Anti-Climax

And so here I am, sitting in the office I was so excited to have all to myself when hired. The office I came to hate, the noises from the offices around that came to annoy me. I took everything down from the wall the other day, except the collage made from cereal boxes which will be my donation. I cleaned out my desk, more or less, and have spent the last day or so alternating between playing scrabble on the internet and writing a manual for the next poor sap to get my job.

Self Indulged Ranting?

Third to last day of work. I feel/felt like I was going to cry about 10 minutes ago, that feeling rushing over of having done every single thing for the past 23 years wrong.... having somehow really fucked everything up. But then it passed, unrelated, I think to the end of work.
I don't do work anymore. I went to the doctor this morning: got blood drawn, shot up with tetanus and prescribed for malaria. There is a lot I could be doing during this half day and last week I was working really hard. I think I have more internal drive than I thought. Work, here, they set up with absolutely no incentive to do anything. Not only do I not like any of them (keeping me from having some kind of personal obligation) but after one of the partners told me I am ill-suited to the law because of my over-sensitivity... there was no longer any motivation to impress for recommendation's sake. And so the basket of stuff sitting outside David's office waiting for me will not get done. Because, well, I despise him. And maybe that's because I am hyper-sensitive. Or maybe because he's an ass.
My regular doctor is on maternity leave and I had a new one. She was brusque but seemed to know what she was doing. I don't like to talk a lot at the doctor, but this is why it irks me when they interrupt me. She listened to some guy in the hallway go on and on about one co-pay versus another while I waited (for 45 minutes! 1.5 People magazines!) inside. When she came in, she interrupted me before I could show her my immunization card. Which, you know, might be useful in determining which immunizations I've had.
It's confirmed that I am in the midst of a quarterlife crisis. If I could afford/had use for a convertible, I'd have proof.

Condo-sleez-a

I heard an excerpt from the MLKJ day service in Harlem on the radio this morning. The service was attended by Mayor Bloomberg, borough presidents and all kinds of other NYC mayoral hopefuls. Quite a few locally interesting things were said, but I caught someone talking about the Condi Rice hearings that started in Congress today. They said something like, I may not agree with your politics and policies, but you being in the position you are is a result of everything we've all fought for. This is what is so frustrating about the Republicans and Democrats. Ok, so minority Republicans are creepy and I really don't understand it... BUT, the fact remains that Bush has a cabinet of unheard of diversity. The Democrats got themselves into a real pickle when they decided they couldn't oppose Gonzales because he would be the first Latino Attorney General. Come on, guys. It becomes beyond frustrating when you realize that all of their actions come only from a place of fear.

We won't rock the boat, we won't ask for too much, we'll concede when necessary (necessary will come up often, but "necessary" or what?) We won't stand for anything: we're pro-choice if it'll get us the vote, if not we don't care. We would prefer not to have the death penalty... but come to think of it... Gay marriage, well, aren't civil unions practically the same thing? We like gun control, but making a BIG stink over the expired assault weapons ban... is that really where we should be focusing our energies. And so we stand for nothing, not even as a viable alternative.

And even the Republicans stand for something, as gross and conniving as it might be. A few months ago, I realized that if in 2008, Elizabeth Dole ran for President against some John Kerry-type candidate... I would vote for her. And really only because she is a woman. There are superfluous supporting reasons as well, but essentially, I think that would tear down a huge access wall for all kinds of people and, well, mainly because she is a woman. Condi Rice doesn't get that same kind of automatic support, at least from me. I have a hard time buying a smart, African American woman from her background believing what she does. Like something in that equation must be false. The American dream, at least in my mind, isn't supposed to leave you so creepy. And with such a horrible haircut. I think I feel aversed to her, also, because of a classic Jungian rejection of what I fear in myself. Do I hate her because she is smart, successful, hated and utterly alone? There are joking allusions to an affair between her and Bush (and we can all tell he does have an alien fetish. See: Laura Bush) but we know this will never happen, she will only get hurt. He doesn't love her. And she still has a horrible haircut. She will soon be Secretary of State but at the sacrifice of her womanhood. And that scares me. And I reject it because by further ostracizing the ostracized, even in my head, hopefully I will never, ever be anything like her.
I used to think a lot about what we ask of people. And I was very into the idea of determining what people in your life are able to do for you, and only asking that of them. As oppsed to becoming disappointed by them when they fail to what you wish they could. This is the problem in politics- here we are wishing the Democrats to run a better candidate, be strong enough to stand up for higher ideals as well as what we all need.... but they can't and we need to accept it. This means instead of being best friends, we need to acknowledge that we do better as periodic coffee-buddies and go out and meet some new people (trying to avoid crazies.)
Or I guess there's always revolution... but here in my personal corner of the revolution the people are mean and the office is too hot.

Making it Happen

I got my tickets for peru last night- I leave January 28th and return February 23rd. Sometimes the past seems so isolated from the present that its easy to think that traveling in South America was a "study abroad thing," a one-shot deal. I've re- found the feeling I had when I got back from Chile, that the way it's done isn't the way it has to be. When I would meet folks traveling, they were generally adults who had just kind of taken off from life; teachers in the summer, investment bankers who work until they've saved enough and rock out.

It's like this past nearly two years have been so much about growth and moving forward that it was easy to forget that some things were good and didn't have to be abandoned in the name of progress.

In the mean time, there's a lot to be done: getting stuff found and sent from Minnesota, getting life together, finishing up and leaving a job, buying things... being anxious and excited by getting off the treadmill and looking around.

This is what I will look like when I am free from the shackles of abusive employment.

The Beginning of the End: I am IN Control

I quit my job yesterday. I couldn't do it in a real conversation and so finally got the ok from my mom to write a letter. Left it and ran out last night. Woke up this morning over-tired (had to wake up at 6:30 before waking up at 7:45), hungover (the celebration of others), and feeling like I am getting a sinus infection. And with a horrible sick and queasy feeling in my stomach that wasn't relieved until I got to work and faced those I'd quit to. And they were bizarrely fine with it. And continue to be deluded. They're delusional if they think I would refer a friend for the position- anyone I've spoken to for more than 5 minutes in the past year knows how horrible they are. And how unhappy I've been. I have recognized more and more in myself these internalized signs of abuse, "what will they do without me?" "maybe if I try harder, they won't get so angry" and even continuing to be scared after I quit. A strange feeling that now I am in control. Strange and fantastic. I told my mom yesterday that I felt like I had gotten sucked in, forgotten that I am young and capable and can do nearly whatever I want. And so I will. And I won't forget and I will do the crazy because when the hell else am I supposed to do it?

Same Shit, New Year

New Years may well be my favorite holiday.
It's the last of the "holiday season" which can make it both a relief and a little saddening. Everyone celebrates it, everyone feels free to say to say “Happy New Year!” without risking alienating the man who served them coffee.
This year I was in Madison Square Garden at midnight, midway through an amazing concert and a sea of red, white and blue confetti falling from the ceiling.
I started crying.
Ignoring the effects of a few Bud Lights drunk from plastic cups, I think its fair to say that New Years can be an emotional evening as well. New Years causes introspection and reflection on the world. We are forced to think about the past year, what we’ve done and what we haven’t. A year is a perfect unit of time for this, since when we were little, one seemed like an eternity and more and more as we age, they seem to flash by.
A few days before New Years, Erica asked me if I though it was going to be a peaceful year. And I knew it wasn’t. With 140,000 people dead of unavoidable natural disaster in Asia, a mounting death toll in Iraq, war and violence and hate in so many untold corners of the world that I can’t help but mostly ignore it; no, there is no way that 2005 will be peaceful.
No year has ever been peaceful.
Every year has meant sadness and pain for some, ambivalence for some and joy for others- but every New Years Eve, there is this perennial feeling that everything will now be reset, what is old will be new again and we will be able to stop smoking, eating cookies or avoiding the gym because the year restarted. And so I was standing in Madison Square Garden, watching tens of thousands of people embrace, smile and laugh, confetti falling into my Bud Light and crying while the world reset. I was happy to see 2004 go, it held a lot of personal dissatisfaction and a lot of death in my family. But in fairness, 2004 also found me love, kindness, fun and so much good. 2005 so far holds a lot of travel and change, also a sacrifice of stability and comfort. This is how years work, I am lucky (maybe even blessed) and lucky/blessed includes some sadness and some shit.