The IT Girl

I knew the day was off to a bad start when I put too much hair product in my hair and it sat badly.

Then when I got to work I realised that the pretty pink Tupperware container that I brought to work was not filled with my home made soup.  It was, unfortunately, filled with food I had made for my dog.

Then I checked my emails to find one from Boss Barney saying "Quickbooks not working. None of us can sign in. Fix it or get someone in".

Oh yeah, that's me.  The IT girl.  No, not Clara Bow IT girl.  More like the other person in the office that knows more about computers than the others.  Well, there are two in the office who are called on to fix something when it goes wrong.  Anything to do with Quickbooks lands in my lap. I know it like the back of my hand.  It works via the cloud (that mysterious cyber cloud) and when the internet plays up we have to file.

So this morning I spent three hours having to reconfigure things on each computer.  My head hurt but it got done.  Then had to do payroll.  It was such a rush as I had to leave work at 4.45 pm so that I could get home and then rush off with K to take Benny dog training.  

Tomorrow evening I have book club and have hardly read a thing.  This happened last time I went to book club so tonight I am going to look up reviews about each book I have and then LIE about each book based on the reviews I have Googled.

I would have read the books in full but they were SHITE.  If a book does not hook me in reasonably by the end of chapter two I just find it hard to continue.  I usually read the last chapter to see if it ends how I think it will and nine times out of ten it does.  Who wants a book like that?

I also like books with unlikeable characters.  Books that make me feel uncomfortable.  The other gals like books that are chic lit.  Jodi Picoult and Joanna Trollope are always popular.  And lots of books about people who go to live in France or Italy and write about what they eat and the lovers they have.  Not my cup of tea.  I'd rather read The Story of O or the complete collection of Anais Nin.  I wonder if I should introduce those books to book club?  Ha ha, not likely.

One book I read a few years ago which met all my needs for high squirm factor was Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey.  The ending made me go "WTF?".  It was made into a movie with Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes acting the main characters.  The ending, however, was changed and it kind of pissed me off.  This often happens with stories that don't meet peoples expectations.  Not many people like an unpleasant ending to a story.

To me, a book is more than just a feel good experience. It needs to be an emotionally troubling one as well.  If a book hits the right note in my head I will read it more than once.  I have some books I have read at least half a dozen times.  Somerset Maugham is one author I read a lot of.  D H Lawrence is absolutely top of the tree for me.  They just give so much in their writing.

The other day K, S and I were talking about music.  Both S and I have an obsessive way of listening to music.  I was saying how I was going through a phase of listening to Creedence Clearwater's song I Heard it through the Grapevine.  The long version.  I mentioned that I would listen to it over and over and over for the entire week or longer.

K asked how on earth I could squeeze anything more out of it after all these years?  But I just can. I kind of need to.  My head wants it.  Over and over and over.  S is the same with his music.  I think it is because K is a musician.  He gets music differently.  Besides, he sure is not going to want to listen to the same music as I do even once, let alone over and over.

I downloaded the best of Leonard Cohen on my iPhone.  K hates him.  Finds him so mournful and musically bad.  But I think I like that he is just that.  It's kind of poetry with some music thrown in to join it together.   That, however, is not the song of the moment for me this week.  I love that song by The Black Keys called Lonely Boy.  I love the song and the film clip is so good to watch.  No wonder it went viral when it came out.  I can't say the song is musically outstanding but the accompanying clip gives it a  feel good appeal which explains the success of it.

That is the appeal of those short lived pop songs isn't it?  The song with the clip making a deal with some random spot in your head.  Then when the brain has sucked the life out of it a new one comes along.

No wonder pop music is such a money spinner.

But I have to say that when I am listening to music there is nothing that I love more than music from the late 1960's and through to the late 1970's.   I never get sick of listening to that stuff.  I will be listening to Creedence Clearwater and Leo Sayer long after any song that comes out today.

I am not sure if it because I grew up with a type of music.

Today's music seems just so disposable.

Although, I do think that The Bay City Rollers were very disposable.

And they were the 1970's.  I hated them.  Boy band.  I hate boy bands.  All boy bands.

I love boys.

I love bands.

Just not mixed together.

Ciao
LC