*rises from grave* Hello Otters! This is Ottavia Paluch from Things You Otter Know. Sorry I’ve been away for so long again. Welcome to the March 2022 edition of Otterbiography, the monthly column where I spend half the time complaining talking about my extremely boring and unimpressive life as it currently stands and then spend the other half sharing media that I have been consuming in sort-of-large amounts. (The name was suggested by some guy on Twitter I don’t know.)
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Ok, on with the show!
I don’t even know where to start when it comes to this month. Not because I have nothing to tell you, or because I have too much to tell you, but because I have lost all sense of time and space and probably think that events that took place in January really happened last week.
I have a co-op job at Shoppers Drug Mart now! Actually, delete the exclamation mark from the end of that sentence. Shoppers doesn’t deSERVE a goddamn exclamation point.
Unfortunately I do not get to sell weed as part of my position, unlike what the name of the store suggests. I actually have the most boring job on the planet, in part due to my bad vision. I’m a front-of-house facer. You know what that means? I don’t stock the shelves; instead I have to make them neat. Bring items forward. Keep them even and straight. Make sure the English side is facing forward. Which is more important than you’d think. Do YOU have any idea what cerises au marasquin dans du sirop trés epais are???? (I, for one, know they are bloody delicious.)
It’s not a hard job per se. Anyone could do my work. And I’m easily replaceable since shelves have to be faced all the time since people are taking stuff from the shelves and, well, you know. BUYING them. It’s a little discouraging for that reason. The fact that I have to spend 40 minutes on an entire aisle only for it to be messed up the next day, for my hard work to go pretty much entirely to waste? That irks me tremendously. Whatever. It’s not a museum. It’s a friggin Shoppers.
To me the worst part is the amount of bending and kneeling and squatting I have to do. Never before have I done so many squats within a one month span. I’ve been at it for a month and a bit now and I’m only just noticing a little more strength in my knees and legs now. Every day I come home from work my legs are spaghetti noodles. I know many, many people have it far, far worse than I do, but I’m a weakling. AND this is my Substack, after all. Let me complain.
Honestly, I can’t seem to recall a part of this job I enjoy. Is it the fact that the PA system plays at least one terrible John Mayer song whenever I’m in? Like, “Waiting on the World to Change”? You’re John fucking Mayer! Don’t just sit around and watch the paint on your overpriced PRS signature guitar dry! DO SOMETHING!
And it’s not like I asked for any of this, y’all. I got forced into taking co-op to fulfill a high school breadth requirement or whatever you call it. And my co-op teacher forced me into doing Shoppers because it was close to my house. All the others kids got placements that pertained to their interests and I’m squatting 853479 times a week in a Shoppers Drug Mart. I told him about me at the beginning of January and he was like, “…so, wanna work at Winners?” AS IF I AM NOT THE WORST T-SHIRT FOLDER YOU WILL EVER SEE. I very much dislike this guy. I don’t see him as often anymore because everyone’s at their placements but he will NOT SHUT UP and he is adamant on not wasting a single second of a period to the point where he goes over time thanks to his babbling about workplace safety and whatnot. He made us sit through a two-hour presentation on the employment standards act, which we weren’t even eligible for, and which I pretty much snoozed through.
Oh, and it gets worse! Did you know that I need 100 hours of work to get a co-op credit??? That’s right, fellas, I get paid in useless high school credits instead of in MONIES! I did the calculations and it turns out that by the end of my work term, meaning the end of June, I could have earned, like, $1,800. Which I know is not a lot, but come on. If I wanted to work at Shoppers I would go ahead and apply there myself and make sure I was getting paid for it. I’m probably gonna get one this summer, which I’ll talk about in a second, but at least it’s gonna be something that I at least enjoy in some tangible way, not this force-fed wOrK eXpErIeNce nonsense this guy’s making me swallow and that I despise.
This guy, all he talks about is transferable skills and stuff. Transferable skills yadda yadda why don’t you transfer yourself over to another school. There I said it.
Like, I get it if you want to be a mechanic so you go to a car shop for your placement and pick up transferable skills from there that you can apply to your future role as a mechanic. But what about facing shelves is transferable to my life? To my nonexistent notion of a career? I clean the kitchen three times a week, thank you very much. Like, WTF am I gaining from this experience? Calf muscles???????
At the top of the month I helped this kid a year younger than me with an essay he had to write for his English class on Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1983 Mills College commencement speech. I had never read it before, but I recommend that you do because it is an incredible piece of work. I managed to think of enough good stuff for him to write that he called me, and I quote, a genius. I was thrilled! Especially because this kid is…quite uncooperative.
A few weeks after I helped him with that essay, we had to do this small little assignment for class where we had to record ourselves reading this paragraph. I was responsible for facilitating and taping everyone’s parts, as I had been leading class discussions and stuff (this is a mixed-grade class for neurodiverse students of which I am sadly apart of and that I basically help run at this point because I’m in my last year). This kid went last, and he did not want to do it. Not a unique behaviour of his. He refuses to do stuff all the time. So I basically told him, you know, you’re my last person and after you’re done I’m done all of my work for the day and I would really appreciate if you would tape your part for me. He said no.
So I gave him five minutes to himself while I talked it out with the teachers in the room. They told me to give it another shot and just try to explain to him why refusing to do the work is wrong. So I went back - this was all completely off the cuff - and told him that by refusing to do the work, he wasnt being a team player, nor was he being responsible, or cooperative. And I gave him a nice long two minute spiel about those things. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in that classroom, that is, getting him to do what I wanted. But guess what happened? He obliged! And he finally read his part in front of me before he took off.
That situation was revelatory for me. All my life I had kinda ruled out being a teacher of sorts because I felt I couldn’t handle uncooperative students. I thought I would lose my cool or start crying and look like a doofus. But if I can handle the most uncooperative guy in the program - man, I can do anything! I can handle anyone!
If anything good came out of this pretty bad month, it was that I managed to discover, for pretty much the first time, that I was good at something other than writing. Like, I’ve always thought my stupid poem-rants are all I’ve got. But it turns out that despite my inner critic constantly telling me that all my oral presentations sucked and that I spoke too quickly, I can actually talk to people and have them connect with what I’m saying. And that, to me, is a gift.
Speaking of telling people what to do! I’m a director at this local youth arts organization and I had to run like three meetings by myself with my sub-team last month. Which was hard for me because I have literally never done that. But it turns out, according to my cOlLeAgUes (or, really, friends) that I run meetings in a very similar way to how I write. I do it with passion. With pizazz! With a ton of terrible jokes thrown in for good measure. Coming from someone who has never done debate, is not easy to talk about important things for an hour straight and have people care about what you say. But I did it! More than once! Dudes, I’m going places.
I’ve been scouring Indeed and Glassdoor for weeks now. WEEKS. Without any success. I’ve been looking for writing-adjacent jobs because you KNOW I wouldn’t want to subject myself to more Shoppers. (Ugh. Come June 24 they can kiss my free labour ass.) But I’ve been looking for stuff I can do part-time in the summer and then say sayonara to when school starts. 90% of the ones I’ve found require you to be a post-secondary student (preferably an upper-year one). Obviously not me yet. And on top of that they tend to want people who have experience with social media marketing. And my Twitter is the closest thing I have to experience in that field. So. Yikes. AND there’s usually a part about applicants needing to be good at Adobe Blah Blah. Again, not me. So I haven’t had a lot of luck yet. I did apply to two internships at Jack.org and both wrote back to me saying that they found “[my] background impressive”. That’s a W for me because they initially said they’d only contact candidates they were interested in. I’m proud of myself. The search continues, though…
I missed Touché Amoré’s show in Toronto. I was crushed not to get to see them. They’re one of my favourite bands. Unlike most artists, I really wanted to hear a set filled with songs from their latest album, Lament, which is probably in my top ten favourite albums of all time. Insanely good and cathartic live band. I asked one of my dearest friends if they could make it and understandably they could not. Next time they come around I am absolutely coming.
And you know what else I discovered? Most of the shows happening this summer in Toronto from some of my favourite, albeit smaller artists, are 19+ only shows. I TURN NINETEEN THIS SEPTEMBER. You’re telling me I have to wait ANOTHER FIVE YERAS before I get my next chance to see Kevin Devine on tour again??????
Charlie Hickey announced that his debut album is dropping May 20! He is a guy to watch. Charlie’s an artist I only discovered quite recently - “Seeing Things” was one of my favourite songs of last year - and he’s one of Phoebe Bridgers’ closest friends. Marshall Vore, one of Phoebe’s main producers and collaborators, is all over Charlie’s work, but I mean that in the best way. Although I do think the first single, “Nervous At Night,” could’ve benefited from a more alt-rock kinda production style. Still rules though.
Speaking of new music! Arcade Fire are back! Cannot wait for their new album WE, which drops May 6.
The Leafs traded for Colin Blackwell and Mark Giordano! I’m especially stoked about Gio. In just a few games you can tell he’s exactly the defensive piece the Leafs need. He’s 38 but not washed up. He was named the best d-man in the NHL just a few years ago! And he’s a proven leader who deserves a shot at a Cup. Playoffs start next month. I CANNOT wait. I will be watching hockey ALLLLL day long. My only reason to live.
I watched the State of the Union. Also a lot of U Sports basketball and hockey and volleyball. It’s actually quite addicting.
I slapped Chris Rock 47km/h.
I became a young writer’s inspiration. Truly such an honour. I tend to forget that some of the angsty little poems I hold so dear to me have taken a life of their own, outside of my room. I am so lucky.
I got into the University of Waterloo! Meaning I have gone 6-for-6 in university applications! I have no idea if that’s where I’m gonna end up in the fall. I haven’t had a lot of time to consider my future in recent weeks.
And just to get real with you, Otters - I think just in general I’ve been drained. My parents especially. We found out just a few weeks ago that my grandfather has a type of stage four cancer. He’s going to get sicker and sicker from here on out. I’m not close to him, but my mom is taking it really hard, and we’ve all suffered as a result. It’s only added to the general mood I’ve felt in recent months. I think in-person classes and co-op and everything have been killing me. I keep screaming at my family for no reason and my family always gets pissed at me for screaming at everybody. I feel like my high school life - my teenagehood, really - is slipping away before my eyes. And I’m trying to enjoy it, I’m trying to find those pockets of joy, but it hasn’t been easy. One bad thing can ruin my entire day. My brain is wild. It’s always in this constant limbo of “am I doing enough? Because I don’t think I am,” and at the same time, “I don’t want to do anything.” I hate it here.
I also wish that I could go to bed at 2am and wake up at 7am for school and feel like I’ve slept 14 hours instead of 7. I’ve really destroyed my sleep schedule. I used to be an early bird and now I’m a….nightingale??????
And overall, I just want to be happy. Is that too much to ask???? Maybe if I start writing poems again I’ll get that desire to live again. To stay awake because of what I haven’t written yet.
Stuff I Like!
Books I have been reading!
I READ A BOOK THIS MONTH!!! An actual real-life book! Unfortunately the vast majority of you won't find it interesting. It was And In The End: The Last Days of the Beatles by Ken McNabb. I give it four stars. It follows the last year of the Beatles, from January to September 1969. Lots of stuff I already knew but also some stuff I didn’t. Ken talked about Paul’s efforts to get the band to do cool stuff but how the rest of the band didn’t want to. How they decided on the album cover and side-two medley on Abbey Road. How they stitched Let It Be together. Also how Alan Klein SUCKED. And how John hastily stitched together that legendary concert in Toronto(!) which was the live debut of the Plastic Ono Band. I would’ve appreciated more info about the music side of things rather than nearly everything being strictly about the business side of their affairs. Regardless it’s a cool read if you’re a Beatlehead like me.
Other things I have been reading
This is the future of comedy right here.
My IRL Jaime wrote this great essay about the Oscars.
Phoebe’s Bon Iver essay.
One of my favourite people (Matt) interviewed and is friends with(!) one of my favourite musicians.
Hannah Gadsby is brilliant.
This John Steinbeck letter.
As someone who can write difficult-sounding things when forced to but who also tries to write poems with (mostly) simple and accessible language, this visual essay is SO FASCINATING TO ME.
Jack Kerouac is OLD.
Turtles All The Way Down Hollywood.
A great analysis of the Dua Lipa scandal by a YouTuber I enjoy watching.
Music I have been listening to!
Since we’re on the topic of the Beatles, here are three bangers of theirs from their second album, With the Beatles, that you likely haven’t heard:
“All I’ve Got to Do”
No one knows this song but they should. Literally a god-tier John Lennon deep cut. He said he was trying to write a Smokey Robinson song (more on him in a second). But it is such a good pastiche. Typical lame 60s “omg-i-love-you-and-i-want-you-to-love-me” lyrics but the melody is infectious, the harmonies are great, and when John goes up and hits that high G# during the second chorus it is literally everything. I have no idea why he didn’t like his voice because it is the EPITOME of the 60s. And on top of that (no I’m not done sorry) Ringo’s stuttering drums are perfectly suited for the song, and Paul plays a bunch bass chords, which apparently was not a thing that anyone had done on a rock song before. So yes.
“You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”
This is actually a Smokey Robinson and the Miracles cover. Though it’s similar to the song I mentioned above in that it’s got pretty meagre lyrics but is redeemed by not only the harmonies (which are surprisingly George-heavy) but also John really bringing it vocally, in part because the melody borrowed from the original tune is so strong. It’s also in a better key than the original IMO. By the way, I listened to, like, at least 10 different covers of this song, just to see if any of them hold up to the Beatles cover, and it turns out that none of them do! I just think there’s this youth and exuberance that comes out of the way they did it. You probably wouldn’t agree, but I think it’s a sick cover.
“Not A Second Time”
With the Beatles is getting a lot of time in the spotlight here because it shouldn’t be as overlooked as it is especially when it’s got gems like this song. If you look up the Wikipedia page for “Not a Second Time” you’ll see a thing called an aeolian cadence mentioned, which is just a fancy way of saying that the chorus ends on a different chord than our ears think it will (E minor instead of G). But here’s the thing: it works!! You don’t notice it unless you pay attention. And in general it’s such a catchy tune—maybe the best original on the whole album—and it’s got this great understated piano part that adds a lot of volume to the song and also makes it unique because there’s a piano solo instead of a guitar solo. You know how many times this month I’ve caught myself singing along to “you hurt me then, you’re back again, NOOOOOOO no noooo, not a second tiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmmmme”? Too many to count. Sick chords in there too, by the way. I guess if you have unique chords like that your melody has to be equally unique? Whatever, I’m not a musicologist. I have no idea how he came up with this song.
Also, R.I.P. Taylor Hawkins. Might write a whole thing about the Foos for next week 👀
Poems!
“A Good Story” by Ada Limon
“Love Poem to the Letter S” by (my brilliant friend)—Grace Q. Song
And, possibly my favourite poem I’ve read this year—“You Want to Hold Everything in Place, But” by (famous Otter!) Matthew Olzmann
Tweets I loved that may or may not have come from me!
That’s it for month number three of Things You Otter Know! I can’t wait to show you all the essays and surprises I have planned for April.
I should be back with a new post this coming Monday, April 11th. Please don’t slap anybody.
🦦 —O— 🦦