soapboxdiner

I Like

I am drinking a tasty and delicious Red Hook Blonde Ale at the moment and the world is All Right, baby.

Wanna hear a funny? Well, not so funny, really. So by the end of vacation, I was all psyched about getting back to work with all my batteries recharged and shit. I was gonna tackle the 2009 manual update and finish the year-end reviews. I was even going to update the new-hire training material and complete the refresher course for existing employees and begin course development for the macros course that everyone's so stoked to take -- full of sexy and provocative VBA and EVERYTHING. So I came home last night and knocked about 1/4 of the manual updates out and I RULED, dudes!

I was gonna come home tonight and tie a pretty bow on the remaining 1/4 of the manual, which would only leave the last section with the total revamp for me and the Boss to polish together. Then we could totally high five and say cool things like, "It's a wrap!" and send it off to the printers and shit.

But then I had dirty rice with broccoli and several delicious Blonde Ales, now I don't feel like doing much more than take my bra off and closet myself away here and ramble out random stream of consciousness crap.

Taking off my bra really is the best part of the day, by the way. That and stretching all lazy cat-like in the bed first thing in the morning when yer all nekkid and stuff next to another warm, nekkid person. That's a pretty awesome part of the day too.

ANYways, so Salary.com just emailed me and told me that I am earning about 16 to 20 THOUSAND dollars less a year than other people in comparable positions in my region. Huzzah, fuckers. Thank fucking God it's a recession! Whatever would I do with an extra 20K a year?

So ... what should we talk about tonight, babies?

Hmm.

Do you know that when my mother was my age, she'd been divorced twice and had 3 kids at home? She'd go to happyhour every night (after a quick stop at the store for pre-packaged chicken fried steak for her brood; leaving it on the kitchen counter for my big sister to fry up with eggs for us to have to dinner). We wouldn't see her again until the next morning (well, unless she brought the party home at 2:00 to continue the party -- loudly).

Sometimes I envy her. How many of us REALLY get to party like teenagers when we're in our 30s? I know I sure don't. And I don't particularly want to emulate her model. What I'm really trying to say is that I'm BORED, darlings. Work is boring, only punctuated with moments of overwhelming stress and new bullet points for a resume I very likely will never use again. Home is boring, only highlighted with moments of nostalgia and wistfulness marking the passage of time or mundane physical pleasure that, honestly, as nice as that is, still leaves me underwhelmed. And I should pointedly declare that it IS nice, and I count it as a blessing and cherish it.

Funny, when things are all new and shiny, even a kiss prepares you and leaves you aching and dying for what comes next. But once the newness wears off, really, it's all nice, but the excitement and anticipation and surprise and wonder are gone.

There are worse things.

I want challenge and intrigue and a world filled with ... I don't know. New experiences. I want to broaden my mind and excite my senses. I want to be enraptured with new people and new ideas and leap into and swim inside the brains of smart and adventurous and brave people. I want to grow my heart and relearn compassion and empathy. I want to become a better and more worldly person. I want to BE the mind that others explore and learn from.

My world is so small, it bores me. But perhaps even that can change.

Boss, I love her. She is my mentor and my friend, as much as I am capable of being with a person I view as an authority figure deserving of respect more than I view as an equal. Boss HATES two of the most interesting people we work with. They are unconventional, true. They take no bullshit, undoubtedly. But they have views and lives that are transcendant.

One knits and bakes and volunteers for the AIDS Alliance and organizations that support underprivileged women. She voted for McCain, and unabashedly has no sympathy for thoughtless stupidity or cruelty. I'm responsible for critiquing her work, and I don't mince my words when I call her out on her apathy for research that she overlooks in deference to keeping her production up, which in turn puts her in a payscale higher than that which she would earn if she took the time to produce accurate work.

The other is a almost 60ish woman who is unquestionably brilliant, well-read and well-traveled. Once upon a time she studied law and passed the bar. She's raised two children alone -- one who's in college, speaks three languages, and is applying for a position in the State Department. This lady quit shortly before moving to Israel. Now she owns an apartment in Jeruselem and travels between Seattle and there, working as a transcriptionist for my company, among others. A transcriptionist. But she calls me a kindred spirit, as crotchity as she is, and welcomes me into her heart and sits with me and tells me amazing stories of her victories and travails in all their mundane details. She tells me tales of Jewish life and enthralls me.

Boss herself is a cultured woman, going here and there with her husband of some 20+ years, visiting museums and theater and she tells me fascinating stories of artists she's met and things she has seen. She loves it. And yet, I wonder at times if it has in any way expanded her way of thinking. Her mother was a convalescent nurse, and Boss herself worked as a geriatric physical therapist before coming into the world of words. Her principles are earthy and her aesthetics refined. She is naturally generous and kindhearted and exuberant in a carefree, almost childlike way. She is absolutely resplendent in form and spirit. A wonder to behold and a joy to know.

And yet she does not appreciate the beauty of the Republican or the Jewess. Admittedly, they do not apologize in even the slightest ways for who they are. But that is part of their beauty. By simply asking them, by the act of NOT taking their uncompromising natures at face value, they tell such inspirational stories about their humanity, and why they are the the way they are. Even I, a staunch liberal on the verge of socialistic proclivity who teeters in cynicism over our world of "democratic capitalism", speak to these women with awe over their practical moral ascendency.

Not to put them on too high a pedastal. Only to remark on how bizarre the view is from different perspectives, and how little one person can know about another when their minds are not open to them.

And so I've asked the Republican to lunch, and she in turn has invited me to attend GayBingo, a six-month long event she volunteers for.

The Jewess, on the other hand, I have invited to attend the seminars I teach. She laments her social and professional isolation, but very rarely finds value in the endeavours of others. She has proclaimed enthusiasm for the events, but yet has cancelled twice -- once citing grocery shopping and a trip to the dog park as taking precedence. But I will win her over yet. Perhaps with an invitation of a more personal nature. But still, I have a feeling that despite her protestations, her life is just full enough, but not too much, for her liking.

6:28 pm - 01.07.09
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