Eye Care

I was going to parcel this out over the next week, but it seared such an impression on my mind, 1. I couldn't shut up about it, and 2. I figured I might as well just get it all down. This is all I'm posting for this week, as a result. We'll go back to the (now regular) 5x a week posting next week, unless something changes. Which it always could; I hereby reserve that right.

Also, I don't know if the effect I was going for when I described the actual PRK came through, but I think it's one of the better things I've written recently. Trying to alternate between beauty and disgust to show just how wonderful/wretched the entire thing was, but at the time, I was too focused on the wretched nature of the procedure. Only in hindsight have I been able to (sort of) appreciate the handiwork.

**

One of the questions I have most come to fear, the dreaded “What are you doing on (this day)?” It’s not that I mind helping people, it’s just that I’m never quite prepared for the magnitude of the task. “Can you come with me to court?” “Can you proofread my paper?” “Can you help me move?” “Can you take me to the airport?” “Can you be the father to my child?” “Can you pray with me?” “Can you believe in me?” “Can you take me to surgery?”

Z.M. decided fairly quickly to undergo the popular eye-reshaping procedure. She had plenty of people volunteer to take her (that’s what happens when you’re “good people.”), but all would have been inconvenienced beyond the normal trip. Enter K.T.

In a way, it doesn’t matter what the task is. The issue is that tone, that halting, cautious, feel-you-out tone. The verbal sparring, throwing a jab out, a few words to see if I flinch. As soon as I hear the tone and the day, I scrap whatever was going to happen at that time, unless it absolutely can’t wait. (Screw you all, no one can make me give up the bathroom. Not a one of you trumps Mr. Bladder.) If you have to ease into the conversation, I know that it’s important to you. And if it’s important to you, then it’s important to me. It’s no longer a question, but a directive. Laundry can wait.

Flash forward to Saturday morning. I slept in until 0700, and still felt tired. (Yes, 0700 is really late for me.) Print up the directions to Z.M.’s place and the Laser Tag arena, and head to Giant for some supplies. Vicks VapoRub for babies, to banish the possibly sweet smell of seared cornea, and an onion. Z.M. was warned the effect would be that of a perpetual onion-dicing contest. Her response when I handed it to her? “Oh, you bastard.”

Between the consult and the surgery, the doctor recommended (and Z.M. opted for) P.R.K., a safer procedure with a longer healing period. This mucked up plans for the V.W. crew to all hang out, but when you’re risking possible blindness, you better do what the doctor says.

I’d arrived at Z.M.’s around 0945, fifteen minutes early. (For those unaware, I loathe being late for appointments [and if you’re on time, you’re late], and have a special propensity towards getting lost if given directions. Ask anyone, if dropped in the woods with a map and compass, the search parties would find me four days later with a scrap of Tucson, Arizona hanging from my mouth. I also adhere to the speed limit plus ten miles and drive like an old lady. This all comes into play, I swear.)

When I called Z.M. to confirm the directions, the connection somehow refracted my audio signal in on itself, producing a two second delay on my voice. My only thought: Do I really sound like that?

She’d expected me at 1000, so spent the next fifteen minutes preparing, and somehow biting her thumb or slamming it into the door while brushing her teeth. I’m stuck wondering if she understands how to operate the brushtooth device. Meanwhile, Z.M. tells me to read Ms. Magazine, as I might learn something. I did; women are not to be treated as inferior beings.

We take off in the Lady Surfer at 1000, after she does a smell test to ensure the mildew won’t overpower her senses (because of the rain, I must wait a while for the drying to commence. Though it’s a great song, I do not anymore share the Temptations’ sentiment, “I Wish It Would Rain.”) The Mapquest directions take us into the District of Columbia, to a most abhorrent experience.

I have never driven in our nation’s capital. I have never vomited in our nation’s capital. I have cursed in our nation’s capital, as I did when trying to find the George Washington Parkway. For the stretch we drove on it, there were a grand total of zero signs labeling its existence. Reminded me of the Pentagon, a.k.a. the Building Constructed in the Deepest Depths of Hell by Mildly to Moderately Incompetent Contractors (BCDDHMMIC).

This led to a cavalcade of wrong turns, blocking off tour buses, and at one point, Z.M. yelling “Take this turn,” and me whipping the Lady Surfer 90 degrees, just as we were about to pass the G.W. Parkway. Again.

Here, we realize that the directions only require is to hit 495 North. Had we known this, we could have saved 25 minutes. I vow to “liberally interpret” the speed limit, which Z.M. hears as “literally interpret.” True to my word (for once), we hit 495, and we go screaming down the widened causeway. To and fro, the sweeping curves force excessive drivers to slow down if they hope to stay within their artificially delineated lanes, and I curse the developers.

Throughout, I try to crack wise to put the two of us at east, with varying levels of success. Z.M.’s dealing with it fairly well, a little nervous. She is right now more concerned with having to wear the unfashionable sunglasses, rather than her own stylish pair. I am actually more nervous at this point, because I believe in tightly-controlled lies, i.e. statistics. It is only a matter of time before someone on my watch becomes statistically significant for all the wrong reasons, and I hope today isn’t the day. Of course, I tell Z.M. the stats favor her being fine. Yet another functional lie.

At 1055, I start to get nervous. I want, no, I need to get her there on time, just so she can be on time. I glance at the dash every few seconds, curse every red traffic light, taunting me with the hundreds of LEDs, a passive taunt. Late, late, late. GFY, you horrid lights. (Side note: When I ask something or someone to GFY, I am asking them to go forth and procreate with themselves, in not-so-kind terms.).

At 1059, on the homestretch, Z.M. pulls out her cell and says T-Mobile synchronized the time with satellites. Her cell says 1058. I tell T-Mobile, wherever it is, that if it was a person, I’d kiss them, but they’re a corporation, so I must hate them.

We pull up with seconds to spare. The original plan of Z.M. doing a dive, tuck and roll while I drive by the entrance is shelved for now.

What I didn’t anticipate about the Lasik facility, which makes perfect sense in retrospect, is the subdued lighting. Harsh filaments eschewed in favor of soft fluorescence, but not the cheap style that bathes all in an aged yellow glow, like a fresh daguerreotype from the 18^th century. No, they pained themselves to create a warm atmosphere. Very neutral greys, very neutral woods. The only bold touches were the paintings, flowers bright and inspiring, all slightly abstract and indistinct. A subtle hint that if you undergo the treatment, your world will come into sharp focus?

Z.M. presented herself at the front desk. The receptionist looked at the files and proceeded to mispronounce her first name, the eyebrows arched in that “Is this how it really is?” manner. She presented Z.M. with a sticky name tag, with the procedure preinted thereon, as if patients would attempt to steal others’ surgery. Then again, this is America, land of opportunity, yours and mine.

We seated ourselves in plush dark green sofa seats and waited. Thus the great game did begin.

Another receptionist called Z.M. to finalize the paperwork and collect payment. She noticed that some wag had darkened the letters on Saturday. I don’t know what was worse, that someone had done it, that I laughed, or that I had never thought of that before. Z.M. inquired about valium, but the woman hemmed and hawed, reticent to fill the scrip. They did have travel-size packets of Tylenol PM, a far cry from the blessed-out valiume-world. I do not know why they were so afraid of giving it. Two pulls from the powder pony does not an addict make.

A little later, seated in the chairs, D. came over with a surgical-scrub blue hairnet, and a dark black handbag with the doctor’s name, the facility’s title, and a clear card holder on the back. The receptionist pegged D. as the one that blackened the crucial letters on the weekend, leaving us with crap. He is a big man, 6’6”, excess of 300 pounds. When he first sat down, I smelled ammonia, as if he’d wet himself, washing in the bathroom sink, and tried to play it off. In contrast with his trickster personality, D. was all frowns while describing the medicinal regimen Z.M. would have to submit to over the coming weeks. As is my wont, my eyes and mind wandered and wondered. I looked down at D’s left hand, and his middle finger ended in a stump, aligned perfect with his index finger, tip pinker than the rest of his browned hand.

I stared at that until he walked away.

They’d pronounced Z.M.’s first name incorrectly again and again, so I looked at her name tag. Lo and behold, a rogue “a” infiltrated her name, sabotaging all stranger attempts to call her. Of course, by now, they all started calling her Ms. M.

While she went to the back to get her eyes examined, I went to the bathroom. A man seated in a stall had occupied the bathroom. Several beeping sounds were emanating from his phone. I do not want to hazard any guesses as to what he was doing. With his cell phone. I know, and you should, what else was going on. (What, everybody doesn’t poop?).

More DMV-esque waiting. By now, Z.M. popped a Tylenol P.M., with no effect. I went to the coffee machine and brewed up a cup of Milky Way drink. It tasted like well water, brackish and barely fit for human consumption. Much later, I would discover the chocolate and sugar crystals coating the bottom of the cup. Scooped some out and ate it. Boy howdy, was that good.

More waiting. I cannot emphasize the wait. Z.M. goes in to talk to the good doctor, Doctor Who. I dub him so because he bore more than a passing resemblance to Tom Baker’s rendition of Doctor Who, perhaps the most famous. Some scraggly dark hair, same slightly perpetually befuddled look. Z.M. says one of his ears is bigger than the other. I have no reason to doubt her assessment.

Around this time, I am charged with possession of Z.M.’s purse. Now, hold your horses. I only signed on as chauffeur, not purse-holder. There are at least seventeen different ways for a man to hold a bag. It is impossible to keep your dignity with sixteen of those methods. Number seventeen involves matches, and I had none. Still, to paraphrase the old saying, a pound of pennies gets you into the bank.

I ask Z.M. how long this should take, after she mentions I have nothing to read.

K.T.: I thought this would take twenty minutes.
Z.M.: Oh, no, they said it could take around two hours.
K.T.: You didn’t tell me that.
Z.M.: I did, in the e-mail.
K.T.: No, you didn’t.
Z.M.: Oh. Well, it could take up to two hours.

Communication isn’t dead, just in a perpetual coma.

At least, we arrive at the raison d’etre. It’s Go Time. Z.M. dons her cap (which matched her clothing), and goes into the operating room. I sit outside the 9 foot glass panes and watch, sipping my well water. At this point, I feel creepy, like a dirty old man getting voyeuristic pleasure from watching this happen. I think it’s that none of them acknowledges my presence, and go about their business as per normal.

What I saw will haunt me forever. We live our lives accustomed to certain principles. On of those is that we perceive certain objects on a certain scale. Zoom in, throw away the reference frame, and it becomes alien. Z.M.’s eye was displayed from a monitor for the world just beyond those glass panes to see, and I am now xenophobic.

Allow me to describe it without the monitor feed. Z.M. went in, and the door closed. “Warning-Laser Room” marked the door. She lay down on the padded bench, wedge propping her knees. They gave her ocean blue stress balls to squeeze in each hand. She crossed her wrists at the waist, as if girding herself for battle. A large blue swatch covered her left eye. Doctor Who, lab coat and all, entered after the prep. He sat at the machine, eyes focused in on the eye pieces. The nurses prepped her eyes and dropped in various eye drops. Then, a strange clack-hum for five second intervals. Repeated over and over. Then, more eye wash and what not. Repeat for second eye. Simple, clean, sterile safe.

Until you take a closer look.

As I write this, I am but a few hours removed from witnessing that experience. After some thinking, I have come to the conclusion that it was either the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, or the worst abomination known to man upon this earth.

Doctor Who sat down at the eyepieces and focused in on Z.M.’s right eye. As he sat at her head, the inverted eye kept blinking, almost mouthing a prayer. Then, they taped back both eyelids, the giant stalk-like eyelashes caught in eternal surprise. A nurse inserted the reverse-clamp, one beneath each eyelid (Think “A Clockwork Orange.”). Soon, the blood vessels engorged, all point towards the iris, sending sympathetic signals to the lids. “Close, damn you, close.” To no avail. Such is our lot. We suffer to revel, ache to love, hurt to help.

I took a sip of well water.

Doctor Who gently spread a clear gel atop Z.M.’s eye. With a delicate precision, he wielded his scalpelette, the honed edge gleaming, almost bright enough to sing. With a mother’s care, he eased away the gel covering her pupil and iris. The pupil flared and dimmed in response, as that fine edge cleared away the superficial, leaving the relevant cornea, glistening and pure and (soon-to-be) perfect.

I breathed the air, cool and promising.

With each passing moment, tens of crimson laser points bespeckled Z.M.’s eye in a seemingly random pattern. Sometimes, the laser points spiraled out, faded to neon blue, expired upon her still-gelled sclera. Soon, the corneal surface adopted a matte finish, and the underlying eye grew indistinct, as if I were undergoing said surgery myself.

I watched others watch her watch the laser which could not itself see.

After nine or ten series, Doctor Who covered the iris with a sparkly, silvered disc. It sat for a few seconds, perhaps an open defiance to germs. “This is my charge, and you will not bring infection while I stand guard.” Alas, its time was limited; its bravery, timeless. Then, a flood of clarity, materialized in sterile liquid form, cleansing, relieving.

I looked in my cup and fished out a lump of chocolate and sugar.

A few, stingy drops of a separate clear liquid. Surely they could have spared more for my ailing friend? Then, a milky liquid. Could its palliative effect outweigh the questionable appearance? Mixing in the pool of her abused eye, which was still staring up, unblinking, unfeeling.

I stared at my ghostly reflection in the glass, realized I was superimposing my own brown eye on that monitor.

A thick contact atop the liquid mélange, and the removal of the tape and clamps. The eye blinked, then shut closed, as if it did not want the world to look at it.

Repeat for eye the second.

Z.M. left the room crying, the only reason being that a laser had just reshaped her eye, and the tear ducts deal with it by leaking. I described what I saw, then realized she’d forgotten to smear the VapoRub beneath her nose. She described a slight burning smell, but nothing major.

Doctor Who gave her a final once over, then sent her on her merry way. Z.M. donned the facility-standard sunglasses, rather than her own. We stepped into early afternoon sun. I relished the heat, and vowed to run later. She flinched a bit upon first light.

On the drive back, the Tylenol P.M. finally started to kick in. We talked, but it seemed neither of our minds were entirely there. Her mind was slow-fading into a dream state. I was just filling the void, still block-stunned at the spectacle. (Side note: Block-stun is a concept in fighting games, wherein you cannot input any action for a certain amount of time after a successful block of an opponent’s attack. Whenever I’ve been so stunned by something I don’t know how to react, then I refer to myself as block-stunned.)

At the beginning, I wrote that I don’t mind when people ask me to do things. I actually do to a certain extent, because then I feel responsible. Oft times, they ask for help with important events, but in the end, it is all on them. Besides driving Z.M. to and from the facility, I did, I can do, nothing. Right now, it is all reliant upon Doctor Who’s skill, and Z.M.’s recovery.

It’s not that I mind helping, it’s that I mind all of you making me give a damn about something other than myself.

Heal quickly, Z.M.

Safety Blankie

Way back when I wrote I felt compelled to apply the legal training in some fashion. I have done so, albeit in a fashion not everyone expected.

I am a legal safety blankie.

Though the sample set remains small, I can at least break down the groups. Those that want to copyright, patent and trademark, those that want to get around traffic violations and contracts, and those that have citizenship issues.

I can't help the foreign nationals. From what little I know of it, much is filling out the proper forms and waiting. This leads to awkward exchanges:

V.M.: What do you know about immigration law?
K.T.: Nothing.
V.M.: Can you help me with immigration law?
K.T.: No.
V.M.: I thought you went to law school.
K.T.: Immigration law isn't a required course.
V.M.: Oh.

V.P.: What do you know about immigration law?
K.T.: Nothing.
V.P.: Can you help me expedite the process?
K.T.: Can you give me a website to look at?
V.P.: Here's the website. (Sends email)
K.T.: I'm kind of busy, you better also send an e-mail saying if I don't help you, I'm an asshole.

Later, I received an email saying I was an asshole if I didn't help V.P.

The import of this? I know nothing about immigration law.

However, everything else, it just tumbles out like mud from an awning. Those wonderful outlines I spent months memorizing are now hard-coded on my mind. It is almost embarassing just how effective their mental boot camp was. Young children create neural pathways at an unparalleled rate. By adulthood, that process has mostly burned itself out. However, you can stimulate it if you sit there and read, and read, and read. Old dog, meet new tricks.

It is strange just how reassuring this pittance of knowledge I can dole out truly is. And yet, people take heart in what I say. Not that it is always good news. Sometimes, it feels like choosing among the least onerous options. Still, once the boundaries are drawn, and you understand the rules of the game, you tend to rest easier, or at least know what to do next.

(Side note: I think this is why religion and politics appeal to people on such a fundamental level, and engender the most divisive discourse. Religion is an easy-to-understand [if not always easy-to-follow] set of rules for life. Politics is an easy-to-adapt [if not always easy-to-understand] set of rules for governing the masses. Also why atheism and anarchy scare people. A naked rejection of our best attempts to impose order upon this chaotic existence, devoid of even a semblance of order.)

It is also frightening just how much people charge for the advice I'm doling out for free. Granted, they carry themselves with gravitas and append alphabet soup after their names. I crack jokes and rarely, if ever, sign "esq." after my name. Still, when you round to the nearest six-minute increment to calculate time to be billed, something has gone awry. (Disclaimer: I keep track of work by rounding to the nearest six-minute increment.)

What Might Have Been

This was inspired by a discussion I had with C.S., my boy from l-school. We get along because we lived in the dorms, we both sent Simpsons/Futurama/Family Guy quotes to each other over the internets, we both like reading, and we both hated the law. Plus, there was that one time when we almost made each other break down laughing/crying during a Con Law II class when we were discuss D&X abortions and the legality thereof. If there was not a worse time to laugh, I don't know when it is.

After l-school (coming up on one year, my word), we attended bar review together, and helped to keep each other sane. Then, our careers diverged. He went into the law, and I went into captioning. Really, no one should have been surprised by either of our choices. I made a leap (of faith? of foolishness?) into technical writing. He's still in the law.

C.S. was just mentioning how he had an all day meeting, and how he began to understand what was wrong with them. Somehow, it led into how dissatisfied he was with the law, which he has been, more or less, since day one. Those golden handcuffs are cinched on real tight, I think. (Side note: The "golden handcuffs" chain you to the law because you get paid so much money, you become accustomed to a certain lifestyle. Career changes generally bring a decrease in pay, significant enough that you cannot afford the change. Hence, "golden handcuffs.")

I didn't even need to ask him if he was happy. He flat out stated he wasn't. And really, it would be so easy to rectify. Well, I say it would be so easy. It's not. He is trained to be a lawyer. The world is trained to view him as a lawyer. Jumping out is hard. I know, I've done it twice, and both times the heavens rained good fortune down on me. Think I may have sent out over 150 job applications the first time around.

It's not right. It's not fair. C.S. isn't one of those rare people that can do anything, but there's a lot of stuff he could do, if only given the chance. Really, that's all any of us want, when you get down to it. A single chance to make right, to do good, to insert a cliche of your own choosing. At the rate he's going, he may never get his chance. He'll keep on trudging until the law discards him like an empty banana peel.

In a feeble attempt to raise his spirits, I joked that I should come to work for his firm. He laughed, said that would be great, we'd have fun, and he'd never get any work done. Now, there is no way they would ever hire me, and there is almost no way I'd apply for a job at a law firm (even at my lowest, I only applied for two lawyer jobs). Still, I guess it's a question of how far you will go for your friends, and I have to say, I'm not man/crazy enough to take that step. Yet.

DMV-B

At 0804 by my chronometer, the security guard unlocks the door. I walk inside, and wait patiently at the sign that orders me to wait until called. I wait for thirty seconds. The embarrassment fades after twenty. The lady asks me what my business is, if i have a passport or birth certificate, then hands me a number. D400. Look at it, a thing of beauty. Issued at 8:01 A.M. by their clocks. I curse my chronometer for not conforming to the DMV standard.

I go to sit down, and wait patiently for a few minutes, until they call my number. C. sits down next to me. We have become DMV buddies. (Side note: I will never see C. again. Still, I miss those days when it was so easy to just sit down next to someone, become friends, and leave and never see them again, and it didn't matter. You just did it because it was the right thing. Now we're too wrapped up in the music on our iPods, the e-mail on our BlackBerries, the stories in the Washington Post.)

I walk up to the counter, and the gentleman is wearing brown-rimmed glasses and a haircut so short that when he leans over to read something, his shiny head resembles a chia pet after 2 weeks of sparse growth. He sports a medallion set with a purplish stone, and has left his second button unbuttoned to demonstrate that it matches his purply stone pinky ring. Also a thick silver earring which is actually stretching the lobe slightly downward; in another 200 years, it will pull the ear off.

Yes, this gentleman exudes class like cheap perfume.

We start with my driver's license, and I proffer the application, a proof of residence (a postcard with my old and new addresses on it), a passport, my Maryland driver's license (good gravy I look like I just got my first license ever. Medium-length hair is not my friend.), my social security card (I can remember "signing" it when I was four, and really just learned how to print letters. So blocky.), and something else. Oh, right, my heart.

C. gets called, and she's come to the carrel next to me. It's gotten to that awkward phase where we both want to get our stuff done, and don't really have anything to say to each other. Which is probably just as well, as most of our comments earlier were directed towards the DMV employees, not necessarily complimentary in their tone or nature.

Mr. Purply Stone gets up to handle some money for five minutes for Alfred knows what reason. When he returns, he finishes up the driver's license application. We move on to the title. I hand over an emissions test (for the car, not for me. I'm corked.), the application (one less tether to the oddest-shaped state in the lower 48), and the title (blue; when he told me I needed red, that blew.).

Yes, Maryland is a two-part title state. Think of it as Maryland: The State that Screws You Over. That's a two-part title right there. Strangely, though, I took it in stride, just asked what I should do to get it, and he told me there were several options. We talked a little more, and he invited me to come directly to him when I had all the information, that I would not need to wait in line the next time I came to the DMV. How considerate, and do not think I will not take him up on that offer.

At least I have the license. I turn around. It is 0820, and there are at least thirty people in the seats. I think they have just called D404. Over the intercom, some garbled name is called, which I cannot understand. They call the garbled name repeatedly over the next five minutes until I realize that, hey, it's me!

Every time I get a new license, I want to come up with the stupidest look I can, just to see if it will fly. Every time, I am rebuffed, except for this time, when I just forgot. And now, I am licensed to drive in Virginia, and vote in Virginia, and donate my organs in Virginia. Also, based on the picture, look like an idiot in Virginia.

As I leave, C.'s disappeared, but her car's still there. I wish her all the best. Who knows? Maybe Lady Surfer will break down, and when I take her in to the nearest shop, C. will be there bringing out the parts.

By the way, someone remind me to re-christen Lady Surfer if/when I title and register her in Virginia. I'm leaning towards Aerial, because the next breakdown will probably be serious enough to send me flying. That, or I'm head over heels for the old girl.

DMV-A

I went to the VA-DMV this morning at around 7:20. Because I never knew that MD has two part titling (a red and a blue sheet), I will have to go back at least one more time. And really, if the experience was anything like this morning's, I won't mind one bit.

Here's my dirty little secret: If you are the first one in line, then the DMV is a pleasureable experience. Yes, I have uttered sheer heresy, and should be flayed to the bone for my filthy statements. But hear me out. (Side note: Yes, some of you have closed your eyes and flailed about wildly with your cursor in an attempt to escape this page, thus depriving me of my say. Well, D___ you.) Figure that my wait time from entry to counter was two minutes. However, note that it was scary that it took them two minutes to call my number. Since it's early in the morning, they have yet to be yelled at. They're still in a (relatively) good mood. Get in, get out, get bent. Wait, wrong audience, that was intended for Tha Haterz.

It turned out that the DMV is located very near L.M., almost close enough to walk if the weather weren't so ear-chilling frigid. When I first arrived, the only cars present were the ones in the back nearest the Employees Only entrance, so I drove away to grab a bagel and return. At that point, two cars were waiting. In their cars? They're not in line. Again, I fail at game theory, get out of the toasty car, and sit myself down next to the glass doors.

My bagel had a large square of cream cheese, as opposed to the normal daub smeared on. It could easily have been carved from a block, or it was a prepackaged slice of cream cheese, made just to slam onto a bagel. Most infuriating, for no good reason. Well, the cream cheese spreading wasn't even, and I suppose that was the biggest issue. Still, I shall not be refrequenting that delicatessenary establishmentation.

The bricks I was sitting on were leeching heat from my ass. (Side note: To be more accurate, the heat energy from my ass was going towards an area of less energy, namely, the bricks. Still, this ascribes a human quality to energy I'd rather not give it, when I can easily humanize bricks.) I wondered at what point there would be equalization, and it would no longer be cold. In retrospect, this is like hoping to hit terminal velocity when you've leapt from a plane, in order to avoid the sensation of falling.

This whole time, I am within eyesight of the blue car, which I did not look into. I cannot help but wonder if the driver thinks me an idiot for waiting out here, in the cold, with no one else in line. At around 7:45, the driver comes out and sits down next to me. We strike up a conversation, because there is nothing else to do aisde from stare at our breaths crystallizing in the winter swirl.

At one point, the snow flakes start teasing from the heavens. What. The. Hell.

It turns out C. is from Indiana, a new transplant to Virginia, and works with cars (parts). She is mad that she got placed in parts solely because she is a woman in a man's workspace, and I sympathize. She also notes that she makes the same money in parts as she would being a technician, so is amenable to keeping her current position. She expresses no surprise at my profession, and I decide to avoid the whole "I'm a lawyer and before you say anything screw you for asking me about it" line of thought.

The line starts to snake outward as singles start lining up behind me. Here is a man in a suit with a newspaper and glasses. There is a woman in a power suit and tennis shoes reading a Janet Evanovich hardback. Never heard of her, but judging from the large font on the title, and the all-pink book cover, as well as the power suit/tennis shoe combo, I have to assume it's chick lit. Everywhere we are cold and shivering. Aside from me and C., few words are exchanged. There is business to be done. Let us in to do it.

Dog Running, Part the Third

I also learned how dogs poop, at least this one. When she squatted, K.L. bowed her legs in such a way that she appeared ready to execute some ballet move whose name I cannot pronounce. It looked downright dainty, until her poops squeezed out. Two good-sized pieces, about the length of a candy bar each.

There is an advertisement (pronounced add-vur-tiz-mint in the British fashion, because I am a downright fop) for a can of cooled gases that quickly freezes animal feces. Yes, this product was marketed towards pet owners that wanted to pick up their pet waste in one clump. I thought that was ridiculous, until I inverted the bag around my hand and tried picking up K.L.'s gentle goodness. My first pincer grab pinched it in half. The second started smearing it onto the verdant grass. Finally, with a full palm attempt, I got the entire morass into the bag, flipped the bag back around, and proceeded to carry it for fifteen minutes because I could not find a "doggie station."

When your main concern is not losing a dog, you do not have time to worry about where you are going. K.L. ran circles around me, ran my arm behind my back so I had to pirouette mid-stride just to untangle. (Side note: Yes, I would have made a beautiful ballerina.) At one point, I tried dragging K.L. away from a pile of crusty dog poop by turning and walking away. Took three steps and a ridiculous tug almost knocked me down. K.L. had run around a pole, leaving me to have to drag her, and it. Ha, ha, ha. Hah.

At one point, we came upon another dog, quite demure, perhaps half K.L.'s size, and the owner. Upon sight, K.L. stutter-stepped, then beelined towards the faint chocolate colored dog, the same hue as K.L.'s earlier poop, still in my hand. I had to apologize to the other owner, then drag K.L. away, both hands gripping the leash, my body tilted thirty degrees away from verticality.

When we finally returned to home base, I let K.L. inside and closed the door. She went nuts, rocketing around the apartment like her tail was aflame.

Right now, she's a little tuckered out, and so am i. Still, in another twenty minutes, we're going to go for another walk. Even though she's curled up on the couch, her stark eyes all droopy, her nose tilted towards the ground, I have to take her out, because of one simple fact. Even though K.L. made her poopies, not once did she lift her leg to peepee.

Dog Running, Part the Second

The OG plan was to go home, change, or at least grab my running shoes, drive to J.L.'s, and walk K.L. However, events forced me to stay at work and hour later than I intended. So, straight shot there, getting lost only once.

It's strange, sitting here in J.L.'s condominium, K.L. running around, me essentially pretending to be J.L. for a little while. I don't feel like an outright intruder, since I received permission and everything. On the other hand, i notice things, big and little, that remind me, in a Heinlein-esque fashion, I am a stranger in a strange land. Do you grok?

The biggest inconsistency is K.L. My apartment complex does not allow pets, and I have never exhibited any strong desire to have a pet since I was four, and my parents got an untrained german shepherd. To this day, I fear dogs able to put their forelegs on my shoulders, as I fear K.L. a little. I think she smells it.

J.L. just called. He was worried when I didn't pick up earlier, and told me he feared he would get a message from me, breathless, wheezing, saying I had to chase after K.L. and had lost her. A completely valid concern. Would you trust me with your child?

I harnessed K.L's pink collar to her pink lanyard/leash, pocketed a convenient doggy bag (not that kind) J.L. left on the counter, and took K.L. outside.

The leash had a loop at one end, so I threaded my fingers through and wound it around my hand once. Almost immediately, K.L. subjected me to her raw power as she bolted and almost dislocated my shoulder.

I do not walk dogs. Dogs walk me. K.L. dragged me this way and that, showing me all the best grass to sniff, all the best bushes to sniff, all the best aged dog poop to sniff. Really, she is an aromatic collector, and I am just there to soak it all in.

Dog Running, Part the First

K.L. is a majestic creature. Female siberian husky, about twelve months old, forty pounds or so. On her hind legs, when I kneel down, she can put her forelegs on my shoulder and lick my face. With poor aim, she can also claw my cheek, as she did today. Thick, velvet-soft fur all over, an even mix of night-black and snow-white fur. It comes out variously storm grey and andalusian blue in patches. Her face is mostly white, save an off-green mark near her left eye that I must ask J.L. about. Oh, and what piercing blue eyes, in the right light. I swear, it is almost if, when she's barking, and you kneel down and stare into those eyes, that she's talking to you.

Just now, K.L. just sat up, and her eyes were eggshell white. So very disorienting, almost like a ghost wolf.

Now that she is walking, I can see her legs, paws, and underbelly are mostly white, with hints of brown flecking here and there, as if a mad artist were flinging paint from his brush.

I don't know if her ears always stand at attention, but they are doing so now. Like triangular antennae, waiting to pick up sign of danger. She's just flicked her food at me, little round brown food pellets. I just told her to behave.

Right now, I think she's testing the limits of what she can get away with. K.L. has seen me a couple of times before, but has never been alone with me. Thus, test the boundaries. What can I get away with that Daddy won't allow? She already took me for a walk, and I picked up her poopl, so that right there established the dominant party.

J.L. had to leave the state on short notice, and asked if I would be a surrogate parent/babysitter. I said sure. How hard could this be?

K.L.'s flicking more and more of her food about the condominium. We'll make it an issue later. I'm just tired after this day of work.

I showed up, key in tow, unlocked the door, and found the condominium quiet. No K.L. Locked up in J.L.'s bedroom in her cage. Little doggie refugee from an unnamed war, pacing her tiny cell, refusing to give up the information her captors (me) want to know. Like how to open the door.

When I knelt down to the gate, K.L. perked up. Freedom, or so she hoped. What she could not count on was me flipping the latches up, watching them fall, clang against the door. It turned out they were meant to slide, slide to the left. Sliiiiiide. When I manipulated the latches, she tore out for (relative) freedom.

After some experimentation with the leash and collar, we were off and running.

Law Time

If ever you were to give voice to one question that would reveal the most about me (aside from the damned obvious "Tell me all about yourself?"), it would probably be "Why don't you want to be a lawyer?"

I know I harp on this a lot, but it's my blog, my topics. If you have a problem, start your own, damnit.

Yeah, didn't think so.

My situation isn't unique. It can't be. Disgruntled lawyers slog through the working world every day. Granted, there can't be too many that were admitted to their respective state bars, then never practiced. But we are out there. And someday, my brethren, I will find you. You are not alone. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.

Still, people don't understand the "WHY." Yes, all capital letters. I realize much of this may be on me and my inartful phrasing. And part of it may be me not really sure of the "WHY." Yes, the horrid, painful truth is that I do not know for sure that I would hate the law. However, I would never admit to penning those words. Someone just hacked into Writ and typed all that. Of course, I don't need to get shot to know I wouldn't like that.

My best answer? Time is one of our most valuable commodities. You cannot buy more time. We all are blessed with finite lifespans. It is not a curse upon us that we have limited time, and then we leave. Live forever, and life loses its flavor. It teaches us to cherish the limited amount of time we have (and whether or not we choose to listen is another story). Most other things can be purchased, bartered for, or otherwise acquired. Not time.

For the law, you pay a price much greater than just money. You spend so much of your all-too-valuable time. Yes, the money is an attempt to compensate you for your time, but think about it. If I were to offer you thirty dollars, forty dollars, fifty dollars, for one hour of your life, would you take it? I would say no, but I don't know what you might say. I have to give up some of my time in order to make money to support myself, but there comes a limit. Each hour is precious, a glistening jewel beyond compare. I used to throw them away, but no longer.

You cannot pay me enough to willing give up an hour. Sure, I would buy material goods with that money. And then what? I've still lost the hour.

The law is a greedy bastard. It takes and takes. After your forty hours, it swallows up even more, and gives you fool's gold. Regardless of my opinions of the law and how interesting I may (not) find it, I would have to sink so much time into it. I will do that for fiction. I love free writing. I will do it for certain people, whose initials I will not list here. You already know it, or you don't. These are proven quantities in my life. The law? Not so much.

The national average starting salary for a lawyer is sixty thousand dollars a year, or roughly thirty dollars an hour. Let's say I work sixty hour weeks. Those extra twenty hours are not worth the six hundred dollars. I'd rather have the time. Even if I found the law mildly tolerable, this still wouldn't be enough to get me to spend that much time chasing the dollar. I can always make more money. I can't generate more time.

The Art

I think I'm going to cry.

And it makes me doubly sad, because I would have rushed right on past. I don't have an ear for music, despite the five years of piano lessons, the experience with a cappella singing in college. I listen to rap and R&B in the car, derided by many as the cesspool of music. I like music from the sixties (Motown and the Beatles), and snippets of song lyrics revolve around my mind all day long. Still, if I hear him playing, I roll right on past to try not to be late.

Is my soul eroding, in favor of chasing the Yankee dollar?

***

As a child, I played the piano for five years. This was the big reason I didn't listen to music in any fashion until college. Today, I secretly love listening to any music that utilizes the piano, either as the main instrument, or as a backup. I can still sort of pick out the melody line with my right hand, guess at the accompaniment with my left, and finger the imaginary ivories on the nearest horizontal flat surface. My parents were right (for once), I do regret not following through, though my skills lie in a more literary direction.

In middle school, I remember thinking that it would be kind of cool to become a Shakespearean actor. This, despite not having ever read Shakespeare. Despite the closest my having come to Shakespearean acting was watching one Patrick Stewart on Star Trek. At least now, I am qualified to act stupid.

In high school, C.G. and S.K. combined to put on a play called "The Mouse that Roared." I wanted to be a part of that, be an actor in that. Unfortunately, working at the S.G. mental asylum/institution after school precluded me from doing so. (Disclaimer: I know asylum is a politically incorrect statement, but just like saying that I was in an asylum. At least now when I say it, it isn't a joke.) I did go to opening night, and fell asleep because I was exhausted after working at S.G.

Back in freshman year at UMCP, myself, maybe M.W., possibly A.A., planned to perform a one-act play on the mall. Not that we'd had anything picked out, or planned, or were going to advertise it. It would have the end effects of a flash mob, wherein we'd show up, do our thing, and leave as if nothing happened. I was really excited about that for some reason, some ineffable reason within me. We always joked about it, and ultimately, nothing ever came of it.

One time, me and A.W. were going to spend a summer in the O.C. (MD version), go out to the boardwalk every day, and become a comedy duo, in the vein of Laurel and Hardy, Burns and Allen, Turner and Hooch. I'd written up some great skits, which incorporated his juggling, and our comedic timing. Even practiced the timing. There was one skit wherein I played a marionette and he the puppet master, and I was proud of that. My jerky, unnatural motions, combined with A.W.'s straight-man timing, would've made it a hit. I got so busy with classes that the idea slid into limbo.

Throughout college, I'd wanted to read my short stories at an open mic night. Maybe even some of my shitty poetry, malformed lumps of afterbirth extolling the virtues of love-that-wasn't. I was so afraid of getting rejected (by complete strangers!) that I couldn't do it. Even now, I'm afraid to tell people about this blog because of that fear of rejection (over the internet! sometimes by complete strangers!).

In law school, I had dreams of taking a keyboard to the courtyard in the law school and playing during lunchtime (and playing well), if only because we were all dying slow, meaningless deaths within the context of the law. Then I turned my head from the window, reached for the bag of chips, and continued reading about whatever.

***

I wrote my life story at five, on a single piece of paper. I remember my life's goal was to complete our reading textbook, Sunshine Day. I read it before my class. I was smiling, and I think the teachers might have been a little shocked. That was one of my only memories from elementary school, and the first time I knew that I wanted to be a writer.

I read comic books a lot in middle school, more for the words than the pictures. It was from them I learned that we all know more or less how things are, but it takes a lot more to understand what might be. Yes, it's good to be practical, but all the same, it's sometimes necessary to be idealistic. Maybe that's why a lot of my writing incorporates comic book-esque themes.

It was around this time I wrote my first novel. A horrible pastiche of stereotypes, overused themes, poor dialogue, and generally mistake upon mistake. (Side Note: Things have changed a lot, haven't they?) I was so proud, but not a single person read it, even though I asked everyone I knew.

The second came about during college. The one comment that I remember from those few people that did read it came from S.P., who told me that it was "boring." That hit hard. Only much later did J.D. remind me that S.P. doesn't "read," and there may have been nothing wrong with it, other than it had nothing to do with sports, and was longer than three computer screens. By that time, I couldn't find it.

The third came about during my year off between college and law school. I've read through it, and it is awful. This is not me being my own worst critic, this is me reading it for what it is: A good first, serious effort, but a first effort nonetheless. Plus, there are several basic guidelines about electricity and electron flow that would need to be worked out before I continue with it.

I've written a few short stories over the past few months, and have two ideas for a fourth novel. One involves a fantastical universe in which magic is based upon your ability to sing. The protagonist is the executioner-in-training, pushed into his role, and learning how to sing people to death. The other involves a magic realism world where cartoons and humans exist side-by-side (think Who Framed Roger Rabbit?). Here, our protagonist is a 'toon private investigator trying to chase down his counterpart, a human assassin who keeps showing up when he is at his lowest.

***

Is my soul eroding, in favor of chasing the Yankee dollar? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I always knew who I was, and never listened to myself.

Intoxicating Sobriety, Part the Third

R.B., with J.T. as wingman, does later try to hit on a girl playing Silver Strike Bowling with her friend. However, E.B. breaks down the action with his own commentary.

"See, this isn't going to work. J.T.'s doing the worst job I've ever seen him do running interference. R.B. is talking to the blonde. J.T. should be on the right talking to the brunette. Instead, J.T. is on the left also talking to the blonde. It's like he didn't even know which girl R.B. wanted."

Astute [Yes, V.P., ass-toot. -K] commentary, as R.B. just grabbed J.T. and walked on over without a word.

The night follows this pattern. I can feel the frustration ebb after yet another week at L.M. Too relaxing for some, as R.B. is attempting to solve the bartender's annoying alcohol surplus problem. By himself. Understand that R.B. is shorter than I am, but still quite thick, due to years of Tae Kwon Do.

R.B. convinces E.B. to hit on the bowling girls, but E.B. doesn't give a crap. E.B. halfasses it to shut R.B. up. R.B. tries to get me to talk to them, but I cry off.

Throughout the night, R.B. has been busting out random dance moves at random intervals in time with the music. As the evening wears on, his sense of balance fades. It's still there, but has shifted from keeping him upright to keeping him every which way but upright. It is a minor miracle he did not collapse into others.

R.B. is also the slowest drinker known to man. Ice melts faster than he drinks. Epochs elapse faster than he drinks. Toddlers with sippy cups can drink faster than he drinks. Three-toed sloths drink faster than he drinks.

We walk over to the other bar on the floor, adjoining the dance floor. The only clue that this is the dance floor is the disc jockey waving his hands in the air like he just don't care (Side note: Good gravy I need more timely cultural references. Is it time for me to watch the MTV again?). Taking a cue from everyone else, R.B. is up and dancing and off-balance, yet the drink does not spill for once. A bouncer places a hand on R.B. to get past. This is necessary when there is at best a foot of space between people, and your leg's circumference far exceeds the circumference of my torso. R.B. places a hand on the bouncer's back as he walks past and shoves. The bouncer turns back, and they stare each other down, before the bouncer heads away.

Right now, I want to get R.B. out, before he starts something, or someone else starts something, and he gets involve, necessitating getting me involved. I've had enough bar fights (one) for a lifetime. He's already bumped several other people while getting down, and he may have even thrown a kick or two. We finally get outside, and the man starts frowning. "Was that bouncer trying to fuck with me?" No, R.B., no one was trying to fuck with you. "Are you sure?" Yes, I'm sure. "Because I will fuck him up." No one was fucking with you.

I have to support him on our journey to the metro stop, both physically and to assure him no one was trying to fuck with him. For once, being "the third wheel" comes in handy. Without me, he is a tripod with two legs, ready to tilt over at any second. I juke and twirl and manage to keep him relatively upright, though it's like dragging a potato sack with a body ensconced inside.

We have to pass a hospital, and several police automobiles are parked outside, their lights flashing. No doubt we are screwed if R.B. continues yelling about people fucking with him. He manages to keep quiet until we round the corner, at which point he yells out "Fucking cops."

Though I'm not having trouble keeping my eyes open, though I'm still on my feet and all my mental faculties are operating at near full capacity, I feel... tired.

On the metro, R.B. descends into full-bore belligerence. "No one wants to fuck with me. You know why? Because I'm the best. I am the champ. I am an olympic champion. That's right. I will fuck anyone [sic]." The last statement contains more truthfulness than R.B. realized.

He starts kicking at the metro train poles, and almost kicked me on several tries. Repeating the above mantra, centering himself for the oncoming day, he eventually starts asking for someone to punch him in the face. I tell him that I'll do it later, and that I'm afraid I'll knock him out right now. "Oh, that's OK, uh..., that's OK, you won't knock me out." He was having trouble remembering names by this point. Would that I could forget his.

When he falls out of his seat, is lying spread-eagled and splayed on the ground, and starts kicking at the air, several metro riders take pictures with their cell phones. "No one wants to fuck with me. I will fuck anyone [sic]." It's almost like a turtle having a seizure.

After a protracted exit that took thirty minutes, because R.B. felt that each and every woman was ready to spread her legs just for him right then and there, we manage to get R.B. to the parking garage, and his car. Throughout, E.B. tells me he would not blame me if I "accidentally" left R.B. behind.

E.B. convinces R.B. to sleep in his car. Meanwhile, I go to my car, and hear a wet, splattery noise from above. Sure enough, there are small puddles of vomit, no doubt still warm, next to R.B.'s car. He's done.

And so am I. E.B. and I give him water and make sure he's sleeping. We go our separate ways. Now [at the time I wrote this -K], I'm so tired I can't sleep, can't stay asleep. I'll probably wake up in four hours. If I was the most sober person, why am I also the most wrecked?

***

A family with at least one small child moved in upstairs this weekend. Judging by the ceiling creaking when they step around, the average weight of each member borders on a metric ton, or 2,200 pounds for the uninitiated. On the bright side, they seem to follow my early bird schedule. On the dark side, they follow it every day. To be fair, it is Easter Sunday, when many people are attending daybreak masses. To be unfair, I may have to start pounding the ceiling with my poking stick.

Intoxicating Sobriety, Part the Second

Even though I wasn't drunk, I am clearly forgetting details as though I were. I refer to the bar now as the bar with the five dollar cover charge, but the name truly escapes me. Hand to whatever holy book you place your faith in.

Couldn't tell you what time we got in, only that I went to sleep around three A.M. and got up around 7 A.M.

Can't tell you specifics about the people. There was one brunette, about five-three, beautiful in a non-whorish way, dressed demurely in an ankle length blue polka-dotted dress and a black half-shirt over the dress. She was probably the biggest whore in the place. The first guy that talked to her, she didn't even feign interest. Then she asked if he wanted to buy her a drink. This he did, a shot in a plastic cup. She gulped it and walked away from him without another word. The whole night, she would keep attracting guys (both with and without her effort), get drinks, and leave. Sometimes, the worst thing (for everyone else) is to know you are beautiful.

Multiple blondes over six feet tall populated the bar, which delighted J.T. to no end, as he never gets to see one blonde over six feet, much less several. On multiple occasions, he would slap my chest to get my attentino. However, due to his mild-to-moderate inebriation, plus my lack of height, his slaps caught my diaphragm, leaving me breathless.

J.T.'s concern is whether I, as a sober man watching drunkards, am having any fun. He's mentioned this a couple of times now. I am having fun, but I'm just wistful for several reasons, one of which being my inability to drink with them. Coke just doesn't get the job done. Cocaine, however, might.

In J.T.'s analysis, since I don't drink, don't smoke, and don't do drugs, I need to find a woman. I agree with him to a certain point; picking up women in bars is not my thing. For one thing, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, and still look sixteen. That puts me off. I'm also somewhat unable to be myself, due to the loud music and needing to scream to be heard. I am also not as loud as i used to be, making it that much more difficult. I'm not sure how to tell him all this, so he reinterprets my reticence and asks if I'm going, quickly adding he has several gay friends.

(Side note: Isn't saying, "I have X friends," where X is a minority group, one of the worst things you can say? It isn't an excuse to crack wise on some group, it doesn't get you off the hook. Often, it makes people wonder why you felt the need to say it in the first place. We need to ban this from the lexicon.)

It's something of a shame I don't even talk to these women, as they all have spent serious time and effort cultivating their look to maximize their attractiveness. I don't know anything about their personalities, but hey, if they care enough to look their very best, that should be good enough, right?

Intoxicating Sobriety, Part the First

Last Friday, tentative plans were set in motion to get people from the workgroup together to go hang out. A night of drinking and mild debauchery. Hopefully nothing as stunning as the cigar run from the week prior. However, the plans were not formalized. On the end, meself, E.B., J.T., and R.B. would head out to a pool (billiards) hall in D.C., while J.G. would first head home, then meet us there.

This was where I gave V.M. a heads up.

It took us a long time to get going, and when we finally did, we altered the plans to gun it to the restaurant across the street. However, J.G. called us from the pool hall. He'd basically stopped at home for five minutes, then headed straight there.

New plans: J.T. drives to the metro stop closest to his place, while I drive E.B. and R.B. to the metro nearest work. This had the bonus of me being able to provide at least some driving assistance for them if (when) they elected to drink. Boy howdy, did R.B. elect up a storm that night.

I got to meet J.G.'s new wife, R.G. Their notable story is that engagement to marriage was all of 72 scant hours. I've been with groups of people that took 72 hours just to decide on where to eat.

At one point, R.B. shot the cue and a random billiard off the table. He immediately started chatting up the lady sitting on the stool that the billiard came to rest on. In contrast, J.T. took his beers directly to heart, if the stomach is considered the traditional gateway to the heart. Threw those bad boys down like they were intruders on his property, and he had a beatin' stick. We work on the same project, J.T. and I, and it has progressed as though the heavens laid down thick and permanent curses upon it. It is difficult not to drink around J.T. due to the project, but somehow, I find the inner resolve to turn away the sweet, sweet beer.

From there, we migrate to another bar, next door, though somehow it took us fifteen minutes to get there, even though no one was that inebriated. I think we rounded the block, went a few blocks, doubled back, crossed a street or not, then just headed in. Sad, I know. (Side note: I have never barhopped before. It seems like we would always stay at one bar. Why did I never get in on the bar hopping action? Is this just a piece of what has been missing in my life?)

The second bar sports a gaudy leopard print couch, plastic upholstered, and similarly upholstered chairs on the second floor. This, boy and girls, is a hole in the wall. As a literary bonus for myself, behind E.B.'s head is a hole in the wall, just wide enough to fit my fingers in to the knuckle.

Here, we (the group minus me) procure multiple Miller Lite longnecks. Some discussion about the nature and authenticity of the "pilsner" label springs forth, but I do not pay attention. What the flip do I care about "pilsner?" We moan about work, coworkers, and that ever-stimulating desire to move on to bigger and better, ever present in all of us, unexpressed by so many.

I watch a woman sitting alone at the railing for over half an hour, wondering what her story is. Why would she eschew the bar and purposefully come out, just to be alone? Dog just died? Date stood her up? She was on the run from a multinational corporation hellbent on discovering the secrets that lay within her DNA? Turned out that her friend was just very late, and I was dancing down paths that didn't need dancing down.

We leave to head to a third bar which we cannot locate. I walk behind the rest, shepherd following the sheep, so as to keep track of stragglers, at this point in time R.B. The boy is now bread left in a toaster oven overlong, toasted to a crisp.

When we do locate the bar, the wait just to enter (not for a table, mind you) is thirty minutes.

Well fuck that.

We leave and contrive to meander the mild streets until we find the fourth, and final, bar of the night. And really, because I have never mastered this lesson, to start the story where the action starts, I should warn you that all you just read was semi-worthless background, and the story really begins with the next posting.

Can You Hear Me?

My officemate, V.M. had one of those slow Fridays, having wrapped up his previous project, and not having a new project. He headed out fairly early. We were planning on going barhopping, and I asked if he wanted to come out. This I should have thought twice about. V.M. seemed somewhat willing, but unwilling to wait at the office, as we had no firm plan. He told me to give him a call when I knew what was going on.

I sort of feel bad for him because he started in the office a couple of weeks before me, but doesn't really have any friends aside from me in the office. I wanted to invite him along so he could maybe get to know some of his coworkers. I've not been "that guy" in a work setting (yet), but I have been "that guy." It sucks, and I don't want to let that happen to someone if it can be avoided.

The thing is, I can't stand V.M.

He's an all right guy. Doesn't even begin to compare to M.A., Z.M., and J.R., my office mates at N.C.I. I'd freely trade him for any one of them, and throw in twenty dollars to sweeten the pot. He just rubs me the wrong way, is all.

When I first moved into the office, for a few weeks, every day, V.M. would goad me into a half-hour argument. I would label it a discussion, but there was no real sharing of ideas. Two things were at play. One, I thought it was my fault, as I hate losing arguments (thank you L-school). I thought it was my fault that I let myself get drawn into these discussions. This is when I first brought headphones and CDs to work.

Two, I realized V.M. wasn't even paying attention to me. If nothing else (and there are a great many other things), M.A., Z.M., and J.R. always paid attention to what I said, no matter how absurd. V.M. wouldn't even pay attention no matter how serious I was. He raised a point about Constitutional Law and federalism, which quickly devolved into an argument.

I studied Con Law for a year. I could tell V.M. had no clue what he was talking about, as I had to explain the basic tenets to him. Yet he persisted in knocking down my arguments with fallacious statements of his own. Several times, I had to pause to compose myself. After the third time, V.M. called me out on the pauses. He told me that my entire argument was wrong, because I had sat so silent, his argument was irrefutable.

I'm not too proud of what next happened. Pretty sure my nostrils were flared at this point. I stared right at V.M. and told him the reason I hadn't refuted his arguments was because he knew nothing about the topic. I informed him point-blank that he should go study Con Law and then return to pick up, as we could sustain "no meaningful discussion" until he had done this. Then, I slipped my headphones on and went back to the user manual.

I'm not sure which one of us needed to be knocked down a couple of pegs, but I single-handedly succeeded in doing it to both of us.

Passing ignorance off as knowledge is one thing, but it wasn't until a few days ago when I realized I can't compete with someone that doesn't even listen to what I say. We were having a debate about taking notes versus transcribing from a cassette tape (yes, this passes for high discussion at L.M.). Out of nowhere, V.M. went off on a tangent about how losing a tape wouldn't be an issue, as they were generally easy to keep track of. I'd just finished talking about how the client liked seeing someone take notes, so I called him out on him. V.M. cocked his head to the side, and said he was just responding to my point.

Wrapped up that conversation right quick. He'd been composing my arguments in his head, then crafting the perfect counterargument in his head. If I thought like a developer, like he did, this would have worked, and amazingly, to this point, it had. For once, however, my poor attention span saved me.

Life generally does not afford us the choice of the people we share work space with. We make do with what we are given. In some situations, the task is as simple as saying hello and shaking hands. In others, you could not cleav the tension with a knife due to how thick it is. We must nonetheless put forth the effort. D.G. insists such situations are tests, and if we fail, they constitute signs from God we must work harder. I tend to agree. I have failed in my workspace relationship with V.M. However, V.M. has similarly failed me.

Three Easy Pieces

Once every few months, I stop shaving my "beard" and "mustache" for a few weeks to see what the overall effect is. The last few times, I had to shave the mustache after ten days because it was sparser than a seventh grader's. This time was no exception, the mustache went after ten days. I think this time, in stark contrast, no one even notices the beard. Might as well be dirt on my chin.

Thankfully, I finally look like I'm in my twenties. Still frustrates me that I look so young. When I showed someone my passport for identity verification purposes, she looked at the passport (picture taken when I was nineteen), looked at me, looked back at the passport, and said "Wow, you've got a real babyface." Thin beardlet and all. She told me I'll appreciate it later, but I fear that I'll just wake up one day looking old, without any subtle transition. Plus, does looking like a kid help? I've gotten so many "are you legal" jokes that this would only help me if I was trying to pick up teenage girls. They are looking for older men anyway, so.

***

My mother tends to worry after me, because I am her only child. I guess some people would describe it as sweet that I'm still her little boy. I think she gets carried away with it.

If you look at pictures of me during college and L-school, I'm not unrecognizable, but I've definitely got a few pounds hanging on my face. The so-called baby fat plumping me out. After L-school, I ate healthier and started running. Again, I'm not that drastically different, but I did lose a lot of the baby fat, and somehow came out looking even younger.

It was also a drastic enough difference that my mom always asked me if I was eating. I thought only Jewish mothers did that. (Disclaimer: My cousin A.L. did marry a Jewish woman, so I am technically Jewish via marriage.) At any rate, no matter how I explain it to her, she does not believe that I am eating healthy and running.

It came out a few weeks ago that she thought I was sick. I laughed at this. How could I be sick for months on end without seeing a doctor? Then she explained that she thought I had the sickness "where you throw up after putting your finger in your mouth." Anorexia? "Yes, that's it."

My mom thought I was an anorexic for almost six months. I am the daughter she never had. (Disclaimer: I am male, I think.)

***

We have a mandatory one hour break during the infamous Thursday all-day meeting. Last Thursday, I decided to break bread with W.J. I figured since everyone else in the office had either eaten or made other plans, this would be a good time to get to know W.J. better.

When we got to the ground floor, there was a brunette walking in front of us, dresses in a black and white leopard print dress, and boots up to midcalf. Oh my.

She happened to be leaving towards the parking garage, and we were leaving through the same exit. I couldn't help but stare. Really, if you're dressing like that, you can't get mad if people stare and gawk. Well, you can, but that's somewhat hypocritical.

W.J. asked me a question about the food, and my response was "Yeah, it's not bad." she turned her head back over her shoulder and smiled at me, those dark brown eyes twinkling. Damned if she wasn't the most attractive thing I'd seen that day, not so hard when you're in a meeting with a room full of guys. Nonetheless, even in a room full of women (such as English 301), she would have given them a run for their money. Since she was walking towards a glass partition to get to the elevator, I thought she caught me looking, so all I could do was smile back at her.

I turned to W.J., clapped my hand over my eyes, and said "Wow, she caught me staring." He said, "No, man, she heard you say, 'Yeah, she's not bad.'" Whoops.

Overall Impressions

It isn't the overt racism that cuts the deepest, though I still sport some nice scars. No, it's the casual racism, the off-hand comment, that twists and burns. Some African-Americans have gone on record as preferring the South to the North because in the South, the racism was in the open. In the north, politeness and social mores cloaked it.

Most of my life has been spent around the Mason-Dixon line, the traditional demarcation between North and South. I have never really had to deal with one extreme or the other. Or, if I had, I was too oblivious to notice. For a while, I even exploited it myself, using Chinese-accented English to throw people off-guard. I understand Dave Chapelle's dilemma when he left the set of his show. You cross a fine line using stereotypes for humorous purposes.

There was no one moment when I suddenly realized not everyone laughed with me. It was a slow roll, a boulder gathering downhill speed. Yet another piece of my childhood eroded by the rough seas of the real world.

Did I contribute? Yes, and I was wrong. But this is the world I have to live in. It reminds me of an occasion when I went to Taiwan. At first glance, I fit in. So disconcerting, yet so invigorating. I knew it would take about 10 seconds of talking to me for me to be outed, but at least I could walk down the street and not have to worry about why someone was staring at me.

In a department store, I think it was Carrefour, there was an old African man walking around in overalls. A blanched-white ring of hair crowned his head, much as a monk would submit to a tonsure. Everyone, me included, stared at him. Again, I failed. But the way he carried himself. He went about his business without thought or care as to everyone around him. Whether or not our stares tore him up inside, we would never see.

It bothers me that I cannot bear this millstone. It bothers me that I think I have to bear the racism like a millstone. It bothers me that I cannot cocnfront it.

And really, the incident that inspired this post could have been an incidence of comfort more than racism. I went to Sam's Club for bulk provisions. While leaving and waiting for the employee to cross-check my receipt against the contents of my cart, three African-American women in front of me were ushered right on through. The employee, also an African-American woman, barely glanced at the one cart, and each of their separate receipts. Even joked with them. Then, I came up, and the counted and checked each of the seven items in my cart to make sure I hadn't stolen anything.

Yes, it might have just been she felt more comfortable with the women than me. I sometimes furrow my brows when lost in thought, as I was while waiting with nothing to do. It could also be that I've gotten overly sensitive and need thicker skin. It could be she saw me and noticed something that made her suspect I was dishonest. I don't know. I have been wrong plenty of times. But can I really have been wrong every single time?

(This really isn't an April Fool's Day joke, unless you approach it from the vector that racism is a horrible joke. In which case, I am the (April) Fool somehow.)

Inspection Expectation

Once again, I fail at game theory. I really need to start studying it, because this would help me avoid sitting outside an inspections bay at 7:00 A.M. with no one behind me, and probably no one behind me at all when the bay opens at 7:30 A.M.

I wanted to try to get here to be first in line, so I could get to work not much later after 8:30 A.M. Since I sat around with nothing to do, I figure I would just drive up and sit. However, after 10 minutes, still the only person in line. I wish I was not swayed by the last Saturday I drove up, when four cars were waiting. To be fair, the bay probably has multiple garages, allow for multiple simultaneous inspections, but the signs imply there is only one inspector.

This is part of my reliance on vehicles. It's roughly ten miles to work now. If I were to receive a bicycle from a random source, would it be feasible to bike there and back? If there were a shower, I'd rush that down like a fighting game champion.

What about running to work? Lot of training required, and not something I could do both ways in a day, or more than a few times a week.

I'm still a fan of the point-to-point catapult system. Pay your $20, strap some padding on, and launch to waypoint. Unfortunately, any catapult strong enough to hop me to LockMart would also likely constitute a blight upon the landscape.

I suppose flying might be an option, except first I would have to drive to Dulles International Airport, then fly out of Dulles International, fly into Dulles International, and drive to work. Somehow counterproductive, again. Not quite what I intended.

7:20, still no one behind me. Better safe than sorry, but better rested than safe.

***

I've been toying with getting inked. Nothing elaborate, just a lower-case X on my left shoulder, toner-black, Times New Roman, 12 point font. It would be pretty small, and from a distance, might even resemble a birthmark or other identifying market. But it wouldn't be one of those meaningless tattoos that people get.

So the joke goes, do you see people in Asian countries get tattoos of random words in English, since people in America get random Chinese words tattooed on their bodies? I could be a semi-punch line, and at least I would know what the damn thing stood for (the 24th letter of the alphabet).

I sign my name on occasion with an X where my middle initial would go. As my cousin A.L. told me all those years ago, X stands for "no middle name."

X is the unknown.

X marks the spot, here there be pirate booty. Though mine doesn't quite rise to the level of pirate booty, I'd like to think the junk I carry in my trunk is not a bad substitute.

X fits into so many of my favorite words. Exasperate. Exit. Excellent. Exactly. Exacting. Annex. Extemporaneous. Ax. Axe. Exult. Exalt. Maximum.

I'm a fan of the lower-case letters. None of the excessive capitalization that German touts.

X is a simple design, two line segments intersecting at the midpoint.

X is also a universal design. We all call it different names, but we are all familiar with it.

You can form an X with your forearms. You can form an X with your legs. You can form an X anywhere.

I probably won't get it, but it's something to toy with if I have too much time on my hands.

Speak, and Ye Shall Be Healed

Strange that I think words are impotent, especially now, because one of my life's goals is to speak at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park (London, England). At this point, it would likely be a "day trip." Fly in to Heathrow Airport, get directions to Hyde Park, walk or catch a cab (a lorry? Hugh Laurie?), give the speech, probably record it on a tape recorder in my pocket, rush back to Heathrow, fly back stateside.

Why do I want to do this? I don't really know. Wanderlust factors in. So does anglophilia. But I hate public speaking. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I would have rather (and metaphorically have) died than speak to groups greater than one.

And yet, there's something historic about Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. Granted, my sophomoric rantings wouldn't compare to the classic speeches given there, but they would be my rantings. I would be all alone, no support. In the past, I have shined in those all-too-rare instances where I stood alone against "the mob." Even more, it would symbolize my growth, my ability to break out beyond the narrow margins my youth and childhood charted about me.

I have never spoken in front of others without some sort of prodding. But the few speeches I have given turned out gangbusters. The last time I spoke in public, my hands shook so hard they went numb, turned a pale blue. At the same time, several strangers commented favorably, stating it was the greatest wedding speech they'd ever heard.

Do i expect everything to fall together like a game of Tetris, eliminating blocks left and right, if I go to Speaker's Corner? No. But maybe, just maybe, I can forget this painful shyness that plagues me, even for a few scant moments.

Don't even ask what I would talk about. Once I purchase the ticket, I'll decide, but not until then. To be fair, though I've toyed with a lot of topics, one that I keep coming back to is love. Why? Damned if I know.

For Being a Wordy Bastard...

I've lately been pondering just how weak words actually are. A bit sad, and mildly sobering, for a man plying his trade and spending his leisure with words. But when you really start thinking (as with a sustained analysis of anything), you come to the realization that words are at best a clumsy simulacrum representing the ideas underlying them. At worst, they are little more than guttural grunts.

My strength in writing, if you can call it that, is crazy imagery and original similes/metaphors, fueled by an ever-ticking imagination, always five seconds from explosion. My weaknesses are the words, and the inability to finish longer stories. We'll concentrate on the words right now.

Saturday morning, I had to drive at 7:30 A.M. Apparently, I was traveling eastward, for the silken sunlight draped over my car, engulfing me in a golden fleeced blindness. Just as Jason lulled the ram to sleep, so too did I find myself blinded and drifting off.

Now, I experienced the sunrise. It is no different from sunset, save being in reverse. I think that people only say you should watch a sunrise because it's more the effect of waking up while it's still quiet, and being alone, isolated, in your thoughts. If we lived in the 17th century, no one would tell you to watch a sunrise. you'd be up with the sun anyway, and too busy to have to deal with such romantic nonsense. (Standard disclaimer: I still love sunrises.) And, as usual, I digress.

My conveyance to you of the sunrise rings imperfect. There is no way, short of merging with you, casual reader, heart and soul, that I can properly set to words the sunscape. And this isn't limited to nature. Science, math, business processes, all of these I fail, for my words also fail them. There is no justice. There is just ice.

Part of this is the degradation of my vocabulary from my halcyon college days, when I could spin phrases in casual conversation that would send people to the dictionaries to look for the definition. Keep in mind I have higher standards for my own speaking abilities than what I expect from others, but I do not live up to those standards in everyday conversation anymore. You've heard me speak, if you're reading this. I sound like a buffoon, and my word choice is that of a lobotomized chimpanzee. The words fail me, and I fail the words.

Hearty Travel

(Written on March 20)

Rush hour, what a misnomer. You go nowhere fast. You also really can't avoid it if you work a nine-to-five. Today I was forced to come late, due to an all-day meeting scheduled from 9:30 to 5:30. Tomorrow is a redux. Thus, I may have to continue rising before the cock crows, if cocks crow in Virginia. Heaven only knows who I will have to deny thrice.

It is disorienting just how adaptable the human condition truly is. I moved from MD to VA for convenience. Before then, if I needed to, I could have driven 2.5-3.5 hours a day. Yes, it was a miserable coil of misery wrapped around a bar of despair, and a horrid current of shock jolted throughout, inducing pain. Yes, I've butchered that electromagnetic metaphor, what a shock to the system.

Side note: I'm sitting in Wendy's eating dinner, and a facial dead ringer for Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning just drove up in an Iowa-registered Chevy Cavalier. Beyond that, I know it is not Peyton because he rode his offense everywhere in the playoffs, not a Chevy. (This is our country....)

I also don't know how it happened, but traffic just now mysteriously lightened. Seven ticked by on my watch, and the rush hour just lifted. Inexplicable.

Peyton-two has just seated himself across from me, likely to watch his car, parked next to mine. I somehow feel inadequate just being so near a man that marginally resembles American royalty.

And it's strange how that works, isn't it? Britain has their royal family, America tolerates Hollyweird. We laud gridiron football, while the rest of the world follows the Champions' league. GW meddles in Iraq for oil, and the rest of the world just shakes their head.

Is America so contrarian because of its roots? It takes a certain brand of person to up and travel off for several weeks to the unknown frontier. It's hard for me to envision, since I can fly to anywhere on the planet within a day. I guess the modern equivalent would be tripping the light fantastic to Alpha Centauri at relativistic speeds.

Hell, you would really be leaving everything. Mail could take months to reach the "New World." Gunning it to Alpha-C would separate you from your loved ones. You really would fall out of synchronization with Earth. Several months for you, years for them. From the terran baseline, it would be time travel, and they would bid you fare well, but would your trip be that well-fared?

What kinds of people would make that trip willingly, assuming we possessed the arcane technologies required (and also assuming that any technology sufficiently advanced will appear magical)? What people would the authorities willingly send on such a lonesome travail? And the crazy thing? They would probably survive, maybe even thrive. Sure, their world might be morbidly different, and they would have to make a wealth of concessions, but barring catastrophe, those stolid survivors would find a way.

Side note: How worthless was that last statement? I think it may be a side effect of L-school, forcing me to couch my statements in generalities so as to render them correct, even if they become worthless and devoid of meaning. Here, I use render in the fashion of rendering pork lard, if only because I feel greasy after L-school. I make these worthless statements a lot, or I'm more conscious of it now. Either way, damn your black soul L-school.

The point is that I have finally traveled just far enough in my life to be without a readily-accessible support net. It is a planned venture to visit people in MD, a significant effort and expenditure of time and energy. There had better be a damned good reason to get me and the Lady Surfer up there.

I am not on my own. I will never be on my own. The people that matter, I carry them in my heart whereever I go. When I hug them, it leaves a little indent on my heart. These worn creases actually hold the damned thing together. Even in my darkest moments (L-school), when it felt like I was alone and abandoned, deep down, their love kept me going. I only now have the emotional distance to accept this. Back then, it was just walking down a dark corridor with no light at the end, walking because I had to trust others could see what I couldn't.

I still wonder if they saw a mirage.

Most of them are now at least 45 minutes away. However, they are still right beside me, within me, part of me, bridging that gap in the span of a heart beat. I've moved to VA, but have not evicted them from my heart.

I'm sure when I reread this, the diabetes will require an insulin shot or three. Also, Vanilla Sky ruined "Good Vibrations" for me. Every time I hear it, like now, it fills me with caution and fear. What a screwed-up movie. "Tech support!"

A Time to Laugh

I like to think there is humor in every situation, though it could just be that I am trying to what is not there. Chasing phantoms wearing goofy teeth. This may also be why I don't tell people I have a Juris Doctorate (among many other reasons). After a couple of months (and really not wanting to have to cart it around with me when I moved to Virginia), I finally took my bar admission certificate to LockMart. (Oh, i've decided to ease up on the complete anonymity and plausible deniability. I'm not that important, and really it just gets frustrating after a while. The words are supposed to work for me, not the other way around.) Granted, I also took two Nerf revolver handguns (Mavericks, not Gooses). It is amazing how alluring Nerf weaponry is to the IT field.

People come in, look at the guns, talk for a bit, then see the cert. Their eyes bulge as they read the tiny script, and ignorance dusks, falls dim. I sit and wait. They star, not comprehending. What does it mean? I'll tell you what it means: I'm a lawyer.

The looks are classic.

Then the questions roll on in. Why are you a lawyer? It sucks. What are you doing here? Change of pace. Are you insane? Do you want me to be?

I will grant this, there have been two times in my life now where I felt the Juris Doctorate actually might come in handy. One is for the humor/shock factor. People just don't expect it.

***

As you may or may not know, I'm in the process of becoming a Virginian. The two-and-a-half to
four hours of commute time a day just got the better of me. Now, today, I've spent that time writing, and feel so much better about life, even if I'm still sick and the whole Virginian conversion seems pretty daunting. [Ed. Note: I wrote this longhand the Monday after I moved. It turns out I now have allergy-induced asthma in the spring and the fall. -K] But if J.R. can do it, and if J.L. can do it, then I can do it. (Not to say that I can do everything those two have done. Hell, there are probably very few things they can do I can also. Just that if they could persevere, so can I, I think.)

On average, I was spending fifteen hours a week commuting. Almost two-thirds of a day every week. During the peak, one week I spent eighteen hours in a car. A vehicular vagabond, really. Eighty miles a day, four hundred miles a week. I've been commuting since October. About sixteen hundred miles a month. Roughly eight thousand miles in all, or two oil changes, and a third due very soon.

Now that I've moved, the commute on day one totaled less than an hour. Plus, the Lady Surfer is doing much better. She was starting to squeal at 65 miles per hour. Now, I can limit her to much less driving. Twenty to twenty-five miles per day with luck. Stretch a few more years out of her. [Ed. note - Turned out the Lady Surfer just had a run-down brake pad. No surprise, what with the amount of stop and go traffic I had to put her through. I'm so sorry, Lady. -K]

Not that I won't miss the ridiculous amounts of alone time, me and a million other workers, isolated and completely alone in our own little worlds. [Ed. Note - I found out the hard way that you're really not alone, but that's a story for another day. -K] Time to day dream and envision storylines. But now, I can do that in an apartment, and not be exhausted. Now, I feel rejuvenated. It's also kind of nice not having regular internet access or cable television. Living a stripped down, spartan lifestyle. If they weren't necessary evils, I might end up living without them. At least I got the Playstation 2 and a stack of DVDs. [Ed. Note - As you can tell by this posting, I did end up getting the goods. However, and I'm kind of proud of this, I've been taking care of business for the past few hours without having the television on in the background. Slowly stripping away the extraneous, left with the essentials. Boy, I've got to work on that concept. -K]

Movies

Well, not really. I use the term as I would "drinkies" or "eaties." For example, "Gonna have good drinkies later." "Nice long sleepies tonight."

Hopefully, I'll have good movies this weekend. Also, don't know if/when I'm going to order cable internets, so I'll be limited to internets at work, and I'm definitely not going to spend work time answering emails. So, consider this my vacation from cyberspace, unintended as it is.

Digital House Fire

I lost my hard drive on Saturday night. Fare thee well, Prism, fare thee well.

Having slowly but surely shed my reliance on technology, for the most part, my losses were minimal. I had backups on my thumb drive of a few pictures and five text files, which were the most important of my writings. Had I lost those, there would be much gnashing and wailing of teeth. The remainder of the lost information was just music, random pictures, random documents, and my out-of-date resume. They were the powdered milk, and can be reconstituted fairly easily. The thumb drive backups, those are the powdered water: just add water.

If you don't get it, don't worry. I don't either. It's been a long weekend.

For a few minutes, I felt like my house had burned down. The ratcheting and grinding from within my computer, the error message/Blue Screen of Death, that i was able to make it work for a little while by flipping the entire laptop on it's side, but not to the point where I could salvage the information. That was it. My digital life, gone not in a poof of smoke, but a burst gear.

It's silly, I know, the peculiar chill I felt, as I sat there, put my arms around myself, and wondered what I was going to do. Everyone I care about is OK. I had my health, and all my stuff was intact. I even had an old hard drive (which I re-christened Faith once I got it working in this laptop). All that was lost were ones and zeroes, and we all know how much I love numbers. And yet, somehow, like a prism, our lives have splintered; we possess so many facets to our lives now. Our online life. Our offline life. Our personal life. Our public life. Our family life. Our social life. Our leisure life. Our work life. Our sleep... You get the idea.

It isn't as if I lost my digital persona. But on some level, I lost the digital representation of myself. And the infamous cyber-luddite, much as he doesn't want to be defined with narrow concepts, cannot deny this part of himself. It hurts just enough that denial only makes it worse. And I'm not really changed by this. It took less than a day to get Faith up and running. But still.

Good gracious I'm tiring and rambly. Maybe when I can get some distance I'll discuss what else happened. Yes, and then I'll touch the light, as if it were a coherent item, tangible and frangible and audible and all sorts of other lies. Boy I need to sleep.

The Runup to the Rundown, Part 5

The decision was made for me, as so many others have been. I just had to accept it, and that day of acceptance was when I drove seven hours over two days in winter traffic, solely commuting to and from work. The act of submitting an application was not painful. Indeed, in keeping in line with my casual nature, it was the only place I applied to, or visited, but it was also pretty impressive (i.e. it did not require taking interstate four-ninety-five to get to work). Also an expensive pho restaurant nearby, which is better than nothing, I suppose.

Wednesday of that week, I needed to take in some papers to complete the application process. I decided to take them during my lunch break, and to drive on the toll road. Now, because of the age of my car (almost ten years), plus all the salt and snow on the ground, the exhaust mid pipe on my car had rusted through, to the point where one part of it fell off, creating a horrific grinding sound. This at sixty miles an hour freaked me out. I got to the apartment complex as quick as I could, then called for a towing company. Yes, I could have driven, but with those sounds, and the strong possibility I was trailing sparks, why should I have risked it?

The car was fixed just fine. My wallet gently weeps, but the car is fine again. I even returned to work that night, only five hours later, to put in an hour so I could work a nine hour day the next day, instead of a ten hour day. That more or less brings us up to date work wise.

Yesterday, I talked with a friend of Aunt K.C., W.X. It was a nice dinner at the R.S., though I wish I’d not ordered the oysters. Why didn’t I go for the crabcakes? When in doubt, get the crabcakes! The talk was enlightening, and further affirmed my conjoined twin desire to pursue a doctorate of philosophy in literature (or a masters of fine arts in creative writing) and publish a novel (or at least get a short story published nationally). This leads us to today, which has been inundated with me writing, aside from two short breaks, one to take a run, the other to drive for an hour and a half. This is how far I’ve gone off the deep end, that my day wasn’t complete until I went and drove for an hour and a half and just thought about stuff. Like restarting the blog, and people.

Is this going to be a regular thing, again? Probably not. Definitely not for a while, as the move is upcoming. However, shit is starting to happen in my life again. I’m starting to forge a new path, take new chances, do new things, meet new people. Unlike the past three-and-a-half insular years, focused on surviving law school, now I can work on thriving in this personal space of my own making. The story I was working on this morning, oh Lord it felt so right. I hope it reads as well as I thought it did when I applied pen to paper. I think it’s got legs, and once I get it typed and edited, might post some parts of it. Short story length, definitely. Novella, possibly. Novel? Well, we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?

The Runup to the Rundown, Part 4

That Monday was chock full of snowy goodness, as well as a hellacious commute in on Interstate four-ninety-five. For those of you not in on the cosmic joke, that road is a trail that passes through the most congested parts of hell. The driving has given me plenty of time to think about what I will write about later and daydream, but it has also driven (haha) me to take steps to move down to Virginia, just so I will have time to myself not in a car.

When I arrived, half the staff had called out, the roads were so bad. I rang the front door, and D.S., who did not know me, said that he could not let me in, and I should wait until someone that did know me let me in. I waited a poor forty-five minutes in the lobby before I.S. came to get me. That was when I first learned about the core hours of ten until four.

The first couple of days were fairly slow, just getting the workspace set up and learning to play with one of the systems. Then, Wednesday, I got a task. Help desk script. Woo. Busted that out, nervous as all hell, but it was a good start, nothing too complex. I.S. said it was good work. I felt buoyed. I was ready for the next task.

The next week, on Thursday, it dropped right into my lap. They stuck me on the new contract at four in the afternoon, and I learned about the horrors of all day meetings on Friday. I want to word this carefully, as I’ve obtained a security clearance that disallows me from talking about the specifics, but I hate all day meetings. I think I can state that without contravening the requirements of the clearance. All day meetings are all day wastes of time (yes J.R. you were right). I want to rise up out of my chair and start screaming every time we have an all day meeting. They’re bad enough that every Thursday, when we have one, I long for the days of N.C.I., partly because I miss the voice writing crew, and partly because I could get work done.

Yes, I could just consider the possibility that I’m getting paid for this time, and so should suck it up, but if my life were all roses and candy, what would be the point of me living it? It’s not the ease with which we identify in literature, it’s the struggle. The grinding edges (thank you M.O.) of society. It’s through the pain, and how we react, that shapes us, makes our lives, our stories, interesting. And so, for now, since I have no real pain to speak of, I suffer with these all day meetings.

It turns out that I am not the only one that thinks I will return to N.C.I. They have yet to delete my information from the network, should I decide to return. Oh, I want to, but I cannot, for I have decided to move down to VA, and cannot subsist on the N.C.I. salary if I do so.

The Runup to the Rundown, Part 3

Called up my mom after lunch to tell her the good news.

K.T.: Mom, I got the job.
B.T.: That’s great, what’s the company?
K.T.: L.M.
B.T.: Oh.
[PAUSE]
B.T.: Spell that?
[K.T. STARTS SPELLING]
B.T.: Wait, what?
[K.T. CONTINUES SPELLING]
B.T.: Oh, OK, I can ask coworkers about it.
How much do you make?
K.T.: X.
B.T.: Oh, that’s wonderful!

Five minutes later, she calls back.

B.T.: K.T., that’s wonderful, L.M. is a good company, everyone has heard about it.
I thought you were working in a tiny place.

That’s my mom.

I wore my button down shirt and jeans in to work. This immediately made everyone suspicious. E.N. asked me if I had known not to wear what I wore into the interview, thank you for having so little faith in my abilities. I told her, J.R., Z.M., and A.M. the news. Most people, whether they meant it or not, tendered congratulations. J.R., however, had written technically in the past. Her warnings and words of wisdom have not gone unheeded. For the most part, her predictions were correct. I just didn’t have that many choices. She also stated several times that maybe I wouldn’t like it and I would return to N.C.I. If it were feasible, I’d do so. Oh, would I ever.

The last few weeks played out with them putting me on emergency live captioning and transcribing soap operas until letters squeezed their way out of my nostrils. Also fond farewells from good people, and promises to keep in touch. On my final weeks, I even volunteered for treat duty and baked some rice krispie squares at seven in the morning. This was so disorienting to A.W., he actually wondered whether I was baking, or he was developing a brain tumor.

The weirdest thing about saying goodbye, aside from having to do so, and that I still visit every other week to say hello and waste their time, is that we all work on different shifts. In effect, this drew out my farewell over three days. Wednesday’s set of farewells were the first, and since my week wasn’t over, didn’t feel real. Friday’s, I was just anxious to get out and get out now, because, like an idiot, I’d decided to start work the following Monday, and needed to get acclimated to my new nine to five schedule immediately. Thursday’s was the worst, as that was pretty much the only day where it really felt like I was saying goodbye.

The Runup to the Rundown, Part 2

Strangely, L.M. was, is, only five minutes from N.C.I. I arrived oh-so-early, sat and waited, but I.S. decided to start the meeting half an hour early since I was there. While I was waiting, I watched people entering the office proper, and noticed the receptionist standing before a plate on the wall and having her retinas scanned. Yes, there is a retinal scanner for the front door, and according to everyone in the office, it is a piece of donkey dump. I have yet to get signed up for it, two months later.

We went to the Dugout conference room, so named because there’s some wag baseball fan responsible for naming the conference rooms. I.S. looks at my resume and starts off, “I guess the first question is.” Then he stops and smiles. I stare back at him, his dark hair combed to either side, a smile on his face. I should know this, but I’m so tired that the obvious isn’t coming up. What is it? I’m wracking my brain for several awkward seconds before he finally asks, “Why don’t you want to be a lawyer?” Right, right. I give him automatic answer number four, the tedium and the hours did not appeal to me.

We start talking about my background, before he launches into a series of questions about databases and applications. Some of his questions, I answer intelligently. Some I do not. Some I just have to admit I do not know the answer to. At some point, J.T. joined in, having been told that the meeting was at half past ten, but not being informed we had started early. Most of the questions are just blanks to me, but I do remember the oddest one: If you owned a candy machine, how would you test it to make sure it was working properly? Seeing as how I’ve abused candy machines in the past, I just listed everything I’ve ever done to a candy machine to bend it to my will. Nearly hit every single answer they had.

Thereafter, I met M.M., the head of the department. I did not realize who he was at the time. We talked for another half hour, bringing the total interrogation time up to ninety minutes. Soon after, I met E.B., and we went out to lunch. I was not confident, but he was, as most interviewees did not meet M.M., unless something good was going to happen.

We went to Chili’s, which E.B. despises for the horrid food. I can barely taste mine, it’s like ashes in my mouth. About forty minutes in, I get another phone call from “No Number.” It’s I.S. He wants to offer me a position with X salary. I’m so dumbfounded, I accept on the spot. Really, I should have tried to negotiate, but this meant an out, an actual out, for me from the golden shackles of the legal profession. I had to jump on it. It was a liferaft.

Twenty-three hours had elapsed from talking to E.B. to getting the job.

The Runup to the Rundown, Part 1

When last we checked in with our fearful hero, he was forging a half-assed New Year’s resolution that he thought would take six months to complete. He was captioning television programs and about a month away from doing it live, for real, when it counted. Two months later, he’s entrenched in the world of technical writing. He’s about ready to take a big step and move out on his own, without the aid of a school residential housing system. He’s trying to learn more about people. And he’s still writing, still pursuing his dreams. So, what happened?

Let’s assume I’ll live for seventy-five years, a safe assumption, average life span. The first third of my life ended when I was admitted to the bar on December thirteenth. At what cost this legal training? At least it provided a nice dovetail to my childhood. Now begins phase two of my childhood, or as we like to call it by it’s proper name, “middle-age.”

Middle-aged people have bills to pay. So it was when I decided that I had to make more money, but was not yet ready to give in to the hell of the legal profession. I told myself all throughout the run up to the new year that it was time to get a new job, so I could actually support myself without exhausting my savings, or myself. I’d started to get an idea of what types of jobs I wanted to apply for, when E.B. asked if I wanted to become a technical writer at L.M. He had assumed that me, as a lawyer, would not be interested in plumbing the depths of documentation. What he did not count on was my view that this would be a step up from plumbing the depths of statutes. I e-mailed him my resume and left for work. He later told me that he handed the resume to I.S., the hiring supervisor, who stated something to the effect of “Interesting, this might work out.”

I’d arrived at work for a few hours when I received a phone call, source listed as “No Number.” Peculiar. I answer, and lo and behold, it is I.S., asking me if I can come in for an interview. Like a fool, I say I’m game, what time? He says he is free from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon. Without much thought (I am somewhat shocked), I say half past ten. Now, keep in mind that only three hours have elapsed since I first talked to E.B. January third.

I tell him later what’s going on, and he recommends I learn right quick about what the job required, based on the solicitation. Due to the nature of the division, ratherh than ask fora technical writer, they were forced to solicit for a systems engineer. Yes, a systems engineer. A person that engineers systems. Yes, I’m a systems engineer. For a living.

This takes place around ten at night. A little later, I receive an e-mail that asks if I could fill out several forms and bring them in tomorrow. You know, because things like the actual job application are necessary for application to a job. I figure this would be no big deal. Just fill it out, learn about the systems engineering, get six hours of sleep, get going. Ah, optimistic K.T., how little you realize, you naive fool. Once I finished all that, it was around two in the morning, so six hours wasn’t out of the question. However, I was so nervous that I couldn’t sleep. Not until five in the morning. Scenarios of doom and gloom kept running through my head. By the time I left, I was exhausted, wired, caffeinated, and unable to remember what was going on, or what I had studied.