“It’s Halloween, for Christ’s Sake”
It was Halloween today, a holiday for people with a social life and families, for dressed-up dogs and babies…
…and here I am sitting in the expensive shoebox sized apartment, $1350 each month, roommate from hell, a TV hog.
I wish I could tell her in a nice civil way, hey can I watch the TV too since I pay $80 a month for cable. I’m tired of being a wallflower, a pushover, is that an ADHD trait too?
I spent the entire day slaving away in cubicle hell today, it just gets worse and worse. Without the Indian colleague there’s two of us churning out five articles. The colleague does the minimum churning out three articles, why did I have to do five? I don’t want to do more than I need to and yet somehow I feel driven to do more, perhaps so I am liked or loved, heavens knows. But today I sat at work and for the first time really didn’t want to write, enough is enough I thought, I’m not enjoying this anymore – kind of like swimming.
I used to love to go to practice and swim, but lately it’s been a mess. I go feeling like I’m going to throw up in the pool. I look angry, I feel angry, and I swim angry and the harder I try the worse it is. The other night the Japanese tri-athlete guy swims in our lane, and he obviously has no idea how to keep track of time because he was supposed to wait five seconds in between and instead he kept swimming the sets in a manic fashion almost mowing us down.
The woman who swims in my lane is a nice woman, fat, plump like a turkey, and has a cheery personality to match it. She was mad at him too but at least she could joke about it. “We should train him,” she joked. “All men need to be trained.” It was a much more positive way to look at things. I wanted to drag him out of the pool and give him a tongue lashing. Lately these seemingly little things-slow walking people on the sidewalk, crying babies at the airport, being jammed up against the subway car like a sardine, get my blood boiling. The iPod calms me down and serves as my urban pacifier. Steve Jobs rocks.
The city with its rough edges, has been bothering me lately. Everything here feels incredibly loud and impersonal. In the two bedroom, fifth floor walk up, I feel unhappy living with a stranger, space is a premium, everything is a premium, a roll of paper towel costs $2.50 at the 7-Eleven.
What made things worse today was the she-boss she has locked herself in her office, and poked bullet holes in my article with comments like this is a lame lead, can’t you be more specific? In the end it shouldn’t matter but it does. I take these things personally. I have this imaginary frying pan always smacking me over the head and screaming, what’s wrong with you?
