American Workplace

Upon my return from a brief unpaid vacation, I was told that my desk had been moved. To the other side of the floor, the windowless side, near the construction. Just follow that fellow with the tool belt and the surgical mask. They showed me a desk that apparently had last belonged to Miss Havisham, all cobwebs and thick with dust and grime it was. Littered with magazines and catalogues from well before the start of the first gulf war. The red light on the desk phone flashed with messages that will never be cleared because no one has the password anymore. The one saving grace was that my new desk was next to another freelancer, a really great awesome person with whom I'd struck up a nice friendship. In the last days of my assignment, she would be my solace.

I have now been informed that she is moving, too - to the other side of the floor, from whence I have been banished. The clean side, with all the light and the people.

First they took my stapler, and then they took my friend. And the space bar on the keyboard barely functions, and the keys are sticky. It's a good excuse to type hard and angrily.

It shouldn't bother me. I am a freelancer after all, and the assignment ends in ten days. And when I began this job, my private mantra was "I'm here to help." I wanted to have no needs or expectations. I wanted to engage in the work and with my co-workers in a zen sort of way, with as little ego as possible, with service as my primary objective (okay - getting paid is the actual primary objective). As a freelancer, you get money in exchange for your time and that is all. You're a commodity. There is $xx in the budget for you, and that is all you get. You can't hope for more than a thank you at the end of the day, but you must know that you probably won't even get that.

But it didn't work. I found myself craving approval. I wanted a job offer - not a job, just the offer - or a medal; or at least a bottle of something expensive because they just can't thank me enough. They would just have to find more money in the budget to keep me on after the assignment ends because, well, I'm just that good. And they need me. Please don't leave; we can't go on without you.

And so it is with every relationship. And every guy I ever dated, no matter how unappealing. That smelly, un-manscaped humunculus with the mullet? The one with nothing to talk about but mortgage securities and The Hobbit? The one who tried to seduce me with the theme from The Godfather? Why didn't he call me, dammit??

Soren Kierkegaard said, "You have absolutely nothing to do with what others do to you. ...you have only to do with yourself." Oh, Soren. How right you were. As always.

More mid-century wisdom

I believe it was Winston Churchill who said, "Never, never, never, never pay retail."

Smiles of a Summer Night

It's summer. And if there's one thing the Solipsister hates it's having to look at other people's toenails. A decent set of pedi-digits is a rare thing. Thanks, Havanias, you've done enough.

However, there are things to love, if not live for, in the summer in the city. Last night I learned there are fireflies in Gramercy Park, and they are legion. I went inside the park for the very first time. It was dusk, and it was magical. Masses of tranquil roses and hydrangea, as well as stately old trees, and a perfectly combed pebbled pathways to meander on. This sounds is beginning to sound like a brochure. But it felt a little like a brochure, or an opening shot from Woody Allen's Manhattan: zoom past the statue of Edwin Booth, through the park gates and up Lexington Avenue to the Chrysler Building, all lit up against an indigo sky. Cue the fireflies. In the summer, it is possible to fall in love with this city every day.

Office Girl

The Solipsister has taken a job. An office-y office job. The kind where everything around you is a shade of beige. Where you ride elevators and nod to security guards. Where some nice person or other has often baked banana bread for the department. The kind of job where you should always have a cardigan handy because the building is cool and all you do it sit at a desk and type. And check your email every four minutes. And blog. Because you can only go to the bathroom so many times, and there's never quite enough to do to keep you interested.

When I was a dewey lass of six, I used to dream that one day I would grow up and have a job in a big office building. I had a romantic Mad Men vision of office life: hale bosses, pert secretaries, rambunctious Christmas parties, endless office supplies.

But don't get me started on office supplies. Staplers. Notebooks. Pens, pencils, paper clips. Now I'm really getting turned on.

Office supply lust. You know what I'm talking about.

At one office job I had, there were giant closets bursting with tape, folders, binders, pads of paper, writing implements of every color and nib. I'd stand in front of them and breathe in their scent. Then I'd gather up as much treasure as I could carry and take it home with me.

But here's how it's gone down. At my last job, one had to go through the judgmental department "admin" (i.e., secretary) to get anything, a pen. Then she would "order" things for you, since one of her many hats was Keeper of the Office Supply Catalogue. It generally took four to six weeks to procure the things you needed. But at this job, the new one, they've all but eliminated the notion of a "supply." What happens, apparently, is that when an employee resigns or is fired, the other employees descend like vultures on his/her cubicle, rifle through his/her drawers and walk away with handfuls of Post-It Notes, etc. This is why you want to be in the loop about things. You want to know who's about to be ejected so you take inventory of their stuff. Then while they're down at HR being canned, you can raid their desks before they can box any of it up and take it home.

I Drink Your Milkshake

Back in the halcyon days of Barney's on Seventh Avenue, there was a greasy spoon so close to it you could smell the neckties. It was the kind of place where you sit at the counter and order a side of fries and a Coke. Then smoke a cigarette and read Spy Magazine while you waited for your meal to arrive.

Yes, I say "meal" when referring to my side of fries. Because some days, a plate of fries was the best I could do. And on a side-of-fries day, I was somewhat better off than on a cup-of-chicken-and-rice-soup day, which set me back a buck thirty-five before the tip. That said, the lonely cup (as opposed to bowl) of soup days were far superior to the ones where I didn't have the subway fare (90 cents) to get to my temp job downtown, not even after rifling through all my roommates' coat pockets and drawers.

Last Saturday, Peter and Edie and I lunched at the Empire Diner. Though almost pure kitsch, it's one of the few remaining diners in this part of town. Also, it closes for good on May 15. Out of some atavistic and/or perhaps sentimental habit, I felt compelled to order a milkshake and fries. But vanity, in the long view, finally vanquished desire. I got the mesculun salad with sliced chicken breast.

I know. When you're at a diner and you find yourself ordering a mesculun salad, is life even worth living anymore?

In my wan defense, it's not so much a matter of trying to keep my figure. Such as it is. Rather, at this point in my life, a plate of fries and a shake are basically a sodium-dairy-sugar speedball that my entire GI system would have to pay for for at least a day. At least. So alright. Gimme the roughage and some sliced protein from a cruelty-happy poultry factory and be done with it.

Gone. Trans fats, nicotine, dairy binges and diners. Also, for me, short shorts, cheap costume jewelry, bedhead, silly hats, Urban Decay nail polish, under-wireless bras. Also gone: kissing stupid jerks. Worrying about stupid jerks. Freely giving away chunks of self-respect to stupid jerks. These things are not mutually exclusive. But soon I might start going out in short shorts and green polish, packing a box of Camel Lights. Because I don't want the rest of my life to be an entree of mesculun salad.

The Shape of Things To Come

Sentimental Lady

Today while Peter was making lunch (seared scallops with braised kale and black beans. No joke. For lunch!), my daughter proposed that she and I play Zingo. It's a toddler board game, totally my speed. But to ratchet the cognitive development up a notch, I turned on a little Mozart. So sue me. While I was sorting the Zingo tiles, Edie asked me what that song was. I told her how it was a little song by a little someone named Wolfgang, and how he started writing music when he was a little boy. Score!: she began showering me with questions about this little Wolfgang: how old is he now? Do I know him? Will she ever meet him? And I told her how he wrote this music a long, long time ago, and that he has since died. She got that very concerned look on her face and asked me twice: "he died? He died, Mommy?" "Yes, Edie, he died." "Oh," she said. She hung her head and shook it slowly. "I miss him."

Back in September, at the full mass/rehearsal for my brother Sam's wedding, she was checking out the church's stained glass windows. They depicted episodes from the Stations of the Cross. She looked up at one - I think it was the Fourth Station, Jesus Meets His Mother. She whispered to me, "Mommy, who's that man?" I looked up to see who she was referring to. "Oh," I said. "That's Jesus." "Who's he?" Um. "He was a man who lived a very long time ago. He said a lot of things that people that people think were very, very smart." She frowned. "Is he dead?" "Yes, he's dead." She hung her head and gave a slow, solemn shake. "I miss him," she said gravely.

As her mother, I am inclined to wonder whether, before she was born, she was chilling with some heavy hitters out there in the ether. Because she seems to have an impressive amount of sentimentality for the Great Ones. Is it that? Or does she just sense a certain reverence in my tone, which triggers an innate sycophancy? Will she one day say, "The Kennedys. They were really special. I miss them." Or, "The Clash. What a great band. I miss them." And what will she say of me when I am gone? "My mother. She had issues. I miss her."

Also today, I taught her all about the exclamation point.