Buying the Girliness

Twisty is recovering from various surgeries (having all her woman-parts removed as a cancer-recurrence-prevention mechanism and having her ankle repaired), and she's in fine form with this post. That eyebrow thing about which I was bitching? Nothing compared to a--wait for it--sports corset. The comments are entertaining, too, especially the ones that point out that girliness and femininity are things that you buy at the mall and the one that coins the term "tanorexic," which word immediately made me think of my sister-in-law. She's such a bundle of contradictions: she's almost exactly ten years younger than I am, but, thanks to her tanning addiction, her skin makes her look at least ten years older. She got some sports scholarships for college (thanks to Title IX), and she now teaches Pilates and spinning classes at the local gym; she's in spectacular shape; and she got into mountain bike racing with my brother before my nephews came along. She doesn't wear a lot of girly crap; you're more likely to find her in a t-shirt, shorts, and a baseball cap, plus a knee brace, because she has destroyed one knee and is working on the other. On the other hand, when I say "tanning addiction," I am so not kidding, as anyone who's met her can testify. It's also not clear what color her hair really is, as it always has big blond stripes; I think it's actually dark brown, but I've never seen her without the streaking thing.

Ah, femininity; so much work, so much expense, just to prove you're really female. I've always thought it would just be cheaper to drop trou if someone really has doubts, but, of course, it's not femaleness that's in question, but femininity, which is a whole other thing.

23

My sister died 23 years ago today, at the age of 23, which means that she's been dead for about as long as she was alive. I find that so hard to believe, in some ways. One of the hardest things is that she has become less real, in a way. How she actually was, not to mention the pain of losing her, neither of those things has really faded much at all. But if she hadn't died, she'd be 46 years old, and I can't imagine what she would have done with those 23 years. I can make up stories, based on what I know of her first 23 years, but that's all they are: stories. Would she have married? Had children? Run a company? Worked for the World Bank? There's no way to know. If you had told me 23 years ago that I would, in the next two-plus decades, get a doctorate, go to pastry school, be a stepmother (however briefly) but not a mother, be working in a bakery making croissants for $9/hour as I approached my 50th birthday, earn part of my living as a writer and editor . . . some of those things might have surprised me, others not so much. But I couldn't even predict what I was going to do, so predicting what someone else would have done is an even more difficult task.

What that means is that she steadily fades into the mists, frozen in the pictures I have of her--as a blond, smiling kid, in our old house (from which we moved when I was 11), eating cinnamon toast cut into scribbles; standing in the snow at that house, with me; standing with my mother, brother, and me, at the back of one of our station wagons, while on vacation; as a high school gymnast; as a sorority girl; as she was in the country she was in in the months before she died. Sometimes I can hear the sound of her laughter--making her laugh was one of my talents, and I still miss the stupid private jokes we had. I miss the fact that, if she were alive, I could call her today and mention one or another of them and get a laugh out of her, especially if I invented some wacko story around it. I wonder what it would have been like to have been able to discuss my life with her these past 23 years, to hear what she had to say.

Obviously, a death like this changes the whole dynamics of the family in which it occurs. In my family, it ultimately helped heal the breach between my brother and me over my nephews' non-attendance at my wedding. I was hurt and upset, but you know what? My brother and I have been there for each other through a whole lot of bullshit, and he continues to be there for me. It also made my mother and me somewhat more tolerant of each other; I forgave her a lot more, and worked very hard to build and maintain a relationship with her, especially as it seems that everything I do is incomprehensible to her and mostly warrants her disapproval and annoyance, unless it's something about which she can brag. (Yes, I know, at heart she's worried about me and wants me to be happy, but she wants me to be happy in ways that she approves, rather in the ways that actually make me happy.) It saddens me that she's still got a bug up her ass about our recent interactions--when I called last weekend, she talked to me for a minute or so, asked if I wanted to talk to my dad, he was nearly asleep, so that didn't last long, and the whole conversation, from the time I dialed the phone until we hung up, lasted four minutes and fourteen seconds. I suspect a breach like this one would have occurred much sooner if my sister hadn't died, because I run out of patience, eventually, with this kind of behavior.

For a number of years, I had dreams about my sister, and, while I liked them in the beginning--it was like she was visiting me--I've come to dread them, because they're all the same. That is, I dream that she's not really dead, that she's been alive all these years. Over the years, my brain has begun to realize, even in the dream, that it IS a dream, which pretty much turns it into a nightmare; in the early years, the waking up was the nightmare. I haven't had one in a very long time, and that's fine with me; I recognize that I likely have them because I never saw her dead, so there's always been a certain unreality about it for me. It would be nice if I could figure out a way to dream about her that was less painful, because that would be more like the visits--but the fact that I can't imagine what her life would have been like these past 23 years makes that even more fanciful on my part.

So here's to my sister, and whatever life she would have lived.

The Professor

Brad was off yesterday and today, and Artie is in Mexico for a relative's funeral. Everyone was a little busier, filling in for Artie (and, yesterday, I had no help w/ the croissants), but it wasn't that big a deal. Today, though, I'm across the work table from Phil, and I say, "No Professor [which is what the Hispanic guys call Brad, if I haven't mentioned that before] today?" And he smiles and says, "Yes, everything's easy today." Last week Phil intimated, on Brad's day off, that it was "quieter," and he preferred it that way, and wondered if I did, too, but I wasn't sure whether he was referring to Brad or to the fact that Miami wasn't around any more. And Saturday, Phil asked me if I needed help before he left--without Brad prompting him to do so. (I said no, because I was nearly done.) Also on Saturday, I ended up giving Artie a hand before I left, even though I really wanted to get out of there; he was there alone, finishing up something, and he's always there at the end of the line for the croissants, so I was happy to lend a hand.

I can't tell whether I've really managed to create a different atmosphere or not. Brad constantly bitches about the Hispanic guys--in front of them, no less, under the assumption they don't understand him--and he'll even give them shit in front of everyone else. What he doesn't realize is that, even though he'll also lend a hand, at least to Phil, his general approach isn't winning him any friends. He hasn't figured out that, to them, they've been there longer than he has, and they'll be there after he leaves, and Jefe is fine with what they do, so . . . What I've been trying to do is just lend a hand whenever--today I helped Phil shape some dough right before I left, instead of just leaving. Little by little, I seem to be getting some of that back to me. Frankly, I'd probably do it anyway, at least for awhile, but it's interesting to see whether it ripples. I suspect the pizza helps, too--though Jefe wants a ham this week instead of more pizza. Frankly, I don't care--I just want to prod enough to get lunch every Saturday, and, really, not even because I have to have lunch or something. I just think it's a nice thing to do, it boosts morale, and everyone realizes he's the one who's paying for it, even if it's me or Brad who's doing the work.

And that's another thing: Brad complained bitterly how no one thanked him for making the pizza the week he made it. He hasn't figured out that you just . . . give those things. Though, when I thanked him as he left, Phil, who was standing next to me, chimed in. Brad hasn't figured out just how much he irritates these guys, even as they realize he's unavoidable, a condition of work, if you will--and he doesn't care, or, more to the point, he SAYS he doesn't care, even though it's clear he does. Mostly? He's young.

Can I help you?

In her comment to the last post, Lisa Marie brings up an interesting aspect that I neglected to mention: people in service positions do not have much choice about being Nice to people who speak with them. I hadn't thought much about that in this context, but I realize it's relevant, and I realize that, when I talk to someone working behind a counter, for example, I leave it up to him or her about how chatty he or she wants to be. I try to be pleasant, and I'll offer an opening gambit, perhaps, but my sense (in part from having worked such jobs) is that chattiness can (a) intrude on his or her space, i.e., not be particularly welcome right this minute, and (b) slow the person down in terms of taking care of all of the people behind me, i.e., doing the job for which the person is being paid. On the other hand, I do remember my pleases and thank yous, which goes much farther than you'd think, except that you might remember that so many people don't, in fact, remember please and thank you, especially when dealing with The Help.

When I've had service positions, I found that the day went faster, in general, if I tried to engage the customers in some way--not necessarily become BFF or something, but just . . . connect. Some people are in a hurry; some don't really need more than that one thing; some don't talk to The Help. A surprising number of people respond, though, which I found interesting. The best version of that: 20 years ago, I was trying to earn extra money the summer before I left for grad school, so, in addition to my full time job, I worked part time at a gourmet food store. Because of the hours I worked, I often dealt with people who were grabbing what was basically gourmet take-out from the prepared-foods section of our store (we made a lot of stuff in the upstairs kitchen, though I had no hand in the making). If someone didn't know quite what s/he wanted, I'd tried to tell them about what we had, offer samples, etc.; I'd also ask people what they had for lunch, especially if it was clear that someone was grabbing something for dinner. I was doing my usual thing one night with some guy, while one of the owners/bosses was there; I helped the guy figure out what to get, and moved on to the next customer. A few minutes later, the guy is back at my counter: he'd grabbed a bouquet of flowers while checking out at the register, and he came back to give them to me--in front of the boss, no less. He wasn't even hitting on me, and I never saw him again.

What to Wear

One thing I think I've noticed as I traipse to and fro wearing my chef clothes (i.e., black-and-white-checked baggy pants and a white jacket with the bakery's logo and name, and my name, embroidered over the pocket on the left front side) is that men who are dressed in working class attire (e.g., construction workers and delivery guys) are much more likely to say hello then they used to be when I wore Office Clothes. Believe me when I tell you that I am not all that and a bag of chips, and also believe me when I tell you that the chef outfit does nothing for me (everything really is quite baggy), so it's not like I'm suddenly mondo attractive--plus, I pretty much always have some version of Bakery Hair.

Now, I tended, and tend, to greet a person pleasantly if I happen to catch his eye--nothing big or flirty, and I get seriously irritated if someone instructs me to smile, but a "howrya doon" or a nod? Hey, no problem. And I always said hello to workmen who came into my office or the general office space, maybe some polite chitchat. I came to realize that this isn't necessarily usual, though: I remember an electrician at the university with whom I used to chat told me that he'd be in someone's office to fix something, the person might even chat a bit, and then he'd run into the person a few minutes later and they'd just not even see him. He had bright red hair, so literally not seeing him seemed unlikely--it was more likely that professors and office people just ignored someone in maintenance-guy clothing, classified him, by his clothing, as someone they didn't know. I think what I'm experiencing is kind of the inverse of that, i.e., construction workers, letter carriers, and the like are more likely to say hello to someone who is dressed in working-person clothing. In any case, it's fascinating to me how people interact on the street, and this is just another nugget in that collection.

In other how-do-you-look news, apparently women are growing eyebrows. Of course, some of us never stopped growing them, and I couldn't tell you the last time I plucked my eyebrows. I don't think I ever plucked them with any regularity, even in high school (which is also the last time I shaved my legs). Twisty's influence notwithstanding, I often hesitate to make the full-on argument that many of the fashion instructions are merely the patriarchy's way of forcing women to spend inordinate amounts of time on their appearance--and if you're spending hours each day on your appearance (or risking the disapproval of the people around you), well, those are hours you don't spend on challenging the patriarchy. Quite the contrary: you're actually spending hours reinforcing the patriarchy. I also generally avoid making the argument that Germaine Greer made a zillion years ago, that hairlessness in women (except for the hair on their heads) makes them look pre-pubertal, and, therefore, Safe and less threatening. They're childlike--because body hair, pubic hair, and underarm hair are all signifiers of adulthood.

It's not that I don't believe those two things; I DO believe them. It's more that my audience rarely wants any part of either argument, and I end up hearing about how Makeup Is Fun (hey, I own, and, occasionally, use it, the same way I use other bits of costume) and shaving this or that body part doesn't take THAT much time, plus it's nice and smooth and they like it and so on. (Do not even get me started on the women who are willing to have their pubic hair ripped out by the roots. That is insane, and I want no part of it whatsoever.)

But the article about eyebrows, well, it makes my argument for me. First off, read the instructions for how you (if you're a woman) are supposed to "do" your eyebrows. Imagine how much time that takes, every fucking day. And, given who's going to be obeying these instructions, this is on top of all of the other daily grooming--hair, makeup, shaving, etc.--all of which, I'm guessing, could easily take an hour. (Of course, the men who date these women then get to make demeaning remarks about "how much time it takes her to get ready"--even as they'd spurn her if she, say, stopped shaving her legs and wearing makeup.) The other thing, though--all this attention to the EYEBROWS?? If that isn't an enforced distraction, I don't know what would qualify.

It Just Doesn't Matter*

Meatball Pizza

Unusual and uncompromising. You're usually the first to discover a new trend. You appreciate a good meal and good company. You're an interesting blend of traditional and modern.

What's Your Pizza Personality?

Yes, I made pizza again Saturday--Phil even asked me on Friday if I was going to do it, presumably because he wouldn't bring lunch if I said yes. Saturday night I shlepped (and I do mean shlepped--it took me nearly two hours to get there) to a handball party, at which I stayed maybe an hour and at which I was repeatedly asked about Dave. I didn't lie to those guys, because I love them and I've known them forever and I know they love me, too, but I was only telling about four of them the story, and an abbreviated version at that. The amused part of me (which was only a very small part, I must admit) watched as the wives of the four came into the kitchen; they came over to give me a hug and say hi, and most commented on how well marriage was treating me, how great I looked, how marriage must be agreeing with me, etc. I could see their husbands wishing they could telepathically send a hand-slash-across-the-throat signal.

I scored a ride home, so I didn't have as much of a shlep (and it turns out that one of my escorts has made a living for 20 years as a freelance editor and writer, mostly of medical texts, so that was interesting). Once I got here, I realized how much I'd been dreading that set of conversations; next will be the extended family, I suppose. It's just sad--and I'm sure Dave is going through a version of it, and, odd though it may sound, I feel sad on his behalf, too, even when he manages to throw digs at me into his various communiques.

Sunday morning I woke up at my usual time (4:30 or thereabouts) and realized I wasn't going back to sleep, so I made a cup of tea and one of my famous lists and started doing chores. I hate cleaning, but I do like having cleaned (luckily, I recognize that the former is necessary for the latter). Nevertheless, by working assiduously, I managed to get nearly everything done from Sunday's list, and the things that got moved to today will be accomplishable (viz., laundry, which I never do on Sunday, because on Monday there's never a line; making lemon meringue pies/tarts with the various leftover bits I have in the fridge, except I need to get eggs before I do that; finishing some copyediting, which I've already done; and calling my dentist, because I think I have a cavity, while hoping the problem can be solved for less than a zillion bucks). Getting all that crap done definitely made the subsequent hanging out with a friend better, in that I didn't have undone chores sitting on my shoulder bugging me.

I'm supposed to go to a demonstration of laminated doughs this evening, being given by the chef who found me my job and who has been most supportive of me. We're trying to figure out what I should (and can) do next. I'm pretty much insisting on something that has a regular schedule--regular in the sense of the same days off each week, as well as regular in the sense of daytime hours--because side work requires that kind of predictability, and the side work is a necessity right now. Plus, I want to be able to have some kind of life and see my friends, and middle-of-the-night schedules really don't permit that. Yeah, I know I'm being picky, but that's always been my problem. That is, I want to do work that I like, and I want to have a life outside of work that I like, as well. I realize there are always compromises, and I also realize (although my mother does not seem to) that you can't always find the perfect situation, i.e., a fabulous, high-paying job that's enjoyable and fulfilling and provides frequent holidays and abundant vacation days.

What that means, of course, is that I end up trying to balance an equation with way too many variables in it. Do I want to be a baker? Yes--as long as I can have a reasonable life outside of work. Am I willing to do other work on the side? Sure--for now, anyway. Would I be willing to give up the baking? Maybe--as long as I like the work a lot and make a bunch of money at it ("bunch" being relative here). Do I want to own my own business? Maybe--as long as I can have that reasonable life, or something close to it, or if I love the work a whole big bunch. What do I not want to do? Work late (rather than early) hours; get paid by the shift rather than by the hour (in the food industry, that path means you get paid even worse--you get paid for an eight-hour shift and work ten or twelve hours); plate desserts. What do I want to do that I'm not doing now? Experiment more, make some more/different stuff, maybe be in charge of more, maybe even make a little more money--but I either have to make enough more money and get health insurance such that I don't need the work on the side, or I have to have the regular hours and days that allow me to continue the side work.

The thing that makes it difficult, of course, is that so many of the bits are unknowns. What kind of baking job can I find? What kind of non-baking job can I find? Those are the two big ones, and without knowing the answers, it's like being on "Let's Make a Deal" and having to pick a door. Fab vacation in the southwest? Or a donkey? So when I ask myself (or someone asks me) what I'm going to do next, or what I want to do next, well, what are my choices? Figuring out what they are, realistically, is the current project, I guess, and it's tiring.

Plus, my brain has decided that I need to write another book (I say "another," even though my dissertation was never published, because said disssertation was, in fact, a book-length manuscript). I don't know what's going to happen with that, whether I can really commit to it, but I've definitely started some of the initial bits. It would be easier if I could write fiction, because then I wouldn't have to do quite so much of that time-consuming research and it would be easier to get it published if I finish it, but fiction has never really been my strong suit. So, really, another part of this equation, if I'm serious about trying to write this thing, I know from previous experience that I write better and more when my day job does not involve quite so much writing.

*Am I the only person who's seen "Meatballs" and liked it and remembered that line fondly?

Quickie

Just to say that my mother called on on Monday to say she was sending me a check--and I asked her not to do that, and quietly told her I didn't like the strings she attached to money and that I'd work something out. Rather than, for example, apologizing for the things she'd said on Sunday, she hung up on me, so I'm not sure what's going to happen next.

In the comments to the last post, someone asked about my dad. Frankly, he'd be somewhat appalled; he's pretty unconditional in his support of me and always has been. My mom, not so much; much as she loves me, I really don't do much of anything the way she thinks I should. But I'm not putting my father in the middle of it, either. As for the he-earned-it part, interestingly enough, my dad has never looked at it as "his" money; he's much more of a feminist than my mother. That, however, is a subject for a longer post, one I don't have time to write right now.

I worked more than 10 hours yesterday--Jefe needed help at the end of the day putting green icing squiggles on wedding cake cookies. Overtime, baby!

Well, THAT didn't work out so well.

I'd talked to my mother a few weeks ago about health insurance, but nothing really specific. Today I suggested that my parents do what they did with my brother, when he was replacing the newspaper-and-toothpicks addition on his house with, you know, actual walls and insulation and the like. That is, rather than loan him the money, they gave it to him and basically deducted it from his eventual inheritance.

My mother's response? "No, I don't think we want to do that," i.e., give me money to pay for my health insurance, because that's "just blowing money away." They don't want to give me money for that. Well, I asked, what WOULD you give me money to do? Move from this city, is her answer. To go where? To do what? I asked. In other words, I asked, you want me to leave all my friends, my life? "If someone offered you money to move to San Francisco, would you want to do that?" I asked. No, she wouldn't. Then why expect me to do that? What job is it I'm supposed to be finding that I'm not finding? "How's the weather in your city?"

Not really the supportive response for which I was hoping, to put it mildly, but there's not much I can do about it. I'm surely not moving to their town--what the fuck would I do there? When I ask her what jobs she seems to think I can find that I'm not finding, she says she doesn't want to argue about it and changes the subject. I pointed out that she's never actually searched for a job, but she's incapable of thinking outside her own box. I know that about her, and I've been dealing with that for my whole life--mostly by trying to make my life more accessible and understandable to her--but my tactics don't always work.

My mother has tried this tactic before, too, i.e., tried to control my life with money, and it didn't work out so well then, either, at least not for her. I have no patience for this.

Of course, I don't really know what I'm going to do--it's not like I can make some immediate change that's going to resolve everything. Even if I looked for and found a job outside of baking, it's not like that's going to happen instantaneously.

Meanwhile, I spent all my grocery money for the month yesterday--on groceries. J took me to the store so I could stock up on things that are too heavy to shlep on the el, and I can supplement as needed with bits from the local grocery.

Speaking of food, I have to eat some. Except for yoga this morning, I've been sitting here in front of the computer all day, hacking away, and it's time for some nourishment.

Later: I should add that it's not that I think my parents "should" give me money--it's theirs, and they can do as they please with it. What annoys the everloving shit out of me is my mother's attempt to manipulate me with it. It's also depressing how little she understands of my life, even after all these years, but that's a different complaint, and a different feeling, for that matter.

A Fungus Among Us

On my arm, anyway; either that, or some kind of dermatitis. Last time I got something like this (nearly ten years ago) I cleared it up with nightly applications of olive oil plus tea tree oil. Given the amount of crap I have my hands in daily, it's not that surprising. Also, I can tell that the past six months or so have worn on me, in subtle ways; I'm out of balance. My fibroids are growing/have grown again (apparently my uterus is the size it would be if I were 14 weeks pregnant), I rarely sleep through the night (though I often, though not always, go back to sleep quickly when I wake up), lots of little things. I've been doing some work on the side, too, and I'll have to spend the weekend holed up in front of the computer, but I'm grateful for the work; I don't make enough at the bakery to make ends meet.

Speaking of the bakery, we have a guest again, some guy from Miami who wanted to work with Jefe for a month. He was with us for about a week, then had a family emergency, and he's back this week. The first day, he was standing across the table from me, next to Brad, when I said something to Brad about what's been going on in my life this past year, basically listing everything; kind of a lot of information in front of a complete stranger, but I was talking to Brad. Nevertheless, Ken piped up by saying, "I'm from Miami." It was the most bizarre non sequitur I'd heard in awhile, so I thought maybe I'd imagined it. Later, Brad ran into me downstairs as I put croissants onto sheet pans, and he said, "Did he say 'I'm from Miami'?" And we both just cracked up. Every once in awhile, one of us will say to the other, as an aside, "I'm from Miami."

Today, though, I thought I'd smack Ken upside the head. He NEVER STOPS TALKING. The bakery is loud enough, what with mixers, dough sheeters, timers, the proof box, the pan washer, etc., so to have someone chattering, non-stop, on top of it, well, it was a test of my patience, such as it is. I'm serious--he never shuts up. Everyone has commented on it, too, so I know it's not just me. It was especially annoying today, because I was just feeling sad. I suspected there might be hormonal involvement as well (and I think I'm right about that), but my experience is that hormonal swings tend to amplify what's already there rather than create something that's not.

Plus, Friday is a pain: Phil gets his stuff out of the downstairs freezer mid-morning (i.e., by 8:30 or so), which permits me to put in all of the croissants except the plain ones (approximately 23 dozen chocolate, 12 dozen cinnamon raisin, 4 dozen ham and cheese [we don't sell those at the market, so it's just for the store and wholesale orders], and 13 dozen almond) into cabinets and shove the cabinets into the freezer. Later, after the Festival of Plain Croissants, I have to find room for 42 dozen plain croissants and another 18 cinnamon raisin that have been turned into "morning buns" (which means we put them in big muffin tins, upside down, on top of a splotch of honey plus glucose, a generous handful of brown sugar, and, for some of them, pecans, and after they're baked they're turned upside right and they're all brown and lovely and gooey)--this requires two and a half additional racks, except by now the walk-in refrigerator upstairs is stuffed to the gills. There's no room to move, and everyone is annoyed every time he or she walks into the walk-in to find something. Eh; whatever. My systematic approaches to these things have made it as pain-free as it can get, and you just gotta get through the rest of it.

I realized lately that I have made no comments whatsoever on the various political situations abounding, which depresses me (that I'm not writing about important shit, but instead am meandering on about meaningless crap). Partly, I think, I don't have the energy to head to the rant zone, and these issues would send me there rather quickly. Second, there are plenty of other people doing a fine job--a much finer job than I would do. Not that this should make me feel any better, but I can't even bring myself to read the newspaper these days.

Dirty Laundry

Because in this heat, in a bakery, all you do is sweat. That's not entirely true, in that you can find well-timed reasons to visit the walk-in refrigerator, the walk-in freezer, the (air-conditioned) cake decorating room, and Jefe's office, but for the part where you're working with dough, butter, etc., yeah: Sweat. I did manage to spend some time in Jefe's office, setting up his worksheets for his new fiscal year, however, and I managed to get out of there by 3:00 today, but that just meant coming home to a hot apartment--at least I can take off my clothes here.

Meanwhile, the local phone company lost some of my business today. I still have a land line, and I've had the same basic plan for years; my monthly bill was somewhere around $18. When I moved, I said I want the same plan. Little did I know that (a) I would be more than 15 miles away from J, and (b) I had a "local toll" portion of the program--about which I knew nothing, because I never made calls more than 15 miles from where I was living, unless they were long-distance calls, in which case Working Assets was my provider--which cost 16 cents PER MINUTE. Yes, you read that correctly. I got my phone bill yesterday and, instead of $20, they want $92. And five cents. Which they'll get, because it was, in fact, my plan, but I immediately called Working Assets and said, hey, whaddya charge for local toll calls? Turns out it's (a) way less than 16 cents per minute and (b) less than the local phone company's packages, too. I'm there!

I actually feel sorry for the people who work for the company (which I'm refusing to name). When I set up my local service, the first repair guy said he couldn't do it, there was a problem in the building, blah, blah, blah. When I tried to call about it (after the building's repair person couldn't do it), I got stuck in Automated System Hell. What a worthless piece of shit! By the time I hung up, I was ready to bash someone, despite the no-hitting rule. I called back and just pressed 0 until I got a person, and I made sure to tell her how shitty the automated system was. She (not surprisingly) already knew this, and said that she got that complaint all the damned time, but the company wasn't interested. When Repair Guy 2 came out, he fixed the problem promptly, said the first guy should have done it, and said the same thing when I complained about the automated repair thing. The company's employees (a) (since I'm on an enumerative roll here) know the system is a piece of shit, and (b) communicate it regularly to their managers, etc., but, of course, the automated system (c) makes it more difficult to actually get help (I'm sure some people just give up) and (d) allows them to cut people, which makes some MBA dweeb look good because he cut the bottom line. Never mind that they just lost a chunk of my business--that's on somebody else's budget sheet!

Working Assets, on the other hand, actually does a great job, and their prices are reasonable--and I enjoyed being able to tell the person at Stupid Phone Company that the package they had to offer was more expensive than the one to which I had just switched. I also sympathized with her--I can't imagine it's her ideal job--and told her so, because beating up on her wasn't particularly satisfying. She's not the one with the MBA.

Evaluation

Suddenly all that Daniel had observed of Mr. Threader rearranged, in his mind, into a novel, strange, but perfectly coherent picture; it was like watching a pile of rubble spontaneously assemble itself into a marble statue.
--Neal Stephenson, "The System of the World"

It was 100 outside, yesterday, at least according to my inside/outside thermometer; right now (at 5:30 am) it's 87, and the sun's not up yet. Inside it's a balmy 84. Various friends are taunting me with my recent declaration that I like hot weather. Generally speaking, I don't mind it as much as some people do, perhaps because I haven't had air conditioning in my home since about 1978 when I last lived with my parents. You just get used to it, more or less. I have to admit that working in a bakery isn't the way to go in this weather, though; it's just brutal. I also have to admit that I need the occasional foray into air-conditioned (or, at least, cooler) space.

I stopped by the YMCA today to make sure theyhad cancelled our membership--which affected me more than I would have predicted. I flashed back to when we joined, so Dave would have some place to take the Kid swimming and a place to work out himself. I didn't use it much, but didn't really expect to--I played handball elsewhere, and did yoga elsewhere, but I wanted Dave and the Kid to have a place to play, too. Since I couldn't tell you the last time Dave and the Kid went swimming, and since they haven't gone regularly (e.g., twice in a month) in well over a year, and since Dave is unemployed, it seemed foolish to continue paying for a membership. I may rejoin at the Y near the bakery (if I ever get around to actually playing handball there), but the point is that it felt like a tie was being cut.

Most of the time I just go along, doing what's in front of me, figuring out some medium-range and short-range things, blah, blah, blah, but every once in awhile I look up and wonder what the fuck happened. The quote above resonated with me when I read it last week, because anything like this requires some (re)evaluation, and I have plenty of time and space to do that. I still don't know exactly what happened or why, but at least I've been getting some insight on my end of it.