Last night, the explosion that I always fear will ring out in the night ripped through my bedroom. It was just before midnight that I found myself sitting straight up in bed, trying to figure out why a bomb had just gone off in my bedroom when I heard the tornado sirens begin to wind out. Our bedroom strobed with lightening. I rolled over and looked at Jen in the brief flashes that revealed her to still be sleeping soundly. No way can she sleep through this. Just then, thunder crashed overhead sounding like the house next door was ripped in two. Jen's brow furrowed in the brief punches of bright light, then relaxed as she slipped back into sleep.
Seriously? How is this possible?
I got up, convinced there would be four funnel clouds over our house. I spent the next hour and a half listening to the explosions, marveling at the nonstop barrage of lightening, and watching Cool Hand Luke while flipping back to the news from time to time to check the position of the storm. At 12:30 the tornado warnings expired, but the sirens still wailed intermittently. The news explained the county was having technical difficulties and were trying to get them shut down for the night. I still got a feeling of dread every time they whined there way through the house.
The news said that over the course of one hour, the city experienced over 7000 flashes of lightening. Who the hell verifies that? What kind of life is that when you have to roll out of bed for every thunderstorm saying "Time to count the lightening" to your spouse as you head out the door? Is there a team of people sitting around weather instruments and an abacus? I realize that it's most likely a computer program that analyzes the storm or something like that, but that's not nearly as funny to picture. In my mind, it will always be some douchebag in a slicker on a hilltop with a pen and piece of paper, counting each explosion while praying he's not killed.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Zombies? For Me? You Shouldn't Have!
32 years ago today my mother looked into my eyes for the first time and made the choice not to smother me to death with a pillow. When she finally decided she had made a mistake in letting me live I was sixteen, and strong enough to throw her and her over-sized Serta pillow out of my room. Her initial failure was my success and is what has made it possible for me to be the undereducated, overly sarcastic cubicle dweller I am today. Thanks, mom.
It's been a decent day so far. I came back from getting my first glass of water for the day to find printed photos of zombies all over my desk along with birthday wishes on them. I'm sure the two of you reading this know already, but I love me some zombies. Slow, fast, clever, stupid...they all have a place in my heart. My favorite shot hanging on my desk is from 28 Weeks Later. It's a still of a field full of zombies right before they get mowed down by a helicopter blade. Quality. Straight up quality.
Everyone here in the office also chipped in on a Best Buy gift card (my usual bottle of whiskey for my birthday wasn't an option because of the stupid diet) and so I have enough to run out and grab a new Blu Ray or maybe put it toward a new game. Tough choices, but fortunately I am equipped to make such decisions. That'll probably be it on the present front though. Jen made it clear that our new home theater should suffice as a present, a point I'm not sure I agree with but am hesitant to argue since the whole thing was my idea. I'll let it go. For now.
I plan on spending my evening huddled over the 8 1/2" X 11' pages of friends recently completed manuscript making notes here and there. My heart is really in it, but I suck at being a critical reader. When it comes to theme, tone, etc. it all just washes over me. I find myself just reading for the story. If the story is engaging and the characters are good, I like the book. I'm not complicated. It makes me a good reader, but a terrible critique partner. Fortunately, the author knows who he's dealing with. Oh, did I mention the book is chock full of zombies? How could I not love it? He's just playing to his audience at this point.
Last thing I've been thinking about is "I Am Legend". Jen and I saw the movie and I thought it was ok. I didn't get super excited about it, but didn't think it was bad. I read some reviews in a horror publication (Rue Morgue) where they just trashed it. They hated everything about the movie. They hated the fact that it was Will Smith. They hated that he said the best album recorded of all time was "Legend" by Bob Marley (this is a greatest hits package, not a stand alone album), and on and on and on. I didn't get it. Why hate this movie? Again, not great, but not worthy of six paragraphs trashing it either.
Then I started reading the book. Now that I get to see the original character and story-line, I have to say that I fucking hate the movie. Instead of working within the limitations that a novel set in the past creates, they loosely used the idea from the novel and then just made up a story. A story that is not half as interesting as the original. Give me a character that is starting to get turned on by the bodies of female vampires because it's been so long since he's seen a real person...not Will Smith talking to a dummy.
If I wanted to see Will Smith talk to a dummy I'd watch Wild Wild West.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Cast of Characters
Bob was from Buffalo. He and his brother Jeff had just moved to the area and I don't remember how I met either of them. One day they were just there, sitting around the porch with us, drinking bottle after bottle of Miller Genuine Draft and chain smoking. Bob was through with high school, and helped get me a job at Pizza Hutt. Jeff was still in school, and used to come to the porch at night with limply rolled joints he bought in the hallways.
Liz was a friend of Angie. High strung and fidgety, she always made a room hum with nervous energy. We clashed immediately. She had known Ang for a long time, but to call them close would have been an overstatement. After a few weeks, she started sleeping with Bob and I think they eventually wound up having a kid. She was always on the fringe of the crowd, and once she started dating Bob, he moved to the outer circle too.
Angie was a mess. She didn't just burn through brain cells like the rest of us, she tortured them like a budding serial killer tortures a kitten. You could hear them scream with every lungfull of smoke or shot of tequila. She had both nipples pierced, and it was the first time I had seen that particular piercing in person. Each night, she would make herself a frozen pizza (her only meal of the day) and would cover every square inch of the top of it with sliced green olives. From a distance, all you could see was the pickled green of the olives with the mechanically cut squares of pimento stuffing. She would eat the entire thing while smoking Camel after Camel. One day, I remember her complaining that she was out of weed. In frustration, she ran her fingers through her hair, and from it she pulled a rather large bud. She had passed out the night before and had rolled in her stash in her sleep. Excited, she ran to get her one-hitter.
Renee was a child. Pretty and innocent and wanting to be neither, she spent as much time around us as we'd allow. At fifteen, we felt guilty in her presence, so we'd try to send her away when we could. I got to know her again when we were both older and a bit wiser and it wasn't until then that I gained a bit of affection for her. Emotionally crippled in ways I was only vaguely familiar with, she was always falling apart or putting herself back together. It was something I found fascinating at the time. She had a brother, but I don't remember his name now even though he was around quite a bit at the time as well. I can see his face though.
Rick was a kid that lived upstairs with his very worried mother. She was a sweet woman who saw goodness in our crew, but knew we were generally not going to be a positive influence on her kid. Rick was kept to the outer circle by her involvement and concern. Good for her. Good for him.
Chris was my best friend and made the move to Texas with me. In life, there are very few real creative geniuses. A lot of people have moments of brilliance, but it is rare to burn bright all the time. Chris was always burning. His personality was so big it wore you down, and he was always testing you, pushing your buttons and limits to see where your boundaries were. People who didn't know him well just thought he was an asshole, and he was that, but for the few that really knew him we knew that was just part of the package and that there was more to it than that. Over a long enough time-line though, most of us came around to the same realization as everyone else. He was just too much to be around for any real length of time.
Sweetpea did things in her life that she could never forget or get past. She would bury these memories as deep as she could, but chemicals have a way of bringing everything to the surface, and there were lots of chemicals around. Desperate and sad, funny and endearing, you wanted to take care of her.
There were others. It was a revolving cast of people that would filter through the porch each night. It was rare to walk outside day or night, and not find someone stubbing out a cigarette butt, looking for something to do and waiting for other bored people to wander by. I haven't seen or heard from any of them in years. Even Chris. I know he's in the state and still playing music, but that's all.
I find myself still thinking about these people on occasion, and I wonder how it's possible that someone who has no close friends now could have had so many back then. Am I so much a different person now? Better? Worse? Obviously a lot has changed for me over time, but I automatically assume that nothing has changed for any of these people. When I wonder what they're doing, I can only picture them doing the same stupid shit as back then, but now heavier or with less hair or with kids hanging on them. In my mind, I'm the only one that is allowed to grow. They have to stay as I remember them.
That's the way I like it.
Liz was a friend of Angie. High strung and fidgety, she always made a room hum with nervous energy. We clashed immediately. She had known Ang for a long time, but to call them close would have been an overstatement. After a few weeks, she started sleeping with Bob and I think they eventually wound up having a kid. She was always on the fringe of the crowd, and once she started dating Bob, he moved to the outer circle too.
Angie was a mess. She didn't just burn through brain cells like the rest of us, she tortured them like a budding serial killer tortures a kitten. You could hear them scream with every lungfull of smoke or shot of tequila. She had both nipples pierced, and it was the first time I had seen that particular piercing in person. Each night, she would make herself a frozen pizza (her only meal of the day) and would cover every square inch of the top of it with sliced green olives. From a distance, all you could see was the pickled green of the olives with the mechanically cut squares of pimento stuffing. She would eat the entire thing while smoking Camel after Camel. One day, I remember her complaining that she was out of weed. In frustration, she ran her fingers through her hair, and from it she pulled a rather large bud. She had passed out the night before and had rolled in her stash in her sleep. Excited, she ran to get her one-hitter.
Renee was a child. Pretty and innocent and wanting to be neither, she spent as much time around us as we'd allow. At fifteen, we felt guilty in her presence, so we'd try to send her away when we could. I got to know her again when we were both older and a bit wiser and it wasn't until then that I gained a bit of affection for her. Emotionally crippled in ways I was only vaguely familiar with, she was always falling apart or putting herself back together. It was something I found fascinating at the time. She had a brother, but I don't remember his name now even though he was around quite a bit at the time as well. I can see his face though.
Rick was a kid that lived upstairs with his very worried mother. She was a sweet woman who saw goodness in our crew, but knew we were generally not going to be a positive influence on her kid. Rick was kept to the outer circle by her involvement and concern. Good for her. Good for him.
Chris was my best friend and made the move to Texas with me. In life, there are very few real creative geniuses. A lot of people have moments of brilliance, but it is rare to burn bright all the time. Chris was always burning. His personality was so big it wore you down, and he was always testing you, pushing your buttons and limits to see where your boundaries were. People who didn't know him well just thought he was an asshole, and he was that, but for the few that really knew him we knew that was just part of the package and that there was more to it than that. Over a long enough time-line though, most of us came around to the same realization as everyone else. He was just too much to be around for any real length of time.
Sweetpea did things in her life that she could never forget or get past. She would bury these memories as deep as she could, but chemicals have a way of bringing everything to the surface, and there were lots of chemicals around. Desperate and sad, funny and endearing, you wanted to take care of her.
There were others. It was a revolving cast of people that would filter through the porch each night. It was rare to walk outside day or night, and not find someone stubbing out a cigarette butt, looking for something to do and waiting for other bored people to wander by. I haven't seen or heard from any of them in years. Even Chris. I know he's in the state and still playing music, but that's all.
I find myself still thinking about these people on occasion, and I wonder how it's possible that someone who has no close friends now could have had so many back then. Am I so much a different person now? Better? Worse? Obviously a lot has changed for me over time, but I automatically assume that nothing has changed for any of these people. When I wonder what they're doing, I can only picture them doing the same stupid shit as back then, but now heavier or with less hair or with kids hanging on them. In my mind, I'm the only one that is allowed to grow. They have to stay as I remember them.
That's the way I like it.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Consumerism at its Finest
With the fever gone, I'm left with a vague sense of disorientation and lungs that supply a never ending supply of Bubbalicious-sized wads of phlegm. Oh, yes...it's as delicious as it sounds. At least I'm getting back to my good old gross self.
Last night we finally got cable connected for our new home theater setup. Two knuckleheads rolled in behind schedule and rushed to just get through the job. They were terrible. After pushing a hole through the drywall in the wrong spot (just four feet off from their target) and just narrowly missing my dogs that I had caged to keep them from being under foot, I was the one that had to measure to get them in the right spot. It had taken us forever to get the time scheduled, and I just wanted the box installed, so I stood over them and dictated what they should do and when. It sucked, but at the end of the night, I had an HD DVR installed and life is good. After a quick call to Time Warner cable this morning, we got all the install fees waived and they'll be out to patch the extra hole in my wall. Everything is finally set up, and now I just need to learn how to use everything.
Let's see...what other news is there? I'm approaching a new milestone in the diet. It won't be long before I cross the 130 lbs down mark. I'm hoping to get around the 150 lbs mark and then start transitioning off this lovely little diet and get on with a normal life. Well, my personal version of a normal life.
And then there's the television. The Series 750 LCD televisions by Samsung are the culmination of eons of evolution, decades of research and development, and the pinnacle of scientific toil. When combined with Blu Ray, the television perfectly recreates the majesty of nature across its 52" screen, while removing the annoying requirement of heading outside and getting exercise. When playing Grand Theft Auto IV, you can see the road grit on the city streets and the splintered skull fragments fly. When watching "Lost in Translation" you feel like you could curl up like a cat and nap inside one of Billy Murray's facial pits. It makes me wonder how anyone could handle watching pornography on a screen this size. I think it would scare me.
The television is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and it makes me proud to be a good little consumer. This much I know.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
You Give Me Fever
When I was a kid, I got pneumonia and it kept me out of school for a solid month. When I first got sick, my fever was so high it scared my family. I remember being plucked into a freezing tub while my mom cracked ice trays into the water telling me that she knew it hurt, but I had to stay in the water. I don't know how high my fever went, but the hard-boiled feeling I had stuck with me. For what seemed an eternity I lay in bed, sweating my way through dreams and hallucinations. All of these years later, there's still one that I remember.
My eyes were open, which now tells me this was more of a hallucination that actual dream. The world was black and white like the small television I was allowed to have in my room at the time. I knew I was in bed, and could feel my wet sheets and soaked pillow under my head, but my bed was actually along the curb of a suburban street. When I opened my eyes, I could see a corner where children ran around, playing tag in the bright gray glow of a street light. I saw one boy chasing another, and was scared when I realized he had a spear in his hand. He got close to the slower boy he was chasing and flung the spear, hitting the kid and piercing him through the back and out his chest. The boy being chased stopped, laughed, and then pulled the spear through his chest and began chasing the other kids.
I hid my head behind my pillow, and tried to make myself as small as I could amongst the pile of sheets and blankets I had shoved to the side. When I opened my eyes to spy on the action, one of the kids had spotted me and was coming my way. The moment we made eye contact, he started running toward me and I knew there was no escape for me. When the spear went into me, I didn't feel a thing. The boy turned and began running back toward the streetlight. Relieved that I wasn't in pain, but angry at being picked out to be "it" I ripped the spear from my body, and flung it at the running child, catching him between the shoulder blades. He fell, and I don't remember him getting up.
Ever since that illness, my mind doesn't handle even the mildest of fevers with any form of grace. With a 100 degree temperature, the walls between sleep and wakefulness dissolve into a porous mess of consciousness making me uncomfortable and a bit paranoid. At the very least, it makes an average illness interesting.
So, I got sick Monday and took the day off yesterday to sleep on the couch. I had a pretty decent fever rolling, and so I curled up to sweat under some blankets (I was chattering teeth without them) and turned on my brand new 52" Samsung LCD TV (details in another post) and loaded up the five disc DVD player with some movies so I could have some background noise as I slipped in and out of consciousness. I chose what I thought would be good stuff to have in the background that I wouldn't have to think to hard about. It's not that they were all cheery options, but they were all choices that were very familiar to me that I could start watching at any point and know what was going on. I chose:
Lethal Weapon
Almost Famous
Six Feet Under (two discs of the first season)
Platoon
Lost in Translation
It wasn't until my fevered mind started to blend them all together in the late afternoon along with a touch of reality that I realized what a bad idea this was. Everything melted together and my dreams were filled with post-death reconstructions, poorly written cop-buddy banter, pretend 70's rock music, Viet Nam, and images of Bill Murray's quiet contemplation. I didn't think I would make it out alive.
Next time, I'm just going to leave the television off. Lesson learned.
My eyes were open, which now tells me this was more of a hallucination that actual dream. The world was black and white like the small television I was allowed to have in my room at the time. I knew I was in bed, and could feel my wet sheets and soaked pillow under my head, but my bed was actually along the curb of a suburban street. When I opened my eyes, I could see a corner where children ran around, playing tag in the bright gray glow of a street light. I saw one boy chasing another, and was scared when I realized he had a spear in his hand. He got close to the slower boy he was chasing and flung the spear, hitting the kid and piercing him through the back and out his chest. The boy being chased stopped, laughed, and then pulled the spear through his chest and began chasing the other kids.
I hid my head behind my pillow, and tried to make myself as small as I could amongst the pile of sheets and blankets I had shoved to the side. When I opened my eyes to spy on the action, one of the kids had spotted me and was coming my way. The moment we made eye contact, he started running toward me and I knew there was no escape for me. When the spear went into me, I didn't feel a thing. The boy turned and began running back toward the streetlight. Relieved that I wasn't in pain, but angry at being picked out to be "it" I ripped the spear from my body, and flung it at the running child, catching him between the shoulder blades. He fell, and I don't remember him getting up.
Ever since that illness, my mind doesn't handle even the mildest of fevers with any form of grace. With a 100 degree temperature, the walls between sleep and wakefulness dissolve into a porous mess of consciousness making me uncomfortable and a bit paranoid. At the very least, it makes an average illness interesting.
So, I got sick Monday and took the day off yesterday to sleep on the couch. I had a pretty decent fever rolling, and so I curled up to sweat under some blankets (I was chattering teeth without them) and turned on my brand new 52" Samsung LCD TV (details in another post) and loaded up the five disc DVD player with some movies so I could have some background noise as I slipped in and out of consciousness. I chose what I thought would be good stuff to have in the background that I wouldn't have to think to hard about. It's not that they were all cheery options, but they were all choices that were very familiar to me that I could start watching at any point and know what was going on. I chose:
Lethal Weapon
Almost Famous
Six Feet Under (two discs of the first season)
Platoon
Lost in Translation
It wasn't until my fevered mind started to blend them all together in the late afternoon along with a touch of reality that I realized what a bad idea this was. Everything melted together and my dreams were filled with post-death reconstructions, poorly written cop-buddy banter, pretend 70's rock music, Viet Nam, and images of Bill Murray's quiet contemplation. I didn't think I would make it out alive.
Next time, I'm just going to leave the television off. Lesson learned.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Weekend Update
It's true. I've been morose a bit lately, but that ends today. Mrs. Merryman and I just wrapped up an excellent weekend together. Saturday we had mom come over and we headed over to the North Market. For my two out of state readers, the North Market is an institution in CBus. It's a combination outdoor Farmer's Market (all organic, grown by local farmers) with an indoor market with dozens of vendors selling everything from Vietnamese groceries, fresh baked bread, fresh fish (never frozen and from sustainable sources), and restaurant type food. It's an amazing place.
I bought Jen some Corkscrew Grass (weird grass that's as twisted and bushy as After-Sex Hair). We also bought some fresh salad greens, two big bundles of asparagus, some organic Pumpkin Apple Butter and some salmon steaks. We're getting a bit like hippies when it comes to food, but we're trying not to get carried away. We're digging the idea of clean eating, but the thing that I really like is supporting the local farmers. The prices are decent, and you know you're helping someone stay independent. Good stuff.
After heading back to Merryman Manor, we grilled up and tossed together our lunch, grubbed down and then Jen and I headed out to see The Strangers. It really was a decent movie. I was on edge most of the film and it was fun, but it's yet another horror movie with sketched characters and very little story. Yes, I get that it's kind of the point...random violence can happen to anyone without a reason or backstory, it's just not the most engaging story telling. Still, it was a bit disturbing, and very tense, so we had fun.
When we got back to the house we decided we didn't want to be inside yet, so we grabbed some water and headed over to Sharon Woods Metropark to walk around for a bit. It's a nice enough place, and it was cool because there were so many families out for graduation parties. Every picnic shelter was full of people. Kids swarmed around volleyball nets and old men played horseshoes. Normally, we like going to the park for some quiet and to be left alone, but there was something infectious about all the activity, and the five mile walk was over before we knew it.
Sunday morning was all about the Bike Gang. We got up early and headed out to do a trail that stretches between Johnstown and Newark. It's about 30 miles round trip, and we about died halfway back. It was so fucking hot. So hot. Still, it was fun. It's a great ride through the country and it's mostly a shaded ride. We saw some small animals along the way (baby raccoons are pretty cute, ya'll) and survived, so we were proud of ourselves. Of course I was useless the rest of the day and did very little else, but still...
I bought Jen some Corkscrew Grass (weird grass that's as twisted and bushy as After-Sex Hair). We also bought some fresh salad greens, two big bundles of asparagus, some organic Pumpkin Apple Butter and some salmon steaks. We're getting a bit like hippies when it comes to food, but we're trying not to get carried away. We're digging the idea of clean eating, but the thing that I really like is supporting the local farmers. The prices are decent, and you know you're helping someone stay independent. Good stuff.
After heading back to Merryman Manor, we grilled up and tossed together our lunch, grubbed down and then Jen and I headed out to see The Strangers. It really was a decent movie. I was on edge most of the film and it was fun, but it's yet another horror movie with sketched characters and very little story. Yes, I get that it's kind of the point...random violence can happen to anyone without a reason or backstory, it's just not the most engaging story telling. Still, it was a bit disturbing, and very tense, so we had fun.
When we got back to the house we decided we didn't want to be inside yet, so we grabbed some water and headed over to Sharon Woods Metropark to walk around for a bit. It's a nice enough place, and it was cool because there were so many families out for graduation parties. Every picnic shelter was full of people. Kids swarmed around volleyball nets and old men played horseshoes. Normally, we like going to the park for some quiet and to be left alone, but there was something infectious about all the activity, and the five mile walk was over before we knew it.
Sunday morning was all about the Bike Gang. We got up early and headed out to do a trail that stretches between Johnstown and Newark. It's about 30 miles round trip, and we about died halfway back. It was so fucking hot. So hot. Still, it was fun. It's a great ride through the country and it's mostly a shaded ride. We saw some small animals along the way (baby raccoons are pretty cute, ya'll) and survived, so we were proud of ourselves. Of course I was useless the rest of the day and did very little else, but still...
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Golf Buddies and Their Ripple Effect
Being an uneducated thirty-something guy, I've had the opportunity to work for a few companies that have gone the way of the Dodo. Actually, it's happened so often that I no longer feel the shock or the quick dose of panic that is actually visible on everyone's face when the news hits. Shutting companies the hell down is my bidness, and bidness aint so bad, let me tell ya.
One telecom company, one utility brokerage (what the fuck is that, anyway?), and three financial related jobs have all shut their doors under my careful watch. Some of the jobs I liked, most of them I didn't. In the end, they all went the same way.
The thing that I find the most interesting about the process now is the way that people react. Suddenly, going back to school and getting that degree like you should have done in the first place doesn't seem like such a giant pain in the ass. For that matter, to hell with it all, why not just move somewhere you've always wanted to live? There's nothing keeping you here anymore. You've always wanted to paint, or do open mic stand up, or write that novel, and suddenly because you are faced with joblessness all of that becomes more of a reality. Why is that?
Do we get so dulled by the day to day process of accumulating bills and then working to pay them off, that we decide that the other parts of ourselves (sometimes the parts that make living fun and worthwhile) are too big of a pain to indulge in?
Not all people do this. There are people who do what they do during the day to be able to do what's important to them at night. Whether that's spending time with family, doodling in a sketch book, perfecting your karaoke routine, or indulging in marathon Internet pornography sessions, if your job makes doing what you love to do possible, then the job is working for you. I think that's awesome and enjoy being around those people (with the notable exception of Mr. Porn Freak).
It's the people who have invested everything they have into their cubicle that feel the most lost when the rug gets pulled out from under them. I want to give them each a paint brush and tell them to put it on the canvas and tell them it doesn't matter that much in the end. There will be more cubicles, I promise.
----
I had been working in a call center for a mortgage company years ago while living in Texas. Life got interesting, then bad, then miserable, and I moved back North. When I moved back, I got a new job doing the exact same thing but this time with a new company. I couldn't have been more unhappy then I was taking call after call from customers who needed their escrow accounts explained to them. I had been doing the Customer Service thing for two years in Texas, and now here I was doing the exact same thing.
One morning, I get in the elevator to go up to my pen on the fourth floor, and I'm standing behind a couple of ladies who were dressed fifty times nicer than anyone on my floor could afford to dress. They say good morning to each other, and then one turns to the other excitedly and says:
"You'll never guess what Tom surprised me with last night!" Her eyes were hungry. I had the feeling that she would bite a hunk of her friend's cheek if she dared to even guess.
"What?!?" Her friend was overly excited. I could tell that every hope and dream she had ever had was pinned on what Tom had surprised his slightly stretched but still attractive wife.
"LORD OF THE DANCE!"
"NO!!!"
"YES!!!!"
"Oh my God. How was it?"
"Oh, that Michael Flatley... In-can-descent!"
I got off the elevator. I walked through the cardboard walls of cubicles until I found the one that had been assigned to me six moths before. I picked up my coffee mug and walked to my team lead's desk.
"Rachelle, I have to go."
"Oh, OK Stephen." Rachelle looks down at the coffe cup in my hand. For months there had been a running joke about my coffe cup that reads "Big Brother is Watching You" being the only personal item I brought to work.
"Um, Stephen...You're not coming back, are you?"
"No. I have to go. I can't stay." I'm talking to her, but inside I'm thinking that if the concept of personal hell was real, when my time comes I will be standing in that elevator for eternity, listening to a review of the touring version of Lord of the Dance. I couldn't take the chance on ever having that happen to me again.
She mumbled something about some paperwork that I would need to sign, and I asked if that was something I could do with HR when I came to pick up my final check. We said our goodbyes and I took the stairs to the lobby.
Even though it was my choice to leave, I was still filled with the excitement of freedom and the fear of joblessness. Maybe this would be the time to go back and get my degree. Maybe I really would start writing again. Maybe I'd really focus on my bass playing. It didn't really matter. All I knew was, that from that point on, I would never work a job that I wasn't passionate about. My optimsim was cute.
----
It's funny how a small group of men can walk out on a golf course half a continent away for a round while talking some business and then two months later you're looking for work. Lives are changed over beers and chip shots. I've never cared for golf.
One telecom company, one utility brokerage (what the fuck is that, anyway?), and three financial related jobs have all shut their doors under my careful watch. Some of the jobs I liked, most of them I didn't. In the end, they all went the same way.
The thing that I find the most interesting about the process now is the way that people react. Suddenly, going back to school and getting that degree like you should have done in the first place doesn't seem like such a giant pain in the ass. For that matter, to hell with it all, why not just move somewhere you've always wanted to live? There's nothing keeping you here anymore. You've always wanted to paint, or do open mic stand up, or write that novel, and suddenly because you are faced with joblessness all of that becomes more of a reality. Why is that?
Do we get so dulled by the day to day process of accumulating bills and then working to pay them off, that we decide that the other parts of ourselves (sometimes the parts that make living fun and worthwhile) are too big of a pain to indulge in?
Not all people do this. There are people who do what they do during the day to be able to do what's important to them at night. Whether that's spending time with family, doodling in a sketch book, perfecting your karaoke routine, or indulging in marathon Internet pornography sessions, if your job makes doing what you love to do possible, then the job is working for you. I think that's awesome and enjoy being around those people (with the notable exception of Mr. Porn Freak).
It's the people who have invested everything they have into their cubicle that feel the most lost when the rug gets pulled out from under them. I want to give them each a paint brush and tell them to put it on the canvas and tell them it doesn't matter that much in the end. There will be more cubicles, I promise.
----
I had been working in a call center for a mortgage company years ago while living in Texas. Life got interesting, then bad, then miserable, and I moved back North. When I moved back, I got a new job doing the exact same thing but this time with a new company. I couldn't have been more unhappy then I was taking call after call from customers who needed their escrow accounts explained to them. I had been doing the Customer Service thing for two years in Texas, and now here I was doing the exact same thing.
One morning, I get in the elevator to go up to my pen on the fourth floor, and I'm standing behind a couple of ladies who were dressed fifty times nicer than anyone on my floor could afford to dress. They say good morning to each other, and then one turns to the other excitedly and says:
"You'll never guess what Tom surprised me with last night!" Her eyes were hungry. I had the feeling that she would bite a hunk of her friend's cheek if she dared to even guess.
"What?!?" Her friend was overly excited. I could tell that every hope and dream she had ever had was pinned on what Tom had surprised his slightly stretched but still attractive wife.
"LORD OF THE DANCE!"
"NO!!!"
"YES!!!!"
"Oh my God. How was it?"
"Oh, that Michael Flatley... In-can-descent!"
I got off the elevator. I walked through the cardboard walls of cubicles until I found the one that had been assigned to me six moths before. I picked up my coffee mug and walked to my team lead's desk.
"Rachelle, I have to go."
"Oh, OK Stephen." Rachelle looks down at the coffe cup in my hand. For months there had been a running joke about my coffe cup that reads "Big Brother is Watching You" being the only personal item I brought to work.
"Um, Stephen...You're not coming back, are you?"
"No. I have to go. I can't stay." I'm talking to her, but inside I'm thinking that if the concept of personal hell was real, when my time comes I will be standing in that elevator for eternity, listening to a review of the touring version of Lord of the Dance. I couldn't take the chance on ever having that happen to me again.
She mumbled something about some paperwork that I would need to sign, and I asked if that was something I could do with HR when I came to pick up my final check. We said our goodbyes and I took the stairs to the lobby.
Even though it was my choice to leave, I was still filled with the excitement of freedom and the fear of joblessness. Maybe this would be the time to go back and get my degree. Maybe I really would start writing again. Maybe I'd really focus on my bass playing. It didn't really matter. All I knew was, that from that point on, I would never work a job that I wasn't passionate about. My optimsim was cute.
----
It's funny how a small group of men can walk out on a golf course half a continent away for a round while talking some business and then two months later you're looking for work. Lives are changed over beers and chip shots. I've never cared for golf.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Test Market
Central Ohio is where ideas come to live or die. After months or years of meetings, planning, research and development, it is Columbus where many companies come to test their new ideas before rolling them out Nationwide. Executives decided somewhere along the way that we are the normal. We are the distilled core of the American Heart. Dripping the Everyman's sweat and blood from every pore, we work and sweat our way to the middle where we believe we'll finally feel comfortable.
Our opinions count, well at least for certain things.
They thought of the Baconator, a burger with approximately 6 pounds of bacon wrapped around it. They gave it to us, and we liked it, so they rolled it to the rest of the Nation. McDonalds pizza was born here. Every time Long John Silvers thinks of something new to deep fry, they load up a truckload of liquid fat and head to Columbus. Advertising executives roll out trial runs for our area, and if effective, they'll take it to the nation. Marketing Analysts spend years studying our buying trends. Department Stores test product placement in our malls and report back to people waiting in offices scattered along the two coasts. We are the deciders of what America will and will not buy. If you have eaten anything in the past month, it is because we ate it first.
It's funny to me that we're referred to as the Test Market Capitol, and that we take such pride in it. We're so damn excited to be considered normal. We revel in the fact that we get to help decide what the new flavor of sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings is going to be. We're special because we're not special. We are a giant tub of vanilla ice cream. Sure, it's good...if there's isn't any Ben and Jerry's around.
Like all things, not everyone in the city falls into the "vanilla" line of thought. We're people, just like anywhere, and we're all different. It's just the identity of the city is kind of shrouded with this boring cloak of the middle ground, and it bugs me. That's why I thought it would be fun to write a story about a normal father and son who live their lives here, do well at work and school, are successful well-liked people, who happen to give in to the urge to torture and kill innocent strangers. I'm calling the story "Test Market" for now, and I'm having more fun writing it than I have had in a long time.
Of course, I've just gotten started, so I'm still optimistic. I am taking steps though to stay interested. First, I refuse to go back and read just how shitty and broken the whole thing is. It's a first draft, and I ain't Steinbeck. Second, I'm just forcing myself to write. Even if it is a page of skid marks, I'm still usually able to pull out a sentence or two that I really like. Sometimes, that will just have to be enough. Third, I'm going to track me down one of those word count bars and post it on here if I can figure it out. There is something about the imagined accountability that I think will keep me going. ("Oh no! I've got to write tonight, otherwise if that one guy from India happens to stumble back on my blog he'll know what a lazy fuck I am!")
So sayeth the shepherd, so sayeth the flock!
Our opinions count, well at least for certain things.
They thought of the Baconator, a burger with approximately 6 pounds of bacon wrapped around it. They gave it to us, and we liked it, so they rolled it to the rest of the Nation. McDonalds pizza was born here. Every time Long John Silvers thinks of something new to deep fry, they load up a truckload of liquid fat and head to Columbus. Advertising executives roll out trial runs for our area, and if effective, they'll take it to the nation. Marketing Analysts spend years studying our buying trends. Department Stores test product placement in our malls and report back to people waiting in offices scattered along the two coasts. We are the deciders of what America will and will not buy. If you have eaten anything in the past month, it is because we ate it first.
It's funny to me that we're referred to as the Test Market Capitol, and that we take such pride in it. We're so damn excited to be considered normal. We revel in the fact that we get to help decide what the new flavor of sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings is going to be. We're special because we're not special. We are a giant tub of vanilla ice cream. Sure, it's good...if there's isn't any Ben and Jerry's around.
Like all things, not everyone in the city falls into the "vanilla" line of thought. We're people, just like anywhere, and we're all different. It's just the identity of the city is kind of shrouded with this boring cloak of the middle ground, and it bugs me. That's why I thought it would be fun to write a story about a normal father and son who live their lives here, do well at work and school, are successful well-liked people, who happen to give in to the urge to torture and kill innocent strangers. I'm calling the story "Test Market" for now, and I'm having more fun writing it than I have had in a long time.
Of course, I've just gotten started, so I'm still optimistic. I am taking steps though to stay interested. First, I refuse to go back and read just how shitty and broken the whole thing is. It's a first draft, and I ain't Steinbeck. Second, I'm just forcing myself to write. Even if it is a page of skid marks, I'm still usually able to pull out a sentence or two that I really like. Sometimes, that will just have to be enough. Third, I'm going to track me down one of those word count bars and post it on here if I can figure it out. There is something about the imagined accountability that I think will keep me going. ("Oh no! I've got to write tonight, otherwise if that one guy from India happens to stumble back on my blog he'll know what a lazy fuck I am!")
So sayeth the shepherd, so sayeth the flock!
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Merryman Makes Everything Better
So, I was doing my morning blog reading to see what folks were up to, and good old Tappity posted a Slogan Generator that stole a few moments of my time this morning. Maybe it's the fact that I'm ten years old inside. Maybe it's Narcissistic need to see my name inserted into well known slogans. Maybe I just don't feel like working. Regardless, here's some of my favorites:
I'm Cuckoo for Merryman!
Every Kiss Begins With Merryman
It's Slightly Rippled With a Flat Merryman (I don't even know what this was for, but it makes me laugh.)
You Like Merryman. Merryman Likes You.
Merryman Makes Everything Better.
Sometimes You Feel Like a Merryman, Sometimes You Don't (Many people would attest this is true.)
And, perhaps the most fitting (in light of my recent shedding of poundage): Half the Merryman, All the Taste
Enter a word for your own slogan:
Generated by the
Advertising Slogan Generator. Get more Merryman slogans.I'm Cuckoo for Merryman!
Every Kiss Begins With Merryman
It's Slightly Rippled With a Flat Merryman (I don't even know what this was for, but it makes me laugh.)
You Like Merryman. Merryman Likes You.
Merryman Makes Everything Better.
Sometimes You Feel Like a Merryman, Sometimes You Don't (Many people would attest this is true.)
And, perhaps the most fitting (in light of my recent shedding of poundage): Half the Merryman, All the Taste
Monday, June 2, 2008
Burning Time
There are a lot of excuses I could come up with: My lifestyle has changed with my recent weight loss, and as a result we are much busier people. My interests are evolving. I'm busier with new volunteer opportunities and working around the house. All of this is true, of course, and is all bullshit at the same time. The fact is that I am busier exercising, working around the house, walking dogs, etc., but what is really eating up my time is the new Playstation.
Now, my interests have expanded to killing Templar Knights, saving the universe from cartoon enemies, and rising quickly through the ranks of the Russian Mob. I keep telling myself this is a phase I'm in because it's all new and that I'll settle down and get back to work soon, and while I believe that to be true, I spent an alarming amount of time in my den playing video games this weekend.
Still, we managed to sit outside and read, go hiking, work out, play with the dogs, go shopping, grill out several times and cleaned the house. It was a great weekend.
This week though, I am going to finally sit down to edit "Bridge" one last time and then it's time to shop it around some. I've been waiting on Jen to do editing (she is a master of fixing my grammatical errors) but she's been too busy to get through it with the red pen, so I'll have to do what I can on my own. I think I've found a couple of outlets that might be willing to work with a story like this, and that's no easy feat, and I'm getting anxious to get it out there. Plus, I'm sick of just kicking ideas around in my head about the possibility of a longer story (dare I say "book"?) and it's time to get that rolling. I'm just going to have to put the beautifully ergonomic wireless controller down for a few days and find some balance again.
Hope my four readers are doing well. Stay on the bike and off the pipe (especially you, Cox).
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