A response to unionization...

...by my one modern Czech lit professor friend, via text:

That's great.  You know if admin hates it so much then it must be good.

. . .

Unionization election victory!

So, my unionization efforts with my one library job paid off.

It was wonderful to be present for the vote count.

Almost 30 people were there to watch the NLRB guy count up the votes, and it was interesting to see the procedure that takes place in front of witnesses in order to have a mutually acknowledged valid election.

First off, all the votes were marked in a blind voting booth, just like in a normal election, with people coming in from work and having their names checked off on an eligible voters list in the presence of representatives from both management and unionizing employees.

Second, with the actual vote count, it happened again in front of representatives from both management and employees, and the NLRB guy removed all the votes from the cardboard boxes that he had always kept possession of, slit them and showed the collapsed box to the witnesses so that they could see that there were no votes remaining inside somehow, and then set the boxes aside and sorted the votes out into two piles, which he then at the end counted out one-by-one, holding out each vote in turn to show that the vote was indeed cast as he said it was.

It was great because there was just one vote to his left, and then more and more and more on his right, like 15+ in a row, and it became clear to everyone that that must be the "Yes!" pile.

At that point, a person standing near me nudged me and was like, "Look!", and they pointed out to me that the admin lawyer had started slumping down in his chair in defeat.

I was giggling at how funny it was, as the "Yes!" votes racked up, all until another couple votes against were set aside, and then the situation stopped being so funny.

Also, at the very end, when the NLRB guy went to go and read the votes, he was like, "Votes yes," and then went with his hands towards the "no" pile and faked everyone out, and then went to the big old pile of "Yes!" votes and began counting them one-by-one.

Neighborhood people: Trash-picking lady.

The other week I popped out my apartment's back gate to the alley to go and take my shortcut off towards the subway stop, and the one (little) (old) (Chinese) woman with a cart who I've seen before was right at a can right out back behind my apartment's back gate.

"Good morning!", I was like.

"Gooh - mor - ning," she said, each word strongly tonal, as if she had translated the typical English lilt into Chinese high and low and descending tones or whatever.

Twice recently, too, I've come out into the back alley in the morning and seen her way up the street in the alley picking through cans.

Our morning schedules must decently overlap.

Putting two and two together.

A lot of times my days are so long that I feel like I'm on a different day by the time my day ends.

One day at work at my library job, I overheard my two quasi-supervisors talking about free donuts in the breakroom, and I half-wondered if I could get some, since student workers really don't use the place.

Later that same week at my library job, the student coffee shop in the library was closed because the student manager had died, and that evening when I was talking with circ workers everyone was wondering if it was a suicide, though no-one really knew.

That weekend, I was hanging out with my one library circulation supervisor friend, and she mentioned that they had decided to shut down the library coffee shop that day and the pastries had already been delivered, so they brought them down to the breakroom for the staff.

It was only then that I put two and two together, and realized that both things actually happened on the same day, and that the free pastries in the breakroom were the result of a girl's suicide.

A douche-y new bar.

The other week when I went on a newbarhopping marathon, I texted my one friend who lives with her boyfriend on the outskirts of a major hipster neighborhood in city about getting together, and she said she would, but not for this one new bar that had opened near her, since it was douche-y.

I didn't know which bar she was talking about, and I said that to her by text, so she texted me the name, and I still didn't know it.

So, the next weekend, I ended up there as the end of another newbarhopping marathon night, and I was honestly surprised at the hipster douchiness, since I thought she had just been stereotyping and exaggerrating.

The building was cinderblock with old time-y paint on it, and extensive metal lawn furniture outside, and inside there was framed retro sporting equipment like boxing gloves.

The whole thing just seemed so put-on and unnecessary, especially compared to (mostly hispanic) (working class) neighborhood around it.

A dream of a different apartment layout.

The other week I dreamt -

I was taking a shower, but not in my regular shower in my apartment, but in the smaller square stand-up shower stall in the small bathroom off my pantry, a space with the small same windows giving indirect light just like in my pantry.

. . .

(I don't have such a shower, but my last apartment had a weird layout, with just such a shower in the bathroom directly off the kitchen.)

A good deed, forgotten.

Like a month ago I met my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend (the sister of the brother-sister pair) for happy hour downtown, when I happened to be there into the late afternoon for a Greek lesson I was giving.

At the end of our happy hour together, she got the bill, and I told her she didn't have to do that, but she said that I did that a lot, and plus when she was studying for the bar and we were living in the same building, I brought her food and even left it for her at the all night grocery store one time or two.

"Really?", I was like.

"Yeah," she was like.

I didn't remember that at all, though I told her it sounds like something I would do.