Y'all seen this?
Iowa court rules same-sex couples can marry
That's right, people - former red state goes magenta!
I am so proud of my home state right now I could just pack up my things and move right back there . . . Wait, no.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Letters of praise
To the administrator who is too afraid of his own employees to effectively administrate:
When my friend scheduled an appointment with you to complain about her supervisor, my former supervisor, you must have been blindsided. I mean, the supervisor had gone through seven assistants in six years, but I was there for almost three years, so it must not have been so bad. And she was often abusive in department meetings, so much so that most people, including your own boss, refused to participate in those meetings, but come on, she couldn’t be that awful. And while she may have had a reputation on campus as a legendary bitch, well, reputations are often built on rumor, not fact. So when my friend came to you, and told you how it had really been working for her, how the woman had driven me away, how she was now abusing the new assistant, how she was ruining my friend’s career with unfair and overly critical performance reviews and personal attacks, how she wandered into the office hours late each morning, reeking of beer, what were you supposed to do about it? Deal with the supervisor? Ask her to change her behavior? Tell her to check into rehab? Ask her to step down? No. Not at all.
You did what any suit would do when faced with such a problem – you offered to reassign my friend to another department. And for not sugarcoating anything, for teaching my friend a cold, hard lesson about life and telling the legendary bitch who has been making my friend’s life a living hell that my friend, herself, requested the move, well, for that, sir, I salute you.
To the couple who came into the restaurant ten minutes before close last night:
I know what you were thinking: they’re not closed yet. Oh, and look, honey! There are no other cars in the parking lot! We’ll be able to get right in, and it will be quiet and romantic, and we’ll be able to sit and talk. But I also know what you weren’t thinking: Oh, they close in ten minutes. It will take us at least ten minutes to order because I don’t know what I want – Do you know what you want? And then it will take them another ten or so to cook the food and we’ll want salads and soup and that will add another ten and then we’ll want coffee after dinner and we’ll talk about our mundane lives for at least another twenty minutes while the waitstaff cleans up the place and then glares and plots our imminent demise, possibly by food poisoning, because by the time we finally get our overstuffed asses up and pay our check we will have held them up at least an hour when, since there are no cars in the parking lot NOW, it probably means they could go home to their beds just a few minutes after closing time, so maybe we should go to the Ihop down the street. They’re open all night.
For thinking the first thing, and not the second, you are my heroes. Thank you. Come again.
To the graduate student who was the last one admitted to the program, after everyone else had turned it down, and who nevertheless thinks she is the shit:
You are my favorite. I know I shouldn’t have favorites, but I do. Could this be because I have only seen the others one time each, and can not distinguish one from another, so you, by default, must be the favorite? Could it be that in the two weeks since you first stepped on campus, you have visited my office no fewer than twenty-nine times, and each time you make yourself at home, dropping your book bags on my floor and sinking back into the chair on the other side of the desk, ready to hang out like we are old friends? Or could it be that you keep me on my toes, that you apparently stay up into the wee hours, thinking up new and interesting ways to ask the same question again and again and again? Could it be because you were the only one with sense enough to complain about the unlockable drawer in the fourth generation desk in the makeshift GTA office space in what was formerly a hallway, when obviously we have so much more to offer you? Perhaps it is the fact that you helped me to be a better employee by going to one of my coworkers and then another coworker and finally my boss when I did not give you the answer you wanted.
Or it could be that today, while walking down the hallway with your employment packet in my hand, I found myself unable to stifle a sneeze, and when I had to use your paperwork to block the spray, I had a secret moment of perverse joy in an otherwise crappy day. For that, I thank you. Really.
When my friend scheduled an appointment with you to complain about her supervisor, my former supervisor, you must have been blindsided. I mean, the supervisor had gone through seven assistants in six years, but I was there for almost three years, so it must not have been so bad. And she was often abusive in department meetings, so much so that most people, including your own boss, refused to participate in those meetings, but come on, she couldn’t be that awful. And while she may have had a reputation on campus as a legendary bitch, well, reputations are often built on rumor, not fact. So when my friend came to you, and told you how it had really been working for her, how the woman had driven me away, how she was now abusing the new assistant, how she was ruining my friend’s career with unfair and overly critical performance reviews and personal attacks, how she wandered into the office hours late each morning, reeking of beer, what were you supposed to do about it? Deal with the supervisor? Ask her to change her behavior? Tell her to check into rehab? Ask her to step down? No. Not at all.
You did what any suit would do when faced with such a problem – you offered to reassign my friend to another department. And for not sugarcoating anything, for teaching my friend a cold, hard lesson about life and telling the legendary bitch who has been making my friend’s life a living hell that my friend, herself, requested the move, well, for that, sir, I salute you.
To the couple who came into the restaurant ten minutes before close last night:
I know what you were thinking: they’re not closed yet. Oh, and look, honey! There are no other cars in the parking lot! We’ll be able to get right in, and it will be quiet and romantic, and we’ll be able to sit and talk. But I also know what you weren’t thinking: Oh, they close in ten minutes. It will take us at least ten minutes to order because I don’t know what I want – Do you know what you want? And then it will take them another ten or so to cook the food and we’ll want salads and soup and that will add another ten and then we’ll want coffee after dinner and we’ll talk about our mundane lives for at least another twenty minutes while the waitstaff cleans up the place and then glares and plots our imminent demise, possibly by food poisoning, because by the time we finally get our overstuffed asses up and pay our check we will have held them up at least an hour when, since there are no cars in the parking lot NOW, it probably means they could go home to their beds just a few minutes after closing time, so maybe we should go to the Ihop down the street. They’re open all night.
For thinking the first thing, and not the second, you are my heroes. Thank you. Come again.
To the graduate student who was the last one admitted to the program, after everyone else had turned it down, and who nevertheless thinks she is the shit:
You are my favorite. I know I shouldn’t have favorites, but I do. Could this be because I have only seen the others one time each, and can not distinguish one from another, so you, by default, must be the favorite? Could it be that in the two weeks since you first stepped on campus, you have visited my office no fewer than twenty-nine times, and each time you make yourself at home, dropping your book bags on my floor and sinking back into the chair on the other side of the desk, ready to hang out like we are old friends? Or could it be that you keep me on my toes, that you apparently stay up into the wee hours, thinking up new and interesting ways to ask the same question again and again and again? Could it be because you were the only one with sense enough to complain about the unlockable drawer in the fourth generation desk in the makeshift GTA office space in what was formerly a hallway, when obviously we have so much more to offer you? Perhaps it is the fact that you helped me to be a better employee by going to one of my coworkers and then another coworker and finally my boss when I did not give you the answer you wanted.
Or it could be that today, while walking down the hallway with your employment packet in my hand, I found myself unable to stifle a sneeze, and when I had to use your paperwork to block the spray, I had a secret moment of perverse joy in an otherwise crappy day. For that, I thank you. Really.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Conversations I wish I could finish otherwise
So it's the first administrative week and the first week of classes, which basically means it's the week that the former occupants of hell escape their fiery grave and drag the brimstone up with them. Okay, it just means the faculty and students are back and the "livin is easy" summertime is over. Either way, I've been busy. Very, very busy.
The first three days of this week I spent helping the faculty get ready to teach. They spent most of their days in meetings, while I spent mine stocking up on supplies, setting up copier codes, retrieving forgotten copier codes, issuing keys, ordering keys, ordering name plates, retrieving passwords, setting up mailing lists, setting up mail boxes, processing last minute hires, re-setting up mailing lists and mail boxes, and moving furniture. Then yesterday, classes began and the students returned. A partial transcript follows:
Lost Student #1: (standing in front of door with signs reading “2079” above and beside it) Can you tell me where 2079 is?
Me: Right behind you.
Lost Student #1: Thank you.
Me: No problem.
Mother of a student: I want to know why my daughter didn’t get into your graduate program.
Co-worker: I can’t give you specifics. I can only tell you that there were many qualified applicants this year.
Mother of student: Well, what am I supposed to tell my daughter?
Co-worker: I imagine you’d say what you normally say to someone who is disappointed.
Mother of student: Well, how many international students did you guys let in?
Really Lost Student: I can’t find my class. It says it’s in 2083, but it’s not there.
Me: Okay, do you have your schedule with you?
Student: (hands over schedule) It says Math 131 in room 2083.
Me: It says this class starts at 9:30.
Student: Right. I went in there, but it was a statistics class.
Me: It’s 8:45 now.
Student: But the people who are in there are from another class.
Me: Right.
Student: They all just looked at me when I walked in there.
Me: That’s because they were in the middle of class.
Student: But my class doesn’t start until 9:30.
Me: Right.
Student: So there’s another class before mine?
Me: Right.
Lost Student #2: I’m looking for 2079.
Me: Right behind you.
Lost Student #3: Can you tell me where room 213 is?
Me: Sure. Do you have your schedule?
Lost Student #3: (irritated) It says “Temple 213”
Me: This is Oliver Hall.
Lost Student #3: Then why am I in here?
Me: I couldn’t tell you.
Lost Student #4: I’m looking for my math class.
Me: Sure, what class.
Lost Student #4: I’m not sure.
Me: Can I see your schedule?
Lost Student #4: I don’t have it with me.
Me: Do you know what course it is?
Lost Student #4: No.
Me: How were you going to get there?
Lost Student #4: (looking through notebook) I wrote down the room number. 324.
Me: That’s not in this building. Did you write down the building?
Lost Student #4: No.
Co-Worker in charge of Science Day tables: Can I help you with anything?
Student: No. I already know everything you’re talking about.
Co-Worker: Great! The line for the Nobel forms on the left.
Me: Can I help you?
Lost Student #5: Room 2079?
Me: Right behind you.
New Graduate Teaching Assistant: I need a key to my desk.
Me: Those are hand-me-downs from years ago. We don’t have any keys. I'm sorry.
New GTA: One of the old TA’s gave me a key for the top drawer.
Me: That’s great. But I don’t have any other keys.
New GTA: But I need one for the bottom cabinet.
Me: Maybe another graduate student has one. We don’t have any. They’re old desks. I don’t even have keys to my own desk.
New GTA: But I need to lock up my purse.
Me: Why don’t you use the drawer you found a key for?
New GTA: I want to lock it in the bottom drawer.
Me: I don’t have any keys for that.
New GTA: Then what do I do with my purse?
Lost Student #6: Where is room 2079?
Me: The door behind you.
Lost Student #6: Oh. Well they should put up signs!
Me: Like that one?
Lost Student #6: Oh.
Student on phone: I need to speak to Professor Smith.
Me: We don’t have anyone by that name here.
Student on phone: Professor Smith?
Me: Do you know what department he or she works in?
Student on phone: Physics.
Me: You’ve reached the Math department.
Student on phone: Right. (Sighs) And I’m looking for Professor Smith.
Me: In the Physics department.
Student on phone: Right!
Me: Let me transfer you to the Physics Department.
Me: (to coworker) I may have to strangle one of my graduate students.
Co-worker: (without looking up from her desk) Do what you gotta do.
Me: Maybe a couple of other people too.
Co-worker: Your call.
Me: Just needed permission.
The first three days of this week I spent helping the faculty get ready to teach. They spent most of their days in meetings, while I spent mine stocking up on supplies, setting up copier codes, retrieving forgotten copier codes, issuing keys, ordering keys, ordering name plates, retrieving passwords, setting up mailing lists, setting up mail boxes, processing last minute hires, re-setting up mailing lists and mail boxes, and moving furniture. Then yesterday, classes began and the students returned. A partial transcript follows:
Lost Student #1: (standing in front of door with signs reading “2079” above and beside it) Can you tell me where 2079 is?
Me: Right behind you.
Lost Student #1: Thank you.
Me: No problem.
Mother of a student: I want to know why my daughter didn’t get into your graduate program.
Co-worker: I can’t give you specifics. I can only tell you that there were many qualified applicants this year.
Mother of student: Well, what am I supposed to tell my daughter?
Co-worker: I imagine you’d say what you normally say to someone who is disappointed.
Mother of student: Well, how many international students did you guys let in?
Really Lost Student: I can’t find my class. It says it’s in 2083, but it’s not there.
Me: Okay, do you have your schedule with you?
Student: (hands over schedule) It says Math 131 in room 2083.
Me: It says this class starts at 9:30.
Student: Right. I went in there, but it was a statistics class.
Me: It’s 8:45 now.
Student: But the people who are in there are from another class.
Me: Right.
Student: They all just looked at me when I walked in there.
Me: That’s because they were in the middle of class.
Student: But my class doesn’t start until 9:30.
Me: Right.
Student: So there’s another class before mine?
Me: Right.
Lost Student #2: I’m looking for 2079.
Me: Right behind you.
Lost Student #3: Can you tell me where room 213 is?
Me: Sure. Do you have your schedule?
Lost Student #3: (irritated) It says “Temple 213”
Me: This is Oliver Hall.
Lost Student #3: Then why am I in here?
Me: I couldn’t tell you.
Lost Student #4: I’m looking for my math class.
Me: Sure, what class.
Lost Student #4: I’m not sure.
Me: Can I see your schedule?
Lost Student #4: I don’t have it with me.
Me: Do you know what course it is?
Lost Student #4: No.
Me: How were you going to get there?
Lost Student #4: (looking through notebook) I wrote down the room number. 324.
Me: That’s not in this building. Did you write down the building?
Lost Student #4: No.
Co-Worker in charge of Science Day tables: Can I help you with anything?
Student: No. I already know everything you’re talking about.
Co-Worker: Great! The line for the Nobel forms on the left.
Me: Can I help you?
Lost Student #5: Room 2079?
Me: Right behind you.
New Graduate Teaching Assistant: I need a key to my desk.
Me: Those are hand-me-downs from years ago. We don’t have any keys. I'm sorry.
New GTA: One of the old TA’s gave me a key for the top drawer.
Me: That’s great. But I don’t have any other keys.
New GTA: But I need one for the bottom cabinet.
Me: Maybe another graduate student has one. We don’t have any. They’re old desks. I don’t even have keys to my own desk.
New GTA: But I need to lock up my purse.
Me: Why don’t you use the drawer you found a key for?
New GTA: I want to lock it in the bottom drawer.
Me: I don’t have any keys for that.
New GTA: Then what do I do with my purse?
Lost Student #6: Where is room 2079?
Me: The door behind you.
Lost Student #6: Oh. Well they should put up signs!
Me: Like that one?
Lost Student #6: Oh.
Student on phone: I need to speak to Professor Smith.
Me: We don’t have anyone by that name here.
Student on phone: Professor Smith?
Me: Do you know what department he or she works in?
Student on phone: Physics.
Me: You’ve reached the Math department.
Student on phone: Right. (Sighs) And I’m looking for Professor Smith.
Me: In the Physics department.
Student on phone: Right!
Me: Let me transfer you to the Physics Department.
Me: (to coworker) I may have to strangle one of my graduate students.
Co-worker: (without looking up from her desk) Do what you gotta do.
Me: Maybe a couple of other people too.
Co-worker: Your call.
Me: Just needed permission.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
You're all invited!
So last night when I left the office to head to the restaurant, all I could think about was tonight. Thursday night. My weekday evening off. And I was pretty excited about it. One more day of work and then I would have an entire fifteen and a half hours before I had to be back again. The thought of those fifteen and a half hours is what generally carries me through my Wednesday nights, especially since by Wednesday I have already logged in forty hours of work and my old and highly abused body is plotting a coup.
"Body," I say, "if you will just bear with my one more evening and then one more day, I promise to reward you with rest. And Hostess cupcakes."
And my body generally calms down, calls off the resistance fighters, and helps me finish the work that will pay for the bed to rest in (and the Hostess cupcakes. Orange. Creamy middle).
But last night, when Body and I met at the negotiation table, I may have been lying. I don't believe I will be resting tonight. No, I will be going out. You see, I have been invited to a party. Oh, and not just any party - no. I have been invited to College Night at Tiki Bob's Cantina:
Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, I received this exclusive invitation yesterday. I, and the other 232 people whose cars were parked along Cary Street, received this Guest Pass for Free Cover at Tiki Bob's. Free Cover! Do you know what that means, people? I can walk right in to Tiki Bob's Polynesian beach oasis for nothing. No charge! So my seven dollar Corona, will only cost me seven dollars. And while I'm drinking my Corona, if the picture on my guest pass is any indication of the fabulous time to be had at Tiki Bob's (and why wouldn't it be?), I can take in the beautiful blue skies and matching blue waters lapping at the white sandy beach and I can hook up with hot bikini-clad chicks, who are no doubt going to be at College Night at Tiki Bob's Cantina in Downtown Richmond.
Wait. There's a problem.
The pass is for Tuesday.
"Body," I say, "if you will just bear with my one more evening and then one more day, I promise to reward you with rest. And Hostess cupcakes."
And my body generally calms down, calls off the resistance fighters, and helps me finish the work that will pay for the bed to rest in (and the Hostess cupcakes. Orange. Creamy middle).
But last night, when Body and I met at the negotiation table, I may have been lying. I don't believe I will be resting tonight. No, I will be going out. You see, I have been invited to a party. Oh, and not just any party - no. I have been invited to College Night at Tiki Bob's Cantina:
Yes, Ladies and Gentleman, I received this exclusive invitation yesterday. I, and the other 232 people whose cars were parked along Cary Street, received this Guest Pass for Free Cover at Tiki Bob's. Free Cover! Do you know what that means, people? I can walk right in to Tiki Bob's Polynesian beach oasis for nothing. No charge! So my seven dollar Corona, will only cost me seven dollars. And while I'm drinking my Corona, if the picture on my guest pass is any indication of the fabulous time to be had at Tiki Bob's (and why wouldn't it be?), I can take in the beautiful blue skies and matching blue waters lapping at the white sandy beach and I can hook up with hot bikini-clad chicks, who are no doubt going to be at College Night at Tiki Bob's Cantina in Downtown Richmond.
And here's the best part. You can come with me! Yes, one of my lucky readers is invited to join me for College Night. How is this possible? Well, my good friend CL, who passed along this invitation, was kind enough to give me not one, but two Guest Passes. That's right, bitches! Two Guest Passes. So not only can I get in for free, but I can bring a friend.
Wait. There's a problem.
The pass is for Tuesday.
Gotta work Tuesday. Damn. Guess I'll be sleeping tonight after all.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
I have no title for this blog post
So I suck. I haven’t written anything in several days. Why? Because I suck. Because classes are starting next week and things have suddenly gotten very busy at work and I don’t own a computer, so I can only post at work where I am obviously too busy to post since they actually expect productivity in exchange for the packing peanuts (who knew?) and I would stay late to post only I can’t because I have to leave for other work; therefore, I have not posted.
It really stinks too because putting little meaningless nothings up on the web has been forcing me to write each day and I’ve been getting some revision in as well. Re-crafting (ha!) some older pieces I’ve been meaning to get out there, to submit, maybe someday be lucky enough to get published.
I used to have a computer. Actually, in the past seven years I’ve had three. I brought a pc with me to Virginia. Once I started school though, I realized how much time I preferred to spend writing [in bars] sitting on the campus lawn, surrounded by my fellow [drunks] students, and I used some of that financial aid money to buy a laptop. And the laptop and I were happy. We were inseparable. Most nights I fell asleep, fingers still on the keyboard, laptop on my knees. And in the morning, when I woke, there he was, lying on his side, screen all aglow with a mystifying screensaver. It was love.
I sent the pc back to my son and even set him up with an online account so we could email, but his deadbeat father used the account for porn and when the computer wasn’t powerful enough to find enough porn for him, he traded it in and got another computer for himself. So when the laptop crashed a couple years later, after the funeral service, I didn’t even have the old pc to fall back on.
I’m sure this fascinates you.
Anyway, a friend of mine, who got a ridiculously high-paying job teaching in the Middle East, got herself a new computer and loaned me her old laptop. It wasn’t my laptop, but we were still happy.
And when I moved into a new apartment after possibly the worst year of my life, and thought things were looking up, and decided to take a break from unpacking and walked to the 7-Eleven for cigarettes, I came back to find that my door had been kicked in, and the borrowed laptop was gone.
Along with my backpack. And all, yes all, of my backup disks.
Every single word I’d written during graduate school. Three and a half years worth of work. All gone.
Okay, well, I have some of it. Pieces of things backed up on my network drive at school. And I still had one disk with an older version of my master’s thesis. But all of the best stuff, all of my fiction, all of the work I’d done during the height of my productivity, while I was losing my apartment and sleeping on people’s sofas, and living out of a duffle bag, when I was feeling most alone, when the laptop and the words I could type into it were my only comfort, all of that was gone. Probably discarded by the bastard who took them, since all he wanted was a bag to carry away my computer. And he probably got very little for that.
I haven’t been able to regain that writing momentum. Partly because of work, partly because I’ve been struggling to get a foothold on things in my life for awhile now. Those are both just excuses. The other excuse is that every time I sit down to write, every time I put a pen to paper or my fingertips to keyboard, I face not only the blank page we all face but a hole where all the words I’ve already written, the words I’ve convinced myself were so brilliant I can never recreate them, have been sucked into nothingness.
So I’ve been really excited about posting here sort of regularly. Even if it’s trivial or silly. At least I’ve been writing something.
It really stinks too because putting little meaningless nothings up on the web has been forcing me to write each day and I’ve been getting some revision in as well. Re-crafting (ha!) some older pieces I’ve been meaning to get out there, to submit, maybe someday be lucky enough to get published.
I used to have a computer. Actually, in the past seven years I’ve had three. I brought a pc with me to Virginia. Once I started school though, I realized how much time I preferred to spend writing [in bars] sitting on the campus lawn, surrounded by my fellow [drunks] students, and I used some of that financial aid money to buy a laptop. And the laptop and I were happy. We were inseparable. Most nights I fell asleep, fingers still on the keyboard, laptop on my knees. And in the morning, when I woke, there he was, lying on his side, screen all aglow with a mystifying screensaver. It was love.
I sent the pc back to my son and even set him up with an online account so we could email, but his deadbeat father used the account for porn and when the computer wasn’t powerful enough to find enough porn for him, he traded it in and got another computer for himself. So when the laptop crashed a couple years later, after the funeral service, I didn’t even have the old pc to fall back on.
I’m sure this fascinates you.
Anyway, a friend of mine, who got a ridiculously high-paying job teaching in the Middle East, got herself a new computer and loaned me her old laptop. It wasn’t my laptop, but we were still happy.
And when I moved into a new apartment after possibly the worst year of my life, and thought things were looking up, and decided to take a break from unpacking and walked to the 7-Eleven for cigarettes, I came back to find that my door had been kicked in, and the borrowed laptop was gone.
Along with my backpack. And all, yes all, of my backup disks.
Every single word I’d written during graduate school. Three and a half years worth of work. All gone.
Okay, well, I have some of it. Pieces of things backed up on my network drive at school. And I still had one disk with an older version of my master’s thesis. But all of the best stuff, all of my fiction, all of the work I’d done during the height of my productivity, while I was losing my apartment and sleeping on people’s sofas, and living out of a duffle bag, when I was feeling most alone, when the laptop and the words I could type into it were my only comfort, all of that was gone. Probably discarded by the bastard who took them, since all he wanted was a bag to carry away my computer. And he probably got very little for that.
I haven’t been able to regain that writing momentum. Partly because of work, partly because I’ve been struggling to get a foothold on things in my life for awhile now. Those are both just excuses. The other excuse is that every time I sit down to write, every time I put a pen to paper or my fingertips to keyboard, I face not only the blank page we all face but a hole where all the words I’ve already written, the words I’ve convinced myself were so brilliant I can never recreate them, have been sucked into nothingness.
So I’ve been really excited about posting here sort of regularly. Even if it’s trivial or silly. At least I’ve been writing something.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
I'm so tired . . . But I can't sleep
I am tired. I know this phrase is uttered hundreds of thousands of times a day, but still I’m going to add it once more. I am tired. Twice more. This morning, when the alarm went off, I actually cried. Okay, I whimpered and whined. But then, as I managed to untangle myself from the blankets and sit up on the edge of the bed to greet yet another day of work followed by more work, there were tears in my eyes. And I let them go.
If it weren’t for the fact that I am staying with friends and would have felt embarrassed by doing so, I would have gone into a full-blown, exhaustion-fueled crying fit right then and there. But I practiced restraint. Wiped the tears away and got myself on my way and out the door and into traffic with the rest of the world on their way to work.
I’ve been working, between the two jobs, an eighty hour week for about six months now, but it feels like I have been keeping up this pace forever. And it seems unfair. I am pouting today. Resentful of all the time I have to sell to others. Resentful that I can’t even keep enough of my own time to get a proper night’s sleep. Resentful that during my lunch hour, when the rest of the world is eating and making inane conversation with co-workers, I lock my office door and take a nap because I need the recharge before heading into the next nine hours of work.
There are others out here. Others who sell more of their time than I do. Working three jobs. Working two jobs and going to school. And raising families. When do they find time to rest? How do they go on?
And why is our time of so little value that we have to exchange so much of it just to squeak by?
If it weren’t for the fact that I am staying with friends and would have felt embarrassed by doing so, I would have gone into a full-blown, exhaustion-fueled crying fit right then and there. But I practiced restraint. Wiped the tears away and got myself on my way and out the door and into traffic with the rest of the world on their way to work.
I’ve been working, between the two jobs, an eighty hour week for about six months now, but it feels like I have been keeping up this pace forever. And it seems unfair. I am pouting today. Resentful of all the time I have to sell to others. Resentful that I can’t even keep enough of my own time to get a proper night’s sleep. Resentful that during my lunch hour, when the rest of the world is eating and making inane conversation with co-workers, I lock my office door and take a nap because I need the recharge before heading into the next nine hours of work.
There are others out here. Others who sell more of their time than I do. Working three jobs. Working two jobs and going to school. And raising families. When do they find time to rest? How do they go on?
And why is our time of so little value that we have to exchange so much of it just to squeak by?
Monday, August 06, 2007
Our dance
Sometime in 1997, I wait on the other side of a heavy dung-colored door. Someone has to come and let me in. To only let me in and not let the crazies out. My son is at home with his father. I know that my mother wants to see him, but I wonder what it does to him sometimes, coming to this place where men with beards alternately shout obscenities and weep for their mothers. The nurse leads me down the hall and puts me at a table to wait for my mother. Around me in the dayroom, the patients twirl and glare.
She wears cotton pants and two cotton gowns – one facing the back and one the front. The last time I saw her, she was in my apartment with a homeless man who was wearing a pair of her shoes. She wore a cowboy hat. And a feather boa. It is difficult now to find anything strange. She smiles when she sees me, stepping out of her room and into the bright, clean light of the hallway, but by the time she sits at the table with me, she is in tears.
“Hi, baby girl,” she says. Her hands lie cupped in her lap and her shoulders hunch forward. This is barely the woman I grew up with.I swallow hard.
“Hi, Mom.” I want to reach over and squeeze her hand, but I don’t. She already seems so frail, I am afraid that this gesture will be her undoing. Instead I hand her one of the tissues I brought with me. While she wipes her eyes and nose, I try to find something to say.
“Brought you some movies,” I finally tell her. “Sleepless in Seattle. Moonstruck.” Her favorites. She watches them over and over. Her doctor tells me it is comfort for her, something familiar to grasp in a world that seems to be spinning away from her.
“I have a vcr in my room.” She sniffles. I think of my son, catching his breath as he tries to calm himself after a good cry.
“The nurses told me when I called.”
“You called?” I can tell by the way her voice goes up at the end that I’ve made a mistake.
“You were sleeping.”
“Oh. Okay.”
But I know it is not okay that I called and did not speak to her. I know that she sees this somehow as an indication that I do not love her. It doesn’t matter that I called to check on her. It does not matter that I am here now.
"I’m thirsty,” I tell her as I stand up.
“Do you want anything? A soda?”
She shakes her head. “I have tea in my room.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I walk across the dayroom to a vending machine and dig for change in my pocket. I feel the eyes of the patients on me. Coins clank as they fall into the hopper, and I glance around the room, smiling uncomfortably and nodding as I make eye contact with the others in their cotton pants and hospital gowns. One woman bursts into tears and a man wants to know what the hell I’m looking at. I press my selection and try to concentrate on the banging sound of the can as it falls through the machine.
I keep my eyes to the floor on my way back to the table.
She has stopped crying completely, this stranger who inhabits my mother’s body, and I hesitate for a moment as I try to choose whether I should move to the chair on the other side of her, where my back would be to the room, or if I should sit down where I was. I decide on my first seat. It is better to make eye contact, no matter how uncomfortable, than it is to turn my back on them. On anyone.
“Was the boy sleeping?” she asks about my son.
I lie and tell her yes.
“Does he ask where I am?”
“He knows you're at the hospital. He wanted to buy you a teddy bear.”
My mother smiles. But her eyes don't show it.
“Maybe I will bring him next time.”
“Next time,” she says and the smile leaves her face. “How long am I going to be here?”
I close my eyes and bite my lip. Sometimes I think I will never get the hang of it - this dance we do so often. My mother listens too intently to what I have to say, hovering around every word, attempting to uncover what is yet unsaid. I shuffle my feet, try to stick to the choreographed steps, and hope to keep her from whirling too far away.
She wears cotton pants and two cotton gowns – one facing the back and one the front. The last time I saw her, she was in my apartment with a homeless man who was wearing a pair of her shoes. She wore a cowboy hat. And a feather boa. It is difficult now to find anything strange. She smiles when she sees me, stepping out of her room and into the bright, clean light of the hallway, but by the time she sits at the table with me, she is in tears.
“Hi, baby girl,” she says. Her hands lie cupped in her lap and her shoulders hunch forward. This is barely the woman I grew up with.I swallow hard.
“Hi, Mom.” I want to reach over and squeeze her hand, but I don’t. She already seems so frail, I am afraid that this gesture will be her undoing. Instead I hand her one of the tissues I brought with me. While she wipes her eyes and nose, I try to find something to say.
“Brought you some movies,” I finally tell her. “Sleepless in Seattle. Moonstruck.” Her favorites. She watches them over and over. Her doctor tells me it is comfort for her, something familiar to grasp in a world that seems to be spinning away from her.
“I have a vcr in my room.” She sniffles. I think of my son, catching his breath as he tries to calm himself after a good cry.
“The nurses told me when I called.”
“You called?” I can tell by the way her voice goes up at the end that I’ve made a mistake.
“You were sleeping.”
“Oh. Okay.”
But I know it is not okay that I called and did not speak to her. I know that she sees this somehow as an indication that I do not love her. It doesn’t matter that I called to check on her. It does not matter that I am here now.
"I’m thirsty,” I tell her as I stand up.
“Do you want anything? A soda?”
She shakes her head. “I have tea in my room.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I walk across the dayroom to a vending machine and dig for change in my pocket. I feel the eyes of the patients on me. Coins clank as they fall into the hopper, and I glance around the room, smiling uncomfortably and nodding as I make eye contact with the others in their cotton pants and hospital gowns. One woman bursts into tears and a man wants to know what the hell I’m looking at. I press my selection and try to concentrate on the banging sound of the can as it falls through the machine.
I keep my eyes to the floor on my way back to the table.
She has stopped crying completely, this stranger who inhabits my mother’s body, and I hesitate for a moment as I try to choose whether I should move to the chair on the other side of her, where my back would be to the room, or if I should sit down where I was. I decide on my first seat. It is better to make eye contact, no matter how uncomfortable, than it is to turn my back on them. On anyone.
“Was the boy sleeping?” she asks about my son.
I lie and tell her yes.
“Does he ask where I am?”
“He knows you're at the hospital. He wanted to buy you a teddy bear.”
My mother smiles. But her eyes don't show it.
“Maybe I will bring him next time.”
“Next time,” she says and the smile leaves her face. “How long am I going to be here?”
I close my eyes and bite my lip. Sometimes I think I will never get the hang of it - this dance we do so often. My mother listens too intently to what I have to say, hovering around every word, attempting to uncover what is yet unsaid. I shuffle my feet, try to stick to the choreographed steps, and hope to keep her from whirling too far away.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Friday grab bag
I have nothing much to say today. The week has been spent working job #1 and then rushing off to job #2 and then to my friends' house to crash in their guest room before waking up too early and starting it over again. I am definitely burning the candle at both ends, and the wax in the middle is almost gone.
So in lieu of saying anything important or even interesting, I offer the following snippets from my week:
The director of the graduate program (a math professor) asked me for the numbers on our grad students. I sent him an email that read as follows: The number I have, including the two new GTA's and the six new admits, is thirty-six. He responded with the following: Could you break that down, please, into how many new and how many returning? I thought I had. I guess doing the subtraction was too difficult.
One of the servers I work with is an ass. Okay, maybe not just one. But this guy's an arrogant, sexist ass and I knew it the moment I met him, though I tried to give him a chance anyway. You know, not being too quick to judge lest I become a hostile jerk. He's done nothing to reverse my opinion in the last six months - he's always bragging about how much money he's made in tips, he calls the women he can't get along with "bitches", he never runs his own trays of food, he steals other people's tables, etc. Wednesday night, he completely earned my opinion of him. First, we were both walking through the server aisle, him behind me, and he actually said, "Behind you" in this big, commanding voice that meant he wanted me to move out of his way. I did not. I continued to walk down the aisle - I was working too. So he said it again. I stopped, turned around, and asked him if he honestly thought his business was more important than mine. His response, "Well I have to get something over here." I said, "And I don't?" Then he raised his fist at me. I mean, he actually raised his fist, elbow in the air, fingers clenched tight. And not in a playful way (Just so you know, I would have taken him out). Later, right before closing, he and another male server started to talk about the "two really hot chicks" at another server's table. When his own table's food came up in the window, he was out in the dining room, coming up with reasons to ogle the women. I set his tray up for him, but I didn't run it, as I was trying to finish my sidework so I could go home at a decent hour, and well, why should I do his work when he's out in the dining room being a pig (the women were maybe in their early twenties - he's in his late thirties). Of course, when he came into the kitchen, he complained about someone setting up his tray and being too lazy to run it out for him. I told him I set it up and called him on his piggish behavior. No fist this time, just a dirty look. Ass.
Monday morning, the fire alarm started going off in my building at the university, and I stayed in my chair for a good thirty seconds before I actually got up and left. Embarrassed to admit this, but I will anyway - I actually worried for a moment that maybe it wasn't a fire or even a drill, but that it was possible a mad gunman had pulled the alarm and was just waiting for everyone to step into the halls. Paranoid.
Another server I work with is a high school history teacher. We were talking about my search for a decent school district, and this conversation only added to my depression over the apartment hunting. We both criticized the SOL's and he said that he had to return for teacher orientation in a week or two during which all the teachers had to go to meetings and workshops where they would meet with some sort of teaching efficiency experts who would tell them what exactly they needed to teach their students to get them ready for the SOL exams. To quote him, "For example, last year we had this guy come in and tell us, 'These are the things your students need to know about George Washington: he was our first president, he was a great general, and he's the father of our country. If you teach them anything else, you're just wasting their time.'" Lovely.
And finally, I was out on the second floor walkway for a smoke break when I heard a barrage of random, yet progressive profanity firing up from the courtyard below. I peered over and found two homeless people sitting on a park bench, shouting obscenities into the air. Even more amusing - both of them were wearing bright purple hats. I took a picture with my camera phone, but they kept turning around, and lest they turn their verbal attack toward me, I had to snap it in a hurry, so the resolution isn't very good. Regardless, here they are:
So in lieu of saying anything important or even interesting, I offer the following snippets from my week:
The director of the graduate program (a math professor) asked me for the numbers on our grad students. I sent him an email that read as follows: The number I have, including the two new GTA's and the six new admits, is thirty-six. He responded with the following: Could you break that down, please, into how many new and how many returning? I thought I had. I guess doing the subtraction was too difficult.
One of the servers I work with is an ass. Okay, maybe not just one. But this guy's an arrogant, sexist ass and I knew it the moment I met him, though I tried to give him a chance anyway. You know, not being too quick to judge lest I become a hostile jerk. He's done nothing to reverse my opinion in the last six months - he's always bragging about how much money he's made in tips, he calls the women he can't get along with "bitches", he never runs his own trays of food, he steals other people's tables, etc. Wednesday night, he completely earned my opinion of him. First, we were both walking through the server aisle, him behind me, and he actually said, "Behind you" in this big, commanding voice that meant he wanted me to move out of his way. I did not. I continued to walk down the aisle - I was working too. So he said it again. I stopped, turned around, and asked him if he honestly thought his business was more important than mine. His response, "Well I have to get something over here." I said, "And I don't?" Then he raised his fist at me. I mean, he actually raised his fist, elbow in the air, fingers clenched tight. And not in a playful way (Just so you know, I would have taken him out). Later, right before closing, he and another male server started to talk about the "two really hot chicks" at another server's table. When his own table's food came up in the window, he was out in the dining room, coming up with reasons to ogle the women. I set his tray up for him, but I didn't run it, as I was trying to finish my sidework so I could go home at a decent hour, and well, why should I do his work when he's out in the dining room being a pig (the women were maybe in their early twenties - he's in his late thirties). Of course, when he came into the kitchen, he complained about someone setting up his tray and being too lazy to run it out for him. I told him I set it up and called him on his piggish behavior. No fist this time, just a dirty look. Ass.
Monday morning, the fire alarm started going off in my building at the university, and I stayed in my chair for a good thirty seconds before I actually got up and left. Embarrassed to admit this, but I will anyway - I actually worried for a moment that maybe it wasn't a fire or even a drill, but that it was possible a mad gunman had pulled the alarm and was just waiting for everyone to step into the halls. Paranoid.
Another server I work with is a high school history teacher. We were talking about my search for a decent school district, and this conversation only added to my depression over the apartment hunting. We both criticized the SOL's and he said that he had to return for teacher orientation in a week or two during which all the teachers had to go to meetings and workshops where they would meet with some sort of teaching efficiency experts who would tell them what exactly they needed to teach their students to get them ready for the SOL exams. To quote him, "For example, last year we had this guy come in and tell us, 'These are the things your students need to know about George Washington: he was our first president, he was a great general, and he's the father of our country. If you teach them anything else, you're just wasting their time.'" Lovely.
And finally, I was out on the second floor walkway for a smoke break when I heard a barrage of random, yet progressive profanity firing up from the courtyard below. I peered over and found two homeless people sitting on a park bench, shouting obscenities into the air. Even more amusing - both of them were wearing bright purple hats. I took a picture with my camera phone, but they kept turning around, and lest they turn their verbal attack toward me, I had to snap it in a hurry, so the resolution isn't very good. Regardless, here they are:
Thursday, August 02, 2007
I'm taking the cookies with me . . .
So I came into the office this morning feeling groggy and depressed. Well, on my way to depressed. I wasn't awake enough to feel much of anything. And then one of the professors came by my office and dropped off a plate of cookies she'd baked for me. Okay, so she hadn't baked just for me, but she was making cookies and she decided that she would bring a plate to me. Still an awfully sweet thing to do.
What is it about a plate of cookies from someone you hardly know that just makes you feel all warm and wonderful?
Since I didn't post yesterday, and I really have nothing worthwhile to post today, I thought I would put a picture of my cookies up, but then I discovered that I forgot my cellphone today.
Damn!
So, instead, you get the next best thing - an artist's rendering of my cookies:
Yes, they have smiley faces on them! How could a plate of gifted, smiley face cookies not make you smile yourself? I haven't eaten any of them yet. They're too adorable. Besides, if I eat these cookies, I will look like this:
(Yes, that is a proportional drawing of my clown feet. Oh, my hands too. I have giant hands. Like in that Seinfeld episode. Man hands. I could crack a lobster with these babies. Not that I would crack lobster: I don't particularly care for lobster. I mean, for eating lobster. I guess if I didn't like actual lobsters, then going around and cracking them with my giant hands would seem perfectly logical).
Of course, because I am neurotic this way, I am also concerned that if I do eat the cookies, especially here in the office, there's a chance that the phone will ring or a student will stop by just as I have taken a bite (shoved an entire cookie in my mouth), and in an attempt to keep from speaking with a mouthful of cookie and running the risk of a: sounding like a snorting warthog when answering the phone or b: spraying wet cookie crumbs all over a student, I will swallow too big a bite, choke on the sugary goodness, and die due to the fact that a: I am on the phone, mouthful of cookie, with a blocked airway and unable to communicate my need for an ambulance or b: the student who is in my office, in a rushing attempt to administer the Heimlich manuever, will trip over my giant clown feet, run smack into the corner of my desk, and be rendered unconscious, thereby leaving me to suffocate because of the cookie lodged in my throat. Then I will look like this:
So, you see, were I to consume these smiley-face cookies, I would die a terrible death. My obituary would read that I died because of an affinity for sweets, they would have to buy a giant-sized coffin to bury my fat ass, and all the people who made fun of my in high school would get a good laugh at my expense. Yet again. And because of my past transgressions, and the fact that I am a smoking, lesbian-loving, radical feminist, socialist hippie, I would, according to my grandmother and minister uncles, end up in hell:
And no, that's not a tiny devil in the corner, that's a lobster because as we all know, lobsters are unclean and have no chance of entering heaven when they pass on.
So I would die, humiliated, and suffer eternal damnation. All because some horrid professor stayed up last night, plotting my demise (probably because I didn't order the right kind of chalk or scented white-board markers), and baked me cookies, knowing that I would be unable to resist temptation.
Well, cookie-baker, I have news for you! I can resist your cookies. I say NO to the cookies. I will not taste . . .
Oh, wait, I just remembered I left my cell phone in the car!
Hold on while I upload the image . . .
(Oh, and for the record, this is what I look like now, without eating cookies:)
What is it about a plate of cookies from someone you hardly know that just makes you feel all warm and wonderful?
Since I didn't post yesterday, and I really have nothing worthwhile to post today, I thought I would put a picture of my cookies up, but then I discovered that I forgot my cellphone today.
Damn!
So, instead, you get the next best thing - an artist's rendering of my cookies:
Okay, so I pinched the cookie image off the web and Photoshopped it. Perhaps I should actually draw my own cookies:
Yes, they have smiley faces on them! How could a plate of gifted, smiley face cookies not make you smile yourself? I haven't eaten any of them yet. They're too adorable. Besides, if I eat these cookies, I will look like this:
(Yes, that is a proportional drawing of my clown feet. Oh, my hands too. I have giant hands. Like in that Seinfeld episode. Man hands. I could crack a lobster with these babies. Not that I would crack lobster: I don't particularly care for lobster. I mean, for eating lobster. I guess if I didn't like actual lobsters, then going around and cracking them with my giant hands would seem perfectly logical).
Of course, because I am neurotic this way, I am also concerned that if I do eat the cookies, especially here in the office, there's a chance that the phone will ring or a student will stop by just as I have taken a bite (shoved an entire cookie in my mouth), and in an attempt to keep from speaking with a mouthful of cookie and running the risk of a: sounding like a snorting warthog when answering the phone or b: spraying wet cookie crumbs all over a student, I will swallow too big a bite, choke on the sugary goodness, and die due to the fact that a: I am on the phone, mouthful of cookie, with a blocked airway and unable to communicate my need for an ambulance or b: the student who is in my office, in a rushing attempt to administer the Heimlich manuever, will trip over my giant clown feet, run smack into the corner of my desk, and be rendered unconscious, thereby leaving me to suffocate because of the cookie lodged in my throat. Then I will look like this:
So, you see, were I to consume these smiley-face cookies, I would die a terrible death. My obituary would read that I died because of an affinity for sweets, they would have to buy a giant-sized coffin to bury my fat ass, and all the people who made fun of my in high school would get a good laugh at my expense. Yet again. And because of my past transgressions, and the fact that I am a smoking, lesbian-loving, radical feminist, socialist hippie, I would, according to my grandmother and minister uncles, end up in hell:
And no, that's not a tiny devil in the corner, that's a lobster because as we all know, lobsters are unclean and have no chance of entering heaven when they pass on.
So I would die, humiliated, and suffer eternal damnation. All because some horrid professor stayed up last night, plotting my demise (probably because I didn't order the right kind of chalk or scented white-board markers), and baked me cookies, knowing that I would be unable to resist temptation.
Well, cookie-baker, I have news for you! I can resist your cookies. I say NO to the cookies. I will not taste . . .
Oh, wait, I just remembered I left my cell phone in the car!
Hold on while I upload the image . . .
Wonderful, smiley-face cookies baked just for me:
(Oh, and for the record, this is what I look like now, without eating cookies:)
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