A moment of non-political correctness

My dream is to one day speak to a Floridan under 70 who doesn't have a Cuban accent.

I want to work Freelance

I think, ultimately, that's what it comes down to. I know for a fact that I can better manage a workflow than the people I work for now, and I would be able to set my own system, without having to compromise for the people who have been doing things "the way they're done" for the last 15 years. I think it'd give me a genuine edge on corporations which have been operating under the status quo. I have no desire to run my own business, the risk is just way too high.

I guess the concept isn't new. Something like 60% of Americans say they want to be their own boss. But I think most people just say it because they don't want anybody holding them accountable. I think a lot of people just believe that "being your own boss" means you can get up at 10:30, start working sometime around lunch, and call it a day once you're bored a couple hours later.

Besides which, people don't "start" working freelance. People work for a stodgy corporation for 20 years and then go out on their own, taking the corporation's leads with them.

Anyway. Just thinking out loud.

I, Portlander

Every June, I remember when I first lived in Portland (I moved here in late May). I remember how all the buildings looked the same, how there were so many people on the streets. I didn't have a job, so I would just wander around downtown looking at stores. I remember thinking how many backlit signs there were on the sides of the buildings. I remember standing in the South Park Blocks with my best friend at 11:00 am, thinking surely there had to be somewhere to eat late at night in Portland, unaware that the night scene was all in Old Town, a mile north of the black street where we stood. I remember the horribly humid 100 degree heat, and how the sun was so prevalent that nothing cast a shadow. I would take my laptop to Starbucks and watch people go by, while I would chat with my old friends online, telling them what it was like to live in a real city. I remember dating models. I remember eating alone in restaurants. I remember spending entire weeks playing SimCity. I remember writing in my journal every night, really introspective stuff. I remember writing these exact words: "I have no job, I have no friends, I have no future, yet my worst day in Portland is better than my best days back home." Then I remember the first time I caused confusion, talking with an old friend from high school, when I told him I was homesick, but by "home" I meant Portland.

Happy fifth anniversary, me.

Why I fail in 5 words or less

Here it is:

I have to be challenged.

It says so right in my student evaluation from 1996. I have spent weeks without rest grinding out a screenplay that I have no intention to sell. I have practiced half an hour a night for the last three weeks singing a song that I will most likely never perform in public. I have written dissertations which will never be published. I've taken the LSAT three times, but never for a grade, and I'll probably never take it.

Yet I never got straight A's in school. I've never been a manager at a job. I've never been paid to write. When I was in a band, I never memorized my own lyrics (yet I can still write every word of entire albums from that time period). Even now, I'm in a play in three weeks, and I never practice my lines. There's no challenge in it.

Suppose I do become the top performer at work. What's in it for me? A raise? Big deal. I can't get promoted from my current position, and my work might be recognized, but it won't make any difference to anyone else, and I don't really feel a pressing need to help the company I work for. Suppose I did go take the LSAT, and got top score, maybe even a scholarship. I still can't afford law school, not without a free ride, and I will never be a rich lawyer– I want a family, and lawyers don't get those. The list goes on.

Now, here's the thing. I will always fail, professionally. This is because you're never hired for a position that challenges you. Look in the paper. If you want to be a contract analyst, you must have 6 years experience with contracts. If you want to be a corporate manager, you must have an MBA and a good background. If you want to be a professional writer, you have to have been writing for so long for free that you can spit out a 600 word op-ed in your sleep. The only prerequisite that all jobs have in common is this: they cannot be challenging to you. If you want to be CEO of a company, maybe you can someday, but you have to wait until you've been a top level manager for so long that you have every eventuality of corporate politics memorized. Christ, people are saying that Obama's not electable as President because he's only been a Senator for four years. Probably the most challenging job on the planet, and we won't put someone in office until they're completely numb to the possible challenges they face, even after we've had to deal with eight years of a nepotized dipshit of the system. Clinton said it herself in her 3:00am advertisement.

The only way I will ever be good at a job is if someone can make a mistake in the hiring process and hire me when they shouldn't have. Suddenly, I will be alive, inspired, focused. I will be the greatest thing to happen to them. All because I'm not qualified to do the job. 

Lay Off My Wife

As is the case with us all, I have a certain quantity of friends and family who seem to enjoy telling me what to do. Some of it is arrogance on their part, some of it is condescension, some of it is meant as honest advice. The particular flavor of advice I'm talking about here, though, is the kind where they just take it as a given that they are the wise, all-knowing ones, handing down life lessons to the unstable wild card kid. I can give you examples:

My co-worker, who is lower in the company than me, is drowning and debt, and constantly provokes the ire of his coworkers in a job he hates, regularly gives me advice on how to do my job, how I should take care of my expenses, and how to get along better with my coworkers.

My friend, who flunked out of college twice before scraping together a degree, and took a job in the bad part of town while living next to an escaped felon who the cops won't pick up because they don't really care who lives in his neighborhood, so he has to sleep with a gun at his door, gives me advice on working hard to succeed and making the right choices in life.

My relative, who is incredibly irritable, has a reputation for being abrasive, and is one of the most closed-minded people I've ever met, gives me advice on how to be popular and loved by people and talks down to me for being difficult and reactionary.

You can always tell the difference between people giving advice and people telling you what to do by how they react when you disagree. People giving you advice will either shrug, or concede the point, or alter their advice to fit your concerns. When you disagree with people telling you what to do, they repeat the same thing again, with an addendum that pooh-poohs what ever genuine concern you might have expressed. If they can't come up with some reason why you're just being naive and combatative, they just huff and say, "well, if you didn't want my 'advice,' you shouldn't have asked." Usually, I didn't ask.

Which is fine. I've met people before. I know how people work. Recently, however, they've pulled a new trick which genuinely pisses me off. Any time I try to rebuke their telling me what to do, or even question an aspect of it, they actually try (and I'm not kidding on this, several people have done this) to tell me that the advice is coming from my fiancee. These are people who have never even MET her.

Perhaps the advice is that I should put aside my money into a savings account. I respond that it makes more sense to pay off my credit cards, because the interest rate is 10x as high as the interest I would make by keeping the money. Their reply is, "well, I think your wife might like to know that you guys have a nest egg."

If the advice is that I should just bare down and keep my shitty job instead of trying to start a respectable career, and I point out that I'm at the glass ceiling in my shitty job, and it doesn't even use my skill set, their reply is, "well, what would your wife think about you planning on quitting your job?"

If the advice is even pertinent to my fiancee... for example, saying that we should spend $6000 on a big wedding in a nice church, and I reply that my fiancee is really shy and she would prefer a small wedding among family, they reply, "well, of course she'll say that to you, because she's trying to be supportive, but I'm sure that's not what she really wants."

Who the fuck do you people think you are? How dare you use the woman I love as a tool, a pawn for your own egotistical fucking needs. You know what? My fiancee wants me to pay off my debt. She wants me to find a new job. She INSISTS that we have a small wedding, even though I want something a little bigger and more involved. What if I were to start making judgements about your wife, based purely on my own selfish views? "Hey, you wanna go see this concert on Friday?" "No, I should stay home and put in some face time at home." "Well, I bet your wife would like to get you out of the house so she can go find someone who can appreciate her. After all, you only appear to see women as frail, nervous housewives from the fifties who just want a white wedding and bazillion children. In the meantime, your wife would probably like someone who has intelligent conversations with her, talks dirty to her, and... oh, I don't know, treats her like a human fucking being."

I'm not going to tell these people to respect their wives, though, because I'm not a presumptuous fucking prick. I stay out of their personal lives.

Lee Bucks

So, every once in a while, the VP asks a challenging question in a meeting. Whoever answers the question right gets a dollar—or as they call them, "Lee Bucks." I've gotten two right and spent the two bucks. My supervisor was appalled; evidently, every single member of the management team has their "Lee Bucks" pinned to their cubicle wall like a trophy. I defended myself by saying, "well, you guys make more money than me; I need every dollar I can get." At which point my supervisor blushes a little bit and turns to look at her computer and mumbles, "don't... presume you make less money than me if you don't know..."

On a related note, she only has two Lee Bucks posted to her wall. She has a meeting with him two or three times a week. I have a meeting with him once every three or four months. I also have earned two Lee Bucks.

Also, I just started here last November.

I'm thinking of breaking a twenty and putting a fan of singles on my cubicle wall.

A goal I can sink my teeth into

I struggle at work to get an acceptable "accuracy rating"— not because I'm inaccurate, but because nobody here does anything whatsoever unless they are specifically asked to in direct, written documentation, and have received explicit permission to do so. Consequently, any time I do anything because that's what one of my clients want, or as a preventative measure to prevent future problems from occurring, or in an effort to better document or serve the company, it comes up on some report as a deviation from the prescribed process, and they deduct my "mistake" from my "accuracy report." The single thing, then, preventing me from receiving a raise, is the fact that my accuracy rating is at 92% when it has to be at least 98%.

Here, then, is my goal to myself– something that I can personally invest into for the purposes of a greater gain. I will aspire to reach a perfect rating, with high productivity numbers, and to completely stop helping anyone in any way. My clients will notice—many of them comment daily on how I'm the best person they've ever worked with, and they can't believe what a pleasure it is—but I can just flat out tell them that it's something I'm not allowed to do anymore. I'm just a processor. I'm going to quit this place anyway, so they're going to lose me either way.

Then, when I find a new job, I'll quit, just as my numbers hit acceptable levels for a raise.

In the exit interview, my boss will inevitably ask, "your numbers went way up at the end there. What did you do to fix the problems you were having?" At which point I will reply, "I just stopped caring. Since I was already on my way out, I just stopped helping the team and sat at my desk waiting for five o'clock to roll around, and my numbers just shot through the roof. Hey, did you get that puppy you were talking about at my last review?"

She's not bright enough to make the connection, but fuck her. She's the one who only understands arbitrary statistics pulled from computerized reports. What a twat.

I should never read the internet

I bring this particular review up for two reasons: 1) because I read reviews like this online ALL THE TIME, for movies, games, anything, though 2) I rarely read a review as transparently ignorant as this one. I won't say what this is for, but I will say that it's for a documentary which is regarded by many people to be a classic, one that is regularly watched by people in huge parties, considered one of the most informative but still incredibly entertaining movies ever to be produced, and no, it's not An Inconvenient Truth.

I will also point out that at the time of this writing, the average rating for this film on iTunes is four out of five stars, and despite seeing several people writing glowing praise for this movie, somebody wrote the following (I'll dissect it as I go):

I watched this film with two other people. We simply did not laugh once. I left this movie actually angry.

I don't take any offense so far. I just kind of feel sorry for the people who flat out didn't get it.

It's not a film for starters, it's a documentary...

Fine, that shows a certain bias, which is fair.

There are no characters in the movie, virtually no editing or score or production value of any kind.

Now I'm starting to just get depressed that someone actually wrote this. As far as I can tell, people like this think that if they know big words like "editing" and "production," they're obviously a reputable source whose opinion is worthy. At that level of flooring dipshittidy, they must believe that other people will just get magically fooled, and not know what exactly a DOCUMENTARY IS.

I try not to be too hard on people like this, though, since it's usually just some junior high kid. Remember, all people are equals on the internet. Since you have to take 9th grade remedial English (like I did) before you can really enjoy some of the nuances of high film, I let it slide; it's probably a seventh grade kid.

I rank it as the worst movie I've seen as an adult.

Oh.

I wish people who made movies were held responsible for the crap the same way car makers, etc. are... they would never put this out if they were.

NOW we're really getting the realm of pissing me the fuck off. I'll feel sorry for someone until the cows come home and still get some sleep, but these kind of ignorant fuckheads are the same people hating assholes who say horrible shit like "one man/one woman" or "no reverese discrimination" or "Hillary '08," and there's a high enough quantity of them that they cause actual damage to society.

Fuck that, they're the downfall of society. I very rarely talk to people like this in person, since they don't show their faces in public too often (for fear of accidentally learning something or thinking while walking down a public street), and instead tend to coagulate in churches at the end of town or at some protest in front of some store who happens to disagree with them on something, vehemently stating that anyone who is even mildly different from them should be muted, imprisoned, or shot. These are the people for whom I would feel no remorse if I punched them repeatedly in the face... I know that they would learn nothing from the experience, but it would feel really really good, and I know that they would use it as fodder for what's wrong with the world, and since they're already the maximum level of intolerance allowable by a human brain, there's no way that my beating the living fuck out of these... God Damnit, I've run out of swear words to describe these people. Well, let's see if they have anything else to say that will piss me off more:

If you think that this kind of thing is funny than by all means buy this video because you'll love it but don't waste your time and money until you're sure.

AAAAAARARGH!!!! I read a very similar review about a really soulful CD I bought once: "If you want to listen about some guy shooting himself than go ahead but I say it's a waste of money."

How nice of you, you worthless fucking piece of shit detriment to everything that is good and useful in this world. You're giving me permission. To buy this movie. Thank you so much, I didn't think I was going to be able to buy it but since you, the purveyor of knowledge, have given me the opportunity to make my own mistakes, I might take that jump. See, what I like about that is that it shows how open you are to other people having differing tastes. Oh, except for that part where YOU JUST FUCKING SAID THAT THE FILMMAKERS SHOULD "BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE" FOR MAKING THE MOVIE, YOU HORRIBLE HORRIBLE ASS.

At least you and I have one thing in common. You want everything that you don't understand to be removed from existence, so that you never have to think, learn, experience, or know anything. We can just run around hitting each other and jerking off in bushes until our entire species dies out because nobody is out growing food for us and rather than learning how to feed ourselves we all starve to death. What a utopia. If only the world was the way you think it should be.

But like I said, we're not completely different, you and me. Because I sure as fuck don't understand how, in this day and age, there could possibly be people like you. And I really can't see how we could lose that much in our society if everyone who is "in their adult life" that thinks a movie which is openly loved by millions would "never [be put] out" if the filmmakers "were held responsible" for making it got a bullet in their fucking head.

I guess we all have a little intolerance in us, don't we?

Progress Report

My apartment is not clean, but it is cleaner than it was Friday. On Friday, it was cleaner than it had been Thursday. I think that's a smarter way to go. It's like how the gyms get packed every January– all those people, resolving to make a change. But they can change overnight, and then, after a couple weeks, they miss a workout. Then another. Then they figure, I failed, might as well give up.

I'm fucking tired of giving up. So I'm not going to burn myself out, but I'm not going to allow myself to quit. For once. But if I can just get a little farther each day, I'll be a little closer to my goal. So I picked up the front room, cleaned off the bathroom floor, and folded most of my clothes. No one room is clean, but I'm getting there.

I emailed the director of the play I'm in and told him I wasn't going to play guitar in the show. It's not giving up– I didn't want to do it in the first place. But, he asked me, and I seem to have this belief that the more you say you can do, the more successful you are. That's how I got into so much trouble at work, I now realize– every day I wanted to take on more and more, in an effort to somehow prove something. As a result, I overwhelmed myself.

Work, too, is getting better. In rare form, my mother actually offered me some useful input: she pointed out that I should feel perfectly comfortable with lower productivity than my colleagues. Management clearly recognizes that I have some skills which my co-workers lack; I should feel confident in saying to management, "I didn't close as many cases as the others, because I was busy doing all those other things I do." Keep my desk caught up, then just focus on doing what I'm good at. If they ask why my numbers are lower, that's my answer.

I'm terrible at the piano. I never learned how to read music, I never got technically proficient, and I'm awful with music history. Occasionally, I'll really make an effort to learn a song (particularly if it's one of my own; yes, I'm so bad at piano I cannot play song which I myself have written). When I make that effort, something strange can happen- suddenly, my fingers will just start playing the song. My brain takes no part in the action- I can actually look down and see these fingers playing, but they sure aren't mine. They just... play. If I get pushed out of that zone, I can't replicate it. I can't just sit down and start playing the song again.

That's my goal. It's against my nature to be clean, to be productive, to just do what I'm good at and not to try and fool people into believing I can do something else. But if I just start doing it, whether I like it or not, if I just stop trying to force things, I really believe I can get into a zone. I really do think that I can get to a point where, after I finish my dinner, my body will eventually just go over to the kitchen, clean the dishes, put everything away, and pick up the kitchen, without checking with me to see if that's what I want to do. I will just get into this routine at work where I do my fucking job when I come in, and by the afternoon I have a clean desk and I can focus on doing all those things that only I can do.

When I wake up tomorrow morning, my apartment is still going to be dirty, my job is still going to suck, and my guitar will be in its case in the closet. I have to tell myself that's okay- I'll just need to keep on it tomorrow, and hopefully Tuesday, my apartment will be a little cleaner, my work will be a little better, and control of my life will be a little closer.

Epilogue to the Primaries

For all the animosity I have towards Hillary Clinton, it's nothing like the animosity I have towards the man-hating fringe of the feminist movement for doing everything in their power to use this as an opportunity to attack mankind for not blindly handing them the Presidency. Rather than taking the common logic approach of building on the progress they've made this year, they're throwing a temper tantrum, petitioning for people to help John McCain win, to punish our country (and the entire world) for not handing over the most powerful office in the world, claiming that it was pure unbridled sexism which denied them their go-given right to put the most intolerant, reactionary, childish nominee that they could have possibly chosen into the Oval Office.

As a working class atheist Northwesterner who has a history of drug use, approves of gay marriage, and is marrying a foreigner, I don't shed a tear for the fact that a woman is being denied the Presidency. You know why? They can run someone else in 2016. I will never—never—be represented in the White House. There will never be anyone anything like me as President of this country. But if these radical feminists somehow muster enough people to sabotage the entire country in November, I guarantee you I will die without ever having seen a woman President either.

A different Friday

There are greater conflicts that come from my job– most obviously, that it's a gross mismatch with my personality and, as they say, "professional skill set." There are also a plethora of minutia that make my job frustrating. My peers are thirty years older than me. The company allows for training, but does not let you reduce your workload to make time. We are expected to work overtime when they want to unrealistically increase the quantity of workload, but we are not allowed to work overtime when we want to improve the quality. I have been asking for some basic office supplies for six months and still haven't gotten them– basic things, like a filing wallet, windowed envelopes, and a three-hole punch. The rationale is that since most of my coworkers don't use hole punches, there must not be a business need (my coworker Deb, for instance, has a large box in her cubicle, where she has a big pile of her pending cases, unsorted, no folders, held together with binder clips). In other words, they want us to mimic whoever in the office has the least efficient, least organized, most incompetent methodology.

But there is a certain tangible benefit to having a processing job– any moron can do it. It's not like I have a job classifying water samples or helping kids with autism, where I'd be completely lost and about six years behind of where I'd need to be. I just type shit into a computer and it shows up on the other end. As a matter of fact, they've created rudimentary computer programs—open source, even—that could do my job adequately. Fortunately, my company is hovering at around 1996-level technology. Their goal is to have 25% of their customers using an online system by the end of 2009, and even at that, the "online system" is a dummy system; it can't actually read the information that's coming in. So, in short, everyone where I work has absolute job security until at least the end of next year.

Which was why I was so intrigued by the conversation I overheard from the cube next to mine. My coworker Katy was just typing away, type type type, when her boss came over and said "okay, it's one o'clock." This piqued my attention, because this boss (also my boss) hasn't remembered an appointment once in the eight months I've worked there. Even when I'm sitting at her desk with a stack of documents to review, she's just as likely to interrupt to tell me she wants a new puppy as she is to actually address my work questions (true example). In short, she's a fucking eight year-old. Which is nice for me because I can manipulate the hell out of her, but makes it all the more surprising that she's actually being, well, bossy to one of my peers.

But get this– my coworker then says, "hold on, I'm checking my personal emails." My boss replies, "we agreed that you would have everything done by one o'clock, now it's time for you to go."

"I don't want you scrubbing through my personal emails," she says. "We're just going to erase the hard drive," my boss replies. "Nobody will read your emails. It's time to go."

"Just let me finish this," my co-worker says. My boss replies, "no, your time is up. Please stand up and step away from your computer." My co-worker keeps working on her computer. "Stand up and step away from the computer, now."

"Well, let me grab my things," my co-worker says. "Do I get a box, or do I just have to carry them?"

"We will have your personal affects mailed to you. Don't worry about those, it's time for you to go."

"I don't have that many things, anyway," she says, and starts grabbing things with her arms.

"Okay, we've given you plenty of time," my boss says, and with that, a security guard approaches and firmly grabs the employee's arm, and she is guided out to the elevator lobby.

A "short meeting" (hour and a half, and I'm still trying to get caught up after my training class) is called to announce that Katy is no longer with the company. That makes three employees in two months that have left and aren't coming back. One transferred, but it appears that the other two were assuaged to leave (one was coaxed into retirement, and now Katy was shit-canned). I think all three of them were positive losses. In fact, I could think of a few more that could be sifted out, who won't be. But then again, I've got my review soon. I have the worst accuracy rating of anyone in our department. I have the worst turnaround time of anyone in our department. I've taken more management training than any of our managers, I have more schooling than anyone in our entire business unit, I have actually gotten in trouble because so many people call me for information or advice from other departments that I've been accused of undermining my peers (for you see, expertise is a demerit where I work), and I have clients who absolutely love me and openly say so, leading management to believe I spend too much time making our customers happy and not enough time doing paperwork.

But I still need this job, and obviously, the job security isn't nearly as high as I thought it was. My weaknesses show up as obvious weaknesses. My strengths show up as obvious weaknesses. Why do I have any reason to believe that I will still be allowed to work here, once they're back up to full staffing?

After our meeting, I went back to my co-worker's desk to see what was left. While we were in the meeting, her cube had been entirely cleared out. When I left for lunch, she was there working, just like any other day. An hour before I went home, all that was left was a stack of folders, a few office supplies, and an ergonomic keyboard. So, I took a second to say a silent goodbye. I thought about how her being fired affected me. Then, I stole her hole punch, file wallet, and envelopes, and went back to work.

Last Lap

As of today, exactly 6 months remain until the wedding!

I've had it

While sitting at my desk today and typing addresses into a computer, I pulled out my iPod as usual. I usually listen to "upbeat mix," for obvious reasons– so much so that I'm starting to get sick of the songs on it. Some of the lists are pretty generic: "singles mix," "on-the-go," "running music," "soft mix." So, really, any of them are a safe bet; if it's anything other than upbeat, I know I'll probably hear something I haven't heard in a while.

So, I put on "killer mix." This is one I actually only listen to on special occasions– the mix of songs that provoke a tangible emotion out of me, every one. So it's not usually what I listen to when I'm trying to do some medial work tasks. But you know what, fuck it. I've got a review coming up where my boss is going to tell me I'm a poor performer. I have supervisors from other departments sending barbed emails about me because they're convinced I'm spying on their department. Let me say that last one again. People in my own company are accusing me for spying on them, because I ask them what they do for a living. Some of my coworkers are afraid of me, others hate me. Others still send me emails saying how blessed they are that I work with them. People I used to work with call and ask me for advice on jobs I've never had. My boss told me it's okay for me to tell people that my coworkers are incompetent. Today, the Vice President from another business unit called to ask me for advice on a case at her desk. So what do I care if I look a bit hot under the collar while I'm working?

And it then occurs to me that it's been too long since I listened to my "killer mix." Evidently, I haven't felt emotions for quite some time, and it was a rude awakening to have them return.

Those who know me will know that I'm a bit melodramatic. Having said that, I felt this afternoon as if I had just woken from a coma and found out that I was 28, bald, fat, acne-ridden and working for an insurance company with a business casual outfit and a decaf coffee at my desk. Why the fuck didn't any of you tell me? 

My apartment's a fucking disaster. I haven't folded my clothes for nearly a year. I haven't had all my dishes clean at the same time since 1998 (that's not a lie; when I move, I always take some dirty dishes to the new place). I drew the window shade, which has been closed since December, to find that a swarm of flies have been living behind the shade. I keep my spaghetti sauce on my living room floor. I've completely given up, and I don't have any accomplishment to have faded from.

I had a band once, but we never made it. You know why? We didn't try. We were exactly like every other college band, except our songs were better and we deluded ourselves into thinking we were taking it seriously. One summer, we played a couple shows in Ontario, Oregon. You know what we called it? A tour. It was the only time we played outside of our home town, and the stress of the travel is what led directly to the breakup of the band.

I moved to Portland after college. I went to a city of opportunity, from a town of stagnation. You know what opportunity I grasped onto? Ten months of unemployment, $15,000 of meaningless debt, a string of superficial relationships with desperate, failed people, a three year alliance with a self-absorbed alcoholic, and a 500 square foot apartment.

Did you know I'm a writer? A couple years ago, I talked to a girl who had a published book out. I said I wrote a bit too, though I'd never sold anything. "Let me guess," she said, "screenplays and short stories?"

So, I guess I'm not all that special in that regard. 

I'm engaged. Yep. To a girl I could have married when I was twenty two, but I didn't do it because I didn't want to deal with the responsibility or investment. In four months she's going to move in with me, into this shithole, and she's going to be expecting to go out there and get a job as a doctor. I haven't done any research on how she could accomplish that, and I haven't sent her any study guides or prep work for her to get her licensure. Actually, aside from proposing, I haven't really done anything for her.

I say this all in optimism. Consider the songs that played on my killer mix: "Letterbomb" by Green Day. "Wait and Bleed" from Slipknot. "Eat You Alive" by Limp Bizkit. "The Perfect Drug" by Nine Inch Nails. "S.S. Recognize" by Alien Ant Farm. "Grind" by me, three years ago. All of those except the last one have something in common: the people performing them are in their thirties. I'm 28. There was no requirement that I die at 20, but I did. And now I realize why those emotions awoke something in me: my emotions kept telling me how mediocre I was. I prefer the voice in my head that tells me how incredible I am.

Look back at my past posts in my blog. I talk about how much better I am than my coworkers. Yet here I am, working with them. I talk about how much smarter I am than all my classmates. Yet I haven't taken advantage of my intelligence since the tenth grade. Hell, I only got a 3.8 in a state uni, and that's with only one honors class. In humanities. I talk about how great I am with language and culture. Yet I only speak two languages, and I work for people who have never heard of the European Union. You know that I work in the city where the headquarters of my old exchange program is located? I was offered a job there, once. I turned it down so I could do data entry at the insurance company. That was four years ago.

So here's the question: I'm going to bed in an hour. Who's going to wake up tomorrow morning– the self-absorbed failure, or the man I claim I could be? Is there a chance that this weekend, I'll meet a man who will clean and care for himself without complaining, who will demand better of himself, who will actually work towards something, even if that means working 80 hours a week? Or am I just typing another fucking fictional narrative?

You know what's playing right now on my mix? "Caterpillar," by me, ten years ago. The guitarist of my old band's favorite part is when I would pound down on the strings and let out a ferocious scream. By the time we recorded the song in 2002, I didn't want to scream at the end anymore. It was too much effort, and kinda hurt my vocal chords.

Update: Tonight, I said goodbye to World of Warcraft. I deleted the porn folder from my computer. I took a shower, cleaned up, shaved, and laid out some clothes for tomorrow. I ordered a new iron so I can put all my clothes in my closet this weekend. I've still got a little time before I go to bed early (so I can get up early and make myself a real lunch instead of paying $7 a day at the deli), so I think I'll pick up my guitar and work on that song I promised I'd have written a week ago. Tomorrow, God help me, I'm going to get caught up at work. I'm too good to fail. I'll be the best fucking employee they've ever had, until I know I've got real, tangible work somewhere else. I'll do everything I have to do so I can be a true professional.

Please, Bob, don't fuck this up for me.

Checking Up on the Past

I just set up my new Facebook account, and of course what makes it so special is its ability to connect people together. It found my friends fairly easily, and the "mutual friends" function certainly helps. It also finds all the people who it thinks are already connected to you, and you can add them to your friends list. What makes this especially interesting is that on the top of the "people you probably know list," there is always the same person, every time I do a search:

My ex-girlfriend.

We didn't really talk for the last couple months that we were dating (thus the break-up). We tried having lunch a couple times, but it was awkward. We sent gossipy emails back and forth at work (we worked in the same company), but I got promoted and she got fired, and thus our last tie was severed. I don't have any yearning desire to get back in touch with her, but I do often think about what she's up to.

Our relationship in many ways seemed kind of like a competition. She was originally my boss, but I was ambitious and she was self-destructive, and the tables turned fairly quickly. She's an artist, and very proud of her creations, and I'm a musician who hasn't been in a band for 8 years. I'm an academic with few friends who is difficult to get along with; she's a socialite who stopped going to school in the 7th grade (though she did get her GED and do a couple semesters of community college). When we last spoke, she wasn't working on her art, she had just been fired, and she had been having trouble getting along with her friends. Most of our mutual friends "took my side" after the breakup, though I ended up alienating them later, many of my older friends had moved to Portland, and I had a job paying twice what she'd ever made.

In short, I won the competition. It's not something I'm particularly happy about; it led to lots of awkwardness that prevented us from being friends again. I wish she had enjoyed the same success. But I did some research, and dug up a few facts on her: she is now a professional artist; she has a new car and a nice, new apartment with a great roommate; I notice on her MySpace page that some of our old mutual friends (whom I no longer talk to) are friends with her again. All is well with the world. I feel like I can continue on my own path, knowing that everything with her is a-ok.

But then, there's that Facebook page.

I can't see the page, because I have to be her "friend" to see it. But there's something in there, something definitive, that makes Facebook certain that we know each other. I don't know what it is. She is on the top of the list, above people I went to high school with, people I regularly talk to, even people whose pictures I have on my page. Something in there has my name written right on it. I like to think it's just some passing mention of this guy she knew. But why is she always right on the top of the list? What is tying us together?

If all is going well with her, you'd think I could just add her. She's obviously doing well for herself, and I'm sure she'd love to share her stories with her old friend. There's just one thing... she'll see my profile, too. And right there, on the top of the profile, just under my name, is my relationship status: "engaged." What's more, it even says who I'm engaged to. It links to her profile. It shows a picture of her. There are several pictures right there with my arm around her.

I don't know how my ex-girlfriend is doing, relationshipwise. For all I know, she's in the best relationship of her life. Maybe she's living with the guy. Or girl. Maybe she's getting more action than a freshman fratboy. But maybe she's not, and I know that when I was single, the last thing I wanted to see was that my exes were all better off without me. Add to that the fact that it's barely been a year since she and I broke up. That means I probably knew my now-fiancee while we were still together. And, in fact, I did.

Things are going well for her. I don't flatter myself into thinking I have that much of an impact on her. But as long as I don't know what kind of impact there would be on her when she found out I was engaged, I don't want to push it upon her. After all, she couldn't have completely forgot about me– I'm on her Facebook page.