Overtaken

I think you know I'm working on a big, long writing project. It's fiction and it's over 100 pages and nearly 60,000 words and there's a ways to go before it concludes. I like this project. As with any creation that takes time I have my doubts about it's long term value but they ebb and flow and the only way to find out if they have any validity is to forge ahead to the conclusion. I have publicly declared that I will have the "shitty first draft" complete by Christmas.

When I'm working on a performance project I find that there's a point about 2/3 to 3/4 through the process when I get absolutely sick of it but know I have to keep going. Shortly after that I have a brilliant idea for a new project that I want to devote all of my time to. I thought it was just me but I recently met two writers that are experiencing the same idea ambush.

I'm also reading a book that I thought would be good but turns out to be one of the ones that is more than that, it gets right inside you from the get go. I want to keep reading and I want it to last forever even though I know it's going to break my heart. It's not unusual that something like that will spark the dream farm in my skull to sow seeds in every furrow. This morning in the shower I clearly saw the way the scene I'm working on in the big, long project should go. It was the sort of directional signal that renewed my faith in the piece.

I couldn't take action on that idea until after my lunch date, though. I had to get dressed and get on the bus and enjoy some time with my friend. Somewhere in that process I was ambushed. It's a story. It might make it to novella length but is probably more short story sized. Like the book I'm reading, it burrowed straight under my skin. Scenes popped into my head fully formed and a general outline for the style of the piece came with them. I feel all of the feelings about it.

I tried to make myself write on the inspiration for the big, long project when I got home but it didn't work out that way. After struggling to get myself in front of the computer for a while and continuing to have pieces of the ambush come at me I knew it was better to go with the flow. I have a goal for myself with the big, long project to write at least 15 minutes a day. I've actually been doing 30 minutes a day on weekdays lately and being intermittent on my weekend work. Tonight I worked for over an hour straight on the ambush. I could probably have gone on longer but the pets were starting to ramp up their crazy due to hunger and once I'd broken the spell I let myself rest.

This is all to say that I think I'm going to have to take Blog Post off my to do list for a little while. I think that I don't have the wherewithal to split my writing brain in more than two directions and these two have to take priority right now. I won't be completely gone. We've got Photo Challenges in the works and I'm about to do my first sponsored thing next week. I know you guys are awesome and will understand but I wanted to get it out there because I'll also need you to keep me honest about my goals for completion and I trust you for that.

Thank you.

Photo Challenge: RED/READ

I found the submissions for this challenge oddly soothing. It's been lovely to see them roll in. Please enjoy and then tell the photographers so.

Though my parents were surely not the first people on earth to paint the doors of their home red I can't help thinking of home whenever I see a red front door. Even the hardware on this one is reminiscent of my childhood home.

Our Alisun submitted three photos. One of the others was a crab that sure didn't look like a crab to me and this shot is flowers that I keep seeing as sea anemones. I love the way she's making me work for it.

As Our Lisa said in her original caption, there's nothing Golden about this. The Red Gate Bridge doesn't sound very elegant, though.

Our Janet has gone through a couple of big life changes recently. I feel as though there's some kind of reflection of those things in this photo of something familiar being repurposed for beauty.

I've been lamenting the arrival of fall a bit. It's cold and dark on our morning park excursions and that's making me bitter. It's probably a good idea for me to honor the turning of the seasons so the next prompt is TURN. Make of it all that you will!

Please enter by 9am Tuesday October 8th for posting on October 9th. Tag your photos with PHOTO CHALLENGE and TURN. Check out the wonderful work in our Flickr Pool for inspiration. Also, let me know if you have any questions. The new appropriate email for that is Kizzbeth117 at gmail dot com.

Ungoogleable

Prompted by a friend's status update I spent a portion of my lunch break searching the internet for a couple of ex-boyfriends. If I can teach you one lesson about such a thing it would be; date people with unusual names and/or a strong social media presence. These two guys are such a disappointment! One of them is a performer with a credit on a high profile industry site as recent as 2009 but no Facebook, no Twitter, not even a godforsaken LinkedIn. The other one has at least two out of three of those things  but they're locked down tight. Even his profile pics are maddeningly manipulated.

I'm not looking to rekindle any flames, truly I'm not. All I'm looking for is a peek into their current lives, some fodder for speculation, and a nice cup of nostalgia with my microwaved burrito bowl. Is that so much to ask? As exes go I think I provide the perfect google experience. I have an entertaining twitter account and a public blog. Anyone who wants to can stay anonymous while they swing by, catch up on some photos and anecdotes, then go on to have a wistful 5 minute daydream about how sorry they are to have lost me what might have been had we not come to our senses. It's like a handcrafted breakup gift for the modern age.

Despite the deplorable lack of source material I did manage to have a few fond moments of remembrance between bites of chewy tortilla and undercooked rice. From those moments come today's second lesson, courtesy of one of the aforementioned gentlemen; do not ever tell someone that she needs to agree to marry you or you'll never speak to her again. If she's worth marrying she'll say, "Wow. That's too bad. I'll miss you."

And then she'll blog about it.

*This photo is not one of the guys I googled. I can't even remember this guy's last name. To be honest I think I have his first name wrong, too. Lovely man, though, just a delight.

Poetry Prayer #26

On Friday night a friend and I went to a local church to hear a concert of art songs. (Thank you for the tickets Sara!) The program was two longish cycles of songs by Johannes Brahms that chronicled the unrequited love he had for his mentor's widow. The group presenting the concert was kind enough to provide us translations of the German and these songs are beautiful but also hilarious. They clearly represent the desperately high level of emotion the composer must have been feeling. So today, for fun, here are the lyrics to one of the songs in the first cycle. First I'll give you the English then the German (but without the accents because I don't know how to get those to happen).

lyrics by Georg Frederich Daumer

On the banks of the Danube,
there stands a house,
and looking out of it
is a pink-cheeked maiden.

The maiden
is very well-protected:
ten iron bolts
have been placed on the door.

But ten iron bolts
are but a joke;
I will snap them
as if they were only glass.

*****

Am Donaustrande,
da steht ein Haus,
da schaut ein rosiges
Madchen aus.

Das Madchen,
es ist wohl gut gehegt,
zehn eiserne Riegel
sind vor die Ture gelegt.

Zehn eiserne Riegel
das ist ein Spass;
die spreng ich
als waren sie nur von Glas.

It Really Is Me Not Them

My dog is a lot of work. I acknowledge every day that I am privileged to have the time and resources to do that work and to do it in the most humane and intelligent way possible. I've always been aware of the animal rescue world but I'm a little deeper in my understanding of it these days. At least once a week I see a dog and wonder if I should save him or her. There are a lot of reasons that I wind up saying no. It is infinitely more expensive to have two dogs. Since I rely on the kindness of friends when I go away it is an exponentially larger request to have two dogs or a larger financial commitment. Still and all the stories are tough to read and I often think it'd be worth it. I know Ed would love to have another dog around to join him in his plans and schemes for conquering the world. He needs a Pinky to complement his Brain.

Our sweet friend, Ben, is staying with us this weekend. We're about twelve hours into his stay and it's been enough to remind me why I'm not going to get a second dog for a while. Let me be clear, Ben is not the issue. Ed loves having him around and so do I. He's a cuddly, relatively chill dude with a few quirks but nothing crazy. Ed has been the asshole. He is so excited to have another dog around that he can't control himself. He immediately starts barking and chasing the cats and harassing Ben and jumping all over the furniture and chasing the cats some more and he absolutely cannot stop himself. When I hit the end of my rope this afternoon I put him in his crate for a break and he fell right off to sleep. He exhausted himself. The cats are terrorized. They, of course, blame Ben which is sad and wrong.

Now, I've been studying. I know that this is behavior Ed can be trained away from. I also know that the training will be arduous, tedious, and take a very long time. And you know what? I don't want to do it. I mean, I do actually want to do it maybe an hour a week or so on days when I've had plenty of rest and am at the top of my game. I'm clearly reminded today of why that would be a great idea, too. (An ounce of prevention, don't you know?) I do not want to make it my whole life, all day every day all of the days of the week and twice on Sunday. Maybe after these cats head to the great vomitorium in the sky but not while they're still here. They had their dinner on top of the kitchen cabinets today. Even if I can train the dogs I don't know that I can train the cats. They have too much fear and too many health problems. It just wouldn't be fair to them.

For tonight we're working as well as we can with a combination of management and training. It's probably been good for all of us. OK, good for me and Ed, for the cats and Ben the benefits are surely only slight. Starting next week who wants to come over and spend about an hour in my house with their dog while I train mine? I'll provide the wine.

*Photo taken today. I feel I should say that I did place Ed on the love seat next to Ben but they love each other and hung out there without coaxing.

Crowd Sourcing Cheer

This is one of my favorite pictures from this year's Mermaid Parade excursion. Every time I look at it I am happier. I love that she's ok with me being silly and she's playing along. The expression she's got is priceless. I had this, possibly questionable, inspiration that it would make the perfect holiday card. Maybe not for everyone but I have a history of making slight off center choices for my annual mailing. The problem here is not the photo, I think the people I send my cards to will like this photo. The problem is the caption. My first inspiration was, "Wishing you a delicious new year!" Then I faltered a little. Is that too suggestive? Is it gross? Is it offensive in some way I'm not even seeing? When I ran it by jrh she politely said that she loved the photo and we could brainstorm a less charged caption.

You may have guessed already that this is where you come in. Any ideas for a cheery, all-encompassing, holiday message to go with this picture? Please?

Defining My Curve

I get frustrated with my learning curve. How does that make me different from everyone else? It doesn't. I know! Still, I get frustrated and would rather someone just do it for me or show me how in exactly the way that I, and only I, will understand with no practice. The no practice part is important.

At Blogher this year I attended a session led by Katy Morgan that I just didn't know about. I rarely even watch videos online so would I make them? Only time would tell.

Katy is a gregarious and inspiring presenter. By the time I left the room that day I was ready to try. She'd said that iMovie was so easy anyone could learn it in a snap. She'd also said that you could film and edit a video on your phone. I thought she said those two things together. Like, "Anyone can learn to edit video on your phone overnight!" I'm now wondering if maybe that's not what she actually said, just how she made me feel. Like I said, inspiring!

I have spent the intervening weeks proving that not everyone can learn this stuff overnight. In short bursts I frustrated myself and lost video over and over. I kept accumulating clips even when I had tried and failed to be able to edit them. I was on the verge of giving up but it kept nagging at me.

This weekend I figured out (after many more failed attempts) how to move the video I had from iMovie on my phone to iMovie on my laptop. Once I accomplished that I poked around the program and made my very first video. The subject matter, me eating an ice cream sandwich on some steps on Park Avenue, isn't particularly engaging and the editing is rudimentary at best. The thing is? I made a fucking video, people! It's under half a minute long but it includes several different clips stitched together. I added titles at both the beginning and the end and everything (not everything, I don't know how to deal with sound yet so I recommend turning your volume all the way down). I am inordinately proud of my short, boring video so I'm going to share it with you here. Thank you for indulging me.

 

Poetry Prayer #25

This photo was taken a little over 8 years ago. It was the first and only time I've seen the Coney Island Sideshow. Insectavora was my favorite part of the whole thing. Today, I've just learned, is her last day with the show. She will be missed.

In her honor I found these lyrics:

Lydia The Tattooed Lady
by Groucho Marx

Oh Lydia, Oh Lydia
Now have you met Lydia
Lydia the tattooed lady
She has muscles men adore-so
And a torso even more-so
Oh, Lydia, Oh Lydia
Now have you met Lydia
Lydia the queen of tattoo
On her back is the battle of Waterloo
Beside it the wreck of the Hesperus too
and proudly above waves the red white and blue
You can learn a lot from Lydia

There's Grover Walen unveilin' the Trylon
Over on the West Coast we have Treasure Island
There's Captain Spaulding exploring the Amazon
And Lady Godiva--but with her pajamas on
She can give you a view of the world in tattoo
If you step up and tell her where
Mon Paree, Kankakee, even Perth by the sea
Or of Washington crossing the Delaware.

Oh Lydia, Oh Lydia, now have you met Lydia
Lydia the queen of them all
She has a view of Niagara which nobody has
And Basin Street known as the birthplace of jazz
And on a clear day you can see Alcatraz!
You can learn a lot from Lydia!
--Lydia the queen of tattoo!

Some Things I Saw

Weeks ago I wrote to the FDNY to  request reports on the 2 fires in my building this summer. The second one came today.

That reminded me that I wanted to share these photos.

I stay pretty quiet on the internet on 9/11. It's safer for everyone involved.

I take pictures, though. I try to just keep my eyes open and be grateful for what I see.

It helps.

Insofar as anything can.

These are the things I saw.

P.S. I wrote at Kizz & Tell the other day in case you didn't see.

Photo Challenge: PROMPTLESS

I kept the phrase, "What do you want us to see?" in my head for the whole challenge period this time around. I loved looking at each photo and thinking, "There's something about this shot that the photographer actively wants me to see." I think that's always the case but it seemed more acute than before. Thank you all so much for sharing.

I could not hope to guess what each participant was thinking when they offered up these views and, in this case, I find I really don't want to write up my speculation. I don't want to impose any of myself on these works so I'll link to each person's Flickr Stream but no captions this time around.

New prompt below and next time I will throw in my two cent captions!

by Smalltown Mom

by Our Bethany

by Our Cindy

by Me

by Our Ana

by Our Janet

by Our Lisa

Some of us are in regions that are plodding toward autumn and some of us are in back to school mode. For those reasons I'm going with RED/READ for our prompt. Surprise me!

Please enter by 9am Tuesday September 24th for posting on September 25th. Tag your photos with PHOTO CHALLENGE and RED/READ. Check out the wonderful work in our Flickr Pool for inspiration. Also, let me know if you have any questions. The new appropriate email for that is Kizzbeth117 at gmail dot com.

Butterflop

I was an extremely social animal this weekend. OK, it's all relative. I was extremely social for me.

I'm exhausted! So just a quick question for you.

What's the weirdest thing anyone has ever brought to a social event to show you?

Poetry Prayer #25

This one was posted on Facebook by a friend who was helping someone choose a poem for a wedding. The poet, Joyce Sutphen, is the current poet laureate of Minnesota.

Gifted
by Joyce Sutphen

That woman, she said, could rattle a bird
right out of the sky; that man
could spell a row of corn backwards
and forwards. Their children (all ten of them)
could tell you how to add leaf to branch
or divide the sky cloud by cloud.
They were a talented family,
a most gifted group.

And when they wanted a vacation,
they painted a wall full of mountains
and climbed the highest one,
they carved a coastline along the sidewalk
so that they could gaze out to sea
beyond the garage's shore.

They could sing harmony to a song
that was only, just then, being composed.
They believed in things that no one--not
even God--would have asked them to believe.
They knew how to keep stars
shining and they still do.

A Mitzvah Indeed

These noodleheads turn 13 today. They were born in the wee hours of the morning as part of a litter of 5. Their genius brother, Pinto, died unexpectedly in 2004 of unknown causes. Their remaining brother, Max, lives with Pony Express and their sister, Mariah, with MamaKizz.

Elvis is the Platinum Cat. He received a grim diagnosis of his heart when he was 4. He takes medication and supplements daily and he mysteriously lost a tooth last year but he's in pretty good health. He's in miraculously good health for a cat who was expected to keel over before the age of 6. He likes to play fetch when the dog will let him in on the game and he sings with me if he thinks I need back up even though he sounds like what would happen if you married Mickey Mouse to a buzz saw. He's good fun and good company but he's complicated.

In contrast Anna has been the lowest of the low maintenance cats. She has lived life at a healthy weight, with healthy eating habits, and basically good mental health...for a cat. This year, however, it seems that her kidneys are, perhaps, heading south. For now she is still not terribly demanding but, of course, it has me thinking.

I will miss both of them terribly when their time comes, that should go without saying. This new diagnosis for Anna, though, makes me realize how very hard her passing will be. You might think that a pet who demands little and generally stays out of one's way wouldn't hook your heart. You don't necessarily notice her at first glance. She's a bit of a wallflower. She's the smallest of her siblings and looks like she could be easily broken by the world's regular workings. You know who put bossy Pinto in his place when he came to stay, though? You know who comes to sit with me when I've been gone for a while? You know who sat with the old dog when she was sick and probably having seizures while they were home alone? Yeah, Anna. When she goes the very fabric of our little ecosystem will unravel. Which is, probably, as it should be.

Anyway, it's amazing that these cats came to me. It's amazing that they're still here. They are simply amazing. I'm feeling pretty lucky to have them around.

Photos taken today by me: Anna, Elvis, Anna, Elvis.

Don't Pay With Milk Bones

I know I am always saying that my dog is smart. I'm sorry if it seems like overkill but I honestly believe that, objectively, it's true. Ed has a reputation with our friends for being dangerously deductive. Sara says she always feels like he's humoring her when she trains him. He's still a dog, though, right? His brain is still only the size of a lemon so there's limited capacity there.

Then he goes all Island of Dr. Moreau on me and I become terrified.

He's been on short walks for a few days because of an ankle injury so I've been trying to do things to work out his brain to make up for the lack of physical exercise. Tonight he's more peppy and I'm more lazy so I pulled out a brain game that I bought a while go. These games come in three levels. We'd borrowed a level one game from a friend and he loved it but he also figured it out in about fifteen minutes so when I bought one for our house I went to level three immediately. We worked with it a few times and it was frustrating for both of us. He sort of got it but it was slow going and I'm not sure he was having fun and I was helping a lot in a way that seemed like it probably wasn't actually helpful. Eventually he took a plastic piece and went off to chew it making it very difficult to fit it back into the game.

I haven't gotten the game out in, conservatively, six months. I move the damn thing every time I get out a pot lid (if fits nicely with the lids in the cupboard) and wonder if I've wasted my money. Tonight we were at just the right cross roads that I was inspired to try again.

OK, click through and just see which game we have so you can accurately visualize what happened here. The pie pieces slide around to reveal each compartment and you can hide treats in those, or just in some of them. The plastic bone pieces have a stem that locks pie pieces so you can lock 'em all or just some of them and you can hide treats under all or some or, ultimately, none of them. Since Ed's go-to move is his paws not his mouth, and without thumbs you have to use your mouth to move those bone pieces, that's where he got stuck all those months ago.

Tonight I decided to be a proper, methodically scientific trainer type so I went right back to the beginning. I took out all the bones and hid treats in the compartments. He absolutely remembered how to move the pie pieces and it took him no time at all so I increased the difficulty but only slightly. I put three bone pieces back in but at an angle so they wouldn't be as difficult to remove and it would be clear that there was a treat under each one. I put treats under most of the pie pieces as well so there'd be a big overall pay off. I set it down, he was amped to get started, and I worried that the frustration would suck the fun out of it for him. Before I even turned back to my dinner he leaned down, delicately picked up a bone with his teeth, extracted it, spit it out, and ate the treat below. He moved immediately on to the other two. No frustration. Pure memory or latent learning or something I totally missed when we were working before? I have no idea what just happened but I'm not worried about frustrating him anymore, that's for damn sure. To test him I put all the bones in and fully locked them down and they didn't slow him down even a little.

So, you know, if you don't hear from me for a while please come by and look for a ransom note, my dog is probably holding me hostage.

Me & The White Rabbit

When I was a kid my family was late to everything. No, seriously, everything. If you put a time on it we would show up a minimum of 15 minutes after that time. You could set your watch by it.

The classic story about our collective lateness happened the year we lived in the UK. It was back before the internet and email and before there was even cable TV. The fact that daylight savings time would happen on a different day there than at home was somehow not drilled into our consciousness. By this point in the year I had already gained a reputation for being late to school all the time. The Brits weren't shy about teasing me about it either. Better that, I suppose, than the fact that I was woefully behind my peers academically and math time made me, even at 6-years-old, consider faking a seizure.

So, we didn't realize that it was daylight savings day (or, really, the day after that since it was a school day) and my parents hustled me off to school. My dad was around so he must have been on some sort of school break himself. It was the one day of the whole year so far we were on time. Not only were we on time but we were early. It was record breaking and we were all intensely proud of ourselves. We arrived at the school building and the joint was practically silent. Some nervous exploration dug up a cleaning lady who explained the whole time change thing to us in very short, declarative sentences just in case we were as stupid as we looked. She then, with the kindest of intent I'm sure, offered to let me sit in the broom closet until other responsible adults arrive and she could turn me over to them. My parents, bless them, declined.

In some fit of optimism we, as a group, still felt we were in a place of triumph. We were early, so early in fact that we could not help being early, or at least on time, an hour hence. Since we were all washed and dressed and prepped we trooped home for a celebratory breakfast before returning to school...late.
I can still remember the wryly amused look on the student teacher's face as she knelt to help me with something later that day and whispered, "So, I hear you were early to school this morning." I still hate her a little bit for that.

This morning I set my alarm a little later because the dog has injured his leg so we will not be going to the park for a while. I calculated it so that I could sleep in a bit, take him on his truncated walk, write a warning email to the dog walker about the limping and sadness, and still get out of the house on time if not early.

Anyone want to guess how late I was to work?

Fluffer Nutter*

There's a chance that this post could just be a bunch of fluff. Maybe not, though. Only one way to find out!

As far as I'm concerned this dog can photo bomb all it wants.

Did you know that Mia Wasikowska and Jesse Eisenberg are dating? I did not. I do not know them in any way beyond having watched them do their acting things on screen but this news pleases me. I can imagine them making each other happy. (But I am not imagining that in a dirty way. Well, I wasn't. But now...)

I learned about the Milken Educators Award the other day. Seems like a pretty ding danged good thing to support.

I once did an acting exercise based on the techniques of auteur Mike Leigh. Our scenario was much like something that happened on a local commuter train last week. I was killed within the first 10 seconds of the scene. I'm still kind of embarrassed about that.

I know that you've probably had it up to here (here is very high, maybe even above your head) with the whole Miley Cyrus/twerking thing. Let me urge you to read just one more thing on the subject, though. It's Neil...getting it right.

In the event that you do not know the basics of Emmett Till's murder (I did not) here's a short run down. Still heartbreaking after all these years.

Some of the most interesting and thought provoking work I've ever done has been in prisons and detention centers. While I've never had a long term job in the prison system I've been fortunate to go in on a short term basis and work with inmates occasionally. The news of this camp for children of incarcerated  parents is inspiring to me.

As much as I love the Dog Shaming site most of the stuff people complain about is just normal dog stuff that they should be managing or training around. This one, however, feels like it could have happened to anyone and wow, I'm so so sorry it did.

It's photos like this that make me wonder if getting one of the wolf hound breeds maybe isn't the craziest thing I've ever thought of.

The Black Hats are winning. We've lost a lot of abortion providing clinics recently. This is madness, you guys, and it must stop.

If my dog was in a marrying type of household he would totally pull this...after demand barking and jumping up on everyone on the dais for a while.  (P.S. I'm no fashion maven but those flowers are way too big for that dog.)

You have probably also read a lot about Antoinette Tuff. I hope so! If you haven't, though, I urge you to learn about her experience in a school office connecting with a heavily armed man and convincing him to lay down his weapons and surrender. She's who I wish I'd been in the improv scene I talked about up at the top and in life.

Neil Gaiman doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who gets himself into situations where he might be arrested. He was still nice enough to post these handy guides on how to comport yourself when being questioned by the police. They're short and informative and Carmencita, who is a lawyer, has confirmed for me that the steps they outline are valid.

That seems like a pretty good place to stop. Keeping us all out of jail so we can keep blogging...what else is there to say, right?

*For the record, I despise marshmallow fluff.

Poetry Prayer #24

Only one serious choice to celebrate Labor Day, right?

9-5
by Palmer & Florrie
recorded by Dolly Parton

Tumble outta bed
And stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawnin, stretchin, try to come to life
Jump in the shower
And the blood starts pumpin
Out on the streets
The traffic starts jumpin
And folks like me on the job from 9 to 5

Workin 9 to 5
What a way to make a livin
Barely gettin by
Its all takin
And no givin
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
Its enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it

9 to 5, for service and devotion
You would think that i
Would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead
But the boss wont seem to let me in
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me
Mmmmm...

They let your dream
Just a watch em shatter
Youre just a step
On the boss mans a ladder
But you got dream hell never take away

On the same boat
With a lot of your friends
Waitin for the day
Your shipll come in
And the tides gonna turn
An it's all gonna roll you away

Workin 9 to 5
What a way to make a livin
Barely gettin by
Its all takin
And no givin
They just use your mind
And you never get the credit
Its enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it

9 to 5, yeah, they got you where they want you
There's a better life
And you think that I would daunt you
Its a rich mans game
No matter what they call it
And you spend your life
Puttin money in his wollet

Workin 9 to 5
What a way to make a livin
Barely gettin by
Its all takin
And no givin
They just use you mind
And they never give you credit
Its enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it

9 to 5, yeah, they got you where they want you
There's a better life
And you dream that I would daunt you
Its a rich mans game
No matter what they call it
And you spend your life
Puttin money in his wallet