Bored at the Office
Yida looks like he'll never change/mature.
Nick, while small, seems to have made some progress--though in the wrong direction. Who would want to move away from their overanalyzing nature to just sitting back and letting things happen. Honestly...
Things in my life over the past weeks
Made a speech--a call to arms speech--spoken by Satan (me) to his minions(the class) before the final assault on God. or god..or gods... or
Got into a little spat with a mormon who i've been on bad terms with for quite some time. tucker announced it to be on his Top Ten List of events that happened while he was teaching. i'm up there with a girl who fainted during a test. apparently he had no idea if she was faking or not, so he just left her there for a while.
went to Matsuko's 70th birthday. ran over a curb in a jeep after i went the wrong way through a drive-through at popeyes. the SUV people had a good laugh at me. lots of unagi at obachan's party though--so i was content...very content.
that speech (the satan one) won me a JT award. it's a traveling trophy given out by tucker to the best speech of the day. JT is a little justin timberlake bobble-head from best buy. heavy thing. head moves around a lot though.
i wrote a few break-up cards that i really ought to mail to hallmark or shoebox or something. i just need some decent artist to make some fronts for them. yida?
I wish i could do a link to this instead of making the post look so intimidating. here's a story i wrote last semester. it's not finished--been working on it for quite some time in my notebooks and whatever. that's not on here though. of course not. btw...figure out where the italics are. i'm not going in to find all the places i used them at.
How can I best explain this to you?
She shrugged and was probably hoping for some sort of answer that wasn't quite so painful.
I have... I am...
What? What are you?
I am not here.
Great. He's gone. That guy never answers that question and now I'm alone again.
She didn't understand the relationship that they built up. He came, talked, left, and she waited. And that's how it always was.
She waded through her dirty laundry searching for a clean pair of socks. Somehow she never really found enough time to actually wash them. And when she did, she threw the clean clothes on the floor rather than folding them. Jane was the ultimate time-saver and you couldn't really say much else about her.
Her major problem today was figuring out what she was supposed to do. Jane could usually rely on that guy to tell her what the main happenings were going to be, but he went off without saying a damn thing.
She cursed him and his descendents. "Why is it that he makes me rely on him and then leave me whenever he feels like it? A guy, or anyone for that matter shouldn't do that. There are better ways to do things."
And there were. But, that never stopped him; and she never made any suggestion to attempt to change his patterns. So their relationship existed in this manner.
Having found a suitable pair of socks (they smelled a bit like dryer sheets, but she had probably worn them before), she fled her apartment, left the door unlocked, and descended three flights of stairs.
The streets were never friendly, and Jane didn't really expect them to be anything else. But it was just after Thanksgiving and the ringers were out shaking their bells for change to be donated to their various charities. Santa Claus didn't do that job any more; he left it to regular people who have regular lives but feel like they need to help other people out. Strange how that happens at this time of year.
Jane drew her hair into a pony tail and then bumped into the first woman she saw. Business always went this way. People get lazy when the holidays are near. They're too happy and feeling free to notice where they're holding their groceries and purses. Who would steal during the holidays anyway?
So Jane took that woman's wallet from her open black purse. Jane didn't know yet, but there were four credit cards, at least five discount cards to various stores, fifty-four dollars, and a few bits of change. Jane flipped through that wallet in front of a bell-ringer and dropped the change in the metal bucket. She left the replacement Santa behind and walked into the grocery store to get enough food for her to survive for the next few weeks.
Jane didn't want to live like this. But, temp jobs were short. Her contractor hadn't found a job for her in the past eight years. Other jobs just weren't available to her. Jane didn't know why either. She assumed it was some sort of half-brained conspiracy that was trying to kill off the world one person at a time by not allowing that person to work. She needed something to believe and that's what she settled with.
Where've you been?
You hypocritical...
Haha. Yeah, I am.
She crossed her arms and waited.
What?
Why'd you come back? You always have a a reason. So what's it this time?
No reason at all. I just missed you.
Jane tuned him out. Well, she expertly ignored him.
She wasn't living well, but she was comfortable. Jane just never had any quarters. That was the real problem with life. Quarters. The laundry machines ate them and she could rarely find any. But that was her life, the one that the government built for her. Jane wouldn't allow herself to stop and think that it was some fault that transgressed years and years ago. So Jane lived how she could and that was all she could hope for.
You never leave when I want you to.
I have free will.
Free will?
Yes. I have it, you don't. Here. Take a look at this.
He left, exited for near a minute and came back.
Free will. You see?
No. I don't understand. I can do that to. That's not free will, that's just moving around.
Is there really that much of a difference?
You can say and do whatever you want. I don't care, just leave me alone. That's all I want--leave.
So Jane left the television on and went back to cooking her spaghettios with meatballs. Sometimes the best things for you are the things your parents gave you when you were little. But chicken noodle soup and orange juice couldn't do what she needed.
Jane left her bowl with the dishwasher and sat between the worn leather cushions on her failing couch. Soon she'd have to replace it; but she'd work on that later. For now, she had to deal with the commercials.
Commercials were a waste of time anyway. Advertisements were something she never cared to pay attention to, but she could never avoid them. Commercials are just about everywhere. Jane went to a place where she figured nothing would be able to find her.
How many times was it that she had been here in the past week? Jane decided she would rather not count them and relapse into a disorder she created for herself. She had become a time freak; and maybe this is why she didn't want a job. There was no government conspiracy, she just decided to comfort herself in some other manner. Jane didn't like looking at her pay check every two weeks. It wasn't that she wasn't making much money--it was the time, the hours she spent everyday working instead of doing something else.
Jane used to read a lot, but she had long since stopped. It was something about how much time she spent on them. Jane figured she wasn't getting what she wanted. She sought wisdom and looked for everything that would make her life worthwhile, but books just weren't doing it for her. Too many words, too much time, and the meanings too hidden to be able to pull them out quickly.
So Jane sat on her bench in the park. It was hers--she carved her name in the gummy rubber one hot summer evening. The only advertisments she had to deal with here were the brand names stitched onto the clothing of the kids that passed by. She never understood why people would buy that sort of thing. But it was trendy and the companies sold it well. They were geniuses--advertising with billboards and good looking guys and girls and then moving their merchandise, their advertisments paid by the public. But Jane never wanted to buy over-priced clothing that were perfectly faded and ripped.
What's the point with all of this anyway?
Jane watched a woman and her male counterpart as they were holding hands and talking on the concrete path. How many times had she seen this? Jane decided she didn't want to count. She'd been counting since she was 20. Jane hid a few boxes of calenders beneath her bed. 20 was when she really started questioning why she did anything at all and attempted to decide what was worthwhile. So she marked her calenders with the information she was truly curious about--how many times she changed, changed for others, changed for herself--any time she became something different, she marked it down. So far, Jane figured she morphed into something new 251 times. 251 in eight years.
Why? Am I subject to trends too?
She didn't care to answer the question. She left it to her sub-conscious. Jane got up and left. She'd had enough of this station.
Isn't that what life is?
Jane went back to the replacement Santa Claus. He had a good bell this time--loud and capable of multiple notes. Maybe Jane was tone deaf, but she was hearing more than one note coming from his direction. The cross-shaped money-taking hole trapped her feet. Jane wondered how heavy and how full that bucket was.
She didn't like to live the life of a pick-pocket, but she didn't know much of anything else. 8 years of stagnation didn't do anything for anyone in the realm of employment. So this is what she'd decided to do.
She started like any other novice without an apprentice. Jane got caught time and time again. Sometimes people called the cops, but most of the time she was still able to run and hide.
It was hard to find you.
Get away from me. I don't need you anymore.
You need me?
...No... I never needed you. Get away from here!
You don't understand do you?
No. I don't. And I don't care to. I just want you away from me!
He stood just like the rest of the people staring at Jane. There are always strange people in the streets during the holidays, but they rarely ever confronted anyone in the entrance of the store.
Jane's heart was having issues, her body didn't care to slow down its shaking, and her eyes were wetting her face.
I hate you! I hate what you've done to me! JUST...JUST GO! NOW!
You don't care to admit it...
GET A WAY!
Don't care to admit that you've ever done anything wrong.
Static.
No matter how hard he hit the television, it wouldn't get a picture or make sound other than what he'd hear if he was covered by snow and it kept piling up.
Jane left. There was nothing else she could do. She had money from earlier, but she didn't feel like spending it now. It was time to sleep.
Her dreams struggled to wade through the reality she created for herself. They swam past the father that left her behind one day. She ran, not wanting to lose sight of him; but Jane lost him in a bog full of grey people. His color left that day; but she still chased after him when she wept.
The water drained and she fell in the muck it left behind. Jane jerked, plodding her way through the shit of thousands of fish. She didn't think about that though. Her attention was divided between her slipping shoes and the apartment where she lived with her mother and father--back before that man came. Of course, she'd never reach it. Jane knew that. So she drew buckets from the well in the backyard. Caterpillars. Buckets of green caterpillars. They crawled and fell and wished for spots just outside of her shadow. Most of them had been in the well since they were larvae. A few crawled down and never figured out how to get back up until the first bucket came up. The caterpillars talked to each other.
Up. We're going up and out. Grab hold and we'll fly away.
Heyyyyyyy. He was back--visible even. Jane! But she still couldn't hear him. Heyyyyyyy. She had been holding tight to the mute button--just in case he came back.
Guh!
He threw water on Jane and she stared at him like a fish might have if you tried talking to it. Jane mouthed a few angry screams and belligerent words at him. She hoped he could read lips.
She gathered her blanket and put it in a garbage bag. Jane needed quarters again.
i'm out. my boredom was squelched for 20 minutes or so. i was walking around doing random things in here though. grrrr
Nick, while small, seems to have made some progress--though in the wrong direction. Who would want to move away from their overanalyzing nature to just sitting back and letting things happen. Honestly...
Things in my life over the past weeks
Made a speech--a call to arms speech--spoken by Satan (me) to his minions(the class) before the final assault on God. or god..or gods... or
Got into a little spat with a mormon who i've been on bad terms with for quite some time. tucker announced it to be on his Top Ten List of events that happened while he was teaching. i'm up there with a girl who fainted during a test. apparently he had no idea if she was faking or not, so he just left her there for a while.
went to Matsuko's 70th birthday. ran over a curb in a jeep after i went the wrong way through a drive-through at popeyes. the SUV people had a good laugh at me. lots of unagi at obachan's party though--so i was content...very content.
that speech (the satan one) won me a JT award. it's a traveling trophy given out by tucker to the best speech of the day. JT is a little justin timberlake bobble-head from best buy. heavy thing. head moves around a lot though.
i wrote a few break-up cards that i really ought to mail to hallmark or shoebox or something. i just need some decent artist to make some fronts for them. yida?
I wish i could do a link to this instead of making the post look so intimidating. here's a story i wrote last semester. it's not finished--been working on it for quite some time in my notebooks and whatever. that's not on here though. of course not. btw...figure out where the italics are. i'm not going in to find all the places i used them at.
How can I best explain this to you?
She shrugged and was probably hoping for some sort of answer that wasn't quite so painful.
I have... I am...
What? What are you?
I am not here.
Great. He's gone. That guy never answers that question and now I'm alone again.
She didn't understand the relationship that they built up. He came, talked, left, and she waited. And that's how it always was.
She waded through her dirty laundry searching for a clean pair of socks. Somehow she never really found enough time to actually wash them. And when she did, she threw the clean clothes on the floor rather than folding them. Jane was the ultimate time-saver and you couldn't really say much else about her.
Her major problem today was figuring out what she was supposed to do. Jane could usually rely on that guy to tell her what the main happenings were going to be, but he went off without saying a damn thing.
She cursed him and his descendents. "Why is it that he makes me rely on him and then leave me whenever he feels like it? A guy, or anyone for that matter shouldn't do that. There are better ways to do things."
And there were. But, that never stopped him; and she never made any suggestion to attempt to change his patterns. So their relationship existed in this manner.
Having found a suitable pair of socks (they smelled a bit like dryer sheets, but she had probably worn them before), she fled her apartment, left the door unlocked, and descended three flights of stairs.
The streets were never friendly, and Jane didn't really expect them to be anything else. But it was just after Thanksgiving and the ringers were out shaking their bells for change to be donated to their various charities. Santa Claus didn't do that job any more; he left it to regular people who have regular lives but feel like they need to help other people out. Strange how that happens at this time of year.
Jane drew her hair into a pony tail and then bumped into the first woman she saw. Business always went this way. People get lazy when the holidays are near. They're too happy and feeling free to notice where they're holding their groceries and purses. Who would steal during the holidays anyway?
So Jane took that woman's wallet from her open black purse. Jane didn't know yet, but there were four credit cards, at least five discount cards to various stores, fifty-four dollars, and a few bits of change. Jane flipped through that wallet in front of a bell-ringer and dropped the change in the metal bucket. She left the replacement Santa behind and walked into the grocery store to get enough food for her to survive for the next few weeks.
Jane didn't want to live like this. But, temp jobs were short. Her contractor hadn't found a job for her in the past eight years. Other jobs just weren't available to her. Jane didn't know why either. She assumed it was some sort of half-brained conspiracy that was trying to kill off the world one person at a time by not allowing that person to work. She needed something to believe and that's what she settled with.
Where've you been?
You hypocritical...
Haha. Yeah, I am.
She crossed her arms and waited.
What?
Why'd you come back? You always have a a reason. So what's it this time?
No reason at all. I just missed you.
Jane tuned him out. Well, she expertly ignored him.
She wasn't living well, but she was comfortable. Jane just never had any quarters. That was the real problem with life. Quarters. The laundry machines ate them and she could rarely find any. But that was her life, the one that the government built for her. Jane wouldn't allow herself to stop and think that it was some fault that transgressed years and years ago. So Jane lived how she could and that was all she could hope for.
You never leave when I want you to.
I have free will.
Free will?
Yes. I have it, you don't. Here. Take a look at this.
He left, exited for near a minute and came back.
Free will. You see?
No. I don't understand. I can do that to. That's not free will, that's just moving around.
Is there really that much of a difference?
You can say and do whatever you want. I don't care, just leave me alone. That's all I want--leave.
So Jane left the television on and went back to cooking her spaghettios with meatballs. Sometimes the best things for you are the things your parents gave you when you were little. But chicken noodle soup and orange juice couldn't do what she needed.
Jane left her bowl with the dishwasher and sat between the worn leather cushions on her failing couch. Soon she'd have to replace it; but she'd work on that later. For now, she had to deal with the commercials.
Commercials were a waste of time anyway. Advertisements were something she never cared to pay attention to, but she could never avoid them. Commercials are just about everywhere. Jane went to a place where she figured nothing would be able to find her.
How many times was it that she had been here in the past week? Jane decided she would rather not count them and relapse into a disorder she created for herself. She had become a time freak; and maybe this is why she didn't want a job. There was no government conspiracy, she just decided to comfort herself in some other manner. Jane didn't like looking at her pay check every two weeks. It wasn't that she wasn't making much money--it was the time, the hours she spent everyday working instead of doing something else.
Jane used to read a lot, but she had long since stopped. It was something about how much time she spent on them. Jane figured she wasn't getting what she wanted. She sought wisdom and looked for everything that would make her life worthwhile, but books just weren't doing it for her. Too many words, too much time, and the meanings too hidden to be able to pull them out quickly.
So Jane sat on her bench in the park. It was hers--she carved her name in the gummy rubber one hot summer evening. The only advertisments she had to deal with here were the brand names stitched onto the clothing of the kids that passed by. She never understood why people would buy that sort of thing. But it was trendy and the companies sold it well. They were geniuses--advertising with billboards and good looking guys and girls and then moving their merchandise, their advertisments paid by the public. But Jane never wanted to buy over-priced clothing that were perfectly faded and ripped.
What's the point with all of this anyway?
Jane watched a woman and her male counterpart as they were holding hands and talking on the concrete path. How many times had she seen this? Jane decided she didn't want to count. She'd been counting since she was 20. Jane hid a few boxes of calenders beneath her bed. 20 was when she really started questioning why she did anything at all and attempted to decide what was worthwhile. So she marked her calenders with the information she was truly curious about--how many times she changed, changed for others, changed for herself--any time she became something different, she marked it down. So far, Jane figured she morphed into something new 251 times. 251 in eight years.
Why? Am I subject to trends too?
She didn't care to answer the question. She left it to her sub-conscious. Jane got up and left. She'd had enough of this station.
Isn't that what life is?
Jane went back to the replacement Santa Claus. He had a good bell this time--loud and capable of multiple notes. Maybe Jane was tone deaf, but she was hearing more than one note coming from his direction. The cross-shaped money-taking hole trapped her feet. Jane wondered how heavy and how full that bucket was.
She didn't like to live the life of a pick-pocket, but she didn't know much of anything else. 8 years of stagnation didn't do anything for anyone in the realm of employment. So this is what she'd decided to do.
She started like any other novice without an apprentice. Jane got caught time and time again. Sometimes people called the cops, but most of the time she was still able to run and hide.
It was hard to find you.
Get away from me. I don't need you anymore.
You need me?
...No... I never needed you. Get away from here!
You don't understand do you?
No. I don't. And I don't care to. I just want you away from me!
He stood just like the rest of the people staring at Jane. There are always strange people in the streets during the holidays, but they rarely ever confronted anyone in the entrance of the store.
Jane's heart was having issues, her body didn't care to slow down its shaking, and her eyes were wetting her face.
I hate you! I hate what you've done to me! JUST...JUST GO! NOW!
You don't care to admit it...
GET A WAY!
Don't care to admit that you've ever done anything wrong.
Static.
No matter how hard he hit the television, it wouldn't get a picture or make sound other than what he'd hear if he was covered by snow and it kept piling up.
Jane left. There was nothing else she could do. She had money from earlier, but she didn't feel like spending it now. It was time to sleep.
Her dreams struggled to wade through the reality she created for herself. They swam past the father that left her behind one day. She ran, not wanting to lose sight of him; but Jane lost him in a bog full of grey people. His color left that day; but she still chased after him when she wept.
The water drained and she fell in the muck it left behind. Jane jerked, plodding her way through the shit of thousands of fish. She didn't think about that though. Her attention was divided between her slipping shoes and the apartment where she lived with her mother and father--back before that man came. Of course, she'd never reach it. Jane knew that. So she drew buckets from the well in the backyard. Caterpillars. Buckets of green caterpillars. They crawled and fell and wished for spots just outside of her shadow. Most of them had been in the well since they were larvae. A few crawled down and never figured out how to get back up until the first bucket came up. The caterpillars talked to each other.
Up. We're going up and out. Grab hold and we'll fly away.
Heyyyyyyy. He was back--visible even. Jane! But she still couldn't hear him. Heyyyyyyy. She had been holding tight to the mute button--just in case he came back.
Guh!
He threw water on Jane and she stared at him like a fish might have if you tried talking to it. Jane mouthed a few angry screams and belligerent words at him. She hoped he could read lips.
She gathered her blanket and put it in a garbage bag. Jane needed quarters again.
i'm out. my boredom was squelched for 20 minutes or so. i was walking around doing random things in here though. grrrr