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June 5, 2002 - C'est la Fille
That's right, you've guessed it. More complaining. I don't even necessarily feel so bad - right now, right here in this moment, dinner in the oven and the worst of the day behind me - but it's such a relief to write these things down. Set them out in words, I find, and their power over me is lost. So, here goes. Monday night, 10:07 PM - I realize that I don't have any more frozen dinners in the freezer, and this will have no lunch at work tomorrow unless I go to the supermarket after I drop Toby off at the train, but before I'm due at work. 11:20 PM - My watch has stopped again. All day long I've felt a nagging, ghostlike pressure that half-convinces me it's still on my wrist. My eyes, though, cannot be fooled. Tuesday, 6:29 AM - but, as every cell in my body knows, it's really 5:29 AM, no matter what rubbish the clock might be spouting. I awaken to one of the most hated sounds in my personal universe: the public radio fund drive. Public radio wakes us up every morning. Partially for the news, mostly for the fact that the newsreaders have a helpful habit of announcing the time, thus relieving me of the necessity of stirring even a fraction of an inch to look at the face of a clock. The fund drive destroys everything. My morning rhythm, already fragile from the time change, is totally disrupted. The radio station here is a terrible whore - they must do six fund drives a year. I can promise you, I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever send them a dime. 6:35 AM - the news comes back on, and the radio is switched off as fast as my wrist can move. At any time of day, the feature about college students protesting the Israeli invasion of Palestinian areas would be too revolting to stomach. For the record, I'm deeply disturbed by Israel's actions of the past few weeks, mostly because they seem to have undertaken military maneuvers without any sort of a clear goal. But where the hell were these "protesters" when twenty people got blown up a few weeks ago? Gee, it's tanks and guns, dude, guess we'd better protest. Give me a frigging break. 6:37 AM - make husband angry by getting him out of bed to feed the dog, because the only kind of wet dog food left is the kind with the oozy, gloppy chunks and I can't handle the chunks at any time of day, but especially first thing in the morning. Husband stomps back upstairs to bed. I feel awful, but the dog has to eat. 6:47 AM - make husband angry again by getting him out of bed to find the raisins for my oatmeal. He put away most of our regular food for Passover, and things are only gradually making their way back to their proper places. I feel terrible, but I really need those raisins. 6:52 AM - begin exercising. Over the past few weeks, one of the principal relationships in my life - the one I have with my beloved, adored Exercise Man - has begun to deteriorate badly. The problem being: the cable channel got the bright idea to rerun his shows from the Eighties, which focus heavily on high-impact aerobics and include no weight lifting at all. I loathe aerobics of any stripe (never mind the fact that I shouldn't be doing them at all), and the weightlifting is what's vital to keeping my insulin levels down. Sure, I can work out by myself, but Exercise Man made it almost effortless, almost fun. Every day - and I mean this quite literally - I pray for the speedy return of the weightlifting episodes. In the meantime, I have to make do with the four or five I had the foresight to tape, in anticipation of our cable-free stay in Maine. The problem is, working along with the tape feels very different than working with the TV. The TV defines a clear space in time for the workout. Not so the tape - if I get bored with a move, I can't suppress the knowledge that the fast-forward button lies inches from my fingertips. Or I can tell myself, well, it's On Tape. I don't have to do it Now. I'll do it Later. I did the tape this morning. I didn't press the fast-forward button at all. 7:08 AM - husband makes me angry by interrupting exercising because he can't find the iron. (See? It works both ways.) 7:35 AM - Ranger, my parents' dog, is staying with us while Mom and Dad visit Diana in San Francisco. Toby now has to walk him before we leave, meaning that he must skip breakfast. Grumbling and guilty feelings ensue. 7:40 AM - at last, we're in the car. Toby has a bowl of cereal, jostled by every pothole, which he struggles to consume before the majority of it ends up all over his pants and his nice suit jacket. 7:50 AM - we say goodbye, and it's off to the races. I have to buy lunch at the supermarket and be at work by 8:30. On the beltway, an enormous truck tailgates me at seventy miles an hour. On the surface streets, a bitch in a white SUV cuts me off. That's right, I saw you, bitch, with your cell phone and your blond ponytail. I saw what you did. 8:15 - A maringal victory, as the supermarket is able to provide me with the proper frozen dinner. 8:35 - Work. Tuesdays at work are a living hell. Besides Boss Lady and her son, I'm now the only other person on duty until noon. Since the business is in their home, both Boss Lady and her son feel perfectly free to take and make lengthy personal calls, or to wander upstairs at any time, for any length of time, leaving me trapped in my chair. Sometimes, when they abandon me to do the entire work of the company by myself, I have to pee. Often, in fact. And I can't do it. I can't even get up for ninety seconds to frigging pee. I have to wait until one of them comes back. I mostly get through Tuesday mornings at the answering service by quietly imagining how they will manage when I'm no longer there. This makes me smile. 10:05 AM - reading the newspaper. This is almost never a good idea. I read the Herald at work. I think if you live in Boston, and give a shit about the politics of living in Boston (which I don't), reading the Herald, as opposed to the Globe, makes some kind of strong ideological statement. When I buy the Herald, I'm not making any kind of a statement. I buy it because it's a tabloid, small and squarish and easy to handle, doesn't take up too much space on my desk. The Herald has bad news today, really bad news. Don't know if the rest of the country knows this, but there is a terrible scandal here in Boston. Boys, and priests, and other priests who rushed to protect to aid to defend not the boys but the priests who abused them. Sinning that can't be called inhuman because only humans would do such things to one another. Sinners the men of God strove to protect, whisking them from one parish to another, always trying to keep them one step ahead of the sin that dogged their heels. Today, the paper has the story of a boy. A happy child, once, who turned into something beyond your average sullen teenager. Self-inflicted cigarette burns, keeping his silence during years of therapy. Until last week, when the face of his old parish priest appeared on the evening news, when he collapsed, screaming and sobbing, in the middle of his parents' kitchen floor. At yesterday's three-hour televised live hearing, this boy, now a young man, called for the cardinal of Boston to resign. The cardinal drove the getaway car, he said. And we know that in the eyes of the law, the one who drives the getaway car is just as guilty as the one who pulled the trigger. Here in Boston, this week, this spring, there is no other news. 10:30 AM - Boss Lady's adult daughter calls, needs mother to give her ass a ride somewhere. (Okay, so she needed to go to the hospital to have a cast put on her leg. This is my problem?) Boss Lady asks can I stay past three-thirty. I tell her four, that I really don't have the energy to go for any longer than that. Her eyebrows swoop up. Really, Sascha, I don't know why you're so tired all the time! You're such a young girl - you should be full of energy! Yeah, I am. And I'm not going to waste a single second more of it here than I have to. 2:40 PM - Painful urge, ruthlessly suppressed, to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I eat nonfat yogurt instead. Go me. 4:00 - Free at last. Free 'til Thursday. Only five more weeks to go. 4:15 - filling the tank. I know there's some reason I didn't want to come to this particular gas station, but I can't remember what it is. Until, of course, my credit card has already been swiped. Then I remember. The pumps at this place are agonizingly slow, and cut out if you squeeze the handle in order to make them go faster. I try to be patient but can't resist increasing the pressure. Of course, the pump instantly thunks to a stop. When it's finally over, my hands smell like gasoline. I hate that. 4:30 - Home at last. In the rush to get everything done this morning, did we forget to put out the garbage and the recycling? You bet. On average, how many Tuesdays do we succeed in remembering to put out the trash? One in three. But I'm home now. I can hear the woodpecker drumming outside my window, and my heart lifts a little. He wouldn't drill unless he was finding grubs. Of all the birds who stay, Winter is hardest for him, and now the starving time is lifting. Toby and I have each spent the whole week waiting for packages. Today, both of them arrived. I don't have to go to work tomorrow. I have enough decent books from the library to keep my mind quiet. The time change may be discombobulating, but it stayed light til almost seven tonight. I didn't cry today. I love my husband, my family, my dog, my house, my body, my life. I'm writing. Even if it's only to complain. And, most blessedly, it will be another seven days til Tuesday comes around again. rely do not need. Those Asians, she says, shaking her head sadly. Most of them can't even read English. I don't know what that man was doing with a driver's license. I'd like to dump her out in the middle of China somewheres. I'd like to see how fast she mastered their language. It might not take as long as you think: English is by far the hardest language for non-native speakers to learn. Chinese writing, though, is a different matter. Each complex character, so carefully and precisely formed, tells a story. Far more difficult to get your hand around than our childish dots and lines and curves. I bet that kid's parents went to frigging Harvard University. Later the child's father called and left a message for the funeral director. He wasn't emotional at all, Boss Lady says critically. Oh, no, of course he wasn't emotional! The man just obliterated a life he created, turned his own life into a living hell in the blink of an eye. It probably took everything he had to get himself together long enough to make that phone call. And I know, I know she should know better. She and her husband buried their first child years ago. But no sympathy from her, no understanding. Not for anyone who isn't straight, isn't white, wasn't born here. She was down on the Asians last week, too, warning me never to go to one of their nail salons. They're sneaky, she announces. One of them gets the license, but the rest of them don't know what they're doing. They sneak it by that way, and if you go to one of those places God knows what kind of infection you'll pick up. And the intriguing young man who calls inquiring about a job? He wants to know if we can work around his schedule, because he takes lessons with the Boston Ballet seven days a week. I'm impressed with his dedication, I think he probably must be pretty good to be at that level of commitment. Boss Lady says, well, you know what That means. He's a swisher! Christ almighty. So much ugliness. As I prepare to celebrate bowing out of the work force, I want to take a minute to think about some of the things I'm going to miss about this job. Obviously - lots of it I'll be glad to leave behind. Tuesday mornings, blind bigotry, emotional blackmail. But there were a few good things, too. In ten days, it'll be history, and there may be things I'll wish to remember years from now. Number One: the dog. A Dog at Work is just about the best thing I could ever ask for. A Dog to rest his head on your knee, to crowd under the cave of your desk, to share your sandwich with, to turn to and to lean on in moments when humans can't possibly be of any help. I count my time with him blessed. Number Two: the clients. Just voices without faces I've gotten used to, people I won't be talking to anymore. I'll miss many of them, and I'd like to think that some of them will notice that I've gone. Number Three: my co-workers. Except for the occasional lapses into bigotry, they really are very nice people. They've all seen the bruises on my arm over the past year, and they were thrilled - overjoyed for me - when I told them that Toby and I were expecting a child. I'll miss them, and I know they'll miss me. Anything else? Not really. I guess it's a pretty short list after all. I've been thinking this week about some of the other jobs I've had in the past. All the things I remember about them, the bad and the good. The Salt Mine, for example. Every morning when Toby dropped me off, I'd walk through the first trailer and be waiting on the walkway to the second trailer by the time Toby drove by. We'd blow kisses to each other. I liked the vegetable soup they served at the hospital cafeteria, I liked going over there and eating alone - alone - for a whole hour! - at a table in the sunshine. The office I shared with Boss Man, before the dark day that I got moved out to the reception desk, was lined with shelves, and whenever I needed to get at a binder that wasn't on the bottom shelf I had to climb up on top of the desk to do it. Humiliating, especially in a skirt and heels. In the afternoons, when I was very tired, I used to lock myself in the bathroom and sleep for five minutes. I'd sit on the t**l*t and rest my head against the handicapped bar. My head would feel like it weighed a thousand pounds. The bathroom door is the only door that is respected, the bathroom was the only place I could go where I knew that I would be left alone. Our trailer was pretty plush - carpets and white walls and everything. The first trailer, which I had to pass through to get to mine, was all wood paneling and linoleum. It smelled sweaty and gamey and strange, and the secretary in that office was a miserable bitch who hated me. A FAT, bleached-blond, miserable bitch. A wooden walkway connected the two trailers, but the grass grew up beneath it, and you could step off of it onto a small, grassy area below. Rats made their homes in the trailers' foundations. We could tell because a narrow Rat Path that led from one foundation to the other appeared in the grass. I loved the Rat Path, I loved to think of the rats scurrying on their busy way, their naked feet beating the grass flat and the earth bare. Others saw the Rat Path but saw no beauty there. Blocks of poison were strewn along it until the grass covered everything over once more. It was still there, though, like a faded scar, if you knew where to look. Before that, I was Downtown in the office I loved the most out of them all. Huge windows looking out on the plaza. Piped-in music, a "mix" radio station that played Celine Dion singing "My Heart Will Go On" ten times a day. Dead roaches underneath the copy machine, and sometimes live ones that my boss would crunch beneath her construction-booted foot as I stood quaking on my chair. (Give me rats any day of the week.) Going to the mailroom every afternoon. My lunchtime walk to the harbor to visit the seals outside the aquarium. The Korean salad bar in the middle of the Block (Baltimore's red light district) that played Enya and Enigma over the sound system. Good lunchtime non-thinking music. Breakfast at Au Bon Pain, sometimes. Classical music. Oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar and cream, trying not to cry, wondering why the men and women in their suits and ties couldn't see how sad and how desperate I was. I thought that work would never be behind me. Now I am almost there. Before that, even. The jobsite for the first hospital project I worked on. Three offices there. First, a trailer, and there is no building, just a muddy hole in the ground. A year's progress and the trailer is crowded out of the way; we move then to a huge room on the building's second floor. In that room, I planned my wedding, I shanghaied the color printer to produce my wedding programs, I practiced the foxtrot in secret in the copy closet. Summer 1997 and a lone window air conditioner to cool a room the size of a ranch house. My clothing stuck to my body; I got up from my desk once an hour and planned every move I'd make in advance. Using the portapots was torture. But the superintendent got a padlocked "ladies' room", and me and the other two female engineers and the lone female electrical worker were the only ones with a key. As the super explained, it was the least he could do for us. We deserved separate facilities because, after all, we had to go sitting down. Construction progressed, and we moved again, this time to a windowless storage room in the basement. Though the brand-new toilet facilities were just across the hall, these were not happy times. The project was ending and I knew I was going to lose my job. I hated it but I didn't want to have to find a new one. I still remember the day I had a sprained ankle and laryngitis but came to work anyhow, lurching across the room to wheeze silently into the phone. Gradually the building came together. I was there on the rainy day when the cornerstone was unveiled. I loved the softly glowing egg-shaped lights that hung from the ceiling in the student cafe. Every building has a particular odor, distinctive as a face or a voice, and I got to know the smell of this place right from its birth. When the Salt Mine job landed me back at the hospital a year later, I paid a visit. Even with my eyes closed, I would have known exactly where I was. I will always be so proud that I was a part of that building, and it will always be a part of me. In this life of work, which I have hated so bitterly and struggled against so fiercely, it is good to be able to come away with this one small thing. Now the road is open, for the next six months at least. Then the real work will begin. And I will be ready. izziness or fainting spells. No chronic blinding headaches, no strange spots or spreading rashes, no varicose veins, none of the other things I’m too polite to mention. (Two prunes with every meal, gals. Trust me on this one.) There’s one aspect of the process, though, that’s been driving me to distraction almost since those lines faded in back in March- the wild, desperate need to know what we’re getting. I’ve spent the past few months telling myself that throughout human h |
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