balding angrily

So, yeah. I’m already sick of Gillespie.

I spent the last two days in small offices at small desks learning what makes me tick. Before I invest a lot of money in re-educating myself for a change in career, I wanted to spend some time and a smaller amount of money understanding my suitability to different professions. My worst fear is that I would spend 2-3 years in school and many thousands of dollars only to learn that I don’t like teaching…or whichever profession I choose.

This two-day experience was designed to learn my aptitudes - my inherent strengths, those things that, if used in my job, would give me a sense of worthiness. That’s the theory anyway.

Not that I doubt that theory. It’s just that it’s a theory, and one of the things I found out about myself is that I don’t do abstract analysis. In other words, ephemeral, non-structure-based concepts elude me. I excel at structural analysis. In other words, my bag is pulling apart concrete concepts based on things that can be seen and touched, 3D things. Not that I need to see something, but I can easily imagine a 3D, touchable, structured thing. I’ll get to why that pisses me off at the end.

Here are some highlights to the testing:

• I picked up tiny paper clip-sized pins from a tray and put them in small holes.
• I picked up the same pins and transferred them from one set of holes into another set of holes using a tweezer while a woman with a stopwatch observed, making me feel like a trained monkey.
• I arranged on a dry-erase board little hexagon tiles with words like “cow, milk, farm, eco-system, natural resource, wheat, grain” written on them while the same woman with a stopwatch observed. With my arms, bent at a simian angle, moving rapidly in front of me, and hunched over the dry-erase board, I looked like a trained monkey.
• I held a board with a tiny hole in it at arms-length and pulled it to my face while concentrating on another board held by the same woman with the stopwatch. Her board had an X on it, and I had to keep my eye on the center of the X while she held the board at different areas on her body. At one point she held the X over her crotch.
• I was given the question, “If you woke up one day to find that you didn’t have to ever sleep again and that neither did anyone else, what would you do with your time? What would you encourage other people to do?” I had to think up as many ideas as I could in a short amount of time. Since I was writing fast and coming up with ideas off the top of my head, one of my ideas was, “Wear pink underwear - the kind with little frills.” Then I got embarrassed and wrote, “Not because I’m a sicko or anything - just because, you know, I have all this time. Why not try something new?”

From these and other tests, the woman with the stopwatch determined that I excel at structural analysis, that I’m an excellent brainstormer, and that I catch on to patterns quickly.

She suggested that if I teach, I should teach higher education or prep school kids. She seemed to think that I would get very impatient in a classroom with children that didn’t get a concept fast enough. She said that I’d be great one-on-one with a kid that wasn’t getting a concept, but not a whole group of kids.

And I suck at moving pins from one set of holes to another set of holes. I can understand this - what with my fat, hairy fingers and all.

The list of possible professions in which I would use all my aptitudes was long, but this structural analysis thing seemed to be really important. Also, I need a combination of working by myself and with other people. And when I am doing something routine, my ideaphoria, or brainstorming, aptitude kicks in and my mind starts to wander. I’m a daydreamer.

Given all this and more, apparently I make a perfect architect. Fuck you, Stopwatch Lady.

Though Gillespie’s adventures so far pretty much follow what you know of what I think of my job, I should say that work has actually become much, much better. I’m working with a guy who I really like, and he’s done a great job of making me feel valuable.

It’s easy for me to imagine Gillespie’s dull drudgery of a day. Hell if I know how to turn it into anything engaging.

He felt the cartilage in his ankle, twisted under the opposite butt cheek, threaten to pop. With a hiss he straightened his legs and came up from beneath the desk where he was checking his cell phone charger. His phone had been acting wonky and the stickers were starting to peel from the hard plastic buttons. He wondered if he could slip out unnoticed and buy another cell phone.

He decided against it.

He stood, looked over his cube walls, turned around, looked at his plant, and sat down in his chair with the faded upholstery with a sigh. He passed the remaining hour in five-minute bits that stretched to busting in which he imagined the blood pumping through his brain catching on a fatty deposit and killing him. Or worse, paralyzing the left side of his face.

When the computer clock hit 4:55pm, he hit the Start-Shut Down button. Without waiting for it to complete its shut down, he walked purposefully to his car, mentally preparing himself for an evening with his parents.

The following is an experiment. I gave myself a title and then started writing what came to mind. I’m not sure if I’ll continue or not. I don’t have a story outline or any clue where it might go. These kinds of things are usually disastrous when read in one sitting, but they can be fun if read episodically as written.

*******************************************

Gillepsie heard the concerned question of the office manager, “Have you seen him at all today?”

He remained under his desk thinking, I could stay here. There’s only an hour left. Who would miss me? Dana might, but she’s always concerned. Greg might, but he’s at a meeting the rest of the day.

For the last month, Gillespie had been half-consciously trying to get fired. Between spending half-hours in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet with his head in his hands; walking to Starbuck’s via the newsstand via the pet store via the stationary store; lobbing under-the-breath insults at Greg, his account manager; stealing co-workers Lean Pockets and Push-Pops; having hour-long phone calls with his therapist in an open office where anyone could hear the details of his mostly masturbatory home-life; and wearing corduroy just-below-the-balls shorts on Casual Fridays, he knew/didn’t know that his time at PMK was limited.

Jen-An, Owen, Jerry and I went to Chicago last week. The highlight of my time in Chicago was fulfilling a lifelong dream of mine. Family Guy stole my dream and made it a parody, so you may already know where this is going. I wanted to sit in front of Georges Seurat’s masterwork at The Art Institute and listen to The Dream Academy.

In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I identified with Cameron. I never wanted to be Ferris. I wanted to be - and be with - Cameron. He wasn’t my first movie crush, but he was important. The scene where the camera switches between Cameron’s eyes and those of the little girl in Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte was powerful for 14-year old me. I understood the longing in that exchange.

A little later, I started exploring Sondheim and rented the PBS performance of Mandy Patinkin in Sunday in the Park with George. I didn’t know it was about Georges Seurat’s famous painting until the end of Act I or that it was a multi-Tony-nominated musical; I thought I was making a discovery. The story is about the character of Seurat who isolates himself in pursuit of his art. That’s what I got out of it anyway.

Again, there’s that theme of loneliness with this painting. As a lonely little fella, I connected with this painting.

It’s breath-taking in person, and I nearly cried sitting there looking at it. I feel like Seurat painted it just for me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like that scene is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was filmed just for me. Or that “Sunday,” the song from Sunday in the Park with George, was written just for me. Or that Seth MacFarlane and Co. wrote the parody in Family Guy just for me.

I’m sure that these things are loved by many, many, many people. How Eleanor Rigby of us.

There are real punch-lines in life, and unfortunately the punch-line of this story is this. I yelled at a stranger, “Because you’re fat and ugly!” I’m not proud of it. And it’s not funny. And it speaks volumes about my character.

Yesterday my sister, Jerry, and I had come back from a day of shopping and movie watching. She was obsessed with taking a picture of a stuffed monkey next to a placard outside our building. I was having none of it. I was feeling ornery, so I stood by the elevator watching the two of them fiddle. Then I was feeling strange and I put my hands at my waist like Superman. Then I was feeling extra strange and I put hands on my ribs like Superman if he were wearing an Empire waist.

While I was experimenting with my midsection, a guy came up behind me. I walked away because I was embarrassed by my heretofore private waist-play. I heard the guy let out a sigh and say in a passive-aggressive loud-whisper, “Jeez. Just standing there…” I ignored him and started walking toward my sister and Jerry. I reached the other side of the lobby and heard him say to our concierge, “I mean he was just standing there. And he didn’t push the button.”

Because there are few things that drive me more crazy than a passive-aggressive loud-whisper, I snapped. I turned back and yelled at him, “You have two able-bodied hands! You could have pushed the button!” (I have a theory that words crowd in the backs of mouths in repose. In times of stress, they flee out. Some words are pushy and quick, escaping before other words. Apparently able-bodied is one of those.)

He showed me what he could do with his two able-bodied hands by flipping me a double-bird. The guard and concierge standing near got closer to us, ready to break up a brawl. I noticed and thought, “I am toast if this guy jumps me.” I blundered, responding with something like, “Don’t show me those!” or, “Yes, I see your hand work!”

He got in the elevator, which came in time to alleviate us of more blundering. As he turned into the elevator, he lobbed back at me, “I would invite you up to help me with my stuff. But you’d probably just stand there!” The doors were closing, and I shot back, “I wouldn’t want to come up because you’re fat and ugly!”

********************************************************************

I was in M.U.N. in my freshman year of high school. M.U.N., Model United Nations, was our school’s version of a debate team. We pretended like we were delegates, made speeches, resolutions, and went to conferences. I hated it. I do not articulate under pressure.

Yesterday’s post got me thinking about multi-culturalism, and I remembered a story. Jerry will like this story because it makes him look like something other than stinky. He taught me something rather profound. It started with sushi.

Before I met Jerry I considered myself adventurous with food. I had tried and liked both Indian and Ethiopian food. But I never learned to like sushi. So Jerry talked me into sushi one night.

I didn’t dislike it on my first experience, but it was a distinctly different way of experiencing tastes. I grew up with a Cassarole Mama; I’m used to blended, saucy foods. I shared this with Jerry. I said, “This is just strange. Not bad. Just different. It’s like there’s all these distinct tastes in my mouth, and they’re not mixing like I’m used to. They’re staying next to each other, but not informing one another. Well, not informing one another in the way I’m used to.” I’m sure I wasn’t that articulate, but that was the jist.

Jerry said, “That’s the neat part of sushi. It’s kind of an Eastern philosophy of food.”

He continued. “I went to a presentation on multi-culturalism one time. The speaker had this broad, accented voice. And he said, ‘The problem with you Americans is your concept of multi-culturalism. Look at your metaphor. The Melting Pot. You think multi-culturalism is this pot where all these races get thrown in and mixed around until you’re this…this marmalade.’ And with ‘marmalade’ he dragged it out like marmil-laaahd. ‘Everything is the same, and the tastes are diluted until it tastes like I don’t know what.’”

Here I imagine this speaker to have the voice of Robert Guillaume from The Lion King and with “marmil-laaahd” he waved his hands with their jointed fingers in front of Jerry’s face like two Kabuki fans.

Still quoting the speaker, Jerry said, “‘Look at the Eastern philosophy of multi-culturalism. Look at the Yin-Yang. The white and the black, they stay distinct. They exist next to each other, but they do not mix. But they also do not exist apart.’”

“‘Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying separate but equal or that the races should be segregated. I’m saying, look at it like a mosaic. You have all these distinct colors, each brilliant on their own, and when they come together they make a sparkling thing.’”

I think about this whenever I think about issues of race. I also think about it whenever I eat sushi, which I now love. See, Jerry is very smart. And he’s a good teacher.

Now here’s a picture of him being a spastic dork in a hammock.

The teaser: Have you heard about the fire? No, not that one.

Monday, Jerry and I left our apartment together on our way to the underground garage. There are a pair of doors on our end of the hall that stay open with magnetic hold open devices. These magnets disengage in case of fire, allowing the doors to automatically close. This isolates our part of the building giving us a smoke-free escape. The doors do not lock closed, so they do not cut off our or anyone else’s hypothetical escape.

Balding Angrily: providing your fire and life safety lessons since 2006.

Our building is built in a very old part of town; some iteration of the building has been around since 1910. In the last 5 years they remodeled it for lofts. They did a spot-on job, but our electricity still has to travel through the ancient infrastructure that plagues this part of town. Consequently, we frequently have outages and surges and other creepy goings-on that cause our elevators to mysteriously stop working and our alarms to sound.

The first time we heard our fire alarm, we were sound asleep and we made our way sluggishly in the direction of the fire exit. After the fifth time, we just looked at the red box on the wall, asking each other, “Do you think we should do anything?” I held my shoes in my lazy-wristed hands and assumed a sneer until it went off.

I got way down the daisy-covered path on that one. Back to Monday. We came out of our apartment, and the double doors were closed. We hadn’t heard a fire alarm, so we assumed it was another one of those creepy instances of our building assuming a personality. As I reached to push open the door, Jerry jokingly said, “Wait! You’re supposed to feel the door first! Only after you know it’s safe are you supposed to open it!” I ignored him and went through; it was fine.

In the late afternoon, Owen called me at work and said, “Don’t worry. You’re place isn’t burnt down.” He tends to start off phone conversations with these kind of non-sequiters. If someone isn’t looking at me quizzically when the four of us are out, they’re looking at him quizzically; we share that tangerine-trees-and-marmalade-skies thought process of free association.

He explained that he was driving around our apartment and saw what the news termed a “column of smoke” near downtown. He checked to see it wasn’t our building and called me. Nice guy, right? Yeah, he is. Jen-An lucked out because she’s not half as nice.

After many hours I came home, and from our window you could see the warehouse that was on fire. It was still burning this morning, and I’m not convinced it’s out right now. In a sick way, I’m kind of sad that I can’t see the flames anymore. It was kind of fun to look out and shake my head at the thought of the smoke adding to Gore’s Gasses^TM.

Given that our electrical infrastructure is shoddy - given that Jerry and I are now immune to the alarm after so many false ones - given that the warehouses in our area are lighting up like Roman candles - given that our building is likely haunted - given that both Jerry and I have left the iron plugged in and on - given that we both get distracted by burly firemen - given all these things we are doomed to die of something fire related. And we don’t even have any kiddos to fight over our vast fortune when we do.

I wanted to conclude the Cols talk for the time being, even though she may come up in future stories.

She and Jerry had a running joke about her dad who passed away about a year or two before I met her. They always referred to him as “her/my dead daddy.” She never, ever got upset about this. She loved gallows humor or humor that crossed the boundaries of good taste. To give you an example, even though she was a practicing Catholic, she had a whole collection of sacrilegious nun dolls including a nun puppet with boxing gloves.

So we knew immediately after her death that she would approve of any laughter at the expense of her passing. Upon such a joke, someone in her huge group of left behind friends would say, “Cols is laughing her ass off right now.”

After four months, I wrote an email to Jerry to sell him on some architectural services. It was not sincere, as I was (as always) frustrated with my job. A little background: Jen-An is Jerry’s boss, and she had just moved out of her office. Jerry moved into it. This is my email to him:

I can’t talk to you right now unless it’s business related. As I have been made aware that I am lacking in my marketing abilities, I must ask you if the Human Resources Department of XYZ is looking for any interiors or architectural services.

Reliant Architects is a full-service architectural firm with an emphasis on the CLIENT. Say a head director in your department is moving to another office leaving her office to an undeserving underling. That undeserving underling will need to know how to use his new office effectively and efficiently.

We at Reliant Architects can and will meet your space planning needs.

Let’s suppose that there has been a recent tragic passing of a loved one. She will be greatly missed. She was an inspiration to all that met her. She has left a hole in the hearts of those closest to her.

She has also left a nice bit of office space for her department with which to contend. That valuable real estate, under the sensitive hands of Reliant Architects can be turned into USEFUL space for her department.

We at Reliant Architects understand your grief, and we also understand that there’s no use crying when a 10 x 15 area is up for grabs. We’ll get in there and turn it into something so spectacular that you’ll forget you even had a friend.

Reliant Architects IS Service.

Jerry forwarded the email to Jen-An; they laughed their asses off, and four years later, Jen-An sent it back to me. I had forgotten what exactly I’d written.

Apparently, Planet Unicorn isn’t the most original thing on the internet. I’m years late, but in case you haven’t seen it, here’s Charlie the Unicorn, by Jason Steele. Instead of three gay unicorns you get one apathetic and two very creepy unicorns. How did my site become the repository for all things unicorn?