A Greeting Card I Wish I'd Received:

Congratulations!
On Leaving (insert name of current employer here).

The many stages of the journey through the crucible, mould, forging, tempering, and quenching of the (insert name of employer here) work experience have shaped your glorious future at (insert name of new employer here).

With that in mind, we, your (soon to be former colleagues) and underlings here at (insert name of employer here) would like to send you on to the next stage of your journey with this wish:

May your salary rise up to meet you.
May your inbox be always full.
May your superior’s approval shine warm upon your face,
And soft rains of paperclips fall upon your desk un-scrounged for.
And until we meet again,
May you not yet be worked to death.

Fear not, you will not be forgotten; instead you will be forever remembered as one of the select few who escaped to an employment environment that few of us remember, have experience of, or can even imagine.
Farewell.

The Power of Google

Google is truly amazing. Really. Yes, really really. Not only does it have a great search engine, email, maps, groups, Picasa web albums, docs, blogger, Google Earth (so cool!), calendar, and countless (almost) other web based nifty stuff, it also tracks my menstrual cycle. Now that’s truly amazing. I can’t keep track of my annoyingly random menstrual cycle, but Google can. Almost every month for the last six or so, on the very last day of my erratic period, I have had the following banner on my Gmail home page:

“Menstruation Calendar: www.MyMonthlyCycles.com - Completely track your menstrual cycles for free!”

Yes. It’s free too. Bonus. How do they know? Do they follow me with their Google Earth satellite surveillance in my mad rush to the pharmacy to replenish my stock of feminine hygiene products with a wad of toilet paper bunched in my underpants? If they already know, why don’t they insert a note in my Google Calendar: “Warning! Go to pharmacy today before 4pm – Your Google Team.” They’re usually so helpful.

There’s really only one possible explanation. Yep, conspiracy theorists out there will agree: Google is actually a group of Aliens intent on harvesting my eggs (and yours sisters) because they are no longer able to reproduce. Lucky for the guys out there that the fact that men also have a hormonal cycle is not yet well know to the Aliens, otherwise you boys would be getting some well timed banners on your Gmail home pages too. On the other hand, it’s a 24 hour cycle, so maybe that would be a bit obvious. Maybe they’ve got lots of sperm, who knows?
Keep your colanders on.

Rumblethump Night

Velvet scented warm night with the trains rumblethumping at the end of my street: steeling through from the westerly yards to points beyond with their shiny burdens. Clang, bang, rumble, thump, the cars squeal against their tethers, their yearning for speed and distance audible to those awake in the night. The smell of the bitumened ties and friction warmed steel is an incense: the sudden spring heat is redolent with it. A memory of tar shingles and dusty streets unfolds. My open window admits all and sundry: the traffic droning like an aeroplane in the distance, soft lullaby of fretting pistons and exhaust, distant sirens, lost steps on the pavement. This is not the peace of the high, lonely, and lost places of the world, but a kind of peace nonetheless. A sense of things implied from within, without detachment. I am entangled like the freight cars: punched and pulled, banging my way along with my brethren, helplessly enchained. Like them, I shuttle endlessly back and forth: my wake cacophonous. I yearn for speed and distance, though my shackles hold me fast. Outside, the night dreams on despite the occasional awake window glittering it's yellow glow out into the street. Another locomotive strains with it's rat-a-clap-rat-a-clap retinue: a metronomic rhythm counting the hours until dawn. The mechanical tirelessness is a surety: I depend on it. The rumble keeps me in time. I can feel it as it travels through the earth into the heels of my feet where I can grip it. It will never lose me, nor I it.

I am...

From "What classic movie are you?"

and

from "What famous world leader are you?"

Huh. Whod'a thunk it.