"All companionship can consist only in the strengthening of two neighboring solitudes, whereas everything that one is wont to call giving oneself is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to come close to eachother, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling." Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a young poet
I've always tried to express why I like being single and have failed in this explanation. I don't like to lose my self-autonomy. I don't like to lose my self although I like to lose myself.
This, in my own words has come across to boys (they've told me) as selfish and showing an unwillingness to compromise. But wonderful, eloquent Rilke has the idea.
Until it's like two ships meeting at sea, it's not for me.
I found this quote in the wake of a hurtful conversation I had with Connor via gchat. There are reasons exes shouldn't be friends. There are reasons exes became exes in the first place.
I find it hard to be optimistic and at the same time realistic. I am either cynical and distrustful or naively, hopelessly romantic. I can be nothing in between. Connor may have set me back a bit towards the former this afternoon, like a swift kick to the stomach. I plan on becoming fully hopelessly optimistic in two hours of so. Nothing a warm chocolate cookie, a run and then roller disco can't cure right??
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Weekend Love
Two good things happened in the last 12 hours. Last night I was walking to Sugar Magnolia (the hippie house the Stanford boys live in) and a cute cute boy got out of a cab right next to me, smiled and offered me an "ice cold beer". When does that actually happen?
Secondly, I was fishing my lipstick out of my tiny purple purse this morning and happened upon a lone semi-sweet chocolate chip, perfectly preserved for who knows how long, in all it's chocolatey splendor, for a morning snack..what a nice little surprise. Back to my Yosemite weekend...
After we got back into the city, Peter invited me to dinner with him, Dak, and Rainer. I walked down to their house on Marina Boulevard. It has the most unbelievable view; the kind of view that shows you that San Francisco is like no other city in the world; because it has magical views that people work their whole lives to move to see (at least that's what their old, grumpy next door neighbors say) They look onto Marina Green and straight at the Golden Gate Bridge. The fog leached the red out of the bridge and left it as a phantom, floating with light beams shafting through it, cutting at a diagonal down to the water. We went to a very nice little restaurant in the Marina and Peter was nice enough to pay for everyone. These Stanford kids are so incredibly smart and motivated and involved in so many things. They don’t define or identify themselves as outdoorsy people; it is just one of the many fun things they do. They were discussing things like probability and gambling, and whether you could statistically quantify whether someone’s life like Al Capone was worth it to humanity from a utilitarian standpoint and whether his invention of “Good Until” labels on milk cartons negated all the people he killed. They take one interesting little tid bit and contemplate it to a level that almost seems like a joke because it is so nerdy and complex and over my head; but they are just very genuine curious people.
Being around people like that reminds me of the kind of guys I want to be with. It reminds me not to settle for guys with small passions or inertia, no zest for adventure and life and no intellectual curiosity. These guys love to do risky things that make you feel more alive, but they don’t do it like meatheads, they do it smartly and thoughtfully and without bravado. I would love to have these guys as my friends and I would love to date someone that smart who challenged me to think that much in one dinner conversation.
Life is just so very good and so very unexpected. 2009 has probably been my favorite year so far. 2004 rivals it, but given its fade with time, 2009 is by far my favorite year.
Secondly, I was fishing my lipstick out of my tiny purple purse this morning and happened upon a lone semi-sweet chocolate chip, perfectly preserved for who knows how long, in all it's chocolatey splendor, for a morning snack..what a nice little surprise. Back to my Yosemite weekend...
After we got back into the city, Peter invited me to dinner with him, Dak, and Rainer. I walked down to their house on Marina Boulevard. It has the most unbelievable view; the kind of view that shows you that San Francisco is like no other city in the world; because it has magical views that people work their whole lives to move to see (at least that's what their old, grumpy next door neighbors say) They look onto Marina Green and straight at the Golden Gate Bridge. The fog leached the red out of the bridge and left it as a phantom, floating with light beams shafting through it, cutting at a diagonal down to the water. We went to a very nice little restaurant in the Marina and Peter was nice enough to pay for everyone. These Stanford kids are so incredibly smart and motivated and involved in so many things. They don’t define or identify themselves as outdoorsy people; it is just one of the many fun things they do. They were discussing things like probability and gambling, and whether you could statistically quantify whether someone’s life like Al Capone was worth it to humanity from a utilitarian standpoint and whether his invention of “Good Until” labels on milk cartons negated all the people he killed. They take one interesting little tid bit and contemplate it to a level that almost seems like a joke because it is so nerdy and complex and over my head; but they are just very genuine curious people.
Being around people like that reminds me of the kind of guys I want to be with. It reminds me not to settle for guys with small passions or inertia, no zest for adventure and life and no intellectual curiosity. These guys love to do risky things that make you feel more alive, but they don’t do it like meatheads, they do it smartly and thoughtfully and without bravado. I would love to have these guys as my friends and I would love to date someone that smart who challenged me to think that much in one dinner conversation.
Life is just so very good and so very unexpected. 2009 has probably been my favorite year so far. 2004 rivals it, but given its fade with time, 2009 is by far my favorite year.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Scaling mountains and ogling waterfalls in Yosemite
My high school friend Aaron invited me to a camping trip in Yosemite with fifty of his friends and their friends; most of them from Stanford where he went to college. He was coming from Orange County but most of his friends live in San Francisco, so his friend Rainer picked me up in his truck along with two other girls and we headed out listening to blue grass and songs with lines I loved like, "California, California. In the sun and in the weather no one's ever loved me better. California California you're the place for me."
I wasn't expecting Yosemite to be as fantastic as everyone said, being from Colorado and having lived in Washington I thought nothing in C. could compare. But I was absolutely blown away. Once you enter the park the mountains rise is sharp relief against the blue sky, with nary a tree along their steep granite sides. The contours were carved by glacial ice and look as though they were chiseled with knives. Everywhere you look waterfalls are pitching off the tops of cliffs and coming down in torrential white gusts that are so powerful they spray out like smoke and drop hundreds and hundreds of feet with nothing to impede their free fall. We camped in the bottom of the valley, in the beautiful trees. It was easy to make fast friends of such smart, adventurous and fun people. I always love making friends of a group that are perfect strangers mere hours before.
We woke up at five thirty AM to climb half dome, which is seventeen miles round trip. It was a beautiful climb with more waterfalls and spectacular views across the high Sierras. After about a mile of switchback staircases we came to the half dome. The cables go up the dome at what seemed to me a ninety degree angle. The granite was so smooth and slippery that the only hold was the two cables that you pulled yourself up on. Every ten to fifteen feet wood boards were nailed to the ground, so you could rest before continuing to climb. At the apex of the dome you are literally going over the corner of a circle that's 13,000 feet in the air (does that make any sense, a corner of a circle)? If you fell to either side you'd fall straight down to where the granite is concave like a slide. From their you'd shoot all the way down to your death. A water bottle fell and smacked twice before shattering on its third hit. A woman died on the cables just last week. Women were hyperventillating, having panic attacks, crying and trying to come back down. I made it most of the way twice and chickened out both times. I have no death wish.
On the second early morning five of us drove to Twualame Lake and looked around. Right in front of us were three large peaks straight up. We immediately said “let’s do that!” It looked like quite the scramble, so we verbally mapped a route and embarked on the journey. It quickly went from hiking to rock climbing. The granite slabs of mountainside were smooth and sloped at about 60 degrees or steeper. We crept through the crevasses between granite slabs;i nching our way up by digging feet and hands into nooks and crannies; experiencing the puzzle-like job of rock climbing.
The extremely scary part was when one crevasse ended and we had to crawl/slink in my case to the edge and climb up and over into the next crevasse.The guys said this was much scarier than half dome, so I should have just climbed to the top. I had to breath deeply to keep from hyperventilating, and I was shaking the whole time. But it was also extremely thrilling. For over two and a half hours we climbed up and up. Towards the top we hit some spots that were unclimable so we bushwacked through thick and prickly bushes that made our hands and legs bleed. One of the guys was the nineteenth best climber in the US in high school. He said this was between a class four and five climb and that he didn't really feel comfortable with us doing it. He told this to the guys, not to me and to the other girl Anna. I kept asking, "Do you think I can do this section?" thinking I could not and should turn back, and the guys would say, yes of course you can. So I continued and made it all the way to the top of the peak. It was one of the most scary and thrilling experiences of my life. I felt so very alive. Both Anna and I told each other afterward that we were thinking the same thing; my parents would cry if they saw me doing this.
At the top of the peak we felt so triumphant and happy that naturally we stripped down to our birthday suites to feel the cold mountain air brush our skin, and threw our arms out towards the snowy peaks across the valley. We had lunch up there, ran around, took nudie pictures, scampered around like billy goats and observed some tiny tiny people down below on the same path as us, only they had ropes and harnesses and everything else we should have had.
Coming down was terrifying. At some points we had to use tree branches as ropes and rappell down them to get to points where we could actually stand up without sliding straight down. Aaron was being an unbelievable friend, turning around at every point and telling me exactly where to place my hands and feet and catching me at certain points when I had to jump and plant with only a couple of feet before the next drop off, and didn't quite plant, so would have gone careening over an edge.
When we got down we went swimming in the glacial lake with snow all around us. The guys were hilarious. doing things like taking their mini boom boxes out to the woods to go pee to tunes, singing with each other to country song and just being jovial and wonderful.
That night we danced on the tables, sang too loudly, ate chicken cooked on a bond fire and told our other 45 compatriots about our epic climb. The day bonded the five of us and we spent the whole night goofing around together. Just check out my facebook pictures for amusing evidence of this.
At one point Aaron was so excited to find his chapstick that he held it up like the torch lady liberty holds, only he was tilted to the side. Slowly slowly he toppled straight over and bruised his head and eye so badly he had a black eye the next day.
We made "en fuego smores" which involved putting the marshmellow into the smore while it's still on fire (takes two people and a lot of trust) and yelling En Fuego!!! before smothering the flames with the top Graham. Oooooh WHAT a weekend!!! To be continued in the next blog....
I wasn't expecting Yosemite to be as fantastic as everyone said, being from Colorado and having lived in Washington I thought nothing in C. could compare. But I was absolutely blown away. Once you enter the park the mountains rise is sharp relief against the blue sky, with nary a tree along their steep granite sides. The contours were carved by glacial ice and look as though they were chiseled with knives. Everywhere you look waterfalls are pitching off the tops of cliffs and coming down in torrential white gusts that are so powerful they spray out like smoke and drop hundreds and hundreds of feet with nothing to impede their free fall. We camped in the bottom of the valley, in the beautiful trees. It was easy to make fast friends of such smart, adventurous and fun people. I always love making friends of a group that are perfect strangers mere hours before.
We woke up at five thirty AM to climb half dome, which is seventeen miles round trip. It was a beautiful climb with more waterfalls and spectacular views across the high Sierras. After about a mile of switchback staircases we came to the half dome. The cables go up the dome at what seemed to me a ninety degree angle. The granite was so smooth and slippery that the only hold was the two cables that you pulled yourself up on. Every ten to fifteen feet wood boards were nailed to the ground, so you could rest before continuing to climb. At the apex of the dome you are literally going over the corner of a circle that's 13,000 feet in the air (does that make any sense, a corner of a circle)? If you fell to either side you'd fall straight down to where the granite is concave like a slide. From their you'd shoot all the way down to your death. A water bottle fell and smacked twice before shattering on its third hit. A woman died on the cables just last week. Women were hyperventillating, having panic attacks, crying and trying to come back down. I made it most of the way twice and chickened out both times. I have no death wish.
On the second early morning five of us drove to Twualame Lake and looked around. Right in front of us were three large peaks straight up. We immediately said “let’s do that!” It looked like quite the scramble, so we verbally mapped a route and embarked on the journey. It quickly went from hiking to rock climbing. The granite slabs of mountainside were smooth and sloped at about 60 degrees or steeper. We crept through the crevasses between granite slabs;i nching our way up by digging feet and hands into nooks and crannies; experiencing the puzzle-like job of rock climbing.
The extremely scary part was when one crevasse ended and we had to crawl/slink in my case to the edge and climb up and over into the next crevasse.The guys said this was much scarier than half dome, so I should have just climbed to the top. I had to breath deeply to keep from hyperventilating, and I was shaking the whole time. But it was also extremely thrilling. For over two and a half hours we climbed up and up. Towards the top we hit some spots that were unclimable so we bushwacked through thick and prickly bushes that made our hands and legs bleed. One of the guys was the nineteenth best climber in the US in high school. He said this was between a class four and five climb and that he didn't really feel comfortable with us doing it. He told this to the guys, not to me and to the other girl Anna. I kept asking, "Do you think I can do this section?" thinking I could not and should turn back, and the guys would say, yes of course you can. So I continued and made it all the way to the top of the peak. It was one of the most scary and thrilling experiences of my life. I felt so very alive. Both Anna and I told each other afterward that we were thinking the same thing; my parents would cry if they saw me doing this.
At the top of the peak we felt so triumphant and happy that naturally we stripped down to our birthday suites to feel the cold mountain air brush our skin, and threw our arms out towards the snowy peaks across the valley. We had lunch up there, ran around, took nudie pictures, scampered around like billy goats and observed some tiny tiny people down below on the same path as us, only they had ropes and harnesses and everything else we should have had.
Coming down was terrifying. At some points we had to use tree branches as ropes and rappell down them to get to points where we could actually stand up without sliding straight down. Aaron was being an unbelievable friend, turning around at every point and telling me exactly where to place my hands and feet and catching me at certain points when I had to jump and plant with only a couple of feet before the next drop off, and didn't quite plant, so would have gone careening over an edge.
When we got down we went swimming in the glacial lake with snow all around us. The guys were hilarious. doing things like taking their mini boom boxes out to the woods to go pee to tunes, singing with each other to country song and just being jovial and wonderful.
That night we danced on the tables, sang too loudly, ate chicken cooked on a bond fire and told our other 45 compatriots about our epic climb. The day bonded the five of us and we spent the whole night goofing around together. Just check out my facebook pictures for amusing evidence of this.
At one point Aaron was so excited to find his chapstick that he held it up like the torch lady liberty holds, only he was tilted to the side. Slowly slowly he toppled straight over and bruised his head and eye so badly he had a black eye the next day.
We made "en fuego smores" which involved putting the marshmellow into the smore while it's still on fire (takes two people and a lot of trust) and yelling En Fuego!!! before smothering the flames with the top Graham. Oooooh WHAT a weekend!!! To be continued in the next blog....
Friday, May 15, 2009
Pissed and Bitchy
This week has been my first week spending half the day at reception. And as it turns out, I can be a huge huge bitch. I may have to revise my viewpoint of myself as a mostly nice human being, into, nice when things are good, horrendous when things are bad. It starts off by getting in at 8:30 AM, a half hour before the office opens and lining up bags of M and Ms and twix and trail mix in neat little rows for all the spoiled coworkers to enjoy. Then I make decaf and full caf coffee, take down the chairs in the kitchen, settle into my large glass perch in the big yellow reception room among shelves of awards and the flat screen TV. I find the candy part unbelievably demoralizing.
By the time people start showing up I have ceased to smile. By the time people start making fedex requests, conference room requests and stupid ass phone calls I have a full blown scary bitch scowl on my face and have stopped saying hi to friends who attempt to talk to me.
I am torn between wanting to do a terrible job at everything to show them how pissed off I am to be doing this, and the knowledge that that won't get me anywhere, and that my main boss was not responsible for this so I should still work hard to impress him. It's frustrating when people have been coming up to me and saying they heard I did incredibly well on my first brand strategy project. They say the SVP and EVP say I am a "kick ass strategist" The copy writing director told me I have great ideas and that everyone knows that, so don't worry about a couple months at reception. So if they all think I did a great job on the project above me, why are they putting me in a postion below me? The very men that have been praising me to my face and to others when I'm not there walk by nonchalantly as I answer the phone and do menial tasks. Can't they see that this is a waste of money and resources to have me doing such simple tasks? It drives me insane.
And here I am, supposed to present a strategy project to my boss in two hours. But why do a good job? I'm not going to get promoted to planner (strategist) if they can't even afford to hire a high school level receptionist, let alone a new executive assistant. I've seen what happens to people who work hard for this company; who sacrifice their family time and free time to put in long long hours of loyalty. They get laid off. So I'm torn. Should I be a good person and continue to work very hard, even as I see people who work incredibly hard getting laid off, and I hear about people who were laid off saying it was a blessing in disguise because now they have jobs that pay more, have fewer hours and more appreciation- or do I slack off and say FUCK YOU, FUCK THIS I can't BELIEVE I am lining up shitty, transfatty candy for a living after working 14 hour days and being promised I would get promoted.
Most people here are telling me to job search my butt off and screw this job; this isn't what I signed up for...my conscious tells me to keep working hard..
Could use some advice....
-The bitch at reception.
By the time people start showing up I have ceased to smile. By the time people start making fedex requests, conference room requests and stupid ass phone calls I have a full blown scary bitch scowl on my face and have stopped saying hi to friends who attempt to talk to me.
I am torn between wanting to do a terrible job at everything to show them how pissed off I am to be doing this, and the knowledge that that won't get me anywhere, and that my main boss was not responsible for this so I should still work hard to impress him. It's frustrating when people have been coming up to me and saying they heard I did incredibly well on my first brand strategy project. They say the SVP and EVP say I am a "kick ass strategist" The copy writing director told me I have great ideas and that everyone knows that, so don't worry about a couple months at reception. So if they all think I did a great job on the project above me, why are they putting me in a postion below me? The very men that have been praising me to my face and to others when I'm not there walk by nonchalantly as I answer the phone and do menial tasks. Can't they see that this is a waste of money and resources to have me doing such simple tasks? It drives me insane.
And here I am, supposed to present a strategy project to my boss in two hours. But why do a good job? I'm not going to get promoted to planner (strategist) if they can't even afford to hire a high school level receptionist, let alone a new executive assistant. I've seen what happens to people who work hard for this company; who sacrifice their family time and free time to put in long long hours of loyalty. They get laid off. So I'm torn. Should I be a good person and continue to work very hard, even as I see people who work incredibly hard getting laid off, and I hear about people who were laid off saying it was a blessing in disguise because now they have jobs that pay more, have fewer hours and more appreciation- or do I slack off and say FUCK YOU, FUCK THIS I can't BELIEVE I am lining up shitty, transfatty candy for a living after working 14 hour days and being promised I would get promoted.
Most people here are telling me to job search my butt off and screw this job; this isn't what I signed up for...my conscious tells me to keep working hard..
Could use some advice....
-The bitch at reception.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Book club with Lindsay
I’ve just started a novel that promises to be fantastic. I received it in the mail at work all wrapped up in Easter packaging. There in nothing better than getting an Easter book from your parents.
It’s called Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier. It made me smile after only the second page because it reminds me slightly of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
I simply love books in which the characters have a particular reverence for books and words. It makes a lot of sense to write about that; because most people who read novels can relate to characters who give words and language such heightened admiration.
So far in the book Mundus Gregorious (best name ever right?) is a professor of dead languages and finds a book by a Portuguese philologist that intrigues him so much he decides to strike out for a new life and travel to Portugal to meet the man. As he travels he learns Portuguese and begins to translate the author’s text. Some bits of the translation that I love:
In truth the dramatics of a life-determining experience are often unbelievably soft….when it deploys its revolutionary effect and plunges a life into a brand-new light giving it a bran- new melody, it does that silently and in this wonderful silence resides its special nobility.
And then another passage that Mundus repeats to himself often and turns over in his mind:
Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us, what happens with the rest?
I love the way this phrase is repeated at different points in the book. When I first read it, I thought it sounded terribly negative. As if we have all this potential and all these different lives that we fetter away living our one straight and narrow path, while the possibilities fall away into the trash as we continue along; those possibilities getting fewer and fewer as we get older and go more stubbornly along our path.
I have always tried to think of it in quite the opposite way. I don’t often regret anything in life because when I start to I remind myself of something my dad said. “There is no point in regretting something that didn’t happen because what did happen is your actual life and it can’t, now, possibly be any other way.” I think I am paraphrasing poorly, he said it in a way that made a lot of sense. As in- any possibility that was realized leads to everything else in your life that ends up being good or wonderful or inspirational, so how could it possibly be any other way?
Later on, Gregorious is considering how he is breaking out from the path he has always been on and he repeats the words to himself.
Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us, what happens with the rest?
This time it felt more positive to me. There is a curiosity about what all the “rest” is and how we must explore as much as we can in our small life. We must let the little delineations from our routine- the nagging little aspirations- ride their course and meander where they may, so that they are no longer delineations, but a different life.
It’s rainy and dark in San Francisco and I’m feeling worn down from a big night on the town last night. I can’t wait to curl up with tea and leap in the world of Mundus for the evening.
It’s called Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier. It made me smile after only the second page because it reminds me slightly of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
I simply love books in which the characters have a particular reverence for books and words. It makes a lot of sense to write about that; because most people who read novels can relate to characters who give words and language such heightened admiration.
So far in the book Mundus Gregorious (best name ever right?) is a professor of dead languages and finds a book by a Portuguese philologist that intrigues him so much he decides to strike out for a new life and travel to Portugal to meet the man. As he travels he learns Portuguese and begins to translate the author’s text. Some bits of the translation that I love:
In truth the dramatics of a life-determining experience are often unbelievably soft….when it deploys its revolutionary effect and plunges a life into a brand-new light giving it a bran- new melody, it does that silently and in this wonderful silence resides its special nobility.
And then another passage that Mundus repeats to himself often and turns over in his mind:
Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us, what happens with the rest?
I love the way this phrase is repeated at different points in the book. When I first read it, I thought it sounded terribly negative. As if we have all this potential and all these different lives that we fetter away living our one straight and narrow path, while the possibilities fall away into the trash as we continue along; those possibilities getting fewer and fewer as we get older and go more stubbornly along our path.
I have always tried to think of it in quite the opposite way. I don’t often regret anything in life because when I start to I remind myself of something my dad said. “There is no point in regretting something that didn’t happen because what did happen is your actual life and it can’t, now, possibly be any other way.” I think I am paraphrasing poorly, he said it in a way that made a lot of sense. As in- any possibility that was realized leads to everything else in your life that ends up being good or wonderful or inspirational, so how could it possibly be any other way?
Later on, Gregorious is considering how he is breaking out from the path he has always been on and he repeats the words to himself.
Given that we can live only a small part of what there is in us, what happens with the rest?
This time it felt more positive to me. There is a curiosity about what all the “rest” is and how we must explore as much as we can in our small life. We must let the little delineations from our routine- the nagging little aspirations- ride their course and meander where they may, so that they are no longer delineations, but a different life.
It’s rainy and dark in San Francisco and I’m feeling worn down from a big night on the town last night. I can’t wait to curl up with tea and leap in the world of Mundus for the evening.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Either me or this must end.
When I first got here (to work) I felt like a strange rat entering a world of flies. They were disgusting to me, and yet I felt disgusting in comparison to them, in a different way.
I was incredulous to the topics of their conversations; the endless prattle about dates and fashion, alcohol and the coolest venues for parties.
At first the differences between them and me made me somewhat miserable. I didn’t want to be around such shallow and neurotic conversations. Sure my friends and I have shallow conversations; sure we analyze guys and dates, but let me tell you; we do it in a totally different way. We do not judge a guy for having a white car. We do not seriously profess to be hot ass bitches who are too good for most people. We do not agonize over why the French are so thin. We do not go on cleanses and talk about how eating water for ten days clears our soul.
After a while I read something about accepting people for who they are. That we are happier not expecting or waiting for people to be different. It said we shouldn’t take it personally that people are how they are, and we shouldn’t take it upon ourselves to change that. This rang true to me and I started to like them better by accepting who they are. This lead to frienships, dancing, drinks, dinner, a whole social life. And suddenly they didn’t seem so alien to me. They were my friends. This office was my life. I’ve been happy although not feeling quite like myself.
Then Cug came to visit and I felt like myself again. I felt incredibly comforted and happy to have a friend like that; hell a person like that around me. After a week of her amazing influence and a weekend without hanging out with coworkers my paradigm shifted. Following this was the reunion weekend in Tacoma. Everyone was amazingly down to earth as always, genuine, confident , funny, inspiring, strong, moral. My friends are happy by nature, peaceful and positive and following various paths that make them happy or contribute to something they believe in.
Coming back to work felt like walking into work a year ago. It felt like walking into the twilight zone. I sometimes gives myself a pat on the back for my ability to adapt to new and varying situations. I figure if you can't beat em, join em. But a year later I am starting to think this is not something I'll ever be able to join; That accepting this kind of company, conversation and mindset is compromising myself. I think it's time to minimize my work-realated social life and go back to not accepting them for who they are...
I was incredulous to the topics of their conversations; the endless prattle about dates and fashion, alcohol and the coolest venues for parties.
At first the differences between them and me made me somewhat miserable. I didn’t want to be around such shallow and neurotic conversations. Sure my friends and I have shallow conversations; sure we analyze guys and dates, but let me tell you; we do it in a totally different way. We do not judge a guy for having a white car. We do not seriously profess to be hot ass bitches who are too good for most people. We do not agonize over why the French are so thin. We do not go on cleanses and talk about how eating water for ten days clears our soul.
After a while I read something about accepting people for who they are. That we are happier not expecting or waiting for people to be different. It said we shouldn’t take it personally that people are how they are, and we shouldn’t take it upon ourselves to change that. This rang true to me and I started to like them better by accepting who they are. This lead to frienships, dancing, drinks, dinner, a whole social life. And suddenly they didn’t seem so alien to me. They were my friends. This office was my life. I’ve been happy although not feeling quite like myself.
Then Cug came to visit and I felt like myself again. I felt incredibly comforted and happy to have a friend like that; hell a person like that around me. After a week of her amazing influence and a weekend without hanging out with coworkers my paradigm shifted. Following this was the reunion weekend in Tacoma. Everyone was amazingly down to earth as always, genuine, confident , funny, inspiring, strong, moral. My friends are happy by nature, peaceful and positive and following various paths that make them happy or contribute to something they believe in.
Coming back to work felt like walking into work a year ago. It felt like walking into the twilight zone. I sometimes gives myself a pat on the back for my ability to adapt to new and varying situations. I figure if you can't beat em, join em. But a year later I am starting to think this is not something I'll ever be able to join; That accepting this kind of company, conversation and mindset is compromising myself. I think it's time to minimize my work-realated social life and go back to not accepting them for who they are...
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Recessionistas
We've all seen the news and know what scary times we live in. And I keep wondering when I"m going to feel it specifically. This week we had lay offs that made it feel like we were in a slaughter house. No one knew it was coming, but suddenly people were in the large conference room and then gone. Just gone for good. People who are the heart of this agency, people who never complain or frown, or show frustration when things get tough, people who took their kids out of school in LA to move up here for the job a mere month or two before.
This summer we hired so many people that every office has six people and we had to stick desks in the halls. Some people who were hired four months ago still have to sit on the couches in the reception area. As the economy was crumbling all around us, we were hiring as fast as we could. People who are good at their jobs and reach the executive levels are rarely good at managing a business, clearly.
In one department everyone had to take a 25% pay cut. In another department they had a meeting where they were told they needed to work 30% more. (They already work until 11:00 pm). People are crying today and the tensions are high. But we are still having Rodeo Wednesday. Our beer man just arrived. They're setting up for the band, spreading tables with western style table cloths and setting out food; setting up the ping pong table for beer pong. The timing is odd but maybe we need this.
I was not unaffected by this. In addition to my duties I now have to be a receptionist for half the day. About a month ago everyone was congratulating me on my "promotion" to being a planner which meant I was a planner and an assistant. Now I"m an assistant and a receptionist. After a year of busting away at planning and being told I'd get promoted I feel as though I've been demoted.
I don't know whether the planning work will fall away. My ad. strategy was just picked definitively by the clients and is being executed creatively. My boss said it was some of the most creative work he's seen in the planning department in a while. And now I have to pick up old food and dishes from client meetings, load and empty the dishwasher, direct calls etc.
I keep reminding myself: I should be happy I have a job. I should be grateful in these times for what I have. And I am. But the 13 hour days are tough. Tougher when they are followed with a demotion instead of a promotion. I'm that much farther away. We all are.
This summer we hired so many people that every office has six people and we had to stick desks in the halls. Some people who were hired four months ago still have to sit on the couches in the reception area. As the economy was crumbling all around us, we were hiring as fast as we could. People who are good at their jobs and reach the executive levels are rarely good at managing a business, clearly.
In one department everyone had to take a 25% pay cut. In another department they had a meeting where they were told they needed to work 30% more. (They already work until 11:00 pm). People are crying today and the tensions are high. But we are still having Rodeo Wednesday. Our beer man just arrived. They're setting up for the band, spreading tables with western style table cloths and setting out food; setting up the ping pong table for beer pong. The timing is odd but maybe we need this.
I was not unaffected by this. In addition to my duties I now have to be a receptionist for half the day. About a month ago everyone was congratulating me on my "promotion" to being a planner which meant I was a planner and an assistant. Now I"m an assistant and a receptionist. After a year of busting away at planning and being told I'd get promoted I feel as though I've been demoted.
I don't know whether the planning work will fall away. My ad. strategy was just picked definitively by the clients and is being executed creatively. My boss said it was some of the most creative work he's seen in the planning department in a while. And now I have to pick up old food and dishes from client meetings, load and empty the dishwasher, direct calls etc.
I keep reminding myself: I should be happy I have a job. I should be grateful in these times for what I have. And I am. But the 13 hour days are tough. Tougher when they are followed with a demotion instead of a promotion. I'm that much farther away. We all are.
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About Me
- Lindsay
- "This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? ... And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must," then build your life in accordance with this necessity;... Then come close to Nature." -Ranier Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet