Pet industrial complex.

The other week I popped over to a local pet store to get some cat calendars for gifts, and I ended up chit-chatting with the workers there.

One was involved with adopting feral cats to get them acclimated to people before they got permanently adopted out, and she was saying that she would only take the cute and mild ones, since that way she wouldn't get attached, since she tends to like a cat who's a "bitch."

The pet store owner was also telling me about how cats should eat wet food and not kibble, and when I was telling her about a friend's cat with a bladder stone, she said that that was because it was eating kibble and that wasn't natural, and then when I said they had gotten special food from the vet, she said that of course they had, the vet made a lot of money that way, they had special deals with the pet companies and the pet companies gave them training and junkets and whatnot.

"Damn," I was like.  "I had no idea."

Then, I was like, "This is like the pet industrial complex."

"It is," she was like.  "Big pharma is everywhere."

My weight is fluctuating a bit.

My weight is fluctuating a bit.

Because I graduated, I don't have gym access like I used to.

Plus, with my new jobs and it being winter, I don't bike as much as I used to.

Also also, I've been partying maybe 3 days a week "just 'cause," and drinking never helps.

I've noticed I eat a lot less than I had been, though...  Maybe my body is compensating for my relative lack of activity, compared to what it used to go through?

An adventure of getting voter data.

So, the other week I had to go downtown to get access to voter data, and I had to go to this tall anonymous building across from a major plaza, that you wouldn't otherwise go into, and that at most you'd maybe see but not know what's in there and not even have the look of the building register on you, it's so beige and forgetful-looking.

So, I go in and I take an elevator up, and then I go into this anonymous government office and I get directed down the hallway, and there's a little half-door with a bell on top, and you look in and it's a narrow hallway with shelves on both sides full of stacks of paper under labels, and a small table with a computer by one end, and you ring the bell and this (eccentric) (young) (black) (guy) comes out and takes your order, and he pulls a list of active voters from one of the shelves, after you fill out a form.

And, since I wanted precinct maps, I also had to put that on the form, but since I wanted 2 maps and not just 1, I had to pay for 1, and so I got a bill for a quarter, "Cash Only."

After that, he directed me to this other guy, to get the data in electronic format.

For that, I had to get a two part form filled out in the presence of the notary, and the guy told me how to do that.

"There's one in the bank downstairs," he was like.

He also said that low-level city elections are his favorite.

"You get ex-cons running," he was like.  "They get real mad if they get knocked off the ballot, they come up here and they're so pissed."

Christmas DNA test.

So, my mom wanted everyone in family to do a "find your ancestry" DNA test for her for Christmas, so she got some kit for sale and had the do-it-at-home DNA test shipped to all of us.

I got it in early Dec. at a crazy time of year when I was working ten days in a row, and I finally pulled it out do when I was meeting my one neighbor from New Orleans at the laundromat to help her with Obamacare sign-up, so I could figure out how it worked and mail it out on the way home, in between helping her when she was free, while she was putting stuff in the washer or drier or whatnot.

It took a bit, but I finally drooled enough into this plastic tube, though there was some confusion with the instructions because it was mostly bubbles and I couldn't see any just liquid saliva, and the instructions said to fill the tube up to the line "but not counting bubbles" or something like that.

Finally, though, I noticed that the saliva was settling down, and that it was mostly liquid and just a bit of bubbles on top, so I waited and kept topping it off with more of my spit, till I finally hit the line.

Anyhow, I did that, and I helped my neighbor, and then on the way home I dropped off the tube into the mailbox on the corner near my old apartment, though I wondered a bit if I should, since the temperature was dropping and it was going to be like twenty degrees.  I could just imagine the saliva freezing, and the tube exploding inside the package and getting it all wet from the inside out, and causing a problem with the post office, as well as making me have to do another DNA test again.

But, I figured it was better to just get one more thing crossed off my list, so I threw it in there.

Later, though, I was googling what temperature saliva freezes at, and if freezing a DNA sample would affect the ability to test it.

(The answer? It might have frozen, and the DNA could have been affected, though that happens through multiple freeze-and-thaw cycles, mostly.)

A community meeting.

The other week, I was at the local community policing meeting, like the second time I had gone, to put in some face time out in the community and to meet some folks and whatnot, since this is my life nowadays, as I get ready for the public phase of my campaign.

Anyhow, these meetings are really interesting.

One was in a church basement and then the other in a community room in the police station and you sit at these tables and there's some officers up front with two community liaisons, and they go over beat statistics, and then there's a Q&A section where people ask about that stuff or raise other issues that are happening out in the community and need attention.

Like, the first time I went, someone was talking about a "low life" who would be out by the elementary school with a baby carriage, but he was really just a drug dealer who had done time and that baby carriage didn't have a baby in it, just drugs, and everyone knew his family, they were that type.

This time, the head officer was reminding people not to leave their keys in their car and running, so he told a story about a woman who was dropping off food and clothing donations at a local church and left her car running while she was bringing stuff in, and when she came back from the second trip, her car was gone.

"That's the world we live in, folks," he was like.  "You're not even safe leaving your car running outside a church to bring in donations."

At that, everyone grimaced and shook their heads, but there was a look of gleaming satisfaction in their eyes, at the sheer depraved audacity of the crime.

To be honest, it almost felt a bit like Fox News, like a simple morality tale, and the whole thing struck me like a modern form of storytelling, where people gather and just sit around like once a month, to hear stories of crime and trouble, but at the end social order is restored.

People really did love details, though.  When a carjacking was discussed, someone raised their hand and wanted to know if it was a repeat offender, and you could tell they hungered for the story about the carjacker's rapsheet.

Most touching was this (old) (ninety-something) (white) (guy), though, who had asked about traffic out by one alley in a kind of off-topic question, but then also wanted to know how we could get people from the Chinese community more involved, since "this is their neighborhood, too."

He also encouraged everyone to just go and say hi to their (Chinese) neighbors when you pass them on the streets, because "that's how it starts."

You could tell it was something that had been on his mind.

A (young) (black) (girl) on the subway the other day:

Black winter coat with a colorful hoodie underneath, and this black baseball hat that says ~

"HAUTE MESSE".

A story of seeking full-time work nowadays.

The other week I hung out with my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend (the sister of the brother-sister pair), and out of nowhere she was like, "I'm worried about you."

I asked why, and she said it wasn't anything in particular, except that I had been working so many jobs.

"I did that for years," she was like, "and it was just awful."

I then realized that I had never had asked her how long she had been looking for work after law school, until she got to her present job.

As it turns out, after graduating, she spent THREE YEARS looking for work and at most getting short-term jobs reading contracts.

Then, at the end of three years, she finally got a stable gig, where she could work indefinitely for 37.5 hours a week for a little bit more than fourteen bucks an hour, and no insurance, but vacation time and whatnot.

"That was such a huge load off my shoulders," she was like, "Just to have access to the hours."

She also said that she had set for herself a limit, that she wouldn't do that job for more than a year, and would leave if it didn't become full-time.

As it turns out, that's what did happen, right around a year in.

"But all this debt," she was like, "And I'm not in the area or job I had hoped to be in."