Office as orifice...
Avowed romantics, on the other hand, tend to invite scorn, unless they are something like your cousin, in which case it's heart-warming. The academie, as they are always telling us, is one big family. We at 1430 think of ourselves as the member who says nothing at the dinner table but who'll be real cool to you when you end up side to side for a while during the after-meal walk. So although Dale J. might be the softest man in Phoenix, we pat him on the back.
I find it so strange the way people in offices assert themselves. Most of these people are clearly very strange, but then they hide behind culture, both office and pop, as if it disguised their issue-filled beings. Myself, I have always believed that I’m less strange than most, but it doesn't come off that way because the only way I know how to express myself is to say what I am feeling, straight from the heart. I know that my eyes become unblinking and that my face goes still and that the words kind of float up out of my throat as if I was as much their victim as those people who are hearing me, but it usually works out.
In the past this even has won me accolades. Lots of times people have said Wow, everything you said is so true, or wow, I totally understood you at that moment. So I guess that leaves me feeling better, like somehow I win in the end. But the problem is I can’t control these moments, I just have to count on them keeping coming and the right people seeing them. I always hope there are a few who have identified, becasue there are inevitably some (usually those who prefer to mediate their lives through yesterday’s episode of Seinfeld) who feel the need to make some kind of uncomfortable comment, like Wow, that was a trip or telling me to lay off the drugs or something.
Anyway, this is what happened today. Since it’s the big carnival week here they built the rollerhockey rink in the middle of Dawson Street, which our office overlooks. Today they played an exposition game, the Mad Dogs versus Prairie Fire. People in the office had been watching the game for our 6th story windows and plenty of guys were pretending it was Sportscenter, but then the game ended and people sort of went back to work, and I returned to the windows a little later to watch the people cleaning up. There were TV lights and I saw they were interviewing a player. The player's back was to me and beyond him I noticed a guy in black coat walking towards him. He had short silver hair and big black sunglasses and looked like he was trying to affect a badass aesthetic but missing the mark by so far that you had to guess that he was a little crazy. He came up behind the guy and put his hand on his shoulder pad, real gentle, but the interview was in progress, so the guy looked once and then ignored the dude, finally kind of shrugging him off. I suspect the dude was talking nonsense.
Anyway the second that the guy gave up and turned to go, one of the little puck kids with a bag full of plastic pucks looking like paper boy flicked a puck at the guy's head. I guess he thought he was justified. It bounced right off his forehead and the guy just kept walking, cursing but never turning to look at that little jerk. I wish so bad that I could describe to you what passed across that guy's face during those seconds, surprise, pride, anger, despair, I read in all on the forehead and cheeks that surrounded those huge black sunglasses. I followed him with my vision until he disappeared behind a column, and then I took a few steps back and remembered the office. I couldn’t take it. I backpedaled and collapsed in a chair.
Rhonda and some other ladies noticed and came up to me. My face was in my hands trying to preserve the image, but sometimes I peeked through the cracks to see how people were reacting. I saw that people were taking me pretty serious, so I proceeded to tell them what I had just seen. “Oh, the poor man,” they echoed. They even accepted my point about it being a tragic moment and a slice of life. I recovered with their good word, and I have never felt better about the office than now. I feel like people finally know me.
I find it so strange the way people in offices assert themselves. Most of these people are clearly very strange, but then they hide behind culture, both office and pop, as if it disguised their issue-filled beings. Myself, I have always believed that I’m less strange than most, but it doesn't come off that way because the only way I know how to express myself is to say what I am feeling, straight from the heart. I know that my eyes become unblinking and that my face goes still and that the words kind of float up out of my throat as if I was as much their victim as those people who are hearing me, but it usually works out.
In the past this even has won me accolades. Lots of times people have said Wow, everything you said is so true, or wow, I totally understood you at that moment. So I guess that leaves me feeling better, like somehow I win in the end. But the problem is I can’t control these moments, I just have to count on them keeping coming and the right people seeing them. I always hope there are a few who have identified, becasue there are inevitably some (usually those who prefer to mediate their lives through yesterday’s episode of Seinfeld) who feel the need to make some kind of uncomfortable comment, like Wow, that was a trip or telling me to lay off the drugs or something.
Anyway, this is what happened today. Since it’s the big carnival week here they built the rollerhockey rink in the middle of Dawson Street, which our office overlooks. Today they played an exposition game, the Mad Dogs versus Prairie Fire. People in the office had been watching the game for our 6th story windows and plenty of guys were pretending it was Sportscenter, but then the game ended and people sort of went back to work, and I returned to the windows a little later to watch the people cleaning up. There were TV lights and I saw they were interviewing a player. The player's back was to me and beyond him I noticed a guy in black coat walking towards him. He had short silver hair and big black sunglasses and looked like he was trying to affect a badass aesthetic but missing the mark by so far that you had to guess that he was a little crazy. He came up behind the guy and put his hand on his shoulder pad, real gentle, but the interview was in progress, so the guy looked once and then ignored the dude, finally kind of shrugging him off. I suspect the dude was talking nonsense.
Anyway the second that the guy gave up and turned to go, one of the little puck kids with a bag full of plastic pucks looking like paper boy flicked a puck at the guy's head. I guess he thought he was justified. It bounced right off his forehead and the guy just kept walking, cursing but never turning to look at that little jerk. I wish so bad that I could describe to you what passed across that guy's face during those seconds, surprise, pride, anger, despair, I read in all on the forehead and cheeks that surrounded those huge black sunglasses. I followed him with my vision until he disappeared behind a column, and then I took a few steps back and remembered the office. I couldn’t take it. I backpedaled and collapsed in a chair.
Rhonda and some other ladies noticed and came up to me. My face was in my hands trying to preserve the image, but sometimes I peeked through the cracks to see how people were reacting. I saw that people were taking me pretty serious, so I proceeded to tell them what I had just seen. “Oh, the poor man,” they echoed. They even accepted my point about it being a tragic moment and a slice of life. I recovered with their good word, and I have never felt better about the office than now. I feel like people finally know me.
posted by M.N.V.L. Local 1430 at 6:30 PM
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