Love you forever but you're driving me insane

I just ate the best slice of stuffed sausage pizza ever, because the sausage was in small bits and blended in with the marinara sauce on top. It was significantly less overwhelming than I sometimes find meat pizza. I actually thought I was getting a slice of cheese pizza and luckily I'm not vegetarian.

The office job has been a bit busier than usual, but most of the time I find the copious amounts of typing I do to be rather satisfying. My speed and accuracy have improved since being here, which is tremendously helpful when I'm writing my own words. It's like I'm working out and training my muscles for bigger and better things.

Speaking of this job, I've told this story to some people, but yesterday was "Staff Appreciation Day" f/k/a Administrative Assistants' Day f/k/a Secretaries' Day and the firm gave us all logo branded beach chairs. They have a pocket, and inside was sunscreen, a tin of M&Ms (also branded with the logo!!), and a gift certificate to an ice cream chain. I'm still weirded out by my adventures in corporate america. I think the branded individual candies (which were only in the firm logo colors, not a full rainbow set) sort of tipped the scale for me.

Today was "Bring Your Kids to Work Day" and my Cubicle-Mate brought her son, who is a hilarious bundle of 7 year old precociousness. CM was supposed to leave early with him, when the activities ended at 1pm, but the practice group was too busy so she had to stay and work, and her son had to hang out with her until 5. He had been sitting at my desk before I got there, and when I introduced myself, he immediately stuck his hand out to shake. He was pleased to see I was eating one of the leftover peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, just like him. And after I reclaimed my desk, he was prone to standing too close to me for no reason, that kid thing of absolutely no sense of personal space that I totally love. If an adult does that to me, I want to bark and bite them, but when kids do it, it makes me giggle.

It reminded me of when I got on the plane to L.A. a couple weeks ago and sat next to some toddler, probably 2 1/2, and he looked up at me, sort of in awe. I smiled and said hi, then he turned to his mom and said "he's a BIG MAN." The mother was mortified and started to apologize, but I just laughed and said, "I'll take that as a compliment." I mean, I'm 5'9" in boots. I'm barely gay-tall. I don't really tower over people and therefore don't really get called 'big' very often, so hey, I'll take it.

Shouldn't you be using a typewriter?

I was waiting for the train tonight, out of breath because I was foolish and thought I could catch one at the next station (the underground tunnels are deceptive about space, and I always think 4 blocks is maybe 2), reading a magazine with my headphone plugged in. Typical plugged into myself, in the bubble, moving through the world. This white guy comes up next to me and he's carrying a cooler (which is one sign of the urban laborer) and after a minute or two, I hear him saying "excuse me, excuse me" and a small wave of the hand.

I look at him and he says "1350 North Lake Shore Drive?"

I raise an eyebrow. He repeats himself and gestures at my chest. I think he means the magazine, that he saw the address label, and I'm about to explain, no, my friend passed it off to me, its not my subscription. Except, my friend doesn't live on Lake Shore Drive.

He points at my jacket. "It says 1350-60. Do you work at 1350 North Lake Shore?"

"Oh! No. I inherited this jacket." It's a brown work coat with a patch that says Willie on the other side.

"Oh."

"Yeah, I have no idea where it's from."

"I used to work there. I did elevators at 1350."

I nodded and went back to reading my magazine. A few seconds later the train pulled up and I got on and he didn't. The train was a little crowded, but not terribly. He just decided to wait for the next one. And I immediately felt sad that I ignored him. Because he finally explained the mystery of my "Willie" jacket. My initial reaction when being interrupted in my bubble is to resist, deflect, avoid. But I'm not completely opposed to conversations with strangers either and I have a little regret that I didn't take the risk. So I ended up stuck alone standing on a trains surrounded by art school kids chattering, when I could have learned about working at 1350-60. I mean, something more interesting than what I found here.

I did, however, get to read this article which is something I've been thinking lots about lately, with my "Three Week Challenge" and just other campaigns to make office work-life tolerable and being constructive and creative and whatnot. And some of them are limiting computer time (which is partly why I started doing puzzles at work, because that's staring at paper, not screens), writing more by hand, and forbidding e-mail/internet during certain computer writing times. This all sounds basic and it is, but it has all these unexpected effects that aren't just about 'productivity' but about general quality of life and health too, and even enjoying the challenges it brings at times. I don't know, it's the same reason I didn't wear a coat yesterday. What's wrong with sometimes being cold? Or hot? Why do we always have to change what we're experiencing?

Ok, I'm getting all spiritual. Also, I read this fact on my page a day calendar that said doing e-mail too much makes you dumber, negatively effecting one's ability to problem-solve more than someone "on cannibus". Forget gmail, let's get high.


( Oh, and here's the short piece if you're interested. )