Everyday Life by Morte
October 6th, 2008 4:59 PM / Location: 41.820010,-87.68863I am seriously trying to fulfill this task, but it just doesn't seem to be working. Or rather not working. Let me put it this way, I read the task while I was at work. On a Sunday. *sigh* So I am going to chronicle my attempts to fulfill this task and the ways that I am prevented from doing so until completion. But I am trying, really I am. Unfortunately I am a poor apprentice who needs as many work hours as possible and is working two jobs (sic three). And I am counting the times that I am volunteering as working as well. The universe thwarts me daily, but I will succeed! Err...someday. I hope. Please gods.....
*shakes fist at sky*
9/21/08 Got to work at 6am. Started cleaning and rebagging cadavers for a delivery going out on Friday. Also pulled files for the delivery and cleaned tables without using any water. Left work around 2pm.
9/22/08 Got to work at 8am. Regular work schedule, no big. Removed one brain. Cleaned trays most of the day, went to physical therapy. Went home around 5pm.
9/23/08 Got to work at 8am. Day seemed to drag on forever. Cleaned trays. Went home around 5pm, wrote up praxis for A&U.
9/24/08 Got to work at 8am. Had a delivery and a pick up scheduled, and of course everything got screwed up. Spent several hours getting it sorted out, went to physical therapy. Left work at 5pm and biked downtown to go to work at SAIC. And since I was going to work at a school, I thereby contravened both edicts of the task in one shot. Posed for ink and charcoal studies until 9pm. Biked to Daley Plaza to fulfill the Object Annotation task. Got home around 10:30pm.
9/25/08 Yet again more work. Walked in at 8:06am. Embalmed 3 cadavers, bagged and cleaned 3 cadavers, am now sitting here typing this in and not working, but still at work. Later I will clean more trays and write out the delivery sheet for tomorrow. *sigh* And from here it looks like I will be working Friday as usual, Saturday at the funeral home, and Sunday here again. Maybe I'll get lucky in October.... Went home and worked on finishing the La Moustache Vrai.
9/26/08 Went to work. Arrived at 9:15am. Removed the brains from 3 cadavers. Sent out a delivery to a local college. Dealt with the sudden need for a pick-up from another college. Will likely spend the rest of the day doing data entry for the delivery and cleaning trays. Will be going to work as a projectionist for a Horror Film Fesitival at the Portage Theatre later. Cleaned out the delivery truck, as it smelled to high heaven. Left at 5:30pm and went to theatre, worked as projectionist.
9/27/08 Got up in order to be at funeral home on other side of town by 8:30am. Doused hair in black hair spray (people in funeral homes tend to be upset by blue hair for some odd reason), climbed into monkey suit and off I went. Arrived at funeral home at 8:25am. Walked in to one very confused weekend secretary and no funeral director. Turns out he called my boss last night and told him to call me and tell me not to come in as he decided he wanted a day off. My boss 'forgot' to call me. GRRRR. Since I went in to work, even though I was only there for 10 minutes, the day is shot as far as this task is concerned. Went to theatre and worked as projectionist for most of the afternoon.
9/28/08 Got up at 5am, promptly fell asleep while brushing my teeth. Woke up at 5:30, threw on clothes and ran out door. Got to work at 6:15am. Didn't get to do any dissection, like I was supposed to. Instead embalmed 5 cadavers that were very difficult and 1 that was easy. Left at 2:25pm, swung by home and picked up Cris, then got to the Portage Theatre at 3:10pm to work as projectionist. Left Portage Theatre to go to Cafe Lura at 8:30pm. Worked as door bitch at Cafe Lura until 11:30pm. Got home at 12:00am. Died.
9/29/08 Got up at 7:00am. Doused bits of hair that weren't black in black hairspray, climbed into different monkey suit, drove to funeral home, arrived at 8:30am. Worked a funeral, left at 4:00pm. Drove to regular work, worked for 45 minutes. Went home at 5:30pm. (Important note: Blue hair + water soluble black hair spray + heavy rain whilst standing in a graveyard under leaky umbrella = blue hair.)
9/30/08 Arrived at work at 7:28am. Got chewed out by boss. Now sitting here contemplating the day ahead, full of work. *SIGH* Which it was. Removed 4 brains, bagged 2 cadavers, worked on 3. Cleaned prep room. Got interrupted several times by funeral directors. Left around 6:15pm
10/1/08 One of my favorite months of the year. YAY! Got to work at 9:07am. Made a few phone calls to labs and ME's. Will pretty much be involved in paperwork all day. It's freezing in here, someone spilled something into my heater and the area around my desk smells like burnt raspberries and sugar. Better than formaldehyde I guess. Thought I had to work at SAIC in the evening. Biked down there and found out that the schedule had changed and I wasn't working till tomorrow. Whee, free evening! Got home around 7pm.
10/2/08 Got to work at 8:25am. Wandered around for a bit, then set up for embalming. Spent the rest of the day embalming and doing paperwork for the delivery. Left at 5pm to go down to SAIC and model for what a friend termed 'the short bus class'. It's a free drawing period, and no matter what you do someone is going to be pissed about it. Got home around 10pm.
10/3/08 Got to work at 8:47am. Finished paperwork for delivery, sent out delivery, had delivery split up into another day. Grrr. Took out 7 brains and bagged 8 cadavers. 1 stayed out because I'm not happy with the level of preservation. Cleaned up all the tables, the prep room, etc. It is now 7:30pm and I am just leaving to do laundry. *meh*
10/4/08 Got up around 9:30am in order to be out at O'Hare airport to pick up Voltaire for a show that he was doing for a Chicago event group that Cris and I are a part of. We dropped him off at the venue, went home, changed for the wedding, went back to the venue. I worked the door for the wedding
(it sounded like a beautiful ceremony) then Cris drove Voltaire out to his hotel, when he got back I drove the bride and groom to their hotel and then back to the venue where I worked the door until it was time to take Voltaire back to his hotel and thence on to home ourselves where bed was attained around 4am.
10/5/08 SUCCESS!!!! Poor Cris had to be up at 7am in order to get Voltaire to the airport in time for his plane. He let me sleep in, even though I had promised to make breakfast when he got back. He ended up making breakfast and finally woke me up around noon so I could eat. At which point I noticed that I had missed two phone calls from my boss. Hmm. Call him and get told that if I had bothered to wake up I would have been able to come in to work today to do dissections. But since I didn't wake up it would just have to wait till tomorrow. (Aww shucks) I then proceeded to watch some very bad movies on TV, notably Doom Runners (Mad Max for the teen scene) and Lilith: Demon Woman (which boasted Gary Busse, who was in it for a grand total of 5 minutes) while dozing. Then Cris and I went over to a friends house and watched some more TV while he made dinner. Dinner was eaten and appreciated. Cris and I then went to darkroom to see Android Lust. I honestly think it was the first time in many many months that I had gone to see a band because I wanted to, not because I was working or obligated. Watched the show, drank some, then went back, knitted a bit on a (stupid bloody) Arsenal scarf I am making for a certain Arsenal-loving person (MAN U BABY!!!!!!!), and then died and slept the sleep of the justly nothing to be tired for.
I should have gone to work. I need the hours and the money. But I think I needed a day to myself more. A day where I didn't *have* to be anywhere and I didn't *have* to do anything. A day where I could make all sorts of plans to do stuff and then completely ignore them in favor of doing nothing. Or something else.
There are no pictures of my day off because ...ummm.... taking pictures of myself doing nothing except what I wanted to do (which was nothing) really seemed a lot like, well, work. I wanted a completely guilt free nothing to prove day.
'Cause I sure as hell ain't gettin' another one for a very long time.
Rack Room
My desk is off to the right.
Eenteresting...
The awful truth of concerts about Miss Thang...The Horror the Horror!!!!!
This is not the wedding you are looking for....
But everyone there got into the spirit of it. I saw some gorgeous costumes.
The Getaway Car
Oh no! the world is being sublimated, thank the gods I have this car to hang on to.
Naughty Tongs1
Voltaire was being very naughty with those tongs. So naughty he actually broke them.
Naughty Tongs2
Veeeerrrrryyyy naughty!!!!
9 vote(s)
susy derkins
3
Mr Everyday
5
saille is planting praxis
3
zer0gee
5
Charlie Fish
3
Mister Opinion
5
Scooter Vagabond
4
Amithy Ilexa
3
Bex.
Favorite of:
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band, demonsanddarlings, dayoff, work13 comment(s)
My every day life tends to be a bit weirder than most peoples. I love that fact.... and I love what I do, if not necessarily some of the living people I work with.
Thanks...
I have a sense of humour about the whole thing. I store/preserve the brains in white buckets, and I label the good brains with H.D. for Hans Delbrook and the bad ones with A.N. for Abby Normal. I also have a sign on one of the wipe off calenders in the hallways that says 'It has been ______ days since this facility has suffered a loss of production time due to zombie attacks.'
That is a great sign to have around.
So, um...
What's the longest you've gone between zombie attacks?
Currently I'm on around 6 months. It's getting on to fall though, prime zombie weather, so the natives are getting restless.
(people in funeral homes tend to be upset by blue hair for some odd reason)
Out of curiosity, how much of the industry as you see it really are freaks and geeks? The only mortician I've known personally is a hardcore punk to the gothy side, with tattoos and piercings hidden when he's had to put on the monkey suit. It makes sense to me that the sorts of people who can psychologically handle the job are ones that approach life and culture and mortality just a bit differently to begin with. And yet the playing normal and the monkey suit. I suppose most folks don't want to think about it while they're grieving.
The way I look at it, this is my job. My job is to be solid and stable and comfort those who are grieving a tremendous loss. And in all of that it is not my place or correct to do or be anything that is a personal statement. It's about the family, not about me. But when I'm not doing that, I choose to be the strange little person that I am, damn anyone who doesn't like it.
I'd say that out of all the funeral directors that show up here, maybe .01% are freaky, and since I'm an outed freak we compare tattoos. The others regard me with wary smiles until they talk to me, at which point they either chat away or get the hell out as fast as possible. There's one from a Jewish funeral home that refuses to look me in the eye, talk to me, or acknowledge my existence past what he absolutely has to to give me the paperwork and hand over the body. There are some that I scare, some that I offend, and a whole bunch that I get along with pretty well.
Thank you for sharing that. I never quite got the courage to ask Sr. PunkMortician very much about the job or the sorts of folks he worked with, and having lost touch, I regret that. and yay to strange people.
There's one here in Chicago that's a hard-core punk, a bassist for a punk band, and a very good embalmer. When he comes up we chat about bass playing (I play the bass as well), the punk scene, tattoos, and embalming. But he's a rare one... If you have any questions, ask away. I would rather people asked me instead of assuming or thinking that shows like CSI and such are reality.
I was going to go to the Android Lust show, but I was taking too long altering the dresses I wanted to wear to the Imperative Reaction/SITD/Aesthetic Perfection shows last night in Milwaukee and tomorrow in Chicago. Sorry I missed you guys! :(
It was a pretty small group, but the show was great. You would have loved it, I think. I like shows where there's just enough of a crowd to give good energy to the band but not so much that you can't dance or move without being squashed.
Five points for the deadpan storytelling.
Umm, thanks? Not sure how to take that one.... :)
OOOK... this.. is... beyond... awesome. Everyday life. You could have gotten about 17000 points if SFØ had imaginative tasks like "take out some human brains", "pose for an art studio" and "go to the movies in a non-spectator way". And yet you´re submitting this for 15 points on account of "a day where I could make all sorts of plans to do stuff and then completely ignore them in favor of doing nothing. Or something else."
I think you rock inmensely. Wow.