About a year ago, my employer moved her small business from the attic of her house to an office space in San Francisco's Dogpatch. Working in my boss' attic wasn't as bad as it sounds -- we were a homey little unit -- but by the time we graduated to a real office space, we were excited.
Our new office received more decorating attention than my own home. Paint colors, furniture, beanbags and signage were all given serious scrutiny. The boss, ever trained on the details, even got hand towels monogrammed with our company's acronym for the bathrooms, along with magazine racks. Each of the two bathrooms got a placard denoting men's and women's, even though the placards were immediately ignored.
First, let's talk about the magazine racks. To me, I don't know what marks women's lib more: the fact that we just hired a male assistant for an office of all women for this holiday season, or the fact that we got fricking magazine racks for the bathroom. The only difference between us and a guy office was that the mag rack had issues of People and Gourmet instead of Sports Illustrated. (We do, however, have some issues of Business Week as well.) We all raised our eyebrows about the installation of the mag racks, but I think secretly we all like them.
The hand towels, which are white with stitched initials, are now a year old and nasty. Even when they are freshly laundered, they still appear to be grubby with handmarks. Everyone complains about it, but who among us wants to take on the issue of the office hand-towel? Most normal companies just have paper and are done with it.
Women tend to get fussy about using a men's bathroom when they're in public and the line for the women's is too long. While it's true that men's bathrooms tend to be disgusting, ladies, don't even front. We're the ones who create the foulest bathroom scenes, and you know it. I had a line in here about why, but it grossed out even myself, so I have deleted it.
Our office bathrooms tend to suffer given the fact that we don't have a nightly cleaning service, but little about them has truly skeeved me out -- until today.
I went to dry my hands on the gross towels and encountered a perfect, red lipstick print: Someone had pressed her lips to our hand towels.
I don't even want to press my hands to our hand towels.
That's all I really have to say. Lipstick print. On the hand towels.
In other news, here's this month's reason to be happy. Lindemann, I know you are listening...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Hard Drive.
Twice last week, my e-mail account at work reached its capacity limit and froze, forcing me to go through hundreds of messages, picking what to archive or delete.
At the same time, my phone began bleating, "SIM Card Full!" The unanticipated chore of clearing items from my address book actually turned out to be a mini-catharsis (in the modern age, you can delete not just words, but also people!). But today, while clearing out text messages from said phone to keep it from seizing up again, I thought: Damn, if I have to spend this much time cleaning up all the b.s. I spew into the textosphere, maybe it's time to consider reducing my output?
(Yes, I recognize the paradox in airing this question on my blog.)
My verbal pollution extends beyond the Interwebs. I have a huge box containing every letter ever received, birthday cards, diaries, notebooks with "ideas." I preserve old computers and floppy disks (I just said floppy disks) full of fossilized musings, accessible in theory but extinct in reality. All of this resides at my parents' house, because, you know, I don't like clutter. It's all there, one big life archive that, like so many online .zips, offers more peace of mind than real utility. Random access, memory.
Not long after I moved into my current place, which I furnished with an ivory rug, a cream couch, impossibly white new bedsheets and no paint on the landlord-blanc walls, I read this by Stephen King: "We call it white because we need a word, but its true name is nothing. Black is the absence of light, but white is the absence of memory, the color of can't remember."
What if you could choose not only what to delete from your brain -- or your life -- but also what you could retain? What would you delete, if anything?
I would be glad if I could erase my knowledge of the tune "We Built This City" and restore some random lost childhood memory. I would hit "Del" on everything I've ever watched on Bravo and retrieve the dreams last saved to my unconscious. I would move a few past dating experiences to the recycle bin and then download some classic novels.
I would change the screensaver in my brain from this to this.
At the same time, my phone began bleating, "SIM Card Full!" The unanticipated chore of clearing items from my address book actually turned out to be a mini-catharsis (in the modern age, you can delete not just words, but also people!). But today, while clearing out text messages from said phone to keep it from seizing up again, I thought: Damn, if I have to spend this much time cleaning up all the b.s. I spew into the textosphere, maybe it's time to consider reducing my output?
(Yes, I recognize the paradox in airing this question on my blog.)
My verbal pollution extends beyond the Interwebs. I have a huge box containing every letter ever received, birthday cards, diaries, notebooks with "ideas." I preserve old computers and floppy disks (I just said floppy disks) full of fossilized musings, accessible in theory but extinct in reality. All of this resides at my parents' house, because, you know, I don't like clutter. It's all there, one big life archive that, like so many online .zips, offers more peace of mind than real utility. Random access, memory.
Not long after I moved into my current place, which I furnished with an ivory rug, a cream couch, impossibly white new bedsheets and no paint on the landlord-blanc walls, I read this by Stephen King: "We call it white because we need a word, but its true name is nothing. Black is the absence of light, but white is the absence of memory, the color of can't remember."
What if you could choose not only what to delete from your brain -- or your life -- but also what you could retain? What would you delete, if anything?
I would be glad if I could erase my knowledge of the tune "We Built This City" and restore some random lost childhood memory. I would hit "Del" on everything I've ever watched on Bravo and retrieve the dreams last saved to my unconscious. I would move a few past dating experiences to the recycle bin and then download some classic novels.
I would change the screensaver in my brain from this to this.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Great Expectations.
It's one thing to be young, bright and failing when you're in a big city; it's something else when you're in the suburbs.
Perched behind the window of a coffee shop in Bethesda on a visit awhile back, looking out at an intersection that had remained comfortingly static over the years, I mentally greeted the self who had been in that same seat more than a decade before. I used to sit there writing in my journal and feeling so paralyzed, having not yet acquired a relationship, job or home that felt mine and true. Adding insult to injury, I was feeling that way in Bethesda, where I had grown up, which gave my depression an extra edge of despair and bittersweetness.
My frustrations now muted and my situation improved since then, I feel thankful -- but also a little wistful for the depressed me who used to sit there, plotting and dreaming and lamenting.
I used to be, and still am, attracted to stories about the gifted and tormented: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Salinger's characters. It is horrible to be in your 20s and feel as if it's your moment to make a mark, but you just can't rise to the occasion. You are too immature, too lazy, too scared, too directionless, too mediocre, too perfectionist, too attached to brooding and self-harm. You achingly identify with those tortured souls, the Sylvia Plaths and Robert Lowells, but the difference is that they were executing, while you are merely aspiring. Their suffering is Large, remembered, bold; yours is small, unchronicled, meek.
Now my fresh-and-new years are gone and I have become a reluctant student in the arts of gratitude and realistic expectation. It is now enough to sit in a cafe and simply experience feeling transient and existential. I don't have to make art out of it, or think about making art out of it -- or worse, feel unique about it.
At this point in my life (practicing said gratitude), it feels like a luxury simply to sit alone and brood instead of doing many of the other things responsible adults do, such as raising children or working overtime or having brunch. I often wonder (maybe too much) why alone-time is so important to me, and how to work out the calculus of balancing that need with those of a relationship.
When I lived with someone, I looked forward to being alone so that I could:
- talk to myself
- cook uninterrupted, because I need to concentrate when I'm doing it
- dance around
- sing really loudly
- peep out windows
- inspect things in the mirror
- browse music
- write to myself (i.e., talk to myself more, only silently)
- watch whatever I wanted and pause it as much as I wanted
- [censored]
Everyone needs to exercise his or her right to wander, either at home or at large. I didn't really appreciate that until I was sitting alone at a counter in suburbia, realizing that it doesn't matter where you are, temporally or physically -- it's still necessary to untether yourself and get lost once in awhile. And it's sweeter getting lost when there's no pressure to find anything other than joy in it.
Perched behind the window of a coffee shop in Bethesda on a visit awhile back, looking out at an intersection that had remained comfortingly static over the years, I mentally greeted the self who had been in that same seat more than a decade before. I used to sit there writing in my journal and feeling so paralyzed, having not yet acquired a relationship, job or home that felt mine and true. Adding insult to injury, I was feeling that way in Bethesda, where I had grown up, which gave my depression an extra edge of despair and bittersweetness.
My frustrations now muted and my situation improved since then, I feel thankful -- but also a little wistful for the depressed me who used to sit there, plotting and dreaming and lamenting.
I used to be, and still am, attracted to stories about the gifted and tormented: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Salinger's characters. It is horrible to be in your 20s and feel as if it's your moment to make a mark, but you just can't rise to the occasion. You are too immature, too lazy, too scared, too directionless, too mediocre, too perfectionist, too attached to brooding and self-harm. You achingly identify with those tortured souls, the Sylvia Plaths and Robert Lowells, but the difference is that they were executing, while you are merely aspiring. Their suffering is Large, remembered, bold; yours is small, unchronicled, meek.
Now my fresh-and-new years are gone and I have become a reluctant student in the arts of gratitude and realistic expectation. It is now enough to sit in a cafe and simply experience feeling transient and existential. I don't have to make art out of it, or think about making art out of it -- or worse, feel unique about it.
At this point in my life (practicing said gratitude), it feels like a luxury simply to sit alone and brood instead of doing many of the other things responsible adults do, such as raising children or working overtime or having brunch. I often wonder (maybe too much) why alone-time is so important to me, and how to work out the calculus of balancing that need with those of a relationship.
When I lived with someone, I looked forward to being alone so that I could:
- talk to myself
- cook uninterrupted, because I need to concentrate when I'm doing it
- dance around
- sing really loudly
- peep out windows
- inspect things in the mirror
- browse music
- write to myself (i.e., talk to myself more, only silently)
- watch whatever I wanted and pause it as much as I wanted
- [censored]
Everyone needs to exercise his or her right to wander, either at home or at large. I didn't really appreciate that until I was sitting alone at a counter in suburbia, realizing that it doesn't matter where you are, temporally or physically -- it's still necessary to untether yourself and get lost once in awhile. And it's sweeter getting lost when there's no pressure to find anything other than joy in it.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Toughest Job in the World.
Take a look at your significant other, right now. Take a look in your mind's eye, if you have to. No really. Take a good, long look.
And now, say thank you. Say thank you to this person, because no matter what nonsense you have been through, no matter how much of a total goof he/she is, and no matter how much of a total douche you are, this person has agreed to lend your pathetic life some meaning. In the big game, they made you first-pick. You!
You're not sure what you would do without this person to take the edge off your existential dread. Without this person, there is no one to put up with your b.s. This person is your excuse, your structure, your frame of reference, your anchor. They have their own crap to deal with, but they have assented to taking on yours, too. It's a big job.
If only you could escape yourself the way you can escape your mate. It feels really fucking good to get out and be your own person for a night, or a day -- a week, even. I mean Jesus, it's really tiring being around someone who is intimately familiar with all of the ways in which you are kind of a fraud! We all need to escape, at least for a little while, from the person who actually decided to stick around. By definition, that person is sort of your life boss.
Just like we all need jobs to feel like we're not just completely screwing around, we all need a Point Person to keep us from wandering around our own navels all the time, wondering what the hell we're doing. What the hell are you doing? You're answering to your Point Person, that's what. Aren't you kind of glad they hired you?
I guess this is as close as I'll ever get to endorsing monogamy.
And now, say thank you. Say thank you to this person, because no matter what nonsense you have been through, no matter how much of a total goof he/she is, and no matter how much of a total douche you are, this person has agreed to lend your pathetic life some meaning. In the big game, they made you first-pick. You!
You're not sure what you would do without this person to take the edge off your existential dread. Without this person, there is no one to put up with your b.s. This person is your excuse, your structure, your frame of reference, your anchor. They have their own crap to deal with, but they have assented to taking on yours, too. It's a big job.
If only you could escape yourself the way you can escape your mate. It feels really fucking good to get out and be your own person for a night, or a day -- a week, even. I mean Jesus, it's really tiring being around someone who is intimately familiar with all of the ways in which you are kind of a fraud! We all need to escape, at least for a little while, from the person who actually decided to stick around. By definition, that person is sort of your life boss.
Just like we all need jobs to feel like we're not just completely screwing around, we all need a Point Person to keep us from wandering around our own navels all the time, wondering what the hell we're doing. What the hell are you doing? You're answering to your Point Person, that's what. Aren't you kind of glad they hired you?
I guess this is as close as I'll ever get to endorsing monogamy.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Too Close for Discomfort.
The thing is, when you make the choice to start a blog about uncomfortable moments, you are more or less screwed right out of the gate. Right now I only feel free to write about maybe five percent of the ish that's going down in my life right now, for a variety of reasons, such as:
- Privacy: My own.
- Confidentiality: My friends'.
- Respect: For my family.
- Fear: Of getting fired.
- Banality: A hallmark of most things that pass through my brain.
- Sensitivity: Toward others' feelings.
- Speechlessness: .
- Pride: Goddamned, foolish pride.
- Cease and desist request: One, so far.
- Eyes: Yours, which do not like to bleed.*
And so the Moments close in, and there I am, feeling like our heroes in Star Wars during the trash compactor scene.
So for right now, I am just going to make a list of general topics that are relevant to current events, either mine or my friends' or my family's, but that are too problematic to tackle just now:
- Religious differences
- Age-inappropriate relationships
- Communicable diseases
- Financial desperation
- Drinking problems
- Death
- Hair removal
- Depression
- Arrested development in adults over 40
- Penis size
- Lil' Wayne
- Pointless online behavior
- Lost loves
I will leave these alone and instead share a little vignette from my experience as a volunteer "reception manager" at CUESA's Sunday Supper fundraiser last weekend. The title is a glorification of what I really did, which was to fetch things for chefs and sample free food. At one point, I get introduced to another volunteer. We are both wearing nametags that say "Culinary Volunteer" under our names.
Me: So you are another one of the volunteers here?
Him: [nods] What are you doing [for the event]?
Me: Oh, I'm a reception manager. [self-conscious laugh] Just roaming around, making sure everything goes smoothly.
Him: [beat] So you're not actually a culinary volunteer. [He nods toward my nametag.]
Me: [momentarily puzzled] What? Oh. No, I guess not! What are you doing tonight?
Him: I'm plating desserts.
Me: [looking for some sign of irony, and seeing none] Well. I defer to your culinary expertise then.
[More awkward chit-chat about his vastly superior volunteer role, then I make an excuse to not talk to this person anymore]
Let's recap.
Here's what I said: [momentarily puzzled] What? Oh. No, I guess not! What are you doing tonight?
Here's what I should have said: No. I'm not a dick, either! Did they run out of nametags for that one?
Or: Well no, apparently I am assigned to the "conversing with douchebags" station.
I'm not a dick, either. I mean, anybody with me here? I must have repeated that lame comeback to myself at least four times over the rest of the evening. What is the best comeback you never uttered in the moment?
* I know that what follows the colons should not be capitalized or punctuated by periods. I actually struggled with this.
- Privacy: My own.
- Confidentiality: My friends'.
- Respect: For my family.
- Fear: Of getting fired.
- Banality: A hallmark of most things that pass through my brain.
- Sensitivity: Toward others' feelings.
- Speechlessness: .
- Pride: Goddamned, foolish pride.
- Cease and desist request: One, so far.
- Eyes: Yours, which do not like to bleed.*
And so the Moments close in, and there I am, feeling like our heroes in Star Wars during the trash compactor scene.
So for right now, I am just going to make a list of general topics that are relevant to current events, either mine or my friends' or my family's, but that are too problematic to tackle just now:
- Religious differences
- Age-inappropriate relationships
- Communicable diseases
- Financial desperation
- Drinking problems
- Death
- Hair removal
- Depression
- Arrested development in adults over 40
- Penis size
- Lil' Wayne
- Pointless online behavior
- Lost loves
I will leave these alone and instead share a little vignette from my experience as a volunteer "reception manager" at CUESA's Sunday Supper fundraiser last weekend. The title is a glorification of what I really did, which was to fetch things for chefs and sample free food. At one point, I get introduced to another volunteer. We are both wearing nametags that say "Culinary Volunteer" under our names.
Me: So you are another one of the volunteers here?
Him: [nods] What are you doing [for the event]?
Me: Oh, I'm a reception manager. [self-conscious laugh] Just roaming around, making sure everything goes smoothly.
Him: [beat] So you're not actually a culinary volunteer. [He nods toward my nametag.]
Me: [momentarily puzzled] What? Oh. No, I guess not! What are you doing tonight?
Him: I'm plating desserts.
Me: [looking for some sign of irony, and seeing none] Well. I defer to your culinary expertise then.
[More awkward chit-chat about his vastly superior volunteer role, then I make an excuse to not talk to this person anymore]
Let's recap.
Here's what I said: [momentarily puzzled] What? Oh. No, I guess not! What are you doing tonight?
Here's what I should have said: No. I'm not a dick, either! Did they run out of nametags for that one?
Or: Well no, apparently I am assigned to the "conversing with douchebags" station.
I'm not a dick, either. I mean, anybody with me here? I must have repeated that lame comeback to myself at least four times over the rest of the evening. What is the best comeback you never uttered in the moment?
* I know that what follows the colons should not be capitalized or punctuated by periods. I actually struggled with this.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Bosses.
Consider the supervisor. From the day you enter the workforce, you have a boss of you, unless you end up working for yourself, which is even worse.
Your boss is a personage that looms large in your life, whether you realize it or not. He or she can review your performance, authorize or reject any number of initiatives including vacation, and influence your income. Your boss is the one you worry about when you're rolling into the office at 9:20 instead of 9:00. Your boss is the one you think of when you are e-stalking a romantic interest or old buddy, instead of finishing that project.
Your boss giveth, and your boss taketh away.
Your boss is also pathetic. Your boss is answering to another boss who is much worse. Your boss is dealing with crap that you wouldn't want to deal with, not in a million years. Your boss has made it this far without really knowing what he or she is doing. Your boss has fewer friends in the office than you do. Your boss is a cariacature, sketched out by everyone else.
In my life, I have been fortunate to work for some very good people. Along the timeline of bosses, only two stand out as utter tools:
1. Mo, short for Mohammed: American Cafe, Washington, D.C. Mo was a short restaurant manager, embodying exactly the Napoleon complex and inflated self-importance that you would expect from that description. My most salient memory: I'm standing at a station, ringing in an order, during a busy dinner service. "Don't do that," I hear from behind me. It's Mo, glaring at me. "What?" I say, not sure what I'm doing wrong. "Don't put your hand there," he said, pointing at my left hand, which was resting on the wall as I keyed in the order. "It gets the wall dirty." That was Mo.
2. G.J.: Magnet Interactive, Washington, D.C. This guy was a dick. I'm a little biased, and you will soon see why. G. was Revenge of the Nerds with a cocaine habit. He handed out stimulants to the people he liked, and screwed over everyone else. I fell into the latter camp. I got put on a project, two-thirds of the way through, that he had massively oversold to the client. The project had gone spectacularly wrong on several levels: the graphic designer was diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder, the senior producer quit, the animator was a druggie who tended to disappear at key times, and then there was me, 25 years old and a good little worker, but way too green for the gig. The dimensions of the snow job Greg had achieved with the client were too staggering for me to correct. After the project's conclusion, G. called me into his office and fired me, taking care to invite my coworkers to watch. He told me, among other things, that I "couldn't read people." It was an undeserved public shaming that took me years to get over. Later I was told that when the client heard I was fired, they responded that G. J. should have been the one to go and not me. It was small consolation. But I did emerge smarter and stronger from my encounter with this person.
Others committed milder offenses. One of my uber-bosses at a news organization sat down next to me on her second day at the office and clapped her hand on my shoulder, saying, "Hey girlfriend, what's happening?" I knew immediately to distrust this person. We are in a place of business, you are nearly 20 years older than I am, and you are my new boss, lady. This is not Living Single, and we no longer work in the jounalistic boys' clubs you're used to. Get a grip. She later screwed over one of my female colleagues, letting her die on the advancement vine while blowing smoke to her about women needing to stick together in this business. Hey girlfriend.
Most of my bosses have been good, beleaguered people who did their best with me. One of the early ones was Tim at Byron Preiss Multimedia. Tim, are you out there? At the time, Tim was only about four years older than I was, but he was heading up his own CD-ROM publishing imprint and staff, and he seemed infinitely more mature to me. He looked, and I mean no insult here, like a male Molly Ringwald, with floppy hair and pouty lips and freckles and a slight build. In other words, he looked like the kid he was at 28, but the guy had it together. Even when he was totally stressed, he was still the nicest, most well-meaning guy. It seemed like he was always handling a crisis.
Other bosses -- Nick, Kelly, Refet, Josh, Todd, Joe -- they were just darn nice people who may have driven me crazy at times, but mostly tried to do right by me. If you have at least a couple of bosses in your life who utterly suck, the ones who don't seem to be all the more valuable.
One night I went searching for Tim online so that I could add him to the ridiculous people-quilt of my life that is Facebook. I didn't find him, but I did find this. Jesus. Jesus! One of my former bosses is dead?
Byron was the first Big Cheese I ever worked for. He ran his company out of a loft in New York's "Silicon Alley," and he was the classic intimidating entrepeneur, in my twentysomething eyes: swiftly decisive, possessed of a temper, obviously smart, and a person whose time was in demand. In every interaction that we had, because he was the head of the company, I wanted to impress him, because he managed to be a person you wanted to impress.
Like any authority figure, Byron took his licks among the staff, who usually carped at how demanding he was and how lean his approach was to running the company. But implicitly, we all acknowledged that we were there to please Byron, and as a logical corollary to that, Byron's judgment was to be respected. After all, this was a guy who had turned sci-fi nerdiness into profit! He had a niche and he was ruthless.
Reading about Byron's accident, I could picture him exactly as he was in 1995, leaving his office in his Flatiron district loft, suited and bespectacled. Important. I couldn't believe that he wasn't still out there somewhere, making deals and pissing people off. The fact that he met his maker in tony East Hampton, at least, made sense. Rest in peace, Byron. To all my other former bosses, even the sucky ones: Live long and prosper. I ain't mad atcha.
Your boss is a personage that looms large in your life, whether you realize it or not. He or she can review your performance, authorize or reject any number of initiatives including vacation, and influence your income. Your boss is the one you worry about when you're rolling into the office at 9:20 instead of 9:00. Your boss is the one you think of when you are e-stalking a romantic interest or old buddy, instead of finishing that project.
Your boss giveth, and your boss taketh away.
Your boss is also pathetic. Your boss is answering to another boss who is much worse. Your boss is dealing with crap that you wouldn't want to deal with, not in a million years. Your boss has made it this far without really knowing what he or she is doing. Your boss has fewer friends in the office than you do. Your boss is a cariacature, sketched out by everyone else.
In my life, I have been fortunate to work for some very good people. Along the timeline of bosses, only two stand out as utter tools:
1. Mo, short for Mohammed: American Cafe, Washington, D.C. Mo was a short restaurant manager, embodying exactly the Napoleon complex and inflated self-importance that you would expect from that description. My most salient memory: I'm standing at a station, ringing in an order, during a busy dinner service. "Don't do that," I hear from behind me. It's Mo, glaring at me. "What?" I say, not sure what I'm doing wrong. "Don't put your hand there," he said, pointing at my left hand, which was resting on the wall as I keyed in the order. "It gets the wall dirty." That was Mo.
2. G.J.: Magnet Interactive, Washington, D.C. This guy was a dick. I'm a little biased, and you will soon see why. G. was Revenge of the Nerds with a cocaine habit. He handed out stimulants to the people he liked, and screwed over everyone else. I fell into the latter camp. I got put on a project, two-thirds of the way through, that he had massively oversold to the client. The project had gone spectacularly wrong on several levels: the graphic designer was diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder, the senior producer quit, the animator was a druggie who tended to disappear at key times, and then there was me, 25 years old and a good little worker, but way too green for the gig. The dimensions of the snow job Greg had achieved with the client were too staggering for me to correct. After the project's conclusion, G. called me into his office and fired me, taking care to invite my coworkers to watch. He told me, among other things, that I "couldn't read people." It was an undeserved public shaming that took me years to get over. Later I was told that when the client heard I was fired, they responded that G. J. should have been the one to go and not me. It was small consolation. But I did emerge smarter and stronger from my encounter with this person.
Others committed milder offenses. One of my uber-bosses at a news organization sat down next to me on her second day at the office and clapped her hand on my shoulder, saying, "Hey girlfriend, what's happening?" I knew immediately to distrust this person. We are in a place of business, you are nearly 20 years older than I am, and you are my new boss, lady. This is not Living Single, and we no longer work in the jounalistic boys' clubs you're used to. Get a grip. She later screwed over one of my female colleagues, letting her die on the advancement vine while blowing smoke to her about women needing to stick together in this business. Hey girlfriend.
Most of my bosses have been good, beleaguered people who did their best with me. One of the early ones was Tim at Byron Preiss Multimedia. Tim, are you out there? At the time, Tim was only about four years older than I was, but he was heading up his own CD-ROM publishing imprint and staff, and he seemed infinitely more mature to me. He looked, and I mean no insult here, like a male Molly Ringwald, with floppy hair and pouty lips and freckles and a slight build. In other words, he looked like the kid he was at 28, but the guy had it together. Even when he was totally stressed, he was still the nicest, most well-meaning guy. It seemed like he was always handling a crisis.
Other bosses -- Nick, Kelly, Refet, Josh, Todd, Joe -- they were just darn nice people who may have driven me crazy at times, but mostly tried to do right by me. If you have at least a couple of bosses in your life who utterly suck, the ones who don't seem to be all the more valuable.
One night I went searching for Tim online so that I could add him to the ridiculous people-quilt of my life that is Facebook. I didn't find him, but I did find this. Jesus. Jesus! One of my former bosses is dead?
Byron was the first Big Cheese I ever worked for. He ran his company out of a loft in New York's "Silicon Alley," and he was the classic intimidating entrepeneur, in my twentysomething eyes: swiftly decisive, possessed of a temper, obviously smart, and a person whose time was in demand. In every interaction that we had, because he was the head of the company, I wanted to impress him, because he managed to be a person you wanted to impress.
Like any authority figure, Byron took his licks among the staff, who usually carped at how demanding he was and how lean his approach was to running the company. But implicitly, we all acknowledged that we were there to please Byron, and as a logical corollary to that, Byron's judgment was to be respected. After all, this was a guy who had turned sci-fi nerdiness into profit! He had a niche and he was ruthless.
Reading about Byron's accident, I could picture him exactly as he was in 1995, leaving his office in his Flatiron district loft, suited and bespectacled. Important. I couldn't believe that he wasn't still out there somewhere, making deals and pissing people off. The fact that he met his maker in tony East Hampton, at least, made sense. Rest in peace, Byron. To all my other former bosses, even the sucky ones: Live long and prosper. I ain't mad atcha.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
My Buddy.
Reflecting on this classic commercial, a few questions come up:
What eventually became of the poor boy surely coerced by a stage parent from hell into delivering this frightening vocal performance?
Was the child actor here thinking, "This is kind of weird"?
How many boys actually asked for this doll?
The answer to this last question is surely "not enough of them," because Hasbro apparently discontinued My Buddy by the time the '90s were up. Today it is a symbol of a (hopefully) bygone period when people optimistically believed that boys could have their boyness socialized out of them.
The argument for encouraging boys to play with dolls rests on the idea that it encourages good parenting skills. But most men who had a decent set of parents seem to figure out the fatherhood thing just fine without a doll being shoved into their arms.
Kids are going to play how they want to play, no matter what is in the toybox. My niece was looking for a purse to carry by the age of two and was assembling her own fashion ensembles by age four, while my non-frou-frou sister looked on in amazement, unsure where her daughter's girliness came from. For my part, I played with Barbies *and* my brother's Star Wars figures. And if a little boy wants a doll, he's going to ask for one or find one, whether it's offered or not.
What's hilarious to me about the My Buddy ads is the way they suggest that we can create a world where a boy wants to play with dolls, but still promotes all the reassuring stereotypes about masculinity. Imagine if Hasbro had chosen to produce a doll for boys that looked like Carson Kressley and came with styleable hair, multiple outfits, and a mod furniture set. Now THAT would have been a step forward.
What eventually became of the poor boy surely coerced by a stage parent from hell into delivering this frightening vocal performance?
Was the child actor here thinking, "This is kind of weird"?
How many boys actually asked for this doll?
The answer to this last question is surely "not enough of them," because Hasbro apparently discontinued My Buddy by the time the '90s were up. Today it is a symbol of a (hopefully) bygone period when people optimistically believed that boys could have their boyness socialized out of them.
The argument for encouraging boys to play with dolls rests on the idea that it encourages good parenting skills. But most men who had a decent set of parents seem to figure out the fatherhood thing just fine without a doll being shoved into their arms.
Kids are going to play how they want to play, no matter what is in the toybox. My niece was looking for a purse to carry by the age of two and was assembling her own fashion ensembles by age four, while my non-frou-frou sister looked on in amazement, unsure where her daughter's girliness came from. For my part, I played with Barbies *and* my brother's Star Wars figures. And if a little boy wants a doll, he's going to ask for one or find one, whether it's offered or not.
What's hilarious to me about the My Buddy ads is the way they suggest that we can create a world where a boy wants to play with dolls, but still promotes all the reassuring stereotypes about masculinity. Imagine if Hasbro had chosen to produce a doll for boys that looked like Carson Kressley and came with styleable hair, multiple outfits, and a mod furniture set. Now THAT would have been a step forward.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Uncomfortably Numb.
(I mean really, I can't believe it's taken this long for the headline above to make its appearance on this blog.)
I sat in a dentist's chair recently, there to get a filling replaced. It was a filling I hadn't even realized I had. "You have a filling on your wisdom tooth that's leaking," the dentist said. Filling? Wisdom tooth? Leaking? "I didn't think I had any fillings," I said with a frown.
She gave me a smirk, as if I were telling a lame joke, and handed me a mirror. "See that tooth back there? That's a filling, and it's discolored because things are seeping underneath it. It's not urgent, but you should have it replaced."
I hadn't been playing dumb. I really did not remember getting a filling. Ever. Surely a drill in my mouth and the affixing of a foreign object would ring a bell? Not so much. Anyway, I made the appointment.
Every time I go to a new dentist, which seems to be often, thanks to my ever-changing jobs and address, I miss Dr. Schneider. I have been going to Schneider Family Dentistry in Gaithersburg, MERland since I was five years old. With country music on the loudspeakers and twangs in the accents of the staff, it's the kind of place that makes you remember that Maryland is south of the Mason-Dixon Line -- but in a nice way.
Dr. Bill made going to the dentist seem like no big deal. "Hay Miss ChrisTEENa, how you doin'?" he'd say, swooping into the room and plopping down next to me. "How's your summer goin'?" He always gave my teeth a rave review, too. "Beeyootiful," he'd say, and send me on my way. If I managed to avoid the one hygienist we called The Crusher, it was usually a totally unobjectionable experience.
Now Dr. Bill's son runs the practice. I recently called the office to see if he could work on my teeth the next time I'm in town. Dr. Adam called me back himself. "How's San Francisco?" he said, sounding even twangier than his dad ever did. "You know, I just read my daughter May-belle the Cay-ble Car." It's a simple thing, but it's profoundly comforting: that dentistry knows me, and I know them. It changes without really changing.
Anyway, point being, I've got no problem with dentists and have been fortunate to encounter very good ones. Dr. Terry is no exception, and she plays R&B in her office, so she improves upon Dr. Schneider in at least one way. I didn't have any particular worries heading into my filling replacement.
"You'll feel a pinch," she said as she injected the Novocaine. A penetrating burn bloomed in my mouth as the anaesthetic entered my gums. "It'll be about 10 minutes for that to take effect," she said, and I nodded.
I haven't had Novocaine administered much in my life, and I remember getting a little nauseous when I had it about five years ago. Now, sitting in Dr. Terry's office, my hands began to shake. "Would you like to read a magazine?" the assistant said, and I nodded, taking a People magazine. I tried to concentrate as Elizabeth Edwards' face loomed before me, along with the headline "HER UNTOLD STORY." My heart raced, and the tremors continued. "OK, Christina," I said to myself. "You're OK." My breath was shallow, stomach queasy.
I paged through the magazine, trying to distract myself, but my body was unassuaged. Was I having a panic attack? It sure felt that way, but believe it or not, this stress case doesn't get panic attacks. Still, the feeling of unease was such that I imagined having a heart attack in the chair, winding up in the hospital as my coworkers wondered what was taking me so long at the dentist.
After awhile, I surrendered the magazine and the dentist began her work, humming along to Sade while I lay there feeling like I was living out a scene from Requiem for a Dream. When it was over, I sat there feeling fragile and wanting to cry. "I don't know why, but I feel really shaky from the Novocaine," I said as the dentist put things away.
"Oh, that's because the Novocaine we use has epinephrine in it," she said, as if this were a perfectly unremarkable fact.
Epinephrine? Well, of course, because what you want when you are undergoing treatment in the dentist's chair is a heightened sense of the fight-or-flight response that only adrenaline can deliver. Like, am I the only one who feels like 20/20 should be doing investigative reports about this?
I virtually flipped out on the drive home, feeling like a prizefighter with a fat lip and a hormone imbalance, willing the stuff out of my system and musing about what a bad scene it would have been if I had ever gotten the gumption to do any real drugs in college. This was my brain on Novocaine -- what would it be like if did acid, or mushrooms? For sure I would have been the kid who ran through a window or jumped off a building in the name of some harmless recreational fun.
Has anyone else had this experience with the Dentist's Drug? O friends. I was a long way from Highlights.
I sat in a dentist's chair recently, there to get a filling replaced. It was a filling I hadn't even realized I had. "You have a filling on your wisdom tooth that's leaking," the dentist said. Filling? Wisdom tooth? Leaking? "I didn't think I had any fillings," I said with a frown.
She gave me a smirk, as if I were telling a lame joke, and handed me a mirror. "See that tooth back there? That's a filling, and it's discolored because things are seeping underneath it. It's not urgent, but you should have it replaced."
I hadn't been playing dumb. I really did not remember getting a filling. Ever. Surely a drill in my mouth and the affixing of a foreign object would ring a bell? Not so much. Anyway, I made the appointment.
Every time I go to a new dentist, which seems to be often, thanks to my ever-changing jobs and address, I miss Dr. Schneider. I have been going to Schneider Family Dentistry in Gaithersburg, MERland since I was five years old. With country music on the loudspeakers and twangs in the accents of the staff, it's the kind of place that makes you remember that Maryland is south of the Mason-Dixon Line -- but in a nice way.
Dr. Bill made going to the dentist seem like no big deal. "Hay Miss ChrisTEENa, how you doin'?" he'd say, swooping into the room and plopping down next to me. "How's your summer goin'?" He always gave my teeth a rave review, too. "Beeyootiful," he'd say, and send me on my way. If I managed to avoid the one hygienist we called The Crusher, it was usually a totally unobjectionable experience.
Now Dr. Bill's son runs the practice. I recently called the office to see if he could work on my teeth the next time I'm in town. Dr. Adam called me back himself. "How's San Francisco?" he said, sounding even twangier than his dad ever did. "You know, I just read my daughter May-belle the Cay-ble Car." It's a simple thing, but it's profoundly comforting: that dentistry knows me, and I know them. It changes without really changing.
Anyway, point being, I've got no problem with dentists and have been fortunate to encounter very good ones. Dr. Terry is no exception, and she plays R&B in her office, so she improves upon Dr. Schneider in at least one way. I didn't have any particular worries heading into my filling replacement.
"You'll feel a pinch," she said as she injected the Novocaine. A penetrating burn bloomed in my mouth as the anaesthetic entered my gums. "It'll be about 10 minutes for that to take effect," she said, and I nodded.
I haven't had Novocaine administered much in my life, and I remember getting a little nauseous when I had it about five years ago. Now, sitting in Dr. Terry's office, my hands began to shake. "Would you like to read a magazine?" the assistant said, and I nodded, taking a People magazine. I tried to concentrate as Elizabeth Edwards' face loomed before me, along with the headline "HER UNTOLD STORY." My heart raced, and the tremors continued. "OK, Christina," I said to myself. "You're OK." My breath was shallow, stomach queasy.
I paged through the magazine, trying to distract myself, but my body was unassuaged. Was I having a panic attack? It sure felt that way, but believe it or not, this stress case doesn't get panic attacks. Still, the feeling of unease was such that I imagined having a heart attack in the chair, winding up in the hospital as my coworkers wondered what was taking me so long at the dentist.
After awhile, I surrendered the magazine and the dentist began her work, humming along to Sade while I lay there feeling like I was living out a scene from Requiem for a Dream. When it was over, I sat there feeling fragile and wanting to cry. "I don't know why, but I feel really shaky from the Novocaine," I said as the dentist put things away.
"Oh, that's because the Novocaine we use has epinephrine in it," she said, as if this were a perfectly unremarkable fact.
Epinephrine? Well, of course, because what you want when you are undergoing treatment in the dentist's chair is a heightened sense of the fight-or-flight response that only adrenaline can deliver. Like, am I the only one who feels like 20/20 should be doing investigative reports about this?
I virtually flipped out on the drive home, feeling like a prizefighter with a fat lip and a hormone imbalance, willing the stuff out of my system and musing about what a bad scene it would have been if I had ever gotten the gumption to do any real drugs in college. This was my brain on Novocaine -- what would it be like if did acid, or mushrooms? For sure I would have been the kid who ran through a window or jumped off a building in the name of some harmless recreational fun.
Has anyone else had this experience with the Dentist's Drug? O friends. I was a long way from Highlights.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Levity Break.
Top Two Rap Album Titles
It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, DMX
Chicken and Beer, Ludacris
What else? What else can compete with this kind of artistry?
It's Dark and Hell Is Hot, DMX
Chicken and Beer, Ludacris
What else? What else can compete with this kind of artistry?
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