Same Shit in a Different Shirt
So, I've been at my new job for about a month.
I almost have a clue what I'm doing now.
Here's what it boils down to.
---> Car-pooling 12 miles, each way -- which, of course, takes about an hour or so, each way, up and down the 405. Not too bad, since I'm on salary now, and don't have to worry about being a bit late, which is like having a super power. Every day we pass a woman dressed as an old-style waitress, wearing a pale-blue gingham dress, a white apron, sometimes partially hidden under a black coat. She's maybe twenty-five with curly gold hair, and she walks west across the parking-lot that is Sepulveda, coming from an unknown starting point beyond the Galleria Mall and going to her bus stop on Venture Blvd, where the unhappy Mexican mother stand frowning at traffic. We wonder where she works, and why her glum, hurried march somehow brightens our day. She's the "Ruby Tuesday" girl.
---> Sending and reading so many e-mails that my eyes are blurry and strained -- which, I was told, by the optometrist and his very cute, oddly-disappointed-when-I-had-to-leave-for-a-dinner-date, female-brunette-assistant-in-black, was not an excuse to get those glasses I've always wanted. I still have 80%+ of the tissue around my optic nerve! That's apparently good!
---> Having lunch way too often at Subway -- which, of course, is a place I used to hate, and that's because I don't enjoy instructing restaurant employees as to which ingredients go into making my order. It feels like a test, and I always fail it. (That is, when I ask for an Italian sub, I would like you to make me an Italian sub, and please, don't ask me what goes into it. I don't know. You're the one who works at a sub shop. You tell me what meat goes into it. You tell me what cheese goes into it. Make it taste like an Italian sub, goddammit. I like them).
---> Snatching a half-hour, here and there, to appreciate the solitude of my own 3.5-walled cubicle office, and write something. Trying to make Storybook Park into a novel, but moving slowly, meticulously. Have some ideas to get goddamn Amelia Waverly off the ground as a reborn feature screenplay. Working with Shaun on a short-film about overpopulation in a 1984-style world, probably going to call it Shift Work, but really not sure yet.
---> Spending some very quiet nights alone, with my dog pillow, both of us trying, but failing, to stay awake, me obsessing over secret thoughts, him trying to squirm out of being a pillow. My roommate is working from 7:30pm until 3am or 4am, while I'm working from 9am and getting home at 7pm, which means I never really see her except on weekends, which, in reality, she mostly spends with her boyfriend, whose bed was covered with dried blood for several days. Who collects finger and toenail clippings. Ugh. Don't tell anyone I know that stuff. Not even me.
---> Still asking myself, what's next? When do I get to quit this job? When do I get transferred to that bigger pond? When do I stop working through issues, waiting through delays, and start living? When does the breakthrough happen?
---> Still answering myself, when you get your ass to write somewhere other than livejournal. When you turn what's on your mind into what's on the page. When the fears, insecurities, and discomforts are just dares that I've accepted.
I almost have a clue what I'm doing now.
Here's what it boils down to.
---> Car-pooling 12 miles, each way -- which, of course, takes about an hour or so, each way, up and down the 405. Not too bad, since I'm on salary now, and don't have to worry about being a bit late, which is like having a super power. Every day we pass a woman dressed as an old-style waitress, wearing a pale-blue gingham dress, a white apron, sometimes partially hidden under a black coat. She's maybe twenty-five with curly gold hair, and she walks west across the parking-lot that is Sepulveda, coming from an unknown starting point beyond the Galleria Mall and going to her bus stop on Venture Blvd, where the unhappy Mexican mother stand frowning at traffic. We wonder where she works, and why her glum, hurried march somehow brightens our day. She's the "Ruby Tuesday" girl.
---> Sending and reading so many e-mails that my eyes are blurry and strained -- which, I was told, by the optometrist and his very cute, oddly-disappointed-when-I-had-to-leave-for-a-dinner-date, female-brunette-assistant-in-black, was not an excuse to get those glasses I've always wanted. I still have 80%+ of the tissue around my optic nerve! That's apparently good!
---> Having lunch way too often at Subway -- which, of course, is a place I used to hate, and that's because I don't enjoy instructing restaurant employees as to which ingredients go into making my order. It feels like a test, and I always fail it. (That is, when I ask for an Italian sub, I would like you to make me an Italian sub, and please, don't ask me what goes into it. I don't know. You're the one who works at a sub shop. You tell me what meat goes into it. You tell me what cheese goes into it. Make it taste like an Italian sub, goddammit. I like them).
---> Snatching a half-hour, here and there, to appreciate the solitude of my own 3.5-walled cubicle office, and write something. Trying to make Storybook Park into a novel, but moving slowly, meticulously. Have some ideas to get goddamn Amelia Waverly off the ground as a reborn feature screenplay. Working with Shaun on a short-film about overpopulation in a 1984-style world, probably going to call it Shift Work, but really not sure yet.
---> Spending some very quiet nights alone, with my dog pillow, both of us trying, but failing, to stay awake, me obsessing over secret thoughts, him trying to squirm out of being a pillow. My roommate is working from 7:30pm until 3am or 4am, while I'm working from 9am and getting home at 7pm, which means I never really see her except on weekends, which, in reality, she mostly spends with her boyfriend, whose bed was covered with dried blood for several days. Who collects finger and toenail clippings. Ugh. Don't tell anyone I know that stuff. Not even me.
---> Still asking myself, what's next? When do I get to quit this job? When do I get transferred to that bigger pond? When do I stop working through issues, waiting through delays, and start living? When does the breakthrough happen?
---> Still answering myself, when you get your ass to write somewhere other than livejournal. When you turn what's on your mind into what's on the page. When the fears, insecurities, and discomforts are just dares that I've accepted.
Provolone Cheese
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