Good News

Hey guys.  Sorry I haven't written to you in a while, but I have actually been busy.  I got a job!  Well, it's more of an internship really.  But at least I'm getting paid something.  My mom was really getting on my case, as I indicated in my last post.  And the whole escort thing never really got off the ground.  It was one of those things that are fun to think about, but wouldn't work out nearly as well in reality as they do in my fantasy life.  Anyway, my mom called up her friend Stephanie, whom she has known forever, and Stephanie told her that she needed an intern to help her out in her capacity as an insurance industry representative.  See, the insurance companies are lobbying extra hard to maintain their grip on the American healthcare system, and what with the new bill being debated in Congress currently, there is no shortage of work.  (Don't worry; this blog will not turn topical).  So, I have a paid internship at least through the Fall, to be terminated once these sharks devour and kill the impulse to reform.  (I hate performing menial clerical tasks for these reactionaries, but, hey, a girl's got to make a living).

So, the job is okay.  Unfortunately, I don't directly answer to Stephanie.  She just helped me get the job, but she's too high up to be bothered with micromanaging mindless office duties.  My immediate boss is this guy named Trevor.  He's a real asshole.  Thinks he's doing God's work here slaving away to make the Gala Corp. lobbying machine function more efficiently.  Plus he leers at me constantly.  I mean, I don't mind a little attention, but I would rather put up with Pumba's shit than this.  He's probably twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and he still wears a fake tan and gels his hair up like a schmuck.  He's one of those guys whose idea of flirting is making sexist comments and innuendoes that aren't even witty, and then play-acting like he's hurt when I shut him down.  The thing is, I'm brand new here, so I feel as though I should tread lightly, but if he doesn't cool it I will have to talk to Stephanie about it.

Other than Trevor and Stephanie, I really haven't had the chance to meet any of the people here.  I was hoping there might be an interesting crowd, but, let's face it, we're a small department in a multinational corporation.  I don't think that interesting people exist here, or if they do, they don't expose the interesting aspects of their personalities at work.  This is a place where verve and vim come to immolate themselves.  Even the place's physical surroundings reflect the death of personality: an office park, surrounded by pavement, somewhere in outer suburbia.  

Okay, so maybe I'm being a little bitter.  On the plus-side, I get to car-pool with Stephanie since she only lives a couple blocks away from me.  I really enjoy her company on the commute.  It's odd, because I've known her for so long as my mom's friend, but I really think that now we are getting to know each other on our own terms, unmediated.  It makes me optimistic about the possibility of meeting somebody at Gala Corp. who isn't a tool.  Moreover, she demonstrates that it is possible to work in such a cretinous environment without losing your mind or your soul.  So on that note, I begin my journey into the rabbit hole of the corporate world.

I had coffee at dawn today...

I had to wake up extra early this morning to drive my mom to work, because I needed to borrow the car to run errands.  My mom works at a garden store a few miles down the road.  It's actually a pretty cool place.  They have rows and rows of trees, shrubs, and plants awaiting purchase, along with sculptures, fountains, an army of gnomes, a fleet of flamingoes, and anything else that the suburban housewife a la mode might desire to spangle her lawn with.  Naturally, the fertilizer and soil supplies also attract the stoner crowd.  As you might imagine, then, I don't really care for the place when it's busy, but on weekday mornings it's quite pleasant.

So anyway, I found myself sipping coffee at this early hour, waiting for my mom to get out of the shower, and thinking about how I've still failed to do anything about this situation, living at home.  I mean, sheesh!  Maybe I should apply for a job or something.  But dammit, not now.  I just really don't want to establish any ties around here.  It would just make it harder for me to get the hell out of here.  I guess I could go back to waitressing part-time at Timon & Pumba's.  Pumba's always had a crush on me, so I could probably get the job back pretty easily.  Just flirt with him a little.  Of course then I would have a guilty conscience for having given a loser false hope.  Not to mention the fact that he would constantly bother me on the job, hitting on me, doing me favors for which he would inevitably expect repayment, and hassling me when I finally rejected him.  No, no job is worth that.  Still, I have to do something to get my mom off my back.

"Sweetie, maybe while you're out running errands today you could pick up some job applications."

Mom stepped into the kitchen and poured herself some coffee.  Being a single parent means she does twice the worrying and triple the nagging.  

"Yeah, I might have a look around to see who's hiring," I replied, hoping to placate her temporarily.  

"Alright, because I hate to see you laying around like this.  You keep on talking about moving out, but you need money to do that, and anyway it's not healthy.  You're a young woman now, and there's no reason that you can't be doing something productive while you figure things out."

"Well, actually Mom, I've been checking out this website, richlosers.com, where these millionaires try to find young girls to be their playthings.  I figure I can hook up with one of these suckers and put my college education to work on him.  You know, dazzle him with my wit and erudition.  Then I can trick someone into marrying me."

Mom chuckled at that.

Still, it might not be a bad idea.

We lose count...

I almost sat for a painting today.  I woke up early, and, bored, decided to wander down to the old part of town.  It's a really nice place to go if you just want to get lost for a little while: the streets were all built before there was any kind of municipal government around to mandate a grid system, so each lane and alley curves whichever way it wants, bending back on itself, finding paths and squares that seem to pop up out of nowhere.  If you ever get really lost, you can just walk downhill, and eventually you will find your way to the river.  Anyway, I decided that it was one of those days, so I took a bus down to the main drag of the old town, disembarked, turned left, left, right, and soon found myself hopelessly lost.  

It was cloudy out, and chilly enough that I was glad I had brought a light jacket.  The trees were full of bright green leaves, but cast no shadows.  The wind picked up  and the cast-iron gates and brick facades of the old houses took on a slight menace, guarding the comfort of their interiors against me, mocking me.  It would rain soon.  This had been stupid.  I made my best guess as to the direction of the river and started hiking that way.  By the time the first drops began to fall I had spotted the freeway.  

(In the seventies, the federal government insisted on building an interstate highway through town.  Initially, they were going to plow down all the buildings in their way, but the protests of various neighborhood associations and historic preservation societies scuttled that plan.  In order to issue forth a big "fuck you" to those who had stood in their way without having to go through all the red tape that bulldozing would have required, the government decided to simply build an elevated freeway right over the neighborhood.  This little piece of history affected me only insofar as it afforded me a dry spot to wait out the rain.)

So I ran underneath the overpass, settled down on a nice concrete barricade and huddled next to a supporting pillar against the cold.  As you may have anticipated, of course, I was not alone.  Across the street was an old man standing behind a desk, displaying some paintings.  A street vendor.  God only knows why he would choose to set up his kiosk here.  He couldn't possibly get many tourists.  But I supposed that he had probably moved down here in order to evade the rain, like myself, and would return to the surface once it had passed, in order to be ignored rather than invisible.

Well, I ordinarily would not have gone over to speak with him at all.  I'm rather shy, you see.  But having spent all this time looking for adventure, I figured I owed it to myself to meander on over and see if there was anything interesting to experience.  So I plucked up my courage, put on my most cheery face, strolled up to the ancient figure, and gave him a friendly, "Afternoon."  He repeated back to me, and with a gesture invited me to take a gander at his paintings.  

Now this was interesting indeed.  These could not have been the product of an entire life's worth of study and dedication.  They were children's paintings.  They had to be.  And not very old children either.  Old enough for crude stick figures and sloppy, disproportionate attempts at shapes and patterns.  Seven, eight years old?  I did my best to conceal my grimace, realizing at the same time that I must be in the presence of a complete psychopath.  I glanced at him again and noticed his demented expression and his leering eyes.  Now I had to think on my feet.  The guy probably had a collection of shrunken heads hidden in his decrepit tenement.  I could be beaten, raped, tortured and mutilated if I didn't get the hell out of there.  So, thinking myself mighty clever, I pointed at one of the more horrendous doodles and asked him to wrap it up for me.  As soon as he bent over for a piece of twine to tie it with I took off like lightning.  I knew that I could follow the freeway to the main drag, and there I would be safe.  Jesus.  You think you're in a nice neighborhood and then shit like this goes down.  I guess that's why I don't like cities.  Anyway, after running a couple of blocks I dared look back and didn't see anyone following me, so I decided to drop my pace down to power-walk.  I was still a bit shaken up when I got on the bus to go home, and I accidentally spilled my change in the aisle.  Fuck.  Well, at least I had an adventure.

Day Four

Grrr... That is it!  I am packing up my things and I am moving on!  Last night I met an old high school friend for some drinks.  I was so bored that I would have gone just about anywhere, but as it happened, he called me, and we arranged to meet at a local watering hole.  We had a few pints, shared a few laughs, then had some more.  By the time he suggested that we go down to an old hangout, a hidden beach on the river, I was more than tipsy enough to assent.  The path was tricky to navigate at night.  I had been wearing heals, and my bear feet suffered much abuse at the hands of the roots and rocks that rose from the trail in scattered protrusions.  At one point we had to cross a creek, so I grabbed ahold of my friend, and we rather intimately clambered over rocks and waded through the stream together.  

Arriving at the beach, we sat down in the sand, I dangling my naked feet in the water, he following my example.  The conversation turned to the topic of old lovers, which of course, combined with alcohol and two bored and lonely people, can be a most dangerous cocktail.  Around this time, my buzz wore off enough for me to realize what I was doing.  I also began to notice my accelerated heartbeat and the nervous tightness in my chest.  We reached a pause in the conversation, and my friend tried to hold my hand.  I panicked, withdrawing quickly.  "I'm sorry," I muttered, embarrassed.  I hadn't disliked the feeling.  A few more drinks and I probably would have permitted him all kinds of excesses.  I simply couldn't escape the feeling that it was a bad idea.  This was backwards progress.  To quote Lou Reed, "You're still doing the things I gave up years ago."  No hard feelings, I told him, but I would be leaving town soon enough now and I just didn't see it going anywhere.  He was polite and understanding, and we walked back together, this time separated by immeasurable distance and silence.

When I got home and fell in to bed, I felt a deep dissatisfaction.  I think that this is a watershed.  I'm giving myself four days to get my act together and then I am hopping on a train and I will seek out adventure and consume it no matter how desperately it tries to evade me.  

Good night.

Day Three

I spent a lot of time on the highway today.  It was a bad day for commuters.  At least two accidents on the road, plus one civilian plowed down by a train.  That's in addition, of course, to the various ongoing construction projects in the area.  Etc., etc.  All the same, I enjoyed weaving through the traffic, passing slower H. sapiens, listening my music, and losing myself in what a teacher of mine once called "the dance of the things."  I enjoyed it, but it left me aching for still more adventure.  The Overlords, I think, are getting tired of my lack of progress.  I must see to it that I continue to please them.  They have mandated adventure, and so adventure will I seek. 

 

Yesterday, I saw some old friends.  We played games, we drank, we trespassed.  We engaged in all sorts of behaviors that are more or less mandatory for the only kind of social mode with which I feel comfortable.  Perhaps I ought to think about that.  Implications...

I went to have a look at that retreat today.  It was rather rustic, with farm animals ambling fearlessly in the middle of the road.  This angered me, however, as I was in a hurry, and I cursed the stupidity, the the audacity, the sheer arrogance of those foolish creatures.  Normally I am quite the lover of all God's creatures, but in that particular moment, I was irate and impatient.  Now I'm not sure if the retreat will be the place for me.  It might provide respite from the Overlords, but it will certainly do nothing for my increasing sense of claustrophobia and ennui.  That, I think, will require that I travel a bit further afield.  

Day One

Leaving this town today.  Four long years spent doing battle with drunks and Albanian hairdressers.  Unsure of feelings.  New fights to seek, new adventures to be had, spend the next four years wandering the earth.  Rebel, rebel.  Perhaps I will follow my friend Alan's path.  He had children in the hope that their innocence would redeem his shattered soul.  But Sarah was only pretty for a day, 1987.  O! if only The Clark were here with me now!  The Clark and His Kittens.  

Shower soon, train later.  Food first.  But finish this act of creation.  My friend has recently opened a retreat for the mentally fazed and dazed.  Perhaps I shall join my fellow sufferers there.  They have a psychiatrist on call, and enough medication to sedate a hippo.  I could use some time getting reacquainted with nature.  The retreat is on a farm, and I would like to be able to play with the animals.  Maybe there I can reopen my case study (future post).  

Well, I'm sitting here in this art gallery, sweetly rambling.  But I suppose my people would like to get back to their porn and their books and their solipsistic inconsideration of my Weltanschauung.  So I'll update you folks as the adventure unfolds.

Adieu.