a note to anyone who needs it

Work. Two kinds of work: work-work and creative work. Those are how you get through. They are also how you process everything. Work gives life definition.

Do creative work. Do mixed media. Write. Paint or draw. Cook. Feed family, feed yourself. Play guitar. Play your songs on guitar.

If work-work is most of your life, do you live a full life? If you create always, are you making an honest living? What if you produce little to nothing?

 

Questions like that get processed in work, too.

Your mind does not need to constantly reflect on itself with those kinds of questions. Instead, keep moving. What’s in front of you. No matter how dumb.

Stop wanting peace of mind. Try to ignore the compulsivity and anxiety.

Looking for things outside yourself to define your life will leave you feeling empty and angry.

 

I need to stop wanting peace of mind. I think the thing to do is accept this life and live. It's the life we're living, and we're running out of time.

something about our boss, Bill

Bill is a soft-spoken man, but his soothing tone and cadence fail to hide the bite of his mind. He is driven, and he’ll drive you. He has power, and his ideas, right or whimsy, come with an official stamp. He arrives early each day, a withdrawn soul always shooing validation farther down the path.

some note I wrote about a day at work well over a decade ago in another place and another life

Seby walks over here to Jason at least once a day and walks up real fast. The last two or three steps he drags his feet.

DJ got another job. I said to him I half expected the boss to tell him he didn't need two weeks, to go ahead and leave today or tomorrow. But DJ said No, that they only do that for layoffs, and explained to me that the laid-off can be disgruntled. Only he took a long time to explain that.

Seby and Cindi were talking and Cindi said, "We're talking about the bombing in Russia."

We were waiting for a meeting to start and Roy saw a cake in the next room and said "That looks like a good cake" and Doug said "You should go have a piece" and Roy answered "No, I'm trying not to have a piece" and Doug said "That's how you do that—you admire what a fine cake it is."

about impossible standards

She was added to an email thread that began 24 hours ago, and she jumps into the shit show. Her favorite thing to do. She wants to be involved. She likes to be in the fray. 

She pounds out a long email that tries to get at the heart of the issue. She wants to know what is happening. What is happening!? More importantly, How did this happen?! 

Her initial dive into the breach is executed with a lot of force. Exclamation points. Italics. Maybe even underlining.

Punctuation and formatting choices nobody in their right mind, in most situations, would make. You might say the tone is—hysterical.

But it gets a response. She’s involved. And now she has more context, more background information. But the information isn’t good!

She needs to set people straight. Here are the rules, and here is how it should be done. More importantly, here is how you all deviated from The Right Way To Do This.

It takes a few of these kinds of emails—plus some separate emails she fires off to some other people—but she gets through.

Okay, they say. You are involved now. You are a part of this. Help us out, they say. Make this right.

Hold on now. It isn’t her problem. And she says so. If this is how they do things, and it works for them, that’s fine. Just let her know what’s what from the get-go. Just copy her.

They are confused now. They thought she wanted to be involved in this thing. They thought she needed to be involved. There has to be a process here.

Not exactly, she says. She has guidance to offer. A perspective. A wealth of experience to draw from, to impart. And that is what is happening now. Not some other thing.

That’s what this whole thing was about.

But—it’s her obligation to point out now that something else is wrong with all this, with what they are doing, with how they are going about it. There is a whole other side to this thing. Another box they need to check. Have they checked it? She doubts it.

Emergency. Or hysteria. Email traffic dies down. Everyone is ready to go about the business of finishing this thing and go their separate ways.

Now that all the excitement is over with.

Note: Was thinking of a Raymond Caver style.

about passing a bad check at Kinko's

One time this dude came to the Kinko's counter with a check already filled out to pay for an order he'd placed. His right eye was bloodshot bad, I was looking right at it. He wanted cash back from paying with this sort of real-lookin check. The store was ripped off by this man.

 

(posts) two Eliot Smith lyrics that have bounced around my mind the last couple weeks

 

about waiting in DC's underground Metro stations

Crazy how the train, its headlights beaming the anger of God, comes, a whooshing birth out of the tunnel, squealing curses to stop in a scraped-out cavity under the city—just so you can get on the damn thing.

about something said in the breakroom

Lisa, her current husband, and her son from her previous marriage to a convict drove to Toronto during the holidays. Lisa brought back to the office some maple cookies. She told us, as we forced down the cookies, that Toronto is great because, immigration-wise, residents there describe the city as a mosaic rather than a melting pot. This elicited an "Aww" from Cheryl. Lisa then informed us that Toronto was what New York City wishes it was: a city in which people don't have that I'm-too-cool attitude. Also, Toronto has a China Town, Little Italy, and so on.

something about our hello

After he finished his part—a self-introduction to his new colleagues—he suddenly looked very old. His words disappeared from my memory as soon as he stopped talking. Maybe I was distracted by the turn; his gaze, turned down, threw a shadow on us all. The meeting went on like nothing happened.

The poor boy wanted to make a splash. But, as he expected, he shrank into himself. I saw it. Did anybody else?

about a conversation at the office

A woman, Sue, from the policy division, stopped by the office Friday afternoon. She complimented Marcy on a photo Marcy keeps on her desk—closeup photo of a dog. Marcy said thank you. Then Sue reciprocated. She told us that she had her dog's DNA tested, and that the results revealed that quite a few varieties of dog contributed to its making. She provided us with her take on how each of the various breeds were represented in her dog's personality. Sue also shared some stories that illustrated each personality trait.

And a nearby coworker, Debbie, as it turns out, also has a dog. Of course, I knew this and much more beforehand, as she has mentioned it several dozen times. Debbie told us how her dog has started shitting on the two rugs her husband brought from Istanbul to the States. The dog wears diapers now. And, twice monthly, a patch of actual grass is delivered to Debbie's home; her odd son keeps this patch in his room for the dog to shit and piss on.

about resilience

The door leading from our offices into the north-end hallway always slams shut when someone passes through. After conditions in the hothouse finally wilted my ego, the latest slam shook my petals off clean. I paused and considered all the posters on the walls throughout the building. Cautions, reminders, notices, promotions. You become inured, indifferent, then unnoticing, and, finally, illiterate. Those posters distract from what really matters. The time had come to go to the beach.

A three-hour drive and the Atlantic shoves up against the continent. This late in the season, a sandy crowd of mostly mature folks who sit under beach umbrellas and sun hats do crossword puzzles. These people are literate. And none of them test the waters. They already know what I am only just learning: the ocean, reliable and unceasingly self-assured, beats you every time.

about maybe the first workday snow of winter

At two o'clock, Monica flitted through the office, teasing, "There's flakes! There's flakes!" We all wanted to be charmed by her, and by snow, but responses were mixed. Nevertheless, the giant panes drew us over and offered us the whole world. We wanted only a world-erasing blanket tumbling down. Finding only flurries and a little sleet, most of us headed back. But some stayed, hopes anchored away, and strained to discover signs that conditions were getting worse.

about quitting time

The Earth was nudged some, bringing us to late afternoon. I wanted to leave work without being noticed. I wanted to spend the weekend unnoticeable. What choice is there but to acknowledge the impulse to feel shame for such wants? We'll give that impulse a half-hearted exploration over the next three days. When nothing interests you and you do not have fun, what else is there to do?

about the temp

I am filling in at the front desk this afternoon. A body is needed here. A desk is needed for the body. If someone needs me, they do not belong here.

(posts) a doodle

About being capable of feeling great affection

I hate everything about the way this guy looks: the golf shirt tucked into his "nice jeans," leaving just enough give to hip-swivel 20 degrees (engineered and tested before leaving the house); his low-profile sunglasses; and his perma-shape pompadour, three shades above black, a bubble blown from a sharp part. This turd aspires to fitness without strain. Jeremy. Jeremy thinks calling his boss "boss" boosts his ego, and Jeremy likes exercising that little bit of control over his superior's emotions. Doing so also, he thinks, curries favor.

(posts) the new American Gothic

The lyrics to "Polar Opposites"

Polar opposites don't push away.
It's the same on the weekends as the rest of the days.
And I know I should go, but I'll probably stay.
And that's all you can do about some things.

I'm trying, I'm trying to drink away
the part of the day that I cannot sleep away.
I'm trying, I'm trying to drink away
the part of the day that I cannot sleep away.

Two one-eyed dogs, they're looking at stereos.
Hi-fi gods try so hard to make their cars low to the ground.
These vibrations oil it's teeth.
Primer gray is the color when you're done dying.

I'm trying, I'm trying to drink away
the part of the day that I cannot sleep away.
I'm trying, I'm trying to drink away
the part of the day that I cannot sleep away.

that another year is gone

I didn't realize what day it was until getting to work and seeing the date on the morning's first email. That was it. The rest of the day passed unnoticed.

Our Lady

With seven hollow vibrations, Our Lady of Sorrows' bell sank into the still-salty street and patched grass yards. I crossed into the big lot, passed the gym and Big Lots, then pulled the door. After grabbing a box each of sandwich and freezer bags--four dollars for both--and waiting the requisite two minutes in line, my turn. The young cashier, a girl no more than 17, here working at Family Dollar, rang me up, taking a five and exact change to cover the $4.36. Hands me my change, then speaks,

Thanks for putting the money in my hand. A lot of people just throw it on the counter.

That's how the big shots do.

She comes around and recollects a bunch of mops for sale by the door. Says,

Even though my hand be right here, she adds.

She returns to the register. The next has already lined up behind me.

Thank you.

Have a good night, I hear, pushing back into the big lot.

Concrete sinks beneath me. Cool air lends the hush.