Noon on Wednesday? Sure, We Can Start Drinking!
With ambivalence, I have to report that the situation at my workplace continues to deteriorate. Our office has turned into a daycare, as everyone with a daughter brings them in and we have arts and crafts strewn all over our breakroom and bullpen. Yesterday, they closed down our breakroom as they turned it into a makeshift screening room for Cinderella 3. The only way we can get these kids out of the office so we don’t have to hear them screaming, is to convince them to open a little stand on the first floor selling water balloons.
I was by the vending machine earlier today when my coworker brought what looked like a tallboy wrapped tightly in a plastic bag and discreetly slipped it into the back of our fridge. I looked over and he said, “Just hiding my beer.” I said, “Are you serious?” He said, “Dead serious.” I told him I was gonna open it and he said, “Just don’t drink it.” I know he’s joked before that he drinks 2 beers throughout the workday, but I never thought he was serious. Indeed, by mid-afternoon, I noticed the beer was gone.
I still have the little baggie of Xanax he gave me. He said it’s the only way to get through the workday and put up with our boss. I haven’t touched it, but sometimes I wonder…at what point does this place completely lose touch with reality?
Just days ago, I thought it was kind of funny. Now the state of my workplace is kind of freaking me out.
I think tomorrow I’m going to close my office door, and strip down to only my bra and underwear, then work that way until someone finds me. This office desperately needs a cry for help, and I am willing to be the one who makes that sacrafice.
I have been reluctant to bring in any of my writing to my writing class, including not coming to class for 3 weeks. I finally brought in the first 15 pages of my pilot and we did a round table read. As usual, I was listening just to the mistakes and things I wish were stronger, but the instructor said it was great and there were no changes he could think of.
And then I realized why I complain about him and don’t trust him as an instructor. He gives other people notes, but he has never really given me any. He keeps saying that my stuff is great. And I don’t trust that.
Sometimes I don’t understand things. Like not trusting my instructor, for example. Is it because it scares me to think that my writing might be good? Or am I afraid that, if he isn’t successful himself at recognizing good writing, then basically my writing is also mediocre. I think sometimes thoughts are too complex for me, and so I just ignore them.
My burning question of the week has been…is it really possible that people can maliciously manipulate others, just to get them to stay, even if they know that what they are doing can actually destroy these people’s lives? It’s hard for me to accept that people can willingly destroy people that they supposedly love.
I had this dream last week where I got mad at this guy from my writing class, like I finally blew my top and just yelled that I was going to kick his ass and chased him around this park. He tried to run back into my house and close the sliding door, but I got my hand in it and screamed that he wasn’t locking me out of my own fucking house, and to get the fuck out. I realized that I hate cowards.
The coolest thing I’ve been trying to teach my brother is courage. The hardest thing is restraint.
living a fulfilling creative life requires many things. a great love, comes to mind. a burning passion for understanding. a dire unfulfilled spiritual need. a secret drug habit. an unrecovered memory of tragic abuse. or even something small, like a sound or a smell or an image you just can’t get out of your mind. regardless of what you need, creativity is your life force and if you close it off, you suffocate everything within you that is truthful.
as i listen to the people around me, i am afraid of what they are communicating because sometimes i hear too much. so i distance myself, and say things that dictate the conversation in a distracting way. but sometimes i wonder what i would hear if i just listened, and wasn’t so afraid of hearing too much of the inner echoes of the people around me.
i heard a story today about a girl with low self-esteem who gives her body away in hopes that one day, someone will love her. i am convinced that she doesn’t know what love is. and the people who see this weakness in her are compelled to behave in the most cruel fashion possible, as if to punish her for her lack of awareness. i wonder what it is that she represents that terrifies and angers these people so much. maybe we hate weakness and desperation in others because we secretly loathe it in ourselves.
when i think about it, when a person goes through some pretty dark experiences in life, no matter how radiant their personality, the projection never changes the fact that their inner core is still a deeply guarded secret. and from the discipline of having to maintain and protect this secret, a person gains an aura of intensity.
does being around each other make us each more afraid of commitment? i think so.