The morning started off on a pleasant note today. After struggling out of bed from a long, lazy weekend of Turkey and stuffing, I got to chit-chat with a pretty girl who gets on the bus at the same stop that I do some mornings. Normally pretty girls are a pleasant distraction on the ride in to work, but to add in to that the fact of two strangers talking to each other on the El ...
Okay now, depending where you're from, strangers talking to each other may seem an unremarkable thing. But understand that here in Chicago, we're a quiet bunch. Midwesterners have a certain over-indulged respect for others' personal space. Actually, that's putting a positive spin on it. Really, we're all afraid to embarrass ourselves in a quiet public forum like an El car. Only those who've just had a really good day at work, who are insane, who wanna sell something, or who are drunk, are those most likely to start up a conversation on the El.
It's not that too horrible though ... oh no. There's the eccentric types like me who get off on exchanging a nod, a slight bow, a head bob, or in a pinch just a shared glance with another person. It's a sort of "Yes, it is forbidden that we should say anything, but we can still acknowledge our mutual human existence."
Especially in the morning, people are quiet. Until you've had that first
cup of coffee, it seems all the more impossible that any two people will make
eye contact for more than a quarter of a second. I figure it takes two seconds
before someone's gonna think enough to say Howdy!
Me and the lady? A
few glimpses at each other, and I took fumbling with her bag as a invitation
to finally say something casually inquisitive. Something along the lines of
Broken?
Okay, I may have been feeling saucy enough to pour in a complete sentence. Anyhow, once you have made contact, tentatively breached that personal space, two folks can engage in all the conversation they please. Usually the eccentric intruder who doesn't get all these social rules might monopolise the conversation, while their partner will remain mostly silent, saying enough words to remain polite, but few enough to express what they are really saying, which is that "While I respect your audacity to breach the overdone silence around us, I'm not too keen on the whole affair. Please, please, just let me be." On a good day, like today, both participants are up for it and the conversation goes well balanced - both folks are speaking to each other out of mutual interest rather than one side speaking sparingly out of benevolent politeness.
And you get me here ... the fact that she's a pretty woman amounts to a bonus. The center thing of it is chatting with a stranger on the El. A balanced conversation. A star in the sparsely populated night sky that is the daily commute around here. It seems nearly wasteful to consider romance as a possibility. Of course, it would be a waste not to consider such a thing.
Ah well. I'm patient, self-absorbed and content. We've made acquaintance and that's good. Even exchanged names. That's plenty for now, that I'd just as soon put the subject down. Down in my journal that is. We need some hint of titillating romance to keep MikeyA's interest burning strong.
At some point, for some reason, I'd decided to announce my intentions to return to school or not on 2 December. Well, so take this as unofficial that I'll be returning to school. Got most of a class schedule laid out, and 2 December I'll start pounding the email buddies for an apartment. I know I said I was kind of reluctant to go back, but I'm actually starting to look forward to it some.
I think I really decided after my review two weeks ago. It went as well as I had hoped, and better than I had expected. See, I've been chewed out more times over silly stuff than I've been praised for rightfully good stuff. Now, I've got skin as thick as the next guy, but this aint some dumb class in school - this is my professional life. I figured our new manager, Patrick, could be the judge. 'tis his job. His judgment was favorable.
The decision was based partly on wise advice, but also on that review. While there's plenty of room for me to improve professionally .... well, I feel kinda like I've proven myself, at least for now. I don't look at EnterAct as some rite of passage or anything, of course. But well, I think it's easier to leave, even if it may well be for only four or five months, knowing that I've done right. I have this dark feeling that my stubborn side would have required me to stay had things not gone as I had thought they should - anything to prove a point.
So dannyman, I says to myself, take that under advisement as one of your potential fatal flaws. You readers can watch as my stubborn sense of justification finally destroys me some day. Assuming of course, fate has determined that my life should be a tragedy.
Okay. You know what pisses the hell out of me? All these dial-around long-distance phone commercials. Especially anything featuring Paul Reiser, who pisses the hell out of me just because he seems to be coasting through stardom by virtue of his short Jewishness more than on any sort of ability. For some reason that's probably undeserved, I completely hate Paul Reiser. Some strange subconscious thing.
Anyway - people, people, don't you get it? 98% of telecommunications companies are run by sick, demented individuals who are out to rip you off anyway. All of those 10-10-whatever commercials have some clever rip-off. Ignore them dammit! You only give the marketing people who work for these greasy telecom assholes ego gratification when they see that you paid attention, absorbed, and fell for that damned stupid inane commercial with the sad, pathetic comic whose career is coasting so they need any evil money the telecom companies can extort from you to cover the payments on their Beverly Hills mansions.
The saddest of these shallow, empty vessels of comedy is of course George
Carlin. The once self-richeous chap who stormed that cemeteries and golf
courses were inexcusable wastes of land as he pronounced one after another the
seven dirty words to be bleeped out. It seems sad that this comedian
should at the end of the decade give in to the dark side and use his schtick
for Long Distance companies.
So, I'll tell you what. I think mom found the 2% of telecom that's morally okay. I've never seen a commercial for them, which is a testament that their not blowing wads of cash on would-be ego-gratification, and might actually be focused instead on doing their fucking job of supplying a commodity service in a reliable, cost-efficient manner. They are called Working Assets Long Distance, and they donate a part of the money they make to progressive causes. Well, let me strike my tiny hopeful blow for a world that doesn't suck by getting you to dump these other telecom corporate assholes in favor of someone you've never had fucking call you while you're doing something or annoy you with some stupid commercial for their dial-around scheme by flashing a body builder and Ed Bundy at you. Fuck you, AT&T! Fuck you, MCI! Fuck you, Sprint! And fuck you too, George Carlin, Paul Reiser, and Dennis Miller. You're all sad pathetic, shallow, money-grubbing greasy jackals and I've still got a shred of naive, self-richeous optimism to throw at you.
Oh, I saw Waterboy. The kids at work wanted to see the new Star Wars trailer the day it was available, played before and after the movie. Well, all the true geeks were there for the trailer, but I was there for Adam Sandler. And I was pleasantly surprised that seeing him run around head-butting people for an hour and a half was actually more fun than my optimism had allowed. Keen. 'tis experiences like this that little by little reaffirm my hopes for humanity. It was just a jolly fun, dumb, relaxing movie.
10 November
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