hope

it's a four letter word. it floats. it can be abandoned. (right-o, all ye entering pirates!)

we can hope for pleasant weather when planning an apple-picking day. however, all we really can do there is pack a slicker if mother nature chooses otherwise. we can hope to win the lottery, but you know the old saw about the guy when at the pearly gates, confessed never having bought a ticket, right?

it can be a comforting plush toy or the prickly porcupine we dare not touch. it can be the thing we refused, which is not the same as *hopelessness*, because that implies the previous existence of its opposite.

it can be the voice on the other end offering just that. it can be the thing it takes profound courage to accept.

the source

today somebody sent me some new amy winehouse. mostly, i like her, even if her sense of doomed sensationalism is trumping her talent. her drug- and booze-soaked escapades (and those skanky ballet slippers, sheesh) are getting all the attention, while she can't quite make it to the stage.

before the bulimia and the beehive really took over, she was wry, self-effacing and comfortable with herself. it's really funny:

f*** me pumps

hello!! "at least your breasts cost more than hers"! it's full of howlers.

so i got her new version of the classic "cupid". but, um, sam cooke and johnny nash got there way first. c'mon. she sounds like a cartoon of herself and the genre. maybe she was drunk? she certainly was trying too hard. cuz when you hear the sam, it's silk.

full disclosure: i have spent an inopportune hour trying to link sam cooke on youtube to my chicken feet. mother of god will not be implored to help. let's just leave it at how gorgeous we know the original mcdreamy sounded.

and how sometimes it's good to go back.

time suck redux

“People did not really talk about their work. They talked about their long weekends.”

a quote in today's ny times from france's new finance minister -- her impressions when she returned from some time spent working as a lawyer in chicago.

she and sarkozy are determined to ramp up the french economy and shake free the sloth-in-amber attitude of 35-hour work-weeks and long vacations by the seaside. a languid quality of life held as a birthright by most french. they excel at finding the muster to strike, however, lol, and today will be out in force against american-style encroachments on time spent in cafes or playing petanque.

i am on a 7-day a week tether to my job. constant e-mails and phone calls. (remember why i did NOT want a cellphone?) followed by snippy disapproval when i don't respond immediately. sometimes i'm in the shower or at the movies, ffs. i do not have 2 consecutive days off. it will be one year before i receive ONE WEEK of paid vacation. i shell out considerable cash each month for insurance.

she wants them to be more like us, and i want to be more like them. maybe i'd feel differently if i was watching my indoor lap pool being built. but, uh, not.

phooey.

words

powerful stuff.

i've been wooed by them. brought to tears by their sheer beauty. been made to laugh and challenged to see over a foggy hill. i like to think i have done the same for those in my life.

they can create misunderstandings, both small and profound. i confess i don't do *jobspeak* very well. please just say what you mean. i have run afoul of this more than once with colleagues and bosses, and in hindsight still don't appreciate the level of lotus-blossom sensitivity people bring to the shop each day. i have learned to preface with, "may i just be direct?", or mirror back, "am i understanding you as saying *x*?" but i rankle at and resent the extra effort. sigh. i have yet to find a salaried hermit position. 'nother thread, that. lol.

i have also been stunned by their power. i have been gagged and disemboweled, a useless husk, tossed down to the floor as by a titan. i have crashed into the wall of subterfuge. they taunt, they goad, they lie. they spin the room so fast to make you sick. they have been used as blunt weapons against me and one dear to me in what looks to be a war of attrition.

lucy's aunt and uncle climbed down from the canopy, wandered the savannah and over time, lil hairy hominids set up camp. for thousands of years, epics of victory and loss, the wonder of the skies and the honeyed stories of how we came to be were passed down. the spoken word leaves a trace only in memory.

with machines we now can speak and be heard even through another's absence. in the late hours, we hear the voice so long silent, and without control our water glass crashes to the floor.

yet remembering long-ago warnings of doom and feeling the squeeze of a not-so-rusty tinfoil hat, we look at something that fell from the ether and It Doesn't Read Right. wrong format; at best a rhetorical question, at worst a poke with a cruel stick. all i feel is uncertainty.

"i got the feeling that something ain't right...
clowns to left of me, jokers to the right,
stuck in the middle..." (intentional snip, dear readers...)

there are the three truths.

and there is what we want to believe.

maya's caged bird makes me terribly sad and cuts too close to bone. instead i begin my day with solitary emily:

"hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all."

:)

no surprise

he is getting divorced. it's no surprise to me and ultimately none to him either.

counseling, together and apart. books and late nights on-line. long emotional tirades about "what's wrong with you." trial separation. trial reconciliation. family meetings; in-laws and outlaws all with their 2 cents. friends and neighbors dumbstruck by lightning striking a golden couple. intellectually and philosophically such a good match. married when old enough to "know" the right thing when it came along. one would like to think.

"what really is best for the kids?" how much of a factor is personal contentment? happiness? validation from your spouse? when does her hurt finally end and the martyr robes come off?

yup. he did some shit things. yet in the last 15 months has tried mightily to set things to right. she cannot, will not put any of the past aside, nor will she accept the present and his mea culpa. his sincerely proffered "sorries" blow like dandelion fluffs in the wind of her unmitigated anger.

did she/he wake up one day and finally say, "enough"? was there a last straw or just an overdue admission of futility?

he swears he is fine. his writing feels better than in a very long time. he has moved out, and until coming east, saw the kids everyday. she is amicable and for neither is money an issue. he is hoping his visiting semester at yale turns into an offer to relocate from texas. lol, we both agree he's a much better fit into tweedy nerdy yale than trying to edumucate the barn-washers down there.

after dinner he asked me back to his hotel room. "no, i don't think so," rolled right off my tongue. his request came as no surprise, but my easy refusal did. the thread count at the ritz was a minor temptation, but i felt no desire for him. we have a long history of wanting the other at the *wrong* time.

i came home and took a long bath. it was good to see him. an excellent dinner with an old friend. sometimes it can be simple. i am grateful for that.

time suck

when i took this job, one consideration was my ability to get there. i moved back to the city to make my life easier. friends, cultural interests and *work* are all here. presumably anybody job-hunting factors in length of commute as part of the decision-making process.

during my initial forays for interviews i arrived easily and quickly. it lies on one of the more reliable lines that is less likely to be choked by students. so i took my local line off the island, made one transfer, read my book and it wasn't so bad at all.

cue to summer. construction. lots of it. shuttle buses. driven by union guys who had no idea how to get from here to there, having never driven the route. did the mbta even give them directions? did they just not bother to read them? although work was being done only between station f and r, or r and r, frequently, and with no warning or announcement, you were forced early off the train at station k and herded on another slow-moving bus that crawled through neighborhood traffic.

many weekends, "improvements" were being made on my local line, meaning now an initial bus ride. our infrastructure is collapsing, so a tunnel has been closed. this has meant a long and unscenic ride through more broke-down neighborhoods, out and away from our destination, over a bridge, circumnavigating our nexus in an unthinkable way.

who makes these routes? are the mbta honchos huddling over a ouija board and talking to the marquis de sade and the 3 stooges? "yeah, this'll hurt..." "nyuk, nyuk, nyuk." "why, i oughta..."

what should be a 6-minute ride to my connection can take an hour. factor in a bus on the other end, add on at least another 30 minutes. what should be a 45-minute trip, has often taken me more than 2 hours. yup. TWO HOURS. each way. pile that on to a 12- or 15 hour-day. yeah, that spells quality of life like little else.

last night i was traveling home late. 11:00-ish. got to my connection easily. no beer-soaked sox fans or throngs of drunken bc kids heading downtown to get drunker. yellow tape across the stairs: no train. upstairs to a bus. which traveled one stop. downstairs to the t. which traveled one stop. thank fucking god it at least brought me to the other side of the tunnel, so i could now walk home. the remaining brown people were shunted onto still another train, across the tracks to head further out.

i work a job i don't much enjoy. which pays barely enough to get by and certainly not enough to get ahead. with people whom i have nothing in common. i mentioned that on my day off this past weekend, i was going to see the new wes anderson movie and the new brad pitt movie (really stolen by casey affleck and augmented by a few craggy turns from sam shepard, but i digress.) i guess cuz there were no blue-screen special effects and no fart jokes in either, i was met only by blank stares. ffs, brad pitt. how could they be so unaware? yes, yes, it was a throwback to art-house 70s westerns, but still.

i never wanted to be a restaurant manager. ever. yet i dutifully took advice from somebody who'd never worked in the business. clenched tight the rcg's, believed him and thought i could make it better. feh.

lateral move this, out of financial duress. i put on a happy face though and don't complain. last time it took me 4 months to land a job. (at first i couldn't bear to look, while i repaired the inside compass.) so i'm starting to look now. pro-active.

my wset certificate is in the mail. passed with distinction, tyvm. however, what that buys in this city remains to be seen. we have yet to attain the sophistication where being a sommelier is much more than a hired monkey. the pay is terrible across the board. i buy for a company with combined sales of over $12 million, yet cannot afford cable tv. that shows respect, huh?

i know what i would *like* to do. who is out there who will pay me to do it? anybody? hello? anybody?

party pooper

balloons and ponies fell off my wish list a long time ago. for several years, i haven't been able to fete my friends, so stopped thinking they'd do it for me. except for that once, the gc decided it best to not acknowledge the day. (that *present* was beyond the scope of most; i've never discussed it.) last year i did spend it with some friends and despite my dark fragility, had a nice time. of course, the crazy aggrieved wife decided right then to take her martyr show on the road, so tossed me a lovely parting gift of shattering public humiliation. i'm sure she took rabid glee in ruining my day.

in fairness, lol, i wasn't forgotten and i did get some calls and cards today and had already decided to forgo dinner with the editor. he wanted to take me someplace nice (and i wouldn't have minded!) but tomorrow he leaves for spain on a trip i can't join and i just have to be out of here insanely early. it was a practical grown-up kinda decision -- you know, the kind i hate -- both skipping the trip and passing on tonight. tomorrow is a big day for me with the owner and i don't want to attempt it on too little sleep and too much wine.

it was a glorious fall day when i woke. my day *off*, i was anxious to get my work done and get outside. i'd been promised all the files by 10:00. by noon, still nothing, so had to cancel lunch with a friend. by 2:00, still nothing. i was fuming. i'd e-mailed and called several times already. finally arrived at 2:30. GAH! one is a mess and cannot be used. it takes the cow of a comptroller another 30 minutes to get me the proper file. day is basically over. i cannot make the appropriate arrangements with all my salespeople cuz it's too damn late so, more and unnecessary work tomorrow.

i rush through everything and run to the bank. it had just closed. i had planned a nice long walk, a movie and a quiet drink by myself. no, no and nope. not even enough cash to buy my t-pass, never mind wasting money on rides for fun.

instead i shop for dinner on the reduced produce rack and answer 7 calls from salespeople while i scope out the bin for deli ends. yeah. what a birfday and oh, the glamorous life of a corporate beverage director.

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my blog has been quiet this past month. frankly i'm sick of my own travails. i can't imagine the bore they must be to those unlucky enough to stumble in here. but there is a glimmer of light on the homefront and i'm already putting out feelers for a new job. mid-month i was badly blue and just wishing wishing for a different dynamic. yeah well, all those pennies in the well were money wasted. bootstraps, suck it up, all that. could be worse, right?

right?