Sunday, October 31, 2004
The Flip Side of Fall

This time of year tends to feed into the low motivational gulch that I find myself in. I love the fall, but by this point in the autumn months, things start having a depressing tinge to them. The beautifully colored leaves of a few weeks ago are now mostly brown and laying on the ground. The gray, slate skies bring omens of snow and the bitter cold to come, and now that the clocks have been set back, it becomes the pitch dark starting at around five in the afternoon. And as I sit here typing, even the post Halloween doldrums are setting in...and I'm not even a real Halloween fanatic. Those days of Halloween excitement ended around the time the neighbors began withholding candy because they felt that I was too old to be out trick or treating...the ageist bastards! Since then, I've been forced to purchase my own Mounds and Snickers bars...and purchasing stuff isn't nearly as satisfying as getting it for free.

And to add to my fall funk, even the birds are all fleeing in droves to sunny skies and warmer climates, leaving behind their now empty summer homes. Yet, there is one family of birds that take up residence in the rafters of my parents deck every year that continually leave me baffled. In essence, the nest they build there is very similar in size to a small haystack. Now either these birds are the size of elephants or they are some genetically mutated Frankenbirds.

All of which leads me to wonder if animals can have the same disorders that humans have. Really now, are their such things as anorexic aardvarks who refuse to eat ants with the rest of the pack because they fear that they're fat? And I swear that I saw some 20/20 episode years back that reported on narcoleptic bunnies...or something like that. Playful little rodents that would be frolicking around one minute, then drop off asleep in mid-leap. So could these monster-nest building birds simply be obsessive compulsive? I've heard stories of humans that simply could not throw anything away. And once dead, relatives have found stacks of old papers and pizza boxes lining the walls, bags of trash and broken appliances creating a maze throughout the rooms of their house, and decades worth of junk mail and flyers for Chinese takeout covering every square inch of floor space. Maybe these birds simply have this same problem and every piece of straw, string, and strip of paper gets collected and added to their home...never satisfied, however, they keep adding, and adding, until the place has to be abandoned because there just isn't any room for the birds to actually reside in.

Whatever the case, here's hoping for a better November.


Saturday, October 23, 2004
It Must Be Nice to Have Fans

Hate mail is not something that I’m fond of receiving, even when it’s from people that I never liked in the first place. Not that I’ve received a lot of hate mail, but I have burnt bridges in the past, and generally, where there’s a burnt bridge, there are quite a few pissed off people over on the other side.

Now for the most part, if I know that an email is going to be chocked full of hate, I’ll delete it and not bother reading it. Curiosity virtually kills me, but I somehow sustain and hit the delete button before I go against my better judgment and read the thing. You see, for some perverse reason, I seek peoples’ approval. Whether you know me, don’t know me, or hate my guts, I need your approval, I want you to like me. Sad, but true.

And this past week, I got a random email in my inbox from an old student of mine…a student from an elitist private school that I taught at. You should know, that when I decided on teaching, back in college, I seriously thought that I’d never meet a kid that I disliked. I was mistaken, because just like the adults that they’ll grow up to be, some kids are just plain assholes. And here, at this exclusive private school, I met more elementary school assholes than I ever thought was possible. Funny how money can asshole-ify a person, regardless of their age.

So the letter started out innocently enough…’So,,,,,,Mr. Varner….’ and then went on to spew your typical pre-teen ideas of insults…’your web site is queer’, ‘we thought that you sucked’, ‘we’re so glad you’re gone’.

Now really, as a teacher, I was pretty much a softie. I wasn’t into the ‘hard assed, sit quietly behind your desk doing dittos while I sit and drink coffee, speak only when spoken to’ kind of educator. If I could have my class up and moving I would. If I could tie in bubble gum, slime, goop, or something that would explode into a lesson, I’d bring it in. Still, though, you just can’t please everyone.

Naturally, this email pissed me off, and the weasely kid signed the thing, ‘from, a former student’. Of course, as if to show the intelligence of this weasely kid, his email address was his first initial and last name. Seeing that, I knew where the email came from…a kid named Norman that I taught a few years ago when he was in the fifth grade, which would mean that he was now in eighth.

And while I would have loved to send Norman a vile, hate spewing, name calling email back, I did the typical ‘teacher’ thing and took the high road. I sent him an email relating my disappointment, sadness, and remembrance of how his attitude caused many problems with his classmates when I had been his teacher. I got an email back from him two days later and, being pretty sure that this was another piece of hate mail that was being sent my way, I deleted it without reading what it said…of course, not without much temptation to open it and see how many more insults were being thrown my way.

So, if you’re Norman and you happen to be reading this, in the future, before sending out any more hate mail through the internet, make sure you’re using an email address that doesn’t contain your name. And, although as a rule I don’t like taking the high road, just be thankful that I’m above calling you names.

You stupid little shit.


Tuesday, October 12, 2004
The Golden Boy

There's this guy in our office who pretty much amounts to nothing more than a large, amorphous lump of flesh. The guy has absolutely no personality to speak of. I don't really hate the guy, but I can't say that I like him either. In truth, I have no more feeling for him than I do that large concrete pole that I park next to every morning. When he was hired three months ago, I would attempt the polite, office etiquette, a nod hello or non-committal 'good morning', all of which were completely ignored by him. Rude, shy, or otherwise, this was more than enough of a reason not to waste any more vocal energy on him.

Now, the evil old twit who owns the place equates 'good work' with 'sitting quietly in your cubical, not talking or socializing with anyone, and walking through the aisles silently, not making eye contact for fear that someone may smile (which indicates happiness...a deadly sin in our office) or say hello...(thus causing noise, another deadly sin). And perhaps because of the non-personality that Slob Boy has, he instantly became the boss's pet, very much like the kindergarten teacher that clearly favored one student above all others. All of which makes perfect sense at our company because the evil old twit runs the place exactly like she would a kindergarten class.

Once the word spread that Byron, the slovenly, antisocial tool that he is, was working toward a Masters degree in journalism, he was instantly pegged as someone who would move up the corporate ladder very quickly.

Which would ordinarily make sense. In conducting a background check, the final product is the writing of a report...which journalism would seemingly help with. Granted, this type of 'report' writing isn't 'real' writing...because, honestly, there are only so many ways you can creatively construct engaging pieces of literature from questions such as, 'Do they get along with the people at work?' and 'Are they dependable?', yet Byron appeared to have the magic touch. So much so, that during a staff meeting, our boss announced, "you should all ask Byron for his autograph now, because someday he is going to be a great newspaper man!"

All of this piqued my curiosity. And at the time, being one month into my two month promotion, I had the power to peruse some of Byron's work. So I took some time out of everyday to read the sentences that were going to make him famous. Here, word for word, are some examples of the extraordinary talent that a future 'great newspaper man' has:

"From what I have seen so far, when compared to what I have had in the past, I expect Jason to exceed my expectations."

"We are friends but we also used to work together also."

"We work for different companies but in the same area and we helped each other from time to time. We work by ourselves and when you are in the same location, you see each other frequently and we would help each other. We were not obligated to help each other but we do. I guess we would be co-workers but for different places."

"Most of the time Lee follows instructions very well sometimes."

Byron's great writing, of which this is just a small sample, turned out to be nothing more than large, steaming piles of shit. Byron is completely unable to convey even the simplest of thoughts in sentence form. If this is great journalism, then I'm planning on sticking exclusively to sitcoms and reality shows, abandoning any type of news for the rest of my life.

Yet the boss loves him. Senile, illiterate, stupid, or quite possibly all three, she has decided that Byron deserved a promotion. And, within three short months, he has become an Account Manager.

I have no desire to be promoted within the company, namely because I'm hoping to be offered a job somewhere else very soon. Yet I would truly like to work here long enough for the clients to realize that they're paying through the nose for this Byronese crap, quickly abandon the company, and leave the evil old twit bankrupt. But this probably won't happen. Because, just like with Byron's promotion, life is seldom fair.


Saturday, October 9, 2004
Naked Applicants

So after my promotion into a lesser role, which is how my idiot boss tried to explain that by demoting me she was really 'promoting' me, I am now doing background checks again. Hopefully, this will be my last hurrah at the company, having been on an interview, then a second interview, and having just got back from an odd, Saturday morning meeting at Starbucks with the second in command at the non-profit organization which I applied to. It's really not that prestigious a job, and all of these interviews and meetings are starting to make me think that they're just trying to buy time until they find someone they want more than me. Today's meeting was the strangest yet...bringing to mind clandestine meetings at midnight behind the dumpster at 7-11 to swap the money for the 'good stuff', but he left saying that he was going to suggest yet another interview with the president of the organization for me. Because apparently the first and second interviews, which the president both attended, simply aren't enough. So, I'm really not all that confident anymore that I'll be the final selection. Besides, the way I see it, the more people I have to meet to get the job, the better chance there is that one of them won't like me and then it'll pretty much be over.

So yesterday I was processing the application for a young lady named Chrissy, who was applying for a job at a fire department. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until a question in the application that asked, 'Have you ever committed a crime that you were not caught doing?'. Now, if you did commit a crime and you weren't caught, why in the world would you confess to it on a job application? Naturally, she responded 'no'. But then, under the 'explain' part of the question she felt some perverse need to come clean and bear her soul. Obviously, confessing to your pastor or rabbi just isn't as good as jotting it down on a job application. So Chrissy began to explain:

Once during a party in 1999 some of my friends and me ran around the block naked at three in the morning, but no one saw us.

And then, if that wasn't enough, she had some more confessing to do...

I've also had sex in a public place before, but it's not a daily thing, only a couple of times, but no one has ever caught me.

Here are two perfect examples of things not to tell a hopeful employer. Of course, the even more baffling thing is that she's actually being considered for employment. Though, I'm guessing that the firemen in the department figure that a girl who runs around naked and engages in public sex may be just the thing to liven up the station...so Chrissy may have found just the thing to secure a job.

And with this in mind, I'm thinking that at my third interview with this non-profit organization, I might just have to look for an opening to mention how I love to streak and have sex in public.


Sunday, October 3, 2004
I Should Have Just Dated the Roommate

Yvonne and I were freshman in college when we went on our first date. I was 18 and stupid (compared to 32 and stupid) and had first seen her across the campus cafeteria. I found out that my friend Bev knew her and, with some insider help, got a dinner date set up.

We went to a posh little restaurant near campus…which, in retrospect, was a dive but seemed pretty posh to the eighteen year old me. Yvonne was an engineering student, which considering that I was still undecided as to what I wanted to do, figured that if things worked out between us, it would be pretty nice having a girlfriend in the high income bracket category.

As we waited for our food, I endured many Yvonne stories…all of which centered around her engineering classes, her high school memories of band camp, and her senior year boyfriend...who, as it turned out, was coming up to see her that weekend. Nowadays, this would be more than enough to have me calling the waitress over, canceling the food order, and telling my date, ‘nice to meet you, I’m leaving’. But I was 18, and despite all the red flags, I thought she was really good looking, so I was willing to overlook her shortcomings…such as being boring, emotionally attached, and very likely to be having sex with someone who wasn’t me in a few days.

I was very grateful when the food finally arrived…though this had less to do with my hunger than it did the fact that Yvonne’s mouth would be put to another use other than talking. Though it did seem odd when, as soon as the food was set down in front of her, she asked for a doggie bag.

“Call me crazy,” I said, “but don’t people generally get doggie bags after the meal?”

“Oh,” she told me, “I ate before I came to meet you for dinner. But my roommate said that she was hungry, so I ordered this for her. As soon as we’re done I’m going to take it to her.”

As stupid as I was (though I’m still pretty stupid) even I knew that this date was officially over. And I wish I could tell you that I stood up, picked up her food, dumped it onto the floor and walked out on her. But no, I stayed and ate my meal...pretty much in silence because, at that point, I could really have cared less about Yvonne or her roommate, and paid the bill.

And as I sat alone watching television later that night, I was hoping that somewhere across campus a girl that I had never met was choking on the pasta primavera that Yvonne had brought home for her.