Monday, July 20, 2009

I’m ready to go home. There is nothing exciting here anymore. We have had slow days, which have been nice, and Desi and I met all the Taiwanese girls yesterday, who are hilarious and really friendly. They told us about the trip they are going to take after this, going to LA and Las Vegas and New York. We climbed through their window. I also watched Surfer, Dude which was actually very good and laid around with Jade. I love seeing Jade and Lauren everyday. It is surprising how incredibly happy it makes me. But overall I’m feeling done. Starting tomorrow things are going to start getting shitty with lots of fish and long hours and people being mad and no fun and I haven’t made any money at all so it just doesn’t seem worth it. Everybody is unhappy already about a myriad of things and everybody cool is getting fired. Four people in the last week or so have been fired for either drinking or failing drug tests.

Although I did get paid yesterday to paint some signs about how to properly take off gloves.

Now I am listening to Deathcab which is a sure sign of nostalgia/despondency/melancholy. I think August is just hanging over everybody’s head. And seriously, another month and a half? Almost two? Yuck. I know if I was working toward something it would help, but I don't think I'm going to make enough to do anything. And the only other place I want to be, like when I'm trying to imagine a happy place, is Palm Springs. That's funny to me. That's the nicest place I can imagine. 

Also did I mention that I finally had to take out my lip ring? It’s very weird to not having it in after four and a half years. 

Sunday, July 12, 2009

HAPPY WEDDING ALEX AND CEZANNE!

I am so sad that I missed it, especially for the bad crappy surprise of a day I had. I’m sure it was beautiful and best wishes for the rest of the summer. Also I hope you bought that house.

Good lord.

I take that back. If you want to send me anything please send dried fruits and dry socks and nuts. And a bra that is designed to fit well for 18 hours.

Yesterday was a horrible horrible horrible day. Because everyone promised, again, that it would be a short day and then they crushed my hopes. I mean, it had some upsides, like when I won yet another bet about time predictions, but it finally sank in that this just doesn’t stop. I’ve stopped putting in extra effort because there is just no opportunity to recover, and it doesn’t change when we get to stop anyway. No wonder somebody invented the labor movement. Otherwise how would anyone pay bills or get unsick? We only had like 200.000 pounds of fish (instead of 400.000) but we were all still there until midnight.

Actually what upsets me most was that I like my job and I want to do it well but I’m not being provided with the proper tools. That is, sleep. So even though I feel like I’m getting better my performance is worse or steady.

Anyway, enough complaing. Because before these last few days I was actually having a really good time. I am particularly pleased that I have been able to do some accurate estimations because as we all well know I am not a good judge of anything. However I have consistently been telling people how long I think a hopper of fish will take to process, and they will bet another time against mine and I will win. My job is important enough that I get to feel good, I get to move and think. I’m really really very lucky to have it.

I just found out they were finally going to assign me roommates so I am moving in with the girl who does the bins in the cannery instead. I am sad, because I really love my room and I REALLY love not having a roommate and ESPECIALLY love having smooth white walls, and the place I’m moving into will have wood cabinlike walls, like home.

LIST OF THINGS I AM GLAD I HAVE:

1.    Two pairs of boots because at least one pair is always wet.

  1. All the clothes I have found in the huge boxes of leftover clothes here.

Oh, also my lip skin is all raw and being pulled off from having to wear and remove 4 to 5 bandaids a day to cover my lip ring. But I can’t figure out yet how to take it out. 

bringing sexy back


So, re: the issue of one side of my head I have solved the problem by taking it from subpar to freaking awesome. I didn’t do it alone; in fact I only had the vision. Dane was the actual agent of manifestation and kudos, I say, to him.  Though we later found out he was even more trashed than any of us expected while he did it I think that probably only helped. P.S. Emily, I dedicate this haircut to you. I knew you would be as excited as I am. Here is also a picture of what I wear to work every day minus hairnet and band-aid. I should have put that on for the picture because it’s pretty essential to my look. I have to wear it to ensure that this lip ring that I’ve had for over four years and don’t even know how to take out, and would probably take two pairs of pliers and three people, doesn’t fall off my face into the product. Because that’s much more likely than a big blue band-aid falling off my sweaty lip. But I digress. 

So for those who are interested I’ll give a brief rundown of a typical day, today in fact.

6 am I get up at and get dressed and stretch a little

6:30 eat a small bowl of eggs and hashbrowns

6:40 I go and put on my raingear and band-aid and hairnet and hearing protection

6:45 clock in and go check how many fish we have, start up the incline belt and crossover belt etc. and let some fish out of a bin to fill up the fresh frozen hopper where the fish wait to go to the slime line

8 or so we usually finish processing the fish and start cleanup

9 or so we start cleanup. I always clean the sorting belt, where people sort the different types of salmon that get pumped in into different bins. That takes about an hour when I can either think about how the other person I’m cleaning with is doing it all wrong or about how many other activities I would rather be doing with my wrists’ limited lifespan.

[Is that how a possessive comma-in-the-air works? I am losing the ability to write. Yesterday I was trying to spell “friend” and just sat there looking at it, trying to figure it out. It looked too weird. And then on my wall I wrote “hungery”. It’s a little distressing.]

Then sometimes we get another boat in the afternoon and so I sleep until lunch and then do the routine over again. Up until now we’ve been getting 4 to 10 thousand lbs at a time, but today we are waiting for the boat from Bristol Bay which is bringing about 250,000 lbs. So instead of working for 3 hrs I think tomorrow will be more like 16. We have an exciting evening and 4th of July ahead of us.

In other news Lauren has carpal tunnel and has to get surgery/sergury when she gets home and Jade threw out her back again and so is hobbling around bent halfway over. I have been working on some tennis elbow but so far it’s mild.

 So it’s now 12:44 am and we just got off work. It was action packed. I thought I would add that if anybody wants to send me anything, like dried fruit, nuts, episodes of This American Life or large earrings feel more than free.

Send them to:

Kira (Jade’s Friend)

Bottom of Fish Bin

Fish Camp, AK

No, the real address is:

Kira Nelson

c/o Icicle Seafoods 

PO box 30

Larsen Bay, AK 99624