Riddle

Here is a riddle:

What picks up used syringes up off the bathroom floor, gets majorly hit on by a drunk gay guy, and watches the Oregon Sympony perform all of "Peter and the Wolf"?

Hint: It's a custodian.

Answer: It's me, at work.

I have a very interesting job. Between vehemently and respectfully turning down a man's romantic entreaties and cleaning bathrooms, I get to do stuff like read for fun. I also have learned more about cleaning chemicals and how recycling works in Oregon.

Right now I am listening to Elvis Costello. When he was first starting out as a musician in the mid seventies, he worked as a computer programmer as a day job. So I have been thinking about the possibility of me making it big as a rock star and later, people will read about me on wikipedia and it will say "He worked as a lowly custodian during the day, but at night, he totally cut loose and rocked his brains out!"

But I'm not counting on it.

Life in Zion...er..I mean, Portland

You know you are in Portland when you see pumpkins on people's doorsteps carved to look like the messiah (aka Barack Obama).

Tomorrow night, I will be cleaning the bathrooms during a ZZ Top concert. Should be...interesting? What WAS interesting and exciting was the part of a piano concerto I got to watch over the weekend.

Sometimes I Read

I recently started reading St. Augustine's City of God for fun. He wrote a few years after the barbarians first sacked Rome. He wrote it to counter the many pagans who blamed the Christians for Rome's downfall, since the Christians didn't sacrifice to the Roman gods. He goes on to describe the contrast between the city of man (the state/world) and the city of God (what God is doing now and in the future), and how man's only true hope is in the city of God. I wanted to read it because I've been thinking a lot lately about America and how she isn't quite as strong as she used to be. In this political season, there are a lot of people running around (especially here in Portland) who seem to put all of their hope in a political figure or agenda. For being 1600 years old, Augustine's words are eerily relevant.

I read this part today and it blew me away because of how much it reminds me of Americans today. Augustine is referring to an old Roman general named Scipio who voted in 146BC against destroying Carthage, the capital of Rome's number on enemy. The senate voted to go ahead and destroy it, and Scipio dutifully carried it out. Scipio didn't want to destroy Carthage because he feared that in the absence of an enemy, the Romans would grow so comfortable that they would drown in the vomit of their own luxuries.

Augustine is telling his detractors that the destruction of Rome has done nothing to curb their licentiously destructive and vain lifestyles and points to the pagan example of Scipio:

"This was the foul plague-spot, this the wreck of virtue and honour that Scipio sought to preserve you from when he prohibited the construction of theaters; this was his reason for desiring that you might still have an enemy to fear, seeing as he did how easily prosperity would corrupt and destroy you. He did not consider the republic flourishing whose walls stand, but whose morals are in ruin.

But the seductions of evil-minded devils had more influence with you than the precautions of prudent men. Hence the injuries you do, you will not permit to be imputed to you; but the injuries you suffer, you impute to Christianity. Depraved by good fortune, and not chastened by adversity, what you desire in the restoration of a peaceful and secure state, is not the tranquillity of the commonwealth, but the impunity of your own vicious luxury.

Scipio wished you to be hard pressed by an enemy, that you might not abandon yourselves to luxurious manners; but so abandoned are you, that not even when crushed by the enemy is your luxury repressed. You have missed the profit of your calamity; you have been made most wretched, and you have remained most profligate."

i have slain unemployment (for now)

I'll admit that I've been a bit slow on updating the ol' blog for the last couple weeks. And I am not going to apologize for it.

Nope.

Because I don't take crap from anyone.

Because I don't need to.

BECAUSE I AM A UNION MEMBER.

That's right, friends. I have officially joined a union. And by "joined a union", I really mean, "having no choice and being forced into a union in order to get my current job".

After finishing one and a half majors and starting another, I am officially and rapidly scaling the success ladder.

I have made it in the world.

I am somebody.

I work twenty hours a week.

I AM A UNIONIZED CUSTODIAN.

You heard right again. I got a job polishing brass, cleaning bathrooms, and picking up trash at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. This has turned out to be a great job so far...I have a bunch of down time while working and can read for school/pleasure, roam around, eat the occasional free cookie, and view whatever performances happen to be going on. Last night I got to watch about 45 minutes of the ballet "Swan Lake". It was fantastic. I have little exposure to the ballet world, but I am learning and trying to appreciate it more.

In a couple weeks I'll be working during a ZZ Top show. I've heard that they are bringing 7 tour busses. One for each of the band members (beards and all) and four for everyone else.

So far, I am pretty unsure of why the heck the union is important. So far, the only thing I can tell it does is limits the number of hours I work. The union says "you can't work more than 32 hours a week". I say, "Yes I can. You don't know me." They say, "No you can't." Maybe I will find out more as the job goes on, but so far the union seems pretty silly.