Saturday, June 26, 2010

Job satisfaction

I picked back up my old summer job, the one at the candy place. This causes me to cast my mind back to my once-upon-a-time job at the supermarket, my first-ever in an endless succession of mindless Jobz 2 Pay 4 Kolij. That one stands alone, though, in that it inspired my supermarket musical, Aisle Six -- the one that's perpetually Between Readings in the city. (This has something to do with my personally having not been in the city much lately. But I digress.) There was just something, something unique, about the way you'd walk into the store in the morning only to be FWOOOOOM instantly engulfed in a steaming toxic cloud of employee hate fumes, mixed with just a hint of whatever the bakery had whipped up that morning. Of course, as you would gradually realize over the course of the work day, your co-workers weren't just embittered crazed foam-mouthed paranoid loons bent on the destruction of all those around them. They were also - and I say this from the bottom of my heart - generally homely.

All of this just totally screamed musical theatre at me.

Anymore, I think only of the musical itself. The experience that inspired it was so unimportant in the first place that generally I forget it even happened. But the candy store brings it all back. Not because it's similar -- quite the opposite, in fact. I've found it to be an unfailingly lovely, non-aggravating place to work. If I were to write a musical about it, all the scenes would consist of me leaning over an ice cream counter idly thumbing through whatever book I had brought with me. Sometimes - in a true Show-Stopping Number - a customer would come in and buy something. The heart-pounding climax would consist of me washing the store utensils for the night, during which I once cut my finger.

Bummer. You don't want to think that experiences like the former only happen once. Or ... wait, yes, you do.

Job satisfaction: talk about your muse-killer!










Wednesday, June 23, 2010

It's up!

"You and Me is Quits (That's Command-Q): A Contemporary Primer on Dating -- Minus the Dating" is now up at weBEgirls, where it's the featured post of the day.

More to come!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Mes chers amis,

My apologies for another long absence. What have I been up to? Reverse culture shock, mainly, and making puppets. As evidence of the latter, I present you: Insecurity Blanket.




(He's the one on the right.)

I've been pondering whether to continue this over the summer as a photo retrospective of stuff from France, or as a sort of what-have-you chronicle of the present, as I've done before. Or both. Any preferences?

In the meantime, they put a couple more of my theatre reviews up (in French) at Allées et Venues. They're a few posts down.

Also, come next week, I'll be contributing to the blog weBEgirls as an occasional columnist, about twice a month. Check back around Wednesday for my first feature, a primer on online relationships.

À bientôt (really).
Nicola