He fades from my memory like the leftovers in my fridge. They befuddle me at first: what can I do with them? How do I convert them into something palatable? Then their presence begins to irk me: why have they not disappeared yet? Why do they have to be so difficult and nagging on my conscience? Finally, I feel the pain of losing what is still present. I know that what they were was too distinct to be recombined into something new. I know that our relationship has rotted into mephitic waste. And so with sadness I let the leftovers go, allowing for new saporific morsels to creep in and push out the pain.
And they do.
Slowly but surely, I come across new and different flavors. I do not enjoy them fully yet, but they give me pleasure. I feel pangs of guilt about my inability to appreciate this newness in full, but it is all I can do. I will experiment slowly until I am ready to feast again, having cast off my fear and anxiety from what is past.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
elusive comfort
I'm searching for something and I don't know what it is. Days go by and I feel impending failure. This is false. I am upon the journey that is my life. I want to abandon the past to this new journey. Yet, letting go of all that is and has been is nearly impossible. The nature and nurture of a lifetime cling to my ego which I seek to forsake. The answer is an eternal tomorrow, slowly stepping towards it but never reaching that destination. I type away, accomplishing nothing, dividing my hope into half-lives rather than realizing the whole. I will never "be" at this rate. I will only briefly catch wisps of hope in exponential decay. Soon they will be unrecognizable and one with my accomplishments. Happiness resides in these two which I abandon like radioactive waste.
Friday, November 23, 2007
the man
Everything that he does is quiet. He speaks quietly, he walks quietly and I wonder if he makes love quietly. His limp makes him appear as though he were carrying an invisible briefcase filled with gold bars; a hefty and pricey weight to be under. The white of his hair is perhaps the most fundamental part of his being. Ashen wisps thickly drape his scull stopping short of the ears, respectfully. The facial hair, though white, highlights his stately manner adding a youthful type of wisdom. His cane, while essential, is more part of the essence. When he opens his mouth I do not listen. I can only watch his lips which utter tenor tones that quickly dissipate into the harsh devouring air. What does he whisper into the ears of others? He is a man made for whispering words that make one melt.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Attitude
“ A positive ATTITUDE is a powerful force for good, giving life to everything it touches.”
This is the poster that hangs above my new desk. It leans against the cubicle due to lack of walls. Next comes Dr. Tinkelman. How I can work in an office setting in where the most respected and feared client is name Doctor Tinkelman is a cruel conundrum.
Casey, with who I share my new career, reminds me so much of Danny DeVito that every time I watch the man struggle to lower his rollee chair closer to the floor I bite my lip until it hurts. True to form, he is short, balding and in a Havana pink shirt. The man has a perpetual need to streamline, employing phrases like, “the idea behind the concept is…” Does this get us anywhere? I have no idea.
He twirls his finger in the air to signify volume control on the conference caller. Cory is on the tripod contraption for our daily 9AM meeting. The meeting’s dialect is unintelligible. We pass Cory around like a beach ball iterating foreign phrases about TFS, the “back end,” and Backlog Items. I am a long way my organic fair trade fresh-roasted home.
Let’s talk about John. To me he appears as an adorable half-Latin panda. Down to reflection in his dark brown eyes, everything about him seems to be nice and considerate. His meticulous coffee routine and tendency to eat dry oatmeal, white bread and cherry tomatoes are the highlight of my cube space. Love of food, I can find it anywhere. Having said that, let’s avoid any discussion about the semantic similarities between “cube space” and “pube space.”
MEETING 8/22
This is ludicrous. I am sitting within a meeting for a product launch. Thousands of dollars, people and expectations involved and I don’t understand a word of what’s going on. I’ve never encountered so many interpretations at one time upon one subject. I am an observer, but why is my name up on that screen?
I have met the alleged Dr. Tinkelman and he is surprisingly efficient. He appears to respect my father and I wonder if this has to do with their similarities – older, male, father-figures with a cut-the-crap attitude. Or, perhaps the camaraderie is on account of their most overt similarity: irony. There must be some bond between a man named Doctor Tinkelman and a man named Dick Bush. It goes unrecognized and again, I bite my lip until it hurts.
As far as I can tell this dance that I am supposed to do is all about waylaying commitment and due dates. It seems that my college classmates might be better suited for this career. A client asks when and the answer is what and how. The program is to be released to test, released to production, refined or unrefined, rereleased to test and finally released to training. Eventually, the question gets asked again and the answer remains nebulous. I’ve never spent so long talking about what concludes as nothing.
This is how I come to love Dr. Tinkelman. He is “dismayed;” this is “unacceptable;” this has been an “embarrassment” for him. Have I been contracted to the wrong side of this war?
This is the poster that hangs above my new desk. It leans against the cubicle due to lack of walls. Next comes Dr. Tinkelman. How I can work in an office setting in where the most respected and feared client is name Doctor Tinkelman is a cruel conundrum.
Casey, with who I share my new career, reminds me so much of Danny DeVito that every time I watch the man struggle to lower his rollee chair closer to the floor I bite my lip until it hurts. True to form, he is short, balding and in a Havana pink shirt. The man has a perpetual need to streamline, employing phrases like, “the idea behind the concept is…” Does this get us anywhere? I have no idea.
He twirls his finger in the air to signify volume control on the conference caller. Cory is on the tripod contraption for our daily 9AM meeting. The meeting’s dialect is unintelligible. We pass Cory around like a beach ball iterating foreign phrases about TFS, the “back end,” and Backlog Items. I am a long way my organic fair trade fresh-roasted home.
Let’s talk about John. To me he appears as an adorable half-Latin panda. Down to reflection in his dark brown eyes, everything about him seems to be nice and considerate. His meticulous coffee routine and tendency to eat dry oatmeal, white bread and cherry tomatoes are the highlight of my cube space. Love of food, I can find it anywhere. Having said that, let’s avoid any discussion about the semantic similarities between “cube space” and “pube space.”
MEETING 8/22
This is ludicrous. I am sitting within a meeting for a product launch. Thousands of dollars, people and expectations involved and I don’t understand a word of what’s going on. I’ve never encountered so many interpretations at one time upon one subject. I am an observer, but why is my name up on that screen?
I have met the alleged Dr. Tinkelman and he is surprisingly efficient. He appears to respect my father and I wonder if this has to do with their similarities – older, male, father-figures with a cut-the-crap attitude. Or, perhaps the camaraderie is on account of their most overt similarity: irony. There must be some bond between a man named Doctor Tinkelman and a man named Dick Bush. It goes unrecognized and again, I bite my lip until it hurts.
As far as I can tell this dance that I am supposed to do is all about waylaying commitment and due dates. It seems that my college classmates might be better suited for this career. A client asks when and the answer is what and how. The program is to be released to test, released to production, refined or unrefined, rereleased to test and finally released to training. Eventually, the question gets asked again and the answer remains nebulous. I’ve never spent so long talking about what concludes as nothing.
This is how I come to love Dr. Tinkelman. He is “dismayed;” this is “unacceptable;” this has been an “embarrassment” for him. Have I been contracted to the wrong side of this war?
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