Tuesday, September 29, 2009

A Different Type of Prairie

for all of those of you out there who currently work/who have worked/who know someday the economic climate will force them to work in a call center, i have a couple things to say.

first: i feel your pain. the interminable length of time between each tick of the time clock on the lower right hand of your run down, slow as molasses computer

second: i also feel your denial: it is not forever. one day, we will stand up, throw off the chains (or long plastic black cords) which bind us and march out of the fluorescent abyss forever.

...

until then, i am sure you have had or will have an experience like this. the clock read somewhere between nine or ten p.m. the center was pretty much silent, only punctuated by the occasional "sir, please do not interrupt me" or the more occasional "what the #$S#!".

then the crash came. in the silence, it was loud. it was terrifying. it was exciting. but more importantly, it was something to look at. heads of various shapes and sizes and colors popped out of the cubicles like prairie dogs on the nebraska landscape.

"what was that?"
"is someone hurt?"
"do we get to go home?"

turns out the crash was just a large whiteboard that decided it was on its last leg (literally). my friend "k" and i looked at each other with a mixture of disappointment and dread. disappointment because it really was nothing to look at. dread because we had to then lower ourselves back into our cubicles, our dark and lonely holes of forced solitude.

happy tuesday. i love being employed.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Useless Knowledge

my mother was flipping through the channels tonight following the evening news. as a wheel of fortune advertisement skipped by, we had the following conversation:

me: ooh, look. vanna doesn't have to flip the letters anymore. remember when she did that?
mom: yes. you know, i think she got a divorce.
me: really? did she marry pat sajak?
mom: no.
me: that's his name, right?
mom: right.
me: what about the jeopardy guy?
mom: alex trebek.
me: why do you know this?
mom: *pause* um....
me: what is the name of tom cruise's daughter?
mom: suri
me: who is angelina jolie living with?
mom: brad pitt.
me: the name of their first kid?
mom: shiloh
me: what about the twins
mom: vivienne and....um....it has an x.

why do we know all these things? i am not sure why but i had to go to wikipedia to look up the name of that other twin.

knox. like the fort.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Typing


i was in a seventh grade typing class and by typing class, i really mean a chance for a group of twelve year old kids to mess around with the computers. however, this was the mid-1990's and of course back then, the computers consisted of a twelve inch screen throwing off the harsh glare of green black.

even to this day: why green and black?

we would prop up the assignment of the day: all the main keys for the left hand. the right hand. the bottom row, BOTH HANDS.

do not even get me to the anxiety which arose when we moved onto numbers. and punctuation. pressing that shift button at the same time as another key? new found panic.

but once the assignment was done, we would proudly strut up to the board and write our numbers per minute next to our name.

76. highest in the class. the teacher was sure i was just slamming down on random keys but no. nearly one hundred percent accuracy. i modestly credited the swiftness of my fingers to my many years of piano playing.

inside, i knew the real reason. i just wanted to play brickles. remember that game? a tiny ball bouncing up and down, knocking out two-dimensional bricks. the tiny beep-beep-beep was so reassuring, a tiny bridge which formed between all the students

just do not drop the ball.

Monday, September 7, 2009

the reasons why

the number of blogs littering cyberspace are so excessive, it took me four tries to find a blog name i could use. even more frustrating, the blog names already in use were last updated....wait for it....at least three years ago.

apparently they have not had any thoughts since then. such is the ten second attention span of the internet and its users.

this introductory rant begs the question: why create another rambling introspective dialogue, shove it out into the technological world, and then wait for people to read it? i had vowed never to have one of these online journals (what ever happened to the purple fuzzy diary with the tiny heart shaped key lock?).

but i noticed an interesting trend. can anyone really have a life created from one joyful blog post after another? i sure did not have one. thus, i felt compelled to write about a life that is not being in the best of times. or even the worst of times. or in any sort of time at all.

but do not be mistaken. this blog is not an attack on those out there who express their joy and love and every other happy, sugar coated emotion. however, if you feel an emotional toothache after reading about the surreal life everyone else seems to be living , here is a tonic to all that saccharin.

i hope this is reality. and that is why this sounds familiar.