Farewell, Alabaster Beauty

I have discovered today that the range of my cordless phone extends outside the office building. This means I can sun myself like a lizard and still take calls.

Begone, deathly nine~to~five office pallor! Hello, shades of off-white!

From fishbelly to tallow* ... Let analysis with the Lovibond Tintometer commence.

~ ~ ~

* You've got to admire a paint company with the guts to give its colours names like Drab, Mouse's Back and Dead Salmon; I'd be very tempted to pick some up just for that alone.

A Randomness of Significance

In your absence I find other forms of amusement.

I am absolutely tickled to know that one possible anagram of my name is Used Goat Harem; my second favourite has to be Durham Goatees. If I ever need to name a band, this will be the site to visit.

And thanks to Rob's Amazing Poem generator I can claim to have written:

Warning! Contains Poetry.

.

{1}* Near a great Buzz of death zilch.

If you feel your life still lacks a randomness of significance, then go scry the crystal bones of words as scattered by the many sites available through Algorithmic Text.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* It's just so terribly, terribly addictive; like a rat pressing the button for a reward, I find I can't stop at just "{1}"...

There are no less than, oh, let's say, maybe thirty... maybe more... Don't say I didn't warn you, and more than once, too.

They remind me of Richard Brautigan's poetry, which I enjoy; thus I am able to suspend my disbelief about their merit.

WARNING! Gargantuan serving of bad poetry.
The Surgeon General of the Bulwer~Lytton Society says:
Bad poetry may be toxic if ingested.

{2} a wee bit of road

Wolverines, Post~BigbuildingBaboom

When the bigbuildings went baboom, nearly two years ago now, I bought a current edition of The SAS Survival Handbook to help me stave off the panic; a decade earlier I'd skimmed through a copy, and at the time it seemed like quite a useful book. But instead of reassuring me, it bummed me out.

I was let down mostly by my own inordinate expectations; for one, I had to accept that were I in fact ever in the kind of survival situation which this Handbook addresses, I'd be ~~ well, currently, my favourite euphemism is, "in a state or condition inconsistent with life". This kind of stuff is best taught by first~hand experience, and I've bupkas.

Also, I think this Handbook is geared more towards temporary survival, i.e., dying slowly enough to gain time for your buddies to find you and take you back to civilization ~~ whereas what I'd been hoping for was a survival guide that told you how to survive once civilization becomes history.

You see, ever since the bigbuilding baboom, I'd been trying to figure out how my job skills could be applicable in a post~apocalyptic society; and I'd concluded none of my skills would be transferable. So, I'd've been much more reassured by, say, a book called, What Terror Colour Code Is Your Parachute? Economic Survival in a Post~Apocalyptic World. I think that was what I really wanted; and now I feel compelled to go write it.

But mostly, I was bummed because the part I'd liked best about the Handbook, the part I'd bought the book hoping to see, the part that had cheered me with its memory over the last decade, that part had been rewritten:

Now, I am reconstructing this from memory, as I have neither the earlier edition nor the current edition on hand; but as I recall, it went something like this:

There was, and still is, a chapter in the SAS Survival Handbook which deals with animals, both prey & predator ~~ their tracks, their habits, how best to kill/prepare/eat them, and, as an added bonus, the utilitarian applications of their leftovers.

Lions & tigers & bears, oh my ~~ No Problemo! But, in the copy I'd originally come across, right next to the entry title "Wolverine" there was a caveat written in big black bold lettering:

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO KILL
Even if you are armed!

... and it went on to discuss the complete and utter nastiness of wolverines.

Of course, the Handbook was probably targeted at your average survivalist who wouldn't be up to the standards kept by the SAS... still, it had always tickled me to imagine that a disciplined SAS type toting firepower was no match for a determined wolverine.

And it heartened me to think that, unlike so many humans, there was still one beast left on the planet who could not be tamed by the application of a gun.

So when I bought the current copy, the entry on Wolverines was the first thing I went looking for.

And it had been rewritten. The caveat was gone.

Okay, the entry did warn that one had to Proceed With Extreme Caution when intending to tango with a wolverine; and it was Not be attempted Unless you were armed.

But... {sigh} ...that. is just. not. the same.

.

Either guns have gotten better...

.

...or wolverines have gone soft.

.

Either way...

...there's not an animal left on the planet that can stand up to a gun. Not that I know of...

.

{utter hopelessness}

.

.

{coping mechanisms kick in}

.

.

{resigned shrug}

.

Ah, well...

A little less hope, a little more room for gallows humour.

If you'll please excuse me... I believe there's a book on Post~Apocalyptic Economics that I ought to be writing.

To Look Back

{Further to this post.}

It requires self-conviction for One of Noble Birth to sit One's Regal Self without looking behind Oneself for The Chair; self-conviction, and utter faith that the world will revolve around you in order to put a chair there.

It is that same self-conviction & utter faith which enables Boss to pull out of a parking spot without looking in The Rear View Mirror.

So clearly, the accident was the Other Person's fault*; after all, they must have seen Boss getting into the car, and they must have understood that Boss was going to pull out, and they must have known that if they were to pull up & park behind behind Boss' car that they would be hit. Why would they do that? says Boss, They must have wanted to have this accident.**

What makes this so very, very, very exasperating is that Boss had, just that very morning, bought off yet another fender~bender victim with a rather substantial cheque firmly affixed to a quit~claim form.

Given Boss' hell~for~leather driving style, it is a miracle ~ nay, it is incontrovertable proof of the existence of god ~ that no~one has yet been injured despite countless accidents; may such good luck (?) continue.

Should Boss happen to pass away, I said to Boyfriend, I hope that we aren't forced just to say only nice things in memoriam. I hope that in addition to a Wake, we have a Roast in which we tell all the stories about all the crazy things Boss has done; and I think if we're allowed to laugh, then we'll be able to cry, and mourn the loss of such a unique & strong~willed person.

Boss is late in to work this morning {later, that is, than usual}.

Hope everything is OK...

~ ~ ~

* The Other Person has threatened to sue ~~ not for money, but to have Boss' License to Drive revoked. I'm sure Boss would rather incur a massive financial haemorrhage than relinquish A License to Drive.

** And in the Land of Office there was a Great Din of Eye~Rolling & Forehead~Slapping, followed by a Great Buzz of Chin~Wagging.

A Rinse for Peter Cottontail

I used to get up early every morning just to brew four cups of chamomile tea.

When the tea was lukewarm, I'd rinse my hair with it.

A chamomile rinse, if applied faithfully for days on end, is supposed to bring out blonde highlights in your hair. It didn't leave me with blonde highlights.

But to this day, whenever I drink chamomile tea, I just can't help but think,

Mmmmm...

Bathwater.

Yum.

Non~event

There is a drive on the network that is "mine"; I can keep files there, in addition to the local hard drive.

Since The Incident, I don't use it much; instead, I keep most files on the local drive or on my desktop ~ not that it makes any actual difference whatsoever, mind, but it's symbolically proactive.

Today I tried to access the drive; it was not there.

}*erk*{

Called our SysAdmin to clarify whether this was now the new normal or just an accident; SysAdmin told me to log back on, and it would appear.

And so it did.

Unfinished Business

There is Someone with whom I have Unfinished Business.

It haunts me; it comes and goes from my uppermost thoughts, restlessly wandering from the forefront to the back of my mind and through all the chambers in~between; it hovers in the entranceways and exits, never fully manifesting in the physical world, never entirely forgotten for good.

My office has just hired That Someone's Doppelganger.

Curiously enough, the doppelganger is from a different ethnic background, yet there's an uncannily strong resemblance nonetheless... as if Synchronicity is reminding me that It has a whimsical sense of humour {as opposed to Its cousin, Fate, Who favours irony}.

More like as not, it's just my imagination playing tricks on me.*

But it still feels weird, in all senses of the word.

I find myself fooled into holding eye contact for just a wee bit too long than is proper with a stranger, expecting to see something there that I recognise, expecting to be returned a look of recognition.

While I am resigned that my unfinished business will remain unresolved, there are rare moments when I imagine that if it is not resolved in my lifetime then I myself may as a shade similarly continue to wander, seeking closure.**

Sigh. I'm just an old pack rat that can't let go of anything, including the emotional baggage leftover from relationships that have broken beyond repair.

Hope it doesn't ruin things between me & this new acquaintance.

~ ~ ~

* Have since submitted question of resemblance to independant experts for authentication; authentication failed, debunking doppleganger theory; received instead a diagnosis of post~traumatic stress syndrome.

** yes, a shade looking for closure, like those horrible old spring-loaded roll-down blinds which never stay put, especially in the dead of night; always the sufferers of startled contractions ending in a heart~stopping flapflapflap~banging, keenest yearnings for closure constantly thwarted by their own inner tensions. ;)

Positive Spin

{Yes, but how would you word it on a resume?}

A tornado has ripped through an industrial park here. Mercifully, no~one was killed; but there was a great deal of damage done to the buildings.

Imagine, I said to my boyfriend, imagine sitting in a job interview, being asked to explain why you left your last place of employment, and having to say to your prospective employer "it was destroyed by tornado." Would that not be regarded as a cataclysm of convenience?

Boyfriend said, you save all the newspaper clippings, present them at the interview, look your prospective employer squarely in the eye and say: "I survived a tornado; what can I do for you?"

unadroit

Was tempted today to call our crop of new employees "the new kids" but realized that phrase would oblige me to include the requisite finger~gun thumb~trigger shooting motion w/ the "gee-up" tongue~clicking & broad wink, and I knew I'd never be able to manage the co~ordination.

Pleased to make your acquaintance!

The problem with having a large dog in the office is their propensity for greeting strangers with a firm Doggie Handshake, i.e., snout in your crotch.

Whereas the tiny dog I was introduced to this morning only had enough altitude to reach me because I was friendly/unwitting enough to bend down to say hello, thus enabling him to stick his tongue firmly up my nose.

High~Brow Man! pretentious superhero, says:

Must maintain dignity... maintain, maintain, maintain...

Coffees: 2 {av.} Glasses of water: 0 {n.g.}

This came to me well~recommended.

Initially, I was doubtful ~~ books that have been turned into movies usually don't rate as Intellectually Forbidding on my internal Pretentious~o~meter, thus my Amazingly Incredible Biblio~Vision tends to overlook them.*

But I devoured nearly all of it in one night. The only reason I stopped was, well, it was getting very late, so late it was practically very early; plus, I wanted to savour the ending.

So thank~you. It was well enjoyed.

~

*because I am High~Brow Man! pretentious superhero: bane of pop culture villans everywhere; leaping to conclusions in a single bound; saving me from myself.

And they all lived...

I'm not sure what's a reward and what's a punishment anymore.

There was once a phylum of paperwork which, though not strictly of my kingdom, at one point fell to me to do.

But the person who once delegated such paperwork to me now has an assistant; and that assistant has reposessed all the relevant files.

That paperwork was hellish. And {occasionally, it can get so that} I'm really too busy {justifying why I ought not bother} to do it.

So I'm thrilled at the prospect of no longer having that responsibility.

Really. And I get extra file cabinet space out of the deal, too.

It is entirely appropriate, right, just and good that the assistant take over said work. It's {finally!} a step in the direction of a well~run office.

But I can't help but feel in that same step I've gotten a step further from Indispensible, and a step closer to Easily Replaceable, Like a Mass~Produced Spare Part.

*argh*

*snarf*

Good things happen & I can't be happy about them.

How can I manage to live happily~ever~after with an attitude like that?

Love, or A Unreasonable Facsimile

I'm being stalked by a fax machine.

Stop calling me!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There's a company that wants to do business with us. Our company has not been returning their calls.

Tell me if this is not a rather badly~disguised & painfully ill~advised threat:

I can call every hour. I have a team of sales staff, and they can call you all day.

It's the kind of poorly thought~out provocative statement that elicits the kind of response in which every word is thought about and measured carefully as it is being said:

I can't imagine how that would endear you to anyone.

{No, not terribly witty on my part; but he clearly did not have his wits about him either, so it was a fair match.}

At that point I got an indignant micro~lecture on how they are responsible for North American national security, the overall implication being: "If you're not with us then you're against us" and not returning calls could only be interpreted in one way.

The company claims to be working on behalf of the US Gov't, which indeed it may very well be; but still, having a gov't contract hardly gives you the right to threaten to harass companies into giving you their business.

Until martial law has is declared and you comandeer our business, until then, please be civilized and kindly permit us the priviledge of not returning your calls.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now every time I get called by a fax machine, I'll have to wonder whether it's one of theirs.

But... they're harassing us because they care, so... so I guess that makes it okay.

Cat Day

Why am I late to work in the mornings?

Because my thirteen~year~old kittycat will snag me as I pass, grab my hand with both paws, and snudge his face against it with wild abandon; much as a street urchin kisses the hand of the nobleman who has saved an entire extended family from the workhouse:

I owe you my life, I am crazed with gratitude, I love you beyond all comprehension. Love me. Now.

Because my thirteen~year~old kittycat jumps on my shoulders as soon as I am dressed; then, it's:

a sigh of release, full weight & maximum drape, kneading claws, purrrrrs purrrrrs purrrrrs, squinty~eyed wrinkly~nosed slack~jawed drool, the whole kit & caboodle of cuddleworks.*

Because my thirteen~year~old kittycat will park his beloved arse** in front of the door as I am leaving; and he will look up at me as if to say:

no, no, please, don't put me in solitary confinement, don't put me down in the hole, you are breaking my heart, how can you leave me after everything I've given you, the other cats mean less than nothing to me, what can I do to make you stay?***

It's the terrible, terrible guilt. That's why I'm late for work.

Some day, some day soon, I'm going to call into work and say:

I'm not taking a sick day. I'm not taking a personal day. I'm taking the day to be with my cat.

~ ~ ~

* also known as purrs & spurs {purrspurrspurrspurrspurrs}

*** that look which is known around here as Ne Me Kitty Paw.

My Pet Narrator

Speaking on the phone with customers always puts me in a light trance.

I interface with the public under rather limited parameters; so there are certain phrases which are necessarily and unthinkingly repeated; and over the years, those phrases have become chants which trigger a state of neural quiescence.

Yesterday, in the middle of a phone call, while my fore~brain was on autopilot doing its routine tasks, I had the sudden and distinct impression that a third~person narrator had raised its head in the back of my head.

And, after a few seconds of observation, the narrator said,

She's turning into her mother.

I think I'll name it Tacitus.

~ ~ ~

You see, I'd been told by Boss to slow down the rip~roaring speed at which I speak over the phone. A schism of dissonance was created between mindless habit and conscious effort; and that schism gave birth to two voices. The voice in which I spoke to clients ~

that very. same. slow. soothing. singsong. speaking. voice. with which. my mum. used. to read. me. to sleep.

~ and Tacitus.

~ ~ ~

Just so we're clear, I don't hear voices, and Tacitus is a literary device.

I don't know yet if Tacitus will develop into a recurring character of any kind.

But I hope it will be fun to play with.

Harbingers of Life, One; Omens of Death, Zilch.

I'm not inspired today.

I don't feel like being witty.

I don't even feel like griping about work. Or nattering about puttering about in my garden.

Maybe I should worry? Do I have a temperature? What's wrong with me?

It's the bad omens, maybe.

I.e., those things that writers put in movies or novels to increase the sense of foreboding and doom, so the characters don't actually have to say, hey... I have this inexplicable sense of foreboding and doom.

You know, those things that in life are just part of the scenery... until that little part of your brain, that little wrinkly bit which likes to make connections between things, starts threading together a narrative.*

Divining an omen is a sort of reversal of the If a tree falls in the forest situation: If something unusual happens, and I am there to see it, should I consider myself warned?

If an omen happens in my vicinity, and I don't notice it, does it still count?

~ ~ ~

On the weekend, I stood in an empty metro station at night and watched an out~of~service train go whizzing by. It was very eerie, and it totally creeped me out to see something normally so full of people so visibly devoid of human presence.

Yesterday, I saw in the gutter a crumpled & flattened cigarette package emblazoned with the brand name "Time". Am now half~expecting to see crumpled & flattened cigarette packages emblazoned with brand names "Life", "People" and "Martha Stuart Living".

And first thing this morning, the crow that has been loitering lately in our parking lot, that cheeky~as~you~please little bugger, that West~Nile~infected~mosquito~eating crow walked up to our front doors and looked at me as if he expected to be let in like any other biped.

The crow didn't have an electronic swipe key, so of course we didn't let him in.

Harbingers of Life, one; Omens of Death, zilch.

~ ~ ~

Death always sends a messenger.

If you haven't been forewarned of your immminent death, it's harder to be reconciled to your demise after the fact ~~ and those in denial about being dead are notoriously difficult souls to wrangle.

Not to mention the difficulty involved in keeping the Dead With Unfinished Business on their side of The Veil.

So it's just easier on everyone involved if notice is given. Metaphorical notice, you understand.

Because you can't spend all your life waiting for Death with your bags packed.

~ ~ ~

It's not even the inevitibility of death that worries me; it's the timing.

I'm sure my demise will come at the most irritatingly inopportune moment. The house will be a mess, I'll be behind in my paperwork, no~one will be able to cat~sit, even a pauper's funeral will be beyond my means and my skin will have some horrible eruption of acne that no mortician will be able to conceal.

So, really, Death could strike at any time.

~ ~ ~

And I'm having another one of those days at the office, too.

One of those days where I think, it could be worse. We could be working for the beef industry. In Toronto. Near a stagnant ditch.

One of those days.

~ ~ ~

Hey.

Don't let me bum you out.

Here, go visit The Institute of Official Cheer. Unpack your bags, stay a while.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* The James Burke gyrus, clearly marked on any reputable and up~to~date map of the brain.

The Electronic Noose

Call me paranoid, but working around here will to that to a person. I may very well be unconsciously succumbing to the temptation to exaggerate for effect.

But this little weirdness just started today; I only caught it by fluke.

I happened to open the printer status window, and noticed that extra copies of things are being printed when I send a print job. Two extra copies. Consistently.

When I go to the printer, only the copies I printed are there.

Later today, the Boss, in passing, made a comment on the paperwork I'd been working on.

Now, I do email copies of that paperwork when it's done; and since Boss is {apparently} BCC'd on everything, Boss could easily have seen the paperwork as an attached file. Easily. And the extra copies showing up in the printer status window could be some weird glitch. So I can't really jump to any conclusions from the premises I have so far.

Unless we accept the basic premise of Boss tightening the noose of control as a mathematical constant, represented by the symbol "noose"...

{dilly~dally} {shilly~shally} {willy~nilly}

Crossing off the days on the calendar at work, I notice that Saturday was a New Moon.

In some philosophies of farming, you can now sow new plantings and they will thrive as the moon waxes; that's sympathetic magic at work.

Mind you, it would have helped my garden more if I'd finished planted immediately after all danger of frost had passed.

Having dilly~dallied & shilly~shallied willy~nilly, I'm still teasing out the garden a month later.

I have barrels upon pots upon boxes of seedlings; I still have seeds that I'm trying to germinate.

The neighbors already have full~blown flower gardens, having bought pre~grown plants jump~started at the nursery.

It's as if their gardens have popped out of the earth fully developed like Athena from Zeus' thigh (or, from Zeus' forehead, depending on who you ask)*.

Never thought I would suffer from garden envy.

{to plants:} C'mon, guys, get stuck in! Go, go, go!

~ ~ ~

*Personally, I prefer thigh; forehead always makes me think of Athena as bursting out like some horribly over~ripe pimple. I'm sure the other gods would have nicknamed her Zit and ribbed her mercilessly about that. But all behind her back, of course. In hushed tones. Out of earshot. Having looked around very carefully first.