For some reason, my brain has latched onto the term/TV show title “Tool Academy” as its new favorite thing to talk to itself about. You know, maybe I’m at the store, or driving down the street, or sitting in my interview class listening to some diapersack spouting forth about how awesome he is, and all I can think is: “What is this? Tool Academy?”
Anyway, Rich is gone, leaving me once again to stare helplessly at the stove. It makes food, when Rich is here. But now it sits cold and empty and unproductive. Where’s my dinner, stove? Oh, it’s at Arby’s? Okay, then.
North Saskatoon is filled with fast food drive-thrus, but the closest is Arby’s. Oh, what’s wrong with Arby’s?, I asked myself. I mean, of course it’s disgusting, but a chicken sammy is a chicken sammy, right? I was ready to flip on the turn signal when I looked up at Arby’s giant red penis and said: Oh god. I cannot do this.
Any kitchen that prepares shaved penis on bun is not for Aunty Christ.
Good thing, anyway. Two weeks ago I went to the office for the first time in seven months and ended up talking with a little flibbertigibbet of my acquaintance, who turned the conversation, eventually, toward her dislike of people who don’t take care of themselves. And then she kind of very meaningfully stopped herself and looked at me. “Oh, not you,” she said. “I mean someone like _____,” and proceeded to name two or three really obese people in our office. Finally! Someone who doesn’t consider me morbidly obese—that’s awesome. I guess I can stop wearing my “THIS IS WHAT 400 POUNDS LOOKS LIKE” t-shirt (size medium, but it’s a little snug).
That awesome guy from my interview class? Turns out that when he’s not talking, Pregnant Black Teen is. Pregnant Black Teen kind of stole my instructor’s heart the first couple classes, her being preggers and my instructor being a mother. To introduce one of the film clips we watched (it’s a community college course: we watch a lot of movies), my instructor informed us that in this scene Denzel Washington’s film wife had just had a baby, and the mother next to me looked at the mother behind me and they both said: Aw! A baby! But Pregnant Black Teen killed off any good will her fertility had bought with the unfortunate habit of yelling at the movies we’re watching, and then yelling at our instructor as if she were a movie. The instructor, for example, put on Erin Brockovich and instructed us that although Erin’s interview skills were good, we perhaps should think twice about wearing a short leather vest to talk to clients. “She look good!” shouted Pregnant Black Teen at Julia Roberts’ sassy little figure. “I’d wear that! What’s wrong with the way she look?” Later, when the instructor said that she didn’t really like Julia Roberts but she—“Oh yes you do!” Pregnant Black Teen yelled. Instructor: “Well, no, I just don’t really like—” Pregnant: “Yes you like Julia Roberts!” It went on for perhaps a minute, and the instructor (a seasoned litigator) won, but only barely.
It was a wonderful moment for law, and for community college, and for humanity in general, probably. But there are moments in everyone’s life when you just want to take someone by the shoulders and tell them to stop being a stereotype and, oh, I suppose I just feel like that’s happening more and more frequently lately. That and the Tool Academy thing.
So, that’s what I’ve been up to. Now, stove, make me dinner.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Aunty Christ is the Weepy Grand Canyon of Emptyness
Today is Super Bowl Sunday and, not coincidentally, my favorite day of the year. That’s right: Puppy Bowl V. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m retarded for dogs, right? I’m a pedophile for dogs. I’m Temple Grandin for dogs. I am not, however, coprophagiac for dogs or necrophiliac for dogs. I for one draw the line there. Some people are disgusting.
So, Rich and I looked at cats the other day, and we found one that’s as close to a thug dog as any cat is going to be. I introduce Rico.
He looks almost exactly like a thug dog, and he is large enough to stand up to the thugs’ mindless antagonism, I think. And provide them an ample meal in his litter box, but that’s another—completely disgusting—issue. (Didn’t I just say I was against that?) Of course, we have not gotten him yet. Will we? Will we soon—or ever?—bring him home in a little cardboard suitcase and introduce him to the Brothers Thug? I don’t know. It seems kind of unlikely at this point. I would like to get a cat, if only because Rich loves cats so much, and to be a cat person in a house of thugs must be hard.
But oh my: another thing that needs to be cared for. For the past six months or so, a blog post that another blogger wrote (in fact, the last blog post she wrote) has been clattering around in my head. Wide Eyed Kid wrote:
“Somewhere in 2008 I ran out of whatever it is that you pull out when you need to 'dig deep' … I've been told by a whole bunch of people that I am 'strong'. My shrink has said it. My counsellor has said it. My father has said it. My partners have said it. And my friends have said it. I think people say 'you're strong' to reassure themselves. Someone else's strength is a comforting alibi. People say 'you're strong' like it's a personality trait... like it can't be used up or beaten out of you.
“I pretty much used up all my strength not committing suicide after the home invasion. And after the first 2 years of that, every tiny amount of regenerated strength was put toward the maintenance of my sanity. I haven't had enough spare to get on top of things since 2003. And now I've been comprehensively drained once more. Strength is a resource that needs to be replenished. What I once had in abundance now needs complete and total regeneration. But I don't know how.”
When I first read that, I thought, “I know exactly what you mean, sister.” Not that anyone’s ever accused me of being overly strong, I don’t think. And not that I am strong. But there are other things, other traits, that after a year of neglect have been worn away by worry. Stress has hollowed my damn self out. I write about myself in cover letters: I am organized, detail-oriented, and meticulous, a good speller, a good writer. But I am none of these things. I may have been at one point, but they have been chiseled away, at first with a tooth scaler, but lately, a jackhammer. Worse yet, I think of myself as a nice person—a nice-ish person, anyway. “You have so much love to give,” an ex once accused me of, stating his case that I should rethink the whole having kids thing. I thought, no, children are not for me, but this love I have—he’s right. I have love, but I will give it to those I meet who deserve it. And I’m living with someone who deserves all my love and more, and I am empty inside, and I have nothing to offer him.
What I do have, in abundance, is anger and criticism and a need to be left alone—or, even more sadly, mindlessly encouraged, like the final Special Olympics sprinter lumbering toward the finish line. I feel specifically wounded by the economic crisis, and by my unstable job, and by the people who don’t realize that everything’s turned to shit, and by the people who know that it’s just going to get worse and insist that you be terrified by their vision of the future. Ah, but there’s nothing more annoying than bloggers endlessly whining about shit, right? So, I don’t blog anymore. Just to open my mouth is to whine unattractively, and no one wants that. Even me. Whoever that is these days.
So this is more just apology, really, for being a bad blogger. I think maybe that going back to school is going to somehow provide the fertilizer I need to regrow some good part of myself. Not in the “school is bullshit” kind of way, either. After every class I feel a little bit more myself, but only a little bit. Then, eight hours of work and I am empty again. But it’s a start. It’s a glimpse of who I would rather be, which is better than this. This shell. This thing.
So there’s my plan of attack, I guess. Feel a little better tomorrow. And build on it. And build on it. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. I need to say also that I hope Wide Eyed Kid re-found her strength.
So, Rich and I looked at cats the other day, and we found one that’s as close to a thug dog as any cat is going to be. I introduce Rico.
Like my name say, I am Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. Bitch, I will cut you.
He looks almost exactly like a thug dog, and he is large enough to stand up to the thugs’ mindless antagonism, I think. And provide them an ample meal in his litter box, but that’s another—completely disgusting—issue. (Didn’t I just say I was against that?) Of course, we have not gotten him yet. Will we? Will we soon—or ever?—bring him home in a little cardboard suitcase and introduce him to the Brothers Thug? I don’t know. It seems kind of unlikely at this point. I would like to get a cat, if only because Rich loves cats so much, and to be a cat person in a house of thugs must be hard.
But oh my: another thing that needs to be cared for. For the past six months or so, a blog post that another blogger wrote (in fact, the last blog post she wrote) has been clattering around in my head. Wide Eyed Kid wrote:
“Somewhere in 2008 I ran out of whatever it is that you pull out when you need to 'dig deep' … I've been told by a whole bunch of people that I am 'strong'. My shrink has said it. My counsellor has said it. My father has said it. My partners have said it. And my friends have said it. I think people say 'you're strong' to reassure themselves. Someone else's strength is a comforting alibi. People say 'you're strong' like it's a personality trait... like it can't be used up or beaten out of you.
“I pretty much used up all my strength not committing suicide after the home invasion. And after the first 2 years of that, every tiny amount of regenerated strength was put toward the maintenance of my sanity. I haven't had enough spare to get on top of things since 2003. And now I've been comprehensively drained once more. Strength is a resource that needs to be replenished. What I once had in abundance now needs complete and total regeneration. But I don't know how.”
When I first read that, I thought, “I know exactly what you mean, sister.” Not that anyone’s ever accused me of being overly strong, I don’t think. And not that I am strong. But there are other things, other traits, that after a year of neglect have been worn away by worry. Stress has hollowed my damn self out. I write about myself in cover letters: I am organized, detail-oriented, and meticulous, a good speller, a good writer. But I am none of these things. I may have been at one point, but they have been chiseled away, at first with a tooth scaler, but lately, a jackhammer. Worse yet, I think of myself as a nice person—a nice-ish person, anyway. “You have so much love to give,” an ex once accused me of, stating his case that I should rethink the whole having kids thing. I thought, no, children are not for me, but this love I have—he’s right. I have love, but I will give it to those I meet who deserve it. And I’m living with someone who deserves all my love and more, and I am empty inside, and I have nothing to offer him.
What I do have, in abundance, is anger and criticism and a need to be left alone—or, even more sadly, mindlessly encouraged, like the final Special Olympics sprinter lumbering toward the finish line. I feel specifically wounded by the economic crisis, and by my unstable job, and by the people who don’t realize that everything’s turned to shit, and by the people who know that it’s just going to get worse and insist that you be terrified by their vision of the future. Ah, but there’s nothing more annoying than bloggers endlessly whining about shit, right? So, I don’t blog anymore. Just to open my mouth is to whine unattractively, and no one wants that. Even me. Whoever that is these days.
So this is more just apology, really, for being a bad blogger. I think maybe that going back to school is going to somehow provide the fertilizer I need to regrow some good part of myself. Not in the “school is bullshit” kind of way, either. After every class I feel a little bit more myself, but only a little bit. Then, eight hours of work and I am empty again. But it’s a start. It’s a glimpse of who I would rather be, which is better than this. This shell. This thing.
So there’s my plan of attack, I guess. Feel a little better tomorrow. And build on it. And build on it. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. I need to say also that I hope Wide Eyed Kid re-found her strength.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Oh, I forgot to tell you. I came back.
I suppose I should say something one of these days, to squelch the very reasonable conclusion that a reader might have had, until now, that I never returned from my Maui vacation.
Oh, I wish.
There is a lot to say about Maui, most of which, due to time and my poor memory and my aversion to sitting in a hotel room typing while there are so many waves outside to bounce around in, I have forgotten or at least cannot relate now with the gusto with which I should have related them last month, when I returned to Saskatoon.
Here is a photo* of a Lahaina store I found endlessly amusing, for obvious reasons.
Here is a photo of one of Maui’s famous sunsets.
The weird thing about Maui is that lots of things that you’ve never heard of before, and that don’t seem all that compelling on their own, are apparently famous. A grocery store, for example, was said to be famous. And a tree that looks like several trees.
A really fun thing to do, if you have the time, is sit up late at night in your hotel room that you’re sharing with your parents, and watch VH1 when they’re actually playing videos, with closed captioning on. I fully realize that not everyone has the stomach for it, but if you can, Gavin Rossdale’s “Love Remains the Same” comes across as a modern revision of Prufrock, I think:
“Don’t you trick me out
We shall overcome
‘Cause our love stays ablaze
“But we should have had the sun
Could have been inside
Instead we’re over here”
A less seasoned poet would have shied away from such trite phrases as “trick me out” and “we shall overcome” and might have felt compelled to spell out where “over here” is in order to fully differentiate it from “inside.” Mr. Rossdale, however, is confident in his genius, and rightly so, sir. Of course, to fully partake of the sun, usually one would want to be outside, not inside. Perhaps Gavin and his pimpin' firebug actually could have been inside a rocket pointed toward the sun? And if so, how can we get them to leave over here and go back into that rocket like they had planned?
So that was Hawaii. Back in Saskatoon here, the thugs and the Rich Bachelor and I had a pretty nice holiday season, filled with meat and booze and lovely guests, as I kind of thought he had said on his blog, but upon further investigation, find he did not.
And now, after minutes of preparation and hours of anxiety, I am a schoolgirl again. A paralegal-certificate-course schoolgirl, which doesn’t sound very sexy, unfortunately. So far I can’t say very much about it, given that I’ve been to only one class, and that that one class was chosen as a class that I might want to sleep (or drink!) through and still receive an A plus plus plus plus plus plus. It is a very silly class. Additional classes that I have signed up for might want to step the fuck up if they believe paralegaling should hold any interest for me.
So, I guess that’s all I had to say. Gavin Rossdale, do you have anything to add?
“I find a place where we escape
Take me with you for a space
A city bus that sounds just like a fridge”
You guys, I think Gavin’s given us all a lot to think about**. Thanks a lot, man. That was awesome.
*I should point out that my father took the photo of the sunset. The other photos I found on the flickr pages of complete strangers, due to my not bringing along a camera, due to my lack of interest in having pictures taken of myself, or making my parents pose for photos, combined with my very deep interest in not having pictures taken of myself and not wasting time on photo-taking in general. It is comforting to note, however, that in this modern age, even without a camera of your own, and without having wasted any money in the airport on coffee-table books or postcards, you can pretty much re-create your vacation using photos stolen from assholes who took the exact same vacation as you, and found the exact same things kind of interesting.
**Things that Gavin Rossdale was thinking about when he wrote that verse include: "Space" and "escape" are kind of the same word, when you think about it. But "escape" has an extra e. And: If a bus sounds like a fridge, does that mean we're all meat? Think about it. And: I'm so high.
Oh, I wish.
There is a lot to say about Maui, most of which, due to time and my poor memory and my aversion to sitting in a hotel room typing while there are so many waves outside to bounce around in, I have forgotten or at least cannot relate now with the gusto with which I should have related them last month, when I returned to Saskatoon.
Here is a photo* of a Lahaina store I found endlessly amusing, for obvious reasons.
I am panties!
Here is a photo of one of Maui’s famous sunsets.
It used to be best friends with Rachel Bilson, but it’s been out of the media in recent months, in preparation for its Vegas show.
The weird thing about Maui is that lots of things that you’ve never heard of before, and that don’t seem all that compelling on their own, are apparently famous. A grocery store, for example, was said to be famous. And a tree that looks like several trees.
Oh, you don’t recognize famous tree? Perhaps you been asleep in back of famous grocery store.
A really fun thing to do, if you have the time, is sit up late at night in your hotel room that you’re sharing with your parents, and watch VH1 when they’re actually playing videos, with closed captioning on. I fully realize that not everyone has the stomach for it, but if you can, Gavin Rossdale’s “Love Remains the Same” comes across as a modern revision of Prufrock, I think:
“Don’t you trick me out
We shall overcome
‘Cause our love stays ablaze
“But we should have had the sun
Could have been inside
Instead we’re over here”
A less seasoned poet would have shied away from such trite phrases as “trick me out” and “we shall overcome” and might have felt compelled to spell out where “over here” is in order to fully differentiate it from “inside.” Mr. Rossdale, however, is confident in his genius, and rightly so, sir. Of course, to fully partake of the sun, usually one would want to be outside, not inside. Perhaps Gavin and his pimpin' firebug actually could have been inside a rocket pointed toward the sun? And if so, how can we get them to leave over here and go back into that rocket like they had planned?
So that was Hawaii. Back in Saskatoon here, the thugs and the Rich Bachelor and I had a pretty nice holiday season, filled with meat and booze and lovely guests, as I kind of thought he had said on his blog, but upon further investigation, find he did not.
And now, after minutes of preparation and hours of anxiety, I am a schoolgirl again. A paralegal-certificate-course schoolgirl, which doesn’t sound very sexy, unfortunately. So far I can’t say very much about it, given that I’ve been to only one class, and that that one class was chosen as a class that I might want to sleep (or drink!) through and still receive an A plus plus plus plus plus plus. It is a very silly class. Additional classes that I have signed up for might want to step the fuck up if they believe paralegaling should hold any interest for me.
So, I guess that’s all I had to say. Gavin Rossdale, do you have anything to add?
“I find a place where we escape
Take me with you for a space
A city bus that sounds just like a fridge”
You guys, I think Gavin’s given us all a lot to think about**. Thanks a lot, man. That was awesome.
*I should point out that my father took the photo of the sunset. The other photos I found on the flickr pages of complete strangers, due to my not bringing along a camera, due to my lack of interest in having pictures taken of myself, or making my parents pose for photos, combined with my very deep interest in not having pictures taken of myself and not wasting time on photo-taking in general. It is comforting to note, however, that in this modern age, even without a camera of your own, and without having wasted any money in the airport on coffee-table books or postcards, you can pretty much re-create your vacation using photos stolen from assholes who took the exact same vacation as you, and found the exact same things kind of interesting.
**Things that Gavin Rossdale was thinking about when he wrote that verse include: "Space" and "escape" are kind of the same word, when you think about it. But "escape" has an extra e. And: If a bus sounds like a fridge, does that mean we're all meat? Think about it. And: I'm so high.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Aunty Christ will be back soon
This morning, I ordered a medium americano from the round-faced barista who was unlucky enough to be working at the airport coffee stand the day after Thanksgiving.
“I know you probably get this all the time,” I said, “but ‘wiener mélange’ is a really bad name for your espresso.”
“I know!” he said. “It’s really bad, right?”
“It kind of sounds like you’re serving hot dog-flavored coffee.”
“I can’t help it!”
“Oh, no, I know it’s …”
“It’s actually pronounced ‘vee-ner’.”
“Oh, well that’s …”
“I guess it’s German.”
“Well, that makes …”
“I can’t help it!”
Aunty Christ is dealing with airport coffee-industry employees this morning, rather than at home in bed where she belongs, because she is waiting for the plane that’s going to take her to
Where she spend six days dealing with her parents, walking on the beach, and missing the thugs and Rich Bachelor like mad.Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Aunty Christ and the American nightmare
Every now and then—more frequently lately, for obvious reasons—when I hear about large, national corporations declaring bankruptcy or otherwise going tits up, as those people on BBC America say, I can’t help but wonder what it’s like to actually work for said moribund company. I think we can say with some degree of certainty that the CEOs and VPs of those poorly managed entities—the ones who’ve actually run their wards into the ground—do not feel guilty about whatever incredible waste of time, money, energy and talent they engineered. Or, if they do feel a twinge of conscience, their multimillion-dollar severance packages do much to assuage their nasty, pitch-black souls.
But what of the foot soldiers? What must it be like, I’ve wondered, to play a bit part in some other man’s poorly conceived plan of battle on the field of capitalism? Is it hard, driving to the office listening to stories of your company’s demise on your favorite news station? Would you, as a low-level employee, feel you had contributed to your company’s non-success with your accumulated hours of answering Craigslist ads? Would you have known about the behemoth’s failure before the rest of us did? Did you have an inkling? Or was it just as much of a shock to you as it was to Jim Cramer? Does walking into the office of your failed company, its name now on every newscaster’s lips as The Example of Failure, of Corporate Greed, of The Very Worst That Can Happen When Reality and Facts and Prior Lessons of History Are Ignored, eat away at your dignity and your humanity as much as one would expect it would?
And lucky, lucky me, now I get to find out.
The company I’ve worked for over the past 15 months or so, formerly one of the largest in its industry, in a day has become a penny stock, junk-bond-rated debt, a joke. In a single day, its shares lost almost 90 percent of their worth, although the stock’s about 99 percent off its high for the year. I think I saw it coming. I saw something coming, anyway. In my industry, as a manager you can decide to pay someone like me an extra $5 to do a good job on a file and save yourself a potential $100,000 in claims, or you can beat it into your employees’ heads that they need to get files out in a hurry and risk the $100,000—or more. From where I sat, it seemed like my company was making an obvious mistake in choosing the latter option. Not just sometimes, not just when it makes sense, or when someone has assessed the risk and determined that it’s worthwhile. All the fucking time. Given the choice of losing a million or giving a client a few minutes’ extra work, we were encouraged—strongly encouraged—to get the file out and not worry about the future expense.
Tolstoy wrote that happy families are all alike, but unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. From my experience, unhappy companies all make the same unhappy mistakes. They start expensive projects with the idea that This Revolutionary Advancement will be just the thing to drive future sales. Of course, these projects are never completed and are in fact soon abandoned due to lack of money, lack of interest, or lack of earth-changing significance. Employees are poorly trained and frequently reminded of how easily they could be replaced by a temp or an Indian, who wouldn’t require a 401K and health insurance, overtime pay or a heated office. At the same time that devoted, competent employees are let go, money is poured into establishing new worker pools, which are then replaced once those new workers gain any competence.
All of the above is true of my current employer, but it doesn’t even come close to describing how fucking stupid my company is.
Last summer, my coworkers and I were made to celebrate Failing Corporation Day, in honor of the anniversary of my employer’s conglomeration. The celebratory events included a Power Point presentation of the history of the industry, capped off by the illustrious history of the company, and a second Power Point show, on the glorious future of both industry and company. Our office was missing either the technical expertise or the actual technology (or both, most likely) needed to effectuate a complete Power Point presentation that would make any kind of sense in the large cafeteria we were sitting in. The sound came tinnily over the speakers of a laptop and reached maybe the first of 20 rows. Instead of a soundtrack, we were treated to a monotone reading by our uncharismatic boss.
The basic theme of the presentation was that we at the Failing Corporation help people achieve the American dream. Ah yes, I thought: Helping people reach that age-old dream of home foreclosure. Which of us didn’t grow up with the dream of receiving a notice of default by certified mail? Knowing that I can help someone, maybe you, reach that goal gives me a little bit of a tingle. Really.
I kept looking around the room at my coworkers, trying to gauge from their faces who was in my tribe. I found the presentation amusing as hell. We are helping people achieve their dreams, I wanted to scream, and for this we are paid a salary that will never allow us to achieve ours, no matter how base or insignificant our dreams may be. It’s fucking hilarious. Why wasn’t anyone getting it?
A picture of a run-down house came up on screen, captioned with the words, “We help turn real property”—and then the picture morphed. Instead of the run-down house, we were now presented with an image of the same house, similarly decrepit, but now with a dirty couch installed in the front yard, and the text: “into real people’s homes.” I again looked around the room, not even sorta trying to hide my amusement, and found myself looking into the dull, heavy-lidded eyes of my coworkers.
You did this, America. But I helped. No, no thanks necessary. It was my pleasure.
As each piece of our unhappy story has fallen into place over the past few weeks, I find myself similarly giddy over new inanities unearthed. It’s like one of those “dumb criminals” columns: They did what? What were they thinking! Ha, ha, now I feel superior. There are a few other components to it, too. There’s the satisfaction of witnessing the punishment of those who deserve to be punished, either because of how they’ve treated you or because of all the mistakes they’ve made. Mostly, though, I guess I feel like every day at my company is like a day in an absurdist novel. I am Gogo and Didi, waiting for hope or change in some guise.
I am the audience too. I don’t know how this will end, but I’m in on the joke, at least.
But what of the foot soldiers? What must it be like, I’ve wondered, to play a bit part in some other man’s poorly conceived plan of battle on the field of capitalism? Is it hard, driving to the office listening to stories of your company’s demise on your favorite news station? Would you, as a low-level employee, feel you had contributed to your company’s non-success with your accumulated hours of answering Craigslist ads? Would you have known about the behemoth’s failure before the rest of us did? Did you have an inkling? Or was it just as much of a shock to you as it was to Jim Cramer? Does walking into the office of your failed company, its name now on every newscaster’s lips as The Example of Failure, of Corporate Greed, of The Very Worst That Can Happen When Reality and Facts and Prior Lessons of History Are Ignored, eat away at your dignity and your humanity as much as one would expect it would?
And lucky, lucky me, now I get to find out.
The company I’ve worked for over the past 15 months or so, formerly one of the largest in its industry, in a day has become a penny stock, junk-bond-rated debt, a joke. In a single day, its shares lost almost 90 percent of their worth, although the stock’s about 99 percent off its high for the year. I think I saw it coming. I saw something coming, anyway. In my industry, as a manager you can decide to pay someone like me an extra $5 to do a good job on a file and save yourself a potential $100,000 in claims, or you can beat it into your employees’ heads that they need to get files out in a hurry and risk the $100,000—or more. From where I sat, it seemed like my company was making an obvious mistake in choosing the latter option. Not just sometimes, not just when it makes sense, or when someone has assessed the risk and determined that it’s worthwhile. All the fucking time. Given the choice of losing a million or giving a client a few minutes’ extra work, we were encouraged—strongly encouraged—to get the file out and not worry about the future expense.
Tolstoy wrote that happy families are all alike, but unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. From my experience, unhappy companies all make the same unhappy mistakes. They start expensive projects with the idea that This Revolutionary Advancement will be just the thing to drive future sales. Of course, these projects are never completed and are in fact soon abandoned due to lack of money, lack of interest, or lack of earth-changing significance. Employees are poorly trained and frequently reminded of how easily they could be replaced by a temp or an Indian, who wouldn’t require a 401K and health insurance, overtime pay or a heated office. At the same time that devoted, competent employees are let go, money is poured into establishing new worker pools, which are then replaced once those new workers gain any competence.
All of the above is true of my current employer, but it doesn’t even come close to describing how fucking stupid my company is.
Last summer, my coworkers and I were made to celebrate Failing Corporation Day, in honor of the anniversary of my employer’s conglomeration. The celebratory events included a Power Point presentation of the history of the industry, capped off by the illustrious history of the company, and a second Power Point show, on the glorious future of both industry and company. Our office was missing either the technical expertise or the actual technology (or both, most likely) needed to effectuate a complete Power Point presentation that would make any kind of sense in the large cafeteria we were sitting in. The sound came tinnily over the speakers of a laptop and reached maybe the first of 20 rows. Instead of a soundtrack, we were treated to a monotone reading by our uncharismatic boss.
The basic theme of the presentation was that we at the Failing Corporation help people achieve the American dream. Ah yes, I thought: Helping people reach that age-old dream of home foreclosure. Which of us didn’t grow up with the dream of receiving a notice of default by certified mail? Knowing that I can help someone, maybe you, reach that goal gives me a little bit of a tingle. Really.
I kept looking around the room at my coworkers, trying to gauge from their faces who was in my tribe. I found the presentation amusing as hell. We are helping people achieve their dreams, I wanted to scream, and for this we are paid a salary that will never allow us to achieve ours, no matter how base or insignificant our dreams may be. It’s fucking hilarious. Why wasn’t anyone getting it?
A picture of a run-down house came up on screen, captioned with the words, “We help turn real property”—and then the picture morphed. Instead of the run-down house, we were now presented with an image of the same house, similarly decrepit, but now with a dirty couch installed in the front yard, and the text: “into real people’s homes.” I again looked around the room, not even sorta trying to hide my amusement, and found myself looking into the dull, heavy-lidded eyes of my coworkers.
You did this, America. But I helped. No, no thanks necessary. It was my pleasure.As each piece of our unhappy story has fallen into place over the past few weeks, I find myself similarly giddy over new inanities unearthed. It’s like one of those “dumb criminals” columns: They did what? What were they thinking! Ha, ha, now I feel superior. There are a few other components to it, too. There’s the satisfaction of witnessing the punishment of those who deserve to be punished, either because of how they’ve treated you or because of all the mistakes they’ve made. Mostly, though, I guess I feel like every day at my company is like a day in an absurdist novel. I am Gogo and Didi, waiting for hope or change in some guise.
I am the audience too. I don’t know how this will end, but I’m in on the joke, at least.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The end
I was going to write something that would tie what happened to me all those years ago into my life these days, and examine why what happened happened, and what I learned from it, if anything, and how I've changed, and how I haven't. However, I have caught the kind of cold where you sneeze and fart at the same time, and cough and cough and cough and then burp very loudly. Bless Rich Bachelor for putting up with my disgusting body and enfeebled mind.
So all that will have to wait until another day, a day when my brain is functioning a little better. Until then, here is the end of the story.
June 4, 1992, 5:52 p.m., home
Today I had my first meeting with my new therapist. It went okay, I guess. I mean, I felt comfortable talking to him, so that’s better than how it was at the hospital.
I also went shopping with L. [my sister], who came home yesterday. I bought candles and CDs, the primary CDs being [embarrassing crappy techno shit]. I couldn’t help myself. I want X all the time, and everything I do or see or hear or feel, I can’t help thinking how much better it would be on X.
I kind of worked out this explanation for why I got hooked on X. Everything has to be perfect for me. Totally perfect. I get angry at people who aren’t perfect. I get mad at myself for making mistakes. But nothing in life is perfect, and subsequently, life annoys and angers me.
On X, everything’s perfect, or seems to be. Everything you think is perfect, everything that happens is perfect, everything is perfect. And that’s also why I have a hard time coming down—because when I think about it when I’m straight I realize that the experience wasn’t perfect, that the evening wasn’t perfect, that I’m not perfect. Far from it. It only seemed that way.
So that’s my little diagnosis. I don’t know how accurate it is, but right now it seems true.
I’ll try to tie up the loose ends.
I never hooked up with A., and in fact we stopped being friends before the next year was up, although we exchanged letters that summer and my crush on him grew even bigger. I don’t think I even told him that I liked him, although he probably knew. He’s married now and relatively successful at what he does, though he’ll never truly be happy. I remember him as a great friend, and someone who was far nicer to me than I deserved.
I brought P. to my sister’s wedding that summer, and we had a great time. He was such a nice guy, but, like A., we grew apart, and I eventually lost track of him altogether.
My parents and I have a pretty good relationship now; I think they’ve forgiven me for putting them through everything I put them through. I don’t blame them for screwing up my life anymore. They were pretty good parents, I think, and still are.
I reapplied for admission to U of C that fall, having completed the mandatory therapy that summer. My therapist ended up sucking. I remember a lot of sessions where neither of us said a word for the entire hour. But I ended up feeling relatively refreshed, mentally healthy and ready for work by September, and luckily the admissions board felt I had improved enough to approve my reinstatement.
I started off the next school year strongly. I loved my classes, didn’t skip any of them, and saw my grades return to A and B levels. Toward the end of the first quarter, second year, my philosopher friend I., who had become a close confidant when I was in the hospital, invited me to a hotel where his cousin was having a party to celebrate the last day of testing for the CPA exam. I., his cousin and I were the only ones at the party, at which I drank far too much and ended up getting raped by both men. I finished my classes that quarter on a high note, but after that went back to my old ways of skipping class to sleep in, drinking alone in my dorm room, and, eventually, going back to drugs—though I was afraid to use X again.
I ended up graduating, though it took an extra year. I have reached an uneasy treaty with my past, whereby I don’t use it as an excuse to feel sorry for myself, and it promises to remain quiet and still in the distance, as a gentle reminder of what can go wrong, but never again to make me as sad as I was during that whole period of my life.
I don’t want to kill myself anymore.
So all that will have to wait until another day, a day when my brain is functioning a little better. Until then, here is the end of the story.
June 4, 1992, 5:52 p.m., home
Today I had my first meeting with my new therapist. It went okay, I guess. I mean, I felt comfortable talking to him, so that’s better than how it was at the hospital.
I also went shopping with L. [my sister], who came home yesterday. I bought candles and CDs, the primary CDs being [embarrassing crappy techno shit]. I couldn’t help myself. I want X all the time, and everything I do or see or hear or feel, I can’t help thinking how much better it would be on X.
I kind of worked out this explanation for why I got hooked on X. Everything has to be perfect for me. Totally perfect. I get angry at people who aren’t perfect. I get mad at myself for making mistakes. But nothing in life is perfect, and subsequently, life annoys and angers me.
On X, everything’s perfect, or seems to be. Everything you think is perfect, everything that happens is perfect, everything is perfect. And that’s also why I have a hard time coming down—because when I think about it when I’m straight I realize that the experience wasn’t perfect, that the evening wasn’t perfect, that I’m not perfect. Far from it. It only seemed that way.
So that’s my little diagnosis. I don’t know how accurate it is, but right now it seems true.
I’ll try to tie up the loose ends.
I never hooked up with A., and in fact we stopped being friends before the next year was up, although we exchanged letters that summer and my crush on him grew even bigger. I don’t think I even told him that I liked him, although he probably knew. He’s married now and relatively successful at what he does, though he’ll never truly be happy. I remember him as a great friend, and someone who was far nicer to me than I deserved.
I brought P. to my sister’s wedding that summer, and we had a great time. He was such a nice guy, but, like A., we grew apart, and I eventually lost track of him altogether.
My parents and I have a pretty good relationship now; I think they’ve forgiven me for putting them through everything I put them through. I don’t blame them for screwing up my life anymore. They were pretty good parents, I think, and still are.
I reapplied for admission to U of C that fall, having completed the mandatory therapy that summer. My therapist ended up sucking. I remember a lot of sessions where neither of us said a word for the entire hour. But I ended up feeling relatively refreshed, mentally healthy and ready for work by September, and luckily the admissions board felt I had improved enough to approve my reinstatement.
I started off the next school year strongly. I loved my classes, didn’t skip any of them, and saw my grades return to A and B levels. Toward the end of the first quarter, second year, my philosopher friend I., who had become a close confidant when I was in the hospital, invited me to a hotel where his cousin was having a party to celebrate the last day of testing for the CPA exam. I., his cousin and I were the only ones at the party, at which I drank far too much and ended up getting raped by both men. I finished my classes that quarter on a high note, but after that went back to my old ways of skipping class to sleep in, drinking alone in my dorm room, and, eventually, going back to drugs—though I was afraid to use X again.
I ended up graduating, though it took an extra year. I have reached an uneasy treaty with my past, whereby I don’t use it as an excuse to feel sorry for myself, and it promises to remain quiet and still in the distance, as a gentle reminder of what can go wrong, but never again to make me as sad as I was during that whole period of my life.
I don’t want to kill myself anymore.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Aunty Christ is almost done
More journal. No hedgehogs today.
June 1, 1992, 11:25 a.m.
I got a new roommate today. Her name is Marissa, and she’s not from this plane. She’s from the Seventh Galaxy! Her soul originated there. Her apartment is filled with evil demons. And she was locked up for centuries because of heresy! The inquisitors wore black robes and hoods!
She has these really freaky drawings on her desk, along with several sheets of yellow paper, on which is written what I wrote above.
Same day, 8:48 p.m.
Chris got her diagnosis today. I was wrong about the disease—it’s Huntington’s Chorea, not Parkinson’s. They’re keeping her here and letting her go on pass to Rush Presbyterian to get a second opinion. She seems okay—smiling and talking animatedly—but she has talked about suicide before, so the staff is keeping a close eye on her. I feel bad, but what can I do? Be a shoulder to lean on, I guess, and an ear to bend. I’m so wrapped up in my own problems right now, though, that I’m afraid I’m not very sympathetic. This is the same disease she saw eat away at her father and his mother, so she knows the effects. She said that when they gave her the diagnosis she went into shock a little: her ears were ringing. She might, she said, live off unemployment for a while. Travel maybe, while she can.
James, the self-proclaimed murderer and Green Beret, has turned out to be a fake. It appears that he likes to say that he’s killed people—in fact, he might even believe it. He was a heroin addict, though. He has track marks up and down his arms.
Smokey has started throwing tantrums whenever he’s on the phone with his mom, because he misses her so much.
Jeanette called yesterday. Gary talked to her, I guess, and Marla was upset this morning because she didn’t get to.
It’s amazing how much Vernel has improved since she’s come here. She’s an amazing woman, although I don’t think she knows it. She keeps writing her baby’s father, spraying the envelopes with perfume. She writes letters like I do—writing them first on scrap paper and then rewriting them. She likes to think that she’s a person striving for spiritual and mental order and depth, but it’s her innocence that gets me. She likes everyone, and speaks her mind, and is always trying to improve.
I wrote to P. yesterday, trying to put down on paper what I couldn’t say to him. I did my best, but I get the feeling it’s not enough for what I’ve put him through. P. is very delicate, very sheltered. He’s understanding but doesn’t understand; he doesn’t have the equipment to, really. I hope we can always be friends, if nothing else. Or, well … I’m not even sure it’s necessary we be friends. I just don’t want him to look back on our time together as a mistake.
We had a lasagna dinner tonight, Ward W-3 did. We were supposed to invite family and friends, which I didn’t of course. I helped make the salad. Afterward there was a lecture on bipolar disorder, none of which was pertinent to me.
Marla has really made a lot of improvement since she started hanging out with Vernell. Vernell and Marion and Marla and Benette hang out a lot, playing cards and talking. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Benette before. She’s about 50, and her schooling stopped in sixth grade. She can’t read. When she leaves here, she’s going back to school, she said.
But back to Marla. She still talks to herself out loud sometimes. If you say, “I’m really pleased that I got a pass today,” she’ll say, “Pleased, pleased, pleased to meet you.” But she smiles more. And when she gets too loud with her self-talk, Vernell will say something to her and she’ll stop and smile like it’s a joke.
Chris is writing a mystery in which George is killed. It’s really wretched as far as the description is concerned. And the plot too, for that matter.
Last night, Marla and Vernell and Marion and Eric were playing rummy, and Marla was singing gospel songs. Eric got a kick out of that, saying that he’d gladly come to whichever church Marla went to, just to hear her sing. Later the priest stopped by to give Communion, even though it wasn’t midnight yet. Eric got a kick out of that too. He said it must have been Marla’s singing that brought him.
Alex, by the way, is very religious. He’s very screwed up too, apparently. At the last community meeting he said (out of the blue) that he had a hard time keeping track of time. Sometimes he thinks it’s two years ago, or a different season. Dr. Roy (cool lady, hair in braids) said that it’s easy to lose track of time in the hospital and that maybe we should hang a calendar in the unit. I may have misunderstood, but I have a feeling Alex’s problem is bigger than that.
There have been a lot of new patients coming onto the ward lately, too many to keep track of, and very indistinguishable. One’s young, another’s middle aged, another’s old. They’re all shy. All black. All women. I wonder if they’ll take on personalities after I’m gone.
One new patient of note: Mr. Roosevelt is around 60, plays the piano extremely well, and talks nonsense endlessly. He wears a brown corduroy jacket like E.’s and is missing his two front teeth. During the lecture tonight he kept interrupting—once when Dr. White was talking about grandiose ideas manic people might have. He said, “You’re up there standing there talking and I know more than you about the subject at hand. Like if I said that, that’d be grandiose?” The doctor flushed and said that it might be, but he was sure there were some things Mr. Roosevelt knew more about than he did, like the piano for instance. From there, Mr. Roosevelt went off on a severe tangent, one that I couldn’t understand at all, since he talks fast and mumbles, though I probably couldn’t have followed even if he had enunciated. I think he started talking about the Baptist church and their rites and ceremonies, and he even mentioned the cavalry once. Dr. White said that Mr. Roosevelt had illustrated a point he had made earlier, about flight of thought, but Mr. Roosevelt protested. He made several like comments throughout the lecture.
June 1, 1992, 11:25 a.m.
I got a new roommate today. Her name is Marissa, and she’s not from this plane. She’s from the Seventh Galaxy! Her soul originated there. Her apartment is filled with evil demons. And she was locked up for centuries because of heresy! The inquisitors wore black robes and hoods!
She has these really freaky drawings on her desk, along with several sheets of yellow paper, on which is written what I wrote above.
Same day, 8:48 p.m.
Chris got her diagnosis today. I was wrong about the disease—it’s Huntington’s Chorea, not Parkinson’s. They’re keeping her here and letting her go on pass to Rush Presbyterian to get a second opinion. She seems okay—smiling and talking animatedly—but she has talked about suicide before, so the staff is keeping a close eye on her. I feel bad, but what can I do? Be a shoulder to lean on, I guess, and an ear to bend. I’m so wrapped up in my own problems right now, though, that I’m afraid I’m not very sympathetic. This is the same disease she saw eat away at her father and his mother, so she knows the effects. She said that when they gave her the diagnosis she went into shock a little: her ears were ringing. She might, she said, live off unemployment for a while. Travel maybe, while she can.
James, the self-proclaimed murderer and Green Beret, has turned out to be a fake. It appears that he likes to say that he’s killed people—in fact, he might even believe it. He was a heroin addict, though. He has track marks up and down his arms.
Smokey has started throwing tantrums whenever he’s on the phone with his mom, because he misses her so much.
Jeanette called yesterday. Gary talked to her, I guess, and Marla was upset this morning because she didn’t get to.
It’s amazing how much Vernel has improved since she’s come here. She’s an amazing woman, although I don’t think she knows it. She keeps writing her baby’s father, spraying the envelopes with perfume. She writes letters like I do—writing them first on scrap paper and then rewriting them. She likes to think that she’s a person striving for spiritual and mental order and depth, but it’s her innocence that gets me. She likes everyone, and speaks her mind, and is always trying to improve.
I wrote to P. yesterday, trying to put down on paper what I couldn’t say to him. I did my best, but I get the feeling it’s not enough for what I’ve put him through. P. is very delicate, very sheltered. He’s understanding but doesn’t understand; he doesn’t have the equipment to, really. I hope we can always be friends, if nothing else. Or, well … I’m not even sure it’s necessary we be friends. I just don’t want him to look back on our time together as a mistake.
We had a lasagna dinner tonight, Ward W-3 did. We were supposed to invite family and friends, which I didn’t of course. I helped make the salad. Afterward there was a lecture on bipolar disorder, none of which was pertinent to me.
Marla has really made a lot of improvement since she started hanging out with Vernell. Vernell and Marion and Marla and Benette hang out a lot, playing cards and talking. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Benette before. She’s about 50, and her schooling stopped in sixth grade. She can’t read. When she leaves here, she’s going back to school, she said.
But back to Marla. She still talks to herself out loud sometimes. If you say, “I’m really pleased that I got a pass today,” she’ll say, “Pleased, pleased, pleased to meet you.” But she smiles more. And when she gets too loud with her self-talk, Vernell will say something to her and she’ll stop and smile like it’s a joke.
Chris is writing a mystery in which George is killed. It’s really wretched as far as the description is concerned. And the plot too, for that matter.
Last night, Marla and Vernell and Marion and Eric were playing rummy, and Marla was singing gospel songs. Eric got a kick out of that, saying that he’d gladly come to whichever church Marla went to, just to hear her sing. Later the priest stopped by to give Communion, even though it wasn’t midnight yet. Eric got a kick out of that too. He said it must have been Marla’s singing that brought him.
Alex, by the way, is very religious. He’s very screwed up too, apparently. At the last community meeting he said (out of the blue) that he had a hard time keeping track of time. Sometimes he thinks it’s two years ago, or a different season. Dr. Roy (cool lady, hair in braids) said that it’s easy to lose track of time in the hospital and that maybe we should hang a calendar in the unit. I may have misunderstood, but I have a feeling Alex’s problem is bigger than that.
There have been a lot of new patients coming onto the ward lately, too many to keep track of, and very indistinguishable. One’s young, another’s middle aged, another’s old. They’re all shy. All black. All women. I wonder if they’ll take on personalities after I’m gone.
One new patient of note: Mr. Roosevelt is around 60, plays the piano extremely well, and talks nonsense endlessly. He wears a brown corduroy jacket like E.’s and is missing his two front teeth. During the lecture tonight he kept interrupting—once when Dr. White was talking about grandiose ideas manic people might have. He said, “You’re up there standing there talking and I know more than you about the subject at hand. Like if I said that, that’d be grandiose?” The doctor flushed and said that it might be, but he was sure there were some things Mr. Roosevelt knew more about than he did, like the piano for instance. From there, Mr. Roosevelt went off on a severe tangent, one that I couldn’t understand at all, since he talks fast and mumbles, though I probably couldn’t have followed even if he had enunciated. I think he started talking about the Baptist church and their rites and ceremonies, and he even mentioned the cavalry once. Dr. White said that Mr. Roosevelt had illustrated a point he had made earlier, about flight of thought, but Mr. Roosevelt protested. He made several like comments throughout the lecture.
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