Here's a clever little strip I "stumbled" upon - check it out.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Settling for Novel Familiarity: Part II - Sorting Through the Armor
Armed with a dirty chai and a new, fitting waistcoat allowing me to feel a tightness around every breath, I sit down to make something of my thoughts.
I am a glorified receptionist.
I'm redesigning an excel document that lists the prices we charge for the various room items when they go missing or are damaged; a hypoallergenic fiber-fill pillow, oneida glass tumblers, sunbeam iron, andis hair dryer, hand towel, bath mat, king low-profile down blanket, citrus stripe decorative pillow--you name it.
Now charging people that never showed up for their guaranteed reservations. Damn anyone that wants to fake us out thinking we'll be overbooked when we could have easily sold the room to someone actually coming for the room at a much higher rate. Bah!
tHE fEELING OF lOSTnESS iS THE oNLY oNE yOU FEEL YOU CAN tAKE wITH yOU. Where ever you may go, ...you're unable to hold on to that sentiment of home, of the people you love but can't come to terms with it - but that uncertainty/fear/lostness is so nicely packed portably into that vacuumed niche of a soulless center you call a heart that you cling to it like some child-scribed pointless letter or plastic toy plane.
I've decided I want to grow a beard. But first I need to make an appointment with a dermatologist to figure out why I have little patches of hairlessness across my face that keep such a goal impossible.
Tension, Balance, Brunch!
I've realized in a slightly awkward, hung over tiger, tiger, burning bright moment that I have a severe lack of balance in a particular area at the moment in my life - that needs attention.
"So what are we doing tonight?" There was a time when I was used to hearing this every afternoon. After a sufficient number of classes had been attended, and there were no exams the next day, this quandry would always linger thick in the air, you could sense it on any fall day just like these with everyone milling about with an extra dose of certainty as classes ended. There'd always be something to do and always be people to do it with-pun intended. Always some trouble to get into or some "societal" function to attend, inspect and approve of or deny. The best were when we threw our own parties. Or...when I threw mine. (Calling forth a tangential reverie for another time, but back to the point:) Social interaction. It's currently non-existent. My neglect for this facet of a "healthy existence" (ha!) I have sudddenly realized had become a huge detriment. I become distant and longing in both work and when with Jimmy for no apparent reason, and not because of either of them...but I think because I begin to feel that lack of balance.
On the other hand, I'm afraid...with the non-stop existence in which I currently reside...that if I tried to allocate my time to anything else...those areas in which I'm currently dedicated would certainly falter. Perhaps I need to begin searching for an alternate career choice. Or more simply- a different job. This certainly isn't the place I saw myself 14 months ago nor is it necessarily the place I see myself 14 months from now. But here lies the problem: I don't know where I DO see myself at any time other than the past. I don't even know how to SEE MYSELF period half the time. I look in the reflection of the darkened subway train window and stare at my reflection as it's broken up by blurred cars with strangers I dream of being and platforms with deteriorating walls and people. I think about what I did wrong today, rather than speaking, but I wonder what could I have spoken. What could I have spoken? I imagined an ad campaign for myself walking through Port Authority staring at a wall of tarnished bronze: an image of myself with my hand held out holding this jumbled, muddled ball of the world and everything that I pride myself on seeing, observing-- but it's just that, observations. Beautiful and worthy of something. But Passive, ceaseless, inactive observations. The tagline being something along the lines of "So what are you going to do with it all?" What are you going to do with all this?
Courageously putting yourself into new situations and being please when you get glimpses of familiarness (compare/contrast). But rather than clinging to old-taught methods of thought - everything in relation to something else, how can you begin to see something in and of itself? Letting yourself be taken by a situation or place the way you put a heap of film scores on shuffle and let them decide your mood for the day. There's a strange contradiction of terms between your obvious and not so obvious submissiveness and then the seeming lack of assertiveness. Which leaves us where exactly?
Let's blow this joint.
I am a glorified receptionist.
I'm redesigning an excel document that lists the prices we charge for the various room items when they go missing or are damaged; a hypoallergenic fiber-fill pillow, oneida glass tumblers, sunbeam iron, andis hair dryer, hand towel, bath mat, king low-profile down blanket, citrus stripe decorative pillow--you name it.
Now charging people that never showed up for their guaranteed reservations. Damn anyone that wants to fake us out thinking we'll be overbooked when we could have easily sold the room to someone actually coming for the room at a much higher rate. Bah!
tHE fEELING OF lOSTnESS iS THE oNLY oNE yOU FEEL YOU CAN tAKE wITH yOU. Where ever you may go, ...you're unable to hold on to that sentiment of home, of the people you love but can't come to terms with it - but that uncertainty/fear/lostness is so nicely packed portably into that vacuumed niche of a soulless center you call a heart that you cling to it like some child-scribed pointless letter or plastic toy plane.
I've decided I want to grow a beard. But first I need to make an appointment with a dermatologist to figure out why I have little patches of hairlessness across my face that keep such a goal impossible.
Tension, Balance, Brunch!
I've realized in a slightly awkward, hung over tiger, tiger, burning bright moment that I have a severe lack of balance in a particular area at the moment in my life - that needs attention.
"So what are we doing tonight?" There was a time when I was used to hearing this every afternoon. After a sufficient number of classes had been attended, and there were no exams the next day, this quandry would always linger thick in the air, you could sense it on any fall day just like these with everyone milling about with an extra dose of certainty as classes ended. There'd always be something to do and always be people to do it with-pun intended. Always some trouble to get into or some "societal" function to attend, inspect and approve of or deny. The best were when we threw our own parties. Or...when I threw mine. (Calling forth a tangential reverie for another time, but back to the point:) Social interaction. It's currently non-existent. My neglect for this facet of a "healthy existence" (ha!) I have sudddenly realized had become a huge detriment. I become distant and longing in both work and when with Jimmy for no apparent reason, and not because of either of them...but I think because I begin to feel that lack of balance.
On the other hand, I'm afraid...with the non-stop existence in which I currently reside...that if I tried to allocate my time to anything else...those areas in which I'm currently dedicated would certainly falter. Perhaps I need to begin searching for an alternate career choice. Or more simply- a different job. This certainly isn't the place I saw myself 14 months ago nor is it necessarily the place I see myself 14 months from now. But here lies the problem: I don't know where I DO see myself at any time other than the past. I don't even know how to SEE MYSELF period half the time. I look in the reflection of the darkened subway train window and stare at my reflection as it's broken up by blurred cars with strangers I dream of being and platforms with deteriorating walls and people. I think about what I did wrong today, rather than speaking, but I wonder what could I have spoken. What could I have spoken? I imagined an ad campaign for myself walking through Port Authority staring at a wall of tarnished bronze: an image of myself with my hand held out holding this jumbled, muddled ball of the world and everything that I pride myself on seeing, observing-- but it's just that, observations. Beautiful and worthy of something. But Passive, ceaseless, inactive observations. The tagline being something along the lines of "So what are you going to do with it all?" What are you going to do with all this?
Courageously putting yourself into new situations and being please when you get glimpses of familiarness (compare/contrast). But rather than clinging to old-taught methods of thought - everything in relation to something else, how can you begin to see something in and of itself? Letting yourself be taken by a situation or place the way you put a heap of film scores on shuffle and let them decide your mood for the day. There's a strange contradiction of terms between your obvious and not so obvious submissiveness and then the seeming lack of assertiveness. Which leaves us where exactly?
Let's blow this joint.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Settling for Novel Familiarity: Part I - The Glorious Impediment
High falutin' subject lines and titles always forebode an unfulfilling end/diatribe/paragraph/start.
In short, a draft.
at some point in describing how the area in front of the bakery cafe and the host stand as well as behind needed a sweep and mop to a new host, I christened the curve of granite "The Glorious Impediment".
I intended to go to Pier One (okay, the start already is petty - but nevertheless, a start)... to settle on a vase and decorative not-too-fake-looking floral arrangement for the hall table I had bought and built (walmart $100) so that our future returned housephone would have somewhere glamorous to rest. It should be noted, however, that I had already been to the store in the Plaza twice in the past week for the very same purpose with no result. Their inventory had doubtfully changed.
Along the way I pass the hair cutter/salon that I had on at least two occasions submitted my scalp to with hesistation. This hesistation based in the facet of complexes that deals with my inability to settle. Not settle as in give in to something, submit, relinquish care and control-- but more like relax a bit, stop shaking the bingo spinner bin thingy, the tacky desk toy with floating bubbles, allow for a restful peace to observe the okayness in something you're certain is cheating you out of something.
So this is what I did. The place had just expanded hours to be open on sunday; and the long-haired hippy-looking owner was intently concentrating on some minor construction project to put handrail-like bars around the waiting area wall for stylistic means. This was all out of sight from where I sat down in the stylist's chair, but I heard him describing in concentrated detail with mild profanity the details of his work as he went along to the two children that had accompanied my stylist, their mother, to work. I wasn't able to determine if the stylist and the owner were together or not. This was Sakinak-- something or other (I detest not remembering her name)--but the same gentle limited-english-proficiency woman that had cut my hair the past two times. Nothing too impressive, just a trim, short on the sides, long on top. Usually applying too much sticky mousse at the end and making the front spiked up like a teen from the 90s. But she gave a great massage as an added bonus while I sat in the chair each time she finished cutting. I was still undecided about the $25 cost. We engaged in smallish conversation, when I could understand her, mostly smiling and nodding. I could feel the tingling relaxed feeling I often get when in a new situation or someone is speaking or describing something and I kind of zone out without stopping listening to them, but just the sound of their voice and the good relaxed feeling. Not to mention the fact that she was tending to my hair. Must be the gay in me, loving to be primped and attended to.
She told me how she had stayed there last week working until 10 at night because the guy had asked her to help paint the walls. At that moment, I noticed that the light fixtures between each of the angled mirrors denoting stylist stations had been updated. They were simple sconces with a square of transluscent marbled texture complemented by her cloudy wall of gray. Below the "chair rail" molding (can't recall the proper term) about four feet off the floor was a tiled wallpaper of white with randomly imprinted bathroom words like "bubbles", "air", "refresh", "relax".
A random beatles song I couldn't place was playing on the radio and I felt like I was in a glimpse of Across the Universe. I dub thee "Prudence". The man working took a 10 foot lenght of pipe outside and balanced it across two trash cans to sit on it and straighten it out. At one point he had attracted the attention of the Indian gentleman that runs the GNC next door and brought him in showing off his renovations, explaining how the plaza was on its way to a huge growth with the new businesses moving in and how his various modifications would allow for specific psychological pleasantries that would keep his shop up to speed with the future development.
The woman cutting my hair had a habit of bowing with every gentle gesture for me to move to the chair to wash my hair and back and even moreso when I paid and came back to give her the tip.
I think all these senses, the massage, the fact that I had gotten my dirty chai beforehand and felt warm and caffeinated despite my lack of food intake, had made for a detail-worn experience culminating in putting my bulky peacoat back on and strolling back out into the clean, brisk cold envying my boyfriend for his strike and his full-on paid-for massage.
and now, and now...I can't even concentrate on a simple conversation spinning my apple around on the desk and all the attempted planning and timing and when I'm leaving and traffic and blah* - I'm sorry - I know this is bad foreboding, this lack in me. And I need it to change-- I need me to change--to make things work.
There was a good feeling today - it was coming from David Blue and this idea of the "eternal extra", from Vanessa Carlton played as wakeup music and stuck in my head all day, from noticing that a more successful fellow blogger had found a new motivation, and from seeing this tree shadowed on North Bergen high school on my way to work the way I used to say the most random things could bring me up out of a fowl mood, like a tree blowing in the wind... and also there was this pipe that had burst on 77th on the way down the hill, that was shooting up a great stream of water straight up into the air right in front of this perfectly yellowed tree. I think all this, these thoughts of going somewhere and of a unfogged determination to find what it is I need to be doing (a "prime" passing by?)--made me come to this point--with an eager determination to encapsulate and preserve these sentiments.
later:
blast of sugar high from a warmed up cinnamon roll and apple, only thing I've managed to get around to eating all day. has allowed me to get through this, force myself to complete a thought. both phones on either side of the monitor are flashing to answer their ever-filling box of messages and still plenty of day work. Thank you sugar and self-motivation.
In short, a draft.
at some point in describing how the area in front of the bakery cafe and the host stand as well as behind needed a sweep and mop to a new host, I christened the curve of granite "The Glorious Impediment".
I intended to go to Pier One (okay, the start already is petty - but nevertheless, a start)... to settle on a vase and decorative not-too-fake-looking floral arrangement for the hall table I had bought and built (walmart $100) so that our future returned housephone would have somewhere glamorous to rest. It should be noted, however, that I had already been to the store in the Plaza twice in the past week for the very same purpose with no result. Their inventory had doubtfully changed.
Along the way I pass the hair cutter/salon that I had on at least two occasions submitted my scalp to with hesistation. This hesistation based in the facet of complexes that deals with my inability to settle. Not settle as in give in to something, submit, relinquish care and control-- but more like relax a bit, stop shaking the bingo spinner bin thingy, the tacky desk toy with floating bubbles, allow for a restful peace to observe the okayness in something you're certain is cheating you out of something.
So this is what I did. The place had just expanded hours to be open on sunday; and the long-haired hippy-looking owner was intently concentrating on some minor construction project to put handrail-like bars around the waiting area wall for stylistic means. This was all out of sight from where I sat down in the stylist's chair, but I heard him describing in concentrated detail with mild profanity the details of his work as he went along to the two children that had accompanied my stylist, their mother, to work. I wasn't able to determine if the stylist and the owner were together or not. This was Sakinak-- something or other (I detest not remembering her name)--but the same gentle limited-english-proficiency woman that had cut my hair the past two times. Nothing too impressive, just a trim, short on the sides, long on top. Usually applying too much sticky mousse at the end and making the front spiked up like a teen from the 90s. But she gave a great massage as an added bonus while I sat in the chair each time she finished cutting. I was still undecided about the $25 cost. We engaged in smallish conversation, when I could understand her, mostly smiling and nodding. I could feel the tingling relaxed feeling I often get when in a new situation or someone is speaking or describing something and I kind of zone out without stopping listening to them, but just the sound of their voice and the good relaxed feeling. Not to mention the fact that she was tending to my hair. Must be the gay in me, loving to be primped and attended to.
She told me how she had stayed there last week working until 10 at night because the guy had asked her to help paint the walls. At that moment, I noticed that the light fixtures between each of the angled mirrors denoting stylist stations had been updated. They were simple sconces with a square of transluscent marbled texture complemented by her cloudy wall of gray. Below the "chair rail" molding (can't recall the proper term) about four feet off the floor was a tiled wallpaper of white with randomly imprinted bathroom words like "bubbles", "air", "refresh", "relax".
A random beatles song I couldn't place was playing on the radio and I felt like I was in a glimpse of Across the Universe. I dub thee "Prudence". The man working took a 10 foot lenght of pipe outside and balanced it across two trash cans to sit on it and straighten it out. At one point he had attracted the attention of the Indian gentleman that runs the GNC next door and brought him in showing off his renovations, explaining how the plaza was on its way to a huge growth with the new businesses moving in and how his various modifications would allow for specific psychological pleasantries that would keep his shop up to speed with the future development.
The woman cutting my hair had a habit of bowing with every gentle gesture for me to move to the chair to wash my hair and back and even moreso when I paid and came back to give her the tip.
I think all these senses, the massage, the fact that I had gotten my dirty chai beforehand and felt warm and caffeinated despite my lack of food intake, had made for a detail-worn experience culminating in putting my bulky peacoat back on and strolling back out into the clean, brisk cold envying my boyfriend for his strike and his full-on paid-for massage.
and now, and now...I can't even concentrate on a simple conversation spinning my apple around on the desk and all the attempted planning and timing and when I'm leaving and traffic and blah* - I'm sorry - I know this is bad foreboding, this lack in me. And I need it to change-- I need me to change--to make things work.
There was a good feeling today - it was coming from David Blue and this idea of the "eternal extra", from Vanessa Carlton played as wakeup music and stuck in my head all day, from noticing that a more successful fellow blogger had found a new motivation, and from seeing this tree shadowed on North Bergen high school on my way to work the way I used to say the most random things could bring me up out of a fowl mood, like a tree blowing in the wind... and also there was this pipe that had burst on 77th on the way down the hill, that was shooting up a great stream of water straight up into the air right in front of this perfectly yellowed tree. I think all this, these thoughts of going somewhere and of a unfogged determination to find what it is I need to be doing (a "prime" passing by?)--made me come to this point--with an eager determination to encapsulate and preserve these sentiments.
later:
blast of sugar high from a warmed up cinnamon roll and apple, only thing I've managed to get around to eating all day. has allowed me to get through this, force myself to complete a thought. both phones on either side of the monitor are flashing to answer their ever-filling box of messages and still plenty of day work. Thank you sugar and self-motivation.
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