The upstairs neighbors.

The two college kids upstairs in the front house are something else. In the dust on their front door there's drawn this cartoon insect like a little spider with zig-zaggy stripes and 6 bent legs and a happy expression, and the word "CLIVE" written above it. And, another day when they were on the porch and I was picking up the mail, they asked about what exactly I studied, and I said religion, but I went into detail, and the one who I hadn't talked to too much asked if I had any ideas about rituals, since they were all talking about with their friends about how it might be fun to go out in the woods and do a ritual. So, I told them the story about this recent Rolling Stone article that I had read, about how this FBI agent had infiltrated a white supremacist group that tried to kill a goat and drink its blood, only they thought you could cleave the goat's head off with one knife stroke but you couldn't, and it was raining, and by the time they finally killed the goat and drank its blood it was clotting and it actually made one of the participants go and vomit. "So be careful," I was like, "It's all fun and games until one of you drinks clotted goat's blood and goes and throws up in the bushes." Then, the other undergraduate, the one who's spoken to me in a strange way about the behavior of the local squirrels, turned the conversation to ask me about some of the ancient heretical groups that I've been reading aobut, and whether it was true that for one of their rituals they drank cum. So, I explained that probably not, but sometimes with different groups there can be a recurring phenomenon like there's been with modern Satanism, where people have demonized opponents with weird charges, and sometimes a few people then actually went off and tried doing those very things. "It's very alpha," he was like, but not in response to the conversation, though, and seemingly only to the other undergrad, the one who I don't talk with, and it was like this little private comment to him, and that guy nodded at him in a very quick small way, but very approvingly, like it was something between the two of them where he had gone and said that in front of me. Another day, I was on the front porch reading since it was nice weather but mildly raining - the neighbors said it was okay - and that very same other undergrad came home, and said hello to me. "I don't know how you can read out here," he was like. "If it was me, I'd just end up staring at the rain."

Job training interactions (2 of 2): Lifting devices.

At the new retirment village where I work, they're very proudly a "no lift" facility, which means that you have these strange mobile motor-and-strap-and-sling devices that puts people up into standing positions or bundles them up like a baby, and then you can cart them around everywhere. With the one (middle middle-aged) (white) (brown-haired) nurse who was training us, when me and another trainee and some students from a healthcare class at a local community college were all having to practice, I couldn't help but comment stuff like "Doesn't this look like something from Six Flags?", and, "I feel like we're at Six Flags." That really made her pause and laugh, as when I was initiating the use of the lift on another student and was like, "Welcome to Six Flags," and maybe something like, "Safety is our highest priority." Later, at the end of the session, I went up to her and was like, "That was nice, but when do we learn about the roller coaster and the bumper cars? I want to learn the roller coaster and the bumper cars," and again that made her pause and laugh and flash this little smile. (White) women seem to laugh like that around here, or at least some of them.

Job training interactions (1 of 2): Closed-off room.

For part of our job training, the (shorter) (middle-aged) (blonde) HR person who seemed rushed but always trying to be pleasant took us into this closed-off room with hospital beds, and over in the corner there was this mannequin sitting in a wheel chair that had this horrible wrinkled distorted face and a very poorly fitting curly gray wig on it. "You know what that reminds me of?", I was like. "Psycho." And, the other trainee had never seen the movie, but the HR person had to agree. "Where are we, the Bates Motel?", I was like. And, the HR person had been looking away awkwardly and she paused, and then she kind of still didn't quite look at me but she still nevertheless flashed this odd little half smile at me somehow from the side and was like, deadpan, "Sometimes it feels like that around here." Later, when she mentioned the importance of making sure that hazardous material was always out of the reach of residents, I took the pause and put on a voice and was like, "And make sure to keep the knife away from Mrs. Bates!". At that, she didn't react, so I stopped the running joke.

Some people at my first job training session...

...at my new workplace of the retirement village that I now work at: - A (shorter) (fatter) (younger) (white) woman with dyed dark hair who says she likes to "hang out with my 3-year old." - A (shorter) (thinner) (white) woman whose trivia about herself is that she has 3 cats and 5 dogs. - A (younger) (skinny) (white) kid who turns out to be from the local high school and who will get released every day in order to come work at the cafeteria, and who says he likes sports and hanging out with friends, and that he has 3 dogs and 2 horses. - A (younger) (very perky) (curly brown haired) (white) woman with a (developmental disability) who worked for years at the Starbucks in the local Target. My trivia is that I recently moved here from the city, and my last job was at a place from a less common faith tradition. . . . It's always striking to me how everyone has time here; everyone has time to talk, and no-one seems rushed. There also seems to be a number of people who sell to-go food out of their homes, in what seems to be a quasi-official way that might even be licensed by the city; one of my new (very light-skinned black) coworkers slipped me a business card, since it turns out that she married into the local (African) community and runs a(n African) restaurant out of her house, all to-go and catering.

Some observations on my new workplace...

...of the retirement village where I now work: A number of the (white) women have slight southern accents, and they serve mayo salads, a Friday sandwich bar, meat loaf with like a ketchup/barbecue glaze on it, and jello with frozen strawberries in it, with the syrup apparently mixed into the jello. On Easter they also had all these eggs and bunnies everywhere, and I was like, "What the fuck?", and then I remembered that of course my experiences of the annual cycle at a retirement place would be different than most, having worked for almost four years at a resthome from another faith tradition. It is striking, though, that the place that I'm at is apparently secular, and you still get all of this (Christian)-associated crap in it as the default norm.

Two recently remembered conversations...

...with a(n eccentric) family friend who my parents met when they were undergraduates, and he was in graduate school: 1) Once he told me when I was very young - maybe late elementary or middle school? - that he thought the highest form of pleasure would be to study an ancient civilization like [the civilization that produced the language I'm currently immersed in], and to lose yourself completely in it. 2) Once he told me brother that he only likes "cheeses that crumble."

My new-ish self-description.

I've decided lately that my new linguistic project has been coming together so well, that I'm just going to introduce myself to people when it comes up as "the world's foremost expert on [the modern stage of this language family]," and as "a major expert in [the longer-term language]." I mean, I'm now on my 3rd project that revises something major about the language in a way that affects most everyone or in fact everyone who learns it -- these are not some little curlicues on someone else's established line-of-thinking! -- and if that doesn't make an authority, what does? And I can point to acceptance by conferences and collegial engagment with an expert who holds a chair and has major publications. And, if anyone points out that I haven't quite mastered this one script that the language sometimes appears in, that only proves my point all the more! "And it's all the more remarkable, since I still haven't quite finished my course of studies, on all of the language stages." Of course, I wouldn't do this with people who work in academia... And for people who are outside of it who then ask me why I'm not in it, I've been saying, "The world is kind of f*cked up right now," and at that they usually nod and don't ask me any more questions, but in a way that shows you that they get what I mean, and are not put off by it.