God's Love: The Case for "Working" from Work

Photo from: http://foodiewanderings.blogspot.com/2010/09/coffee-art-or-heart.html

The unfortunate thing about the location of the office where I work is that it's not close to any good coffee shops. Since Jen and I only have one car, one of the things I spend a lot of time doing is driving around looking for places where I can work. I could just go home, but once you factor in drive time, I often lose an hour of potentially productive work time, so I'll often try to stay close to the office.
     Now, when I say I'm looking for places to "work," I mean I'm looking for places where I can read things that will make me feel smarter and write things that will make me seem dumber (like this sentence). Here's a bit of free advice for you. If you have dreams of one day being respected for doing something that is, in all reality, completely frivolous and technically unnecessary for human survival, you can practice that dream during your free time and call it "work." You don't even have to use air quotes when you talk about it. People will think you're hot shit. And if you're wondering where the reading part fits into the whole, "work" myth, then you've obviously never taken a writing class. Spending four years in college being told by professors that, in order to hone your craft, you not only have to write every day, but you also have to read every day is worth the price of admission, especially at today's historically low interest rates.
     It only took me two months of driving around for an hour at a time (that same hour I would have lost by just going home) before finally giving up and settling for places I know about that are nowhere near the office before I finally got wise and remembered that I carry the world around with me at all times. A phone is only as smart as the person whose pocket it lives in. I have three different apps that can figure out where my phone is (as in globally, not just in my pocket) and point me toward the closest coffee shops.
     When my phone told me that there is a place called Heavenly Cup right down the street from the office, I thought nothing of it. People call things "heavenly" all the time. It's secular euphemism at this point. "Please, try some of this corned beef sandwich; it's heavenly." "The full-release massage I got on vacation in Thailand was absolutely heavenly." You get what I'm saying.
     After I payed for my chai and grabbed a window seat from which to work, I opened up my laptop and looked for Heavenly Cup's wireless network. There were several password protected networks listed, but I was expecting to see something like, "Heavenly Cup (Free)." There was nothing like that in my list of available networks though. In fact, the only free and open network that was listed was one called "God's Love." I am, at times, not bright. My first thought, I swear to God, was, huh, is there a church around here or something? To say that I have an aversion to The Lord (do you capitalize "The" when referencing The Lord? I can never remember. Is it like The Godfather? The Sting? The Terminator?) would be going too far. I have an aversion to cancer, and carrots, and people with the nickname "Cooter," but it's not actually possible to have an aversion to something you don't believe in. The reality of the situation is that, unless I'm directly confronted with Him, I don't give Him much thought at all. Hence the fact that, despite the name of the wireless network I'd just connected to, despite the fact that every customer who walked into the coffee shop while I was there somehow managed to work talk of the previous Sunday's church service into their conversation, despite the name of the goddamn coffee shop, I didn't notice the fucking halo hovering over the "u" in "cup" until I'd been sitting there staring at the sign hanging below the register for an hour.
     It's cool. It's not like I stood up and left as soon as I realized that I was in Christ's Coffee House. The woman who owns the place was very friendly (that's how they get you), and the men who kept coming downstairs from the church offices upstairs (the talk of Sunday's service finally made sense when I noticed that all the customers coming from upstairs were wearing matching polo shirts complete with embroidered crosses) seemed to know everyone and even offered to help some guy with his algebra homework. From what I could tell, everyone who walked into the place knew everyone else who was there. Folks came in and left a couple minutes later with their preferred drinks without ever having to order. The proprietor would sit at a table with her regulars and chat with them between customers. That sort of atmosphere is nice. It's also the sort of thing that will put you out of business, which is what I assume is happening with this shop since every patron who crossed the Heavenly Cup threshold asked the owner, "Have you found a buyer yet?"
     "Maybe if I won the lottery, I could afford to take one of the offers I've gotten. Of course, if I won the lottery, I wouldn't have to sell it in the first place." At this point, I imagine someone suggested that she pray on the situation, but I was too busy packing up my shit to notice. It wasn't that I wanted to leave. It was a nice enough place to work. It wasn't dirtier than any other coffee shop; after all, I bet even the cleanliest baristas find spent coffee grounds in the strangest places after an 8 hour shift. Sure, it was small. There were only 4 small tables, but I had found a seat right away. Yeah, it seemed to be a heavenly, I mean heavily Christian establishment, but the owner was very friendly.  No, I had to leave because, in spite of its values driven charm, Heaven's Cup was missing one vital ingredient. Power outlets within reach of the tables. As a wireless network, God's Love is nearly as omniscient and omnipotent as its namesake. God's Love can give you the latest world news, resurrect our fallen heroes, and grant access to porn. What God's Love can't do is power my laptop for more than 90 minutes. Off to greener pastures I went.
     I still had more than an hour before I had to be at work. All out of ideas, I gave up and headed to the office to do a bit more "work" before work. It turns out that's where I'm most productive anyway.

 
     
       
   
   
   
   
   
       

I'm an Urbanite Snob

This post was supposed to be about something else. Then it turned into what it is. Which is not very good. Oh well. Blogs are supposed to be off the cuff, fast and dirty. They can't all be winners.  I'm saving the really good stuff for The Paris Review  or my neighborhood newspaper. Same diff.

I recently started a new job. It's great. I love it. I couldn't be happier. But.
     Jen and I now work in the same building, for the same company, at the same job. No, literally Jen and I have the exact same job. She does the job full-time during standard business hours. I do the job part-time, typically starting at 1 in the afternoon. It's wonderful to have my mornings free. But
     I now take Jen to work every morning. Then I typically drive back home before driving back up to the office at 1:00. I don't mind it, but it's maybe not totally practical.  See, Jen and I only have one car. I know that's un-American. We are commie-urbanite-snobs. Why don't we just move to New York (City, not Buffalo) with all the other commie-urbanite-snobs? Well, judgmental reader, because, Life is expensive. Until recently, we couldn't afford to. If we could've afforded to do that, we could certainly have afforded to have 2 Pontiac Grand Ams with 128k miles on them in our fleet, instead of just the one. Also we didn't need two cars when I had my old job. Also we like it in Columbus. Also, did I mention we both have jobs here? Try to keep up.
     Now, back to my point (which I'm painfully aware I never established in the first place).
     When I worked at my previous job, I was within walking distance of my office. Having just one car was perfectly perfect. Jen drove the car 15 miles north everyday on a highway she hates to work at the cool job that I coveted, and I walked 1.7 miles through a neighborhood that I love to a job that I hated. Well now everything is right in the world. It's been 2 months since Jen has almost died trying to merge onto the highway and it's been almost 2 months since I've nearly been run over by some d-bag from the suburbs who doesn't know what a crosswalk is. (Wow, I'm starting to understand why you might think I'm a commie-urbanite-snob. For the record, I'm actually a socialist-urbanite-snob.) Anyway, this way everyone wins. Everyone except the aforementioned Pontiac. But.
     Let's be honest. We live in a place where a two adult family needs to be a two car family. Let's also be honest that the real reason Jen and I haven't yet bought a second car is not because we're so principled in our snobbery. Sure, we're conscious (but not concerned) of our carbon footprint. And, we do like to leave the car at home and walk to local restaurants for dinner (except when we drive 20 miles into suburbia for Turkis/Mexican/Chinese). No, the real reason Jen and I haven't bought a second car is that I'm a child. I would rather spend the money we should be saving for a down payment on a vacation, or great seats at a Notre Dame football game (insert laughter here), or 40 really good dinners out. Ongoing debt makes me twitchy. Paying someone interest makes me irate. It's why I don't buy a house, or a car, or a master's degree. The thought that someone else should make money off of me just because they happen to have it to lend and I don't have enough of it afford things that, at least in this country, are considered necessities--well that just pisses me off. Did I mention that that job I just recently left was at a bank? You could say it was a bad fit for me.
     I realize that according to my ideals, most people would never be able to own houses (hello, Mother  Russia.), or new cars (I'll sell you the Grand Am for $1500.), or educations (We don't need no...).  I'm not asking anyone else to live by my ideals though. I'm not even expecting to live by them, myself. Someday we'll buy a house (I'm not spending my Saturdays mowing the lawn, sweetheart.). We'll have a second car by Christmas (Sorry, none of you will be getting gifts this year). And I already have a degree (that I'm still paying for and will be until I'm forty, and I wouldn't trade it for all the tea in Communist China). But.
       
   
   
        

I spend all day in a low-walled cubicle taking shit from people and talking to answering machines in the naive hope that someone will actually be stupid enough to call back so that I can verbally break their kneecaps over their unpaid medical bills and Lane Bryant credit cards. Yesterday, as an added bonus, my headset was busted and I spent eight hours with a fundamentalist Christian radio station chirping in my ear. Between 11:00 and noon, I was treated with an infomercial in favor of virginity until marriage. The woman giving the talk was nice enough to tie science into her argument. It seems blind faith and a strong desire not to get knocked up or The HIV is no longer enough of a reason for people to abstain. Now the Christian right is trying to scare us with neurochemistry. According to our host, semen is God's "superhuman glue." I left my phone in idle for a couple minutes to jot that one down. Spooge is "God's superhuman glue and it's used to make new life." Additionally, one of the chemicals released in the brain when we have sex is diminished with each subsequent partner. According to this woman, the awkward, fumbly sex that I had as a sixteen-year-old with my first girlfriend was the best it was ever going to be. Maybe there's something to this. For example, the most mind-blowing orgasm I've ever had was while my first girlfriend and I were watching The Color Purple. If I'd known then what I know now, maybe I would have fought a little harder to keep her. I am hereby
instating a three partner limit. This Christian brain juice stuff could be for real, and I don't want to risk a life of mediocre sex. Sure this means that by the time I'm forty I'll be limited to dating 15-year-olds and ugly people, but hey, I can't possibly enjoy myself if the girl I'm with isn't.

Nose to the Grindstone

"Sir, I'm sorry your wife's heart transplant didn't go as well as expected, but someone has to pay this hospital bill."

Earn More Sessions by Sleeving

Tonight I came home from hanging out with my friends and I watched the Steve Martin movie, Roxanne for the four hundred seventy-sixth time. It's based on the Rostand play, Cyrano de Bergerac.

When I was six, my aunt made me a tape with three movies on it--Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Splash, and Roxanne. I watched the tape in it's entirety every day for a period of time that could easily be considered clinically insane. I learned something different from each movie. From Willy Wonka, I learned that sometimes good things do happen to good people, even if those good people are poor. From Splash I learned that sometimes being in love means abandoning everything you know and spending the rest of your life under water. And from Roxanne I learned everything else I needed to know about getting by in life.

There's a scene where Steve Martin's character, C.D. Bales, is sitting on a roof with an overweight boy who is upset because he's getting teased at school. Bales asks the boy if he's talked to his mother about his problems and the boy replies, "Once I tried, but she said I had to clean up my plate first."

Bales, thinking the boy has just made a joke says, "Now see, that's good. You're way better than those guys who make fun of you. You're smart and you're funny. You can make things up."

All through the movie, Bales lives by his own, smart+funny+the ability to make things up=better, equation. The scene most remembered by anyone who's ever seen the movie is the scene in which Bales has to come up with twenty insults about his nose better than "big nose." One of my favorites, "Fashionable: You know, you could deemphasize your nose if your wore something a little larger--like Wyoming." Or how about, "You must love the little birdies to give them this to perch on."

I applied the things I learned from Roxanne to my own life. I remember being in the sixth grade and making my Art teacher, Mrs. Cadic, laugh. Referring to my hairy self I said, "Gee, now I see why some people think we descended from apes."

These are the things I generally think of when I watch Roxanne--how to be the kind of self-deprecating person that is liked by all and maybe stumbling upon some hot, brainy chick like the movie's title character who will be so swept up in my charm that she won't notice my faults.

When I watched Roxanne tonight though, another scene caught my attention and gave me pause. Towards the end of the film, Bale's is yelling at Roxanne through a closed door. He says, "Ten more seconds and I'm leaving." Roxanne opens the door and asks him to repeat himself. When he does, she turns to go back inside and he asks her what she thought he'd said.

Roxanne replies, "I thought you said 'earn more sessions by sleeving.'" As far as my current station in life is concerned, this might be the most important line in the movie.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to disclose that I have a slight, yet completely annoying, hearing problem. The ability to hear sounds is not my problem. I can hear a pin drop from three rooms away. My problem is in differentiating sounds.

I remember the old days at the cookie store, taking orders over the phone. The customer might tell me that the person receiving the cookies name was Nora.

ME: "Is that Nora or Maura?"

CUSTOMER: "Nora."

ME: "With and M or an N?"

CUSTOMER: "N."

ME: "As in Mary or Nancy?"

CUSTOMER: "What is your fucking problem? It's Nora, NOra, NORA!"

I found that mashing the phone into my ear to the point of giving myself and Indian . . . I'm sorry, a Native American burn served only a psychological benefit. My point is, "bat" and "pat" have always sounded the same to me, and according to an audiologist, they always will.

Now, I'm a smart girl. Context clues are helpful, and I'm a fan of looking at people when they talk to me, so I can see on someones lips what is being said whether my ears can figure it out or not. The problem is the telephone.

Why then, you might ask, did I just accept a job offer for a position that will have me talking on the phone forty hours a week? I suppose this weekend I should spend some time thinking up deaf jokes.

PERSON IN DEBT: "I'll pay it Sunday."

ME: "Sunday or someday?"

PERSON IN DEBT: "Sunday"

ME: "As in the Lord's Day or just when you get around to it?"

PERSON IN DEBT: "I'll pay it right now if it'll end this conversation faster."

Huh, now I think I know what people in wheelchairs mean when they say they're handicapable. I'm going to be the best collections agent in the city of Columbus. See, you really can learn everything you need to know about life from Roxanne if you're willing to connect the dots yourself.