Woman on cell phone, outside of Fidelity headquarters, smoking cigarette and pacing:
“I’m so sick of this prima donna bullshit! You are not Michelangelo in the freaking Sistine Chapel, or Da Vinci doing the Mona Lisa. You are a web designer. For the love of God!”
Posted in Existence.
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– June 1, 2007
In late spring, downtown Boston experiences a distinct uptick of Office Worker sightings. The Office Worker population is observed straying from their cubicles during all hours of the day in order to bask in the agreeable weather and forage for refreshing beverages. Curiously, this phenomenon is not confined to the characteristic rush hours or the mid-day feeding time.
With such an abundance of exposed prey mingling in a small area, it is no surprise that predators also converge. One such predator is the Marketer, typified by its eagerness to gnash on the Office Worker’s thick rolls of nourishing disposable income. The Marketer is distinguished by its flashy appearance and loud vocal calls. By situating itself directly in the migratory routes of the Office Worker, the Marketer can more effectively lure the herd.
Observe:
“UNLEASH THE BEAST!” roars a particularly virile Marketer, perched atop a customized pick-up truck that is pumping generic heavy metal music. Lethargic Office Workers swarm the band of Marketers, who are all young, fit, and in their prime. The Marketers readily dispense cans of Monster Energy’s line of coffee-energy drinks to the Office Workers, all the while intoning their excitement about all the new Java Monster flavors. Notice how the Office Worker does not hesitate to grab whatever bait the Marketer brandishes. Few Office Workers can resist the call of the Marketer.
Posted in Americana.
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– May 31, 2007
The anticipation that preceded last weekend’s road trip to Pennsylvania had overshadowed a tiny, worrisome detail, namely the “road trip” aspect. Nine months had passed since I had last driven a car. As I prepared to depart on my journey, I sat in the front seat of the rental car – a 2007 Pontiac Grand Prix with air-conditioning that could flash-freeze an elephant – and studied the Mapquest directions. So many miles on so many highways! So many opportunities for my neophytic car-piloting ability to result in a spectacular, fiery wreck!
Mr. Pinault bade me farewell. I kissed his face and tried to take him with me. “I don’t want to spend the whole weekend missing you,” I cooed. “And, you could drive the rental car.” Alas, the Pontiac Grand Prix was not a valuable bargaining chip, and I drove away, a dowager bereft of her doting chauffeur.
Traffic on the Mass Pike was heavy and frenetic. For the first hour, I was stuck in the right-hand lane going 50 mph behind a weathered Chateau motor home. I wanted to pass it, but couldn’t bring myself to believe the mirrors or tear my eyes from the Chateau’s ever-flickering brake lights. I listened to the same Misfits CD four times, terrified to turn my attention to changing it even though it contributed to my feeling of doom.
Halfway through Connecticut, I made a leap of faith and trusted my rearview mirror. But it was the stretch of I-95 into New York City that goaded my inner driver that has lain dormant all these months. I plunged through to the Bronx, infused with a certain feeling that all the sexy car commercials evoke: The freedom of an expansive highway system, the excitement of a fueled internal combustion engine, and the confidence that unrivaled driving prowess rest within my hands and right foot.
Posted in Trips.
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– May 30, 2007
To hear me go ON and ON about my own birthday, one would never guess that Mr. Pinault’s birthday is the day after mine… that is, today! Of course, Mr. Pinault was born many, many years before me.
Posted in Existence.
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– May 30, 2007
My long weekend in Philadelphia and its environs provoked many metaphysical quandaries. It was, after all, a trip down memory lane, a reversal of time’s characteristic unidirectional flow that forced the physical body to exist in a persistent realm that had left the mind’s immediate consciousness. Why do the homes and schools look smaller? Why do the woods, flowers, and rivers look prettier? Why does my Mom look the same that she did on the day of my high school graduation? Is it my perception that has changed, or is it possible that the buildings shrunk, the nature is superior, and my Mom stopped aging 12 years ago?
Even a simple drive through my hometown proved to be intellectually exhausting. For example, if a field of grass is an empty space, and a 800+ unit retirement community called Shannondell is erected on the empty space, does the field of grass still exist? And, of course, there’s the troubling doctrines of modal realism (alternate realities). If all logically possible worlds continue to exist, then somewhere in this little ‘burb of sprawl, there’s a possible Meredith, carting the kids to Wal-Mart, coming home from her shift at the grocery store, or festering on a couch.
On Saturday, I had a feast of faux meats at Singapore Chinese Restaurant in Philadelphia with five lovely ladies, three of whom at least semi-regularly read this site (the other two favor bedtime stories about princesses). They speculated about what I would write on this blog about the lunch. And right now, they are reading this, recalling a memory of the past which was itself a memory of the future. Newton would be abhorred!
Most vexing dilemma: Where does one go to drink beer and shot pool in a town that they left when they were 18?…
Posted in Trips.
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– May 29, 2007
I was born 4 days after the original Star Wars was released, 30 years ago tomorrow. It’s great to have this classic bit of science fiction cinema as my contemporary, for it’s the perfect barometer to compare myself against. So who aged better… me or Star Wars?
Stars Wars started with a distinct advantage, as it was fully-formed upon birth, jumping out of George Lucas’s mind like a battle-clad Athena. “After a generation of movies with tortured antiheroes who couldn’t order a sandwich without making A Statement, it seemed remarkably fresh,” says this tribute here. Me, I was just a baby.
Growing up, we’ve both had our Jar Jar Binks moments. And we’ve both reinvented ourselves: Me, continuously building on my strengths; Star Wars, rendering itself non sequitur (“Prequels included, the series still ends with Darth Vader smiling from the afterlife while Ewoks dance, which is like ending “Band of Brothers” in a disco roller-rink with Hitler doing the Hustle with Gene Kelly.”)
30 years later, I’m in the prime of my life, and Star Wars is an entertaining but cheesy schlockfest with out-dated special effects. Still, Star Wars has the trump card: The entire franchise has made over $22 billion dollars, according to Forbes. I’ve made… nowhere near that amount.
Posted in Existence.
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– May 24, 2007
Posted in Trips.
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– May 24, 2007
Ten years ago, on the cusp of turning 20 years old, I complained to a Cumberland Farms co-worker – a mid-20s guy from Colombia named Diego – that my life was over. “I’m old,” I moaned. “All the hot boys won’t want me. I’m not a teenager anymore. It’s all downhill from here.”
Diego took my belly-aching quite seriously, which only lead to more consternation. Had he flipped my concerns away as feminine crazy talk, I would not remember what he said: “A woman in her 20s is in the prime of her life. Take care of yourself, and you’ve got at least 10 years before you hit the wall.”
So here I am, hitting the wall. Eff you, Diego. Smacked with laugh lines and burgeoning chair butt. Bammed by official estrangement from distrustful youth. Walloped by the ticking of my biological clock.
I joke with Mr. Pinault that this is the last week he’ll get to romance a woman in her 20s, so he better make the most of it, because it’s all downhill from here, ha ha ha. I laugh; he doesn’t dare. His mind computes all conceivable responses and weighs them against probable ramifications like tears and fury. “You’ll always be a younger woman to me,” he says. I preen and flirt, thinking, Smart man! And then he blows it: “Besides, no one can stay 29 forever.”
Technically, the Fountain of Youth is accessible to delusional liars or suicides. But then again, I look forward to age 39, when I can look back on this moment with a grimace: “I though that was the beginning of the end? Stupid child!” (Can you sense the distracted preoccupation with mortality lately? My god, I posted a picture of a gravestone last Sunday. How ghoulish.)
Posted in Existence.
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– May 23, 2007
Recently, I’ve been thinking about leaving Bank of America. It’s hard to do, because it’s a comfortable, stable relationship, and Bank of America is always there when I need a few fresh 20s to succor my lonely wallet. But Bank of America’s little habits grate my nerve – the snap-judgment overdraft fees, the bizarre customer service behavior, the creepy megacorp polish of their marketing materials. I can’t help but to fantasize about all the other banks out there, and what they’re like to do banking with.
Then, in today’s mail, I received a letter from Bank of America, informing me that “At 2:00pm, August 17 2007, we will be closing the Amherst Banking Center at 75 E Pleasant Street, Amherst, Massachusetts.”
Why would I, a resident of Natick, care that they’re closing a bank branch over 80 miles away? Because 12 years ago, that Bank of America was a Bay Bank, a bank that I excitedly signed up for as a college freshman. The balance of my savings account was perpetually $4.25, the exact cost of a veggie calzone from DP Dough. I can remember many hungry nights when that $4.25 taunted me with its inability to be withdrawn from an ATM. I was so young and reckless, and so, so poor!
Of course, relationships do change. BayBank became Bank Boston. Bank Boston became FleetBoston. FleetBoston became Bank of America. But even a dizzying series of buyout and mergers can’t erase the history we have together. Somewhere in its megalithic computer system, it remembers that I joined Bay Bank 12 years ago. If that’s not romance, I don’t know what is.
Posted in Nostalgia.
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– May 22, 2007
The Sunday morning spinning class is way more mellow than Saturday morning, which is why I only go if I’m feeling lazy. The instructor is a middle-aged yoga devotee who whispers about elevated heart-rates amid trance techno songs with names like “Blaze of Life” and “Soul Drumming.” The regulars are a tight-knit group of forty-ish moms who regard the instructor as their Alpha.
Last Sunday was the instructor’s birthday, and someone brought in a song to play, a comic spoof that riffed on hot flashes, memory loss, and the other inconvenient facets of female aging. They all found it hilarious. The instructor apologized to the one male in the class for “the surging estrogen in the class this morning.”
“Or lack of estrogen!” a woman called.
I suppose their good-natured acceptance of their gradual croning is admirable, but I don’t buy it. I’m turning 30 in exactly one week, and my sole consolation is that I’m unscathed from the brunt of the physiological pitfalls of aging that the women in my spinning class found so mirthful. All my squibbles are vanities.
Like, about how my general appearance requires more maintenance as my hair loses its youthful gloss and my face melts out of its skeleton. I’m trying to sooth my pride with philosophical platitudes, like: Why care about spreading hips when you’ve got a spreading 401K account? Is it better to have age-acquired wisdom and experience, or look cute in baggy sweat clothes and no make-up? And hey: 30 is 10 long years away from 40.
Posted in Existence.
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– May 22, 2007
