Friday, January 16, 2009

Torquing

I'm having trouble getting back into the blogging regime. I think I'll do away with my "every day" posting routine. I did it for three and a half years so I figure I've adequately proven that I can do it. It's just that I don't want to anymore. It's easier to stay in touch with people now with Facebook and all my good stories have been told already so the blog has just become a scrapbook for our life. Which is fine, it's just that our life is simply not that interesting 365 days a year. (I could turn it into a poo log I suppose, but that'd likely reduce readership to zero.) Speaking of poo, it was funny over at my dad's house during the holidays. I was ill if you remember with a particularly nasty case of the runs. Dad and I were discussing in great detail our bowel movements, which truth be told, is just natural for us. We refer to bowel movements in terms of success. "Hey dad, I've been successful three times today, how about you?" His wife pointed out that before she moved in with him 20 years ago, she had never had a discussion such as we have. She confessed it took some years getting used to. "It was just something we never talked about before I met your dad," she revealed. There are special words we use too so that we don't draw attention to ourselves in public. Torquing is probably the most common. "Can you wait for me for a few minutes, I've got to torque." (This is short for "torquing a dump".) If any blame is to be laid (or is it lain, I can never remember) for my pooclivities, it is to be heaped on my father. Certainly mom never shared the excremental zeal of papa. So now you know.

In other news, I had that phone test yesterday which was an oral communication test. I hope I expressed myself well. I was awfully nervous and all the questions were hypothetical work dilemmas. Ugh. Still, I wasn't being tested on the solution to the dilemmas but rather how clearly and expertly I trotted out my answers. I have no idea how I did. I'm sure I sounded a bit like I do here in the blog, which is admittedly all over the place at times. You'll be glad to know that the above paragraph's topic never came up on the test. I did crack a joke at one point when I was asked to explain how I would go about solving a computer problem. "You mean after I kicked the machine across the room?" Crickets. So I said, "Uh, that was a joke." Then I got a courtesy laugh. At the end of the interview, I asked about when the results would be available. In about a month was the response. So I'm going to try to put it out of my mind now.

24 comments:

Rick Bettencourt said...

We use "prairie dogging" for that gotta go feeling.

CoffeeDog said...

I hate crickets. I get them a lot too.

Word verification : Asequate. Please excuse me, I have to asequate.

dpaste said...

Bureaucrats have no sense of humor.

Anonymous said...

Your everyday life may seem dull and mundane but to those of us who don't have such a relationship as you and Serge everything you do is very interesting. I'm sure things happen everyday that your readership would enjoy but of course if everyday is too much we'll take what we can get. I see a puppy in your future as soon as the weather warms up. Word verification: wakeu as in I hope I didn't wakeu. ed

Rox said...

I would still read, even if it was a poo log.

:)

Franciscus van Munster said...

Good for you for introducing some humour into an interview. Their loss for being miserable bastards.

Anonymous said...

Get used to the lack of humor if it's a government job. But, lots of money is a plus.

Good luck my friend!

madamerouge said...

I know someone who refers to it as "sluicing" or "having a sluice". My personal favourite: Homer Simpson, referring to it as a "boom-boom" in an episode from 2000.

Patricia said...

Let's just say I'd be hanging with your mom. She could teach me how to can tuna while you guys are talking poo.

Oh good, you're in a waiting pattern, too. Twice as long as mine, even. Misery loves company, don'tcha know. :)

Anonymous said...

God. Well, I hope you get it.

I'm sort of shocked that J never talked about dumping til she moved in with your dad. Weird.

And the interviewer was probably laughing on the inside. Where it counts.

GayProf said...

I am lucky if I blog once or two or three times a month these days. The genre is on the decline, I think.

I echo what everybody else has to say about the lack of humor in government jobs.

Anonymous said...

I never really did the daily blog thing. What I do though is plug the blog everywhere and list it on all the blog trackers.

That said, being that I hold a friend and I came up with new language for poo.

We're both amateur radio operators and you can't say "shit" on the air. So if you had to take a shit you'd say "I gotta make a deposit."

Enemy of the Republic said...

I think you lead a very interesting life, and the way you write makes it even better. But I understand that blogging can wear one down; just do it when you can; I always read your blog, even when I don't comment. You are a breathe of fresh air; you clear my head. Really.

Unknown said...

Your daily blog is a public service. Stopping it is like removing food stamps from from the emotionally poor. Can you really be so hard-hearted?

Paul Brownsey

Anonymous said...

I'll be sorry to not have the sticky crows to start my day, though I fully understand your point of view; once it becomes a chore, it's not really worth doing. So I'll find some other procrastination technique, and I'll keep checking in for when you DO post something; it almost always brings a smile to my day!

Brad said...

I've been in awe of your ability to post each day for sometime. I can understand how difficult it is. I'm doing good if I can scrape up three in a week! - I always enjoy your posts and will take what ever you care to write.

Birdie said...

It's well-known that an intermittent reward intensifies a desired behavior. You'll have more hits than ever as bloggers check in to see if today is the day you post again. We love your blog! Don't let it be a chore, and we'll feed ourselves in little bites to make it last.

Word verification: criess (many tears)

Snooze said...

By all means slow down your incredible pace, but just don't stop completely [this applies to blogging. For pooing you can keep up the great pace. Three in a day? Wow.]

Anonymous said...

Just don't disappear on me! I'm your friend on Faceboork but I rarely ever sign on there. It's just too full of goofy/spammy junk and I have friends that I don't even know who they are anymore!

David said...

My favorite line is "I got to get something down on paper."

Errr, childish. But if you have to tell a poo joke, I like this one because it takes a moment to think about it.

You know?

lattégirl said...

Am I the only one who remembers that if you get that job, you'll have to stop blogging altogether? Ack!

Patrick said...

I've been impressed by how interesting your entries have been, given that you were posting every day. I can certainly understand why you don't want to keep that pace up any longer, but I hope you'll continue sharing glimpses of your life for a bit longer.

Lacey said...

I'll have to agree with enemy of the republic. Perhaps mundane to you, but always refreshing and new to us, the faithful. And surely you have a gift for writing. You're probably too close to it to realize it, but you right reel purty.

(word verification: ovesse. If I don't ovesse soon, I'm going to bust a gut.)

Mark in DE said...

My father also had (has) a love of discussing bowel movements and flatulence. We also had a particular vernacular we could use in public to commmunicate about it without others understanding. I miss that.