march 27, 2000.This has been an interesting morning, inasmuch as incompetence and time wasting are interesting. I've been working here for 2 full weeks at this point. I don't have a security pass. I don't know where anything is, with the exception of the closest bathroom to my desk. A package got held up for days because a vendor sent it to me, and nobody knew who I was. All of this is a normal temp sort of lifestyle, and I'm not terribly surprised to be living it. The unfortunate things is that this is a position with a small amount of responsibility. As I mentioned, people send me stuff. I'm supposed to be efficient career girl. But like a 19th century settler, all advances are due to my own initiative. Today I battled IT. Since the job began last Monday, the thinking was that it might be nice for me to have computer access to the necessary programs. After a week and a half of signing in with my predecessor's ID, I finally got my own login today. But it didn't work. I spent the entire morning being told, "I've just reset your password. Wait 5 minutes and log on." After 4 repetitions, the phrase started to lose its' reassuring glow. But I think the best part was when the IT guy led me through the re-logon function. "Down at the bottom left corner of the screen, there's a button. Start is on it. Click the button, and a menu will pop up..." What-ever. Like I said, I'm not terribly surprised. This is the company who insisted they needed a temp to work Saturday, Sunday and Monday, without ever planning out what said temp would do on Monday. This is the company that let the 3 month assignment run on indefinitely without notifying us. And this is the same IT department that suspended my logon ID 2 weekends in a row without saying anything to anyone. 9 hours on a weekend is bad. Not being able to do anything at all in an empty office is beyond appalling. Anyway, bitch bitch bitch. The important thing is that I'm very slowly getting the hang of the proposition. I'm even making friends - there's a girl 2 cubicles down who likes to pop by & chat. I enjoy the fact that she's another Liberal Arts major trying to make a living in a cold cold world...and that we can agree upon the usefulness of an education that doesn't whittle us down to fit the "Real World" pegboard.
Interesting weekend. I'm not exactly sure if I had a good time or not. Some parts were sweet, though. On Friday night we attended Project Mayhem's pre-party at a little smoky club in the fabled land East of Yonge Street. Since Project Mayhem itself did not go forward as planned, it was a bit like a wake. Kind of fun, though. My Lenten vow has been to give up alcohol...which meant that I would dance until I remembered that I didn't like the music. There was no happy intoxication to bridge those moments of clarity, y'see. I thought about venturing into some of the more exotic routes to a hangover, but it never really went anywhere. I find it difficult to come out and ask someone if they know of anyone with...well, anything...and that pretty much signs the death warrant on any possibility I have of getting high. I just feel like such a dork, even thinking about it... Something's going to have to happen soon, though. I don't much look forward to getting married with only embarrassing drinking stories, and embarrassing promiscuous sex stories are pretty much out of the question. Drugs it is! Point being, I spent the night trying to fight my natural gravitation towards music with melody and words, with no alcohol to help. I managed to tap into some sort of rhythm around 2 a.m., but twenty minutes later we were heading out the door with Dirk & Tymothi:J, who'd had enough of the smoke and the noise to last 'em a lifetime. Pity. Under different circumstances, I might be dancing there still. On the way out, we chatted with the friendly doorman, who referred to Dirk as his "stout drinking friend." (when asked if that pertained to beer or girth, he replied that either meaning worked fine.) He made much of our Doc's, as Doc-wearing ravers are few and far between. For myself, I just don't have the clothes to blend in with the kids. So I did what I do best: I threw on a black slips, the filmy flowery dress Stacy made me for my birthday, purple & black striped tights, the Pink Bag of Justice and black 8-holes. I was happy, though I felt a bit self conscious. In a room full of cargo pants and x-large t-shirts, black slip-dresses make you noticed and that's not always a comfortable thing. We piled into Tymothi:J's car and scooted around for awhile, watching the club kids emerge for hotdogs and taxis. It's hard being the only girl in a car, especially when you're driving through a forest of slut-bombs. I try to be all cool with the hooker conversation, but the façade breaks down once in awhile. Fortunately, Dirk was under the wonderful impression that I was hilariously funny that night, and what seemed to me to be normal quips were transformed. I absolutely can't get upset about the aggressively masculine conversation when it's peppered with comments about how damn funny I am. (cain) "His actual job title
is architect of change." - an example of my wit from the early evening
Saturday, however, was unalloyed with oogieness, all the way to the very end. It's been steadily thawing for a few weeks in these parts, but Saturday dawned warm and bright and fresh-smelling beyond compare. The Boy & I sashayed out, hand in hand, to see what Queen Street West had to offer. As it turned out, quite a lot. Attracted by the bright colours in the window, I pulled the Boy into a small store that I'd never noticed before that glorious Saturday. It turned out to be a kids store; crammed full of pop-eyed puppets, soft pretty dolls, shiny silky baby clothes and enough pink malibu feathers to send me into squealing raptures. I found a cute little brown-haired big-smiling cloth doll to give to Dirk, with the idea that she'd be the female support he's currently lacking. Her name is Josie, and I've been unable to resist carrying her everywhere I go. I even considered buying Dirk another doll so that I could keep Josie...but then the Boy called me on my thoughts, and I'm too ashamed to do so. "You may give it to Dirk, but
I bet you're thinking that he won't love her as much as you do." My silence incriminates me. But the very very best thing we discovered there was a set of adorable Frog Prince and Frog Princess hand puppets. What with Q's totem connection with the frog and the old joke that the two of them should argue via puppets, it was more than perfect. I squealed & squealed. Of course, we couldn't wait 3 whole months to give them the puppets as birthday presents, so later in the day we moseyed on over to the Nook to see what was what. Things were rather quiet. Despite the glory of the weather, it was also a pretty good day to be quiet and listen. On the upside, they didn't seem too upset about the demise of Mayhem. Maybe the puppets helped. You never know. I declined the evening's outing to Ein.stein's, as I was in no mood to sit sleepily over a Coke while Exodus & the Boy battle for manly supremacy over the airhockey table. It's the kind of thing that's only attractive in the presence of other people, or at the very least, an enormous ninestein of Grasshopper. But I was too sleepy and too sober, so I went home instead. Strangely enough, as soon as I went to bed, Tymothi:J and Dirk arrived to stir up some interest in going drinking. D'oh. "I can't leave yet. I have some
toast on." But we talked for a couple of hours in the living room before they got up and left, so that was alright. As they leafed through the photo album, Dirk mentioned offhand that Lady Godiva and Ophelia had pledged to attend his birthday barbecue in dominatrix gear. I felt shriveled and deflated when I heard that, and all the old hurt rushed out of my heart to greet me. It's like this. They show up at the barbecue in PVC, they do a couple of body shots for Dirk, they dance provocatively together, blah blah blah whatever. All fairly typical stuff, the sort of thing I used to do with them - but I was never terribly good at hiding my awkwardness. So: all of that happens. They depart. And everybody wonders why I have to be such a bitch; why I can't do something nice so that they can come to all the parties. When Ophelia & I stopped talking, it was she who didn't phone for 4 months. True, when she finally emailed me in September, I was too hurt and angry to respond. But that is the sum total of my bitchiness. I haven't really done anything in this matter. But I'm emotional and I fly off the handle and she just...doesn't. The general perception of her character is of a girl who's lot better than me, or at least more positive. She has great PR. And everybody's lack-of-Ophelia will be further charged to my account. I'm hurt that the three of us can't be friends...that hurts me more than I can say. But to feel the weight of public opinion in this way is almost more than I can stand. I've been trying to figure out ways to make me feel better about the barbeque showdown, but they're all pretty childish. For a brief 5 minutes, I even fantasized about wearing my wedding dress to the barbeque, as in "rock breaks scissors; real bride breaks fake dominatrix." But even I know that's too stupid for words. Stacy has offered her wardrobe and Scott has offered to publicly humiliate them. I'm deeply flattered by the offers. But I think I'll just make things worse if I go that route. I may be thought of as an incorrigible bitch, but there's no sense in maxing out my bitter card. I think.
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