work

Insert-Thriller-Novel-Name-Here: Preface

Most stories begin with a person. Some stories begin with an object – an enchanted ring, a lone chair in a meadow, strange stuff like that.

This here story begins with nothing. Not an object, and not a person. It begins with absolutely nothing, that is to say, just a vast, empty space, all contained inside a small test tube. The test tube is full of nothing. Vacuum. The absence of matter – all matter, liquid or solid or gas.

I sat there watching that emptiness and I tried to understand it. Tried to comprehend the meaning of total, utter emptiness. I couldn’t really understand it, no matter how hard I stared at it. This was when I was a young boy, seeing  vacuum in the science lab for the first time.

Now, I feel as if I am facing an uncomprehensible loss, and now, as it was then, I’m staring at what is in front of my eyes and I cannot understand this emptiness, this lack that I’m facing.

How could I have gotten myself into this situation? How have I screwed myself over like this? Not for the first time, I wish I could turn back the clock…

I spend all my time between calls at work scribbling in my notebook. I was going to try to write some dialogue because I must practice that, and instead I wrote a weird preface to a cheap thriller novel about someone who’s lost everything due to something or other. Ah well, the creative mind takes us odd places, I suppose.

To Be Held

Sometimes you need to be held. Really need to, a deep need that runs through your body all through to the very core of your emotions, somewhere deep inside that odd squiggly chemical thing that is our brain. Sometimes things, no matter how small and insignificant, feel like too much. Sometimes just knowing you’re going to have to wake up the next morning is too much.

Those are the times when you need to be held most of all. When you’re lonely, you want someone there, sure. When you’re angry or depressed, you need someone to anchor you as well. But sometimes there are just these moments of pure and utter hopelessness. You know it’ll pass. It’s just a mood. Just another chemical being processed through your brain. It doesn’t mean anything. Tomorrow you’ll wake up and work and do everything you need to do, just like any other day.

But it’s just that, well, sometimes someone holding you makes everything better, at least for one, priceless, endless moment. And that moment can keep you going.

Sometimes I Want My Ribbons Back

I didn’t write yesterday.

That was very, very, bad. Granted, the fault was not my own, since work finished late and I had to dash home and then out again within minutes because of a meeting I had planned with Sir B. F. and yet it still should not have happened.

Days that escape our control are hard. I think this is true for many people – we have our days planned a certain way, whether it is the same routine every day or whether we have a schedule we adhere to on certain days. When something gets in the way and changes things, it’s frustrating, it’s hard. We feel the control of our day wrenched cruelly out of our control, and we struggle to adapt ourselves to it.

The real strength is in adapting, and this is something I admire in more spontaneous people – the lack of worry when things don’t go as planned, the ability to drop everything and do something on a whim. Since becoming “an adult” who works and has “important things to do” I feel that I’ve become way too responsible for my own good.

Whenever I feel like this, I can’t help thinking of the Tori Amos song “Ribbons Undone” – and most specifically this line: “From school she comes home and cries ‘I don’t want to grow up, Mom. At least not tonight.'”

Focus Now

Alright. What could be more simple? Just look up a few websites and read a bit of info and write some of it down. Nothing could be simpler. I think I’ll just go get a cup of coffee first.

Alright, coffee is now in hand. I can start working. Ok, first site. Hmm. Yes. Interesting. Uh-huh. Oh! Phone call. Alright, phone call finished, twenty minutes lost. No biggie though. Phone call was important. Oh damn, there it goes again. Alright, another half hour down the drain – but it’s ok, I still have a few hours to work.

Just going to make a piece of toast. Can’t work on an empty stomach after all. Right? Right-ho. Munching on toast is fun. I always like to eat the crust first and then sort of take tiny bites of the actual bread and chew them. Ok, must focus again now. Must keep working well. Oh, oops, haven’t actually gotten all that much done yet… Well, on to work now.

Alright, I’ll just watch ONE episode of Battlestar Galactica, but then I WILL get back to work. Mhmm.

Doesn’t it always go like that? Focusing isn’t as simple as it seems, is it?

Coffee On The House Tastes Better: A Haiku

A pessimist to my core, I don’t often have much faith in human kindness, and so I rejoice in it whenever I find it. Something small happened today that really made me smile and made my day better.

At work, there’s machine coffee that tastes horrible, so I normally go and buy my coffee at a little cafe in the building. Yesterday, there was no milk there, and the guy who works there was really nice about and apologized many more times than he had to.

Today, I went to get my coffee hoping there would be milk by then. Not only was the line endless, but also when I finally got to place my order, I found out there was only this weird “light” milk, something fake I guess. I was desperate for coffee so I asked him to make it with that anyway. So, “for the hardship of the whole milk thing,” he gave me my coffee on the house and wouldn’t hear of me paying, no matter how much I insisted.

To express my joy, a haiku [that is probably wrong somehow]:

Of milk there was none,
So you were kind and heartfelt,
Thank you coffee man.

It’s Sad to Be a Stereotype…

But sometimes I am the typical GIRL – as the joy of my purchase of a belt and sweatshirt from an adorable indie shop proves. As much of a tomboy as I can be, as male-like crude, as much of a gamer as I am, I still sometimes have to give myself over to absolute girlyness.

Another thing I do that screams “stereotypical FEMALE” is doodling. This is a behavior that’s been reinforced by long hours of listening to lectures about Sharing and Clients and Real Customer Service and Loyalty. Meaning my job so far. My doodling consist mostly of inanimate objects who are smiling or frowning or yawning, all in an excruciatingly cute manner. It makes me rather ill to contemplate it now.

Perhaps my pen is conspirating against me, because every time I want to doodle something pretty or creative, another smily-faced food or drop or bubble comes out. After all, the pen is mightier and all that. I can totally believe this of my pen. The bastard.

“Sign here. And here. And here too.”

First days at work are tedious. I spent my day signing paperwork I didn’t have time to read and listening to people trying to be funny while actually telling me just how devious credit-card companies can be. More time was spent on breaks or hanging around in corridors than actually learning anything important.

Coworkers. Ugh. While all are older and should be more mature or intelligent on that basis alone, it felt like I was in a group of pop-culture victims. I won’t deny that I am a victim of certain strains of pop-culture as well. But at least I don’t believe that the local version of “Survivor” is THE SHITZ. Nor do I feel immensely proud of how trashed I get every Friday.

Imagine please now a large group of frowny-faces, brown in color, banging on a large, swollen and tender object with a hammer. Now, imagine that object is your brain, and you will get a good idea of how my head feels right now.