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January 27, 2004

Subway Poems

Last night, I left work at 9pm. I opted not to call for a car, because there were delays. I thought it would just be faster to take the train. BOY WAS I WRONG.

I arrived at the L platform on 6th Avenue at 9:10PM. I waited. And waited. And waited. So, I began composing poems on my blackberry. The are copied below for your enjoyment.

I am waiting for the train
It is very boring
I am waiting with disdain
But its better than a boaring (by boars)
I am waiting for the train
So I write you poems
I am hoping to kill the pain
And so I write you tomes of poems

Forgive me

I'm still waiting for the train and now I'm getting pissed

No annoucements, no signs, no friendly directions why

By the MTA we've been dissed

Fuckers.

My ipod batteries are running low
And I gots nowhere to go
My breathing labored, my blinking slow
And I've gots nowhere to go
I'd sleep on the floor cuz I can't take no more
But why sleep when I gots nowhere to go?

The L train
Hell train
Spawn of satan
It don't give a fuck
How long you been waitin
Mothers fathers children small
So bored and tired I hate them all

You enjoyed those--admit it. So I waited an hour (I'm an idiot) and finally gave up and took 4 different trains home which took another hour. I got home at 11:05PM. Again, I left at 9. It usually takes me about 20 minutes to get to and from work. I was pissed. While on an entirely different train going my roundabout way home, the conductor announced the L was down indefinitely; while on the platform waiting for the L, no one announced a damn thing. They just let us wait there. Granted, usually MTA speaker announcements are entirely unintelligible (and useless even when you can make them out), but some acknowledgment that "hey idiots, go find another way home, this train will never run" would have been nice.

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January 25, 2004

The Great Cold of 2004

Last Friday night I was told I would have to close a deal selling an X (which will remain nameless in a feeble attempt to protect my fleeting anomonity (sp)) at 3am on Monday morning. X is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As my previous post mentioned, I left the assigning associate's office and threw up. I began to feel better once I realized yeah, it would suck, but if I fucked it up it wasn't really my fault, and since I wasn't even admitted to the bar and supposed to be supervised, I wouldn't be the one with the malpractice suit on my hands. So anyway, Monday morning at around 1am I called a car and went to work. On the way there, the driver told me he would quit my job if he were me. Good advice.

While attempting half-heartedly to sell X at 3am, I started to feel achey. I figured it was just stress. By 11am, X was sold (I think. Who knows?) and I went home, where I got even achier and got a sore throat. I called in on Tuesday, partially to give finger to the Man (or the Firm, rather), but mainly because I was really, really sick. I actually made it to the subway platform Tuesday morning, but my throat hurt so bad I had to turn around. I went to work on Wednesday because of all the selling X aftermath I'd had to deal with from home on Tuesday had to be finished at work, where they had fax machines and PDF machines and people to FedEx for me. I felt like crap. Thursday, Friday--crap, crap and more crap. My throat got a little better, but in its place I got achier and started coughing up stuff the size and color of tree frogs. Friday night I got sent home with about 3 reams of paper to read through (even though I don't know what the hell I'm reading...), after I told them I had a fever and needed a break. Saturday morning I threw a temper tantrum, hurled reams of paper and my Blackberry around my living room, and took two doses of Nyquil and slept like a baby. Woke up at 6, coughed up some stuff, ordered fried rice with C. (who became sick on Friday and has thoroughly apologized for implying on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday that I was faking it for sympathy), watched 5 hours straight of Cold Case Files and City Confidential and the like (I was feeling homocidal) on A&E and the Discovery Channel, took some more nyquil and went to sleep.

I woke up this morning feeling almost cured. I took C. to KMart (she's never too sick to go to KMart! Maybe she's faking it...hmmm...) and started going through my reams of paper, then decided "fuck it" and "fuck them" (not necessarily in that order) and put the paper away. They can fire me, but I'm not going to read shit I can't understand and they won't explain. Now I'm settling in for day old fried rice and Sunday TV.

The only thing that would make today better is if every single asshole who made me stay at work when I was sick as a dog comes down with what I had.

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January 17, 2004

i threw up last night at work

my own personal waterfall at 6th ave on the L
when you picked me up last night i couldn't even see
50 years of dirt scraped away
this wasn't what i'd planned.

so i've become obsessed with the discovery health channel, specifically their makeover and weight loss shows. this is much like my obsession with "a baby story" and "a wedding story" on TLC over the summer. anyway, right now they're airing a story about a baby with "bubble boy syndrome" (he has no immune system), and, really, i hate myself for saying this but i'm going to say it anyway, i'm jealous of him right now. i'm also jealous of the cleaning lady who took out my trash in my office today.

Posted by me at 09:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 14, 2004

"Morale" is a not a defined term

So let me tell you about this meeting we had today. They sat the first years in my group down (and called it "orientation", 3 months AFTER we started), and basically told us:

1. We're lazy
2. The Firm owns us 24/7
3. We ask too many questions and need to learn to do stuff on our own
4. We don't ask the right questions and don't know what we're doing
5. We should do more work
6. We should do more "professional" reading (even though if we did all the work they wanted us to, to do the professional reading we'd have to cut out sleeping or eating or both)
7. We don't do the work we do well (so we should do more!)
8. We don't know how to dress

Then we were sent off to our desks to do our work. What do they expect? They tell us we're all lazy, dumb, poorly dressed losers, and then they expect us to devote ourself to their firm and give good work product? please. what a bunch of bullshit.

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January 13, 2004

i still hate my job, but...

I'm doing the "my credit cards are almost paid off!" dance.

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January 10, 2004

it's so cold the roaches are iceskating in my toilet

ok, so not yet, but almost. and i swear to god, buddha and george w. bush that my toothbrush, which i used an hour ago, is frozen.

it's really fucking cold--single digits cold. and windy. and icy.

i just got back from T2's apartment, which is very nice. he has a nice couch, and a nice love seat, just like a real adult. now if only he had a real tv, he could call himself a Man.

sometimes, people surprise you. not really T2, but other people. i mean, don't get me wrong, it IS surprising that T2 can keep a neat, respectable apartment...

it was surprising when a woman held a door for me and i said "thank you" and she said "you're welcome" (this is new york, people).

and see, it's apropriate to say "thank you" to that woman who held open the door, but what do you say to friends who surprise you in other good ways? "good for you!"? "how surprisingly lovely!"? "fuckin' a!"? "this is going to sound lame, but i'm happy that you're happy, because i can tell you're happy."?

i'm just not sappy like that. when my Dad says "i love you" on the phone, i still mumble "iloveyoutoo bye!" and i'm fucking 25 years old. i admit to being an emotionally stunted person. i don't have heart to heart talks with my friends--most of my friends are guys.

so...

i guess you don't do anything, and just go on being happy that someone you like pleasantly surprised you with ___________. afterall, you don't want to surprise them with sappiness. at least i don't.

and now, let's forget this entry happened. click on this.

Posted by me at 11:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 07, 2004

$10,000 down, $5,000 a month for the rest of your life

"That's pretty good money ... enough to maybe put a down payment on a house," said Legare, a New York City native. "But is it worth it? I've already been away something like nine months. I want to see my wife." Quote from an AP article about the $10,000 bonus the Army is offering for people to re-enlist for 3 more years to fight in Iraq.

My first thought, halfway through reading this, was: "A down payment? Yeah, maybe in Oklahoma--" my second thought, as I finished reading it, was "--holy shit, this guy is from New York City? You can't put a down payment on a cardboard box for $10,000 here" or anywhere in a 100-mile radius of here, in fact.

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January 04, 2004

The post that confirms that I'm a big loser

So, I finally had time to see Return of the King. I liked it, but it should have been longer (haha. longer! no, seriously.). It was obviously rushed, especially at the end. The end was just scene/cut/scene/cut/scene/cut--no transitions, presumably because Jackson didn't have the time to include them. And that was annoying. Also annoying were any closeups on Frodo's face of him looking pained/honored/sad/pensive/despairing/etc, all of which he expressed by scrunching up his eyebrows.

But, of course, I can't wait to see it again...

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