March 2002

March 5

Random thoughts from notes I took on the plane from Dallas to New York.

• Dang, I'm so scared. Determined. I can do determined, can't I? All I know is, I can't stay in Texas and playing it safe doesn't seem to work. Still, I'm jumping. Still falling. I hope the bottom is soft enough to land with only a few bruises.
  
  
• North Texas looks tough, brown and flat. It's hard for lakes to form in all that flatness, so we have to dig them.

• I cried a little to leave Matt. It's worth it, but it does sting. Good thing our marriage is strong enough to stand it.

• I hope they bring some drinks, my mouth's dry as toast. We got little "bistro bags" of food. I don't know that turkey sandwiches are all that French.

• I'm glad I pulled out this notebook. My thoughts go in circles otherwise. I don't want to make many more to-do lists, or think much more about phone calls and resumes. I want to get a job this week.

• Drinks cart! Hallelujah!

• The pilot has a NY accent. He says we'll get there by 3:05, and it's 34 degrees right now. Glad I brought my Big Coat.

• Skymall Magazine seems to be aimed at the corporate VP and his trophy wife. Tan-through swimsuits! and far too many business suit-related accessories. My personal fave item is the"arms length" tiny vacuum for sucking up and killing bugs without touching them. For the shrieking helpless woman in your life.

• Flying over what looks like the Great Plains, but there's hills. I don't know where we are. I wish somebody would invent smart airplane windows that tell you what state/town you're flying over. That would be cool.

Notes from after I unpacked and set up my computer that night:

• It's hot in here.

• My room. First, the bad: I'm in the less good part of a so-so neighborhood. Linoleum floors. Cigarette stink. No phone line! No internet. The good: Storm windows, a secure-seeming building. Cool moulded ceiling (a leaf, corncob, and fruit motif), which is also high. Sharing the bathroom with only one guy. Nice little fridge. New microwave. My computer was here, fits on the desk, runs ok (despite a new scar on the monitor case) All the basic cable TV I can watch. Groceries seem pretty cheap. So, we'll see. The cig stink I do not like, nor the view of my neighbor's red Hoopty ride up on blocks outside the windows. Nor being cut off from the Internet. I don't have that many minutes on my cell phone, so this may create some hardship for me. I will have to find an Internet cafe and have Matt check my email in Texas for me.

• I thought the apt was below ground, not first floor, but still I like it. The highway is my nearly next door neighbor, but it's not too loud to bear, so we'll see. On the cab ride in, I got a Dominican guy, who was nice, but also, needed very detailed directions. Hello, I thought cabbies knew where stuff was? He also had many opinions he wanted to share, among them, that the crash of the plane in Queens last year (carrying many Dominicans) was *not* an accident, and that a 30-year mortgage was a rip-off, you should always get a 20-year. None of which I cared or asked about, but it was somewhat entertaining.

• Upstairs, two German photographers. Down the hall sharing my bathroom, a Chinese medical student. The landlord family lives below, sometimes loudly. They're Colombian. Next door is decorated with flags and yellow ribbons...that lady's sister died in the Towers. Also, the cabbie pointed out at one point in the drive, where the Towers would normally be. Creepy

• Man. I'm sleepy. I've got the TV on for company, cause I'm still a little scared to lie here alone in New York. Worried that tomorrow I won't get any leads. Tomorrow is Kelly Temps, the one place I want to drop off my resume at, and maybe, the Met museum. Because I need to do something fun.

A room with a hoopty view.

March 6

An eventful day, after a torturous night. The rumble of the trucks on the freeway, the heat from my radiator, the stinkyness of my room,my own wound-uppedness, kept me from much sleep. But. Today, the landlord shut off the heat (ahh.) I bought a scented candle that I just move around the room with me. And, I may have a job.

I went to one office advertising for a publications person, which was in a nice building in lower Manhattan, and dropped off my resume, much to the surprise of the receptionist. I guess all the other resumes came in via mail. But maybe I made myself stand out that way. Or, got myself a one way trip to the circular file, who knows. Then, after much walking on sore feet, mistaking the subway connection twice, and a quick bagel that was not on my diet but kept me from falling over, I made it to the Kelly temp office. They had told me yesterday that I couldn't set up an appointment until I faxed my resume. Lacking a fax, I had to take it by.

A nice lady (bless you Cathy) scanned it, and decided to let me go ahead and fill out the paperwork. Not only that, when I flunked the Excel exam, she let me take a tutorial and do it again..getting me a 96. It's probably cheating, but I'll always remember that. Meanwhile, another guy tells her he needs someone with editing skills. She saw some on my resume, and hooked me up. My interview's tomorrow. I hope I get it. It's only a temp job for a little over a month, but it's money.

Another good omen...when I came out of the Kelly building, I looked up. There was the Chrysler building, right across the street, that amazing spire shining in the afternoon light. I had walked right past it not knowing. To me, it's one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and my special favorite in New York. I nearly cried for happiness. On the way home, I saw a Living Statue guy in Grand Central, dressed like a Borgia except painted all white. He was smiling at a little kid watching across the way. There seemed to be a band around every corner too, playing drums or South American music. It carried me all the way to the N train, and home. Maybe New York will let me stay after all.

March 7

I'm employed. I'm EMPLOYED! Halle-lujah, man. Phew. Though, I'm both happy and nonplussed by it. It's a pretty drudgery-type job. It will just barely pay my bills. Already, I'm biting the hand that feeds me. But, at least it feeds me. And, it's really a temporary thing...helping the state of New York correct forms that it only receives every 3 years. No real chance of it turning into a full time position, so it leaves me free to look elsewhere without guilt.

Abe the supervisor is a soft-spoken older man, with the kind of vacant gaze you sometimes get with certain types of nice but distracted people. White hair, bald crown, faded blue eyes. Bud, the guy coordinating this, speaks with a tough (Brooklyn?) accent and wears an earring. Looks like a younger gay Ed Asner, if you can picture that. The building is beautiful, right downtown, next to some other famous buildings. At the interview, I amazed both guys when I told them I'd only been here two days. Hey fellas, I don't wait around. Though I'm pretty sure all the credit goes to divine assistance.

Today I treated myself to Chinese delivery (so New York!) and went out and bought a fan to help with the heat thing. My landlord's English is better than I thought. He managed to sketch for me the concept that my radiator is part of an older heating system, something to do with how the top floor is heated...basically, if I'm not sweating, the people upstairs freeze. I think there's *another* heat system used downstairs...something like that. I'm out of luck on getting it turned off if it's at all cold outside, is the gist. He did give me permission to keep the window open...I don't really get a breeze, but it helps a little. He said my next door neighbor is moving out April 4, and since he faces the alley (less noise and light) and may have a cooler room, I may move over there then. Whatever.

I'm still thinking, depending on what Anna tells me, of moving across the street instead into one of her rooms...she may have a girls-only set up by now, or even a co-ed (don't think I care anymore). If those rooms have phone lines, I might want to do that. Being Internet-deprived is a tough one. Though I probably do more writing, I can't put it online at all, plus I'm severely restricted in how much I can talk to my Texas people. Cell phone minutes are expensive. There's another possibility I'm thinking of, finding a roommate in a different (nicer) neighborhood until June. It could be a hassle. But it would kind of be nice. If unlikely? After yesterday, I'm not putting any limits on possibilities.

March 10

A day that was almost nothing, but not really. Last night I trekked an hour each way to Borders just to be able to browse a decent bookstore. This won't do...I need something on this side of the Brooklyn bridge if I want to stay sane. Or else I'll have to move to Manhattan. Mostly stayed in today, but took a long turn up on 5th avenue, in hopes of finding someplace cool. A depressing thing though...nowhere to buy a book anywhere. Block after block of electronics, discount dry goods, clothes, and groceries. Even had to search to find a bodega that carried the Times instead of nothing or just Spanish papers. A wasteland for a reader. No coffee shops either, just bars. No library that I saw. No place besides my little bleak room that wasn't at least a subway ride away. And there aren't enough subway stops either.

As I was walking, thinking about how much our system fails in the little things, like decent neighborhoods for poor people. The people here aren't any more criminal or lazy than elsewhere. But they're too poor, too concerned with survival to think about things like cleaned sidewalks. New York as a whole has this problem more than other cities, actually, where the poor have more options and can spare their time to sweep stoops and demand repairs to their streets. But, so many of us in our culture oppose spending money and time on doing these things, unlike say most of Europe. Why is that? I came up with a theory, that I kind of like. I'm not sure if it's original (probably not) but I've never seen anyone else's take on why America is so demanding of, and unsympathetic to, its immigrants, especially as almost all Americans are only a few generations at most from the overpacked immigrant boats.

Our country, our culture is in the throes of adolescence. Think about it. Picture new immigrants as the youngest kids in school. What group is the hardest on young kids, the most bullying, the least sympathetic? Slightly older kids. Kids still insecure about their own maturity, scornful of anything "babyish" of anyone less competent than themselves. Adult cultures (in this case Europe and some of Asia) don't have the same insecurities, feel they have proven themselves. They can afford to feel more indulgent and patient towards the less-successful; it's been longer since they were part of that group. They don't worry about being regarded as too "tolerant" or "sympathetic" towards the less fortunate. There are other things slowing our ability to accomodate the poor, namely the sheer size of our country, which greatly magnifies the scope of the problem. Like adolescents, we prefer not to think about that, hoping we can put it off forever. I'm hoping just the opposite.

March 11

Work, and how much of it should really be done by unambitious monkeys, is on Matt's and my mind a lot tonight. My job is so very simple...it only poses the occasional challenge, which is answered by this or that poo-bah. Thinking is counterproductive when you're checking survey answers for accuracy and completeness. Which is fine, so long as you know that's what you're doing.

But my boss...well, he seems to have difficulty keeping perspective on it. He's overthinking it, to a ludicrous degree ("You need to read these carefully, emjaybee, even if it's just a yes or no answer. Don't go too fast." Uh, what? It's yes. Or no. There's nothing to read here folks, move along.) Not that I *care* care. This is a true temp position, short-term by its nature. It's just, so hard to look into Abe's earnest, yet somehow vague blue eyes, and think, Here is a person of good sense. He's the kind of person you constantly have to explain jokes to, so you stop making jokes around him. He's so, well, earnest, it's hard not to pat him on the head and say "there there."

And he has some knowledge gaps that are staggering. Today, the copier wasn't copying...the indicator clearly said it was out of paper. He was aghast at my ability to find the right paper, open the drawer, and fill it. He was actually going to go get the "right person" to do it for us, until I stepped in in a blaze of glory to perform the godlike task of...filling up the copier myself. "Don't let anyone else know you can do this, emjaybeel," he tells me in apparent seriousness. "They'll all be asking you to do it from now on." Because they are all morons? I want to ask and don't. Either they are all, in fact, morons in this office, or Abe simply has no idea how to work the simplest office equipment. I'm betting on the latter.

After that, it's hard to take the man too seriously. But you can't show that, you know? So I nod and look serious at him (I'm very good at this) and giggle to myself at my desk. I'm afraid to share this with my co-workers because a) Abe will hear, and b) what if they are all, in fact, morons and ask me to change the copier paper because their little tiny brains can't figure out how? If that is the case, I will not be able to restrain my mocking laughter, then I'm unemployed again. Better not to know.

Matt, meanwhile is still poling the unemployment swamp himself, agonizing over how he can make any cash, plus pay for the last part of his CD, plus get the moving money to make it up here in 3mos. He's just not sure he can stand any more office jobs...I don't know how I feel about that. To read it on paper makes him look like a jerk, since of course, I still have to do office jobs. But then, they've never been quite as hard on me? I don't know...that's hard to quantify. I would love to go back to retail sometimes, but we just can't afford it. I don't know that we can afford him doing so either. I did suggest, he may want to try some studio-musicianing if he's working low-wage elsewhere to make up the difference.

We'll see, I guess. Whatever happens, it may mean I *won't* get to see him in April after all, the first time we'll ever spend our anniversary apart. That's the worst part. It may still be necessary, but I keep hoping that a magic bag of cash will appear to make it not be that way. Too early to tell. Magic cash bags have never followed us around much. And there's April 15, and the taxes we probably owe, sneaking up. What do we do about those? Whole thing tires me out.

Bleah. I don't know, maybe I'll volunteer somewhere. I'm reluctant to invest much in this neighborhood, because I don't intend to stay, and because, let's face it, it ain't my kinda long-term place. On the other hand, if I'm stuck here for 3 mos, I hate to sit in my room the whole time. Just have to keep my eyes open. And look out for friendly cash bags.

March 14

This city, like any place, is never just one thing. When I moved in, I saw my neighborhood as shockingly trashed, graffiti and litter and dog poop, and sidewalks Dalmatianed with old gum spots. Everything grey and grim and scary. The highway just a block away, rumbling me in my bed all night, a linoleum floored room that reeked of old cigarettes when it overheated (as it does any time the heat comes on). I felt a little trapped and pancky. Not afraid of New York itself, just the corner I must live in for a little while.

And then, today, a little bit of beauty. I called in sick (mostly I was just sleep deprived and needing a break) and walked around. I found the library and several other groceries besides the one up the street. Lots of churches still hanging on. A community-project Internet access setup, for free. Some neat old Victorian buildings in improbable colors. Some parts of this little neighborhood are multi-colored row houses, on a steep street, like San Francisco. If it wasn't for the highway in fact, it would probably would be invaded by gentrify-ers. There's still the kids in their hood-wear acting tough, but also retirees who keep their stoops meticulously painted, and lots and lots of moms with kids, one in a stroller, the others following her in a little flock. Most of the kids don't look starved or abused, though maybe tougher than your average suburban kid. They just look a little poor.

And the thing is, if I could magically take away the bad parts...the highway and graffiti and all the rest...where would the moms and kids go, or people like me who come to the city with not much in their pockets? The rents would become too high for them very quickly, and they'd end up further out and maybe worse off. The highway, the BQE, is justifiably deplored for carving up many neighborhoods, changing them from middle-to-lower class places overnight. It also accidentally makes this place affordable to a lot of Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Dominican families. My landlord is Colombian and neither he nor his wife speak much English, but he owns a 3-story house close to the train and rents out three floors to students and month-to-monthers like me. Would he be able to do that back home? His kids will do better, and if they're smart, appreciate what they've got. Back there, maybe they wouldn't be able to speak English and go to the city and maybe go to college and get a better paying job and a nicer place.

That's the riddle of poverty and capitalism, in a nutshell. We all feel depressed and worried about poor places, the crime and ugliness and inconvenience and danger. But where else can the poor afford to live? How else will they have enough refuge from high prices to save a little, save a little more, and move up the ladder? I guess the real problem is, when you have a ladder, there's got to be a bottom. I can't help wondering about that ladder a lot, though. Where did it come from, and what would the world look like without it? Communism tried to get rid of it by making everyone equally miserable, except those clever enough to manipulate the system, in which case, they didn't get rid of it at all. Capitalism practically worships it, kind of like kissing the rod that beats you.

And many think that democracy decrees that we must have it if that's the only way to prevent tyranny. Is it the only way? No one's come up with anything better. Making food, shelter and health care universally available might help...maybe. Humans are awfully attached to their ladders, trying to prove themselves better, different, superior to those around them. You can be sure there would be people trying to make sure that some privileges didn't get shared.

I sometimes think I spend too much time thinking about this kind of stuff. I'm not a professional philosopher, nor do I really have much respect for them. They seem as clueless as any other bunch of academics...after listening to them pontificate, I want to make them go sack groceries or put out fires for a few months just to get them off their pedestals. Philosophies concocted in comfortable libraries and offices by warm and well-fed people just don't capture the fear of not surviving that haunts the less privileged--day to day worries about food, shelter, bills, and safety that largely preempt any fancy theories. I know that fear, maybe not to the same extreme, but I've felt it, been kept awake by it. I have the advantages of whiteness, education, and a supportive family to be my cushion, unlike a lot of others, and it still dogs my steps on occasion. It's hard for me to take anyone seriously who doesn't know what that's like.

Meanwhile, I work my pretty-decent job and write rambling entries about my thoughts and have no more idea, ultimately, where it will all lead to, than the guy who just got off the boat last week.

On a more personal note... I turned down a job interview today. I had just woken up, and my phone rang. It was the place where I dropped off my resume the same day I went to Kelly. It's a non-profit place wanting a communications coordinator, and I had left them some samples. Bemused (it's the only callback I'd gotten so far) I agreed to meet them tomorrow morning at 9. I figured I'd tell Kelly I would be in in the afternoon after the interview. The lady said I would interview with her and several other people...and have to take a test in Word. After I hung up, I started to feel a little...iffy. I tried on my interview suit, and was depressed with how much it made me look like Janet Reno (what was I thinking?). I decided to wear my black pants and jacket instead. But then, while I showered and ate lunch and cleaned up my room and walked down to the Internet-access place...somewhere in there, I decided no. While I was online, I sent out more apps to actual book publishers, thinking how much more I wanted to work for them than another corporation, non-profit or not.

I mean, that's what I've been doing. Corporate communications, essentially...newsletters and fundraising materials and non-journalistic articles designed never to be read, because really, who wants to read about retirement funds or fundraising campaigns or insurance? It's boring, not because of the subjects so much as the way all punches have to pulled in a company newsletter. All must be positive, happy and reassuring...it's just another form of advertising, but taking even fewer risks, and giving the reader even less payoff. At least ads are occasionally entertaining. Plus, the whole multiple interview thing made me skeevy, plus the Word test. I mean, come on. It was insulting. If I was smart enough to create a resume...heck if I was smart enough to operate an elevator...I could certainly use Word. Jeez. The whole thing reeked of bottom-level secretarial work and the pink-collar ghetto.

That's a gulag I know a little too much about, "creative" work that is anything but, usually done by women who are being thrown a decidedly low-wage bone. Stuff that's regarded as almost slacking by suspicious co-workers who have to do the *real* work. Every word, every design idea approved by committee, most of whom haven't read anything but the 7 Habits crap in years and who still think if bolding something is good, then bolding, italics, and --underlining-- is better. People who always say "utilize" never "use." Soul-killing stuff. Exactly what I ran away from in Texas.

Why did I apply then? Desperation and fear...like I said, I haven't had any real editing nibbles at all. The day I applied, there was no Kelly job to cling to for a few months. I'm really, *really* glad that came along first, giving me the freedom of choice. At least there, no one expects me to make a career of what I'm doing. So I called her back, said I'd had another offer and I had to take it.

Which I had, if it doesn't sound too cheesy: my life had called up, said to me, "Hey. HEY. You're not going to do that crap any more are you? Haven't you done that enough? Cut it out." So it's back to the land of non-security, semi-employed limbo. Oh well. I know for a fact there are worse places to be.