A revised story of youth unemployment.

So, I had been telling my mother about my one (Chinese-American) coworker's story about how his peer group is unemployed several years out of college, and she asked me to ask him what major etc. everyone was, and where they went to school.

So, I did, and it turns out that he was exaggerating a bit, and it was really just one person he was thinking of, and they went to a top state school, but just did a straight-up American Studies major.

"And that's fine," he was like, "The world needs American Studies majors, but that's the kind of thing that you have to pair with something else."

I agreed, and I also asked about whether they were purposeful with internships, and he said they mostly did stuff with journalism, which is super competitive.

"And it's a declining sector," I was like. "Why would you want to focus on that?".

So, all in all, it seems like his story was mostly about one person who really wasn't working with advice they were probably getting from multiple sources.

He also said that one person he knows just graduated and got a great $80K job; they do engineering.

Woke language chaos, among other things.

So, a few weeks ago at work at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, it was (Chinese New Year), and since there's a bunch of (Thai Chinese) in (Thailand), (Thai) people often know historic versions of (Chinese) customs, and my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker and my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones set me up with a (Chinese) saying that means "fat red envelope" (i.e., a traditional gift envelope that's super-full of money), and they had me go in back and tell the one (Thai Chinese) cook that.

They also were telling me about how it's a (Thai Chinese) thing to set up a big meal for your ancestors way early in the morning, and everyone does it and puts it on social media now, though they were talking to our one (Chinese-American) coworker and he was saying that he's never heard of that particular tradition, whether here or in (China).

(We all agreed that the [Chinese] [Communists] must have done away with that, just like they did away with this one [Chinese] [Buddhist] vegetarian festival that's historically [Chinese] but is no longer celebrated there, and is only celebrated in [Thailand], instead.)

"I heard you want a big red envelope," the one (male) restaurant owner said, too, towards the end of the night, when he came out from in back and surprised me and handed me a red envelope with a twenty in it, before going around to everyone else and giving them red envelopes, too, for the holiday.

Anyhow, because of all the stuff like that, we were all talking about holidays, and my (Guatemalan) coworkers were telling me how they don't celebrate (Halloween) in (Guatemala).

"Que bien" ('How good'), I was like, and then I intoned, "Demones" ('Demons'), and at that I nodded once decisively, while holding the eyes of my one (Pentecostal) (Guatemalan) coworker, who looked me back straight in the eye and seemed very seriously in agreement.

A bit later, too, I was observing to my one (younger) (female) (Guatemalan) worker in my (baby) (Spanish) that I've never understood why in (Spanish) you have senora for a married woman and senor for a man, while there's senorita for an unmarried woman but no senorito for an unmarried man ("Un hombre sin esposa").

"Because there's no word like that," my one (Pentecostal) (Guatemalan) coworker stepped in and more or less said immediately, in (Spanish), playing the man-slash-authority in the situation.

"I know," I was like. 

And then, I was like, "!Sexismo!", at which my one (younger) (female) (Guatemalan) coworker just nodded, knowingly. 

Then, I was like, "Necesitamos cambiar el idioma" ('We need to change the language').

And, at that too, she just nodded, knowingly.

Then, she started calling me and some of the other (Guatemalan) men senorito, which she has now done on several occasions, and although they don't say anything, it seems to make a few of them bristle.

"You can call me guapo," said the one (Guatemalan) guy who we started the diablo joke about, too, when she first said it to him.

A disconcerting concert interaction...

 ...as I stand outside the (local) (college town) concert hall and finish my take-out slice of pizza, chuck the to-go container in a trashcan right outside the door, and go to unwrap my fresh KN95 mask to put on, though I have a hard time unsealing the plastic wrap and it takes me like twenty-to-thirty seconds of fiddling, as I stand there facing the trashcan and messing with the packaging:

As I finally open it and chuck the wrapper away and don the mask and turn around to walk in, I see a police officer inside the busy lobby area looking right at me and decisively striding towards me, about to come through the doors at me.

. . .

(He must have been observing people for a potential mass shooter and found my behavior unusual, as I stood right there by the door but facing away from it, doing something that he could not quite see.)

A dream of reviving something broken.

The other week I dreamnt --

I'm at the side of an above-ground train boarding platform, and there by the bare concrete floor and cinderblock wall is a small open trashcan that I go up to and look into, and in there there are some things that I'd thrown out, including a (70s-style) (light tan) (synthetic fur) shirt-top that I'd decided to get rid of, since it was mildly stained and mussed and no longer quite wearable, if you want to look good.

And, I pull it out of the trash, since I decide on second thought that I can wash it, and donate it to a local resale shop.

And then, I wake up.

. . .

Running joke at work...

...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

When my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker comes and tells me that she's going to go to the bathroom so that I know she's gone and not to look for her in case I need anything, I do to her what she's done to me the past month or so, and I imitate her and am like, "No, no, noooo..." -- at which she is like, "Okay," and then she squats down and pretends to pull down her pants, and she laughs at me.

A recent workplace exchange...

...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, with my one (Pentecostal) (Guatemalan) coworker:

Me (gesturing to his shirt, which has something with [Thailand] on it, and then to his baseball cap, which has our state's name on it, due to the logo of the local state university): "Necesitas una cosa con Guatemala" ('You need something with Guatemala').

Him (looking me in the eyes, with a sudden and very gentle look on his face): [touches his heart]

. . .

Reprehensible wastefulness:

I am using a (metal) (butter) knife to cut apart the frozen cabbage soup chunk in a big cheap Glad tupperware container that I had frozen it in and then partially thawed out on a dinner plate in my refrigerator, and I promise myself that I won't accidentally slide the knife in too far and pierce the container side and ruin it like I did a while ago with a similar container, and then my hand slips and I go and do it, again.