welcoming as the objects looked familiar and this made me think that I wouldn’t have to read all the written material and feel completely lost to the meaning.

There were many examples of print, and a history of print font, starting from the Bible to Newspapers and Magazines, and even into the digital print font that we are all now surrounded by, more than anything that is printed on paper.  The display only dealt with the international language, English, rather than any other print font of another language.  But I am sure I understand the idea of the change in font throughout history.

Inside an alcove just behind the main display was a somewhat smaller, more artistic, display of books on shelves of different heights.  It was a mini-review of the design of the book cover over the decades as the printed word became more and more accessible and saleable.  Finally, the last part I looked at was a written piece about the utility of the eReader in comparison to the longevity of the printed book.  This essay, by a prominent editor, might be floating around the internet right now in one incarnation or another.

After this gold-mine, I still had the “Store” to visit.  It was another display of objects and art that involve design.  Practically everything was in it….  If not in object form, then in the form of a picture.  No mention of money was ever made in this mini-museum display, but my understanding is that advanced civilizations are very minutely designed in everything.  This is an area of work that is rewarding, probably both monetarily and socially.  Designing things that are useful, fun, surprising, pleasing, accommodating, and, that others can find and want, is a true career.  There is no end to the work that needs to be done, and therefore no end to the job.  There will always be money in Art and Desgin.  I am thinking back to the men in the tunnel.  I am sure they find the “neatness” of being able to continue their work even when trains keep running through, and past, them, one of the reprieves of their job.  It would probably take more than double the time to do what it is they do, if they could only work when there were no trains running by.

In life, making money and having lots of friends while doing it, is truly rewarding.  It is almost a requirement in the job description to make it happen successfully.  I think I am truly envious AND jealous of all designers.  In my next life, I will become what is becoming….  A practitioner of that which rules the world.