Why is there so much vomit on the streets of Binghamton? Where did it all come from? It's getting really nasty. Correction: it IS really nasty! And why won't anybody clean it the hell up?
Let's count the puddles, just to prove a point. There's one by the front steps of the Belmar that magically appeared there the other day. There's one by the front door of Paddy's that's been there for a few weeks. Fine -- these are bars, and one might expect some slob to stagger out the door and lose his cookies on the doorstep. Fine. But what's the excuse for not cleaning it the hell up? Ew! Moving on, we also have a nice little stain on the Main/Court Street Bridge. Ew. THEN we have a nice little puddle in front of the fucking smoke shop! What is ANYBODY'S excuse for throwing up while walking out of a tobacco shop? And why oh WHY won't the owners of that place bleach their damned sidewalk?
This is gross. I might add that, in July, NONE of this barf was on the streets. I DISTINCTLY remember if it had been, because I would have been embarrassed had my friend Brian seen any barf and mentioned "boy, you Binghamtonians really like to party" or something, and he SURELY would have said something.
Come on, Binghamton! Clean up your damned puddles!!! What are we running, here: a flu-season infirmary without toilets? PLEASE!
This entry is not about vomit. This entry is about my shoes. My shoes, that is, that will become nastily chunkified if current vomit trends don't change.
I have a job now. An office job. It's gahd-awful boring, but it's a job, and it's satisfying to actually be DOING stuff, even though the stuff I'm doing basically means absolutely nothing to the evolution of the human race or the salvation of the planet. And for this job, I have to dress "professionally."
That means, I have to wear shoes that tap.
It's amazing the things you notice when your shoes tap. It's amazing how different the world is. People with briefcases smile at you. People with briefcases treat you like one of their own, even though you were asking them if they wanted fries with that a few months ago, and they were yelling at you. I'm making two bucks more an hour than I did in food-service; so that makes me worthy of those creepy elitist grins? I swear to gahd, I went on my lunch-break today, and the lawyers, bankers, insurance people, and generic suits all smiled at me. They all said "hello." WHY? None of them has ever said hello to me before, except for my Pet Lawyer (whom I suspect is a closeted freak).
No, it's not just the people. It's the whole atmosphere that changes when your shoes tap. You stop daydreaming teenaged fantasies about getting laid. I bet nobody who works in an office making more than eight dollars an hour has had sex in fucking YEARS. The libido just plummets when your shoes tap. Unless you're fucking your assistant, which I'm not, because I don't have an assistant, and ew, anyway.
I was quiet all day. I didn't speak to anyone unless I was confused about what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't speak otherwise. I wonder what kind of psychological impact that has after awhile? A good thing this is a temp job. A few years of this, and I might hurl myself off a cliff just to hear the splash. Noise is good.
When I walked into my new place of employment, I noticed two things. One, a lady had a radio on her desk, and it was softly playing "Thank You," by Dido. For some reason, this gave me a mild case of the willies. I can't explain. Maybe the willies had nothing to do with the song. I don't know. And two: another lady had a calendar hung beside her desk; the photograph on the calendar was unmistakably Mount Rainier in Washington State. I bet the calendar lady has never seen Mount Rainier. I bet she thinks mountains like that only exist on calendars. It's amazing how one loses touch with reality, and with nature, and with oneself, and with the soul of the whol universe when one is working in an office. Fortunately, I'm ahead of the game. I have seen Mount Rainier with my own eyes. It will never merely be a calendar image to me. And I brought a Tom Robbins book to read on my lunch-break. See if you can deaden my soul while I'm reading a Tom Robbins book! Yeah, and maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt!
And! Happily, I am very pleased with my "work area." I don't have an office of my own, or even a real desk, exactly. However, I do have a long table facing an enormous southern window. The view's not great, but it's the best you can do for the second floor. My "work area" would look REAL good if I could pain the walls dark grey, put up some velvet curtains, ditch the stupid office-blinds, and line the window-sills with dried roses and actual photographs of Mount Rainier. And some candles and some surrealist art, too... I love my "work area." It's all mine baby, maybe for the next two months! Neat!
I will survive.
And the work I do will not drive me mad.
And I have almost no real contact with the other people in the office, so they're not likely to drive me mad, either.
I walked home after work with my shoes tapping. It's weird, how that can simultaneously make you absolutely nauseated that you work for the Man, and make you hold your head a little higher.
I'm glad to be home among my dried roses and things, though...
~Helena*
"There's nothing more feminine than the sound of lovely heels tapping!" --Terencio Monclova, who was less than pleased when he found out that Peter was the source of the tapping...