Come Again?

Delilah* told me today that she loves working here and loves all of the people here. I couldn't believe my ears. I began wondering what kind of affliction a person would need to have in order to enjoy working here. Dimentia? Schizophrenia? Certainly not ADD; that would send them right out the door.

I began asking myself, Have I ever liked my job? Have I ever looked forward to coming in, or enjoyed what I was doing while I was here? How sad is it when I cannot even produce a single "yes" in response. When I first started working here, I remember feeling happy that I HAD a job after being unemployed for 8 months. After a few weeks, however, I began feeling bored, depressed, and incredibly anxious once I began receiving paychecks that were not able to cover all of my bills.

In my nearly five years with this company, I have experienced record amounts of anxiety, depression, frustration, anger, and resentment. Working in an office (at least here), I have learned that you are generally supposed to keep to yourself and limit those conversations that are unrelated to work. All personal problems need to be kept secret, and any show of emotion due to being upset, angry, or anything else producing tears is largely frowned upon. I've even felt guilty for laughing and telling funny stories at times. I have been lied to, talked about behind my back, yelled at, ignored, discriminated against for my gender, sexually harassed, and laughed at. I have sat at my desk holding back tears for an entire day at a time; I have walked laps around the parking lot in the evening because I was too angry to drive home safely; I have allowed my place of employment to make me feel less than human way more times than I can count.

How in the world have I stuck it out for so long? How long does it generally take before someone has simply had enough and decides to pack up their things?

One way to look at it is, if God had wanted me to leave at some point, He would have provided me with the resources to do so. Another employer would have hired me at one of the numerous jobs I've applied for over the years; I would have acquired a large sum of money sustaining me long enough to find employment elsewhere; I would be married to a kind man who would tell me to let the job go if it was tearing me up inside, and that we'd figure it out financially for the sake of my peace and health; I would be let go and eligible for unemployment benefits until I found work again. And any other scenario that would allow me to be free.

But alas, none of these have happened. It leaves me with the belief that I had to go through what I've gone through for one or more reasons that I am unaware of, but that God is aware of. Perhaps I needed to be strengthened or disciplined; maybe I needed to learn how to forgive or to be patient. Whatever it is, I'm not seeing it now, though I hope that down the road, I will.

With my 30th birthday just around the corner next month, I have been reflecting on where I am at in life and where I want to be. I don't even know where I want to be anymore. Some days I feel so sure of what I want, and others leave me feeling weary, indecisive, and sad. I ask why things have happened as they have, and why they didn't happen how I'd wanted them to.

And Delilah loves it here. I was wondering which part she enjoyed the most: the monotonous, robotic work assignments; the absence of adequate vacation time; the close monitoring of time spent away from our desks; the lack of communication from our supervisor; the obvious chauvinistic attitude shared by most in the company; the absence of advancement opportunities in our department; the SILENCE (oh my word, the silence...) we sit through for 8 hours a day, in our dimly lit office, with no windows, and rarely any visitors; the horrendous smells in the restroom; the horrendous Lysol that is sprayed to try and battle the horrendous smells only to nearly cause nosebleeds and asthma attacks on unsuspecting patrons; and the antiquated way the company is managed that is even too embarrassing for me to disclose in this blog.

But, she loves it here. So more power to her.

In the meantime, I am gearing up for a trip to Taiwan next month. I don't know exactly how long I'll be gone, but I don't imagine it will be long enough. I may find paradise, however, and decide not to return. I'll let you know what I decide.

*not her real name, of course. Who names their kid 'Delilah?'

How One Stroke Leads To Another: Excerpt from 12/11/96

Mr. D.* (*in case he ever Googles himself - Heaven forbid he should read about what I had probably already made obvious over the years) was my high school art teacher for 2 1/2 years. And I was MADLY in love with him. When I say madly, I mean my world revolved around him for a solid 5 years (2 1/2 during high school, and roughly 2 1/2 during college).

So any compliments that I received from him were written in gold to be cherished and called upon forever, as if his words carried more authority to me at the time than the Holy Bible. Unfortunately, that is probably a good depiction of how much I loved the man (or was infatuated with him, anyway).

The following outlines something I thought was significant regarding my journey to becoming a good painter, a blurb I have not come across since the evening I etched it into the guts of this perfectly-kept diary sitting in my tote box, buried under about 20 others.

"...I did this painting on the impulse last night. It's one of the most passionate paintings I've ever done, and it only took me an hour. It wasn't derived from another picture; I created it myself. It's of two people, a man and woman, embracing each other toward the bottom of the paper, and a passionate, fiery background of red, green, purple, black, and blue above and around them.

I took it to school today, and Mr. D. loved it! We were speculating and discussing it this morning. He told me I've really created some powerful images in there (his class). That was really cool to hear. He put it in the back room for me, and during 3rd hour, I asked him to get it for me.

He had stuck it on the inside of the closet door where his coat and everything is kept (the door that is always locked). Then he said, "You wanna put it in the showcase?" And before I could answer, he hands me the key for it..."

Sure enough, the painting was hung up in the showcase near the foyer area just inside the main entrance of the school, where every student and other human being passing through the front doors would be able to admire it and absorb its "energy," though originally I'd made the painting for no other reason other than to release an unexplainable feeling inside that could only be expressed via paintbrush and quickly.

Some months later, he told me that he'd wanted to enter it into a local county art contest and would take care of getting it to its proper location (other students were entering artwork, as well). I attended the contest and saw it on display with a blue ribbon attached to it, and felt very proud.

I still have a tube of oil paint and some brushes that I used in his class. The paint was given as a gift in return for making him some personalized stationery for his birthday. It was a joint effort between myself and another student in my Vo-Tech class, who was also one of his better students, and he was so pleased with our thoughtfulness that he purchased a tube of paint for each of us which contained the color he felt was best-suited for our personalities. Hers was a deep purple; mine a bright yellow/green color.

"Powerful images." I love that. I have always loved creating powerful images. Emotionally provoking and inviting imagery. Combining experience with artwork. Unifying the user and the piece as one. Each piece is like a separate world you may visit for as long as you'd like; there are no rules, and you don't have to leave if you don't want to.

I wonder if he hung it in his closet near his belongings because he saw a world that he did not want to leave, either...

Revenge of the Nerd: Excerpt from 1/1/97

What better way to entertain myself on a Saturday night than read an old diary entry from January of 1997? Can you think of a better way?

In order to fully appreciate the following blurb from my diary, there is some background information setting the scene that you MUST know about first.

My friend Jodi, from church, had invited me over to her house for a New Year's Eve party. Her extremely laidback mother had also allowed boys to attend, and even stay overnight (ooooooh). We also had alcohol - that was the kicker. I can't remember if the mom knew about that part or not. Probably.

Anyway, Jodi, my friend from church, decided it'd be a good idea to set me up with one of the attendees, Ryan. Ryan was what we called a "whigger," regularly skipped school, smoked pot, dealed pot, and treated women like crap. My kinda man in 1997.

Ryan's male cousin, Ashley (first time I'd ever heard the name "Ashley" for a boy), was also present at the party, and showed interest in Jodi. In retrospect, Ashley would have been a better mate for me, and I might have even married him someday. But alas, this was 1997 and the part of my brain that handles good judgement had not fully developed yet.

The evening following the New Year's Eve party, the four of us went out on a double date. Somewhere along the way, I found out that Ryan actually had a girlfriend, despite the fact he'd been messing around with me at the underage alcohol party at Jodi-my-friend-from-church's house.

(Some parts of this entry will not be entered as to avoid redundancy, embarrassment, and unnecessary expletives):

"...I already knew I didn't want him in my life but we were there and I was feeling saucy, so I didn't resist. He was pretty talkative for a while, but in Tricky's (a local pool hall for teens), he started getting quiet. After Tricky's, we went to Meijer (a local department store similar to Walmart).

In Meijer, the grand piss-off began. Ashley was so nice to me - you'd never know he and Ryan were even related. Well, I think something I said to Ryan on the way to Meijer did something.

I said, 'So why aren't you out with your girlfriend tonight?'

His eyes popped open so wide and he goes, "Oh wow" and never answered me. I said, 'You must not like her very much because you didn't spend New Year's with her," and he says, "Well, why are you with me if you knew I had a girlfriend?'

And I said, 'Because I don't care if you're going out with someone. I really could care less.'

Well, in Meijer, after looking for quilted flannels (for me) for about 15 min., he began to drift. I thought that was awfully rude. Jodi and Ashley were doing great because Ashley's such a nice guy and Jodi's a great chick. So I just said, "Forget it" to myself and ignored him for the rest of the night. That wasn't hard because he basically did the same to me.

He walked about three car lengths away from me in the parking lot, he didn't touch me or say one word the whole way home, and at Jodi's I sat on the floor instead of next to him on the couch. I wasn't actually angry; I was actually kind of relieved that this jerk-off didn't totally latch onto me or really like me.

So around 11:00, I decided to head on home. Ashley said it was nice meeting me and would see me next year. I said nothing to Silent Little Faggot on the couch.

When I walked outside, I had this urge. I was actually plotting this before I walked out the door, but seeing his car parked there really gave me the urge. I wanted to take something out of his car. No one could see me. There were no windows they could see out of from where they were sitting. Everyone else was sleeping.

So I opened the passenger door of his car, not believing I was going through with it. But having the perfect opportunity pushed me. I couldn't believe how clean his interior was. I was expecting to be able to grab something and leave. But there was nothing to grab!

So I opened the middle console and saw a whole bunch of tapes. Immediately, I started taking them out until I couldn't hold any more in my hands. Then I shut the console, shut the door quietly, and opened my door and shoved them in.

I was shaking. I was sure someone had been watching from somewhere. Well, I finally left. As I'm going down the road, I'm thinking, 'I can't keep these! I have to get rid of them!' So when I got to Moffitt's Corners (a local party store), I pulled over and checked out just which ones I'd taken. I think there was Def Leppard, Too Short, Dr. Dre, MTV Hits or something, a cassette player cleaner - he'll miss that one - a couple of unidentifyable ones, and a White Zombie one - that one I kept.

The rest, I held between my legs while going down Van Dyke. I rolled my window down and started tossing them out 2-3 at a time. After they all got tossed, I turned around and went home. I thought that I'd walk in the door and find out that they'd called to let me know they did see me take those tapes, or to ask me why I was in Ryan's car. But none of this happened, of course..."

I never did hear anything about any missing tapes. However, Jodi did mention about a week later that he had been angry with me for mentioning his girlfriend, and also said she didn't think it was "very cool" of me to do so, either. Gee, sorry for being the only one thinking of the "other woman" the entire time. How terribly rude of me!

I still see Jodi from time to time when I visit my parents' church. She attends intermittently, bringing along her six-year-old son from a failed marriage, which I believe was a result of her husband selling date-rape drugs through the mail and eventually getting caught. As selfish as it sounds, I'm glad I changed my taste in men before it was too late.

I wonder what ever happened to Ashley?