Clerkmanifesto classics: Peer Pressure revisited

 

Trying to buck up clerkmanifesto for while I race off to look for a new apartment somewhere across France, I have been posting my glorious new photographic style.

But because I got excited and posted them at ten or twenty at a time, I am now out!

Which means it's time for a clerkmanifesto classic!

This classic is from, well, I don't know, I didn't look. Let's just say it's from the days of yore.

It is called...

Peer Pressure

Rarely does a day go by here at the library wherein one of my co-workers doesn't come up to me and say "Hey, want to go out to the parking lot and do some meth?"

I have heard meth can be unhealthy for you, so, though I'm glad they asked, I am compelled to say "No, thank you."

If only they would leave it at that. But there's always the "Oh, come on, it's fun and it makes you work faster."

So then I mumble "Sorry, but my body is a temple." Which I immediately regret as i watch them roll their eyes at me and walk away.

I was reading a bit of a nice book of poems here by Baudelaire when a co-worker came up behind me. "Oh, hey." They said. "I love that poem!"

"Me too!" I said, delighted one of my co-workers was also a Baudelaire fan.

"Can I have it?" Asked the co-worker.

"You want the book?"

"No, can I just have that poem?"

So I shrugged and started copying out the poem for this person.

"No, just tear out the page." My co-worker said impatiently.

"Oh." I responded. "I can't. It's a library book."

"Pff." The person said. "Like anyone will notice."

"Sorry, I can't." I mumbled. And my co-worker walked away disgusted with me. Later I saw them whispering with someone and pointing at me.

It's hard to find a friend around here.

Maybe I should have torn the page out. It just didn't seem right somehow.

Later that same day a group of us were at the front desk and one of my managers said in a grand invitiation "Who wants a coffee?"

"Me!" I cried out excitedly.

A couple of other people more reservedly expressed interest, and my boss opened up the cash register and took out a couple of twenties.

"Ka-ching." My boss said.

"Can you just take money from the library like that for coffee?" I asked.

"Oh, c'mon, who's gonna care?"

"No thanks." I mumbled embarassedly. "Don't get me one."

The manager shrugged and said "More for us." But I'm pretty sure one of my other co-workers muttered "killjoy" at me under their breath.

Then I had to jealously watch everyone drinking their super fancy coffee drinks while no one talked to me for the rest of the day.

Finally, at the end of the day, when a big group of us were leaving, someone loudly said "Who wants to go downtown, get drunk, and make fun of immigrants?"

Everyone cheered, but I said "Sorry, I can't." in a low voice. 

And someone said "Like we were even asking you." Then they all left together. 

I got in my car and listened to Keith Jarrett on my stereo and maybe cried a little.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I'm better, or more moral than anyone. I'm not saying I'm right and they're wrong.



I'm just different.

Acid falls

 

I guess I just keep accidentally dropping my rolls of film into weird vats of toxic radioactive waste.

Why does this keep happening to me?

And my photographs are much too precious to simply throw away, so I fish out the roll of film, dry it off, and take it to the picture developers, the expensive professional ones who will take good care.

That's my story, and if that's my story then this is the first roll of film that I dropped in radioactive acid. You've seen other images, out of order, but here's the first ones, from our trip up to the waterfall above the city.

I am now of course tempted to go back and dip every picture I've ever taken into this fluid, but we'll just set these pictures out for you to look at now and take a break. I have to pack for a wild European apartment search. Trains! Exotic cities! Weird food! Sketchy airbnbs! Who knows what kind of pictures I'll be posting here next.

Well, it'll probably be more like this, but stranger things have happened here at clerkmanifesto.

(note that seems vaguely important to mention: these are real places, but the colors might be a bit... different than they at first appeared)

The fieldtrip

 

Here are some outtakes from my pictures of my clerkmanifesto field trip to the waterfall. I showed you the "normal" pictures of the outing up into the pretty hills around here, but I not only have these experimental shots lying around, but I am off traveling on short notice, so it might be a nice time to share a few of these with you.

My posts from on the road might be even less fancy than this.

Although these are kind of fancy.

Acid flowers

 

On short notice we are racing around the country looking at apartments to rent and trying to figure out where to live. So it's a bit chaotic here at clerkmanifesto. I have to throw things in my suitcase and be prepared to be gone for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

I guess it's a bit of a way to see this country. We may finally get out of the south. But to start with we'll be running along the bottom coast for a bit more still.

In the meantime I'll be cashing in on some of my massive photography work I've been spending most of my spare time on lately. We'll start today with a very short series of photos I took yesterday, or maybe even this morning, of some flowers in front of the organic food store.

I took these pictures, and I then dropped the camera in a mysterious radioactive puddle. When I got the photo roll back from the developers this is what came out:

Journey to the falls

We went to the falls the other day. 

At the end of the tram line one could technically take a mile or two walk up the winding road there, if one doesn't mind being killed by cars, or one could take the bus instead.

So we piled on the bus to go to the falls, and just like that we were in the beautiful countryside!

Weird.

What falls? You ask.

That's right, we have two here, the impressive falls in the sky, and the one we went to, which is at a sort of chalet and marks the end of a canal system built in the late 1800's. It is very pretty, and also, and I say this to emphasize its greatness, not to degrade it, it is a bit of Disney, with fake grottoes and scenic cave walkthroughs.

It is an awesome place.

Or at least, very charming. A real tourist hotspot circa 1910, but still charming people.

The falls were turned OFF when we were there, but I turned them on in this picture for you:

For a first set of pictures of this trip, I have just the pictures featuring the whole gang, headed out on a clerkmanifesto field trip. It was a lovely outing and I'm pretty sure everyone had a good time, although I worried a lot, and you can never tell with the fox.