I Have Seeeen Thees Kind ov Madness on the Set Beforrre...


The past few weeks at the new job have been quite educational, to say the very least. While depressing on many levels, I feel like I'm watching an ant farm, sometimes from the kitchen table, and sometimes from within its very trenches, and that's pretty amusing, if not creepy, stressful and disorienting.

Three days of tasteless, anemic-looking, carb-laden catered lunches, featuring things that would barely qualify as even the most boring cheapskate in the world's "picnic food" + "mandatory overtime" + "mandatory business attire on Monday and Wednesday - Friday because our insect overlords from California are visiting" + appalling heat/humidity for days left the citizens of Cubicleland in a sorry state of drag-ass disrepair this week – self included – though no one seemed able to put a finger on WHY THIS COULD POSSIBLY BE. A shocking mystery, I know.

I actually have been more than a little surprised by how generally tired and miserable people look around the place, and not just this week. I was thinking that a bad omen of layoff sorts was afoot, or something similarly upsetting, but nay. It's just how people ARE in the office arena. I was away for seven months and managed to forget it all, it seems. Strange, because I'd always thought my memories of the half-hearted cheer, the heavy-hearted sighs, the eyeless smiles, the slackened jaws, the intensive and pointless gossip, the meringue handshakes and the faint payday glee were burned into my brain for all space and time. But perhaps it's not the job itself, and the deep gloom hails from far beyond the company property. Maybe everyone else at work has a crap life these days too. I know for sure that a bunch of 'em do. Or maybe I'm just projecting. It could happen.

Another weird thing I've noticed is that the womenfolk look different than they did when I first infiltrated their ranks on a full-time basis a couple weeks ago. The changes are subtle, but they're there. The initial scene was one of puffy 80's hair, bridesmaid/anchorperson makeup, pastel summer clothes, bad/loud radio station-listening, very little courtesy, lots of needless tension and no sense of humour at all. Now there is increasing evidence of sleeker hair, less makeup, darker-colored clothing, iPods dusted off and brought in from home for private tunes-listening, more "thank yous" and even a smattering of relaxed black humour now and then. Oh yes, my will be done, whether I'm actually trying to enforce it or not [and I'm not]. It would seem, anyway. How unintentionally insidious! I daresay that before long the whole office will be on my "cycle" – men included – but we'll see what the lab has to say about that. It really is odd to me, though. I show up and keep to myself, unless some sort of interaction would be rude not to engage in, etc., but gradually and nevertheless, people's spines appear to be turning into Slinkys. Naturally, I must examine this phenomenon further and figure out how best to wield my powers for not good but Eevile. I'm thinking my next move will be to commandeer the trashy, supermarket-grade lunchroom magazines and secretly replace them with something a little more interesting and inspiring. Or address that heinous catering-quality issue, once and for all.

Seriously though, there's no chance in hell that a software company located in Macomb County, Michigan is ever going to become a hotbed of cutting-edge culture and intrigue, and lord knows I'm not the one to spearhead such an effort if it even were possible, but that doesn't mean there isn't a little room for improvement.

These are some bored, clueless people looking for more. More anything, it would seem.

Me too.

Put On A Gown That Touches The Ground

I'm only about 3/4 of the way through Ascending Peculiarity, even though I got it back in January. Dreadful and shocking behavior, I know, considering it's really the only BOOK-book I've been reading this year, apart from Perfume, which I finished rereading a few months ago. And still it's a collection of interviews, not a novel or such. But in my defense, there's a time and a place for proper indulgence in mirth like this, and such prized coordinated moments/locales have been few and far between these past seven months. Also, I reread the paragraphs of books I love at least 50 times each, which slows things down considerably, you understand.

Anyway, when I read the following passage from the tome this past Saturday, I first laughed in an unhinged manner for an embarrassing amount of time, and then seriously wondered if The Bearded, Scribbly One was metaphorically alluding to me, for an even more embarrassing amount of time. It's Wednesday now and I wonder what the hell I was thinking then... Nevertheless, his words about Bette Davis make me wish I was like her a bit. Life would be that much more fun, non? Especially nowadays, when mine largely resembles a bad screenjob.

Anne Nocenti, interviewer:
"An individual like Bette Davis?"

Edward Gorey:
"Yes, like Bette Davis. God knows she was in some real clinkers, but they were always entertaining. When I was growing up, I thought Bette Davis wildly overacted. When she was in a good movie she was faithful to it. She didn't run amok. But when she saw that the movie was just absolutely bad, she would pull out every stop, she would keep you entertained. And even then I don't think she falsified what she was doing."

Love it.


In other news, Syd Barrett has died. I'm one of the ignorant types who thought he'd already done so years ago, but that's probably due to a blasphemous rumour I half-overheard while abandoning the flat, watery beer line at The Silverdome with great haste as the opening chords of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" began to reverberate through everyone's souls [Division Bell tour back in the 90's. The college years. Those "wilderness" ones.]. Also, there was "happy fungus" amongus, if you will, which no doubt added to my misunderstanding of his whereabouts. Anyway, I won't pretend to be the Biggest Fangirl Evar of Syd & Co., but I certainly have loved me some Floyd in my day. Passionately, even. Since there's no drinking on work nights, I'm postponing my wistful and many-albumed listening party till Saturday or Sunday. It's just better that way. Read here for a nifty tribute to [and quite attractive photo of] the troubled and genius one. Trust me, it's a far better batch of reminiscent typery than what I just hacked together in the middle of another one of the worst weeks ever.

Here's to running amok.

Seeing photos of yourself looking absolutely horrible in the wee, humid hours of the morn at a party does a lot to reframe your view of said party, not to mention yourself. It doesn't matter if you were aware the photos were being taken or not, or whether you remember actually posing for them or not. Talk about your out-of-body experiences, rude awakenings, unplanned interventions and clues to latent body dysmorphic problemos...

In other but somewhat-related news, two hours spent in an otherwise nice bath the startlingly yellow shade of Mountain Dew or, perhaps, multivitamin-enriched pee [Damn drugstore-grade bath bombs! Gimme Lush or homemade ones anytime.], with a couple glasses of wine, utter silence, a writing pad and a pen can bring some amazing and disturbing things to light. The release of previously unfaced/tamped-down problems of the heart and mind, and oh, the revelations. "They" say that Winston Churchill did his best thinking in a bath. I'd be hard-pressed to argue with that logic.

But I do wonder what brilliant things would come to mind while doing time in one of these babies:

Awful People, They Surround You

I moved to peer out a kitchen window this eve,
In hopes of seeing my area bunnies get their 8-9pm Eatin' Fest on,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But my idiot neighbor peeing on the side of his garage,
And no tiny reindeer or bunnies anywhere to be found...

An apt metaphor for the latter part of this week, really.

The week started out alright. Last Saturday I appeared in Jazz Age Attire* at a Jazz Age Theme Party at a Jazz Age-Type Manse, and had a Jazz Age Decent Time despite Falling Prey to a Dreadful Attack of the Modern-Day Maudlin Vapors come about 430ish a.m. TERRIBLY untoward and un-bee's knees-like behavior. Some people should really refrain from staying out all night drinking wine and missing someone terribly, i.e., me. I spent the next few days hiding out from horrible summer heat and awful weekday work, eating all the wrong food, sipping additional wine and having many amusing conversations with an oddly accented and becaped foe I know.

Then the work week and annoying homelife and proper diet and much therapeutic running ensued and it was all downhill pissing on the sides of garages from there. Bleh. I'm grateful to be gainfully employed again, but a random woman at my place of saidly gainful employment declared my newly/FINALLY acquired cubicle area "too bare"** and took it upon herself to provide me with three mini sledding penguin figurines. You know, to give my workspace a bit of "pizzazz" and all, so that it would flow bountifully, effortlessly and seamlessly into the tacky, Dollar Store chum-laden river of my immediate cow-workers' godawful tchotchke-esque domain. Also, my vegetarianism has already been frowned upon/blinked at with much befuddlement by several parties even though I've only been there about two weeks and it's fucking 2006***, my natural hair color has been pondered aloud, and IT guys have hovered needlessly and quite conspicuously in my general vicinity, making sure I catch every one of their World of Warcraft refs, the poor, naive dears. Oh, the irky, fragile surface they scratch at with such tawk; the rather unamused and dead-end depths they mistakenly plumb. :) If they really wanted to impress me they'd secretly hook me up with some of that sweet, sweet and very-rationed net access, and make sure that the damningly evidential server logs fall off the back of the truck somewhere west of Albuquerque tout de suite. I'll resort to chloroform if I have to. I'll flush my brain in a healthy manner that doesn't include huddling around the company picnic table out back next to the dumpster with the company smokers, or I'll die trying. Mark my words.

So yeah, pleased it's the weekend again. I kinda need it. I'll listen to Band of Horses, John Jacob Niles and Odetta on repeat in the comforts of my own home. Attempts to outrun the angst via Treadmill-Time Playlists of Fury featuring ye olde NIN, Manson, Ministry, Skinny Puppy and Public Enemy have proved cathartic but not wholly problem-solvingly fruitful, I regret to report. I haven't Been Delivered. This persistent left-eye twitch doesn't agree with me, either. Nor does the stress and/or unflatteringly-incandescent fluorescent lighting and life-irk from whence it came.


* Or as I did also call it, "two slips and a bunch of jewelry with matronly hair, too much makeup and too-high heels." What can I say? While Gorey-esque, 'tain't mine usual garb.
** Or as I say, "Spartan. On purpose, thanks."
*** Is it REALLY so strange in this day and age?

Photic Organs of Lucifer!

There's a new area pet in this modest landkeep of mine, and this night I do officially add the wee beast to the smallish-but-heartfelt roster of rabbity, squirrely, unfortunate things I consider mine own and watch with great wist from out mine windows on dewy morns and golden, sunsetty eves, and consider carrying photos of in mine wallet, truth be told: A lone firefly. A slutty male one, in fact. The brown and non-luminous females emit no beacon, of course. Unfortunate, and au so contraire, mon frere. Wrong.

Anyway... Lone!!! Lone. I'm used to seeing 'em in flashy, gay, strobe-lit bunches. This area male flies solo. Love. Tis truly summer now. Forget that solstice thingy-crap a few weeks ago. Shit be real, now-like.

I Was Looking for a Job and Then I Found a Job...

And lo, the rainy, mostly cloudy sun has set on day two of my return to the fluorescently lit shadow world of the "full-time employed." I am once again a "working stiff," a "citizen of Cubicle City," a "rat-racer who is not 'on the take,' but rather, 'gainfully employed,'" and what relief and joy come of having a "regular paycheck" and "benefits" have already been fully eclipsed by the doom, anxiety and despair of all the things which accompany that "relative financial security," I'm afraid. Namely, the "people," the "office setting," and the "politics of people in an office setting." I'd forgotten about those things. Seven months spent in the mostly blissful arms of home-based and loungewear-clad contract work and unemployment-collection after an appalling permanent layoff will do that to a person, it seems. But here I am.

The past two days of my foray back into the pinchy, metal-clawed clutches of The Man have been interesting, to say the least. I have a computer-based design job, yet no desk, computer or phone appears to be available for my use. They've had me doing that scary "use the person on vacation's workspace for now" kind of thing, "but not her computer or phone; use that person's for that, or maybe that one's...hmm." And "oh, there's no internet access or IM for the people in your department. I didn't mention that? Do my eyes deceive, or did you just lose your will to live?" That kind of thing.

I'm now spending the rapidly dwindling hours of my daytime life utterly cut off from the outside world, in a greige cubicle that's been lovingly festooned with unflattering photos of very rotund children, their mother and her drunken friends; an array of multi-colored sunglasses-shaped stick pins and Dollar Store figurines, candles and miscellaneous ephemera; depressing holiday photos of bored, red-faced people; a small, dusty pot of red plastic tulips; a teddy bear wearing a rubber band sash emblazoned with the words "rubbr band"; dishes of gross candy; a kittens calendar; a pink mini-fan and... a Navajo blanket. There's a thin, shiny veneer of hand lotion and fast food greazze and tanning booth oil covering all surfaces I've been unfortunate enough to touch by accident. Even the tissues I've drawn from what I thought was a new box seem slick. I fear this On-Vacation Woman, and her eventual return to her work station come Monday. She is in Florida, and she will return oranger and shinier than when she left. With bad white coral jewelry. And tales of vacational exploits so horrifying, I'll have to relay them here in an effort to ease my mind, even if it means damaging everyone else's in the process. It's a good thing I lack the tools to scan photos at work.

On-Vacation Woman's Buddy [my trainer] sits in an identical cubicle directly adjacent to the one I'm mostly stationed in, and she listens to the kind of always-loud radio station that plays James Blunt, Creed and Gnarlz Barkley two-to-five times per hour. She's currently embroiled in what seems to be a heated power play for "second-in-command alpha female" of the department, even though no takers seem to exist. Unless she senses I'm up for it...? Pass. There are better things to dominate than people who design real estate forms and software for a living. When I was unknowingly lamenting aloud the fact that I'd forgotten to bring my iPod with me today [I was overtired. Oops.], she offered me the use of her Nano, earphones and all. Or I could use the earphones of On-Vacation Woman, if I so desired. In fact she insisted, and looked miffed when I declined. I'm still shuddering and wanting to sterilize my ears even though it's been a good 12 hours since that magic moment went down.

I just want my own space already. One I can anoint with rubbing alcohol and then set ablaze like a high school lab table. I'll cleanse it with the holy fire of imagined office... cleanliness, and then decorate it tastefully and zenfully with non-tacky anti-suicidal totems that don't inspire suicide in all who pass. [They may instead inspire quizzical looks and extra prayers at church on Sunday, but I can hardly help that.] I'll sit there and get my paycheck on and be not afraid to touch or focus on anything within arm's reach. I'll refrain from tellin' everyone mah bizznazz. I'll keep my tunes and my lunchtime odors and my bad tv opinions to myself. I won't corner people into horrible lunch outings, baby showers, weddings or "Secret Santa" Dollar Store Offs come December. I won't talk about the weather or the traffic. I'll do my job efficiently and properly, and be the under-the-radar-est, most drama-free and private black sheep in the herd so I can just get the hell outta there and back to life sans too much hassle. It's what I do. Check my references.

Channeling Vangelis’ Chariots.

I ran like mad all week, in an ongoing and sweaty, tiring effort to get back to that place where I was last autumn, when 7 miles was the standard per eve and 8 had become a Giddy High Point on an increasingly regular basis, when I dreamed of an Effortless 10 and resolved to consider Competing. I'm only at a hard-won 6 thus far this year. Bleh. Twas a "difficult" winter, to put things mildly. I'm no marathoner, and haven't made it back to an easy 7 [yet], but methinks I could mess up a Small Town Fun Run or two these days. Rain on a few overly ambitious parades, at the very least. Detroit's Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot in November, anyone? You know, the early morn after one of the biggest bar nights of the calendar year? Believe it or not, hundreds actually turn up, and I always wish I was among their scary rankses.



My cousin Bruce used to run marathons and mini-ones alike. When covering this "never previously fathomed and/or broached genetic-bonding territory" with him after many, many drinks chez my parents, Xmas 2005, he told me that "the crowd carries you" when I expressed my suspicion that I'd fare terribly if I attempted to run with a pack of humans [even though I secretly covet doing so]. I'm used to running quite privately solo on a treadmill, thanks, which doesn't allow for much competition, much less eeevile elbow-jostling or joggy camaraderie, four distant years of high school track & field experience bedamned, dammit. Sometimes people running outside on the sidewalk pass me, but only sometimes, like when my navigating thumb is too sodged with perspiration to scroll through the Pod properly and I have to stop and find a dry surface to wipe it on, etc. I should note that I did run outdoors at one time, galloping merrily through the treesome and pleasant neighborhood in which I live, but this was cut rather short a couple years ago, when seasonal allergies tried to kill me and gross men honking and lurking about in cars creeped me out beyond all reasonable comfort zonage. I gave up and got myself a treadmill, and haven't really looked back. It's just been better that way. Sometimes the treadmill doubles as a runway - music depending - but that's a post for another and more camply glamourous day.

I did seriously consider doing a run in a neighboring small town recently. Twas a benefit for area animal shelters, and there were shortish runs for people avec and sans animals. Of course I would only settle for running in the "avec animals" event, and even considered purloining my brother's flat coat Lab for the occasion, so that I could frolic amongst all of the fuzzy cute of all shapes and sizes, but as luck would have it, I forgot the date and realized it only when I was about 3 hours too late and a smidgen too hungover the following day. D'oh!

Anyway, it's weird how various elements must fall into place in order to make a decent run happen. Sometimes I'm too overheated, loosely coiffed, leaden, tired, unfocused and totally lacking in flow music-wise, and every fucking step is an Olympic feat. I hate myself, the universe and wonder why I even fucking try. I barely make it through a few miles, and feel as though the entire effort was an utter waste. But then there are the eves when I feel hydrated, taut, fast, tidy, focused and perfectly in synch with what I'm hearing, thinking and doing, and every mile is a breeze [if sweaty]. It all somehow works, and I wish that my every jaunt could be a zen one just like it. I imagine that runners don't normally have sessions like that, but being runners, we have to try anyway.


This year is about halfway done this week. ????? Shesus. Need to speed up in more ways than one.