squeaky knees
2002-05-21

sound: roots - things fall apart ; NPR, the world

my my, it has been a while. i have been lazy, and also not close to the intra-net as i may like.

so, i finished my thesis, survived orals and the dreaded german final, and even graduation ceremonies. i acquired new stuff and also new money. i slept. a lot.

no i feel like i have done next to nothing (why did they give me a diploma again?). there is precious little time to do the things that i want to until my departure for east and mid-west. i think i need to take some time for myself, and i think that that time will have to wait until june.

for now, i am working with the paradox files, trying to sort out almost 20 years of shit. not that many years. files that reach back to 1986, invoices and reciepts and payroll. timesheets randomly kept. they used to use a beautiful long blue book, with lined, mottled pages, to keep records of work. they used to stay open all summer (and make money), as well as keeping a 24 hour schedule. i wonder, honestly, at least five times every 20 minutes (that works out well, very even), how the hell-damn this place still exists. we hope to find out what happened to the finances, who embezled for cocaine and other drugs, which managers were good, which bad. i can tell already, judging from how the records were kept, which managers were competent, which ones were flying by the seat of their pants. who told future managers how to run things? who was the finance manager, who was supplies? a letter from a manager named sally apologizing for her judgements, a situation i know nothing about. a note from another manager asking employees to stop taking poker chips as money, since they are 'readily available in the s.u.'. the hugeness of it makes me sneeze.

what the hell are we going to call the new shop?