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7-30-03 What May Have Been
A moth just flew up my dress. For real. I was standing outside on my cigarette break, and unbeknownst to me, this little white moth must have decided to sneak a peak, because after I walked back into the office, it flew out and fluttered away. I think I'll call him Metaphor.
Office work is not for me. I know this, and I've also been told this by many people. Often, I will ask them what gave me away. Some popular answers:
"You look bored."
"You look frazzled."
"Those clothes aren't you."
"Uh, I can see the hole where your nose ring is supposed to be."
So, I don't want to work in an office for a living. Now what?
I was heading downstairs, and I passed a couple of construction boys laying out a tarp and bullshitting. I looked at their bucket of beige glop that's about to be slapped on the walls. Then I looked at my silk dress and pumps -- formal officewear. And for the millionth time in my life, I wished I was a man and could get paid to slap beige glop on walls.
If I was a guy, I probably would have joined the marines as soon as I was out of high school. I'm not, but when I was a kid I wanted to join anyway. But as fate would have it, I am very very small, with adequate hand-eye coordination and other assorted athletic skills that are of absolutely no value without upper-body strength. Apparently, though, no one informed me of this. Just now, I saw those same construction workers attempting to cram an extremely large box into a not-so-large elevator. There were three of them, and they were having some difficulty. So what do I say?
"Need some help?"
To their credit, they declined rather politely. I would have flicked me in the nose.
--Boston in the fall. (And the winter, the spring ...)
--Driving the streets in Harlem and watching little boys entertaining themselves with a basketball or a cap gun, rather than a $300 video game system on a widescreen TV. In stereo. With a vibrating cordless controller and three memory cards. It reminds me of my childhood, when Nintendo hadn't come out yet and I couldn't afford an Atari, so my technologically-advanced options included a.) pumping quarters into the Ms. Pacman at the laundromat, or b.) pumping quarters into the pinball machine at the 7-Eleven. (Psst - Dan - do you remember that? The Addams Family pinball game that used to be there before the Pakistani guys bought the place?) Eventually I'd run out of quarters, and be "forced" to spend my afternoons playing street hockey with my neighbors, or sledding down the giant hill at the church (snow or not), or playing some sort of make-believe game for fucking hours with my friend Julie, or sneaking into the yard of the old guy down the block and bolting as soon as he looked out the window, or playing catch with my dad, or six rounds of mini-golf with my mom, or ... shit. Where was I?
--The smell of freshly ground coffee. Yum.
--Stew Leonard's grocery store in Yonkers. Especially at lunchtime, when every section gives out free samples of gourmet food in little plastic cups. I swear to you, this is some of the best food I've ever had, and I hate being unfaithful to Trader Joe's. And for the strong of liver, fear not! There's a fabulous liquor store in the back.
--Halloween. I fucking love Halloween, and everything that goes with it. I love the obscenely large bags of candy that suddenly appear in every local grocery and convenience store. I love the string of awful horror movies that make their way into theaters. I love that I'm going to walk out of my apartment this year dressed as Jessica Rabbit and not get arrested. I love warm apple cider and candied apples, drunken hay rides, costume parties, and cheap haunted houses. And I love that I'm going to be here for all of it once again.
--Staying up all night, alone, eating Cup-o-Soups and watching movies. Very often I'm not in the mood for this and I have to get out, but if the timing is right, this is one of my favorite activities.
--A man who can pull a pint of Guinness. The most beautiful one I've ever seen was here, and I'm referring to both the Guinness and the man.
--"Bob." I mean, at any given time, I never know if I'm going to see him again, but every time I do it's in-fucking-credible. I almost feel guilty enjoying his company so much, as if I should be working harder to make my company more enjoyable. And that, as my friends will attest, is not a skill I ever really picked up.
--This pair of jeans I got for $7 from the Army-Navy store. They're so comfortable it has literally made me weep. And they have lots of pockets. One time I set them on fire (yes, I was wearing them), so they're kind of blackened at the bottom and for a long time they smelled like burned plastic. And I lost a little weight since I bought them, so now they kind of just hang dejectedly on my hips, and if I don't wear a belt they fall down with hilarious results. But I dare you -- I DARE YOU -- to wear these jeans for one day and tell me they're not the greatest thing ever to happen to you.
That's all I can think of / feel like writing for now. Check back tomorrow for What Makes Me Unhappy.
This is Dan's bio of me from his website:
Jessica is cooler than you. At one point she wore huge red glasses, but now she has red hair instead. Her laugh is wonderful, and she leaves me drunken messages on my phone all the time. I knew her before she had boobs.
See, here's what I was thinking. I was thinking some people expect too much from some other people. ...
Thus began my original entry for today, which got a little more hostile, and a little more specific, than I'd intended. So fuck it.
Dear Jess,
Dear Jess,
I'm ashamed of myself.
Really. I'm a huge jerk, and if you want to punch me in the face, I wouldn't blame you. I might have to deflect your attack and throw small objects at you in defense, but I'd feel totally conflicted about it. I will decide after your torrential ass-kicking whether or not you get an apology.
And here's the thing ... I'm not even busy. I'm just working and playing, same as ever. Right now I'm working as a temporary executive assistant for the headquarters of a cement and bauxite trading firm, which is exactly as exciting as it sounds. Plus, I learned that "executive assistant" is a glorified term for "serf". My boss is a multimillionaire with three residences, three Mercedes-Benzes of varying sizes, and three times the office space of everyone else. He doesn't speak to me, and he doesn't look me in the eye, perhaps for fear of being infected with Poor through his vulernable eye sockets. One day I said to him, "Sir, I may not own an apartment on the corner of 64th and Park, and I may not wear $3000 suits to work, but I'm a human being, and I deserve the same respect that I give to you, you pretentious lump of shit." That's what I said. I said that.*
The only fun part of this job is opening his mail for him, where I find things like notices from his co-op in Manhattan politely asking him not to let his dog urinate and/or defecate in the lobby. It was a two-page typed letter basically saying, "If your fucking dog can't fucking hold his piss from the elevator to the front door, then you fucking need to fucking take your fucking dog out more fucking often. You are a spoiled hard-on. Thank you." Also, yesterday I had the honor of hand-delivering a brand-spanking-new subpoena. WHEEEEE! Still, though, I can't wait to get back to Boston and be back behind a bar. I may never make as much money as my boss, but at least my head is in proportion to my body.** HA! I win!
Enough about work. I have a couple of announcements, and then I have to get back to photocopying faxes for no apparent reason. (And I promise this time I'll stick around.)
1. Through a series of intensive scientific experiments, I have discovered that in real life, if you run headlong into a screen door at obscene speeds, you will not leave a you-shaped hole in the door, as most cartoons would have you believe. Rather, you will be thrown backwards violently and possibly experience some mild whiplash. HOWEVER. If you happen to have a cigarette in your mouth at the time, it will crumple accordian-style and dangle there sadly, which is just as funny.
2. I spent July 4th at the beach with AJ, and it was superfun, except now I'm the same color as my flourescent pink "Over 21" bracelet. And why is it that when you burn yourself to a crisp, complete strangers find it necessary to point this out to you?
3. You got something on your shirt. No, the other side. Higher. Higher. Right under your ... yeah, that's it.
*Note: I didn't say that. I mean, I did, but it came out, "Sorry, sir, next time I won't steep the tea so long."
**You know what I'm talking about? Those short stumpy guys with huge mammoth heads. It's disconcerting, but you can't look away, kind of like a David Lynch movie. |
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