Tuesday, November 25, 2003 America is a vast and beautiful country
My goodness, I'm glad I'm not at work right now.
Lately, they have us scamming churches.
I'm not especially more opposed to scamming churches than I am to scamming mini marts or car dealerships or any other institution. It's the scamming that gets to me.
I don't know if I'm having an attack of conscience, or if I'm just bothered because I'm helping perpetrate scams without my cut. Like, shouldn't I be getting an extra pizza party if I'm really good at being slimy?
I am, by the way. Really.
The scam is this: a certain company contracts labor from the call center, which contracts from my temp agency. We call churches, and ask for certain people's contact information. Later, another company in another state sends something to these people.
I do not know what they send. It could be mere reams of redwood murdering junk mail. I suspect, though, based on the suspicion I've begun to encounter among America's church secretaries, that they're sending out "samples" of some nebulous hipster-Jesus togetherness-centered product that the recipients will then be billed for if they don't send it back.
This generates enough revenue to pay: the company responsible, the call center bosses, the temp agency, and finally, me. Eventually, it trickles down to the cats, who are still forced to endure off brand cat food, and litter that is little more than sand.
posted by Frenz | 11/25/2003 08:16:00 PM
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Monday, November 24, 2003 Oh, nuh-uh!
I was just wasting time online, taking a break from the play novel on which I am woefully behind, and I found out that Jonathon Brandiscommitted sucide.
He was just 27. If he had just come and been my boyfriend, as I had hoped and prayed, when I was 12, maybe he could have been happy after all. He was so cute. My friend Katie had all the Tiger Beat pin-ups of him. I never did, because that seemed a little weird, and even at the height of middle school goofiness, I always pursued a minimalist look in home decor. Still, I was jealous of Katie's pin-up collection.
I was also irritated with her for her undiscerning taste, because she also had picture of, like, the kids from Home Improvement.
Jesus. We sat through Ladybugs, and I'm talking about more than once, here, just to watch him and project little pink pre-teen love hearts into the air over our heads.
I feel kind of shitty posting about this, like maybe I'm trivializing this kid's life and death: "Oh, young man, your life was not in vain. You will live on in a thousand blogs. You rocked so hard in Seaquest, DSV."
But still, I think about this guy's life, and how fucking surreal it must have been. "OK, guy, we need to shoot another hundred photos of you lounging poolside. Mr. Tiger Beat's mother needs an operation," and to spend your teen years having middle school girls catapulting themselves at you...and then to have that kind of...abruptly stop.
Yowch. I'm having a hard enough time adjusting to not being a college writing jock anymore.
I keep thinking of all those waves of unrequited middle school love, which is the most toxic and potent of all forms of affection, pulsing up to the stratosphere and then back down again in some kind of secret crush water cycle. That's probably equivalent to starting each day with a hearty chest x-ray and a snack of paint chips, as far as one's mental health goes. That, and forever being linked with a sassy dolphin.
Still. I wish I were linked with a sassy dolphin. It's not a bad thing.
I don't have any kind of sizzlin' "kicker" today. Poor guy.
posted by Frenz | 11/24/2003 01:26:00 AM
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Friday, November 21, 2003 Today
I declined a shift at the call center, and I went to the park with the mate instead. I could frame this as some kind of holistic act of self-care, but really, my motive was spite. The fakey temp agency that shunts me to the call center had been leaving pleading voicemail messages all day yesterday, because they were desperately short of people (I believe this may have something to do with the company policy of dicking people around), but they did not offer a pizza party, an hourly raffle, or a token financial bonus. I can't work under those conditions. I have turned in some very specific comment forms.
posted by Frenz | 11/21/2003 08:54:00 PM
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Tuesday, November 18, 2003 Chill out. Whatcha yellin' for?
I am so last year. I'm also telling myself I'm so behind on my play novel, but it's hard to work myself into the same lather of anxiety and nervous energy that I once could over my so-called real novel. That might be for the best. Still, this late in the month, I find myself adding in pointless scenes just to boost word count, and I don't know if that's the point, or if I'm cheating.
Also, I've gotten to a point in the plot where a detailed working knowledge of the recording industry would help a lot, but I don't have that, so I've been making up absurd "authentic details".
posted by Frenz | 11/18/2003 08:34:00 AM
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Thursday, November 13, 2003 it's none of my business
Today's upside-down hippopatamus offered a couple of takes on love happening between friends, in response to a request for advice. Dishing out unsolicited advice is one of my main hobbies (I once tried to win back an ex-mate by following him around for several months and giving him detailed advice about what I thought his character flaws were, and what he should do to correct them. It didn't work, and last I heard he was dating a sweet young thing with a rather unfortunate thyroid condition.), and even though, in this case, advice was solicited, ain't nobody ask me.
But that was probably an oversight.
Here's whereI would paste in what I had been about to spew into the upside-down hippo's comment box, but, heh, I totally just pasted over it with something inconsequential. Heh.
Abridged version:
The idea of "ruining the friendship" is goddamned ridiculous. It's a fear that I'm convinced people pick up from sitcoms, rather than from actual life experience. Telling someone, politely and casually, that you are interested in having a romantic relationship with hir does not ruin friendships, unless the object of your affection is neurotic. If some one is so flight that they might be frightened away by you menioning that you;d like to be sleep-over friends, that person probably isn't the one you want to date.
Here is what ruins friendships: Person A decides to cultivate his or her crush on person B. Person A, rather than saying "I think you're nice. Lets date," decides to make a noble self-sacrificing gesture for the sake of "the friendship", and lets the crush fester. A begins acting weirder towards B. Finally, at an inappropriate moment, A decides that he or she cannot live with their secret desire for one second more, and confronts B rather dramatically. Booze isn't absolutely necessary, but it really helps, because the confession of true love doesn't have the same oomph when it's not horribly slurred.
Sometimes, B, despite his or her better judgement, hops into a relationship with A, because after a big scene like that, gosh, there must be some reason for all the shouting. Since the foundation of the relationship is essentially laid on emotional blackmail, it crumbles, often in tears and rage. It's hard not to let that ruin a friendship. (I think I've lived this scenario, but I can't remember if I was A or B)
Or: B is kind of creeped out that A has suddenly become the type to get rabid and incoherent, and decides that avoiding A is the best course of action til A cools down and gets rational again. Naturally, A goes insane, and begins further pestering B, or is so ashamed that A begins to avoid B.
I think the key is to keep everything matter-of-fact, friendly, and complimentary. Let B have a chance to say something like "Sorry, not hiring right now, but thanks." If the friendship isn't fun after that, you were never interested in the all-holy friendship itself. posted by Frenz | 11/13/2003 10:09:00 PM
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it's none of my business
Today's posted by Frenz | 11/13/2003 09:37:00 PM
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Wednesday, November 12, 2003 my aching head, my aching back
22,408 words on my play novel. I'm almost caught up to where I need to be if I have a hope of finishing by the week before Thanksgiving (as I really must if I'm to win at all). Eef. My body is disintegrating as I type.
The last time I wrote a novel with the idea of "winning" in mind, the stakes were a giant cash prize, paid in a lump sum of something like $60,000, payable to the best writer in my graduating class of college.
I didn't win. The prize went to a little orphan girl instead.
Silver lining: Had I won, readers would not have the opportunity to enjoy the posts about the ridiculous and demeaning jobs I have held since graduation.
'Cause, see, while other college seniors were doing things like polishing their resumes and networking and applying to jobs within their chosen field, I was locked away, scribbling, then later, re-typing.
Anyway: the stakes this time are doodly squat, and if I win, I have to share the honor with thousands of others.
I think that's why I like this one better.
It's time for bed. Good night. posted by Frenz | 11/12/2003 01:01:00 AM
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Tuesday, November 11, 2003 Awkwardness is:
Changing a tire in front of one's parents. posted by Frenz | 11/11/2003 11:05:00 PM
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Monday, November 10, 2003 My Secret Identity
or:
I hate myself and I want to die
Today I called temp agencies, real ones, unlike the one who sends one exclusively to the fucking call center. I had had enough. I went to word school, and I wrote several fine articles about local government meetings and the irrelevant yet heartwarming activities of children for a small town paper, and I wrote a goddamn (terrible, but shush) novel, and today was going to be my turn to sit at a nice desk in a nice office and make copies and bring coffee to the nice people.
So, I go to the temp agency that is the first to answer their phone with a live person when I call them, and I take tests in microsoft word, and excell, and typing. (Interesting sidenote: I got maybe 50% of the regular features of excell, because I've never had occasion to use it, but I scored 100% on the "advanced features" portion of the test.)
I was dressed in my one respectable outfit, which still looks a little off. If I am going to be an officina, I told myself, I will have to use the first few of my (comparatively) enormous paychecks to buy pretty new clothes. Ones lacking in holes or stains.
Anyhow, I sat there fililng out paper work, dreaming of a desk of not-my-own in some swanky building somewhere. I also felt deep shame regarding my scores. They said I type 50 words a minute. Can you believe it? I can't. In a pig's fucking eye I type 50 words a minute. My error was not to peck joyfully, the way I usually do, but to try to do some semblance to touch typing. It was to be the day's first giant mistake.
Meanwhile, the employment agent is looking at my ID. "I think I have a job for you," she said. I was thrilled. By that point, I was kind of expecting them to throw away the entire application when I wasn't looking.
Then she explained the nature of the job, and I was less thrilled, and then she explained the hourly pay rate, and I got thrilled again.
My job was to be a "Mystery Shopper," but instead of purchasing items att boutiques, then writing the shopgirls up for insolence, my job was to be travelling all over the northern part of the city, attempting to purchase beer or cigarettes.
If thew clerk ID'd me, I'd give him or her a green card saying something like "Good job." If they didn't, I'd give a red card and tell them they were scum, or something along those lines.
I was to follow a set route, according to directions they gave me along with the red and green cards.
Things went well for most of the afternoon, except the directions were a little unclear, and I'm a little shitty at navigating without a map, so day turned into night, and I was still only halfway through my route.
Then I realized that when they said my route was to be "North Richmond" they were "lying".
I ended up very south, in a town called Mineral. Well, eventually I did. Beforehand there was an interlude where the goddamned money eat dragon of a car which is so going to get donated to the less fortunate if it doesn't watch its ass, that fucking bucket, it sprung a flat tire.
So there I was, on the side of the highway in my one respectable outfit (I'd gone straight from the agency to the open road that afternoon), wrestling with the assinine Volvo jack in the dark and the cold all by myself.
Eventually, a cop showed up. I had him hold the cop light while I did fiddly stuff. One of the lugnuts wasn't coming off, and I was beginning to panic. Luckily, the cop was there. "Nope, looks like it's stripped or something, or it's got one of those locks on it," he said. I told him there was no lock on my lugnut, because I would know, and it might be stripped, and if so, what then? "You'd probably have to call a tow truck out here and get it to a shop," he said.
I looked at him with a gaze of wrath and scorn, and I took that lugnut off with the Powers of My Mind.
I and the pessimistic officer put the donut tire on, and I went on to Mineral. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, here's a helpful clue. Mineral is just outside of Gum Springs.
Now, it was time for my second terrible mistake of the day.
A sane person would have turned around and gone right home and finished narking on the teenaged gas station clerks the next day.
Not me.
I continued on the circuitous route through the sinister country roads. Once, a deer jumped in front of my car, and I became terrified of hitting a deer, so I drove even slower than the donut seemed to require.
That meant I was stuck for several hours more in the dark. By myself, in the middle of nowhere.
In the end, I couldn't finish. It was too late to go to the last restaurant.
Yes, how's that for excruciating? Part of the job means that I have to go to certain restaurants, ask to be seated, and then attempt to order a beer, then cancel the order, then give the appropriate colored card to the manager.
The instruction card for me specifies that I must do this alone.
At first that made me feel like someone rawboned and sinewy, a cowboy, perhaps, or some other tough, lean character who must work alone for the sake of the cows or what have you. Later, it made me feel like I was pulling a low and pointless prank, and that I had no friends.
Anyway, I ended up exhausted and hungry, and driving around in circles. I will have to finish the route tomorrow. I have failed.
But Jesus! I almost forgot to tell you all about why my decision to keep soldiering on was a terrible mistake. Because I didn't hit the deer or anything, and I got home OK, I guess.
But when I got home there was an instant message from Helen saying: "Where the hell are you? The terrible Melena is kissing the terrible Zach!"
I knew I had failed doubly. If I had been there to watch Joe Average, I could've used the Powers of My Mind to prevent this travesty, by dropping a boulder on both Melena and Zach. Later, I would have arranged for generous compensation for the little one that I like.
Point being: why don't I have Ti-Vo? Everybody else gets to have Ti-Vo. posted by Frenz | 11/10/2003 11:51:00 PM
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Sunday, November 09, 2003 Dead poets
From Presidential hopeful Howard Dean's "blog".
In a New York Times op-ed, Adam Cohen wonders what WWI poet Wilfred Owen would think of Bush's "eagerness to convince the public that things are going well in Iraq."
Dude.
I am so going to start writing Op/ed for the NYT.
"Cara wonders how Edna St. Vincent Millay would react to the Paris Hilton sex tape."
"Cara wonders what James Dickey would have to say about the new twenty dollar bill: too shiny, or not shiny enough?"
Making up opinions from dead poets is definitely my calling. Definitely. posted by Frenz | 11/09/2003 01:31:00 PM
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Could it be any more obvious?
Today, owing slightly to yesterday's theme of wallowing in self loathing, and more than slightly to today's theme of procrastinating on my play novel, I've decided to list some small personal failings. This is by no means a searching moral inventory; it, like most things on this blog, is merely infotainment.
And you would be reading the rest of this post, if blogger hadn't done something bizarre
It seemed to splice someone else's blog in with my own. Very unsettling. Ghost blog.
posted by Frenz | 11/09/2003 01:12:00 PM
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Saturday, November 08, 2003 Self loathing
That's what me and the guys on Average Joe have in common. I'm squirming so hard watching this. The desperation in the air is clearly what is making the lighting so terribly, terribly unflattering.
Me, I'm pretty sick of my play novel. I keep adding words, but yeesh, I've kind of already proved that I can write and write and write. It's doing it well and sustaining quality through a long manuscript that's the real hurdle here.
At least my lighting is flattering...I've put the paper lantern over the harsh, harsh bulb long ago. posted by Frenz | 11/08/2003 09:59:00 PM
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Aloha!
The mate left this evening on a mini-vacation of unspecified length, to of all places, Newport News, Virginia. The poor lamb thinks he's going to the beach, when in truth, he's lucky if he gets to the shipyards. He'll undoubtably be shanghaied by a gang of roughnecks and pressed into service on some sort of tramp steamer. The last time I visited that particular sliver of urban decay, I was not left with a favorable impression, but that story is too long and has been repeated too often for a blog post.
In any case, I will be mourning mate's absence by leaving cabinet doors open, leaving personal belongings on the coffee table, and wearing the shirt that I think makes me look like a member of a third-world bobsled team, but in a really sexy way, and mate thinks looks indie rock and pretentious.
The unkindest cut of all is this: just this week, we finally got season four of The Sopranos on DVD. Neither one of us has seen a second of season four, because A. we can't afford HBO B. even now that we got the fourth season, we've been holding out until we finished a season of a nother series we follow, which is set in space. Tonight, we watched the last episode we have of that series.
Now off mate goes, leaving me alone in the house but for the faithless cats, underemployed and bored, with no cable to speak of, staring longingly at the bright silver box of season four. Although I didn't promise not to start it without him, it seems like pretty low trick to do so.
On the plus side, this will mean all kinds of free time to work on my play novel. On the minus side, I don't do very well in situations with long, uniterrupted blocks of freetime.
Update on the trashy and parasitic neighbors: within a span of about ten hours, they came and rang our doorbell (which they know full well makes an extremely shrill and grating noise) and when we answered demanded first a ride and then an onion. We refused on both counts. Later, we told them to stop bothering us.
To me, this feels cruel, but I also kind of hate the neighbors, so either way...
posted by Frenz | 11/08/2003 01:32:00 AM
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Thursday, November 06, 2003 it's true
I hate to say it, because I'm really down with what I think NaNoWriMo is all about, and I don't want to be the nippy little weasel nipping and weaseling away at the already weak and corroded infrastructure of the self-esteem of sensitive writers everywhere, but Jesus, a quick scan of the message boards reveals something I've suspected for years: Any old son of a bitch can write a book.
One of my college jobs was carting semi-famous writers back and forth between my remote country college and BWI airport, or in some cases, the Amtrak station in Wilmington, Delaware. Because of particularly juicy and detailed bequest of a certain "writer of light fiction", the school had a fairly large budget for luring quite a lot of biggish names in literary fiction and poetry. I don't know why I was allowed to transport them, but my friend Leah and I were called on to do this fairly often.
Even when they got to the school at the hands of other amateur chauffeurs, the visiting writers were much more accessible than they would have been at a larger, more important school, and it was usually pretty easy to get a feel for their personalities.
Not all of them were ideal party guests. Some of them, including some pretty big names, were jerks. There they would sit, in the passenger side of the school Buick, silent and brooding, grunting rudely in response to even the most sparkling of conversational gambits.
Others talked too much, about nothing much. One poet they brought in greeted a class (which was supposed to have read and digested his slim volume of poetry) by saying "So, first let's go around the room, and each say which three of my poems you liked best."
I know I've blogged about this before, because the visiting writers are the closest I've gotten to any sort of starfucking, and that makes me feel important, but I think it's a lesson that any struggling writer must realize. There are absolutely no criteria that one must meet to write a book, except for this: you have to sit down and write it. Publishing, I'm sure is another matter, but I'm not even in a position to worry about that yet.
Right now, it's nice to know that I'm just as mediocre as I need to be, and so is just about everybody else.
My play novel is up to about 9,000 words. My real novel is still terrible.
posted by Frenz | 11/06/2003 11:04:00 PM
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Wednesday, November 05, 2003 Secret squirrel
I don't know what I intended to post here, but I either deleted it by accident, or I somehow made an extra post. Probably, it was a signal to my shadowy overlords. Either way, keep you chin up. posted by Frenz | 11/05/2003 01:17:00 AM
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Election 2003
From 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., I helped to pester America about voting, usually for specific and terrible people. Mostly, America hung up on me. Sometimes, it swore.
The dialing machine wasn't working correctly, and that was a comfort. I could see it taking a toll on my bosses, particularly T., the boss I hate the most. I hate him because of his hairstyle, his ineffectual attempts at giving pre-shift pep-talks, and because he is the only boss who has ever admonished me in any way.
Today, an insufferable and very outgoing woman who often sits invisible and horribly audible on the otherside of the cubby row from me kept adding helpful tips in the pre work pep-talk. Points the hated T. had missed, humorous observations, high-pitched giggles. T. began to speak in an extremely sarcastic tone of voice, and I could tell that at that moment, he hated his job more than I hated mine.
I made a sign with an arrow pointing across at the cubicle wall, to the side that the terrible woman was sitting on, and I wrote "I'm with insufferable" on it, but it seemed immature, so later I hid it.
At the 5 pm break, there was a Pizza Party! I was a little put out that they didn't provide sodas. I mean, it's not really a party if there aren't sodas, am I right?
The pizza was delivered 40 minutes before the shift break. For those 40 minutes, in between the rare calls that slipped through the malfunctioning dialer, I could hear my co-workers, most of which are grown men and women, getting really excited about the pizza.
Later, I ate pizza that had been sitting in the break room for 45 minutes. I was glad to get it.
We all had to get in line to get to the pizza. "Bernice" (not her real name), the co-worker I suspect of being a werewolf due to her aversion to silverware, cut the line and went scavening around the pizza table. Nobody said anything to her, although several of us were obviously pretty (and justifiably!) upset, but my guess is that no one wishes to risk getting into a conversation with "Bernice" for any reason.
posted by Frenz | 11/05/2003 01:15:00 AM
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Monday, November 03, 2003 You deserve to know
what the government is doing with its surplus raisins. They are pressing them on the local foodbank, who in turn is pressing them on the trashy and parasitic neighbors. The neighbors are using them, as well as other particularly non-appealing foods as leverage in the byzantine intrigues they have going in order to get interminable rides, bogus child support and attention.
They kicked a box of these same government surplus raisins down to me last week, and yesterday, I was lazy enough to eat them instead of going to the store and buying more feasible foodstuffs.
I don't even dislike raisins, but I have been influenced by years of propoganda that says they are gross. Also, despite what the USDA says, they are not an appropriate food for every meal; the USDA, according to the box copy apparently recognizes meals called "mid-morning" and "study break."
They also give recipes. There's raisin/yam patties, carrot raisin salad (the ingredients: carrots, raisins, mayo. They add (in a manor that I find rather coquettish for a government agency) "Lemon juice, if you like." Most appallingly, they include a recipe for "raisin sauce"( Ingredients: raisins, water, brown sugar, and vinegar.)
which they suggest you use on desserts or meats.
posted by Frenz | 11/03/2003 11:45:00 PM
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Saturday, November 01, 2003 Eat your heart out, Donna Tarttt
I started my novel for NaNoWriMo today. 2,065 words so far, and the sad truth is, I think that my play novel is going to be much, much better than my "serious" novel. Fuck it. I hate my serious novel. It never stood a chance.
This new one is about a shape-shifting young lady from the Deep South who makes it big in Nashville as a Country Western star. I'm taking the gist of the plot from the myth of Echo and Narcissus. In word school, they taught us that this practice is not stealing.
My story is not just like the myth anyhow, since mine involves a shirtless young lout named Buck, who will probably spend most of the story naked to the waist, and spitting, and if that were in the myth, I might've paid more attention in my 8th grade folklore unit. (Note: that is purely rhetorical, and by that I mean it's a big lie. I totally paid attention in my 8th grade folklore unit.)
posted by Frenz | 11/01/2003 11:04:00 PM
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