Someone stole all the earplugs!

Happy Friday!
Friday seems to be one of people's favorite days around here. In fact, my boss generally refers to Thursdays as "Friday eve" Which is kind of funny. But really only the first time you hear it. But anyway.
One Friday a month are staff meetings, which mean food and talking via video conference equipment with people we don't generally see but do talk to a lot via email, so it has a certain novel appeal.
As does moving office furniture. So thats what I'm going to go do now.
Have a good weekend!

s'not funny

Sometimes I wish the world owed me something. Most of the time I loathe the people who operate that way though--you know the ones? The folks who give in to introspective selfishness and indulge themselves at every given opportunity because they've "earned it" when in reality, or at least from the outside, it doesn't really look like all that much has happened / been earned / is deserved at all.
Privilege. Its one of those things that raises my hackles. Partly because of the class-awareness/ classlessness of the American system , at least in the time I grew up in (the mid-to-late '80s preppie fascination with upper-class stylings; the late '80s-'90s grunge-itude and punk resurgence when the "wrong side of the tracks" was the right one). Partly, I guess, just because .
I think part of the problem we are finding ourselves in today, as a country (hello mortgage crisis, hello credit card debt and negative savings rate, hello corporate scavenging by CEOs CFOs and COOs) is because somewhere in the American Dream propaganda, and the life-will-be-better jargon is this idea that you've earned it--the bigger house (that you can't quite afford)--the flashy flat screen (no cash? put it on the credit card!) --the two cars and daily Starbucks coffee(car payment or savings account? car payment!) --the multi-million dollar bonus even though you have to cut 30,000 jobs to make a profit (this one really gets me--(class warfare!) "competitive benefits" my ass).
Yeah, we work pretty hard. But that doesn't automatically entitle anyone to anything, does it?
I guess it should entitle you to what you've earned: your paycheck. Decent benefits, a modicum of security that your job will be there next quarter or year or decade, or at least a heed-able warning that bad times are coming.
That is certainly not to say that the stereotype I've just drawn is all that wide reaching --I mean, its a caricature if its anything, obviously--but it is also a feeling I get, sometimes, talking to people. My friends from college believing in the Great White Dream (mr. shining armor coming to take their credit card debt and dead end jobs away) the few hospital administrators and insurance types I talk to with any sort of regularity (insurance ethics? now theres a joke), the other kids, like me, a few years out of college or graduate school trying to put things together and making a place for "whats in it for me?" (I work sixty hour weeks. The least I can give myself is a daily mocha latte. And a gym membership. And a monthly pedicure. And a night out with the guys. et cetera et cetera). Its like the whole world is on a treadmill these days: we're not going anywhere, but we're still afraid we might fall off.

would you be interested in a little harmless movie watching?

On Wednesdays I work in the evenings, so my schedule is a little off--but generally I love it: its great to have a weekday morning mostly free to do the administrative things of life: going to the post office and bank and knowing that they will be open and not too crowded, using the kitchen while the rest of my housemates are away at school and work, and especially eating leisurely breakfast before I shower.

I don’t know about you, but on the typical weekday morning I am generally in a rush, lately I get up at the last possible instant, and even when I do manage to get up earlier I don’t really have time to ease into the day or take things slow. If I have to I shower (and very often I just say “screw it” and fake a shower with a wet brush and a quick face wash) throw on clean (does it pass the smell test? Then yes, in my book it counts as clean) clothing and throw some food into my bag to eat once I get to work. A true measure of leisure time, as far as I am concerned, is eating breakfast at a table and then showering.

Pretty much every day this week I have brought a piece of fruit with me with the intention of eating it for breakfast. And every day I’ve brought a piece of fruit I have abandoned it on a corner of my desk and gone for hot chocolate powder mixed with coffee. This should not be part of a balanced breakfast but has become my default breakfast of late. Obviously this is one of the reasons I’ve caught a cold and feel generally sluggish and unmotivated about life. Something really should be done.

I mentioned to my office mate that it looked like I was saving up for a fruit salad. He laughed and the next day he came back from the cafeteria (I don’t usually go there to eat--its only $4.75 so I do get there once a month or so, but sort of on principle I like to bring food from home because if I’ve already got it I might as well eat it, and if I keep throwing down $5 for lunch the numbers get big pretty quick: $4.75 x 12 = $57 spent if I went once a month all year! $242 if I went once a week instead! Oh how money lost does have a way of adding up!). Office Mate Man goes pretty much everyday--he has a regular crew that he eats with and so they all go together and he usually brings back the good gossip--but this time he also brought me a banana! And he has promised that tomorrow he will bring me an apple! So on Friday we will really have a fruit salad! I’ve got some frozen blueberries and also some plain yogurt already in the fridge at home, so although it will be an occurring-at-work post-shower breakfast, it should still be pretty good!

blustery indeed

I have a cold. It’s the sneaky kind, the back of the throat sore, the sinuses dry yet leaky (eeew.) and the body as a whole kind of achy and slow.

I hate being sick but as sicknesses go, this one is not too terrible. The sneakiness and mildness of it allows for a certain academic detachment. As I breath in I notice the complete lack of moisture in my nose, as I swallow I follow the decent of the ache.

Also, it makes the needs so much easier to meet: I want warmth and stillness, which equals bed, empty save perhaps for a curled up kitten at the end. Simple and easily met, though of course first I’ve got to get through work, and then a training session with gym buddy and then an evening meeting (I curse all of these things individually but I will not back out of them. I hate being sick and do not want to use it as an excuse. I am a firm believer in using sick days only for ulterior purposes).

Which reminds me. At my last job once I used one of my insanely late work days (really more of a work night, since I would come in around 3 or 4 and work until 12midnight or 1 in the morning) to have a morning interview at a company a four hour drive away. I got up insanely early and drove down there and then had an hour and a half interview and then hightailed it back. On my way back I realized that with traffic the way it was I was never going to make it on time, so I called and told them that I was going to the doctors in town (with still about two hours to go until I needed to be in) and if I was running late that was why--and I told them that I was having a strep test and a monoculture done because I’d had a sore throat for a week (lies, obviously but I was thinking on my feet--since I didn’t want the job I had to know how much I wanted out). When I was a half hour from home I got a call from my director telling me to just go home and go to bed after I got done at the doctors, he would cover my shift for that day and the next so I could get better. It was unbelievably kind and made me realize that even if I wanted to leave I wasn’t going to be able to. And I didn’t--the other company offered me the job and I tried to play the bargaining game, but they didn’t want to pay me any more (their initial offer would have been 1/3 to ½ again as much as I was making at my first job, but the benefits were all in all more expensive, not as inclusive, there was little to no vacation time to speak of, and the area was considerably more expensive, cost-of -living wise, so the actual money in my pocket would have been about the same, with less time off and more expensive surroundings) and they didn’t want to give me anything for moving expenses, and they wanted me to start right away. So it was really a non-starter. Plus my boss had covered my shifts for two days because he thought I might be sick. And the department secretary called to check on me twice. So I stayed. and the second year wasn’t as bad, they hired someone part time so that I was able to work a steady 5-day (and night)-work- week and have my weekends almost completely to myself (there were always exceptions, but then, there always are). I found a cheaper apartment that was still within walking distance, which was sort of like getting a raise. And I started teaching yoga classes at a local health club in exchange for free membership, which was a fantastic move. How would you like to get paid $20 a week to work out? It made me happy, that’s for sure.