me and spongebob's snail.
Here's a little something from my diary/journal. I write in it maybe once every three months. Maybe. The last entry is from November. Anyway, this is dated March 20, 2005. Except that I'm not including any of the actual names and places. Because my boss has a freaky son who's probably reading this. He's so freaking scary. So, uh, I'll call my boss...Gary.
I'm getting restless again. It isn't that I hate my job, even though I guess I kind of do, it's that I can't ignore this urgency to move forward...to what...I have no idea.
Not long after I started working at *the store*, *Gary*, the owner, got me involved with the typing of all his old journals. At first I found Gary to be an intellectual god--a latter day Renaissance man. He was the kind of person I've always wanted to work for. He spoke Middle English in my job interview.
But now...somehow the only assessment I can muster is that he is an endearing, deteriorating mess of a man. His health is poor. Very poor, in fact. He's constantly hunched over because of his bad back and osteoporosis. He wears ill-fitting clothes, often t-shirts that I have a strong suspicion are either from Goodwill or were give-aways, many with logos that I would never begin to actually associate with this amazingly literate, pop-culture oblivious man--things like Ford Racing and Nike. Arbitrary details that somehow add up to my gradual distaste for him. Perhaps if he were my grandfather, I would find these traits somehow endearing.
As he is not my grandfather, I must remind myself that he could probably quote Donne or Keats on demand.
And it isn't as though I find him despicable. To the contrary, I think he is a fine man who just happens to be in poor health, late years, and possessing a rather strong addiction to buying old crap.
Lately, he's been working on an article. He's become strangely manic about it. He's had, probably, 30 drafts. He keeps picking it apart, writing notes in the margin--notes no one, usually not even him, can read. He'll have me sit at the computer in the office while I'm at work, totally useless to the store, and edit while he dictates and redictates the same passages I edited in the same fashion days before. It's like being the typist for John Nash.
What makes the situation even weirder, or should I say more uncomfortable, is that his back has crippled him to a state where he can't sit up straight--meaning he sometimes, maybe even without noticing, leans on me while craning his head to look at the monitor. I can always smell him. And he doesn't have that creepy "old person" smell. In fact, I can't think of anything besides maybe a freshly dug hole in moist soil that compares to his particular scent.
I brought home a manuscript for him tonight that smells like him. His teeth are crooked and yellow and I somehow always suspected he smoked when he was away from the store. And when I asked John, by holding the jumbled (also wrinkled and coffee-stained) pages toward him, what it smelled like, he said pot.
As I typed, my hands felt dirty after handling the musty pages that, when I sorted them with Gary before leaving work this evening, had felt damp. And I could imagine him, in what has to be horrible pain, smoking pot and making notations that would never be understood.
Today, at work, we re-edited his article, he claimed, for the last time. His hands are a mess. I know this because there is an disportionate amount of down time while I edit for him. For a few minutes he will dictate almost faster than I can type, then he'll trail off to read and reread and mull over whether or not to use "seemed fair" or "was right," or some other seemingly insignificant phrase. Today his short sleeve puckered above his shoulder, exposing the tender pale skin above his elbow. I found myself inexplicably repulsed. I felt somewhat like the narrator of Poe's "Tell-tale Heart," who hated the imperfection of an old man's eye.
(I find myself even more disturbed that I've found myself in a situation in which I've actually related to Poe.) Pale skin made paler with the splotchy marks all old people seem to have, only his come in both freckle-brown and deathly white.
I fear I am demonizing him because I've read his journals from decades past, how his mantra seemed to be "I Will Not Serve," a phrase I typed over again tonight. And yet this man who recites Donne, who went to law school, who edited magazines, stumbles in his crippled state up ladders to retrieve a book on roses (that was probably sold three years ago) for a customer who more than likely would rather be a Borders drinking a latte.
I hate him for climbing on ladders. I want him to say, "You, young person that I pay to work in my store, see if there's a book up there on Pygmies" or whatever the hell it is he's doing that he shouldn't.
I hate him because he strikes me as someone who gave in. I hate him for the same reason teenage girls hate their mothers: I hate what I fear I could become.
What makes it so tragic is that I really like Gary. A lot. But. I guess I can't help the rest.
Okay, since then, I've heard him lie about a gazillion times. Lie. I hate lying more than anything in the world. It's cowardly and stupid.
Plus, he doesn't really quote Donne. I don't know what the hell he's quoting. I think it's Hamlet most of the time. I don't know. I've never read it.
I am a bad, bad English major. I've never read Hamlet.
I'm not worried about becoming "Gary" anymore. (Man, that fake name was a bad choice.) That's not why I don't like him. I don't like him because he thinks everyone loves him. No. He thinks he's so damn lovable. Like just because he can quite iambic pentameter from a play most Americans have never read that makes him a sage old pillar of the community.
By the way, I hate Poe. He's boring and overrated. And I. I am very cranky.
People come in every day and have little pity parties for themselves when they find out the store is closing. A guy told me last week that he'd been dumped and that finding out the store was closing was worse news...for him. A woman today. Jeez. She asked if the store was closing. Yes. Then. Then she said that was worse news than when she'd found out her parents had died.
What?
What kind of sick people are these? You know--you know--how much I love books. But there is no way that this store closing (and by the way, I'm losing my job), would be worse than anything happening to any relationship I have. Who thinks that way? Seriously.
And I also wanted to ask this lady lots of questions. Did you get the information that your parents were dead at the same time? Were they in an accident? Had you ever actually met them? What sort of books do you read that have characters you can relate to? You weird, hateful lady, I'm losing my job! Pity me! It sucks that your parents are dead! That would trump me losing a job that's driving me nuts. But you tossed that out! That was a good card to play! You're crazy! Who loves a store more than their parents? Not only that, but a store that is really really dirty! I had to wash and lotion my hands six times yesterday just straightening from Steinbeck to Zola. My nose started itching from the dust and when I rubbed my nose, I gave myself a Hitler mustache with the dirt that was all over my fingers. And I don't even know how long it was there before I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and saw der fuhrer looking back in the mirror! Go away! I feel no pity for you! I looked like one of the most hated people in history for most of the afternoon yesterday because of this place and none of you "kind people" had the decency to tell me! Screw you!
Very cranky. People cry in front of me. They are unashamed. They bawl.
And then. There are others. People who don't care. And I can't decide if they're worse or not. People at the far ends of any spectrum tend to frighten me. Trouble is, the middleground seems to have fallen out completely. So I'm surrounded by crazies and cold-hearted people who want me to "do better" on the price of a book that is already 50% off.
I'm getting restless again. It isn't that I hate my job, even though I guess I kind of do, it's that I can't ignore this urgency to move forward...to what...I have no idea.
Not long after I started working at *the store*, *Gary*, the owner, got me involved with the typing of all his old journals. At first I found Gary to be an intellectual god--a latter day Renaissance man. He was the kind of person I've always wanted to work for. He spoke Middle English in my job interview.
But now...somehow the only assessment I can muster is that he is an endearing, deteriorating mess of a man. His health is poor. Very poor, in fact. He's constantly hunched over because of his bad back and osteoporosis. He wears ill-fitting clothes, often t-shirts that I have a strong suspicion are either from Goodwill or were give-aways, many with logos that I would never begin to actually associate with this amazingly literate, pop-culture oblivious man--things like Ford Racing and Nike. Arbitrary details that somehow add up to my gradual distaste for him. Perhaps if he were my grandfather, I would find these traits somehow endearing.
As he is not my grandfather, I must remind myself that he could probably quote Donne or Keats on demand.
And it isn't as though I find him despicable. To the contrary, I think he is a fine man who just happens to be in poor health, late years, and possessing a rather strong addiction to buying old crap.
Lately, he's been working on an article. He's become strangely manic about it. He's had, probably, 30 drafts. He keeps picking it apart, writing notes in the margin--notes no one, usually not even him, can read. He'll have me sit at the computer in the office while I'm at work, totally useless to the store, and edit while he dictates and redictates the same passages I edited in the same fashion days before. It's like being the typist for John Nash.
What makes the situation even weirder, or should I say more uncomfortable, is that his back has crippled him to a state where he can't sit up straight--meaning he sometimes, maybe even without noticing, leans on me while craning his head to look at the monitor. I can always smell him. And he doesn't have that creepy "old person" smell. In fact, I can't think of anything besides maybe a freshly dug hole in moist soil that compares to his particular scent.
I brought home a manuscript for him tonight that smells like him. His teeth are crooked and yellow and I somehow always suspected he smoked when he was away from the store. And when I asked John, by holding the jumbled (also wrinkled and coffee-stained) pages toward him, what it smelled like, he said pot.
As I typed, my hands felt dirty after handling the musty pages that, when I sorted them with Gary before leaving work this evening, had felt damp. And I could imagine him, in what has to be horrible pain, smoking pot and making notations that would never be understood.
Today, at work, we re-edited his article, he claimed, for the last time. His hands are a mess. I know this because there is an disportionate amount of down time while I edit for him. For a few minutes he will dictate almost faster than I can type, then he'll trail off to read and reread and mull over whether or not to use "seemed fair" or "was right," or some other seemingly insignificant phrase. Today his short sleeve puckered above his shoulder, exposing the tender pale skin above his elbow. I found myself inexplicably repulsed. I felt somewhat like the narrator of Poe's "Tell-tale Heart," who hated the imperfection of an old man's eye.
(I find myself even more disturbed that I've found myself in a situation in which I've actually related to Poe.) Pale skin made paler with the splotchy marks all old people seem to have, only his come in both freckle-brown and deathly white.
I fear I am demonizing him because I've read his journals from decades past, how his mantra seemed to be "I Will Not Serve," a phrase I typed over again tonight. And yet this man who recites Donne, who went to law school, who edited magazines, stumbles in his crippled state up ladders to retrieve a book on roses (that was probably sold three years ago) for a customer who more than likely would rather be a Borders drinking a latte.
I hate him for climbing on ladders. I want him to say, "You, young person that I pay to work in my store, see if there's a book up there on Pygmies" or whatever the hell it is he's doing that he shouldn't.
I hate him because he strikes me as someone who gave in. I hate him for the same reason teenage girls hate their mothers: I hate what I fear I could become.
What makes it so tragic is that I really like Gary. A lot. But. I guess I can't help the rest.
Okay, since then, I've heard him lie about a gazillion times. Lie. I hate lying more than anything in the world. It's cowardly and stupid.
Plus, he doesn't really quote Donne. I don't know what the hell he's quoting. I think it's Hamlet most of the time. I don't know. I've never read it.
I am a bad, bad English major. I've never read Hamlet.
I'm not worried about becoming "Gary" anymore. (Man, that fake name was a bad choice.) That's not why I don't like him. I don't like him because he thinks everyone loves him. No. He thinks he's so damn lovable. Like just because he can quite iambic pentameter from a play most Americans have never read that makes him a sage old pillar of the community.
By the way, I hate Poe. He's boring and overrated. And I. I am very cranky.
People come in every day and have little pity parties for themselves when they find out the store is closing. A guy told me last week that he'd been dumped and that finding out the store was closing was worse news...for him. A woman today. Jeez. She asked if the store was closing. Yes. Then. Then she said that was worse news than when she'd found out her parents had died.
What?
What kind of sick people are these? You know--you know--how much I love books. But there is no way that this store closing (and by the way, I'm losing my job), would be worse than anything happening to any relationship I have. Who thinks that way? Seriously.
And I also wanted to ask this lady lots of questions. Did you get the information that your parents were dead at the same time? Were they in an accident? Had you ever actually met them? What sort of books do you read that have characters you can relate to? You weird, hateful lady, I'm losing my job! Pity me! It sucks that your parents are dead! That would trump me losing a job that's driving me nuts. But you tossed that out! That was a good card to play! You're crazy! Who loves a store more than their parents? Not only that, but a store that is really really dirty! I had to wash and lotion my hands six times yesterday just straightening from Steinbeck to Zola. My nose started itching from the dust and when I rubbed my nose, I gave myself a Hitler mustache with the dirt that was all over my fingers. And I don't even know how long it was there before I went to the bathroom to wash my hands and saw der fuhrer looking back in the mirror! Go away! I feel no pity for you! I looked like one of the most hated people in history for most of the afternoon yesterday because of this place and none of you "kind people" had the decency to tell me! Screw you!
Very cranky. People cry in front of me. They are unashamed. They bawl.
And then. There are others. People who don't care. And I can't decide if they're worse or not. People at the far ends of any spectrum tend to frighten me. Trouble is, the middleground seems to have fallen out completely. So I'm surrounded by crazies and cold-hearted people who want me to "do better" on the price of a book that is already 50% off.
Labels: work.
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