A bartender's childhood memories of his father.

The other week I was at this new bar, a former private events section of this one restaurant that got turned into a smaller bar with an exclusive cocktail menu, and when there was a lull in cocktail making I started talking with the bartender, this (younger) (white) guy who was playing a lot of Beatles over the stereo.

First, he told me about the original mono sound, versus the crappy fake stereo stuff that was released in the 90s back when they were "remastering" all of the Beatles albums and selling them for marked-up prices.

Then, he told me about how his dad was an old hippy who grew up in the city during the 50s and 60s, but he grew up on a suburban horsefarm, but they would drive in a lot of weekends, so that he could hang out with his dad's friends' kids his own age, and so that his dad could get drunk and smoke a lot of pot with his friends.

He said his dad used to put on a Beatles album for the entire drive in or back one way, the drive was just the right length, and sometimes they would talk to it and sometimes not, and he learned a lot of music that way.

When he got older, his dad started playing Blondie and the Ramones, too, and sometimes other things.

One time, his dad pulled off the highway so that they could really listen to this one guitar player who was on, this self-taught guy who could play both melody and harmony simultaneously on the same guitar, which is really tough since you have to press down the strings in just the right ways and keep them moving.

"It's mad hard," the bartender was like.  "I just remember my dad sitting there explaining it, and I was trying to understand, and I was like, 'Dad, I like it, but I don't get it!'".

"What a cool father," I was like.

"Yeah," he was like.

Freaky library coincidence.

The other week I was shelving on the 4th floor of the main library on campus, and I went to go move a book so I could squeeze the book I was shelving in next to it, and I look and it's my favorite book ever, the memoir of a sacred prostitute from a freaky evangelical cult group.

I checked to see what the person had been reading about whose book I was returning, and it turned out to be Falun Gong.

I guess they're both cults?

Update on my toilet shit-clump.

It took five days of pissing at it, but finally that big shit clump on the back of my toilet is mostly gone.

In its place is just random small shit bits stuck the porcelain, where the bigger clump of shit had been.

More library levity: Reported pranking of a grumpy supervisor.

So, at my one library job, I was preshelving books from this very tall, very full 6 shelf cart, and since I was moving from the bottom up, it was getting to the point where the cart's top shelves were very very packed and very very top heavy.

So, I told my one cool (socialist) supervisor and the one other person working, "Hey, look at this, this is perfect, if our oppressor-in-chief President [name of the university president] comes down here for a tour, one of us can just accidentally lean against this, and, oops...!".

At that, they both laughed, and my one supervisor then said that this one (quiet) (Mexican-American) guy got some unjustified nastiness from the one other supervisor who tends to be very grumpy about nothing, and so when he was arranging books for her to scan in, he lay them down in tottering piles, where if she touched them without thinking, they would all fall over each other and knock each other down and create a mess.

"Really?!", my one coworker who was there asked my one supervisor.

"Yeah," my one supervisor was like.  "And the best part is that it's [first name of the one (quiet) (Mexican-American) guy].  Still waters run deep."

Funny interaction with my former governor.

My former governor is not only a TV talking head, but also served as a fly-in teacher for one term at a political institute at my school.

I participated in all her seminars, and even popped into her office hours to ask questions.

Once during the seminar and once again during office hours, she just stopped talking and remarked to herself, "You're so funny!".

She also loved how we unionized the library workers, and how people were picking up and repeating my higher ed messaging without knowing it.

It was quite interesting, too, to hear her acknowledge that she's so driven to get stuff done, that she can run roughshod over people at meetings and has to have staff point out that she's doing that so she can mend bridges with people.

It was good for me to see that other people do that, and have learned to improve on that front.  She says that she focuses on mission and goals so much in interactions, that she can forget to make people feel included.

A secret plan of my mother's.

The other week I was talking with my mom, and she was telling me about her plans for when she goes and visits my uncle (her brother).

Since my parents have been taking care of my brother's dog and the dog is getting old and arthritic, my mom was thinking that this foam mat that we all hate when we go and visit my uncle and no-one uses would be perfect for the dog, especially since my uncle never gets any other overnight out-of-town visitors.

"So I'm going to take my scissors and ask him," she was like.  "And if he says no, I'll wait until he goes to bed and has his oxygen tank on, and then I'll snip a section off anyways."

She then said that he's so forgetful and absent-minded, that he'll never notice.

"What else is a sister good for?", she was like.

She sounded like she was having fun planning the escapade all out, too.

Bed bugs are back.

Eight months with nothing, then I wake up on a Monday with a bite and I find a dropping in my sheets.

It takes up to a year for them all to die, but after 3 months with nothing you're typically good, and I was so careful with my move that I almost wonder if they came from somewhere else this time, and they actually didn't hang on into my new apartment somehow.

The Friday before they re-emerged, I was at an older rundown arthouse cinema to see a colleague's film, and on the way home by subway a (younger) (blonde) guy who smelled funny and was probably homeless sat down next to me for like 8 stops in the cramped subway seat.

I figure I might have gotten them from him - I was thinking that at the time! - or maybe from the arthouse theater - Google revealed 2 people who said they had gotten bitten by bed bugs there back in 2011! - or maybe even my upstairs neighbors, who are college-age and let friends crash long-term with them and even once one of their scuzzy mothers and her boyfriend.

Thankfully, my new apt. is just me and my upstairs neighbors, it's not a 6-unit like last time, and the woodwork is new, so treatments are slightly easier, and there's less a chance of reinfestation.

It did take me over 7 hours the first day to treat my room, though, which is time I don't have, and I still haven't found a bug to show my landlord (though I'm looking! - if I find one, he has to do treatments).

A small part of me wonders if this happened, though, because the god of parasites is angry at me for my success at unionizing.

If I tell myself this, I'm able to deal with the timesuck and the itchy welts better, because it gives them meaning.